Plus a few educational crises right before getting on the plane that I wish I had figured out months in advance…
1. Always bring bug spray. And Advil. And your rain jacket.
After getting a mosquito bite on my face in Washington DC, wading through torrents of gutter water during an unexpected rain shower in New York City and suffering a blinding headache at the airport in Copenhagen, we have now learned to never leave the hotel room/hostel/Air BnB unprepared for whatever the wide world may throw at us. Forecast calls for a zero percent chance of rain and we are spending the entire day inside at a museum? Don’t care. I’m lugging my rain jacket. Middle of the Sahara dessert where literally nothing lives? Don’t care, I’m bringing my bug spray. My emergency Lara bar has come all the way from Colorado with me, and I now consider it (her?) part of the family. Now, we both have not one but two clear zippered pouches stuffed with anything we could possibly need that live permanently in our daypacks…just watching and waiting for the inevitable weird situation.
2. Those shoes better be made for walking.
Oh, how I agonized over the shoes I would bring on this trip. I read countless articles and blog posts, brought up the topic to unsuspecting friends and coworkers (“these are my trip shoes! What do you think? Are they durable yet fashionable?”), and at one point bought seven—yes, seven—nearly identical black slip-ons from Zappos at the same time to ensure I was getting the most perfect black slip-on ever manufactured. (Don’t worry. After a rigorous screening process that Ben, my neighbor Cheryl, and several of my friends via text had the good fortune of being a part of, I chose one pair and sent the rest back).
For some reason, I was concerned with squeezing as much cuteness out of my footwear as possible. I think I imagined myself flouncing lightly through Florence with gelato in hand, as passers-by oohed and aahed at my adorable loafers, thinking to themselves, “That girl doesn’t even LOOK like a tourist!”
Well. 24 hours of being on our long-term trip around the world has cured me of any romantic notions concerning footwear. Sitting here in Amsterdam, I can’t believe I ever even considered style over utility. First of all, I could be wearing Prada heels and I would still stick out as a tourist like a sore thumb. That 75L, GIGANTIC yellow backpack probaaaaably gives me away (see my adventures with backpacks in Lesson #4). And after tromping through all types of airports and all over Amsterdam, if the things I stick my feet into aren’t waterproof, blister-proof, and comfy for 10-mile walks WITH my backpack on, I’m already disgusted by them. A few hours into our trip and I’m already eyeballing my cute little black sandals—scrupulously researched—as being the next to be thrown overboard in exchange for some ugly-ass but comfortable-as-hell Birkenstocks. (UPDATE: I did get some waterproof Birkenstocks in Berlin and sent those cute sandals packing. Score!)
I’m also realizing shoes are the bullies of your backpack. Complete assholes to the packing process. They take up so much space! For the amount of room my sneakers gobble up, I could fit four shirts. When I shove my warm, waterproof boots in there because its 90 degrees outside and I can’t possibly wear them to go to our next location, the entire backpack groans and I find myself desperately wondering if I need to toss my deodorant to make room for these monstrosities. Shoes are also notoriously heavy, so when I tearfully went through my final packing cut in Baltimore, I ended up ditching not just one but two pairs. Including those adorable black slip-ons from Zappos and the loafers I thought would earn me admirers in Italy.
As of now, I have these sandals (*update, these got sent home with my sister after the cruise. I REALLY REALLY liked them but couldn’t justify keeping them and the Birkenstocks, and the Birks were more versatile since they are waterproof), waterproof Birkenstocks, black Nike sneakers for working out and walking all day, Everlane Day Glove flats for looking nice, and my waterproof and warm boots. I’m really happy and grateful for my footwear, but I definitely wish I hadn’t spent a whole bunch of money this past year on shoes I ended up ditching. I guess in my next life I’ll have a lot of black shoes?
3. If you book something, make absolute certain that whatever it is can be cancelled.
We were strolling around Vondelpark in Amsterdam, admiring the fountains and the bicycles, a mere few hours into the first day of our grand adventure.
“Um, Ben? How would you feel about not going to Scotland and England? The thought exhausts me.”
Ben: “Done. Me too.”
In a 30 second conversation, we amputated a major portion of our trip after half a day of actual travel—without a second thought. Until you actually strap on that pack and get on that red-eye to wherever, you have no idea how travel will affect you and what you actually want to do on your extended expedition. It’s one thing to happily stuff as many cool things into your beautifully designed, color-coded Google Doc itinerary from the comfort of one’s bedroom a year out. It’s quite another to actually face a) slogging through another airport b) cramming seven destinations and a road trip driving on the wrong side of the street into two weeks after c) a 9 day family cruise. We knew 24 hours into our adventure that this wasn’t going to be that kind of mad-dash trip. We don’t want to burn out because we were ambitious little Rick Steves disciples back in Denver. Hence, the United Kingdom portion of our plan headed to the guillotine, and we started making other, less crazed, plans for September.
Luckily, most of those accommodations and reservations for England and Scotland were 100% refundable. When I first started planning our trip a year out, I wasn’t so smart. I made several non-refundable reservations in Nordic countries—and you know those ain’t cheap—before we realized we’d need to change our itinerary pretty drastically and push back our summer leave date by several weeks. We were out quite a bit of money, and we learned a hard lesson about booking things in advance. Which, by the way, I can’t NOT do. Prior research that pertains to anything—products, vacations, teaching—is my greatest joy. It’s in my DNA. To deny me the opportunity to spend hours on my Macbook pouring over guidebooks, blog posts, and traveler reviews in order to book our accommodations in advance would be cruel and unusual punishment. However, after losing bundles in Norway, here are our rules:
- Air BnBs MUST have a flexible cancellation policy. This is easily checked. If not, no matter how cheap and how charming the décor, we aren’t booking it. Even if it has yellow chairs.
- All hotels are reserved through Booking.com, the patron saint of travelers due to the generous cancellation policy and the fact that every time I log on to that beautiful blue website a ripple of endorphins rips through me.
- We will pay the extra two bucks on Hostelworld.com in order to be able to cancel later if need be. This has saved us a TON whenever I get the willies about a particularly cheap hostel I’ve booked in Thailand and panic-cancel.
- Avoid buying plane tickets until the absolute last minute…unless the deal is so good, it came from Satan himself (like the $126 tickets from Osaka to Honolulu I found on a random Wednesday using Skyscanner.com!) Plane tickets are difficult to cancel and cost a ton of money to change. If we had already had tickets to Scotland, I would hesitate to cancel that leg, even though we had second thoughts.
Ever since the Scandinavian snafu, our itinerary has been sliced and diced many times due to travel advice from friends, pretty pictures we’ve seen on the internet (here’s looking at you, Cinque Terre!), and come-to-Jesus realizations about our budget (goodbye, Paris!). Thankfully, we have the flexibility to make all the changes we want because of the above rules. You may think that you are absolutely, without certain, committed to an itinerary or a location…but until you get going, you never know. If you had asked me back in the States if we would ever cut out the UK—land of both Prince Harry AND Harry Potter—I would have laughed in your face. Now, the ambitious itinerary that would have us hustling all over the Island and flung us back and forth across the Continent seems ludicrous. We are much more excited to hole up in Prague and Vienna Budapst for the month of September before making a logical and leisurely move to Croatia.
4. The “carry-on only” lifestyle is a fantasy created by Kickstarter companies with savvy Instagram accounts.
Once you begin researching a long trip, everyone from His Awesomeness Rick Steves to every girl with a blog on the internet will tell you over and over to PACK. LIGHT. OR. ELSE. And they couldn’t be more correct (see my experience with footwear above.)
However, once you accept the wisdom that seven pairs of shoes, eight dresses, and a scarf in every color just ain’t going to cut it when you are literally carrying your surprisingly heavy crap on your spine, you will start to be lured by targeted ads and Wirecutter.com to attempt a “carry on only” trip. You will see enticing backpacks that have all types of nifty compartments and features, and the companies who make these—extremely overpriced—backpacks will promise you that while all of the other backpacking saps at the airport are waiting for their bags, only to find out that they are lost in Ethiopia, YOU will have already strolled out of the airport carefree with your pack and will be sipping cocktails on a beach somewhere because the bag fits in the overhead compartment. They will have an infographic about all the stuff you can fit into their ingenious inventions, and inspirational photos of impossibly beautiful and stylish people wandering the streets of Marrakech wearing their products and not looking like tourists at all!
DO NOT FALL FOR THIS LIKE I DID…TWICE. I was enamored with this idea and my credit card followed my adoration. First, I bought Ben and I matching 35 liter Cotopaxi Allpa bags. These are great backpacks and we both actually love ours…for a weekend. For those looking for a bag for a quick getaway, these do fit under the seat in front of you so you won’t even have to pay a fee for a carry-on…but for our trip around the world, this was just not going to cut it. On to Backpacks #2. I bought both of us 45 liter Tortuga backpacks (don’t ask me why I thought a measly 10 liters was going to make the difference). Again, great product. I took mine to Israel for 12 days over winter break and it was more than ample. But I wasn’t hauling medication, cold-weather clothing, water filters, etc. to Israel for a week and a half. You do need more stuff for extended travel, even if you don’t need more clothing. We blissfully thought these were our official trip backpacks for many months, until we did our first of several practice packs waaaaay too late in the game. As you can predict, this was a classic Rachel Last Minute Crisis.
Unless you are planning a trip to ONLY tropically warm places and can get away with shorts and flip flops the whole time, you NEVER plan on going to a nice meal or getting caught in the rain, you lead an electronic-free lifestyle, and your malaria pills are magically stuffed into Hermione’s beaded bag and take up no space and weight, all of your junk for long term travel is not fitting in a 35-45 liter backpack. It’s just not. I remember getting all of my clothes into my biggest packing cube and, seeing how small it was, feeling triumphant. But all of those tiny things you can’t live without that “weigh nothing” and “take up no space” like underwear and a money belt and a teeny tiny travel clock in case your phone dies on a train in India and razor heads and a swimsuit and band aids and a winter hat and face wipes end up eating up entire overstuffed packing cube, and all of a sudden you are reckoning with far more than clothing. Because if I need a band-aid in a foreign country, I really don’t want to be wandering around trying to find a pharmacy. I just want a band-aid.
Furthermore, even if you manage to cram everything into one of those snazzy packs, it is going to weigh far, far more than most airlines will allow for a carry-on. This is the flaw in the plan no one is telling you about. All of the airlines your budget-traveling self can afford to fly only allow a maximum 10kg carry-on allowance, which works out to be about 22 pounds. If you don’t believe me, check out my Google Doc with various allowances I made back in my crazed days when I was trying to make this whole carry-on only lifestyle work.
My day bag alone weighs almost 10kg, between my laptop, camera, chargers, etc. International airlines will weigh your bag and they will make you check it. So forget about the carry on.
Many tears and a rush order of my 75 liter Cotopaxi Nepal to my friend’s house (thanks, Meg and Robby!) in Baltimore mere days before we left…and we had a backpack winner. An enormous, bright yellow winner that made me look like Big Bird but at least I could get all my stuff into without crying and sweating and sacrificing bandaids. Give up on that carry-on dream, order a big honking backpack, and just know you still won’t be able to bring everything you want.
PRO TIP: A common concern with checking the big backpacks is all of the various straps and buckles getting ripped off by merciless baggage handlers and machines. We bought these REI bags, which are fairly cheap, fold down small, and can actually fit our gigantic backpacks. We pop our packs into these before checking them, and then I can enjoy my wine at the airport lounge (THANKS CHASE SAPHIRE RESERVE!!!) without worrying that my hip belt is being mangled by a machine I imagine looks like this:
5. Capsule wardrobes are boring and you will hate every article of clothing you brought within 24 hours of leaving. And then it won’t matter anymore.
During our final Practice Pack in Baltimore, the physics just weren’t on my side. No matter how many different ways I rolled my clothes, the zipper on my packing cube was threatening to bust. No matter how many ways I delicately twisted my shoe bag, it would not cram into the dedicated compartment in my backpack. It was time for the Final Purge, and it was bloody. I cried. See a theme here?
When we got to Amsterdam and I was getting dressed for a day of canals, fountains, frittes and Van Goghs, I was flat-out depressed at my options. Wrinkled shirts. Wrinkled skirt. Lame sneakers that marked me as a tourist. The same old black jeans (which I actually LOVE and were recommended by my favorite blogger over at Practical Wanderlust). I was thinking of my cute striped dress and my adorable loafers back in Baltimore (BTW, thanks for storing my last-minute cast-offs, Meg, Robby, Aaron, and Leticia!), and how much I wished I could wear those.
Then, we strolled out the door and into a beautiful park with goats (!!!), and all of those wardrobe worries disappeared. Poof! They haven’t come back since. God-honest truth: absolutely no one cares how you look on your adventure. No one notices when you wear the same outfit a few days a week. My husband is just glad to know another soul in these strange cities to think about how cute I look, and everyone we meet is too busy living their own lives to think about my fashion. I’m thankful for functional, warm, cool (as in temperature, not fashion) attire that I can wear to hike a mountain or go to a nice dinner. I spent So. Much. Time. Agonizing (well, to be honest, gleefully researching and online shopping) over my trip wardrobe, and now when I get dressed in the morning I just care if it is clean (-ish, let’s be real) and will keep me comfortable and dry. The best thing I brought was an old black tank dress from Old Navy that I already owned, and can take me from a pool to a sit-down restaurant when I swap out my flip-flops for a sweater and some earrings. Here is what I’ve realized are the most important things in a long-term travel wardrobe:
- Is it black? Just kidding, but not really.
- How fast does it dry?
- In how many different environments can you get away with wearing it? This cuts out super short hemlines and strappy, low cut things for me.
- How well does it hide stains? This is a real advantage. Let’s not get into too much detail but just trust me.
- When I sweat in it, what happens? Again, the less is said the better, but I value the odor-hiding qualities of wool.
- Will my hip belt rip it to shreds? Found this one out the hard way with my shabby chic white button down from Free People. RIP.
- Does it go with multiple tops/multiple bottoms?
Style doesn’t matter. You aren’t going to look like those Instagram people, and you aren’t going to care. You’ll be too busy trying to find snacks and figure out the tram system, and then getting a snack as a reward for figuring out the tram system.
6. Be prepared to be lonely and have weird emotional reactions to random events and objects.
We’ve been looking forward to this trip for a long, long time. We scrimped and saved and Air BnB’ed our third bedroom for a year and watched many episodes of No Reservations (tears) and Rick Steves and packed up our house and shoved the bare minimum needed for clothing and health into a backpack and made hundreds of Google Docs and Sheets to plan the whole shebang. When we finally arrived in Amsterdam, we should have literally been walking on clouds! Our dreams were coming true! We did it! We actually did it!
So I was surprised that one of the most powerful emotions I felt was loneliness. I missed my friends in Denver and Baltimore. I missed my family. I missed my dog and my bed and my car and my big, lovely, unwrinkled wardrobe. I love Ben probably a little too much but it hit me that he was my only friend in a big strange city and a vast unfriendly world. I felt unmoored, unsure, and impossibly far from home. I’m not usually one to strike up a conversation with strangers (something I hope to change on this trip), but I found myself eyeballing fellow backpacking couples and wanting to go up to them and make a new friend. One of these days, I will actually muster up the courage to do that. Oh, you went with the Osprey pack? Us too!
I also really miss teaching. I was shocked at how much I was lamenting my job. It sounds ridiculous: girl gets a chance to take a year off and travel the world, and all she wants is to wake up early and do a ton of exhausting work? But if my short time on the road has taught me anything, it’s that I love being a teacher. Our first day of adventure coincided with the beginning of professional development at my old school, and as we were wandering Amsterdam and seeing Van Gogh’s effervescent sunflowers up close, I was also yearning to be sitting in small chairs in our school library watching Power Point presentations and laughing with my coworkers.
At the Van Gogh museum, we went to a presentation about his life. The speaker was wonderful, but what did me in was a kid in the front row asking the types of questions a fifth grader would typically ask. Seeing him raise his hand and speak threw me back into my classroom, and I started quietly crying right then and there. Not about Van Gogh’s ear. About missing kids, and teaching, and already building excitement for when I’m back in it. The jet lag may have contributed, but I was definitely that crazed tourist weeping conspicuously during the Van Gogh presentation.
We also deeply miss our sweet girl Lola, and every time we see any kind of four-legged friend we lose it in a confusing babble of ooohs and aaahhs and nonsense dog-talk (if you have a dog, you know what I’m referring to here). We saw a dog wearing little booties the other day and have just now recovered. No wonder people think tourists are weird.
7. Switch to T-Mobile.
I WISH I were getting paid to say this. In fact, I lost money on this hard lesson, but it has been so, so, SO worth it. Let me back up. As much as Ben and I cringe at being labeled as typical millennial, we totally are. We like craft beer. We are 30ish with a dog, no kid, and a desire to live in a city center. We did Teach for America. We liked Bernie. Most importantly, we need Google maps to get from Point A to Point B (Although we DID take that REI class on reading topographic maps, and can kind of distinguish physical features on a paper topo map…if the instructor is standing nearby to correct us. Anyway, hiking maps aren’t going to be much help in Prague). We especially need our devices if public transit is involved. And on this kind of trip, public transit is always involved. Especially if it is raining/freezing/95 degrees.
During the whole long planning process we always planned on keeping our iPhones, unlocking them, and inserting new SIM cards whenever we went to a new country. This is what the internet says to do, and I’m a sucker for the advice of the internet. My favorite blogs made this seem easy as pie: as if there were smiling cellular angels waiting for as you stepped off the plane offering SIM cards. Voila, data! Google maps! Salvation! We were fully committed to this plan until I had a Last Minute Freakout©.
At the last minute (because why not we were only planning this thing for OVER A YEAR), we found out from Verizon that we would not be allowed to keep our cell phone numbers, meaning when we got back to the States—disheveled, hungry for American human contact, desperate to hang with our friends—that we’d have to get new numbers.
After some online sleuthing in New York (we are T-minus 12 hours from leaving, just to set the scene), I found out we could switch to T-Mobile and we would be able to not only keep our numbers and stay in touch with all of our friends and family, but we would get unlimited data and text in all of the countries we were visiting. I definitely thought this was too good to be true, and when the smirking man at T-Mobile informed me that they would have paid off our Verizon balance I almost lost it. NO. WAY. Capitalism at work! Suck it, Verizon!
When we landed in Amsterdam, we got a message from T-Mobile saying “Welcome to The Netherlands!” and telling us to enjoy unlimited data and text. And the second we had to fumble our way into the Schiphol Skipper, transfer to the Metro, and walk on tired legs to find our hotel, I was damn glad I had Google Maps in my hand and didn’t need to wander around a foreign country bleating like a lamb for a SIM card.
*UPDATE: We’ve been on the road for a little over 3 weeks and have visited The Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Estonia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and just now arrived via a somewhat dubious Flixbus to the Czech Republic. Each time, our phones work seamlessly—no SIM card scramble. The data speeds are definitely slower than we have in the U.S., but Google Maps works juuuuust fine, and that’s all that matters. We are so glad we made this switch! Although we could have executed this cell phone strategy months in advance instead of hours…but where’s the fun in that?
8. All of those hours of scouring reviews for clean, affordable accommodations WILL be worth it. Except in Katowice, Poland.
A lot of friends and family asked before we left how much we had planned and booked in advance. Part of me was all “HAVE YOU MET ME, I make a spreadsheet to go to Target” and the other part of me was a little sheepish to admit just how much we planned ahead. All of the cool travel books and blogs advocate for seeing where the wind takes you, to be spontaneous, to take those carefree pictures where you are jumping attractively in mid-air with the pyramids or something framed beneath your feet in cute shoes. So we tried! Despite our natural tendencies, Ben and I did NOT make an hour by hour itinerary for every destination like we did with our Summer 2016 road trip (which, by the way, I DO NOT regret). We sketched out a rough itinerary using a calendar (looooots of counting nights), a budget website, approximate weather in each place (goodbye, Mongolia in December) and a bunch of Google Mapping to see the distances between places. However, other than that, we really have nothing planned for each place. We want to be open to new experiences, to be the free-spirited hippie backpackers, to dance in the middle of a square exuberantly…except when it comes to where we are sleeping.
Let’s face it. We are 30. I am not couch-surfing. I am already highly suspicious of hostels, given our advanced age, reclusive natures, and early bedtime. Our first hostel will be in Croatia so I’ll report back then. We are also on a fairly strict budget, and if I don’t have a thoroughly vetted place to hang my hat upon arriving in a new place, I WILL resort to my beloved chain hotels (holla, Hampton Inn!) and explode our carefully calibrated budget spreadsheet. Even though our Patron Saint Rick Steves says that half the fun is finding a cool place to stay, wandering around the dark streets of a foreign place with a heavy backpack and an empty stomach sounds like torture. Therefore, I have every single night of our trip booked out via Air BnB, Hostelworld, and Booking.com up until about March 2019. All of these reservations are 100% cancelable, a tool we have been using frequently (see Lesson #3). However, I have peace of mind knowing that I can show up in a new place friendless, hungry, and cranky from a Transit Tiff, but at least I have a place to sleep that I’ve reviewed thoroughly. I practically inspect the pictures with a magnifying glass, and I always read at least two pages of reviews.
Once we arrived in Amsterdam, I felt that all of my research paid off! Our hotel, which I scored on one of those flight+hotel deals when I booked our plane tickets, checked all the boxes. Clean, easy to check-in, relatively affordable, lots of amenities (self-serve washer/dryer, WiFi, free breakfast), and best of all, was right next to the Metro station so we could deposit our tired bodies into our room without too much struggle. We will see how the next several months of my hotel/Air BnB/hostel picks work out, but so far I’m feeling optimistic.
*UPDATE: 3.5 weeks in, our accommodations continue to be awesome. However, the perfect Air BnB in Krakow was Ben’s choice, we were on a luxury cruise ship after that courtesy of my generous parents, and our spacious Prague Air BnB was also Ben’s choice. So far, the only thing I’ve picked out has been the nifty Amsterdam hotel and a memorably terrible night in Poland at the Hotel Katowice. Yikes! Hopefully my picker isn’t terribly flawed….otherwise, we are in for an interesting 8 months.
9. Flex those screenshot muscles.
We have fairly consistent data due to our T-Mobile awesomeness, but that doesn’t mean you want to rely on being able to use your phone as you normally would during important moments. When in doubt, always screenshot so that you have important information at your fingertips even if/when your data gives out. Screenshot walking directions. Screenshot transit shenanigans: you do NOT want to be frantically tapping your phone in the middle of a crowded subway platform. Screenshot descriptions. Screenshot how to say “Where is the Anne Frank museum?” in Dutch. Screen shot your ticket to New York from Baltimore via the Greyhound so that the driver doesn’t yell at you when your phone decided not to load an e-ticket in AMERICA. This practice provides peace of mind. Plus, when you go through your photos later, you will have some nifty mementos of that time you didn’t know how to walk from your Polish Air BnB to the closest Starbucks (guilty).
So. Many. Screenshots. 
10. Transit=exhaustion, confusion, hard physical labor, and bickering with your partner. Slow down and laugh at yourselves.
We had a fairly easy transit situation to our Amsterdam hotel on the top-notch, extremely clear, signposted-in-English Netherlands transportation system. Furthermore, since we got to visit not one but two classy airport lounges courtesy of our Chase Sapphire Reserve card, we were relatively well-rested and topped off with free champagne and snacks before we even started. Despite all of these advantages, we still collapsed at the end of our (relatively easy, straightforward, smooth) journey. Transit is just flat-out draining.
Part of the reason I wanted to take this trip was to use my brain in different ways. In teaching, I tend to practice the same skills and ponder the same type of problems over and over (primarily, bulletin board design and making kids be quiet). I was eager to tackle new challenges and flex different problem-solving skills. Well. WISH GRANTED. Our only other long-term travel experiences have been with ease and comfort of our own vehicle. Also, it’s been quite a long time since I’ve relied on public transportation as the primary way to move my body from Point A to Point B (plus, using the DC Metro is pure joy). We realized within moments of picking up our bags that movement on our trip was not going to be nearly as effortless as it had been. Dun dun dun.
Take the Schipol–>hotel transit situation. It seemed, and is, extremely straightforward. Take the Schiphol Skipper (a special train) to a stop, get off, transfer to the Amsterdam Metro, take it 1-2 stops, get off, voila, let the hotel shower and collapsing commence. We did great until the transfer, when we realized we’d have to leave the train station and get on the metro. Two separate things. Duh.The gate to the metro was automated, and we watched all of the smart Dutch people flash a pass on the card and be admitted into the Holy Land: our desired Metro stop. But we could not find a ticket machine. With our 37 pound packs swaying from side to side, threatening to topple our tired bodies, and our heavy daypacks dangling from our hands (this is before we learned to Turtle and hook our daypacks to our fronts, leaving us looking impossibly dorky but hands free), we wandered around the crevices of the entrance until we spotted a machine. Yay! At this one, we poked helplessly at the screen until we figured out it was only for train tickets. A few yards away (not sure how we didn’t see this before, I swear it MAGICALLY APPEARED just as we were whipping out the Uber app), we found the Metro ticket machine. We felt incredibly triumphant when it spat out our Metro tickets. We did it! Then the fatigue came. Relocating is tiring.
I’ve also realized that pulling up the proverbial stakes and moving is fertile ground for conflict with your beloved vagabonding partner. I call these Transit Tiffs. Transit Tiffs usually come about when the machine won’t speak English, when the locals are being either unhelpful or creepily intrusive (setting off epic alarm bells for me that Ben has to deal with. “RICK STEVES TOLD ME ABOUT THIS KIND OF THING!!!!”), and when it is bloody hot outside and your backpack is glued to your body with sweat. A hair-tie is nowhere to be found. All of a sudden, bickering erupts, making the whole situation a bit more miserable.
Awareness of the debilitating effects of transit—both between destinations and within destinations—has made us value sloooooowing down. A big reason we canceled our England and Scotland leg of the trip was because neither of us were keen to deal with another airport, and the tickets were more expensive than we initially budgeted for. We had also planned an ambitious agenda of several cities, two countries, and a mini-roadtrip with several stops. We will keep the plans and the research, but all that journeying is a little too much for our bodies and wallets for this trip. A week in Prague and a week in Budapest (and NO planes) will be just as wonderful.
We are also slowing down within places. We can’t tour hard all day every day, hopping on and off busses, subways, and trams like backpacking superheroes (my nickname will be Over-Planning Girl. I’ll have a Google Doc as my secret weapon). We could maintain that kind of pace for a week or two, but this is our life for the foreseeable future. We need couch time, Netflix time, computer time, and chill time. Spending more time in fewer places allows us to see these destinations in a leisurely way without driving ourselves insane and descending into a vicious spiral of Transit Tiffs.
24 hours in, we have quickly found the ONLY way to avoid Transit Tiffs and general Movement Fatigue is to maintain a sense of humor. This means that people all over Europe can look forward to some quite zany American tourists being goofy while they are just trying to catch a train, but it will make our trip much more pleasant.
