Sunday, December 13, 2009

Planning the Holidays Away

It’s hard to plan a trip so far in advance, especially one that takes up almost two months of your life.

We have made the decision not to travel to London, seeing as it is so expensive there and in the interest of saving money we will probably just travel through Heathrow Airport.

We’ve been buying and borrowing books and we’ve found it’s really hard to know just where to start when planning a trip that has so much scope and is full of so many opportunities.

Some people have said not to plan, which I think is crazy. I’d like to have an element of excitement and spontaneity, but every book I’ve read has said the best way to be economical is to plan.

So we’ve begun the long process of doing so. Once we had decided this was exactly what we wanted to do, and decided we weren’t going to kill each other along the way, and had our practice run of horror outtripping in Algonquin Park, the next step was planning.

And with Christmas coming up, more and more people are asking Eric and I what we want that will help ease or travels when we leave for Europe in May.

We have gotten plenty of suggestions from so many friends and family members about where to stay and what to do while we’re overseas. And despite my constant pleading to reroute our trip to Africa, which Eric isn’t buying, things are starting to come together.

But every once in a while I get in a panic. I have documents on my computer dedicated to questions I need answers to – should we bring sleeping bags? Pack more than two pairs of jeans? Should we both bring MEC packs? Eric asked me yesterday how he will shave. Maybe these are stupid questions?

But every one needs an answer and we’re running out of time to get them.

Despite some setbacks and mix-ups, we’ve decided (after much debate) on which countries we are most likely going to visit:

· Romania (Transylvania)

· Hungary (Budapest)

· Czech Republic (Prague)

· Germany

· France (Paris and maybe Lyon)

· Italy (Venice, Rome)

· The Netherlands (Amsterdam)

· Belgium

· Switzerland

· Austria

· Greece

· Turkey

· Croatia

Obviously this is just a guideline, and some of these countries we are visiting only by the ship during the cruise we’re taking of the Mediterranean.

So our planning continues. Formulating this list was probably the easy part.

However, with some people’s help we have been able to come up with a few places we are planning to stay, including this boutique hotel in Budapest courtesy of Paula. We’ve also been able to find some activities like cycling along the Danube and visiting castles in Transylvania that seem to peak our interest.

We’re also thinking of tentatively travelling to Ireland if we can find a cheap flight to stay with my family there.

The next few weeks of the winter break will be optimal time for planning and hopefully we can decide on a route to take. As you can see from the map, we already have a tentative plan of what kind of path we plan on taking from city to city, but this is constantly changing.

They’re going to be a long few weeks…

Until Next Time

-A