Now that we're settled in Arizona and not really traveling much anymore, I find myself reflecting on all our trips and what we saw and learned. Some of that knowledge comes in handy when Eric and I are watching Jeopardy together in the evening, but this post is more about things we learned that might be useful for other traveling families.
Spend as much time as you can pre-learning about your destinations. OK, maybe not so necessary if you're going to Cabo to lay on the beach, but let's assume this is more than a suntan vacay :) For Europe, definitely check out Rick Steves' website for podcasts and online shows. An overview at that level is a great intro to a location and will probably give you some insights about what to dig into more deeply. Travel blogs can be really helpful, and they can provide color on some of the areas that get glossed over in the official tourism websites. TripAdvisor has tons of info, but be sure that you're actually reading through the reviews as opposed to just looking at the rankings. Something that another visitor hated could be something that you'd actually value (eg, quiet neighborhood for the hotel so you can actually sleep vs be out partying in the street, noisy restaurant so people aren't bothered by your loud kids vs romantic vibe, etc).
Before you go, download area maps to your phone so you can navigate without using wi-fi or having an international data plan. This was Eric's job, so I'm not going to pretend like I actually ever did this, but I can google it for you :)
https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838?co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS&hl=en&oco=0
Just make sure you turn off your cellular data so you're not surprised by a $400 phone bill a few weeks later, because that DOES happen!
When you get to a new place, start off with either a walking tour or the hop-on/hop-off bus tour so you can get the lay of the land. It's also a good way to identify places that you want to be sure you can come back to (or skip) over the coming days. For us, the key criteria when comparing the bus tour options were frequency of buses and quality of the audio-guide, but not all cities are big enough to have numerous providers. For smaller places, a self-guided audio walking tour was nice and provided more freedom.
This is probably also a good time to ensure that you and your travel companion(s) are on the same page about how you want to spend your time and your money. Well, maybe that's actually best to do before the trip, and maybe we would have done that if I'd read it in a blog somewhere, but we usually found ourselves debating the trade-off's of time vs money "in the moment" instead. Things like taking a cab or riding the subway will save you time, but walking or taking the bus will save money and you'll have a better opportunity to take in the scenery and the feel for a place. Mealtimes provide another chance to weigh that trade-off...eating in a restaurant is more expensive, but getting groceries and preparing food yourself takes time and those are hours you'll step away from experiencing the culture of the place. I severely under-budgeted our food costs, because I assumed we'd get groceries a lot and do our own cooking. In reality, we ate out EVERY meal when we were on the road, because grocery shopping and cooking were inconvenient and we wanted to have more time to experience the city (including the local culinary offerings).
A few packing tips:
- get a squishy case for your iPad if you have a kid (or maybe even if you don't have a kid)
- bring travel laundry soap like Dr. Bronner's Pure Castile soap for washing up a few things in the sink (remember to allow for drying time afterwards), or make washer/dryer part of your criteria when evaluating AirBnb places...you can get away with packing fewer clothes
- I couldn't live without the packing cubes we got, they keep clothes folded/stacked no matter how many times you unpack and re-pack the suitcase and we always knew who's stuff was where (buy a few per person, minimum)
- throw in a basic mesh drawstring laundry bag, dirty stuff goes in there after wearing (stuff that's not so dirty gets folded, inside-out, and goes back into the packing cube so you know you can wear it again if you need to...no judging!!)
A few logistics tips, plan ahead!
- book hotels in advance so you aren't sleeping on a park bench, but make sure they're cancellable/fully refundable because you will be learning more while you're doing your research and might want to be in a different part of town (or just find a better deal)
- figure out which attractions sell tickets in advance, and which could sell out (for example, the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam and the Milan monastery where da Vinci's 'The Last Supper' fresco is painted) because you might need to commit to a date/time pretty far in advance
- if you travel for work and get to keep your air/hotel points, try to be consistent with the providers you choose so you can accumulate enough points with one to actually get something, as opposed to having points scattered across every hotel and airline (I've found Marriott is better than Hilton for point redemption)
- have a credit card with no foreign transaction fee and use it where ever possible for the best exchange rate, bonus if it's one that has other travel perks (*more details about two card options below)
Some kid-specific suggestions...we found it really useful to have a few components of Coco's routine that could always be maintained, seemed to help her feel more comfortable with things and like she still had something familiar to count on. For us, it was the lullaby songs that she'd listen to after her bedtime story, and then white noise while she slept (both on the iPad and requiring no wi-fi). She also had to have her purple blankie and stuffed animal.
Maybe every kid isn't like this, but Coco tends to do best when she knows what's coming up and she has some time to process it. For us, this somehow evolved into us telling her "Cookie" stories every day. Cookie is a horse who pretty much does exactly what Coco does, except Cookie does it a day or two earlier. After she hears about Cookie doing something, and learns that it goes well and that everything is fun and turns out successfully (usually!), it's like she would be totally ready for it. Cookie rode on the train and was OK with the weird toilet, Cookie went on the airplane and took a nap during the flight, Cookie went to the museum and didn't touch the displays. Of course, it didn't always create the behavior we wanted, but it tended to work far better than us just telling her how we wanted her to behave. She still loves to hear Cookie stories, but now she has special requests about what Cookie should do, which regularly involve him pooping somewhere or getting himself stuck in a tree somehow.
Well, that's probably enough for now, since I'm getting off track. Hopefully it won't be too much longer until we can get some family travel in again. Eric has been going somewhere for work a few times a month lately, and we have a WI trip booked for July, but not too much otherwise. While it's not exactly 'vagabond-y' I think I'll post some recent pictures of our Arizona adventures in the Photo Album. We are definitely enjoying the weather here, and finally feeling pretty settled. My focus now is shifting towards finding a job...piece of cake, right!?
*OK, I realize not everyone is interested in credit cards, but a couple people had asked so I wanted to share...we had 2 credit cards in the wallet (the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Ritz-Carlton Rewards) and used our Wells Fargo debit card to get cash as needed.
We purchased nearly everything on the Sapphire card because it earns 2 points per dollar spent on travel and dining, which was practically our whole life! They also have a 'travel store' where you can redeem your points for flights/hotels/car rentals/etc and get a 25% bonus. While I never loved their hotel or car rental rates, flights on their site cost the same as anywhere else, and $400 worth of points would buy you a $500 flight. Pretty slick!
We chose to also carry the Ritz card mainly because of the perks if offered - $300 credit annually for airline fees like seat/baggage, Global Entry/TSA Pre-Check, access to airport lounges (where I'd fill my backpack with free snacks/drinks), and the ability to save $100 per flight when buying 2+ round-trip domestic tickets. The only things we really charged to it were the seat/baggage fees and flights in the US, everything else went on the Sapphire card.
No foreign transaction fees on either, Visa is accepted everywhere, and both gave a lot of free points for signing up and using the card. Both offered $0 annual fee for the first year, but we continue to use them even though we do pay the annual fee's now ($95 for Sapphire, $400-450 for Ritz) because I think the perks are still worth it.
Exchanging cash is a rip-off no matter where you do it, so we just used our US-based debit card and paid the $5 fee to Wells Fargo every time we took out cash at an ATM. We'd take out as much as we could (Wells Fargo daily limit was $300, or 270 euro's at the time) to minimize the number of times we had to withdraw, and always used an ATM that didn't charge an additional fee. While we found much of Europe to be a cash society, most places didn't mind taking a credit card, although they think it's weird that we Americans still use an old-fashioned signature instead of a PIN...
