Travel is constantly changing. What was true in 2019 is almost certainly different now. That’s another good reason to use an expert to plan that next trip—we’re always traveling, networking, and keeping track of those changes. Here are some of my best travel tips for right now. Let’s start with this one: Use a travel professional. Working with the right one should yield a better experience start to finish. I know one I can recommend . . .
Stay in one spot longer, use trains or a car to see the area nearby.
Stay longer in fewer places
Hotel hopping every day does let one cover a lot of ground—but can also make for a miserable trip. I discovered early in my travels that the longer I spent in fewer places, the better the trip was.
Staying longer makes it possible to explore a destination in depth, beyond just its top five sights. Finding favorite restaurants, bars, and cafes, navigating grocery stores, wandering down side streets, and even learning to do laundry in a foreign country all deepen the experience of a place. Staying longer lets you relax and enjoy, rather than racing from sight to sight, hotel to hotel.
Using a suite or apartment-style hotel gives you more space for that longer stay, like this one in Dresden, Germany.
Are you trippin’?
London- new . . .
Longer stays also let one discover nearby places via day trips. Several European cities are perfect for this. My favorites are London and Munich, both of which have probably 20 good day trips within a two-hour train, bus, or car ride. From London, two college towns, the seashore and several resort towns there, Shakespeare’s and Jane Austen’s hometowns, the Cotswolds, Blenheim, Highclere, Canterbury, Stonehenge, and on and on—all are in easy reach. Munich offers a similar list. For more on using hub cities to maximize experiencing/minimize moving, see here and here.
. . . and old.
Use the right kind of cruise
A good cruise can also ease some of the wear and tear of hotel-hopping—because your luxe hotel goes with you, and parks in a convenient location. Those who want the structure of planned and guided excursions can have them; those who want to explore on their own can do that instead. Both smaller ship ocean cruises and river cruises supply these features, and the former can port in destinations that the big ships can’t reach, or aren’t allowed to. There are a lot of river and smaller/luxury ocean cruise lines—contact your friendly neighborhood travel agent to find the right one for you.
Uniworld River Cruise: not the worst way to spend a week in Europe!
Shoulder season? Not so much.
Salzburg’s main Christmas market.
In the not-distant past, you could reliably find fewer people in Europe in May and September. Now, they can be as prime-time as July and August. With an expanding calendar for travel, the strategy to avoid crowds is evolving. Now, my advice is, be strategic about where you’re going as much as when. Some places are overrun with tourists almost year-round. Luckily, Europe is packed with fascinating places.
Insta-pass
Seen at the Mythos Mozart exhibit.
Instagram is great for travel inspiration—but planning a trip around taking pix for the ‘Gram can get in the way of true enjoyment. What’s better—having a great time exploring Greece, or recreating a bunch of other people’s pictures of the Acropolis and Santorini and missing what really makes Greece special and memorable? I’m choosing ‘exploring’ every time. And by focusing on that first, I always get the pix I want along the way. But my trip is driven by experiences, not by social media posts.
