Sometimes, you just need to take a day to read by the pool. (Taken at Supetar, Island of Brac, Croatia)
I am not a novice traveller. I am not of the timid horde that obediently follows the tour guide as she hoists her umbrella skyward, so that no one might become lost or have an original experience.
I do not wear a photographers vest, and I have no tightly-secured fanny pack in which to store my passport.
I have climbed the Andes by horseback, nursed a flat tire through the Costa Rican rainforest, and explored the temples of Prambanan in Indonesia. And yes, I have been to both Disney Land and Disney World, and can tell you which has the best Monte Cristo sandwich.*
But, I am sad to admit, I have never travelled for more than two weeks at a time until we left for a three-month, round-the-world Honeymoon.
I was perhaps unprepared for the difference that long-term travel might have on my travel habits. I had expected that it would be much the same, but that I would be able to enjoy my voyage at a more reasonable pace. I am amazed by the naivete of my three-week-younger self.
I was perhaps five days into the trip when I realized that clothes won’t clean themselves, and that I was either going to need to either do laundry or start wearing my underwear inside out. It was then that I picked up the handy hotel laundry card and realized that it was entirely possible that the cost of hotel laundry would be more than my stay.
Since then, I have both used local laundromats and hand-washed in the hotel room sink. I think that hand-washing has proven to be the better option, though the laundry often requires more than a full day to dry.
Soon after, I realized that I should be careful where I store my laundry. While in Prague, we acquired the hotel laundry bags in order to store dirty laundry, so that they would not contaminate the rest of our clothing. We continued this habit in Zagreb, right up until we realized that the hotel had assumed that we wanted them to wash a week’s worth of laundry at the rock-bottom price of $10 per sock.
(Aside: I will never understand the argument that laundry should cost more at a nice hotel. Will my underwear be hand-washed in natural spring water by virgin maids? No? Then it should not cost $300 per load simply because you have four stars on your sign.)
The hotel management was understanding, and did not charge us. However, they did not seem to understand that we were not willing to wait around for 10 hours after check-out to pick up our clean clothing, and promptly delivered two bags full of damp laundry to our room minutes before we left.
“Beloved,” I might well have needed to ask at the Croatia-Bosnia border, “Can you please search the phrasebook for how best to explain to the border police why we have laundry drying in the back seat of our rental car?”
Our next lesson came at Day 10, when we suddenly realized that life goes on outside of the trip. The administrivia of daily life – paying bills, answering e-mails, and figuring who owed whom for what – could not simply be pushed back until the end of the trip, when we would have absolutely no idea what the charge from PZAFFUNK on our credit card referred to. (“Was that a really cheap rental car or a very expensive pastry?”)
Since then, we take an hour or so every few days to ensure that our notes and our records are up to date, and that the bills back home are being paid.
On Day 13, I learned the hard way that it pays to plan ahead. We had booked our hotels for only the first half of the trip, based on my argument that it would nice to have some flexibility in your plans. I have since learned that flexibility is easy for a young man travelling alone, but not for a couple on their Honeymoon, particularly when it seems as though every hotel within 300 miles has been booked out.
Although we eventually found a suite on the Dalmatian coast for less than 40 Euro per person per night, I had learned a simple but important lesson. Whether the destination is 40 or 4,000 miles away, it takes just as much time to plan your trip. Would you rather plan your trip from the comfort of your cubicle, or from a hotel room when you could instead be sipping a cappuccino by the beach?
While the more adventurous types might still prefer to fly by the seat of their pants, I now know that if I want to have flexibility, I’ll book into hotels that have good cancellation policies.
It is now Day 17, and I am seeing the truth to a lesson that was recently passed on by a more experienced traveller: sometimes, you just need to take a snow day.
I am on the Island of Brac on the Croatian coast. It is just a short jaunt to the beautiful port city of Split, some of the best beaches in the Adriatic, and the beautiful village of Bol. You know what I’m going to do today? I’m going to sit by the pool, soak up the sun, and read a book. You know why? Because it never hurts to have a reason to return to a place you’ve visited once before.
* The restaurant in question is right beside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disney Land. The sandwich comes with blackberry jam. It’s delicious.
Do you have a lesson learned from a long-term trip? Post a comment!
