Every Trip Makes You a Smarter Traveler

When we look back now to our very first overseas trip many years ago and compare it to the way that we travel these days, it was very different. We spent two weeks traveling to Paris, London, Stratford-Upon-Avon, and Manchester, spending anywhere from four nights to as little as one night in each location. It was November, so we knew that we would have a variety of weather conditions, so we packed two full suitcases, one large and one medium, each. We took a variety of shoes to account for outfits, casual, dressy, etc., so that we prepared for walking during the day and going out to a nice dinner at night. There we were, dragging suitcases through airports, train and subway stations, and getting glaring looks from taxi drivers who had to put a suitcase in the passenger seat because they wouldn’t all fit in the trunk/boot. To make things worse, we had to pay overweight luggage charges on the flights and then we bought souvenirs throughout our trip. We ended up buying another duffle bag just to fit the things that we bought. Hard to believe, but true.

Palace at Versailles
Tower Bridge in London

Clearly we were not savvy travelers. We have learned so many things over time. Now we try to get everything into a carry-on bag if we can and we can’t, we put everything into a single suitcase that we share between the two of us. In order to do that, we limit what we take. One or two pairs of shoes at the most, choosing a single color tone so that you don’t need different belts, shoes, make-up, etc. If the weather is going to fluctuate, take clothes that can be layered so that the same clothes can be used multiple ways. We have even found laundry sheets for travel that can be used to wash clothes in a sink and then hung up to dry. We will also take advantage of dry cleaning or laundry services at hotels.

Shakespeare’s Birthplace in Stratford-Upon-Avon
Eiffel Tower in Autumn

We try not to change hotels every few days. Sometimes that means that it costs us a little extra to have a home-base and then making short, overnight trips from that location. Even if we are moving around, limiting the amount of stuff that we carry with us means that we have less to lug around, less to pack and unpack, and less to worry about getting lost in transit. We also roll our clothes so that they take up less space in the suitcase. It makes no sense, but rolling really works, you can pack more in less space. We bought a luggage scale and always weigh our suitcases after packing them to be sure that we never get surprised by an overweight charge by an airline.

Warwick Castle
Westminster Abbey

We have learned a lot of other things, such as how to relate to different cultures, and how to dress appropriately for the country that you are visiting, and how not to look like a tourist when walking streets of a foreign city.  We also ensure that we learn the basics of hello, goodbye, and thank you as well as other key phrases in the language of the country and always try to be a friendly traveler. There are many other lessons that we have learned since that first, comical adventure, but it is fun to reminisce about how naive we were during our first trip to Europe.

The Victoria Memorial

For Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Blue and White, we immediately thought of the photo we had taken of the Victoria Memorial in London. It is a monument dedicated to Queen Victoria that is located in the circle across from Buckingham Palace. We just happened to catch the shot with a surprising clear blue sky, especially considering that there gray clouds just before and after we took this picture.

Victoria Memorial

Cathedrals and Temples

It isn’t surprising that the places of worship are some of the most spectacular sites to see when travelling. The Roman cathedrals, the Islamic mosques, the Buddhist and Hindu temples, just to name a few, are all inspiring works of architecture and display a treasure trove of art. We’ve enjoyed seeing many various cathedrals and temples at the places we’ve visited. Well almost.

The Cathedral of Granada – Cathedral of the Incarnation
Westminster Abbey
Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, France

This post is not going to be a catalog of all of the different cathedrals and temples that we’ve seen. In fact it is about the opposite. One of the things that starting to post about our travels has done is to review past photographs of the places that we’ve been to. Especially going back through the old photo albums since most of our lives were spent prior to the digital camera age. The good thing that has come from that is that we’re now scanning many of those older photographs and making them digital, which is really great. But, in reviewing those photographs where most of our travel was throughout the United States, we came to an epiphany.

Kapaleeshwarar Temple in Chennai, India
St. Mary’s Church in Warwick, England
Fraumunster Church in Zurich, Switzerland

We don’t take photographs of the cathedrals that are in our own country 🙁  We’ve been to pretty much every major city in the United States, whether to live or to visit, and we have virtually no pictures of any of the cathedrals that are in those great cities, and they have some great cathedrals.  To be honest, we were kind of ashamed of ourselves.  How could we make such a concerted effort when we’re abroad and take so little notice in our own backyard.  We won’t call it a New Year’s resolution, but we will be sure that in the future, we don’t miss out on the beauty that these great cathedrals have to offer as we travel inside of the United States in the future.

Saint Thomas Church in Chennai, India
Seville Cathedral in Seville, Spain
Temples at Mahabalipuram in India
Name
Email
Website
Comment