First Impressions: Paris

My husband and I have travelled to Europe 3 times and visited 10 different countries over those three trips. Each city we have visited has been very unique. This series of posts includes our first impressions of specific cities.

 

Paris, France

My husband and I visited Paris before we had children, so it was just the two of us. It followed our trip to London and we arrived via The Chunnel, which travels under the English Channel. We visited the Eiffel Tower the first night we arrived. It was raining, but the rain actually made for some great pictures!

We stayed in a small, but nice hotel called Hotel du Theatre, and they served breakfast every morning in an old wine cellar down below.

 

 

 Of course, we visited numerous museums, including the Rodin Museum (an outdoor sculpture museum), the Louvre (who visits Paris without this on their itinerary!), and the d'Orsay Museum, which we actually preferred to the Louvre. We really enjoyed the collection of Impressionist paintings we found there.



Perhaps the highlight of our visit to Paris was the day we spent in Versailles. If you ever visit Paris, this is a must-see!

We went down below to The Catacombs, which is probably one of the most macabre places we have visited in our travels. We also braved the solicitors trying to force us to buy bracelets at the foot of Sacre Coeur and enjoyed the amazing view of the city.

 

 

We had always heard from other people that the French were rude, but we did not find this to be the case at all. In fact, on our first night there while visiting the Eiffel Tower, my husband lost the tickets that would get us up to the very top of the tower. To this day, we have no idea what happened to them, but somehow he lost them between floors. I was crying while he frantically searched his pockets and anywhere else he could think of. Apparently, we looked pretty stressed out because the men working that night motioned for us to go ahead and get on the elevator to go up anyway!

First Impressions?

Sophisticated. Grand. Expensive. Showy. Fashionable. Expansive. Artsy.

 

What are your impressions of Paris, whether you have visited or not?

Tripit

Ever wished that you could keep all your travel materials in one place but didn't want to have to carry around a big folder full of papers? Now you can do it on your smart phone with Tripit, though you can view and edit your trip on either a mobile device or a computer.

Using Tripit, you can upload flight numbers, hotel confirmation numbers, and driving directions. You can also add in an itinerary on each day, and there is space for you to add any special notes about the attractions you plan to visit. For example, if you plan to visit one of the zoos in Chicago, you can manually enter the times of any of the animal feedings or special shows so that you have all that information in one place. Entering a tentative itinerary for your trip can help you determine how much to plan for a day.

Another cool feature of Tripit is the weather. Tripit automatically uploads the weather forecast for each day so that you can see if your itinerary is compatible with the weather. For example, if you plan to visit a zoo on a day that there is a good chance for rain, you can just switch your itinerary plans to a different day. There is also a place for you to enter in the cost of each part of your trip, whether it be lodging, plane tickets, or entrance fees for attractions. You can add more than one traveler who can edit the trip, and once you are finished planning, you can send your itinerary to friends or family. This is extremely helpful if you usually leave flight or hotel information with someone before you depart.

Tripit is simple to use and can be found at www.tripit.com. It is free, but just remember you will need to have internet to access all of its features.

Happy planning!

Has anyone else had any experience with Tripit?

First Impressions: London

My husband and I have travelled to Europe 3 times and visited 10 different countries over those three trips. Each city we have visited has been very unique. This series of posts includes our first impressions of specific cities.

 

London, England

 

 

London was my first European city to ever visit. When I was in college, I really wanted to study abroad at Harlaxton College in England but was never blessed with the opportunity. That being said, it had always been a goal for me to visit Europe, but I was never really certain I would ever get there. On the flight from the US to London, I didn't sleep. At all. I was way too excited and when we started our descent to Heathrow, I literally cried, I was so excited.

 

Our few nights in London consisted of London Walks, the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London, London Walks, and a day trip to Bath, Stonehenge, and Windsor Castle, among other stops.

 

Overall, we found London to be very "liveable" even though there are some differences in daily living from what we are used to here in the Midwest. Part of me wishes I had taken a year to live in a flat in London, but I believe that kind of opportunity has since passed me by.

 First impressions?

 

Regal. Grand. International. Traditional. Green. Rich in history. Proud.

 

 

Comment with your own description of the city!

Using Tripadvisor Reviews

One of my absolute favorite websites of all time is www.tripadvisor.com. If you travel at all, you will want to be familiar with this site. Whenever we are planning a trip, we visit this site religiously to check up on reviews and forum posts.

I can't even begin to list all the things you can do on this site, but one of the things we use it for most is to read reviews, more specifically hotel reviews. When you are travelling to a place you have never been before, especially to a foreign country, you want to be sure that you are staying somewhere that not only looks nice in the pictures on the website, but that also meets your standards in reality. If you have ever stayed in a sub-par hotel, you know exactly what I mean!

Perhaps the easiest way to find reviews of hotels is to sort them the way it makes the most sense to you. You can choose a category (All Hotels, Best Value, Family, Luxury, Business, and Romantic) and then click the drop-down menu to sort the hotels by ranking or price. You can also select various options for your search, such as type of accommodation (hotel, B&Bs, specialty lodging, etc.), specific price range, or neighborhood (if you know what area you would like to stay in). The list that comes up should tell you what the accommodations' rankings are (for example: #24 out of #462 hotels in Nashville, etc.). You can view your options in list view or opt for a larger map that you can click on to view information about hotels in specific areas of the city you are researching. Of course, if you already know which hotel or accommodation you are considering, you can always simply search for that hotel by name and it should come up.

In popular and widely travelled cities, you will come across many reviews, so you will probably not have the time or patience to read them all. I typically try to read the most recent reviews, as these give more accurate and up-to-date information about the accommodation. However, be careful to look at when the reviewer actually stayed at the hotel and not just the date the review was written, as people sometimes wait a few weeks to a few months after returning home to review the accommodation they used. Sometimes reviewers also upload pictures of the room they stayed in so that you can compare these with the pictures used on the hotel website.

Another thing to keep in mind is that everyone has different standards for what an accommodation should offer. Also, some people just like to complain about anything and everything they can think of! We ran across this quite a bit when researching for our European trips. If you have ever been to Europe, then you would know that hotel rooms tend to be a lot smaller by American standards. This is just the way it is there unless you are staying in an American chain hotel (which we typically do not do). If the only reason a reviewer gave a hotel a low ranking was because of the room size, we took that into consideration, as that is just a given in Europe. We have also read complaints about things like what is offered at breakfast. If you are staying in budget hotels, it is always good to keep in mind that, on some level, you do get what you pay for. We typically stay in B&B's or smaller "mom and pop" hotels in Europe. These kind of accommodations are not usually "luxurious" but do offer a lot of other perks, such as friendly hotel staff with lots of great sightseeing advice that you would not normally get at a larger, more luxurious hotel. We would never expect to stay in a small B&B and be pampered like royalty, have a large room, or be able to order room service at all hours of the night, simply because small B&B's are just not that type of accommodation. However, there are people in the world who do have higher and very unrealistic expectations at times. That being said, there are certain things we take very seriously when we read reviews, such as bug problems, safety issues, and interactions with hotel staff, especially if we happen to see several reviews that mention some of these same issues.

Overall, reading reviews can be helpful but you have to learn to read between the lines to find the information you are looking for. We have used this website for just about every trip we have taken since beginning our travels and have mostly been very happy with the places we have chosen.

Feel free to comment with any other tips or websites that you find helpful!

Why Travel?

There are numerous reasons why any one person would travel, and the reasons one might take one trip might be different from why one would take a completely different trip. Then, there are those who choose not to travel or feel it is a waste of time or money. These are the top 5 reasons why I travel:

1. To get away from my life. This may sound dramatic, but I believe that everyone needs some time away from the realities of everyday living. This might mean a 16 day-jaunt through Europe, a week's vacation on the beach doing absolutely nothing, an extended weekend to a location just a few hours away, or simply a day trip with the family. Taking a break from our regular schedules allows us to return from a trip renewed and feeling good about going back to our lives.

2. To enjoy time with my family. I know a lot of people like to vacation with friends and extended family. While I don't necessarily think this is a bad idea, I tend to view travel as a great time to spend quality time with my immediate family. While at home, it is easy to get caught up in drama in almost every area of life, whether it concerns work, family, or friends, and this affects interactions within our immediate family. Getting away from all of that allows us to spend time doing things we enjoy without having to worry about any of that. For example, one of my favorite things about going to another country is that we are not very easily reachable by phone. Of course, we are sure to contact family frequently so no one worries, but there is something nice about being able to turn off our phones for a week or two to focus on our own interests without any interruptions.

3. To learn about the history and culture of another part of the world or country. One of the things I like best about travelling is imagining what my life would be like if I lived in another place. This is especially evident when we travel to Europe or to the Caribbean where life is really different from where we live in the US. However, there is still evidence of differences in living even in other parts of the US. I was never all that interested in history or social studies class when I was in school, but getting to actually see things in person makes all the difference.

4. To appreciate our lives a little more. While it is nice to fantasize about living somewhere on an island in the Caribbean or moving to a flat in London, ultimately, travelling helps me to appreciate what we have here at home. Of course, there are always people who have more, but there are also people who have considerably less than we do. For example, there are some great things about Jamaica (the worry-free attitude, the warm weather, sandy beaches, etc.), but a life there would be very different from the life we live here. Of course, this is not to say that there is nothing to be learned from the lifestyle and attitude of the people living there. Ideally, one would be able to take back the carefree attitude of the people and apply it appropriately to one's life at home. It kind of puts things in perspective to see how other people can be perfectly happy living in a completely different way.

5. To learn more about myself. There is something about travel that is almost like soul-searching in a way. One can learn more about how she deals with unexpected turns of events or how she deals with being in a new place where there may or may not be different social norms. I know that when we travel out of the country, specifically to Europe, it gives us great pride to be able to navigate our way around an unknown city, especially in a country where we do not speak the language. I usually return home feeling good about our problem-solving skills and how we dealt with things that came up.

There are a million other reasons why one would choose to travel. Feel free to comment with any other reasons you can think of.

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my travel blog! For my first post, I would like to fill you in on a little bit about me and my travel history.

First of all, I am a music therapist living and working in Evansville, Indiana. I have been married for over 6 years, I have a beautiful 2 and a half year old daughter, and we are expecting the birth of a baby boy in a couple of months. I currently work part time as a music therapist and spend the rest of the time home with my daughter. I'm also planning to use some of this "new" time to pursue other things (like blogging!)

As a child, I did a lot of travelling with my family to places "out west" (Yellowstone, Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, Estes Park, Rocky Mountains, Grand Canyon, etc.), Florida (Disney World, the various beaches, Hollywood Studios, Epcot, etc.), and to places in the eastern part of the US, such as Niagara Falls. The only out-of-the-country trip we took in our family was a day trip to Toronto. At the time, my father was nervous that people in Toronto would not speak English, so he refused to spend the time night in Canada. I still give him a hard time about this! Of course, this is just a short (and very unfinished) list of travel destinations.

Strangely enough, my husband travelled to many of the same places with his family as a child. We are both interested in travel and did our first European trip a year after we were married (in 2007). Since then, we have become very interested in Europe and are always adding destinations to our "list of places to visit." In addition to European travel, we have also made several trips within the US and have enjoyed a few trips to the Caribbean. This is a short (and possibly incomplete) list of places we have visited together since meeting in April of 2005.

United States
Gatlinburg, Tennessee
Savannah, Georgia
Saugatuck, Michigan
Chicago, Illinois
Canada
Ottawa, Canada
Caribbean
Jamaica (Sandals Whitehouse) - We have been here twice!
Mexico (Mayan Riviera)
Europe
London, England
Bath, England
Paris, France
Barcelona, Spain
Rome, Italy
Dublin, Ireland
Prague, Czech Republic
Kutna Hora, Czech Republic
Munich, Germany
Venice, Italy
Madrid, Spain
Toledo, Spain
Budapest, Hungary
Vienna, Austria
Bratislava, Slovakia
Rhine Valley in Germany (small towns such as Boppard, Bacharach, etc.)

My husband and I on our 5-year anniversary trip to Jamaica

We have also done numerous day trips and weekend trips to places near where we live, including St. Louis, Louisville, Nashville, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Brown County, etc.

As I'm sure one would expect, we still have a long list of places to visit and are determined to expose our children to the art of travel. In fact, our trip to Saugatuck, Michigan included our daughter who was only about 6 weeks at the time. At around 13 months, we took her with us to Chicago, and the month before she turned two, we took her to Europe. (This particular trip included Madrid, Budapest, Vienna, Bratislava, and the Rhine Valley.) During my upcoming maternity leave with our son, we are planning a long weekend in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

I have numerous plans for this blog and I hope to be able to share some of the strategies and planning tips that we use when putting together our various trips. Some of the topics I plan to write about include travel with children, saving money while travelling, planning an itinerary, reviews of places we have stayed, getting around European cities, reviews of travel books, reviews of attractions we have visited, and packing tips, among other topics. Hopefully, there will be something on this blog that you will find helpful! Please feel free to comment with any other specific topics you would like to see.