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Flaneurs at Europe Road Ways. The Car-Dan Tour Company flans. The Art of the Flaneur. .

2011-08-12T11:15:00.003-04:00

The Great Travel Focus

The Flaneur
How and Where the Most Important Experiences Happen.

Is that so?

Flan, the great key: Flan.
I flan, you flan, he-she-or-it flans,
We flan, you (pl) flan, they flan.

They what? They flan. FLAN. They peruse. Saunter. Whenever requirements and schedules loom, quashing the moment, go flan. Enrich thyself.

Say the flan starts, when it begins to rain during a planned route to The Required Cathedral. The Flan says: Wonderful What happens next.

Wonderful. An opportunity to flan elsewhere, than as planned.

Flan. Mimic, or be, the "disinterested, artistically inclined wanderer..." The flaneur. A flaneur is not someone who makes flans, although it could be. See those allusions and more at http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2004/08/12.html. The intentional lounge-about.

Dan Widing flans at Osnabruck, Germany

A flaneur, we now learn, is one who meanders, journeys without a map ordering destinations, as in Edmund White's Flaneur, A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris, 2001, see http://www.edmundwhite.com/html/flaneur.htm. He lived in Paris for 16 years, doing as the word suggests: the stroll, the loaf, the idle, giving over to "the spectacle of the moment." English needs that word. Circumnavigation according to whim, as a respected activity. A noble art. Freedom from the ought. View through the eye of a poet, perhaps. If travel generates ideas, the travel was successful.

Beaudelaire: wrong to include isolation, or alienation as necessaries in the mix. See Wordoftheday above.

The text is part of a three-volume series, a Bloomsbury series called "The Writer and the City."

Travel in Place; of Give the Gift of Travel. Living Without Fear. Can Fear Be Reduced.

2010-12-18T04:48:00.007-05:00

Boost Understanding.

A. Travel: Give travel to Others.

B. Do It In Place for Yourself. Give travel to yourself, locally in unfamiliar neighborhoods.
What can you learn by going for coffee in another's neighborhood.

See How.

A. Travel as a Gift

Give to the child, the grandchild, the graduate.

Give the gift of independence, trying something out. Are all our fears necessary? Can we give the gift of the "flaneur" experience, the going abroad, or into unfamiliar territory, to see what it is like, to see that we have similarities as well as differences, bridge cultural, and economic gaps.

1. Travel. Give it.

Do you have a graduate. A child in need of a boost. The gift of non-tour travel is a gift of experiences, and independence, but not things. See http://www.accumulatingmoney.com/spend-your-money-on-doing-things-rather-than-owning-things/.

Are things that important to our children's future?

The idea is viral. See http://www.experientia.com/blog/americans-increasingly-elevating-experiences-over-things/ Experiences are of more value to our children, and ourselves, over things.

How to put a value on independence from imposed fear. Learn for yourself what is worth, and not worth, "fear". Modes of travel address that.

Give the gift of independence, says Leon Logothetis in the Los Angeles Times. Enable a child (that one is an adult) to go off somewhere and let what happens happen, see http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-gift-20101219,0,2204867.story/

Dan Widing, Showing the Confidence Result of Fearless Travel Skills

2. If you merely give "independence," however, think many, you have no Thing to show for it. Life is things. What if we leave our children no "things".

Nuts.

If you give a child or grandchild something to put on a shelf, or have a financial advisor manage, the child has lost.

No "thing". as a gift, is not "nothing."

How can that be? How can paving a way, making a thing possible, have value.

Use the sport of Curling is a model.

The team requires some to start the rock in motion, and some other people to help sweep the path ahead.

Can your contribution to a young person, or anyone else, to travel, put you in the position of sweeper -- without which contribution the rock would stop.

See http://www.curlingbasics.com/; or http ://www.curlingrocks.net/ Watch it at http://ww.youtube.com/watch?v=dXeXNHRPMMI

B. Travel locally.

Don't stop with encouraging others to travel.

Do it for yourself.

Does travel on one's own, and its risks and challenges, produce more integrated information in the brain, as compared to, say a life of shopping and keeping up.

Does more integrated brain information "stay" longer, in times of mental deterioration. See Sizing Up Consciousness as Bits of Information, NYT 9/21/10, Science section, article by Carl Zimmer about Dr. Giulio Tononi's research.

3. Aging.

Can you assist your own caretaker in advance of the need? By what you do for your own brain and memories now? See http://www.seniorhomecareinformation.com/dementia/best-mind-stimulating-activities-for-those-with-dementia

4. If travel itself is not feasible, do it in place.

Take a bus or walk for a day in an unfamiliar ethnic area.

Stop. Get out. See a coffee shop. Go in. Don't be foolish, start with a reasonable comfort level, and research what kinds of signals and steps will tend to make you safe, see ://www.livestrong.com/article/14212-don-t-be-a-victim/ Simple steps about your car and being purposeful help empower, convey and bring about relaxed confidence.

Go to an ethnic neighborhood. Independence Thwarts Fox. Would your world-view change, would you spend so much time listening to Fear and Dump Talk if you actually found you enjoyed yourself more by getting out.
Would our democracy function, if people actually "traveled" to their own inner city or an ethnic enclave wherever; and had lunch there.
Give yourself a task: paper, three lines, and you are to put on each line what someone there looked like (not necessarily a name) and where they were raised. That's all. That's a start in communication. Fox and other fixed worldview purveyors: opiners depend on dependent people. It would be out of business if their audience went abroad, no tours, no dogma on how to interpret everything, but found they could vet the world themselves.

Go to a mosque, a synagogue, any other religious shrine or institutional place of worship.
Independent assessment thwarts legislators projecting causes of problems on others. There is a mosque near you. There will be, we have found, people there to help you feel comfortable, and let you know the customs. If everybody went to one mosque, and one synagogue, and one or more other shrines and talked and asked questions, would negative stereotypes diminish even a little.

For companionship, take, perhaps a still child-child, or a differ-abilities adult child.
A person with Down Syndrome, for example, as we do.What abilities are there that just need a sweeper in front. What would happen to the Fear being spread about so freely these days if people challenged the idea that the world is to be feared. Travel where you are planted.

Fear the world? No. Explore it. Glenn Beck stimulates the amygdala. Is that proven? Do you have to take it?

How about that. See http://www.npr.org/2010/12/17/132141793/living-without-fear.

Curling: An Olympic sport, see

For each one take one (as in a trip to a new place, even close to home), see each one teach one, Frank Laubach, theology perspective, at ://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=43; and literacy focus at ://www.hermes-press.com/laubach2.htm/

Does living in heightened awareness enhance consciousness? Travel, Curling, Aging and Actualizing. Choose Independence over Dependence. Boost your child. Travel in Place: Go Local To Start.

Links

2010-10-04T15:48:00.001-04:00

EYKVW7HRE5VM

Chain-Saw the Guide Books - Regional Travel

2010-08-16T14:15:00.003-04:00

Traveler's Guide to The Axe.
Reduce the Bulk of the Guidebooks

Guidebooks are heavy. Too heavy. Regional travel, going to multiple countries, adds to the carry-on. Solution: The Great Chop. The Axe. And plastic bags with zippers and rubber bands inside..

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Axe, Aigen, near Rohrbach, Austria, Axe thrown by St. Stephen (not this one) to locate a church site

Step one. Cut up the books.

Separate out the countries (as in Scandinavian guidebooks that cover Norway, Sweden and Finland); or, if you are going to Northern Germany and still have the book from going to Southern Germany, slice out the south and leave it home.

Find your big serrated kitchen knife and saw those books right down the binding. Make piles. Denmark here, Sweden there, Northern Germany there.

Go ahead. Saw-saw. Unnnh. Saw-saw. Unnnh. Saw-saw. Unnnh. Saw-saw = Ahhhh. Your lumbar region will be grateful you did.

If you are in love with the big intact picture-y heavy glossies, just be prepared to carry them.

Step two. Clip the book remains back together with a big metal office clip and a rubber band. Then bag them.

To each country baggie, add the country maps.
If you got an advance ferry reservation (some delays are not worth it), make a copy and put that in there, too.
Have extra baggies so you can jam all the receipts in there also. Throw out no receipts. None.

Sasha and Michele - One Parent One Child. Benefits of Travel. No Western White House.

2010-08-08T10:43:00.012-04:00

The Value of a Trip with a Child
Benefits of One Parent, One Child Travel
Consider it in the Entire Budget

Here: No Western White House saves taxpayers a bundle

How to justify the expense of taking one child on a trip. Isn't that a bit much? Not if you think about it, do more than react without careful thought. Consider the Spain Trip 2010. Sasha and Michelle. One on One, even with Friends. Looking at budgets, pro's and cons, as any family must. Conclusion: Well done. Cheer the timing, place, manner and means.

Their family: Context: Michelle Obama is in Spain with Sasha. Some disapprove and say that is too much a luxury for a wife and one child. However, consider: This is a bargain vacation compared to a Western White House. And the elder daughter is already at sleep-away camp, and the President is busy. Put the trip in perspective, as you would with your own family. What other expenses can you forego, or have your foregone, in order to make this possible.

For American taxpayers, it cost taxpayers $225,000 per trip to Crawford, and how many trips were there a year? See ://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2010/07/rs-_obama_spain.htm/

Think what we save because the Obama's do not compel us to support a Chicago White House. See ://www.westernwhitehouse.org/. "Armed to the teeth?" And $225,000 per trip - lovely Crawford TX? See ://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2010/07/rs-_obama_spain.html/

Michelle and Sasha with friends, and the friends are all paying their own way, in Spain. Even with friends around, the focus for Michelle is on one child instead of two, and it is often appropriate to do things separately. Then do something next time with the other child. One parent, one child. Good idea. And an exciting location.

Bilbao, Spain, Art Museum, from behind. Who's creeping up?

Resentful critics of someone else enjoying something? frozen in mindset. Sibenik, Croatia.

Going with one child, and not taking even the spouse, is a new idea for many. Try it. See ://www.takingthekids.com/Blogs/EileensBlog/The-Obamas-and-mother-daughter-trips.aspx/; and ://community.todaymoms.com/_news/2010/07/28/4770552-michelle-obama-is-right-take-kids-on-individual-vacations/

1. Time your trip when they are well mobile, and curious.

Kids grow. Take them when they are ripest for the experience -before peer groups take over, and all that.
Can you wait several years and still get the same trip? Not long. FN 1

Cultural exchange. The Dracula Club, Bucharest

2. Place. Perfect.

Spain's places and history and variety - wonderful. And its issues are our own - economics, the place for minority populations, multiple traditions, cultures. And the fun. Don Quixote and Carmen and Sultans and Basques and Pilgrimage sites. If you choose one country in Europe to see, see Spain . Hope you get to try the braised pigs' ears. A benefit of one parent one child travel is freedom in eating. Free to try without a predictable Ew-w-w-w-w-w from too many other people. Bring home some recipes.

3. We spend our money better on memories than things, once there is enough to keep you going at home.

Comparing alternate choices for spending:
Taxpayer Perspective on Costs: Prefer a Spain and other vacations vs. other presidents' duplicative and egotistical insanity of a second White HouseThis is not a new idea - just an under-covered one - see ://www.sodahead.com/united-states/bush-spends-millions-of-taxpayer-money-to-go-to-texa-camp-david-kennebuckport/blog-342631/ All that wiring.

Why not recoup Crawford for use as the New Guantanamo? There are always ways.
Critics of this trip? Maureen, you know nothing this time of what you speak. And that hair is so yesterday. That's a joke, Maureen. You look lovely, as do I.

Stonehenge. The Attitude.

4. Who go "foreign"?

The best way to vet your own perspective, if it interests you to check things out, is by changing your looking post. And you as a parent may well be able to do it, too. Even if you are of moderate means. If you are wealthier, don't gripe when you choose to put your own priorities elsewhere than in being actually with a child on your own, say you choose a McHouse or a McCar. Michelle has the right idea.

Foreign can be cheaper than at home, except for the airfare perhaps. Go by budget allocation, if you can. Of course, any trip is discretionary and other expenses may have to come first. But many parents who tut-tut at the cost of a president's family going to a foreign country could allocate their own budgets to have one parent take one child abroad. Go! Just to see it, and feel part of the bigger world, and have a ball. Just trade off the bigger car, the overnight camp, whatever - going to a foreign country is manageable, barely - depends on family priorities - with belt-tightening elsewhere.

5. American Values - weigh, balance, consider, decide

Travel: Learn about Diseases

Give a child a sense of Freedom
Freedom from other people's roles and their views of ours being imposed upon us.
Freedom to take a child and relate on our own: even with a horde of photographers, there is alone time
Could you do it? Michelle's idea may work for some. Just look at your choices, and see what choices you really have. FN 2

Contemplative time abroad puts issues at home in perspective. Do we really need to get into others' personal lives? Offer a child contact with real other people, regular residents in other countries, other population groups, religions, communities; free of one's own group's pressures. Start travel early? That's when kids learn. Start kids in global cultures as early as the gun people start guns early.

Time passes.

...........................
FN 1 In our family, we didn't think of trips like this until our son was grown. But our son has special needs, and going abroad with him is like going abroad with a far younger person than his years, every year. And is it fun?

Dan meets James Joyce, Pula, Croatia

Need you ask?

Are we jeopardizing our own financial future? Sure, if you think that "jeopardy" means not being able to maintain what we used to do without thinking when I was working. We just can't now, and so we don't. Some doing without is not jeopardy. We'll get along. Fine. Drive that car until it dies. Great. When jeopardy does knock, as with people who already are in real jeopardy, we will recompute.

Meanwhile, we favor every tax or other break possible for people in marginal or middle situations, a special tax deduction every time they do something directly with, or provide a talent or cultural enrichment for, their children. You figure out how to draft it. If you ain't marginal and are something at middle or a little over, don't complain, and pay up so others can keep their children above the margin. Their kids are our kids.

FN 2 You have choices in how to get somewhere, if you decide you can possibly go and be reasonably responsible on all fronts. The Misery Index is too high for so many that this idea of travel is not intended to diminish that, see ://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/08/05/10-worst-places-to-live/ So, if you can, and prioritize for it, go this way: Cheap. Economy, compact rental car, no reservations for hotels or ferries, stay where you find and that may be a pensione or small place. A big hotel is but not by choice. We stay there because it is 7PM and we are tired and this one is right by the big square, or the flight out is 6AM and we need to be near the airport. Eat street food at the vendor carts, or pub food (huge portions), or smaller bistros, sometimes places with tablecloths, but that is to do fancy for fun.

Recurrent thrift in food and lodging. And fraud.

2009-09-26T17:24:00.008-04:00

Saving money abroad.
Watching out for fraud.
Condensing Baggage

Travel hazard.
Fraud, and paying necessary and avoiding unnecessary expenses
The Parking Ticket.

Small economies will be offset by the fraudulent additions to your credit or debit cards you use when you travel abroad, but you may feel better about them We found these: we are just back from Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein and Northern Italy, that additional region now added to our earlier southern-focused Italy Road Ways.

I. First, the frauds:

The multiple swipes game. There may the vendor that says the first swipe of your card, even the second, did not go through; then you find two or three expenses reported on your credit bill, instead of one. Leave if the first swipe does not go through.
Double parking ticket collections. First, pay your bills. We believe in obeying a country's laws and if you get surprised by one (an invisible claimed pay station around the corner from your parking line), so be it.

Our parking ticket required payment in Swiss Francs. We had those, and sent them, with photocopies and certificates of mailing.
We did not, however, pay for a return receipt (do that). The rental car company says no sign of it (check the mail room pockets, please). The requirement of cash means they can collect for a parking ticket, but may not pay it to the local police, and you get the second bill from the police, with a penalty.
Solution: authorize your credit card company to accept a charge up to a certain amount, and no more, allowing for currency differences from the source that you name; then give the credit card information to the source. With your "stop" on the amount to be accepted, you are protected from any further amounts on it.
We provided for a "no Europe" stop on all our cards when we returned; and this added one should work.

II. Second, the economies.

Switzerland car-picnic site. Wallensee. Near Alpine house, with porch with teen drummer at the corner there. Ba da Boom bip bip beedy swish bang.

1. Car-picnics.

Do not underestimate the freshness, taste and quality of gas station sandwiches in Europe. Try some. We found coldcuts to lox, egg and tomato, and the meats have none of the gummy hardfat armorall greasing up the surface. The breads were crusty and tender.

Fanta. Try their soft drinks. This soft drink formula over there only has 93 calories per bottle, not our 150 or so that is common in our soft drinks. Tastes tart, but delicious and gives some fizz.

Dan Widing with car-picnic: 93-calorie Fanta and gas station sandwich, near Wallensee, Switzerland

2. Stay with Starters on the dinner menu.

All you need to do is stay alive until breakfast. Add something for reasonable quality of life, and enjoy the starters. Some "starters" are platter size. We avoided fancy restaurants, and mostly liked the pubs and pub menus.

3. Eat a big, big breakfast.

It costs (say $10 added to a good hotel bill for each person, folded into the room rate but avoidable if you ask). But it costs $3 for a cup of coffee anyway, plus whatever else in a bakery you find, and you won't find cooked eggs or the buffet with cereals and good stuff out on the street. You may save some money eating out, but you lose time. Splurge. Hotel breakfasts win. We do not hoard for lunch. Enough is enough

4. GPS. And Youth Hostels.

Get a listing of the youth hostels in your country (Switzerland: Schweizer Jugend-herbergen, Schaffhauserstrasse 14, Postfach, CH-8042Zurich. Phone (add the US code) +41 (0)44 360 14 14 . Fax +41 (0)44 360 14 60. You don't have to be a youth.

Then take your GPS to find them. We found they charged in Switzerland about $35 per person. Go for a room with more capacity for late-comers, and the price goes up.

Sadly, ours worked for only a few days. Bad rental car for that purpose. The connection in the lighter outlet in the rental car gave out. Thanks, Hertz. Inspect much?

Be sure to specify a working lighter connection. If you prepay the car, however, you get a better price and may preserve a chance of some recoup for flaws. Too many previous renters doing what we wanted to do - recharge shavers, camera batteries and use a GPS. Back to the converter.

5. Inexpensive pensiones.

We wanted to plug in the address for any place that a guide book or hostel list suggests at an inexpensive price. A GPS will also help locate business traveler hotels. We like Ibis. They are everywhere, at airports and major interchanges especially. About $150.00 per night. Small economies add.

6. Baggage carry-on strategy. Lightening.

Needed: the guidebooks for three countries. Needed: wide range of climate clothing. Alps to hot. Take one of each kind of onion-layering. No-one cares what you wear.

Economize on nightwear. In case the WC is down the hall, take no usual dedicated silly jammies. Take a pair of light flats as slippers and going down the hall, and for the plane.

Sleep in a substantial-fabric black T-shirt dress. I have an ancient Jockey. Sleep in it, and go down the hall anytime and look dressed. Add a belt and feel swanky for evening dinner - never did that, but could have. For freshening up at dinner, I just take a dedicated white shirt. Just keep up with the laundry. Back seat great for drying.

Best guidebook types: The glossy paper ones with pictures, like DK, are heaviest, but most useful for us in figuring where to go. We used the wordy and pictureless Lonely Planet type once we were there, and added a Rick Steves type for the walking tours and detail, but you get fewer topics.

Lots of weight there. And there is the need to organize maps, daily stuff for the back seat, foul weather gear, once you have the car.

7. Baggage condensing.

Russian doll routine. Put additional smaller bags in larger bags to get there, and then have the additional storage for the trunk.

Combined daily wear for two into one small duffel (a fold-away, snuck into the bottom of the backpack), and leave the rest overnight with a prayer in the trunk. Clear out all traces of tourist from the car, and hope that the mere rental license plate will not lure a thief. Years ago we were frenetic about removing everything every time. Not any more. Just take what you can't replace.

Luggage Array, economy flights, carry-ons

8. Flight strategies.

You are allowed
a) a bigger bag for up top (the backpack),
b) one smaller for under the seat - find a shoulder cross-the-body one so it stays on your shoulder when you carry it all (do like Russian dolls with any smaller bags for maps later); and
c) a third handbag for trips to the loo, your blinders and earplugs. Dan prefers only two carryons, I add the shoulder compartmented handbag just to have it once there.

Travel for No Return: The Statistical Side of Planning

2009-07-26T09:55:00.009-04:00

Prepare for the worst.
What if you don't come back?
Death planning and the Post Mortem Sorters

Did you ever think,

As the....

Imagine the unimaginable. You die. Fuss? No. Plan? Yes. Simply plan what you can for yours, and move on with your other decisions. Death planning. Go ahead. Say it. And now this: the Post Mortem Sorters. The Sorters are coming.

Sapinta, Romania. The Merry Cemetery: Firing Squad

Some people don't have the chance to plan. See these carved wooden headmarkers Sapinta, Romania - called the "Merry Cemetery" - and it shows how each person went. Most carvings show sad scenes - here a firing squad, there a child looking up in alarm with an auto approaching, there a sickbed. Others are simple depictions of the person's occupation - here a butcher in his shop, there a woman, sewing.

Your marker may not lay out how you end, but you can at least be remembered for not burdening those remaining, more than the situation already does.

Regardless, it should be part of your trip planning.Small checklist here, to be added to and revised:

1. Your will.

2. Tidy your bureau drawers and closets and pitch the worst. Find something embarrassing, etc? Out it goes.

3. Put all odd things in piles of the same kind of thing, to make it easier for the sorters even if you did not know what to to with the stuff.

4. Credit card and bank account protection.

A house organizer notebook - lay out bank accounts and numbers; lay out each credit card held, and its number and the phone number to reach the company; or at least have that information out and ready for review fast.
Pay up the credit cards if you can, and prepay what you can on each credit card, in case a payment comes due while you are away or before you get organized when you get back. Citicards will return to you an excess payment (they want you to be late) when they realize you overpaid, but American Express will hold it as a credit. So pay Citicard its excess just before you go. It usually takes them a month or so to see that there is an excess amount in there.

5. Housekeeping

A reminder list for daily, weekly, monthly stuff - those left here may well not remember to water the plants.
Financial periodic payments - lay out what to expect in the way of property tax, insurances, etc.
Where is the main water cut off, the electrical cut off, the utility rooms, any odd things about your house another person might not know
Laundry - reminders about how to use and where to turn the water off. Expect who is left to be somewhat incapacitated by the news of your demise, and this helps whoever comes in to help
Who is the electrician, the cable guy, who ya go'n' call.

6. Instruct who is left here (assuming your cards are joint) to suspend all bank or commercial credit cards you took with you immediately upon your demise or incapacitation. Your cards will repeat will be misused. Bank on it.

7. List anything left undone that you can think of. Reminders about anything.

8. If you are traveling with someone with disabilities, and you are a full or partial guardian, so that there is a state-appointed monitor of any kind as to planning or care, confer, and obtain permission to go, even if not legally required. No activity anywhere has guarantees of no harm - even softball - but have a backup for your own common sense. Great experience with a series of past trips, of course, as we have had, removes some variables, but never all. Change, change.

None of this is prescience. It is common sense.

http://www.europeroadways.com/

2009 Trip Pending. Hand-Span Non-Plans in the Bucket. Guides.

2009-07-25T10:51:00.010-04:00

How Much Can You Really Cover
Use your handspan as the measure, on the same all-Europe map each time.

Scoping out a trip II.
Update for 2009 - and Disease Planning.
The Frugal Fashionista Shares Tips

Here: the informal steps at home, a recap and update on how we plan; and resources for assistance abroad when trouble strikes. We are anticipating going to Switzerland, Austria and Northern Italy, but plans can change. Wherever, check for travel warnings, hazards related to specific governmental instabilities and whether the State Department is in a position in a given country to assist a traveler in trouble. Swine flu. Think of it. Then go anyway, if you choose. Note that you will not get medical treatment through an embassy or consulate. Get your own treatment/evacuation insurance and drive carefully.

Assuming no swine flu, follow along, and find the serious resource list for epidemics and disasters at the end.
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1. Area. The Handspan Guide to Scope of Trip.
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Take a AAA planning map of Europe.

Those have route numbers, but little else. Take an average adult hand with fingers tight together and out. Note fixed handspan. Lay handspan on AAA map. We can do a handspan in two weeks, with days before and after for the travel. Say, 14 nights on the loose. Put handspan with heel on Geneva, as this year's arbitrary but central landing and leaving point. Aim hand directly east, cover Switzerland, and find Graz, Austria, at the outer end, perhaps Zurich to the north, dip into Northern Italy south, and enjoy all the Alps you can find. Handspan for scope.
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Aim hand directly south, cover part of Switzerland, and find Marseilles at the outer end, with Provence, and Northern Italy on the way back to Geneva. If you like runs, see if there is a ferry spot available to Corsica, then do that and add a big run back with fewer stops in Italy on the way.
Dan is considering all this, plus variations. It does not matter to me.
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2. What to see. The Red Pencil Guide to Destinations, Attractions.

Tailor your maps, and use your guidebooks to highlight.
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Which map. We like the Hammond-type attractions maps with the sights indicated for day-to-day driving, not the AAA route numbers maps that we use only for when we need route numbers. Dan has travel books, and is putting postits on each page he likes. Then he circles where they are in red pencil on the attractions map. Wherever there are the most red circles, we aim there. Easy.
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3. Routes. The Weather Guide to Direction. Computers.
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Weight to weather. If we land in Geneva in the rain, we probably head north to Zurich over flatter land. If we land in the sunshine, get the Alps when you can. It does not matter with no reservations anyway.

Google maps, for those carrying computers (we don't - we use public internet cafes or the hotel business center, if there is one) has a new feature. Search for driving directions. See Google maps. Enter your country, and get a route from A to B. Then, when you see the weather, or decide to do a side trip, click and drag from any point on the route to the new attraction, or to anywhere not in the Alps, for example, if there are a series of storms coming.

The new routing comes right up. We will have an old GPS (easier to conceal, less space, see #4 here) and plan to use it for alternate routing.

People with iPhones can do that click and drag with google maps in the palm of their hands. We, even if we wanted to spend the money, are concerned about using fancy gadgets abroad, where others can see. Too much of a lure for someone seeing us merrily at it at some place, and then following us to get it. We are not paranoid, just do not want to attract any attention at all. We did lose our luggage in Blarney's parking lot several years ago, and have no illusions about everybody being other-directed.

Back to computer directions at google maps. Check your point A to point B on the Terrain tab. Click on terrain and you see exactly where the elevations are.
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4. The Terrible Departure Guide to Exits: Additional Electronics.
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We always have several terrible departures per trip, where we can't figure out how to get out of the town, and go in circles. Or we are in endless suburbs trying to find the old town. This time, we are taking a GPS - ordinary lap variety, to be kept well concealed at all times, with no devices on the windshield. We understand we can download Europe on our old TomTom. Why not. Otherwise, we st2009 and all is well. Less money, same great spirit to go, swine flu hovering but early fall will be better than later, we think. So, we are off. Just about.
.
5. The Frugal Fashionista Guide to Carry-Ons.
.
Other years: To avoid checking luggage through, Dan has a backpack, I have a backpack that is just a duffle with shoulder straps. All floppy, no frame. Can jam in anything. Jam in another floppy duffle for the car trunk. For under the plane seat: Take a small soft tote, put your handbag in it along with your other toys and books, carry the tote as your handbag. Some planes even permitted an under-seat tote as well as a handbag on your lap, under the seatbelt. Clothes: We did one set to wash, one set to wear, one set for spare. And then a few things with color, even a white, not just the black and tan I live in, and something for a change at the end of a dusty day, like a boring skirt or additional pants. Shoes for wet, shoes for dry, and silly flats to double as slippers to rest the feet. First aid, extras, lots of room. Jam it in above the seat.
.
This year: No checking through. So skip any additional clothes. Depend on the underseat tote-handbag duo arrangement. Airlines are tough now on carry-ons, so we are cutting back even more. We used to be able to wail our way on board with something a little bigger than the model shape at the airport. Now, not even trying. One set to wear, and one set to wash. Nobody cares anyway. But still that something for the end of the dusty driving day. A freshen-up. And the same shoes as before. Actually, we are wearing the same stuff we wore years ago - just find it and stick it in again.

DK glossy books are too heavy. Wish they went with paper covers. We use ours - not for show a home.

Now Dan is looking at Cathar country. Next year, that and the Pyrenees, perhaps.

6. Travel hazards. U.S. Department of State

Back to how to weigh hazards. Find travel advisories or travel warnings through the State Department site as a start, at ://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.html/ Criteria for the list:

the country is dangerous or unstable, and has been for a protracted period of time
the United States cannot assist travelers in trouble because of lack of consulate or embassy there, or because of a drawdown in staffing

Other topics: International Travel, ://travel.state.gov/travel/travel_1744.html/ Some menu selections:

Pandemics, health, think Swine Flu, at ://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/health/health_1181.html/ See also the Centers for Disease Control at ://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/. Find the latest on H1N1 (swine) and its Novel H1N1 combining avian, pig, and human things, ://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/content/outbreak-notice/novel-h1n1-flu-global-situation.aspx/ See the travel health kit there at ://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/content/pack-smart.aspx/ No room for clothes.
Financial scams, including "emergency" requests for help for an American in distress, at ://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/financial_scams/financial_scams_3155.html/ Expect your card numbers to be duplicated, keep all receipts, alert your card company as to countries planned (they may freeze the card if not notified in advance and charges appear) and then change all your numbers as soon as you get back.
Maritime piracy, at ://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/piracy/piracy_4420.html

8. Travel records - assume all disappear

Go to your contacts section for your email
Set up something innocuous that looks like a person so only you can find, and put in the notes there some coded form of your credit card numbers so that they do not read as credit card numbers (be creative) and phone numbers to the companies, your passport number, again coded for your use only, etc.
If the issue was theft, go to the local police immediately and document in a report what was stolen. That police report helps support your request to get back in the US without a passport. Get a certified copy of the police report, contact number and person there. Then contact the embassy-consulate.
You can even, if you blog, set up a blog that only you can access (restrict the permissions to the writer and that is you), and scan in a misleadingly titled post there your information and pictures of your credit cards and passport. More online access.
If you lose everything, you go online as a start back to sanity. Travel distress resources. Start your checklist.

Swine flu, the Trip Monster?

http://www.europeroadways.com/

When Down is Up. Modified Relationship Roles; Table the FUD

2009-01-03T16:20:00.008-05:00

Take your child abroad. Your child may surprise you. A zillion plus one abilities! offset by one commonplace disability. Big deal. Disability nuts.

(Zillion Abilities + One Ability)
- One Disability
Zillion Abilities

Down Syndrome.
Now, that is an Upper.
Dan opens doors in every way.

Dan Widing, Antwerp docks, Pan-Earth All Cuisines Restaurant

Two to Go: Roles on the Loose
Travel with Disabilities

Here is a small essay on how we travel with a son with disabilities. The conclusion will be - it depends on the "disability" and the person.

The caution is this: If non-disabled people can't put in perspective the fear of foreign, our children with disabilities won't either.

So, use your head, but do as you like. Go down to the docks where the merchant marine real world lives, for example, and see who is there. Watch and watch out some more, but then start seeing, talking. And find a menu with comfort home food from anywhere. Fear, uncertainty and doubt. The great restrictors.

Fear, uncertainty and doubt. The ultimate in propaganda techniques. See FUD at http://www.cavcomp.demon.co.uk/halloween/fuddef.html/. Use of FUD keeps people from even considering the merits.

FUD pushers are wrong in politics, and in travel. Put merits and analysis first. Putting FUD first restricts thought - perhaps that is why it is so successful in keeping people in line. Can we find out that fear of "foreign" loses its hold when you've seen that there are people over there; and that you, without a safety net, and not hunkered behind the barrier of a bus, were welcomed. Welcome to the Pan-Earth All Cuisines Restaurant. Then back down the other docks to where the old Norwegian cruise ship is permanently docked as a floating hotel - a Flotel.

Dan and friend, Martinskirche, Linz, Austria

Watch the Role Changes
.

How we do it as a partial family, and why:

Philosophical topic: Why travel with one parent, one child, rather than with the whole family.

Know your child. This approach works best from the start where a child has

curiosity,
enough flexibility to take changes in setting in stride, and
ability to fit behaviorally into travel mode where strangers are all around, all the time.

Dan here is now adult, and has Down syndrome, but highly responside. He can and will do most anything. The rest rests on the caregiver. Any parent can choose to expand a child's horizons or not, many can do that with college, or the child can do it on his own, and we see travel as Dan's college equivalent. At a small fraction of the cost, with economy travel and compact rent-a-cars and eating and sleeping wherever. And with bonuses for us: his increased independence, interest in world affairs - who's first to get the paper - and the library - and ease with people.

1. Regular family travel.

Exhausting. Too many chiefs.

Family travel reinforces preexisting roles: who is the parent, who the child, which children conflict, where are the buttons to push. Wearing. Age brackets equal too many variables:

agendas,
abilities,
interests,
fatigue-patterns,
tolerances for uncertainty and spontaneity

Family travel limits possibilities. How to

find a place to sleep for more than two, at the last minute
dash somewhere to get in before it closes
eat local and be happy with what arrives
stop and chat with someone local

2. Modified relationship role travel. Surprising.

Flip the child role into the adult in how the two of you interact, discuss, plan. A dance floor.

Swans, Poland. Travel in pairs.

Our modified relationship travel sets one adult with one child.

We travel as two, either Dan and me, or Dan and his Dad.

Dad likes plans. So they do things that way, in the US usually.

Dan and I go farther afield and don't plan. We even have a song about who are we. Hey, Dan, who are we? We are the Car-Dan Tour Company. Ba-da-bing.

The roles change immediately, whether Dad's way or ours. We are two adults on the road.

For Dan and me, decisions are pooled, any time a decision does not require an immediate heavy hand judgment call for safety.

For as many decisions as possible, Dan has the last say. Which way to go on this unmarked crossroads? That way! And we're off. Let the consequences fall as they may, including a U back to where we once were. What to eat on this unknown menu? The fourth down this time? Fine. Waiter?

Dad likes to know where he is going, so they stop more for directions, and call ahead for sleeping. That also works if you have the patience for it, and don't mind spending the time.

3. Travel as an economics course.

Part of the planning is looking hard at exchange rates, budgeting. Dan is part of that. With costs in Europe so high in 2008, and finances tanking here, we did a smaller road trip to and wandering around Quebec. We have hopes for 2009 abroad, but that depends on currencies.

4. The magic of a twosome.

The wisdom of two's. You would hardly believe how many welcoming smiles we get - every country. From the most rural Romania, a village tavern where a Down young man and his parents were eating; to Madrid.

We see what changes this direct experience approach had with Dan. Dan has become a man of confidence with interesting tales to tell. See Europe Road Ways, Hub. Where did Great-Grandma come from. He now knows. He has been on his own in cities in many ways, has street-smarts. Anything can happen, but we do our best to gauge what is feasible.

Vienna street scene, with Mozart and Dan

See him now. Down Syndrome on the Move. This may be the most amenable disability for travel, but that may be because we know it best. Dan now knows the places on screen when he goes to the movies, he wants to see the news, and is eager to talk with anyone about where he's been.

The few bad apples we did find, as anywhere, didn't leave a bad taste for long. FUD. fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. In anything, find out for yourself, within reason, and let your child see you finding out, and making decisions as you go. Don't let them tell you what to fear and what not. See Hello, Fodder, Propaganda Study.

Recommendation for a start this way.

Start with Ireland. Food similar, language fine, different side of the road, but so many castles all around, less trodden than England or Scotland. Take one kid to one country. And the next year, the other kid to another country. Skip the camp. See castles, and Cromwell's cannon. Then go further afield.

Next trips. Regret. The destruction of Iraq. The lack of safety now in the Middle East for Americans, anyone. Yemen. A dream now. The tablets, the parchments, the lands of Eden. History anywhere, tenuous. Barbarians do it through the centuries.

Salute to Ali in our town, who owns the coffee shop and plans to return for a visit to Yemen this month. Say hello from people of good will here.

Swansongs.

Maybe imposed by conditions nonetheless. Schwanengesang, see Schubert at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwanengesang; or ://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Schwanengesang. Schwanenlied. See ://everynote.com/songs.show/114453.note. Swan song. Look it up, the last song, in legend, at://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19970808. Not for us yet, but as we tell Dan, we have to be prepared to fit the times. My son and I - a child of my heart.

Swans, ever calm except when unsafe and startled, then watch them move. Then it is back to calm. Good lesson.

Good times - see http://www.europeroadways.com/

The Budget - How It Can Become Possible. Antidotes to HGTV addiction

2008-02-16T12:21:00.016-05:00

Working toward a travel budget

Plan for Leaving the House.
Budgeting.

A PRIMER ON SAVING MONEY FOR A TRIP, AND PLANNING FOR SIMPLICITY OVER THERE.

This year, with various monetary and other policies ripening, dollar tanking, market and governmental transitions here and abroad and other international concerns, we may not go away this spring. Maybe not even in the fall. We do not take these for granted. We do cross our index fingers and back away when HGTV says go spend on potlights.

1. At home: Saving up.

Love your formica. If it's outdated, leave it be. So are you. If it works, let it.

Crazy House, Sopot, Poland, from an untraceable source (mass email, no attribution) so, fair use?

1.1 If you have a choice, do not upgrade. One shower head in the bathroom. Learn to turn around.

1.2 One sink in the bathroom. Take turns.

1.3 A stove and refrig that are reasonably easy to clean, and work. Replace at low end.

1.4 Skip curtain fads or anything else that go in or out of style. For example, use a really good Venetian blind deal, even if costly - more flexibility (try the kind that puff out and get fat when they are used to block out light or the neighbors, very soft-looking. Not like daggers of regular Venetians). Whatever.

1.5 Consider two small kitchens, different floors, instead of one mammoth. Eat breakfast on the first floor, lunch and family dinner at cozy lower level if it is bright and a walk-out, possibly, as we do, but of course that all depends. There are only three of us, and all adults. We do not have child supervision issues.

1.6 Buy nothing unless the old one fell apart or depresses you beyond measure. There are no Joneses, just you and your sense of you.

1.7 Enjoy your wall color, or non-color, for a long, long time; no holes in walls - tilt your pictures on something, and change them as you like.

1.8 No jacuzzi or giant tubs. Too much dusting. We hear that people keep their plants in them anyway. Read in bed. Now they talk on TV about bacteria in old soap scum. Sit in that?

1.9 Eat in, occasional happy hour out.

10. Love. Love formica. It is warm to the touch, quiet if a mug drops, and easily and inexpensively replaced if someone damages it. The Formica Swiftboaters are granite salespeople with their own agenda.

11. Love. Love eye-level lamps, no overhead potlights, no overhead anything. See the warmth of soft lamplight. Then see yourself under sparkly potlights. Great, creeping crow's feet! You can even move lamps around. You! Yourself!

2. On the trip: Spending Smart.

2.1 Sleep wherever is closest the center of town, even the tiny places, but after checking room first. We have never had a cleanliness problem. Saves energy driving again, after you check in, and parking in town. Sleep where you can walk.

2.2 Pay bill each morning so hotel fees do not creep up and hit you at the end. Move out if the fees are too high.

Korun, Czech Republic currency, honoring 17th C. philosopher, educator, Jan Komensky (Comenius)

2.3 Do not skimp on parking. Be safe. Go in the lot, pay more than you think you will have to on the meter.

2.4 We don't buy things. But we love photos.

2.5 Eat dinner at the tapas time, avoid places with tablecloths. Pub food is fine. Late dinners, with many courses may be customary, but are more expensive.

2.6 Wash hands all the time. Stay well.

3. Preparations: Tips for Smooth Passage

3.1 One backpack or overhead size bag, one big handbag for under seat, in which you can fit a smaller bag for convenience later. Limit may be two pieces of luggage. Don't argue with them.

3.2 Time your arrival and departure to cut out a day of rental car if you can - check when their minimum times start and end, and what the extra day will cost. Return the car if need be, and take the bus back to do what you want.

Le Sars,France

3.3 Prepare to get lost and enjoy the neighborhood. We found LeSars here at the Somme area in France. World War I.

http://www.europeroadways.com/

Why We Do It: After-the-Fact, Spin-Off Interests

2007-12-30T11:30:00.006-05:00

The After-Home Rewards. Research at Home

Dan as Samson in Spain, but with Roman Ruins

Our idea from the start was this: Skip the bus. And it works.

Here are some of the areas we explored after getting back:

1. Petr Ginz. From our trip to the Czech Republic and Poland, see the places known to the child diarist, Petr Ginz, from Prague, World War II, at Places of Petr Ginz; and reflections on what his life means to those of us who come after, at Petr Ginz, Life and Legacy.

2. War. From battlefields in Europe, see World War Sites; and Studying World Wars.

3. Cultural/political looks in the mirror. For political and philosophical topics, and our own culture through our camera's eye and our mind's eye, see Joy of Equivocating and the Fear of Fog.

4. Disposable people. Fodder in the theater of the world, and here: who, why, and others in the play. See: Hello Fodder, Typecasting.

5. Wisdom of storytelling - the weak prevailing. If you are interested in stories from cultures, and what we learn from them, especially freed slaves like Remus and Aesop, we are beginning with our own translations of Uncle Remus at Uncle Remus Tales - Translations.

6. Borderless people, now some settled - From seeing gypsies in most of Europe, particularly Romania, see Gypsies, Roma, Romani.

And all from our Europe Road Ways road trips. Spin-off sites. Satellite sites. Peak aging. Choices.

http://www.europeroadways.com/

So: Summary so far.

Go on your own. Try it just once. Get a train pass, or plan to walk a lot if you take public transportation - or, as we do, rent a car. Take pictures of things when you don't know why you are taking them. Get them home, look them up, look around, see your own world.

And we began to find ways to connect with other like-minded travelers and non-travelers interested in stuff. Your reach is greater than you thought - even in your own head.

That idea grew - we found substantial satellite interests that stem from those trips. We followed up with some sites that began as serious-minded, and still are; and others that are more recreational, cultural interests.

We use the photos from our trips, or out-of-copyright items we have here, or "fair use," and these make the posts like artwork to us - a collage of words and visuals. So, enjoy.

We have succeeded in some outreach, if our sampling encourages you:

to go on your own, or
to look things up from home, or
to teach your own children the history and culture they can't get in schools. Schools seem focused on leaving all children left behind, culturally and artistically and creatively. Foster your own child's skills. Ours has Down Syndrome - and he absorbs everything around him. Travel is his best education.

Many trips are manageable, with careful budgeting. We do little on peripherals. Inexpensive food, lodgings where we find. Skip the stars. The airfare and rental car and gas are the big expenses. For other families, some summer camps cost more than a trip to Europe. And college?

Pictograph T-shirt for the traveler's holiday

2007-12-01T18:27:00.004-05:00

Sign Language: Universal Symbols

The Brightest Idea on the Block

We have no connection with this product at all, but if we find one, we'll carry it.

In the glove compartment.

Sometimes you really need a fast answer, or a fast point.

Shopping. Other need? Like the necessary?

Don't get lost in the phrase book. Point.

Look up Laughing Squid's "Traveler's Phrase Book T-Shirt" for a holiday gift idea - a photo of a black T-shirt with the traveler logo's in a nice circle, the necessary, the post office, the hospital, hotel, airport, restaurant, all the symbols. Here is a fair use part of this site page, at ://laughingsquid.com/travelers-phrase-book-t-shirt-point-to-what-you-want/:

We get nothing back for this plug - just liked the idea. Stop the car and point to your stomach. Or elsewhere. It came first to us in a bulk email without any attribution. We looked it up. First we found ://store.artlebedev.com/t-shirts/2007/phrase-book/. That one in red or grey. I liked the black.

http://www.europeroadways.com/

Pay child support before asking for a passport. Pay all bills.

2007-09-08T09:22:00.003-04:00

Pay your bills in advance
Make extra payment to tide you over.
Also pay that child support before requesting a passport.

Family in ticket line, Bosnice, Slovakia
.
Pay your bills before you go. Use online to set up payments while you are away, even a flat amount anticipating charges. Take no chances on late fees.

Estimated taxes, anything. Get it done or set it up.

Child support. If this topic applies, pay up first, seek passport later. New York Times 8/15/07: there is a new passport requirement, where the State Department will not give a passport to a noncustodial parent who owes over $2,500 in child support. Does this mean that joint custodians don't count? Or those sharing residence, but paying child support?

This is just a nice picture of a father and child going through the castle at Bojnice, Slovakia. See Slovakia Road Ways. Look at that child's gaze. How can we ignore the needs of any child anywhere? Using the picture is no suggestion that there are child support issues here. Just people worldwide being family-oriented. Same interests, same loves. This could be Everyman's Anyfamily.

We hope they see this. Salute.

The Necessary; the WC. The Way to Go.

2007-09-06T09:05:00.006-04:00

Wallet Phrase List
Where is the WC?

When In Need....

We found WC facilities, and even if just in time, at each need-related event. Just learn how to ask for it. WC means "water closet" in most of Europe. Or just say, toiletten, or a variation. Pointing gets you nowhere. They may think you are seeking to buy pants, and lead you to a haberdashery.

Europe's WC's are usually very well maintained. However, there can be a distance. Sometimes getting to the loo from the restaurant means going in hall, down the stairs, and out into the yard. This is not a criticism, just information so you keep going, following the arrows.
.
WC, Slovakia, down and out

In some cases, the going means paying for the privilege. Keep change handy in a baggy. There are attendants, and they get tips. They earn it. Pay if you go. They also do keep things clean.

WC, purchase your paper, Slovakia

Sometimes the paper is allocated, four sheets per need-related event. You get the paper when you pay to get in. There may also be such an attendant at the threshhold of the two groupings, men and women's entries. Very close together. No mind. Who cares.

In preparation for emergencies, carry your own supplemental resources.

Outdoor activities: The New York Times today writes of hikers in mountain areas now required to carry their own double sealed disposal bag kits; the remote portable toilets are not going to be serviced any more . See www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/us/05whitney.html?th&emc=th.

Good idea. We do better environmentally with our dogs than we do with ourselves.

Practical tower disposals; WC, Blarney Castle, Ireland

Castles: The Castle WC. This can be one or two holers out the tower wall. The danger can be access to the inside castle by the invader, in times of siege, but the openings also can serve as escapeways, distaste giving way to other necessity. In London, the WC on the tower was supposed to leave the stuff where the tidal Thames would wash it away, but waterways (ahem) changed.

Tower WC outcropping, Castle, Pfalsgrafenstein, the Rhine Valley, Germany

Turkish Toilets. Some of the WC's in Greece, Romania, anywhere where there were Ottomans, may be in the form of the "Turkish toilet" variety. See one here, a fair use thumbnail: site is at Turkey Central.com, at ://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.turkeycentral.com/articles/images/large/turkish_toilet.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.turkeycentral.com/articles/featured_article.php%3Farticle_id%3D38&usg=__zKoWXgQux2F8hFyJrdxhqwYI-ig=&h=275&w=220&sz=9&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=7vEGljsOdaWnzM:&tbnh=114&tbnw=91&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dturkish%2Btoilets%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

.They work fine (enamel base, like a shower size base; two foot areas with gripper ridges, then the hole in the middle). They may well be more sanitary than ours where you have to touch something, even the handle.

In those countries, skirts work better than jeans, and in any case, be sure your knees are strong. Practice the squats before you go. You do not want to use your balance. .

Take the skirt. Cleaner, faster. You look like Granny, even in the Patagonia's, but they also work in areas where orthodox religious practices require fuller coverage. Meteora, the medieval monastery area in Greece, will offer you the alternative of a stack of cloths to wrap around your jeans.

Take your own emergency kit for tidying.

Men have it easy in some areas of that discussion. Shake and bake.

Heidi and Grandfather's WC, museum for the life that inspired the story, Maienfeld, Switzerland

How to ask for it: A bathroom means little in Europe, in terms of this function. That is where the bath is. Say toilet when you mean toilet. If you don't know the word, still "toilet" is well known, and the national variation may be close.

"The necessary edifice" - for this concept, see outhouse lore at ://www.outragehouse.com/lore.asp. Or, WC - water closet, loo, "without charge," see dict.die.net/wc/; www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/w/w0067100.

The Green WC:

Europe offers such a variety of bowls and shapes that minimize the need for water in flushing, just adjust for what you need to accomplish. Still, odd shapes are fashionable, and we saw some models that had littlestrategic shelves, and others that were square for those with such bottoms.

Juggling languages and currencies - Your Own Crib Sheet

2007-08-09T12:20:00.003-04:00

Currency Converter Crib Sheet -- Your Own.
Set it up for multiple currencies.

Take baggies.

Slovakia, currency and coin

Money.

1. Crossing several country boundaries in one trip takes some planning, for money changing, emergencies and eating, and directions.

If you act spontaneously, you will need to find bank-o-mats - ATM's - for your plastic. They are there, but not always outside. End up in a bank. While you are there, ask where the local ATM's usually are.

2. Plan ahead in the US. You also may need to phone your credit card company to tell them you are going to certain countries, or when you are there (calls in advance from the adjoining country may not work - we tried that from gas stations on the way); tell them that charges are to be expected and accepted so they do not freeze your card.

Best to try to imagine all the places you might go and call the credit card people from the US before you leave, re your dates of departure and return.

You can also use AAA or online sources to get at least $200 in the currency in advance. Do it. You will always use it up. Get even more. Do not get involved with money changing at borders.

3. Baggies. Take many, with zip tops, sandwich and quart size. This trip, we ended up in Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and side trips to Vienna, Austria, and to Budapest, Hungary. Each with its own of everything - even the Euro did not go everywhere. Fortunately, credit cards are there, but you still need some cash.

Use a baggie per country. As you leave, dump the currency in it and replace your wallet with the new.

1. Food.

Skip the guidebook menu guides. You will have no time to read when the menu comes. Before you leave, figure out your basic favorite foods, and look them up in the new language. Print them out on Excel or a spreadsheet, and then look at the closest thing on the menu.

We did that for each country in its own column - here is chicken, here is eggs, the basics and then other words as well.

List your own favorite foods or the ones out of the guidebooks down the side, and look up on the internet or from the guidebook the translations for those for each language. Put those in columns corresponding to each country. Presto. A fast breakfast, lunch or dinner ordering sheet, a starting point for any menu.

2. Other vocabulary words. Do the same for topics for getting rooms, car care, directions, emergency, numbers, dates, just with each country at the top and the words cascading below.

Putting it together: No matter how many pages, get out your scissors or paper cutter.

Cut the columns for each country and staple at the top so you have the English on the left, and the country in flip-columns stapled beside. As to use of baggies, put the worset the others aside in a little zip plastic baggie until you need it, and tuck the one you want in your wallet. Also use the baggies for the currency for that country, so you can cross borders happily. This time, we got some currency in advance, while in US, for each country, and were glad we did. Saves the hassle and worry of border changes.

3. Currency. Make a crib sheet for yourself on equivalent amounts, dollars to whatever. Do one little stapled flip-top money kit for each country. Put dollars down the left side, and the currency equivalents (say, in $5 increments or whatever) in other columns.
Put the countries on top of each other so you can flip to the one you need the equivalent for. Cut it to size and it fits in your wallet, ready for the furtive look when you are lost in the market.

Looking back at what Czech food we enjoyed most, we found Eleanor's Kitchen at this site and recipes there look just like the food we had: www.e.schrabal.home.att.net.

Sanity is yours.

Airport tips; Jet lag; Cash stash; Fares

2007-06-18T11:05:00.002-04:00

Surviving the Airport Maze

Locating the Airport

Write Out the Name of your Airport
There can be several near your city

Oops. Wrong airport. Spin that wheel! Go back! Go back!

A. Airports

1. Be sure you have directions to the specific airport you need, and by name.

The generic airport plane symbols on the road may lead you to a secondary airport, not the one you wanted. Paris -- multiples. Prague, same.

Worse, the name beside the plane symbol may be another town, and not the name of the airport itself. As at Prague, where even the ticket did not actually name the airport. Get off at the town exit and waste much time. Some places have two airports, each using the plane symbol. Be sure you are following the right one - see Paris. Orly and DeGaulle.

2. Leave time to walk from the car area to the terminal. Some terminals are for arrivals only, as in Romania. Don't head for the wrong terminal if you are a departure instead.

3. Leave time to return your rental car.Some terminals have rental-return facilities in the arrivals terminal. Others are far, as in Bucharest. Leave walking time.

4. Ask, ask, ask. Are you sure you have not only the right gate. But also the right terminal wing at the airport.

5. Avoid any check-through baggage. If you use the check-through, put nothing of value inside. Locks may well be broken in security checks. I use a floppy, unstructured backpack duffle. Squeezes in the above compartment each time.

B. Jet Lag

Check out the New York Times article by Jane E. Brody, May 22, 2007, in a personal health column. "Cleveland to Cairo, in Coach? Ways to Outwit the Body Clock." As of June 18, 2007, the article is at www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/health/22brod.html.

Some nuggets: carbs foster drowse, protein fosters alert. Drink much water. Walk around. Melatonin the day before and day of departure; and when you arrive.

The Travel Insider also touts melatonin for jet lag. See www.thetravelinsider.info/2002/0517.htm. We have not tried it. Also other sites, with a search for melatonin jet lag.

C. Cash stash

Stash several hundred dollars to tide you over, using a direct dollar to the local currency exchange. In a non-Euro country, the airport terminal may not convert Traveler's checks. Example: In Bucharest, there was no Traveler's checks to lei conversion at all. Would have had to go to a bank in Bucharest just to get lei.

AAA or the internet can also get you currency for your countries where you are doing regional travel -in advance. Saves much time at border checkpoints and exchange places. Worked well for our 2007 Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia trip, where we also went unexpectedly to Vienna and Budapest, on whims. Had some Euro just in case.

D. Fares. Always difficult to feel satisfied. Be sure to check, if you have a choice of airports (we go between Boston, or JFK, also have Newark and Hartford in there) for direct flights. Czech airlines apparently now goes direct to JFK, but we had already bought for Boston.

I hear Farecast.com works. Not sure if it does overseas. Or FareCompare.com. That one may help also with when to fly. There is also Kayak.com. Or Airfarewatchdog.com. Those were in an article in the New York Times, see www.airliners.net/1.st/200486766, by Michelle Higgins - "If It's Good, Is It Too Good To Be True?" from 4/15/07.

Do your own search for compare airfare.

Mechanics: Cell phones; Travel insurance; GPS

2007-06-17T20:17:00.004-04:00

Cell phone optional.

Our system doesn't do reservations anyway.

Travel insurance. Yes.
Take a GPS.

High Tatras, Poland, Slovakia border

Exposure travel. Here we are, in the High Tatras, between Slovakia and Poland.

1. So far, we do not carry cell phones.

We have always found helpful people and like human contact. Too hard to understand accents on phones anyway. We use email at public internet or hotel internet to contact home.

This may backfire.

For you, try the New York Times article /15/07, "Circuits" section, guidelines by Eric A. Taub section c7. He points out the option of SIM cards, chips by Telestial to go in your phone and replace those sold by T-Mobile and Cingular, now AT&T. The technologies and compatibilities are always changing, so this is just an alert to check it all out for your own trip. GSM seems to be the standard technology worldwide, and Cingular and T-Mobile used that; Sprint and Verizon used CDMA, and that is incompatible says the article, for most Europe. Read what to do in the article. Get unlock codes to be safe. Try www.unlocktelecom.co.uk or www.thetravelinsider.com, it says.

Entering phone numbers in your own phone: Put in the plus sign and then the country's area code so it can be dialed automatically. Get a dual voltage battery charger.

2. Insurance. We do have that. We were happy to have good insurance for accidents and medical. The rest, we consider but have so far rejected. For you to consider:

Available now is insurance for whim changes. "Cancel For Any Reason" is offered by AIG Travel Guard, says the New York Times Sunday May 6, 2007, article in Practical Traveler, "Protecting Against the Dread 'What If,' " by Michelle Higgins. It costs, of course. If you get tickets in advance and don't use them for entertainment matters, try Travelers. For more specific coverages, start with that article.

There is also hurricane, weather, strikes, and terrorism coverage available.

We tend to worry about medical - evacuations and the like, in case of car accident because we drive. We do not skimp on that. The rest may be time-specific, for events at the time, etc. Check your credit card coverage first, so you don't get redundant, especially in areas of car theft, luggage issues, car dings. Buy in advance, says the article.

3. GPS. Bring your own GPS. Download the Europe map.

Guide to the blog cluster, Europe Road Ways

2007-06-17T10:59:00.002-04:00

Outline of Europe Road Ways Blog Cluster
And following people in bronze

See Site indexes now, at Gristmill Sites by Dint

Country road, Poland.

The more years that we take our trips, the more complex our homespun web sites become. Here is the needed road map:

1. The nuts and bolts of our trips are here at Europe Road Ways - How We Do It. We also have a URL at Europe Road Ways on the Web

2. All our photos, comments, link addresses and history are at country blogs. For example, if you want to get there fast, try the total country name such as www.sloveniaroadways.blogspot.com.

If that does not work, go to our HUB for all countries at Europe Road Ways on the Web. Toggle around. Self-education.

Country links, examples:

Romania ; Vlad Tepes (Impaler);
Ireland ; England;
Wales;
Scotland;Orkney; Hebrides;
Italy; Sicily;
Germany;
Spain;
Croatia; Bosnia; Slovenia; Montenegro;
The Netherlands; Belgium; Luxembourg; the new ones at
Poland Road Ways ; Slovakia Road Ways; Czech Road Ways; and seed blogs for side trips at
Trieste Road Ways, tacked on the Croatia trip; Sicily Road Ways, tacked on to the Italy trip..

New seed blogs: mostly Budapest so far at Hungary Road Ways; and mostly Vienna so far at Austria Road Ways. Both junkets were tacked on from the Poland-Slovakia-Czech Republic trip.

2. Daniel's views: Dan On Trips. This is not up to date because he gets on to other things.

Miscellany, in the largely trivia department: Vetting Roots by the Heater: Martin Luther's Stove.

3. Finally, the major themes that most interested us, in crossing country boundaries, are at Europe Road Ways - Themes.

Find silly sights at Europe Road Ways Lite

Find Black Madonnas, The Plague, how people treat the dead in cemeteries, and food. We are always interested in WWI and WWII and any battle or migration.

4. Overview of itinerary non-method: We follow signs for any real or fictional person that looked interesting; and look up festivals or events. We compare issues and concepts, such as the Vlad Tepes (Impaler) sites in Romania, with Bram Stoker's "Dracula." See site at Romania Road Ways Vlad Tepes (Dracula). We take 2-3 guidebooks and then it's off in some direction.

5. We celebrate. Often. Usually for just being safe and healthy and the end of another unknown day. This is at the Dracula Club in Bucharest. At Halloween. Time your trip to match something fun. This site lists festivals by country: www.frootsmag.com/content/festivals/europe/; and goeurope.about.com/od/festivalsineurope/a/summer_fests.

6. We find some folks by chance - here is James Joyce at a cafe in Pula, Croatia, near the old Roman gate.

James Joyce, on the right, Pula, Croatia

We stop for authors, musicians, anyone in bronze.

Ernest Hemingway is at Pamplona, Spain, of course. Spain Road Ways.

Joan of Arc is all over northern France. France Road Ways. The

Brothers Grimm are in Germany.

The Romans were all over. Germany Road Ways.

We dogged Robin Hood, King Arthur, Dickens, Chaucer, Thomas a Becket, and Peter Pan in England. And the Prince of Wales and Edward II in Wales. Wales Road Ways.

There are Robert the Bruce and William Wallace (Freedom!), Nessie and Rob Roy MacGregor in Scotland. Scotland Road Ways.

King Lot at Orkney. Orkney Road Ways.

Samuel Johnson at Dunvegan at Skye. Scotland Road Ways. Samuel Johnson's biography is at justus.anglican.org. Look at the resources, bio 20 section.

Looking up information later: We remember it better. Find information on the Huns is at www.imninalu.net, the section on Huns; and how they helped the spread of the Black Death (among many other factors) and other matters about the Plague are at www.themiddleages.net, the section on plague.

Find Robert the Bruce at www.magicdragon.com, the Wallace and then Bruce6 section; Leonardo da Vinci at www.kausal.com/leonardo;

Charles Dickens at www.victorianweb.org, at authors, dickens,dickensbio1;
Julius Caesar and a historical chronology at www.vroma.org/%7Ebmcmanus/caesar.

7. There will be plenty of road signs for big, and little, sights on the way. The emphasis is "on the way." See as you go.

2007: Back from Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia. Our Domesday Book.

2007-06-15T12:21:00.001-04:00

A Preparations Inventory

Our Own Domesday Book of Travel tips

Dan and Travel Night Life, in his trusty travel rain jacket;

Everybody needs an inventory sometime. An early one was The Domesday Book, a land and other inventory commissioned by William the Conqueror in England in 1085. For Domesday Book, see learningcurve.gov.uk/focuson/domesday; or domesdaybook.co.uk.

Ours is not as thorough, but our own Domesday-type inventory of what we did before leaving for 2007's trip might be helpful to fellow travelers.

Dan chooses the country, or region.

There he is modeling his trusty travel rain jacket. Say hello to Dan.

For a fast look at what we saw in each country this trip, and we did a regional trip this time, go to: Poland Road Ways; Czech Republic Road Ways;; and Slovakia Road Ways.

Getting ready:

Reading: - Michener's old "Poland." Michener is good for the human, narrative side of a place. See review at www.allreaders.com/Topics/Info_1544.asp. Try also his "Iberia" on Spain.

He wrote of The Hussar cavalry, with feather top battle gear, above their heads, that whistled and sang as they rode, fearfully to all who could not see them yet, but knew doom was riding. Those feathers helped save Vienna from the Turks. World War I and World War II sites and events. Thank you Poland. Continuing the brave tradition: The Polish kept the Red Russians from charging straight to Berlin, Paris and the Channel and beyond in the early 1920's.

Choosing spring: Con. Roads may be worse because of potholes, and repairs not as complete as in the fall. Also, downpours, melt-flooding. Pro. Spring flowers, vistas not blocked by full leaves yet, cheaper than summer, and we can always go slow and turn back fast from the hinterland if roads get dicey. There are motorways. Will take one pair of mud shoes. Put them right under the tap to wash, dry out in the rear car seat shelf.

Palpable change in 2007. America has lost much its good will abroad, so we were especially alert. We wear no US or other English logos.

Travel in black and brown and tan. Other years, people have looked pleased and chatted openly about their relatives in US when learning we are American. Not so this trip.

Ready for home after two weeks.

We were comfortable staying basically with the European Union this trip. Here is a good map for identifying which countries are in the European Union: ezilon.com/european_maps. Euro countries cost more than nonEuro.

Expense. Our Romania and Balkans (Croatia, Slovenia, bits of Bosnia and Montenegro) trips were comparatively inexpensive. This one was higher again. So we avoided real sit-down lunches, unless we were at a special place, and ate gas station sandwiches often. Not bad. And saved time.

Currencies. our currency converter post here somewhere.

Guidebook info: We read in various guidebooks that we would need to show we had cash before we crossed the border. Not so. Never ran into that.

Tip: ATM's. Check the conversion charge for your cards. Vary from 3% for Citibank, 2% AmEx, and 1% BankNorth, these based on today's calls around.

Alphabet issues. No Cyrillic for this trip. Good. In Greece, Jon and I did fine with two of us translating in areas where there was no English on the signs. But in a corner of Bosnia that was totally Cyrillic, Dan and I just followed the sun west instead of even trying to read names and signs. I have worked out our own travel words wallet cribsheet.

4. Non-planning, but not totally random, either.

Dan puts a -it on everything in the guidebook he wants to see. Then, we put a red pencil circle for each place on a big map. Once there, when we are nearby, we can see what circles are already there. We can go off in odd directions with a purpose of some sort.

5. Area. Handspan on the same map, or put that on a cardboard.

How much can we cover reasonably: letterhead, cut just below the address part, like 2 1/2 inches, cut across, fold in half. That is the rectangle size you could cover in two weeks if you generally kept moving (no more than two nights somewhere), as we tend to do. Move that rectangle around the map. Or, for an elongated oblong, cut the rectangle in half lengthwise, and add it. In Spain, the size was 1 3/4 inches rectangle, with longer length, set catty-corner for a figure-8 trip, not long circularish rectangle.

6. Zip baggies. We say this again and again. Take extras. For all the currencies, converters, receipts, odd bits. And a pint (?) size for your liquid toiletries. I have ordered from AAA about $150 in each anticipated currency. Not sure about availability of ATM's, this will get us through a few days in each.

7. Car rental.

Choose your airport with car rental in mind. There may be restrictions on where you can go in the car, depending on where you rent. We chose to to land and rent Eastern European, so the car - though obviously rented - would have an Eastern European license plate and not blare "Vienna" or some such target. And, we did have restrictions even then - no inter-country ferries, Sweden, Bosnia, Ukraine, Belarus, and many more. Just know the list in advance. And, I understand that a Vienna rental car may well not be permitted into some countries for car theft reasons.

Scope out the airport when you arrive, to see what is available if you choose to return the car the night before, and plan to take an easy airport shuttle to a nearby hotel.

That trust attitude won't work in Copenhagen -- no hotels but a fancy Hilton, and any reasonable room is long gone. If you have already left off your car in planning for a 6:30 AM flight out, and don't want to lug your luggage on the subway to some unknown place (no phones to call ahead easily), just plan to curl up in the airport. We did and survived.

Get an annual international driver's license (annual duration only, no big deal - $15 or so).

Car theft. Choose a non-fancy car. Routine compact. See Trieste Road Ways for insurance issues. In cities, use ticket garages rather than overnight street parking, etc. Just be aware. Standard shift.

Maps issues. Attention Hammond. Naming names here. Beware of Hammond maps. Unfold and compare. We generally like Hammond because of the attractions symbols. But you pay $11.95 for a Chech Republic and Slovakia map, dipping down to Vienna and Budapest, and up to Warsaw, Poland. Other side of map is blank. Then, you pay the same $11.95 for a Poland map that is identical to the above, but includes the rest of Poland on the other side.

HAMMOND: To be fair to consumers, I think Hammond should do one map, not two. Call it Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia, and print the both sides for the same $11.95 as they already do on the "Poland" map.

DK: Your glossy pages are beautiful but too heavy. We use them anyway, but resent the weight.
Pope John Paul II was from Krakow; Chopin; Dvorak; King Wenceslas in Prague; symphonies all over. Roma (gypsy) population issues - a microcosm of the human dark side in demonizing others, etc. But if it takes a demon to demonize - so we all better watch it, no matter whom we put on our receiving end.

Mapping by Music

2007-06-14T10:08:00.002-04:00

Follow songs.

Polka band, Czestochowa, Poland

We had no place songs for Poland, and only heard a few polkas. Still, we sang Roll Out The Barrel. This group was playing for a Polish banquet in Czestochowa.

We map by songs, where we can. In Ireland and Scotland, or Italy and Spain, we went to a place because there was a song about it. Then sang it loud while we went. If we couldn't get to it, we sang anyway.

Examples:

Ireland: Rose of Tralee; Christmas in Killarney; In Dublin's Fair City; Londonderry

Air (Danny Boy); The Mountains of Mourne; The Fields of Athenrye.
For songs with audio, go to www.traditionalmusic.co.uk, at the irish folk music index. For a reel, listen to www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/irish-folk-music/play.mid.

Spain: Seville (everything from Carmen); Granada

France: I Love Paris, Mademoiselle from Armentieres (World War I), see www.firstworldwar.com/audio/mademoisellefromarmentieres. This site also has audio. To listen to it from 1915, go to www.firstworldwar.com. The rest of the address would be /audio/Jack%20Charman%20-%20Mademoiselle%20From%20Armentieres.mp3.

England: Robin Hood, Robin Hood; London Bridge; for audio on many British Isles songs, go to www.contemplator.com/folk.

Germany: A Mighty Fortress; Ach Du Lieber Augustine; Lili Marlene; for a list of many country folksongs alphabetically and with downloads, go to ingeb.org/folkso_g.

Italy: When The Moon Hits Your Eye; Three Coins in a Fountain; Funiculi Funicula; Santa Lucia; O Solo Mio (bits); see www.italianfolkmusic.com/home.

Scotland: Danny Boy; Barbara Allen; see www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/scottish-folk-music/index.

Map with songs. Why not.

Staying alert: route-timing, theft, credit cards

2007-01-14T12:02:00.002-05:00

Don't get caught out after dark

And button up the car every time.
Lukewarm food warnings.

1. Watch the time of day.

Match available daylight with your need to cover mountains and hills. Keep dusk for level ground if you can.

Example: Ireland. Do not start around the Ring of Kerry so that you are doing the easy part first, in early afternoon. You will be in mountains and eye to eye with mountain goats at dusk, and where the lodgings are scarce. Fortunately, opposing headlights warn you of vehicles snaking your way, but the animals sneak and graze on.

2. Theft. Theft happens. Example again for Ireland. Do not leave a window cracked open in the Blarney parking lot. Car emptied out, practically. Jon still had his passport and some cash and a credit card, so we coped. But watch to see who you are parking next to. If it is a red van, with dark windows, and people just sitting in there, go elsewhere fast. As soon as we opened the trunk, they peeled out. All gone.

3. Double billing. Croatia. Do not rejoice the night before leaving, that all was ok. We got billed twice for the hotel nearest the airport. Thank you, credit card, but it was a nuisance coping.

Carol, on her way rejoicing that all went well. Ha. Too soon.

Do not relax too soon.

Romania: Do not wait to pay your several days' bill in Bucharest and do it when you are just about to go to the airport. Pay every day. Every day in full so there can be no unexpected fees and charges you just can't cope with at the last minute and didn't know about. We didn't know that we were double-billed until we got back. We didn't have to pay. Keep your receipts.

4. Keep Eyes Open. Stop, Look, Listen.

Croatia. Do not go up any little staircase to a bridge where people are walking across, without scouting it all out first.

There may be a train track there. If so, leave fast. Local pedestrians are used to it, we aren't. Luckily no train came, and if one had come, we could have just pressed back, arms around a pole as the people did, but that takes practice and advance planning. Just keep off. Don't expect signs to warn you of dangers, train crossings or climbing around castles. Life changes and can be lost in an instant. Can never be too careful.

5. Diet. Beware the lukewarm.

France. Do not eat sweetbreads in an out of the way town. Sick all night. Also in Spain with a breadcrumb dish called migas. Ok by morning.

6. Skip the postcards.

Serbia, Bosnia - or any country with its own currency (non-euro). Do not stop to mail a postcard. There will probably be a minimum for any exchange to get the currency to buy the stamp or the card. We had to get $20 in Bosnia in order to mail some cards. Had to spend the rest (tasty) at the local deli. Then found we could not bring food across some borders. Just eat up. We had 6 checkpoints in one day coming from Ostrog, Montenegro, down to Dubrovnik.

Slovenia - now using the euro. Good. Not necessarily financially better, but easier than carrying several change purses for the differing currencies. Romania is now in the European Union as well - no more kuna.

Translating; Self-Scripting

2007-01-14T02:31:00.000-05:00

People smile when you try to speak their language. Great start. Go ahead. This Distaff Pilgrimage group to the Black Madonna at Czestochowa, Poland, turned out to be a lark for all of us. We enjoyed meeting them. I had wanted to capture also the fabulous shade of fuschia-red-henna hair that we saw so often in Eastern Europe, and came to see as quite flattering, as on the one back row, second from right, but it did not photograph accurately. I like it. I have it in mind. Seriously. If we do blue, why not henna?

For websites on a search engine that provides many languages, see dmoz.org/World/.

Do It Yourself Scripting. Anticipate your basic needs. Script out and translate for yourself what you think you will need, in the words that you would use, and keep it on one sheet if you can - thank you's, where is, what is, how far, how much, is there a bathroom near here? two beds one room, attached bath ("en suite"). You can make a blog out of it and go to Babelfish at Altavista at babelfish.altavista.com/, or other such site and translate what you need.

Guidebook translation sections are too convoluted. You can't just stand there and read through phrases. All you need is sensible body language, fingers for pointing, a little dictionary and a lot of good will.

Then - go see your room before accepting it, and see the price in writing. They may place you in a pricey one because the assumption is that you can pay.

Go here if you come across a site in another language - free translations. http://www.humanitas-international.org/newstran/index.html. And this page from that site shows how it works: www.humanitas-international.org/newstran/more-trans. Or just use Babelfish, at babelfish.altavista.com/, but this larger site seems more efficient for entire web pages.

This came courtesy of this splendid history-angle site, where a coin person finds the stories of history in the country's coins and writes mostly in Italian - go to www.roth37.it/COINS/GENERAL_INDEX/index and say thank you. While you are there, look around - Luxembourg, Venice, Trieste, so much.

Links, posts, archives

2006-12-14T15:09:00.000-05:00

Links. Recommendations to visit other third-party websites fare in word form. Given the lack of firm guidance on fair use, or transformative use of resource material (see www.bitlaw.com. for example), this is prudent, but a pity. So slow. Must be a better way to provide appropriate protections than hobbling us all.

Posts - These may be presented in a chronological order for the countries; or by topic, here at our nuts and bolts site. We do that by adjusting dates.

Archives - With posting dates used to arrange the information, Archives do not necessarily contain older posts. They may continue a topic, or offer new ones. Do check often.

Technorati Profile

Paper Wins - No e-Tickets Alone. Other passport issues.

2006-10-15T12:07:00.001-04:00

You may not have a choice any more on e-tickets. Our last trip provided no paper tickets, offered none, said we could not have one. This was to mainstream Europe, however - Scandinavia - and not to other less-touristy places as before, like Romania.

In Copenhagen, with our e-ticketing, we checked in online, printed out the boarding pass at the hotel, from the e-ticketing, got it, took it to the airport, and it would not scan through at the detectors. Back to the airport machines. Those would not work because we had already accessed our account through the hotel. Get in the big line for a Person, finally get it through. All we had for proof of getting on was the silly email confirmation and a number. Moral is only to leave lots of time for snafus.

If you can, have a paper ticket, if offered, or at least multiple copies of a paper record of your e-ticket for travel abroad.

Perhaps most airports and airlines now are e-ticketing, but if you can get a paper one, do.

Is this still important when between connecting flights abroad? Passengers must have passport and visas, and some countries at our last checking still require passengers to have a paper ticket for any entry, even within the airport, if the passenger is just changing planes on a connecting flight. See more on paper tickets at www.freetraveltips.com/Airlines/Air08. This may have been updated now. The point is, do not take e-tickets for granted.

Be careful on internet cheap ticket sites and affirm in writing (fax to a specific person there) that they know you need a paper ticket and will fast-mail it to you, so you have it by a stated date, or else you do not need to pay for any of it. Be willing to pay the fee for mailing and handling. And add that they will fax you back immediately if all that you understand, as stated on your fax, is not so. Whether that holds up or not, who knows, but it gets their attention. Get one person's name to deal
with until you have that ticket in hand.

Do not order your ticket on Friday from some sites. They may sit on it over the weekend, then say on Monday that the booking is now full and please pay more for this other one. Use a site where you get immediate proof of your reservation.

We are renewing our passports well before expiration, so there will be no gap. Never wait too long, and some coding things are being put in that you may not want in there until the kinks are out.

More blogs about Europe Road Ways - How We Do It.

PIN-Up with Credit cards; Gas Stations

2006-10-15T11:45:00.001-04:00

Gas station, Europe. HR would be Croatia, but the car wash sign is in English. Still Croatia? We forget.

Gas stations may require a PIN with your credit card. Be sure your credit cards have PIN's before you go.

Also, tell the credit card company when you are leaving, what countries you will be in, and when you will return. Otherwise they may deny use, thinking the card is stolen. They may call your house to check also.

Change your pins when you get back so your old PIN will not work. I even change card numbers.

Debit cards. Leave only enough in there that you could lose out on, and not die about it. Fraud is everywhere.

Some gas stations do not have attendants, especially in outlying areas.

Carry cash so you can ask the person as the next pump if he would pump yours and you would pay him. I had to do that once when the card would not work. Walk around and check your tires each time, especially if you are driving on the left side of the road and missed a curb or two. Check water and oil far more than you would here.

Travel Outside the Turret. Safety tips. Stealth Travel.

2006-09-24T10:41:00.001-04:00

Education by Travel

Advantages of independent traveling. If you have any interest in travel on your own, and accept the unexpected, try it. To us right now, tours look like travel in a turret, or a bunker - all protections, and narrow, fixed sightlines. This one, a bunker, is at Omaha Beach, Normandy.

Dan in Turret, Normandy, France

We like the places - and trivia - we find by being on our own. We like the way the interest grows after we get back. If we had stayed in the box, for example, we probably would never have learned this - an example of the odd bits out there --

That, yes, the kitchens at Dunluce Castle in Northern Ireland slid into the sea in 1648. We also found out that seven cooks and their pots were lost, but the cobbler survived. See Ireland Road Ways, Antrim post. The stuff of stories.

This travel site is also serious. We follow and discuss topics like death and wars, as well as the arts, and people and history.

Safety:

We are mindful.

We hold our wet index fingers to the wind. We stay under the radar and wear a lot of black. Stealth travel. We may even be safer than we would be in a group. A rental car can be identified, but a small one blends in better than a bus. And nobody knows our plans. Neither do we. We decide on the spot. We and use an occasional phone, but usually e-mail home from the internet cafes. Europe seems far ahead of us in wiring up and in speed.

This rootlessness can backfire. We could be at the wrong place at wrong time. If it does, that's life. Jon won't be able to sue the tour company. Like-minded people? Out of the bunkers.

Yours with enthusiasm,

The ad hoc Car-Dan Tour Company

Queasy? Happens seldom. Relax

2006-09-06T09:24:00.001-04:00

Stonehenge Single Stone, England
1. Illness. This Stonehenge fellow illustrates a consequence of hapless indulgences. I have had only two stomach bouts - one near Verdun, France, after sweetbreads, see the offal list at www.frenchfood.about.com/library/weekly/aa082202a; and one in Trujillo, Spain, after a delicious dish of migas, the traditional fried breadcrumb meal that I still recommend highly: See www.blogger.com/%20http://www.tourspain.org/recipes/migas.asp.

Usual duration: less than 12 hours. Just do the trotting and upchucking, go back to bed and don't fuss.

2. Preparations: For illness and first aid, check first the Center for Disease Control for the country you are going to. See, for example, for healthcare resources in Eastern Europe , you can go to www.cdc.gov/travel/easteurp.

3. Backup. Have the phone numbers for the US consulate or embassy, example site is www.blogger.com/%20http://projectvisa.com/regiondisplay.asp?regionname=europe"

4. Logistics. Baggies. Take lots for small amounts of basic medicines for a variety of ailments. Minimal. Use original packaging these days for customs identification. You can buy whatever else you need when you need it. Global drugstores.

5. Know the infrastructure. Exception: For countries where you are concerned with medical infrastructure and available treatments, you may want to ask your doctor for help in advance - perhaps have an antibiotic in advance for treating sinus/respiratory infection, or medication for back pain or other things if you are susceptible, just in case.

Keep receipts; pay in cash (see currency conversion post here)

2006-08-01T10:38:00.001-04:00

Always so good to be home, safe.

Dan and Jon at Homecoming

But no final cheering for a disaster-free trip until you have all the credit card statements. Keep all receipts. In a baggie.

Horror story: We were charged double, for a hotel nearest the airport the night before the flight out of Zagreb. Didn't know until we saw the credit card statement 2 months later. Credit card company straightened it out, but having the receipt was vital.

Another trip: We also were hypercharged for all sorts of fees, again when we were off to another airport, and when we had least time to object. It was sign or miss the flight.

Moral: Pay up daily if you are at a hotel more than one night. See all fees daily, so you can leave, thank you. Better yet, do not give your credit card at all when charges can be openended - just pay hotels the cash in advance. Lots of ATM's.

Mapping with World Heritage Sites in mind: BBC, travel sites

2006-06-29T11:05:00.001-04:00

Dan at Dalmatian Coast

1. UNESCO World Heritage Sites. A map is here: thesalmons.org/lynn/world.heritage.

You can also find all these United Nations-certified fabulous sites, the established ones and the proposals, for all the countries at whc.unesco.org/en/list/. Most guidebooks also show them. For the British Isles, see www.thesalmons.org/lynn/wh-england.. For Romania, see www.thesalmons.org/lynn/wh-romania. These were not on the earlier site list. Don't know why.

You may want to note where the Heritage sites are on your map ahead of time, but we don't organize a trip around them. That is work.

We went where we wanted, and found later that we saw most along the way anyway. England, Wales and Scotland have their own listings. See www.thesalmons.org/lynn/wh-england. And www.information-britain.co.uk/worldheritage.cfm".

2. Travel websites. I like the BBC. Go here to get the basics on any country. Excellent site also for history. See news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profiles/default.stm.

For overviews of the major movements and empires (get a handle on Rome, Greece, Vikings, etc. see www.bbc.co.uk/schools/vikings/links. Use these for revving up your enthusiasm and learning what to look for. But focus on just getting there with an open mind, not a list. Then look around. It is exhausting trying to organize your trip around someone else's ideas.

Example: When we got back from Croatia this time, we saw a travel site that has as its motto something backwards like getting truth first, then going. We don't. Whose truth? How determined? Nonsense. Do the opposite. You will see more. Just start driving. Photo here, Dalmatian Coast, Croatia. Croatia Road Ways.

3. This site gives a realistic and helpful overview on unplanned travel: goeurope.about.com. Look around there for the spontaneous kind.

Driving Rules : The Rule of Ears; Passing; International Road Signs

2006-06-06T10:01:00.002-04:00

Accidents. I see more accidents while driving in the US than I have seen in Europe. I see skilled drivers there: quick, but following different rules of the road. Learn their rules before driving. See www.ideamerge.com/motoeuropa/roadsigns/. Make a cribsheet of each country's speed limits for each kind of road and place.

Rules. They vary. Here is a site for overall driving tips and customs: europeforvisitors.com/europe/planner/blp_driving. This one is detailed, for truckers crossing boundaries - excellent - at ://www.roadtransport.com/Articles/2008/01/23/129609/how-the-rules-of-road-differ-across-europe.html.

My own observations:

1. Passing. Passing is fast in and out, scouting before committing, and people make room for changing minds. Usually you do not have to go fully into the oncoming traffic lane to pass.

To do that, cars use the burm area - the slower car slides half over the burm line; the passing car slides half over the midline, looks and then either whizzes around and passes, or tucks back in, fast. Seldom does anyone have to go into the full opposing traffic lane to pass. Everyone makes room. The burm lanes are usually well-maintained.

If the car behind you is running up your tailpipe, don't get mad, slide over. That car probably just wants to pass.

2. Rule of Ears for Focus. Keep your eyes beside and ahead, most of the time. We follow a Rule of Ears whenever possible, and especially when things get dicey.

When traffic and motorcycles whiz in multiple directions, focus first on who is alongside or in front of your ears. Period. Let the people behind worry about themselves. This approach has worked in Sicily, Naples, Romania, Croatia, England, wherever. Look in the rearview enough to see the general layout, but your focus is always ahead and beside.

3. Signs. Learn them. Here they are. Print it out. ://www.travel-island.com/road.traffic.signs/warning.road.signs.html.

Some international driving signs are not self-explanatory, but not all. I mistook one sign to mean no entry at all, when it only meant no trucks. Wasted much time trying to find another way to the hotel. And no parking and tow zone means just that. Take no chances. Particularly in Spain, police are not there to help and socialize. They are there to enforce.

4. Lay-Bys on One-lane roads. These are frequent in the Highlands, or Skye, for example, or any mountainous road.

Watch for the lay-by flagpoles. If you see a car coming, the one closest to the lay-by is supposed to pull over and let the other go by. If nobody pulls over, then somebody has to back up - usually the one nearest a lay-by will do that. I did not see people playing chicken. People give a courteous flutter of fingers on the steering wheel as they go by.

The Ferry Rule: If you see one, take it

2006-06-06T09:50:00.001-04:00

If you see a ferry, you have to take it

Ferry, Croatia; car-packing

This Rule led us to the Hebrides from Skye, and to the Orkney Islands from the John-o'-Groats area in northern Scotland, just beyond the Highlands. See Scotland Road Ways

It saved us from the wild cloverleaf overpasses-underpasses in Germany at Worms (we just got off and drove toward a river and there a ferry was. It let us off at a lovely country area - we were two cars and a motorcycle on that one. See Germany Road Ways

It also took us from Naples to Palermo, Sicily - but that was a standby luck matter. Our internet reservation had not gone through the system. We did try to make a reservation for that one, because it is a huge ferry with cabins overnight. We lucked out and got on board. Try anyway. See Sample ferry, Naples-Sicily

In England, it got us off the little peninsula near Down to the mainland.

The picture here is the local ferry from Orebic to the island of Korcula. We watched them get those cars squeezed in at right angles with not even a ding. In Croatia, skip the big car ferry from Dubrovnik. Why not set your own schedule, drive a little north, and out the peninsula to Orebic, and take that local ferry to Korcula. Goes back and forth all the time, no advance reservations needed. See Croatia Road Ways

And, most recently, the overnight ferry from Rostock, Germany, to Trelleborg, Sweden, offered a reasonable little cabin so we could get some better sleep, and a shower. Board at 11, dock at 6:30 or so. And good food. We were able to move our reservation for the next night easily ahead. Risky, but worth the ask if you are finished in one place sooner than you thought. Before you leave home, get a printout of driving directions exactly to the pier you need.

Bad hair days: Pinking shears

2006-06-01T18:11:00.001-04:00

Travel bad hair days

Skip the curlers and clips. Cut your hair with pinking shears before you go. Hang your head over the sink, part it straight down the back as though for braids, and then comb it all forward over your whole face.

Take pinking shears in a steady hand, peek carefully in the mirror, and cut up from in front of your ears, at the bottom, in a diagonal up to - and here you choose - the bridge of your nose, for bangs; or the end of your nose, for not. Fling your head back and comb as usual. Love it. Wind and rain matter not.

This is not a solution for the back. Don't look there.

If you must cope, figure out how to hang your head, and in what direction, for that. I go all the way upside down and comb it all according to gravity and grab it and then snip across or wherever to get a layered salon look.

This fellow followed these instructions and is somewhere in Croatia.

Travel do it yourself haircuts. No pinking shears? Cut straight across, then snip with long skinny V's all along the line and voila, shagging.

Wardrobe: One to Wash, One to Wear, One for Spare. Border issues.

2006-05-31T16:14:00.001-04:00

What to Pack

One to wash, one to wear, one for spare. That's it for each basic category. We have taken it down from that, and only take one sweater, for example.

In addition: Take one robish-thing in case the WC is down the hall; and opaque nightwear. We used to take three pairs of day-shoes. One is for the daily mud. the second doubles as slippers and end-of day lighter wear. The third is a sacrificial pair for total wet. Now we just do two.

All light weight, except if we seriously plan to hike. In Ireland, we did take hiking boots - and just wore them to keep from having to carry them. No jogging shoes. Too big, get too muddy.

Dan's travel wardrobe. One sweater.Maybe two.

Organization: Use supermarket plastic bags and ziplocks for all types of things, all including toiletries. They pull out easily for inspections; and stuff back in easily. It also makes it simpler to find what you want.

Weight. It adds up. We layer and do quick wicking-dry, lightweight things --that pack flat flat flat. That outlaws fleece except for a jacket.

How to: The back seat is the dryer. Once at a border checkpoint, the guard took one look at the socks and stuff draped all over the back seat and just rolled his eyes and let us through.We could have been carrying who knows what, or whom, under it all.

Moral: there is no way to seal a border. People are people both ways. Whole idea needs to be rethought.

Currency conversion gimmick

2005-03-15T20:04:00.001-05:00

Currency Conversion Made Easy

Go on Excel and list dollars in one column
And each needed currency beside, in another column-
And with reasonable increments

Cut off the extra.
Fold it so you can pull it out sideways from your wallet,
Quietly, just let it peek out to show the foreign amount,
Then slide it a little more to see the US,
To see what the cost really is, each time.

...............................................

For one trip, we needed five columns:
For Bosnia; Slovenia; Croatia; Serbia
And Montenegro, none of which were reliably
On the Euro.

I ended up cutting and stacking the columns
So I could flip to where we needed to be.

Travel by the Shape of the Country - Summary of Loops

2005-03-06T10:01:00.001-05:00

It doesn't matter where you start or where you go. You will see signs for the big stuff anyway. Do them as you see them. When in doubt, head for a coast and just go clockwise. As you see signs for forays inland, go. If you are lost, pick a direction.

Spain and Gibraltar: For large countries, like Spain, to see the most variety, do a figure-eight from Madrid -- a loop northeast Segovia, Vallodolid, Burgos Bilbao, San Sebastian and Pamplona; then back toward the Madrid area and Cuenca, Avila, Salamanca, then a loop toward the southwest to Trujillo, Guadalupe, Seville, Gibraltar, Cordoba, and back to Madrid.

Germany: large circle from Frankfurt to Marburg and over to Berlin, then south to Nuremberg and Bavarian Alps, and north through Dinkelsbuhl and fiddle around up to Aachen and Koln and down the Rhine with whatever time you have.

Ireland: Several trips here. Overall, Limerick and loop to Galway and north and around- Sligo, Donegal, Giant's Causeway, Downpatrick and Dublin, then south through Glendalough to Wexford, and around coast (forays up) to Cork and Ring of Kerry, and with extra time, Rock of Cashel, then Limerick again.

Scotland: Glasgow to Stirling, dip to Cambelltown and up to Skye (and Hebrides by ferry); Ullapool around northern Highlands if weather is good, ferry to Orkney, then down to Wick and Pitlochry, southern border if time and back to Glasgow.

Italy - linear by train, Venice all way to Naples, stopping off along the way at Florence, Bologna, Rome. Rent car and long loop: do Pompeii, Amalfi Coast and Herculaneum and ferry to Sicily. Back to Naples, Anzio, and Ostia Antica and Rome.

Romania: Bucharest, loop up to Snagov and Brasov, down again to Curtea de Arges and up through Transfagarasan Pass (Vlad ruin castle at Poinari Cetate) to Sibiu, Sighisoara, Bistrita and Bucovina. Across top and west to Sighetu Marmetiei and south to Cluj Napoca, Hunedoara,Horezu, and Taragoviste. And Bucharest.

Croatia-Slovenia-Bosnia-Montenegro: Much driving here, but we enjoy that. Knew we may not get back, so did a lot. Zagreb, loop west to Rijeka, Pula and Trieste, back through Slovenia to Rijeka and south long loop Pag, Nin, Zadar, Split, then Bosnia-Mostar and Medugorje, south back to Dubrovnik, Croatia; then another loop south to Montenegro - Kotor, Budva, Cetinje, Ostrog, and cross-country back down to Dubrovnik (some 6 checkpoints) inland north to Karlovac, and more Slovenia (Ljubljana, Lake Bled, Kranj) and back to Zagreb; west loop to Jasenovac, Osijek, up to Hungarian border and east again to Verazdin and Zagreb.

England and Wales: London, Wiltshire and Stonehenge, Dartmoor, Mount St. Michael, Cornwall, north to Wales (northern castles) and back to Chester, England. Nottingham, Oxford, Rochester, Dover, Canterbury, Hastings, Brighton, London.

France: Loops. Paris, north to Amiens, Abbeville and Somme areas, loop over to Rheims, Caen, Normandy Beaches, Mont St. Michel, Angers, Loire Valley castles, Orleans, southern loop to Dijon, back to Metz, Sedan, Reims, Epernay and Paris.

Netherlands-Belgium-Luxembourg. A late loop back to see the British Bridge too Far (Operation Market Garden WWII) at Arnhem - so illogical here. Amsterdam, Zandvoort, Lisse, Leiden, The Hague, Rotterdam, Kinderdijk, Nijmegen (American Operation Market Garden forces) and Groesbeek (VE Day), around past Mastricht (inaccessible - Mr. Bush's traffic jam and diversions) to Venlo; Bastogne (Belgium); Ettelbruck, Diekirche, Hamm Cemetery (General Patton) and Luxembourg City; Waterloo (back to Belgium), Brussels, Ghent, Ypres (my uncle Len there in WWI), Bruges, Antwerp; back to Holland: Middelburg, Domburg, Breda, Gouda, Alkmaar, across dype (dividing Waddenzee and Ijsselmeer) to Urk, Arnhem, Haarlem and Amsterdam.

The switchback: Denmark, Northern Germany, Sweden. Requires ferries, long bridges, hard to estimate how much time will be needed. We pushed a little at the beginning, then found we had two days extra to enjoy before the Copenhagen flight out, and filled in what we missed the first time. Map with shape of country? Works most of the time, but Denmark is so many islands that we couldn't.

The occasional day bus tour

2005-02-15T13:28:00.001-05:00

If you are in a big city,
Tired,
Then take a double-decker bus tour
And hop on, hop off.

Switzerland, Vega-Tour bus. Vegetable tour?

Best on Mondays when many countries close things. Museums shut.
Perfect for getting the mobile overview.
Bus tours? Sometimes. But rarely.

Precautions: Safekeeping your documents, luggage

2005-02-14T13:56:00.001-05:00

Travel precautions. Look behind you once in a while.

Dan is demonstrating that travel principle at the annual Bojnice Castle play, Slovakia.

1. In pocket: For each traveler, carry an ID and where the current hotel is.
Put copy of passport also
In wallet with USA contact phone number.

2. In waist pocketbelt - tickets, passports, traveler's checks, extra cash. Keep different currencies separate in their own baggies.

3. In any parking lot - do not hurry. Scope out where you are: the vans, with covered windows where people are just sitting there. Once we lost it all, at Blarney - they waited until we left for the attraction, broke into car, removed all they wanted, and then moved to another place in the lot before careening out when we realized.

4. Leave no touristy items in car visible when you leave the car. Every time. And close the windows all the way. Carry your backpacks in restaurants if at all concerned.
That's why we have backpacks and not rolling suitcases.

Car rentals, insurance, parking Lost

2005-02-14T13:41:00.001-05:00

Dan with rental car

Size matters. Keep it small. If the rental company tries to get you to upgrade, don't.

1. Cars: Compact size. No bigger. Roads are too narrow and twisty in many places.

Standard shift is cheaper and gives better control.

Insurance: Check carefully your own coverage. Duplicate any doubtful insurance. Contract for medical evac. If you are going from country to country, see that you are covered for each. This includes the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and parts of Serbia and Bosnia, that may require separate insurance policies. Be sure you state the countries you are visiting when you contract. I have not bothered with theft insurance. We keep plane tickets, extra money, ID, debit card and passport on us at all times. Never leave in car.

Equipment. Check the equipment in your rental car before leaving. We were given a car in Romania (big rental company) that had no cover at all for the hatchback open luggage area. Did not notice until well away. Had to pile up floor mats as best we could.

At airport: Check before you leave where to bring the car back when you return. Some return places are not near the departure terminal, and there may be no signs. See airport at Bucharest.

Parking: Write down, or photograph for fast reference later, where you park.Or have a GPS and enter it.

Put a dot on your city map. Every time. Street name, sketch of buildings, dot on map. Cars lose easily. We were particularly dumb in Manchester, England, by noting we were near half-timber buildings. Ha. The whole town is half-timber.

Buying: We don't

2005-02-14T11:18:00.001-05:00

Shopping. Who Needs It.

Budget plus weight equals nuisance

Skip it. Too much time away from seeing what we want to see.
We do photos, postcards, maps and local guidebooks. Other than those, I recall these touristy purchases:
Ireland: a woven scarf; a mineral-stone necklace
Germany: mug of Weimar
Scotland - Hebrides - Orkney: hand-screened silk scarves in Orkney; otherwise, nothing
Spain: mug with Don Quixote
England: A print of spouse's family's historical village in Wiltshire; otherwise, nothing
Italy - Sicily: nothing
Romania: face cream mentioned in the guidebook, at $4; tried to order here, and it is $25. Sigh.
France: nothing

Museums - One Big per City, rest Small

2005-02-14T10:50:00.001-05:00

Swiss Museum find, Yverdon les Bains.

Don't skip all the museums. You may learn something, like a 19th Century Swiss spa using mummy bone grindings for health.

We do one big museum per big city,
Then choose
Out-of-the-way, topical museums
Like the one for the Brothers Grimm
In Kassel, Germany.
Or the wayside mineral
Or early pagan artifact
And customs museums
In backroads Ireland
Where the wells
May still have ribbons
Placed on twigs nearby.
Sto to find out what they are.
Note:
Many are closed on Mondays.
In some places,
In the warmer climates,
Museums and attractions
Close between 1-2 PM
For lunch.

Packing Suggest Takes- minimal. And baggies baggies.

2005-02-06T10:17:00.001-05:00

Le Luggage

Shopping plastic bags for airport inspection, finding what you need

1. Pack everything in supermarket plastic bags.

2. Easy to unload for inspections, finding things.

3. Main categories: One to wash, one to wear, one for spare

4. Two basic dumb colors, with one brighter thing

5. Two daily pairs of shoes, one to get wet. Then a third light-weight pair to double as slippers to get to the bath down the hall, and wear for dinner.

Last trip, I just took one pair for day, and silly flats as slippers doubling as evening wear. Admire the soles as we slept in the airport, grateful that we packed light.

Airport. Copenhagen. Sleeping in. Grateful for packing light.

6. You can buy what you need over there, so under-pack. No-one cares if you wear the same thing because you are your own tour.

7. One flimsy folding duffle to keep in the trunk with rain gear, or cold gear. Ours has even weathered being checked through with the hiking boots inside, on return. Lately, with more weight restrictions and numbers of bags allowed down to two, we skip the duffle.

8. Avoid checking anything through on the way over.

9. Packing find of the year: The Go-Lite backpack that doubles as a duffle, and is expandable upwards. No back frame, just straps.

10. Plan to share with your travel-mate rather than duplicate everything.

11. Rule. Wash most things out each night. If not dry, drape it in the trunk.

12. Take an alarm clock and flashlight

Email - Provide general pending routes from internet cafes

2005-02-06T10:02:00.001-05:00

Email beats phoning.

We don't know where we are going next. We email home whenever we see an internet cafe and say where we are, and what the non-plan next is. We phone seldom. Even dedicated phone cards are inconvenient, and may not work in all phones in the country - multiple systems. Postcards are difficult because then you have to find a post office to buy the stamps.

Put your personal information somewhere coded (remember the code) so you can access numbers etc.

We could drop off the face of the earth sometime, but that's life and we don't focus on that. Could happen at home also.

Language issues: Dictionaries, not grammar books

2005-02-06T09:48:00.001-05:00

In my next life, I will do a good country dictionary for travelers. It will contain nothing but the actual single words you really need, and not in the grammar form in the guidebooks or usual travel dictionaries. I will go heavy on menus, road words, and words you need for lodging and car care.

You may want to duplicate a great taste at home, like Croatian ajvar, but do that at home. Don't haul big books of phrases around. Order at random, if you like it, note it.

Croatia, ajvar, home brew starts

Skip learning full sentences at the outset. Use benign body language (check the hand gestures for cultural meaning before using). Even imitate the animal sound like a 2-year old. Pork, beef, chicken, you get the idea. An egg?

Learn instead: Where is. Who is. What is.

Your prior knowledge of Latin or French or Spanish may or may not help. Eat what you get anyway.

Food specifics: Oreilles.

Oreilles may look like ear-shaped pasta on the menu, but the real thing may be pig's ears - as in Spain. We thought we were ordering the little pasta. When the dish arrived, we thought they were bulls' ears, but I learned later that their ears are kept as trophies and we probably got the porker. Try them braised, a little fuzzy and cartilagenous, but delicious. Eat it anyway and you may be a devotee. If in doubt, pick anything on the menu and see what comes. All you need is enough to last you until the next meal. Enjoy.

Tidy time. In transit: We take a dishtowel for the car, wash and wet it and good for cleanup after snacking. Neighborhood deli-places are great for lunch when there is no restaurant-- or if you are looking for food before the custom allows food. And that happens. Find out when the real eating times are. There may not be an in-between.

The Laundry Rule - Every night, thank you

2005-02-02T10:51:00.001-05:00

Korcula, Croatia. Laundry through the gateway

Travel laundry rule: wash socks and underwear every night. Sponge off other stuff. If still wet in AM, drape over back seat.

Every night also do one bigger thing if you start to feel shabby. Keeps the cycle going. Other things you can figure out.

Everybody wear the same kind of socks. Four pair black.

Here is open-air laundry, upper right extending across the way, and through the doorway, Korcula, Croatia.

Benefit time: The Fruits of our Trips for the Nuts - Travel with Dan

2005-02-02T10:22:00.002-05:00

Travel benefit: The older learns from the younger

And those are real eggs, with a defective memory card that skewed the color. This is not Easter.

What we do: We talk current events, he types, he reads, he takes volumes and volumes out of the library social studies sections on countries, he clips from newspapers, he is plotting the next trip as soon as we land from the one before.

What you might do: Instead of camp, if you pay for that already, try just 7 days in Ireland with one parent, one child. You could start off easy: land at Limerick, run around Bunratty Castle, start in on the middle ages and cannon and just drive around.

How our family reacts: It has become a laugh and an avenue and a joy. And a refresher for the grown-ups on all of history and politics through the ages. Enough. Just try it. And he earns at his job, and decides not to spend what is left after room and board and his usual needs, and saves for the trips. Now, that's responsibility. For any kid. Us: Ours is grown, and has the advantage of Down Syndrome, and travel fits.

Down is up. Travel with someone with Down syndrome and you will find kindred in every country. It may be a nod and a smile, a conversation suddenly opening up with an innkeeper, other patrons in places to eat, a storefront with services. We laugh a lot. And, for anyone who can benefit from improving reading and writing skills, try the guidebooks (we look up anything obscure in the indexes) and logs, carefully entered each evening.