This is the second year that fall has come around and my thoughts have turned to...Guadalajara.
The foods, the family I lived with there for a few days and the Guadalajara sights.
The San Juan de Dios Market. (I just recently finished the vanilla I brought home from there, which reminded me of my trip every time I baked with it.) The Corona Market in Guadalajara's city center. And much more. My nice teacher at the IMAC Spanish language school in downtown Guadalajara.
I was in a class with about five others, who ranged in age from teens to probably 60's. I loved the fact that la maestra couldn't revert to English to explain things (she didn't speak it well) and that I was able to follow along in Spanish pretty well.
A guy I hardly knew cooked me breakfast yesterday. Pancakes. An Israeli guy from New York.
Actually, "hardly knew" overstates things. I didn't know him at all. But Raz from Queens not only cooked me a batch of pancakes, he also gave me a rundown of all the places I should go and see in Israel - which I'm planning on visiting in January.
This is what I love about hosteling. Particularly when traveling solo.
Travelers debating whether to buy an iPad to take on the road should take a peek at the apps and functions described by Jim Karlovsky on The Globe Less Traveled. He lists 21 useful functions the iPad provides travelers.
The wifi and Internet connections didn't impress. I don't travel to stay in touch. In fact, it's the opposite. In any case, there are Internet cafes and I can always pay to activate my smartphone overseas.
But then I kept reading and got to part about language translators and offline maps. This got my attention.
He writes about Jibbigo, a language translator. You type in or speak a phrase and the translation is spoken aloud for the person you're trying to communicate with. It's also written on the screen. Within seconds. That's kind of cool.
Then there are the offline maps and transit schedules. "Offline" is a magic word when traveling with electronics. Who knows where or when you will find a connection?
Time for me to start harmonica lessons. Right quick.
A travel writer acquaintance of mine wrote this lovely story about how playing the harmonica during her travels in China, Turkey and elsewhere, quickly broke the ice with children she met along the way. Brilliant! Why haven't I ever thought of this?
People often advise travelers to bring gum, coins, pens, pencils and other small items to give to children. But sharing music seems like such a better idea. You hand over a pencil, there's not much of a bond.
But sharing music and bringing a smile to someone's face? Priceless!
Visiting a new place? Ride a bus to the end of the line and soak up the sights while coming and going. Get off the bus if you see something or some place that strikes you. Maybe get back on and go to the end of the line after that. Or maybe not.
The Chicago Tribune has a piece on how solo travelers can buy vacation packages without getting fleeced by the single supplement. I've written about these points before but they always bear repeating.
If you're willing to share a room, many tour operators will match you with someone of the same sex, eliminating the single supplement. Some will waive it, even if you end up with a private room due to an odd number of men or women on the trip. Don't get your heart set on it. You have to be lucky for circumstances to work out that way.
Booking early or late can help, as can going with smaller tour operators willing to negotiate.
The Tribune story says the single supplement is typically 200 percent. I don't believe that. On cruises, maybe. But I've been on a lot of vacation tours (biking, rafting, horseback riding and more) and perused many a travel catalog. I've never seen the single supplement listed as 200 percent.
Instead, you usually end up having to pay several hundred dollars more than those who bunk with another, whether friend, partner or spouse. That's because the hotels charge by the room and if you're just one person, you can't split it with anyone. But that's not the tour operator's fault. It's the way of hotel pricing. The tour operator books a certain number of rooms and if two people are sharing a room, the overall costs are lower.
Over the years I've experienced most of the above. I've shared rooms with someone the tour company matched me with. I've gotten my own room because I was the "odd man out" among the women on the trip - the lucky one who asked for a share but got a single. I had a single when I was on a rafting trip because the sleeping quarters were tents. Which is not necessarily standard. On a camping and biking trip, I was assigned a tentmate.
I've rotated roommates on a trip where there were three solo female travelers. I thought that was a good, fair system, rather than giving the single room to one person for the entire trip. The only problem was, I got so friendly with the other two solo female travelers I felt lonely on the nights I got the private room! There they were chatting and laughing without me!
Anyway, don't let a single supplement put you off taking a vacation package with a tour operator. Choose one of the above options. Or, if you choose a private room, calculate if there are savings based on group travel and transportation that the tour is providing that you wouldn't have gotten on your own.
If you can't bear the idea of sharing with a stranger or paying a single supplement, I'm out of ideas for group trips for you. But if you're willing to try the roommate route, just remember that you won't be spending a lot of time in your room anyway, particularly on an adventure trip...the kind I like to promote here.
"Learn to take great pictures while touring DC's favorite locations." What a cool concept for solo travelers from out of town.
Lynford Morton of PhotoTour Excursions offers two, two, two events in one. (okay, only the older among us will remember that chewing gum commercial. Or was it mints?) Photo lessons and a tour of the area at the same time.
You meet up either at the Lincoln Memorial for DC monuments or in Annapolis (think Chesapeake Bay, U.S. Naval Academy, boats) or in Adams Morgan, a neighborhood in DC full of ethnic restaurants and funky buildings.
Then you get to hang with locals and visitors who show up for the class and talk photography, where you're from and anything else that comes up during your wanderings. So it's fine to go solo.
I chose the Adams Morgan class. Eight of us met on a sunny Sunday morning. Most had pretty nice cameras but didn't know much about them. Two had point and shoots.
The best part of the tour was that Lyn gave personal attention to each of us, looking at our photos and showing us how to use various settings.
Bootsnall, a great travel site, recently published a post on 10 reasons to visit Iceland now. The photos are gorgeous and I agree with all their reasons. Except maybe #10. I'll get to that in a moment.
I've been to Iceland twice (as I've written here before), once in the winter and once in the summer. Many friends have been there over and over. One for business. He loves it. Another couple because it's so close. And they love it.
The Travel Belles post on 7 solo travel lessons is filled with luscious photos of the Loire Valley in France that I've borrowed (with permission) to use here. I practically cry, wondering how I could get my photos to look as stunning.
Her tips are good too. For instance: "Always leave room for a change of plans. They are going to happen anyway."
So true. Everyone had told the writer she needed to get to the Chateau de Chenonceau first thing in the morning. As soon as it opened.
She made plans to do so. But her innkeeper told her it wasn't necessary and that she should relax and take her time and go to the chateau at lunch when everyone was outside in the garden.
That she should visit the local market in the morning instead. It turned out to be a worthwhile change of plans. Would a travel partner have tried to talk her out of it? Would she have caved if she weren't solo? See other tips, and especially, more photos, at The Travel Belles blog.
As for tips for single-bag travel, many of the tips are common but it's worth a read to be sure you know them all.
The writer's reasons for why to take only carry on luggage had me nodding my head in agreement.
"No more long lines to check bags, no more wondering if your luggage will get lost along the way, no more waiting in line at baggage-claim areas, no more keeping track of large bags and small bags and no more fees."
Amen to that. I've had bags not show up. For days. At least twice while on vacations and once while on a business trip. One bag was lost for all time.
I used to check bags because it was easier than lugging my stuff through airports. The point is, then, to take less stuff. I get better and better at it. So can you.
So pack well and pack small. Save a lot of aggravation both coming, going and when the credit card bill comes. And the baggage fees are missing.
Fellow travel writer Laura Byrne Paquet ended up in Amsterdam's Red Light District doing...well...not what you think. Paquet and her husband, tourists from Canada, had arranged a special meeting.
Paquet chose dinner at the home of a couple who wrote on the site that they loved to cook traditional Dutch food. She whipped out a credit card to cover the cost for a four- to five-course dinner and voila. She had a "reservation" for dinner. At someone's home.
One of the highlights of such a dinner, in my mind, is learning about a neighborhood in richer detail than you can from a guidebook. Paquet's host described a project to restrict prostitution in the famed red-light district and encourage upscale businesses to move in.
Over multiple glasses, the foursome also talked about the intricacies of Dutch politics. We get some of those stories here in Washington, D.C. I would have enjoyed hearing a Dutch point of view.
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