Category Archives: Planning Travel

Dear Diary: I Left My Apartment and Traveled for Ten Weeks

Remember that time there was a worldwide pandemic that put a halt on all travel?   I do.

Sigh.

I spent a lot of the pandemic traveling to Las Vegas.  But then I got sick of that.  So I booked a month long trip on Amtrak.  Guess what?  That was an insanely expensive reminder that the world is so much cheaper when you are outside America.  So I booked a flight to leave America.  For ten weeks.  And then sat back and waited to leave.

I had great plans for this trip.  I was going to be working remotely, but still had time to see things during the day and on weekends.  I purposely picked countries that were not too overwhelming with things to do and see.  Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and then ending in Turkey.  I want to see all of Turkey but also thought this would be a great time to cross just Mount Nemrut off the list.

I was going to blog nonstop.  Every day.  Okay not every day.  But weekly. Multiple times a week!  I was going to be very conscious of the things I post on my personal Facebook page.  Should I be posting this here, or on my blog, where people follow it because they want to read about your travels?   Blog it is! Continue reading

Two Weeks Until China!

GAAAAAAAAH.   I am not ready to go and I no longer want to go.  Do not fear though, I experience this before EVERY trip I take.  I always melt down before I go and wish I had not taken on such a huge project.  Then I get there and I forget I ever felt that way until I go back home and see these weird and foreign whines in my diary.

I could psychoanalyze myself and tell  you why I do this, or you could join me in ignoring me and together, we can move on from this.

I am still not going to post my updated itinerary because OH HEY GUESS WHAT?  Just yesterday I flipped a coin to see about changing it.  The coin said no, but I do not agree with it.  So maybe I will change it again tonight.  Or tomorrow.  Or every day until I leave.

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Three Months Until Asia Extravaganza

Once upon a time, I started binge buying outdated copies of Lonely Planet for $1 each on eBay, so I could learn more about places and decide where to go.  One of those guide books was for Tibet.

The more I read about Tibet, the more I wanted to go.  But finding out that you cannot travel independently made it seem like a huge production that I did not want to deal with.  So my Lonely Planet Tibet guide book sat untouched for a few years.

Then one day, I came across a blog post by someone who had traveled from Tibet to Nepal with a tour group.   Reading his post made it sound so completely simple and a lot more affordable than I would have guessed it to be.

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TODAY I AM GOING TO EUROPE

guide books

Woo hoo I am going to Europe!  Oh I am so excited.  As an extra special send off, I am spending my last day at work during “Bring Your Kids to Work Day”.  No please, never bring your kids to work. Ever.

My finalized itinerary is as follows:

Belgium – Sleeping in Geel for both Groezrock Fest and the pre-show, which is in Ham, Belgium. So excited for this.  I will also have one night in Brussels.  I wanted it to be Ghent but I waited to long to plan this out and I simply didn’t have the time to research it.  Until I quit my job and travel forever, I will keep my Type A personality and never be able to travel freely without over planning.

Paris – I never wanted to go here.  Now I am and oh hey, I’ll be there on a Monday when things are closed and also on May Day when things are closed.  Grade A Type A fail.

Naples – I will be going to Capri, Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii.

Rome – I am excited to cross the line into Vatican City and add it as another country I’ve visited on my list.  It’s not cheating. I swear.

Bosnia – Sarajevo and Mostar.  I may take a train one way between Sarajevo and Mostar as I’ve read it has really beautiful scenery even if it takes a lot longer than the bus.

Serbia – Sigh.  After doing and redoing and doing and redoing and (insert more and more and more doing and redoing) this part of my trip, I am settled.  I am going to Nis.  I want to be in Nis so bad.  It just took a while to get it to fit.  I would like to thank my new laptop and its installation of Free Cell for working my brain to be able to solve the puzzle of how to do this.  I am getting a partial overnight train ride on here.  That’s a cross off on my “List of Things I Want to do So Badly in Life”.

Bulgaria – Oh so excited for this part of my trip.  I knew NOTHING about this country when I started planning this trip.  Now I know everything.  I will be in Sofia, traveling to the Rila Monastery, Veliko Tarnovo and the place I am most excited for on this entire trip – BELOGRADCHIK.   Let me post the picture again!

061_001_Belogradchishkakrepost.jpgI can not wait to have my own picture to post.

Then last stop, Istanbul.  I still have no idea how to get there.  I have so many routes printed out.  Nothing is clear at all except that at one time, there was a train from Veliko Tarnovo to Istanbul.  It may or may not be running due to construction. It may or may not leave at 23:04, 23:28, 00:04.  There is also a bus…maybe.  It may be run by Matpu or Oz Batu or maybe there’s two, one by each company.  What time do these buses leave?  Damned if I know.  Matpu shows schedules from Plovdiv, not Veliko Tarnovo.  Oz Batu doesn’t exist on the internet.

So that’s that.  I can not wait!

One Week Until Europe!

I need this vacation so bad.  I can not wait to be out in the world where my biggest stress is not being able to find iced coffee.

I am STILL not ready to leave.  I am not even sure how this happened.  I am one of those “packs months in advance!” neurotic kinda gals.  My life is just so hectic right now. I can not wait to escape it.  I can not wait to be standing HERE:

061_001_Belogradchishkakrepost.jpg

How do places like that exist on this planet and why the hell have I waited so long to see them?

I am also insanely excited to take my first steps on the continent of Asia.  Sure it’s cheating as I am doing this in Istanbul.  But I’m counting it.

Yesterday, my job asked us to pick which summer Fridays we want.  I love picking summer Fridays.  I love how I was already off for four of them, so I am gaining back more vacation time.  This also means I now have an additional two long weekends that I need to make plans for.

My head is all over the place today.  My job is insane. The people who work here should not be allowed to see daylight.   I can not wait to be far away.  Come on one week from today…..just one more week.  I can do this.

 

 

 

Two Weeks Until Euro Extravaganza!

I am getting freaked out about how close my trip is. I am still not ready to go.  I am also still redoing my plans.  My last revision now has me going to Belgrade, Serbia and taking an overnight train to Bulgaria.  I have always wanted to take an overnight train.  I am sure that the reality of it will never match the vision of it that I have developed in my head.  But in the end, I will still have crossed yet another item off my bucket list.

It is so difficult planning travel in the Balkan countries.  Public transportation information is basically nonexistent online.  Adding to that, there is just so much to see.  It is killing me to know that lack of complete freedom in life is keeping me from seeing these places that I will be so close to:dubrovnik-croatia

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Three Weeks Until Euro Extravaganza!

This morning I got up for work.  My first thought was “THREE WEEKS UNTIL VACATION!!!!”.  While getting my morning iced coffee out of the refrigerator, I noticed a fortune cookie that was leftover from last weekend.  I opened it and got THIS:

goningYes misspelled fortune cookie, yes I am.

My trip is so soon and I am still not ready.  Today I have decided to redo my itinerary again.  This is all because I can not find out if the Nis, Serbia bus station has luggage lockers. I had planned to stop there for a few hours between Sarajevo and Sofia.   If i take a chance and leave my trip the way its been cemented in for weeks now, I may find myself carrying my bag around sightseeing.  The internet tells me nothing.  So here I am right now taking a break from going  nutso and redoing my itinerary to switch out the “stop there for a few hours” part with “spend one night in Nis”.  Then I have to find a night in Bulgaria to give up so that I have a night to spend there.  I really need to consider booking more flexible trips, where I don’t insist upon seeing so much at one shot, so that I do have spare days.  But I don’t want to, because I want to see every inch of planet earth right NOW.

So my updated upcoming travels are now:

April 26 – May 20 – Europe

May 22 – May 27 – Seattle, WA

May 29 – June 3 – Austin, TX

June 6 – June 9 – combo of Chicago and Toronto.

I am the opposite of a fan of my job.  But I will admit that I am in love with both the amount of vacation time I get, as well as the fact that they let me take it all in a row like this.  Most places would not.

 

 

Booking European Train Travel

My first European train ride was taking the train from London to Brussels. It was so easy.  Despite living in New York, or maybe “because I live I New York”, I was expecting complications.   Well Europe is very unlike New York.  In New York, I have no idea how tourists handle the subway, let alone commuter rail elsewhere.  The subway is never operating fully as it is supposed to.  Never.  There’s always trains skipping stops or going over other lines or whatever.  In Europe, you are taking this train; you look for it on that sign, and get on it.  That’s really it.

My first ride, we got on the train in London and got off in Brussels.  We then took a local train to Geel, which was the town we were staying at.  We had to transfer two or three times.  Even this was simple.  There are preprinted timetables all over the place and most of them tell you ON A PREPRINTED TIMETABLE what track you will be on.  Because the train always comes on that track.  Really??  because I have taken the Long island Railroad from Penn Station fifty bazillion times in New York and its always on different tracks every time.   What a novel concept, the train runs on the same track all the time, to the point where it can be labeled correctly on a preprinted schedule!  This was so easy!

Once my fear of living my life was completely wiped out by this trip, I was able to start work on my second trip. This trip would be a real trip.  Not a starter trip, not a “cling to Rachel” trip, not an anything other than “I’M GOING TO SEE THE WORLD!” trip.

Planning train travel can be a huge pain.   Right now I am working on my upcoming trip. I am going from Paris to Naples.  I checked flights and on the day I want to go, it leaves at 6:30 am. so id have to be up by at least 4:00 am to get up, get dressed, go to the airport, go through security, land in Naples, get to my hotel…..pass out from being so exhausted and probably not be ready to go anywhere until evening…..after which I would probably not be able to sleep at night since I had napped.

My other option is to spend all day on a train.  Honestly, this may be my preferred option, although I haven’t fully made up my mind yet.

Bahn.de has all the schedules you need.  But they do not sell tickets for routes that do not include Germany.  So then you need to figure that out.  There are so many options out there and you should check routes and prices on all of them.  You should also keep track on where you saw what price.  There is nothing like spending two hours pricing everything only to find out you now don’t remember what website you found that $13 ticket from Milan to Rome on.

To give you an idea, when I had still been planning to go to Bern, and then from Bern to Italy, I had to check prices on both the Swiss train website, then on Italiarail and Trenitalia.  These ended up being the options:

Bern to Naples 7:34-15:55
Train# 51 Departs Bern at  07:34 and Arrives  Naples Centrale 15:55
$163 italiarail
$185  sbb.ch

But by not buying one ticket and instead buying a ticket for each leg:

Bern to Naples 7:34 – 16:43
Bern to Milan italiarail       $32 7:34 – 10:34
Milan to Rome italiarail      $52 11:00 – 13:55
Rome to Naples italiarail    $13 14:39 – 16:43
total = $97

Bern to Naples 14:00 – 18:15
Bern to Milan italiarail       $32 7:34 – 10:34
Milan to Naples italiarail    $55 14:00 – 18:15
total = $87

Bern to Naples 7:34 – 00:05
Bern to Milan italiarail       $32 7:34 – 10:34
Milan to Naples italiarail     $13 15:05 – 12:05
total = $45

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Buying one ticket for the full trip is way more expensive than buying a ticket from Bern to Milan and then a second ticket from Milan to Naples.  If you had started out on the sbb.ch website and saw a ticket for $185 and booked it without looking any further, you would have overpaid greatly.

Even with doing two separate tickets, there are still multiple options.  All leaving Switzerland at the same time, all arriving different times, all different prices, all found on different websites. It pays to do research.

Where Will You Go in Europe?

How do you pick what trip is perfect for you?  Well that’s up to you really.  Don’t listen to other people, do what YOU want.  I once read a message board where some woman posted that her niece (or whoever) went to (wherever) and hadn’t planned enough time in that city and that “The poor thing rushed around so much that she couldn’t even remember what museums she had visited!”.

See, that’s not how I view it at all.  To me, the “poor thing” arrived in a city unclear of what there was to do and see there, and followed other people’s advice rather than doing her own research.  That’s how she ended up at places with names she couldn’t remember.  Trust me, if she had done research and planned “I want to see THIS”, she would have made a beeline for THIS and she would in fact remember seeing the thing she was most excited to see in that city.

If you aren’t sure what you want?  Find out!   I bought a ton of completely outdated guide books on ebay for around a dollar each.  You can also use your library and get these for free.   The beauty of Europe is that everything is so old that you can read a book from a decade ago and all the attractions are still there.  You can find things you never knew existed, that are huge musts.  This is how I learned more about cities and this is how I began to find places I wanted to see.  I never had a clue that the dancing house in Prague existed.  What if I had gone to Prague and not had seen THIS:

dancing house prague czech republic

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First Time Travel to Europe

I have always wanted to go to Europe.  Even before I really understood what that meant.

Two years ago, I had this conversation with a friend:

Me: I want to go to Russia

Her:  Me too!  Where do you want to go?

Me:  Uhhhhhhh, Russia?

Her: I want to go to Moscow, St.  Petersburg and ride the Trans Siberian railway.

OH.  I see what you mean.  You don’t just pick a country, you pick destinations within a country.  I was so not even close to being well traveled outside of America that even that had never occurred to me.

I had always wanted to see the world, but had a million different reasons that were stopping me.  I’m scared to go alone, I can’t afford it, I’d rather take an easy vacation instead…and so on.

Then it happened.  I was staring down the barrel of age 40. I was only two years away from the age my mother was when she was diagnosed with the cancer that eventually took her life.   I started panicking that I had done nothing in life that I had ever truly dreamed about.   In a way it was kind of like a midlife crisis.  Although as a good friend of mine once told me it’s not because “mid life crisises are for boring people who wake up one day and realize they are boring.  You just woke up one day and decided to be even more interesting”.  Either way, its time to go.

There are so many ways to travel in Europe.  I don’t mean just transport options, although that exists as well. I mean the whole “Where do I go?!?” and so on.  There’s so much to see in this world, how can you possibly narrow it down to ONE destination??

It can be completely overwhelming, which is another reason I had put it off for so long.  There are a million different ways to pick your destination.  How did I pick my first?

One night I was in Las Vegas, for my annual Christmas trip.  Before going to bed one night, I saw a Facebook event invite for one of my favorite bands (Grey Area, if you must know), who were going to be playing Europe for the first time, in Belgium.   I said “if I win enough to buy a plane ticket, I am going”.  Well……the next morning……

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I was completely shocked.  I now  had no reason to not go.  I could not talk myself out of it be Continue reading