We’re hardly experts in modern European travel, but if we can do it so can you! Here are some resources Cary and Kim recommend that made our trip easier, better planned or more fun.
Pictures
The most important thing is to ‘be present’ on your trip, look around and enjoy it; that’s how memories are made. A camera could distract you from that enjoyment if used to excess, but every trip needs pictures to share and rekindle those memories. Before this first recommendation let me (Kim) talk a little about my feelings about photography.
I’ve enjoyed taking pictures since my first Russian-made Pentax mount manual SLR I had in high school. In the days of film cameras, I bounced around between using SLR modular cameras and compact rangefinders. Either way it was always expensive taking pictures given the cost of film, developing and prints; each shot was therefore agonized over. And then the prints wound up in shoeboxes, poorly organized and rarely seen again. However, since digital cameras, organization, storage and review have gotten easier. I’ve tended toward using compact digital camera because, as they say, “The best camera is the one you have with you when you want to take a picture.” Though I do have a modular SLR, I don’t use it much unless I’m “going out to take pictures”. The last 3 years for me, the “best camera” has been the camera in my cell phone. It’s pictures were nicer than any camera we had except my SLR.
However, I knew the limitations of my much used cell phone camera. The biggest limitation is the lack of optical zoom. I knew I wouldn’t have room to pack the SLR, plus I’d be fumbling with the telephoto lenses instead of enjoying my time. So, I thought I’d get a super zoom compact camera for the trip. This camera was our big purchase for the trip, but it turned out to be worth. The camera was small enough to leave dangling on my neck, but quick to focus and shoot in all conditions. And the zoom was ridiculous – 30x optical zoom. If you look at the picture of Meridith atop Notre Dame you see a dramatic result of this zoom. The shot is taken from across the square in front of the cathedral – but I was able to focus close up on her face and camera on top of the tower. Incredible. There are many great super zoom cameras, but I selected the Canon SX700HS for its great optics, shots in all light and funky ‘hybrid’ mode that can save 2-4 seconds of video before each still and then compile a movie for the day. Recommended: Canon SX700HS or other Compact Super Zoom
A few critical notes about taking pictures on holiday around other people. Taking pictures in a crowd with something you hold in front of your face, like a camera or cell phone, is usually not obtrusive. Holding up a tablet at arms length to take the same shot looks ridiculous, and like those ‘selfie sticks’ we saw all over Europe, sometimes it blocks the view of others. We did have a few laughs at the expense of the crowd’s selfie sticks; when the tourist action starts the sticks simultaneously raise in salute and that is hilarious.
Endurance
We knew we’d do a lot of walking to and from public transit and between sights, so we both did a bunch of walking to prepare for the trip. We enjoyed Legacy Park, Malibu for its wildlife and varied walks. We had fun recording our distances on the MapMyHike app. On our trip we only broke down once and had to call a car to finish a planned walk. Other than that we had plenty of stamina for the hot August days on foot. Recommended: your local park and MapMyHike app.
Packing
Knowing we’d be taking public transit to our lodgings, we knew we had to pack light. I had discovered the onebag.com site while searching for a packing list and decided to try some ‘one bag’ travel on my four trips that started in May. It worked out! Following onebag.com’s recommendation, I got a convertible travel backpack with shoulder straps and hip belt. Straps deployed, with weight on the back and hips, it was great for hoofing it between locations or down interminable concourses. Zip the cover over the straps and convert to portmanteau mode to make it trim for lockers, overheads and not smacking people in the face as you turn your body on planes and trains. Cary on the other hand, has limitations on how much weight she can sling over her arms, even if she was able to load most of it to her hips with the hip belt. Much as One Bag recommends folding cart over wheeled luggage, we chose her a Delsey Helium carry on and underseat bag. Yes – TWO bags. It worked out fine this time, but Cary says she would take just the one carry-on bag (21″) in future. Never did we appreciate the one bag philosophy more than when faced with 90+ steps to climb on Venice’ Constituzione Bridge over the Grand Canal. OneBag.com has packing lists, how-to and mounds of philosophy about carrying just the single bag. It worked well for us from Scotland to Venice.
Of course, when you’re out touring, you leave your 21″ bag in the lodging and carry a theft resistant day bag, as recommended by One Bag, Rick Steves and others. We ended up getting some inexpensive shoulder bags from Travelon with a steel wire hidden in the cut proof strap and slash proof steel mesh inside the walls and an RFID shielded inner compartment for passports. We quickly got used to using the ‘clip close’ zippers, and never had anyone approach our bags like a thief. Recommended: OneBag.com packing advice; Travelon theft proof bags.
Great Train Advice & Planning
Other than arriving at Heathrow and flying out of Marco Polo all our intercity transit was by train. There is fantastic train service in Europe, but understanding the basics of getting from country to country is difficult, let alone finding discount fares. Never fear, simply consult The Man in Seat 61, Mark Smith’s seat61.com website, which makes bargain or luxury train travel anywhere in the world as simple as plugging in your departure and destination cities. We never would have known about the Caledonian Sleeper, Jacobite steam train, Two Together railcard for discounts, crazy Virgin Railways pricing, best fare on Eurostar, or the whacky Thello sleeper from Paris to Venice without The Man in Seat 61. Cary even rode in his favorite seat (61) on the Eurostar and we see why he likes it! Recommended: seat61.com
Travel Tips
When you’re going somewhere you’ve never been its good to have some good advice from someone who has been there. Shout out to the Fitzgeralds, Fotheringhams and Cantos for the great tips. However, when you’re done gathering intelligence from your European Allies, its time to hit the travel books and websites – there are many. We recommend the Rick Steves guides, available in paper for Cary to comb through at home, and on mobile for use in the field without having to carry “two bags”. The tablet versions of the books have many clickable links and you can zoom in on the maps. Rick does a great job at overview and giving you strategy, then lets you drill down and get step by step for specific tours. Recommended: Rick Steves Books and eBooks.
We felt it was vital to have an itinerary for each day. Apart from being inspired by the success of Cary’s friend Pat’s detailed itineraries on her visits to the U.S. we knew that if we didn’t have a detailed itinerary we’d be leaving our lodging at noon or later each day, if at all. We’re that laid back. But we didn’t travel to Europe to eat chocolates and read a book indoors each day. With a detailed itinerary, we could always change things, but we wouldn’t be trying to decide everything from scratch on site. The visitacity.com website has different flavors of itineraries for different durations that you can choose as a starting point. It will then let you add, move or delete attractions from your itinerary while putting them together in the most sensible route for each day. You can then view the itinerary in their mobile app or download in PDF. They’d of course like to sell you a tour, but never push it. I really wanted to find one that fit our plans after all the help received at the site. I think we looked at their vendor for the Thames riverboat. Recommended: Visit-A-City Itineraries website and app.
Lodging
After looking at several recommendations for hotels from our travel pals Rick Steves and the aggregators recommended on Seat61, we ended up getting all but one nights lodging from AirBnB. The savings was good, but the comfort and native flavor of the accommodations was awesome. Our best hostess was in Edinburgh – helpful with local transport suggestions and served a heavenly breakfast in her window nook. Our most hands off host was in Venice – but the location was super super convenient to check in and get in and out for our short stay. Glitches? There were some including a washer dryer that didn’t dry at one location (we used the laundromat 5 doors down to dry our clothes). At another location we were not able to fully understand how to operate the air conditioning for a couple days. Goodies included super wifi and excellent neighborhoods for convenience, atmosphere and travel. AirBnB is great! Just spend plenty of time reading and re-reading the property description, check-in procedures and reviews before booking. Owing to a dearth of AirBnB in the Highlands we got a commercial BnB in Fort William, which was just as awesome. Recommended: AirBnB & Lochview House.
Transport
Saving money on getting there was done through Skymiles. Basically we searched Delta for the cheapest time to travel in a 5 week window. Then bought the fares with SkyMiles we have been saving for 5 years ( and we have enough left over for another trip, too!). Get a mileage rewards credit card and run every bill and expense you can through it. Pretty soon, you’ll have enough miles saved to go on your trip.
As noted our intercity transport was by train. But sometimes we had to get a car instead of a subway within the city because of the hour or route. In London cabs are well regulated as to cost and driver knowledge. Transport for London approved cabs (the typical black cabs) were clean, polite, fairly priced and cabbies are tested on ‘the knowledge’ — meaning they know the city and don’t take bad routes or drop you in the wrong place. London cabs showed up on time, even when that time was 4:55 am. Cabs in Paris not so much; they were cleaner than Bangkok or Yangon, but one driver took us to the wrong location despite an exact written address and another doubled our morning fare for the same route in the evening. Really? Fine, Uber it is then. When Cary’s knee decided it was discombobulated after the cobblestones, out comes the Uber app and then here comes the car. Cary wanted a Van to get all of us to Gare du Lyon, so out comes the Uber app, and the Van shows up with a polite, solicitous driver, water bottles all around and help with the bags. Recommended: TFL Cabs London; Uber Paris; Delta Skymiles
Computing and Communications
With packing light, I didn’t want to take a laptop. We took our tablet and it was great to use on WiFi. We kitted our phones for Europe with GoSim, but we don’t think that was a huge success. It worked mostly. It was prepaid so no huge surprises with the bill. It was relatively cheap, but every text was charged against our credit. Next time I’d get a new Sim and T-Mobiles Simple Choice no contract plan to get free texting and plan data. Free texting is essential when members of your party split up to see different sights. For sharing our trip info we used Google Drive and use the ‘keep’ offline feature to store copies of our itineraries, travel receipts, tickets and admissions on the tablet. Yes, we printed a copy of all that and slipped it in our luggage, but all the referencing at train stations and ticket booths was done from the tablet. Note that you have to mark each document you want to keep offline, but that was no problem. We also used our Google Apps to make up a day by day itinerary and share it between us and Meridith. The tablet was very handy for surfing the web, checking email and such in wi-fi areas. We also used an offline map for navigation – Maps2Go recommended by Rick Steves. An offline map works with the tablet GPS to show your position when you have no wifi or cell service. It was very handy in Venice. The caveat is Maps2Go will try to draw you into some social network they have, and you just have to go into your profile and say “Don’t contact me”. Recommended: Tablet, Offline Map and Sharing/Saving Info with Cloud Apps.
We hope you’re encouraged to start your own Europe adventure, or find some of the things helpful that helped us.
— Cary & Kim Cary