The Latest Europe Road Ways
Road Trip Return:
Pyrenees, Northern Spain, South of France.
Planning changes with the times.

With some fourteen years of road trips with my adult son, we are modifying some earlier how-to's to accommodate 1. Rental car size;  2. Trips technology; 3. Homeland Security assists; 4. Luggage limits; 5. Playing the theft odds.




1.  Rental car size. Class C for ease. Not the tempting but misleading B, that is really a huge car. This is counter-intuitive.  If you are using Hertz, choose a Class C car if you want access in little villages, blending in, and street parking.  Class B, that to us had meant size a little above smallest economy, certainly not a mini, but not a big car, may well produce a station wagon for Italy and Sicily, or, as this trip, a big Opel RV.

Class C means a sacrifice on power, but that is easy.  Don't push speed and power. Recommend: the one we finally got, a little Peugeot. Size like a Ford Focus.

2.  Trips technology. Update the GPS, even if you resent having to do that because you are not a techie.  The European Union has produced fabulous roads. The new roads and cloverleafs may well not be on your GPS, however, if yours is old.   We never update or buy new maps, thinking we can find our way, and that is not wise these days when the new roads are motorways.  No time to think when the exit is upon you. 

Those of you with smartphones and devices can skip this.  I travel with little fancy, however.
  • Other technology.  We would upgrade to something that offers a street map, for walking; not just how a car would get somewhere. We tend to park centrally where there is a good underground lot, then find the hotel. On foot, the GPS thinks you are a car and will not route you up the one-way streets. Always mark on the map where the car is, and where the hotel is.  Old towns are warrens of streets.
  • Theft and attention avoidance.  We carry nothing another might covet and find easy to run off with.
3.  Homeland security. Help them out.

Anticipate their issues. Put anything that could trigger an inspection in a hand-carry-on, not in your main bag. Carrying many glossy guidebooks, for example, and retaining receipts and tourist maps and pamphlets grows into huge volume. Put them all in a hand-carry-on, not in your backpack.
  • Tainted tourist syndrome:  Returning from Denmark a few years ago, I had all those picture books and paper and info in plastic supermarket bags in the bottom of my duffel-style backpack.  Out it all had to come. They came, they saw, they let it all back in with no change. Just a tourist endangering her back with the weight.
  • Then this year, returning from Spain, I was told by one of the agent-questioning people at check-in that my record on the computer showed that I had been found earlier to carry heavy dangerous items, so please explain what is in your backpacks. 
  • Yes, tour books could be thrown and their corners are sharp, so don't let the issue even arise.  Carry them separately. Homeland Security:  at least specify what was found to be dangerous. Everything went right back in again after inspection. How could it have been dangerous? No, just skip it. Another tainted tourist.
4.  Luggage limits.  One overhead, one underfoot (a handbag, and mine can expand into a little backpack, or a shoulder bag; and has a compartment for documents; Dan carries a canvas briefcase floppy thing for favorite tour books and our logs. 

Tuck in an extra fold-up bag in each backpack.  One serves for overnight joint toiletries and minimum clothing. 

5.  Playing the theft odds. The other fold-up bag? Handy for organizing the trunk with bad weather gear and other things not immediately needed. Keep anything else in the backpack and leave it all in the trunk. In the trunk?  We do.  Nothing is left visible in the car, it is obviously a rental car, but so are so many others.  We play the odds. Someday it may backfire, but who can carry all that everywhere. And the documents and a change of clothes and basic maps remain with us all the time.



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Our purpose in trips includes ongoing education for our son  -- for a fabulously inquisitive, street-smart, Down Syndrome adult who deserves, as anyone, every feasible opportunity to be a rounded, informed person. Public schooling -- he still sees his favorite teachers -- did well, but stopped. Job: he is a fine employee. But there is more to life. There is the brain.  He as anyone needs to see the world. Everyone is out to pick a pocket or two.

Russia by train, air and bus, for two major cities.

See two sites:

1.   Russia Road Ways. Moscow; and

2.   Russia Road Ways St. Petersburg.

Overview.

Kremlin Regiment, changing of the guard, Moscow

Our years of improvised road trips through much of Europe did not provide enough confidence for me to drive where Cyrillic rules, and without much in the way of English backup.  Dan and I, then, went by small tour -- Moscow and St.

The Latest Europe Road Ways

Road Trip Return:

Pyrenees, Northern Spain, South of France.

Planning changes with the times.

With some fourteen years of road trips with my adult son, we are modifying some earlier how-to's to accommodate 1. Rental car size;  2. Trips technology; 3. Homeland Security assists; 4. Luggage limits; 5. Playing the theft odds.

Figueres, Spain. Salvador Dali Museum. Big car.  Do you really need that for a simple road trip.

1.  Rental car size. Class C for ease.

Getting the Idea Across Fast

With this online, we can translate the basics in a flash, go anywhere, and not reinvent the wheel each time. We are heading off to Barcelona, Pyrenees and South of France.  French I know, enough.  Spanish:  need more help. 

Conversation, getting and giving information, requires fast reference. Language glossaries in guide books are useless for day-to-day use, inconvenient, too too.

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.

Boost Understanding. Start travel at home.

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.

EYKVW7HRE5VM

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..

.

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

Step one. Cut up the books.

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.
TRIPS INDEX- The Ad Hoc Ersatz Car-Dan Tour Company
TRIPS INDEX- The Ad Hoc Ersatz Car-Dan Tour Company
TOP PHOTO. Kalmar Castle, Sweden.
TOP PHOTO. Kalmar Castle, Sweden.
Visit first, read about it later. Too much advance information is overwhelming.
Chablis France
Chablis France
Chablis France
Dan and Vintner; farmhouse tasting
Welcome to Europe Road Ways, our own trips. Find a map and a guidebook and go.
Welcome to Europe Road Ways, our own trips. Find a map and a guidebook and go.
We began the easy way: We chose Ireland several years ago, with its similar language and food, its small geographical area comparatively, some family roots, and we had only to cope with driving on the left.

From that, we branched out to see other countries and regions in Europe, each trip some two weeks. We eat and sleep wherever, and have so far found consistently safe and clean places. We cross borders freely (no itinerary). How to find us if we disappear? We carry lots of ID, register at consulates or embassies sometimes, and email home our plans as we make them.

Side benefits: For parent-child travel, the child becomes adult, a full participant in decisions. Whether related to the trips or just Himself, Dan has developed substantial street-smarts, and is a history buff. He is an inquisitive, responsible citizen of a larger world.

See also Europe Road Ways on the Web
About Me
About Me
1. Travel, improvised road trips. Two on the Loose: EUROPE ROAD WAYS. How we do it; (click) Europe Road Ways, How We Do It; and Europe Road Ways on the Web. Blogs for countries visited: Andorra Road Ways, Austria Road Ways, Belgium Road Ways, Bosnia Road Ways, China Road Ways (Jon's trip), Croatia Road Ways, Czech Republic Road Ways, Denmark Road Ways, England Road Ways, France Road Ways, Germany Road Ways, Greece Road Ways (Carol and Jon), Hebrides Road Ways, Hungary Road Ways, Ireland Road Ways, Italy Road Ways, Liechtenstein Road Ways, Luxembourg Road Ways, Montenegro Road Ways, Netherlands Road Ways, Norway Road Ways, Orkney Road Ways, Poland Road Ways, Romania Road Ways, Russia Road Ways Moscow, Russia Road Ways St.Petersburg, Scotland Road Ways, Sicily Road Ways, Slovakia, Slovenia Road Ways, Spain Road Ways, including Gibraltar, Sweden Road Ways, Switzerland Road Ways, Trieste Road Ways, Wales Road Ways;
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