Ciao Italia - Tuscany (Florence, Pisa, Lucca)

For our one year wedding anniversary, my husband and I planned a trip with another couple to Italy. Having never been to mainland Europe (and being 25% Italian), I was beyond stoked for my first European adventure. I love history and architecture, and even after seeing so many other countries, Italy still remains one of my very favorites.

It was while planning for Italy where I first developed by $200/night hotel maximum and my 4-star minimum. At the time, I recall reading somewhere that Italian hotel rooms were generally small and hot. Since we were traveling in August, air conditioning wasn't something we were willing to forgo. We insisted that all of our hotels have a/c with individual controls in the rooms, a breakfast buffet included in the rate, parking available, and a price under $200/night. We stayed in 6 different hotels during our 2 weeks in Italy, and they were all fantastic. As I go through each city, I'll be sure to give them each a shout out.

We flew a perfectly comfortable U.S. Airways flight to Rome. We left in the evening, ate dinner on the plane, and then flew "all night" before arriving in Italia early the next morning. If you're unable to sleep on a plane (I strongly encourage tylenol PM, Unisom or something stronger as necessary so you can at least sleep for a few hours), this first day will be rough because you'll be very tired. Fight the fatigue! The trick to beating jet lag is forcing yourself to stay awake that first day and not plan anything too strenuous. Our goal for the day was to get Euros from the ATM, get our rental car, drive to and tour Pisa, and find our Florence hotel.

I mentioned before that we prefer to not check luggage. In Rome, we each had a small checked bag, and we waited about 2 hours for them after our flight landed. The airport terminal was a mad house and no one could confirm with absolute certainty on which carousel our bags would arrived. Later on that trip we saw on the news that the airport union workers went on strike the morning we arrived causing a major baggage crisis. We suddenly felt very lucky that we "only" had to wait for 2 hours.

After waiting for our bags for 2 hours, we then proceeded to spend the next hour searching for the Enterprise car rental counter. The Rome airport has a main car rental terminal, so naturally we went there first. After failing to find Enterprise, we started asking for help to find it. We literally walked from one end of the airport to the other and back again before we realized that Enterprise outsources their rental cars to a smaller Italian company. When we finally found that smaller company, they didn't have the car we reserved or anything close to the car we needed. Since my husband and the other husband from our party would be sharing the driving, we needed an automatic transmission. Frustrated from losing our first 3 hours of vacation to annoyances and not wanting to waste anymore time, we bit the bullet and decided to use our back up car reservation even though it was a couple hundred $$ more expensive. We arrived at the Hertz counter, got the car we reserved immediately and were on our way before too long in a very nice Mercedes sedan. (Now before you get the wrong idea, you need to understand that most European cars are standard, and that it's only the luxury car makers who offer automatic transmissions for rental cars. We didn't specifically request a luxury brand or in any way could afford to buy a luxury brand in real life, but oftentimes, that's what you get when you rent a car abroad. I don't remember having anything fancy in France or England, but in Ireland we had a BMW, and in Germany we had a Volvo.) I also mentioned this in a previous post, but if you're driving anywhere, you desperately need some sort of GPS device. Smart phones weren't what they are today in 2007, so we had a Garmin helping us with where we were going. Getting out of the Rome airport complex was our biggest challenge, but pretty soon we were on a regular looking highway headed north to Tuscany.

No trip to Italy is complete without a visit to Tuscany. This beautiful, scenic region was certainly one of the highlights of my trip, and somewhere I would most certainly visit again (after I've been everywhere else first, of course). After about 2-3 hours of driving, we arrived in Pisa, home of the famous leaning tower. In order to climb the leaning tower, you need to get tickets in advance for a specific time of day. We did a multi-entry pass which allowed us into the Duomo, Baptistry, and tower that are all right on the same patch of grass. We got our first Italian lunch (pizza) from a little eatery down a side street. We spent a couple of hours touring the Duomo, Baptistry, and climbing the tower. Even if you're not a fan of heights or don't think you necessarily need to see the view from the top of the leaning tower, I encourage you to try it. It's one thing to stand near the tower and get your obligatory photo of you trying to keep it from falling or pushing it over, but climbing the tower really gives you a sense of just how much it leans.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

From Pisa, we drove about another hour to our lovely hotel in Tuscany, The Relais Certosa

We chose this hotel because it not only had all of the aforementioned requirements but also because it offered complementary shuttle service into Florence. Florence has very strict driving laws; only locals, taxis, or other cars with special markings are allowed into the city. A regular rental car from Rome...is not. So we decided to look for a hotel outside of Florence with a convenient way to get in. When we checked in, we inquired about available shuttle times to get into Florence in the morning. The hotel staff informed us that the shuttle was already full for the morning. We were very unhappy about this and explained to the staff that the only reason we chose that hotel was because of the shuttle. They agreed to start the shuttle at 8AM instead of 9AM, so we were able to use it. (2 thumbs up for customer service!) Our first morning in Florence we enjoyed a hearty breakfast of eggs, deli meats, and fruit before starting our first official day in the city that sparked the Italian Renaissance.

Once you're in Florence, you can walk everywhere you want to go. Be prepared for a lot of walking, but the city is beautiful and walking it was so enjoyable. The first thing on our "clip board o' fun" (for you Full House fans) was to see the famous statue of David in the Accademia Gallery. You can get timed tickets in advance, online, which is what we did. Our tickets were for 10AM. Unfortunately, we were there over an hour early since we took the earlier shuttle. Lucky for us, it wasn't a busy day at the Accademia. We acted like we didn't have timed passes, and the lady at the ticket office gave us new tickets for immediate entry.

After touring the Accademia Gallery, we made our way to the Florence Duomo. Up until this point, I'd only ever seen castles in Scotland and Ireland. As incredible as those were, I had no idea what I was about to see when we came up to the Florence Duomo. Few things I've seen since then have been as incredible as that moment when you turn the street corner and see the duomo before you in all it's glory. Even pictures don't do it justice because they don't give you a good representation of its sheer size. This amazing church was build in the 1400s. We joined an English tour, and saw the crypt and the treasury though we decided not to climb the steps to the top of the dome. (We were a little sore from climbing the stairs of Pisa and wanted to pace ourselves). From the Duomo we went to the Santa Croce church. Unlike the Duomo with very few tombs in it, the Santa Croce church was full of them. The entire floor was covered in old tombs (actually very sad given how worn they were from tourists' feet), and famous funerary monuments like Galileo and Michelangelo were on the sides.

Funerary Monument of Michelangelo

We spent the afternoon shopping on the bridge shops, and I got an awesome leather coat that I still wear 7.5 years later. We then met back up with our shuttle at our agree upon location and called it a day. The next day, the other couple traveling with us wanted to sleep in a bit to recover some more from their jet lag. My husband and I again took an early shuttle back into Florence to see the Uffizi art gallery. Tickets for Uffizi were a little weird. I don't recall if we couldn't get them in advance or if we just decided not to, but once we got there, we decided that we couldn't pass up the opportunity to see one of the most famous art galleries in the world (even though we're not huge art lovers).

The next morning, we got in line about an hour or so before the galleries opened (along with lots of other tourists) for same-day tickets. We spent about 2 hours looking at room after room of religious art. Unless you're a huge art lover, you can skip this place. We went back to our agreed upon shuttle pick-up location, and waited...and waited...and waited. No shuttle. No shuttle?! Now what? We read in travel books before getting there that it was technically illegal to hail a taxi from the street and that you had to go to a taxi stand. The only chance you had of getting taxi outside of a taxi stand was catching one right as another passenger was getting out. We were meeting the other couple at the hotel to check out and leave for Milan, so we didn't want to be late. After waiting longer than we should have, we started heading toward where we thought we could find a taxi stand. As luck would have it, we came upon a passenger leaving a taxi cab, and we grabbed it immediately. The driver spoke great English and new exactly where our hotel was located. (Gained some local notoriety by hosting the Italian soccer team during the World Cup or some other big soccer game a year or two prior.) As soon as we got back to the hotel, the front desk explained that their driver had an emergency and couldn't pick us up. The hotel even tried calling the boutique by where we were standing to tell us to take a taxi, but we had already left by that point. They graciously reimbursed us our cab fare while profusely apologizing.

From our quaint Tuscan hotel, we were headed for downtown Milan, but not without first stopping in a small town called Lucca. If you want a true taste of Tuscany with less of a city feel than Florence, I strongly encourage taking a short detour to Lucca. This town is still surrounded by it's original city walls, with very little street traffic. We only spent the afternoon here and saw some local sites like a beautiful old church, and a religious icon they dubbed "sleeping beauty." But just walking around the streets and enjoying some Italian gelato was enough. Before too long we were back on the highway viewing the rows and rows of grapevines and olives as we drove north.

Lucca Duomo

Remember how I said to bring a GPS?? We were never happier to have it giving us turn by turn directions then when we took on the daring feat of driving in downtown Milan. Click on my next post which talks about Milan, Lugano (Switzerland), Verona, and Venice. Until then my timid travelers...

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

To Drive or Not to Drive...?

Your mode of transportation on foreign travel is one of the first decisions you should make when planning a trip. If I'm planning a domestic trip, I don't even hesitate to rent a car unless I know I'm going to be in NYC for the entire time. Even in San Francisco, we drove all over the place. In a foreign country the idea of driving can be terrifying. If you're a city dweller and plan on staying put in one city and one hotel the entire time, I wouldn't even consider renting a car. If you are traveling from city to city with no plans of exploring beyond that, you might be able to get away with reliable trains. If you have any intention of traveling outside the city, however, renting a car is the best way to go. But I don't speak Italian or German or French! Neither do I!

All European countries use the same alphabet that we use and that makes road signs pretty easy to follow. Speed limit signs are obvious enough and, except for the UK, all countries drive on the same side of the road that we do in the USA. Sure, each country has bizarre quirks and the idea of a speed limit-less German autobahn might be scary, but when you drive between cities or want to take a detour to see remote castles in the French countryside, you have to drive. I've driven (and by I, I mean my husband - so let's be clear about that!) in Italy, France, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Austria, and Denmark. The great thing about the UK is that they speak English. Adjusting to driving on the opposite side of the road is enough of an adventure, it's good you don't have to worry about not being able to read any road signs. I would generally avoid (if possible) driving downtown in any major cities, but we've done that too (Milan, Sorrento, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Vienna, Salzburg, to name a few).

Here are just some quick examples of amazing places we've been to that we could have never seen without a car. Isle of Skye in Scotland, Tintagel in England, Mont St. Michel in France, Mauthausen in Austria, Partnach Gorge in Germany, and Assisi in Italy. That's just one place in each country, but there are so so soooo many places to explore outside the cities!

Japan was the first country where we really didn't consider driving on our own. They follow UK driving rules, they have a language that is terribly difficult to understand, and Japanese drivers are nutso! Fortunately, Japan has one of the most amazing, efficient, safe, and fast public transit systems. The Shinkansen! We took trains everywhere in Japan and always made sure our hotels were within walking distance to a major station. The Japan JR rail pass came in handy in almost every city and, while pricy, it got us everywhere we wanted to go.

Kin to trains are the ever-present subway systems in major cities. They have them almost everywhere though not every city has a good one. You can easily do Paris and London in a single trip using all trains/subways (i.e. metro and tube) without renting a car. Generally when I travel, I'll start in a major city. I'll take a train or taxi from the airport into the city center, spend a few days there, and then get a rental car and head out of the city. I also always end my trip in city, so I return the car as soon as I arrive back in a city, and then use public transportation the last few days.

So far there have only been 2 cities where I genuinely found taxis better than anything (especially for airport transportation): Rome and Dubai. The Roman underground is great, but it doesn't (or at least it wasn't convenient for us in 2007) connect with the airport easily, so we planned on taking a taxi from the airport. Once in the city center, the subway takes you anywhere you want to go. (Just make sure you get a taxi from an official taxi stand and not from someone unofficial and eagerly awaiting to overcharge you!) Florence is the same way. Unless you are staying inside Florence, taxi is the best way to get in an out (you can walk the rest of it). In Dubai, however, the underground is just ok. If you're going to any shopping malls (and there are LOTS of them in Dubai) the subway is great. If you want to go anywhere else, you either have to walk or take a taxi. Dubai is not a walking city. Fortunately, taxis are cheap, safe, and everywhere, so it's no big deal. We even had a cab driver accept US dollars when he couldn't change the large bill we got from the Dubai ATM.

Buses are an option too. I am naturally leery of buses because I find them confusing and slow and smelly. But sometimes, they're really handy. In Kyoto, the subway tickets are not included on the JR pass and the buses get you much closer to the famous temples that you want to see. They were easy enough to navigate and the main stops at the famous temples were announced in English. Yay! We had a great deal of success using buses in Berlin. While we walked most of the city, buses were everywhere and fairly easy to figure out which we appreciated when our feet got tired. We also relied on buses in Abu Dhabi. While we stayed in Dubai the whole trip, we took day trips to other Emirates. One day we took a bus to Abu Dhabi. We took a taxi from the bus to the big mosque and the mall, but from there we took the public bus around. Since we only had a day there it was a chance to see the rest of the city in a quicker way than walking.

Though I'm a huge fan of renting a car, I understand that it's sometimes not the best or safest idea. For the trip that I'm planning to Southeast Asia (SEA), I will be testing out two entirely new methods of transportation: the infamous tuk tuk and something I call puddle jumping. Driving is supposedly very unsafe in SEA (which I'll confirm/deny at a later date) so I'm planning on flying in between cities and then relying on taxis, tuk tuk drivers (picture a motorbike with a little 2-seater carriage behind it), and public transport. Backpacking websites rave about taking buses or overnight sleeper trains. A local city bus is one thing, but I'm just too timid for a 7+ hour bus ride or 13 hour sleeper train with minimal privacy. It has taken me years of traveling to work up the courage to try a trip like SEA, so there are still things that I have to do my own way. I will be sure to report back with my best advice to ease your own fears.

In a nutshell, drive when you can but take advantage of a country's public transportation if it's good, reliable, and cost effective. Here are my top transportation DO's and DON'ts.

DON'T book a budge rental car! It will be a bigger expense, but the smaller rental car companies in the United States outsource their car rentals to smaller European companies. In Italy, we booked an Enterprise car (Enterprise is a pretty known car company right?) Nope. Didn't even exist in Italy. We spent an hour walking from terminal to terminal looking for them. We asked all over the place and never found them or their Italian counterpart. Make sure you book a big international company.

DO book a backup car. If you insist on booking a budget rental car, it doesn't hurt to use Avis or Hertz to book a backup car. In most cases, you do not have to pay in advance or even provide credit card info for car rentals, so what's the harm? If the budget car place fail you, Hertz or Avis will be there to save the day.

DO make sure you check and double check and call to confirm if you need an automatic car. Most cars in Europe are manual, and if you never learned to drive a stick shift you can do 1 of 2 things: use this an an opportunity to learn, or get an automatic. Automatic cars cost more...a lot more, and even the major car companies will try to give you a stick shift even if you reserved an automatic. Just be firm. When you are talking to the agent, remind them that it's an automatic. Make sure that your reservation confirmation says automatic and stand your ground. Also, have your back up car ready and don't be afraid to use it. At the end of the day, I've had the most success with hertz. Even in Copenhagen where the rental companies are small and the rental cars are even smaller, we arranged with hertz in advance to special order an automatic. Did we still have back up cars? Of course!

DO book train tickets in advance. Lots of people tell you that you can wait until the last minute, but then you have to take whatever is left available. In Japan, some of the train cars are for walk-ons only, but they have a line. If you are at the end of the line and the car is full, it leaves without you. With a JR pass, pre-booking seats on a train is no extra charge so go ahead. There's no harm.

DON'T be afraid of local buses. They scare me, but they're cheap and can take you where you want to go.

DO rent a GPS or bring along an international GPS (or smart phone with maps). This will safe you over and over again. It will save arguments with your traveling companions and will ease tension overall. If you rent one, insist on getting it even if they tell you they're out. Avis in London got one out of their case and then told us we couldn't have it. Excuse me? It's right there. Just let us take it. We had to speak to the manager but we eventually got it. (And yes, it was on our reservation right under automatic transmission.)

DO give yourself plenty of time. Time to get lost, time to find the right terminal, time for traffic, time to eat, time to go a stop or two the wrong direction on a subway before you realize it. Bottom line, it's a vacation. If you force yourself to punch a time clock, you might miss out.

DO confirm hotel parking in advance. Many European hotels even if they offer parking have very small parking lots. Some will even require you to book a parking space with your room. I advise contacting your hotel ahead to time to confirm that they have parking (if you need it), confirm the price (it's not usually free), and confirm that you can reserve a space with your hotel reservation.

DO check international laws before driving between countries. When we went to Denmark, Austria, and Germany, our plan was to drive to Prague in between Berlin and Vienna. However, we found out very quickly that cars rented in Denmark or Germany were not allowed to be driven into Eastern Europe. The iron curtain is gone for most things, but apparently vehicle crime is high enough in countries like Czech Republic that rental car companies don't want to take the chance of anything happening. Similarly, cars in Germany are required to have special stickers if you intend of driving them into the city center. Since we picked up our car in Copenhagen it didn't have the necessary German emission stickers for driving to our Berlin hotel (or any of our hotels in the city center). We were able to stop at a German auto shop who gave the car a quick look over and issued us the sticker for a minimal fee. Had we not done our research ahead of time, we could have faced huge fines in every city we drove through.

Remember: always book a backup rental car (as long as they don't ask for your credit card info), and don't be afraid to embark on a driving adventure outside the city. There are some amazing things to be seen and experiences to be had!

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

How to pick a foreign hotel

This post is for a friend of mine who is planning a trip and asked me what my best tips are for booking good foreign hotels. A lot of factors go into deciding what hotel to book, but I have them condensed into a few specific categories: price, location, reviews, star rating, and cancellation policy. But how does one even begin?

With any trip, I always book my flights first. Get over that first big hurdle, swallow the price tag which is likely to be your single biggest expense, and start figuring out your itinerary. If you know you're staying in one city and therefor one hotel the whole time, picking the perfect hotel for your stay should be your next step. If you are city hopping, after you map you're route, you then need to decide your mode of transportation between cities before you can book your hotels. Will you rent a car? Take trains? A combination of both? This is key before you look at hotels. I dedicated another post to which foreign countries I've driven in vs those where I've relied completely on public transportation. Check that out here: To Drive or not to Drive...

Say you have your plane tickets and know what cities you're visiting and how you're getting there. You're ready to start researching hotels, but where to start? First and foremost, know your budget. I make it my goal to never spend more than $200/night in any foreign city hotel. As I said before, my idea of a budget is an amount to not go over (Budget Planning: Foreign vs. Domestic Travel)....not a speed limit where I always go as fast as the posted sign or sometimes 5-10 mph over. I would say that on average, my hotels range from $120-$175/night.

Now that you have your itinerary, mode of transportation and budget, start making a list of hotel contenders. I always start with trip advisor. On trip advisor you can put in lots of different search parameters including price, hotel class, and reviews. This is a great starting tool. I am currently planning my trip to Southeast Asia, and the last few days of my trip will be in Singapore. I pulled up trip advisor, entered my travel dates, and saw immediately that hotels in Singapore are very expensive. But on closer look, I was able to find at least 6-7 hotels that were all under $200/night, were at least a 4-5 star hotel and all averaged 4.5/5 on customer reviews.

I cannot stress how important it so to read customer reviews. They will give you such good inside information that you usually cannot find anywhere else like if there is construction going on inside the hotel or right nearby. Other times they'll give you good tips about the hotel services, etc. Be sure to read the positive reviews and the negative reviews as well as the reviews of people who stayed there most recently. In the negative reviews, are people complaining about petty things or things beyond the hotels' control or are there serious flaws that should make you cross this hotel off of your list? If the hotel has good overall reviews but all of the ones recently are poor, did the hotel recently change management and become crap? Or are the older reviews negative but recently the hotel has made and effort to improve these things? It also helps to see how the hotels respond to the negative comments. This will tell you about the hotel management. Are they apologetic? Defensive? Arrogant?

Now, once you have a list of hotels in your price range, at the hotel class you want (I always recommend at least a 4 star hotel overseas), with decent reviews, I recommend one small step before checking out the hotels location. Trip Advisor will give you prices if you put in your travel dates, but they are prices provided by third party booking sites like hotels.com, and booking.com. Not that there is anything wrong with these booking sites (I've used them myself on many occasions), but they often post nonrefundable, super saver rates. This might be ok for you (I've booked the cheapest, nonrefundable rates before) but before I book that rate, I always go to the hotels' actual website to see what kind of rates they offer. They're almost never cheaper, but you can often get the same deal or for just few extra dollars you can have your pick of other options like free cancellation or a deal that includes breakfast or a king bed. This all comes down to your comfort level and what you're willing to pay for. I'll give you an example. When my husband and I traveled to Berlin in August 2013, we traveled with another couple. We agreed to stay at the Radisson Blu hotel in based on all of the aforementioned criteria including location (that I'll get to next). We found a super saver discount rate online that was non-refundable but it didn't guarantee the room type. It just said, "best available". This meant we couldn't choose the bed type, or really anything. After confirming that the entire hotel was non-smoking (because that would  have been a deal breaker for us) we decided to chance it and went with the lower rate. The couple that we traveled with, however, weren't as comfortable taking the risk. Rather than risk getting 2 single beds in a teeny tiny room, they paid a little bit extra (maybe $15-$20 more per night) for a guaranteed king deluxe room. As it turns out, we ended up in identical rooms and in this particular instance my husband and I made the better decision to save a few bucks and take a risk, but other times it might not have worked out that well. You just have to determine the worst case scenario and decide for yourself if you would be ok with that.

Finally and arguably most importantly, when picking a hotel it's all about location location location! Obviously an ideal location means different things to different people. When we traveled to Japan, we relied completely on public transportation, so it was very important to us that all of our hotels be within a 10 min walk of a major train station. On the other hand, when we traveled to Germany, we drove everywhere so our overnight stop in Nuremberg was outside the city center where parking was free and the rates were cheaper. In Paris, we opted for a small boutique hotel that was both within walking distance of the metro but also within reasonable (1-1.15 miles) walking distance to major sights like Notre Dame. Here are the key things to remember about location:

How are you going to get there? If by car, make sure the hotel has parking. In some cases when the hotel advertises parking, it's very limited so the parking space itself needs to be reserved in advance. If by public transport, make sure it's close to a station, so you're not schelping your bags halfway across town. If by taxi, really do your research on where to get one, and the legal rates. A huge foreign scam is to overcharge unsuspecting tourists for transportation.

What location means to you? Do you want somewhere within walking distance to things you're going to see? Do you want to save a few $$$ by finding something a little less expensive but further away from things? In Dubai, we chose a 5-star Hilton that was a short walk from the new metro. It was a little cheaper than the hotels right in the middle of the city, but since it was on the metro we thought the location would be ok. Boy were we wrong! The neighborhood was so scary and the metro while brand new and very clean, really wasn't convenient for sightseeing. We found ourselves taking taxis everywhere. Taxi's were cheap and plentiful, so it worked out, but lesson learned. Just because it was near public transportation didn't mean it was all that convenient. It also helps to know your destination. Dubai is not a walking city which we didn't realize at the time. Paris, on the other hand, is a easy walking city.

Bottom line, you can survive anything for a night. Right? Almost! When you get to your hotel, make sure that you feel safe. Safety above all else is the most important thing. Second, make sure that your room is clean enough. Always (and I mean ALWAYS) check the bed for bedbugs. It doesn't matter whether you're staying in a hostel or a 5-star hilton, bedbugs are a nightmare that could ruin your trip.  The best way to check for them is immediately upon arrival when your bed is still freshly made. Bedbugs like the dark, so pull off the covers and top sheet quickly and look as close to the bed as you can. Bedbugs are tiny and black and will scatter to find darkness the minute you lift the covers. They are very hard to see unless you can see them moving. If you even slightly suspect bedbugs, request another room immediately. Just because one room has them, does not mean the entire hotel has them. If your hotel room has them and you didn't notice, you'll start to see little bites on your legs. These will look very similar to mosquito bites only they will be scabs instead of bumps. If this happens to you, don't panic. The most important thing to do is get rid of them before going home. The last thing you want is to bring bed bugs back into your house (you'll need to get it fumigated). As painstaking as it might be, you'll need to wash everything before you leave, and find a way to clean your luggage. This is the absolute worst-case scenario. I have personally never found bed bugs in a hotel room (even the horrid hotel we stayed at in Copenhagen that had every other type of bug!).

That being said, my system isn't fool-proof. I follow my own rules for every hotel I book, and I am usually very happy or at least not surprised by the unpleasantries that I knew to expect from reviews. At the same time, I've read reviews, price compared, etc. and I've never been more appalled by the hotel we stayed at during our last night in Denmark. What can you do? If we stayed at that hotel for more than 1 night, I would have left immediately. If that happens to you, determine exactly what is bad about it and whether or not your can deal with it. Then as soon as you get home, hit the hotel review sites and tell the truth about your own experience to help unsuspecting travelers avoid making the same mistake.

In future posts when I get into some of the details about specific trips I've been on and cities I've visited, I'll be sure to give you an overview of the hotels we chose. In the mean time, I've rated almost all of them myself on trip advisor.

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

What to pack and how to pack it!

A lot of what goes into packing depends on what sort of transportation you will have at your destination, and how much traveling from hotel to hotel you’ll be doing while you’re away. Packing, in many ways, reflects the sort of traveler you are. If you intend on staying in one hotel for your entire trip, you might check that giant suitcase since you will only have to transport it to and from the airport. If you’re a city hopper like me, the smaller the bags the better. In my opinion, packing is all about maximizing options in the most efficient manner possible. 

I’m going to divide this post into two sections, “what to pack” and “how to pack” closing with a summary of my favorite baggage do’s and don’ts.

What to pack?

First and foremost (and hopefully most obviously), pack for the climate. Hot? Cold? Sunny? Snowy? Rainy? If you’re going on a ski holiday, skip the shorts and tank tops. No brainer, right? Right. But other things aren’t so obvious. Make a packing list keeping your destination in mind. Start thinking about what to pack as early as possible and keep your list somewhere handy so you can add to it at a moment’s notice. (A note on your smart phone is always handy if you have one.) You never know when you’ll be at the grocery store and suddenly realize that you’ll need to pack bug spray or a travel umbrella. Don’t risk forgetting by the time you get home. If you’re computer savvy, create a master pack list that you can reuse from trip to trip. Naturally you’ll tweak it as appropriate (example: my master pack list always had passports on it though I didn’t need to pack those when we flew to Florida last spring).  Having absolutely everything on one master list will come in handy over and over again.

What are the top things on my master pack list? Passports and color photocopies of your passports (at least 2 copies); leave the originals in a hotel safe and keep the copies in your purse (unless the country requires you by law to keep your passport on you (i.e. Singapore)). Medication: get one of those medicine dividers from walmart and put a couple of doses of over the counter meds just in case (tylenol, imodium, tums, etc). If you come down with a series illness, this won’t help you, but the single dose or two that you packed might come in handy until you can get yourself to a drug store to find more. Motion sickness medicine. Never challenge the strength of your stomach. You might have the stomach of a rock, but the combination of foreign food with a bumpy bus ride or riding backwards on a metro might be a deadly combination. Know yourself and be smart.

Shoes! You might be surprised when I tell you that everyone should pack 3 pairs. Yes, everyone! Men and women alike. This will also depend on the nature of your trip (don’t bring Uggs to the beach) but for the most part, I stick to my claim. Everyone needs to bring 1 sturdy pair of walking shoes (sneakers, hiking boots, etc. depending on your destination), 1 pair of dress shoes that you can still walk in (loafers, ballet flats, sandals), and 1 pair of flip flops (unless you’re going to a super cold climate with no chances of hot tubs, indoor pools, or spas!). I’ve taken this combination of shoes with me everywhere I’ve gone, and I’ve always had happy feet. You might think that dress shoes will just be a waste of space, but again, it depends on where you’re going and what you’re doing. I’m not the type of traveler that plans on doing anything fancy or formal, but sometimes a situation comes up that requires you to dress a little nicer than sneakers. Now if you’re traveling with your husband, boyfriend, brother, or other male companion and you’re thinking to yourself, “He has such big feet! All of those shoes are going to take up so much space!” I hear you friend! I do! I will cover that dilemma in “how to pack”.

Pack a trashbag. As of Day 1 on your trip, you will start accumulating dirty clothes. Trashbags are great for keeping dirty clothes away from your clean clothes. Pack your shoes in grocery bags. If you happen to get mud or gum or something gross on your shoes, have a way to separate them from the rest of your things. Pack 4-6 ziplock sandwich bags. Use these for your toothbrush, loose bar soap, razor, etc. You have no idea how handy these suckers are when you have to check out of a hotel right after showering and all of these things are wet.

One more thought on what to pack. Go easy on the toiletries. Remember that you can only carryon 3oz bottles and those larger liquids have to go in checked bags. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had bottles explode/leak while on the airplane. Bring the basics, of course: shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste, etc. Beyond that, keep it simple. Take bar soap instead of body wash. Take 3oz of your favorite styling product (if you absolutely have to!) and stretch it across your entire trip. Ponytails, braids, buns are your friend! Take one moisturizer if you have to. Skip the mouthwash and the hand sanitizer (though be sure to pack Lysol wipes...I'm serious! These are your best friend in a foreign public restroom!). Pack little or no makeup if you can. Your au natural self is beautiful!! Or, if you absolutely must pack makeup, I limit myself to travel-sized products that fit in a super small pouch. Have you ever gotten that "free gift with purchase" whenever buying makeup? Those are the ones I save for traveling. Bottom line, these types of things take up lots of space and have the potential for a spilling disaster!

How to pack?

A couple key thoughts. Leave your valuables at home. You might love that expensive watch or those diamond earrings, but losing them on travel would be awful. Not to mention flashy jewelry is a huge magnet for petty criminals. If you’re into fashion and trends, buy accessories where you’re going. How fun will it be to buy cute necklaces and scarves to wear while you’re traveling and then be able to tell your friends where you got them the next time they comment on how cute you look?

My biggest packing tip is “pack to trash”! This will help even the most disorganized pack-rat packers to save space. I have often finished packing and thought I had everything that I could possibly need with just enough room to close the zipper. Then my darling husband chimes in with, “hope you don’t plan on buying anything over there, ‘cause there’s no room to bring anything back.” Distraught yet wistful, I look up at him and ask, “Don’t you have any extra room?” Over the years, we have developed a fool-proof pack to trash system. Pack things that you will use/wear on your travels, and trash when you’re done. Pack old underwear and toss it as you wear it. Do the same with socks, undershirts, shoes! Ah ha! Here’s the big man feet shoe trick! On every single trip my husband and I have ever taken, he travels with 3 pairs and comes home with 2 pairs. By taking clothes, shoes, etc. that you plan to discard after wearing on the trip, you will instantly have lots of souvenir room. And we always comically take a “left behind” or “gone but not forgotten” photo of things we discard.

Gone but not forgotten! Big man shoes left behind for souvenirs!

Last but not least, my packing do’s and don’ts.

DO try if at all possible to NOT check luggage. I traveled to Japan for over 2 weeks with a small rolling suitcase and a backpack. We didn’t rough it on that trip by any stretch of the imagination. Checking luggage takes extra time and is very difficult on public transportation. In Rome we waited 2 hours for our checked bags due to a delay. What we didn’t realize then was how lucky we were to have only waited 2 hours. That same day the airport workers went on strike (very common in Europe) and some people went days without their bags.

DON’T pack essentials in your checked bags. If you do check luggage, be sure to have all of your medications, essential toiletries, official documents, money, and at least a change of clothes in your carryon. Some things you can buy anywhere, but you won’t easily replace your meds, cash, etc. if your checked bags get sent somewhere else by mistake.

DO put both carryon’s in the overhead compartment (as long as you’re not flying a discount airline that charges you for overhead space - yes they exist!). I know the airlines always say to put your larger item above you and put your smaller carryon under your seat, but ignore them. If you’re trying to travel with only carryon’s, do you really want to sit for a 7-14 hour flight with a backpack taking up your only leg room? When you get to your seat, pull out your book, ipod, snacks, or even a smaller purse to put in the seat-pocket or under your seat and stick the backpack up top. Hello leg room! (Shh! Don’t tell any flight attendants I just told you this!)

DON’T be afraid to re-wear clothes. If you won’t have access to laundry or don’t want to waste precious vacation hours doing laundry, don’t be afraid to wear things twice; it saves packing space! Don’t re-wear socks or underwear, but things like jeans and bras can easily be worn 3 times on a single trip.

DON’T forget that if you forgot to pack it, you can buy it there…most of the time. Foreign brands might be different and sound strange, but you can buy shampoo, toothpaste, soap, etc. everywhere. You might pay exorbitant prices for special things like suntan lotion or bug spray, so try not to forget those things, but it’s not the end of the world if you do.

Happy packing!!

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

What's Your Travel Style?

In order to ease your anxiety and get the most rewarding experiences out of your travels, it's essential to know what sort of traveler you are. There are many categories of travelers each with their own set of objectives. Lets explore some main ones, so you can see which category you fall into.

What is your main goal?
1. City Dweller? Park yourself in a single hotel for your entire trip and spend your days in one city submersing yourself in the arts and culture?
2. City Avoider? Rent a flat or a house in a small town with scenic countryside? Avoid cities and spend your time in smaller villages away from overcrowded tourist attractions?
3. Half and half? Spend half of your trip in one city and half of your trip taking short day trips outside the city?
4. One country per trip? Spent your time making sure you see the highlights of the entire country (if possible)
5. City/Country hopper? 1-2 days per destination with lots of driving, train riding, puddle jumping, etc.

I am personally #4 and #5. I didn't intentionally become like that, but the more I looked at the places I was going, the more I tried to maximize the area we covered in the amount of time that we had. It all started with Italy in 2007. The day we arrived, we drove north immediately out of Rome toward Tuscany. As I looked at the map prior to our departure, I had a train of thought that sort of went like this, "It's only about 3.5 hours from Rome to Florence (which is 1 hour from Pisa...hello, leaning tower!). Florence is only 3 hours from Milan. Milan is only 3 hours from Venice. Venice to Sorrento is 8 hours, but let's stop at Assisi in between. Sorrento is only 3 hours from Rome." And....our Italian circle became complete. While 3 hours of driving might seem like a lot, when it means you get the opportunity to visit so many amazing Italian cities, it became absolutely worth it for me. Also, consider the fact that most tourist attractions close around 5-6pm. At that time, you city-dwellers will take to the streets to sip on an adult beverage (or two), find a nice, relaxing dinner, and enjoy the sites and sounds of a foreign city at night. Me, on the other hand, having been up since 6AM in order to get to beat the crowds to a super touristy place (like the Colosseum), I am happy to bid farewell to a city, and embark on a 3 hour voyage. This gets me to my next destination by 9 or 10PM, which is still early enough to get a good night sleep before starting all over again the next day in a new place.

This same thing has happened to me again and again. Kyoto was only a 3 hour train ride from Tokyo. Copenhagen was only 6 hours from Berlin (which included an awesome boat ride). Paris is only a 2.5 hour Chunnel ride to London. My travel motto is, see everywhere once, before you see anywhere twice. If I'm only ever in these areas once, I want to see as much as I possibly can. I can sleep when I get home. Yes, I often need a vacation from my vacation, but it's a small price to pay for such a rewarding experience. I think the only time we ever "over did it" was in the summer of 2013 when we traveled to Denmark, Austria, and Germany all in one trip. In 16 days, we stayed in 12 hotels and drove 3,750 miles. It was amazing, but utterly exhausting. More on that trip in another blog.

What this post is meant to do is encourage you to think about what type of traveler you are. Does my 2 week Italian tour sound appealing to you? Or would you rather hunker down in Rome the whole time and visit Florence on a different trip? Or perhaps you wouldn't mind trying to see Rome and Florence in one trip, but save Milan and Venice for another time? My future blogs won't necessarily encourage you to exhaust yourself by traveling from city to city to city in one trip, though as I go into some of the details of my travels, I hope you will continue to discover your travel style.

The biggest question is this. There's a lot of world out there. Do you want to see a quick snapshot of a lot of it? Or do you want experience more in-depth portions of it at a leisurely pace?  Both is an ok answer too! :)

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Planning your Budget - Domestic vs. Foreign Travel

I've chosen the topic of budgets for this post because it really is the very first step you have to take when traveling. Traveling is expensive (compared to not traveling) and it takes time. If you're a timid traveler like me, the more planning and saving you do ahead of time, the smoother things will go on the trip.

I should start by saying that all of my planning, budgeting, etc. is for 2 people. My husband and I are a twosome, so that reflected in all of my facts and figures. We have, on occasion, traveled as a foursome and the biggest cost savings there has been on a shared rental car. But my budgeting methods can be applied if you're a solo traveler. More on that later.

When the hubs and I first got married in 2006 and began outlining the next several years, we knew that traveling was one thing we definitely wanted to do, but we proceeded (surprise surprise) with caution. As I've mentioned before, neither one of us are the backpacking sort, so we knew we would have to save our pennies in order to travel internationally in the fashion that we wanted. We initially planned on taking an international trip every other year, and a domestic trip in between. Except for a few oddball years this has worked out very well. Starting in 2000, here's where I've gone:

2000 - Scotland
2001 - Ireland
2005 - Guadeloupe & Martinique
2007 - Italy
2008 - San Fransisco and Yosemite
2009 - France & England
2010 - Alaska
2011 - Disney World & Las Vegas
2012 - Japan
2013 - United Arab Emirates (Dubai)
2013 - Germany, Austria, & Denmark
2014 - Georgia
2015 - Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore
2016 - Yellowstone
2017 - Ecuador, Galapagos, Peru
2019 - China

Our general rule of thumb is 1 week for domestic trips and 2 weeks for international trips. We've kept to this rule for every trip except for the UAE; we only spent a week there (which was plenty of time).

In terms of budget, I feel I need to define what that means for me since people often define it differently. When I set a budget, it's a limit. It's not a loose guideline that can be gone over. I am very conservative with my budget because I want to leave room for unexpected problems, pretty souvenirs, unplanned experiences, etc. My budget may seem high, so I'll be sure to point out areas to save depending on the type of traveler you are.

1 week domestic trip budget for 2 = $5,000
2 week international trip budget for 2 = $10,000

The factors that go into our budget are: flight, food, transportation (aside from the flight - i.e. rental car, trains, taxis, etc), lodging, activities, souvenirs, and a misc column. So, for a 2 week/14 day vacation, here's our budget breakdown.

Flight	$2,500.00
Hotel	$2,800.00
Food	$1,400.00
Transportation	$1,000.00
Activities	$1,000.00
Souvenirs	$800.00
Misc	$500.00
Total	$10,000.00

Flight costs are difficult to control. Everything depends on the time of year, the airport you're flying into, the day you book your travel, nonstop vs. connecting flights, etc. If you start planning a trip with the intent of going within 1-2 months, you're going to be at the mercy of whatever flights you can find within your budget. If you have a little more wiggle room, you can hunt around for the best prices/airlines, etc. That being said, I usually estimate $2,500 for 2 plane tickets always hoping to get a better deal (and I almost always find one!). Note that the biggest cost savings for international vs. domestic travel is airfare. Flights within the United States are significantly cheaper than travel outside the U.S.

For hotels, I always budget $200/night. This might seem high, but it depends on where you're going. Remember that a 4-star hotel in Europe is comparable to a 3-star in the United States. We always try to get a hotel for less than $200/night (and we're usually successful) so long as it meets our standards (air con if we're traveling in the summer, good reviews on sites like Trip Advisor, and location location location). The only place we ever spent more than $200/night for a hotel was in Venice. But since we undershot in other Italian cities, it balanced out.

For food, we budget $100/day for 2 people. We have never gone over this. In fact, I'm considering knocking this down to $50 or $75/day for us because we are cheap eaters. But if you're the type of traveler that enjoys local beverages and fine dining, $100/day might be better for you.

Activities depend on the city and this line item on the budget is the most fluid along with transportation. Train tickets and taxis are always a wild card, so you estimate high and see how it goes.

Souvenirs greatly depends on the traveler. Do you like to buy gifts for everyone and their brother while also coming home with costly trinkets for yourself? If so, you might want to budget higher.

Misc. is a catch all for things you don't expect. I always put things like ATM fees, foreign transaction fees, pet sitting costs, etc. into this category.

I know that $10,000 seems like a lot for a 2 week international vacation (and in all honesty, we've never actually paid more than $9,000 for a trip). The reality is that you can easily spend less if you're willing to settle for less. You can stay in cheaper hotels, eat cheaply, and follow internet itineraries that recommend free tourist attractions. But as I mentioned in my first blog, those types of things terrify me. I don't want to worry about searching my bed for bedbugs or question what part of the animal my dinner came from (though this is sometimes inevitable). I am a timid traveler and spending a few extra dollars on a trip can often make the difference between anxiety and comfort. Though let it be known that I am always on the hunt for a bargain, and in my next posts I'll give you my best planning tips for getting the best rates on flights, hotels, etc.

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler

Welcome to My Timid Travels!

Hello there! I am Foxy the Traveler. I used to call myself the Timid Traveler because when I first started traveling, the idea of leaving the comfort and safety of home terrified me. But the wanderlust within me overcame that timidity and I found that given the right circumstances, I was open to traveling anywhere. I love the idea of traveling around the world, seeing new things, tasting new foods, and experiencing new cultures.

I led a very sheltered life, and until my 20s, I had no understanding of life outside the United States except for a few magical weeks spent in Scotland and Ireland as a teenager. But those experiences of traipsing through ruined castles and seeing the Scottish Highlands made me excited enough to know that I wanted to someday travel to many more foreign destinations.

After college, I began traveling internationally (and domestically), and I haven't stopped. So far, I've been to places like Italy, Switzerland, England, France, Japan, the UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Fujairah), Denmark, Austria, Germany, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Ecuador, Galapagos, Peru, and China. I also write blogs occasionally about great sites to see right here in the USA (San Francisco, Alaska, Georgia, Colorado, Yellowstone, etc).

I do want to make something very clear about my travel style. I'm not a backpacker. Don't get me wrong. I have absolutely nothing against backpacking. I love the idea of cheap hostels, street food, budget/local transportation, spending months trekking from one city to another city while being submersed in local culture, but I don't like roughing it. I like privacy, security, comfort, and I don't mind paying a little extra for it. My vacations are limited to 1-2 week stretches, I really need to make the most of my travels and get the biggest bang for my buck.

So, if you are positively afraid of anything that will make you step out of your comfort zone yet you yearn to see the amazing sites of the world, this blog is for you! It doesn't mean that every day while traveling will be like a walk through Disney World (unless of course, you're GOING to Disney World). There is always uncertainty when traveling to any foreign country. The bottom line is...if I can do it, so can you!! Traveling used to terrify me but excite me at the same time. I overcame that fear and have seen some amazing things.

This blog series documents my travels and provides tips for planning, budgeting, packing, etc. Then as I plan for new trips, I will bring you along on my adventures while hopefully inspiring you to go on your own!

There is an amazing world out there! Don't let your fear stop you from seeing it!

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler