travel tips: how not to travel

i realised i’m always talking about what to do, but sometimes one needs to talk about what not to do.  luckily, i’ve got some good stories for you about how not to travel… all learned by yours truly in my first few trips abroad.  

i was excited.  in two days, i’d be heading off on my first big trip without my family.  true, i’d been on a mission trip two years before, to guatemala, but there was so much supervision it definitely felt i was with my parents.  this time though i was on my way with 40 something other students to italy for a five week design program.  we were starting in rome, then on to florence, venice and milan, via small towns and a few days in the lake district.  after that, i was going to take the train to germany, to see my dad’s friends and then head back to venice to meet a friend from high school to travel through europe together.  i was stoked.  and i was packing.

i’d bought – stupidly – a large rolling bag and i packed most of my closet.  looking back, i wonder: why?  granted, i rarely did laundry, until i got to germany, but i also wore so few of the items i packed that i wondered why i’d packed them!  the other impracticality (for me) was a rolling bag.  with all the stairs in the hotels we stayed at, not to mention the treks across venice and other cities, a rolling bag was the biggest mistake i made.

my mom had tried to talk me into a backpack, and how i wish i’d listened (read that, mom?  i wish i’d listened to you!)  i had packed a smaller duffel bag within my big bag and when i got to germany, i swapped bags.  i repacked the clothes i knew i wanted into the bag and loaded up the big bag with everything else.  my dad’s friend was on his way to see my parents and was able (and willing) to take my bag with him.  this is something i do to this very day: pack another bag.  it can be an extra carry on, or it can just allow you to rearrange while traveling.  it’s a lifesaver.

when we got to europe, most of my meals and adventures took place within striking distance of tourist attractions.  i was with a big group of people, and we were all young and naive.  we didn’t think about wandering down small alleys to find local places, or exploring beyond the little bubble we created for ourselves in each city.  how i wish i had.  it wasn’t until i got back to florence this past winter that i realised how much more to the city there was.

the one thing i did that i recommend every traveler to italy do, was hike cinque terre.  that came recommended by others in my group and it was one of the highlights of the trip.

after the first round in italy and the week in germany, i was back in venice.  my friend’s cell phone didn’t work, so i sat at mestre – the main train station in venice – waiting on him.  when he arrived, i thought we’d drop my bags at our hostel.  well, it turns out, we were staying at a seedy hotel out in the inner suburbs of venice – not on the islands like i had thought (and where i had stayed previously.)  we instead stashed my bag at the train station and went off to dinner – at a touristy spot under the rialto bridge.

i thought i knew everything about venice, so the next day (after a night spent dealing with the hotel propietor who thought we had more people than we were paying for) i took him out to murano and burano.  that wasn’t his idea of fun though, so while i enjoyed it, it turns out it wasted our day.  we were also supposed to meet my grandparents who were in venice at the start of an opera tour.  we stopped by their hotel and then arranged for dinner with them.  it took us almost three hours to get back to our hotel and then another three hours to get back in to venice though, so by the time we got there, we were two hours late for dinner and my grandparents were not very happy.  they had wanted to have a leisurely dinner with us on the terrace of their grand canal hotel.  oops.

what did i learn from that day?  that i will always book a hostel in the city, not outside of it.  transportation is usually easier, and i know that i will want to be able to go “home” quickly.  also, i will always have a working cell phone.  granted, this was pre-smartphone, so how could we know how important communication would become in our lives?

the rest of our trip went alright.  unfortunately, him and i had vastly different ideas on how to travel, which led to frequent disagreements.  after we returned, i mentioned to his girlfriend, now his wife, that i wished her all the best if she ever traveled with him.  while i was living in scotland, they came to visit and she told me that she finally understood what i meant!  i have since traveled with several other people, male and female, and i make sure to ask some serious questions regarding travel habits to avoid the trials i went through then.

fast forward to my semester abroad in scotland.  i took several trips with the international group i was studying through (butler university) and they were always well-planned and fun.  but then my parents came to visit.  my mom and little brother actually came first, planning to take a few days to head south to whitby, england.  i had every intention of going with them, and i was a study abroad student so there was no reason for me to stay in glasgow – the grades wouldn’t matter.  however, on the day that we were going to leave, i decided to stay in glasgow and work on my project, which was due the following week.  i wish like hell i’d gone to whitby instead.  that regret taught me to always take the chance to explore a new place if the opportunity presents itself.

during the year+ i lived in scotland, during my masters degree, i was actually a student and couldn’t just take off to far-flung places at my own whim.  however, i did manage to take short weekend trips: st patrick’s day in cork, a girls weekend in london; and a relaxing week in greece working on my thesis.  i didn’t get to berlin, though, or amsterdam – short hops that are now so overpacked with people that i’ll only go in the winter.  my advice?  if you have the chance to do it, do it.  put it on your credit card, if you have to, but who knows when you’ll be able, if ever, to go back.

i also learned, after i very un-gracefully stumbled on the wet stones outside of st enoch station, in glasgow, to always wear weather appropriate shoes.  flip flops are great for the beach.  flip flops are not great for rainy scotland or for walking around any city, anywhere.  now i’ve always got a solid pair of flats and one good pair of hiking shoes.  they may not be glamorous, but then again, i don’t claim to be.  i’ve written and revised so many packing lists over the years that i have a standard packing list.  while that means i don’t wear over half the things that sit in my “storage unit” (my parents house,) it does mean that i can literally pack up and go at a moment’s notice.  that’s not a bad thing to me.

as i prepare to relocate to new zealand, on the opposite side of the globe, i think back on my peripatetic lifestyle of the last ten years.  something i wrote in my italy 2005 journal (a gift from a friend, one i no longer speak to) at the end of my trip was a quote from “wicked,” one of my favourite musicals: “who knows if i’ve been changed for the better, but i have been changed for good.“

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