Sometimes you make your own fun! My friends and I traveled around Italy together for three weeks. Neither of them had ever traveled internationally (except to Mexico, where we all have homes), so it was up to me to do the planning. Not that I minded, as you might have guessed from last Wednesday's post. They got to travel for three weeks; in my way, I was there for a year.
The photo above shows what turned out to be my favorite part of the trip - the picnics we ate on the trains as we traveled. Most hotels had a check-out time around 11am to noon and a check-in time of either one or two in the afternoon. We took advantage of that fact to plan all of our travel between towns during that time. It worked perfectly!
The night before, we went to the best deli or cheese shop we could find and bought small chunks three or four different cheeses - almost always pecorino. We loved that sheep cheese! Then we went to a wine shop and chose whatever looked good to us that day, making sure that we tried a large variety over the course of the trip. Nothing expensive, though; we usually spent less than $10US. Our last stop was a fruit stand or store where we bought apples or pears or figs and maybe some kind of crackers. We wrapped everything carefully and packed it in my daypack with plastic cups, paper napkins, my Swiss Army knife and a corkscrew. Our lunch was ready to go when we were.
If we were moving to a new town, we checked out of our hotel around 11am and walked to the train station. Sometimes I had an idea when the train would run, but if not, we just checked the schedules when we got there and bought our tickets for the next available train. We never pre-bought tickets, which would have required us to be in a certain place at a certain time. Almost all the trains run frequently, and I think we only had one time where a train was sold out. We had to wait for about an hour for the next one.
We were usually able to find seats with a table in the middle, but not always. Whatever was there, we made it work. As soon as we got our luggage settled, I started pulling our feast out of the daypack. We always drew quite a bit of attention, but it was the good kind of attention - people remembering times they'd done the same thing or wishing that they had thought of it themselves. We couldn't share much of their language but the smiles all around were easy to understand.
We arrived at our destination relaxed from the wine, hunger satisfied, and ready to continue with our adventure.
I don't have enough money to be on the road as much as I'd like. I'm happy if I can put together the money for one three-week trip to foreign country a year. But I have figured out a way to enjoy that trip for up to a year before I even leave home.
Travel Guides
The first thing I do is to buy a Lonely Planet for my next destination, usually a whole year ahead of time. Of course, there are other perfectly fine travel guides out there, but I've found that Lonely Planet works best with my style of travel. I'm not a backpacker, exactly, but I like to travel light and inexpensively.
I sit down with my travel guide and read about the history, economy, and culture of my destination. I want to learn a bit about the different areas of the country and what they offer to a traveler that is different from what I have seen somewhere else. I want to know about the people and their culture.
Language Study
If I don't speak the language of my destination, I begin to study it. Even if many of the people can speak English, I've learned that I am accepted much more readily if I can show them that I've at least made an attempt to learn the native language. Plus, I will understand what is going on around me so much better.
Now, I know that I'll never be very proficient in a year of casual study, but I'll at least learn the numbers and polite phrases. Understanding how a sentence is constructed in that language can help a lot. And a few common verbs.
My favorite source for this is Rosetta Stone, but that's partly because I found an inexpensive set of older disks and bought them up a few years ago. There are other sources, too. Libraries have many different sets of language tapes or CDs. There are also community education classes, and lots of free classes online. You can learn quite a bit if you consistently devote a half hour or so a day to studying.
Eat Food from Your Destination
Going to India? How about starting a quest to find the best Indian restaurant in your area? Or get cookbooks and cook that food at home. I love to buy those beautiful cookbooks with lots of photos that, along with recipes, tell about shopping and mealtime traditions in the country. There are also tons of ethnic recipes online.
Before I went to Italy last year I found a gelato store near my home. I walked there for a small gelato every day. I told them I was practicing for my trip.
Find Out What Other Travelers Liked
Again, the Internet offers so much. My favorite source here is Trip Advisor. Enter your destination and read about where others have been and what they liked best. Where are their favorite hotels and restaurants? What were their favorite activities? Look at the photos they took. Use this information to help decide exactly which parts of the country you want to visit and what to avoid.
Books and Music
Find novels that take place in your country. Do a Google search to find out what's available. Listen to music, either contemporary or traditional, from your destination.
Decide Where to Stay
There are many web sites that specialize in arranging reservations. The one I like best is Venere.com. I have had very good luck with this company. Every listing that I have seen has been exactly as advertised. But there are other options that are becoming more popular all the time, such as Airbnb which can set you up in a room in some one's house, or even in a whole house. Or what about a home exchange?
What if You Can't Afford to Travel?
I know, the economy stinks right now. No one can afford to go anywhere. Consider using some of these ideas above to plan a virtual vacation. Even if you can't really go, you can have a lot of fun if you follow these ideas. And you won't even have to pay for the plane tickets or hotel rooms.
Happy traveling!
