Weekend Word to the Wise (Lodging)

This weekend's word to the wise is related to my recent blog post about local hotels vs. chain hotels.

Even though I advocate booking local hotels during your travels, whether domestic or international, there is a great way to incorporate your chain hotels into your travels.

On my last trip to Europe, I initially flew to Madrid to spend several days with family and then flew to Rome for a couple of weeks. I had rented a room in downtown Rome but had to be out of there the day before my flight back to Madrid and my final flight from Madrid, back home to the U.S.

I did a little research and found that the points I could accumulate on my Hilton Rewards program would be quite a bit more with an international hotel, so I made the decision to stay at a Hilton by the airports in Rome and in Madrid. My logic was that since my both flights out were very early and I was using public transportation, a chain hotel would work better for me than booking a room in the city and waking up super early to catch a cab or take a train to the airport.

The positives of using a chain hotel for me were as follows:

1. I would be staying in very comfortable rooms with free wi-fi access.
2. I would have a nice restaurant, a spa & indoor swimming pool within very easy reach.
   
3. I would be close to the airport and could utilize the hotel's free shuttle to the airport instead of taking a train or subway in from the city. I would be dropped off directly in front of my terminal.
4. I could take the day to relax, read, swim, eat and generally, rest up before my flights' and the impending jet-lag.
5. I would be accumulating extra reward points.

It might not sound like much but I think it's the perfect combination of lodging when traveling, especially when flying.

Yes, you will probably be giving up that last day of potential sight-seeing or souvenir shopping, but for me, the time to rest and relax before having to deal with airports and overcrowded flights is worth the trade.

Believe it or not, my room in Madrid was only $100.00 and the room, as well as the hotel, were wonderful! In Rome, my room was about $110.00 but the hotel spa and pool more than made up for the extra expense. I spent both days swimming, munching, reading, internet surfing, photo organizing and blogging. Those days also ended up being the coldest of my visit so I was more than happy to stay inbound, warm & cozy. I also saved the money I would have used for a taxi or train ride to the airport.

Review your budget and check out the rates before you leave for your trip. If you're flying, that last day of your travels could be the perfect day to get some rest and prepare yourself for the hectic pace of traveling set before you. I prefer to book these types of stays in advance. It is possible that the exchange rate for international destinations will change but I prefer the peace of mind knowing that my room is reserved and ready for me when I arrive. If you prefer not to do your own research or booking, or you don't have time to do the research yourself, contact a travel planner/travel agent (LIKE ME!) to do it for you.

In my humble opinion, this is the best way to incorporate local hotels with chain hotels in your travels.

Budget for Your Vacation--Pt. 4 (Lodging-Hotels: Locals vs. Chains)

So, let me start by recapping my series on Budgeting for Your Vacation.

In Budgeting for Your Vacation--Pt. 1, we talked about saving for your vacation and I provided you all with some great links that can help you learn to budget your finances with your dream vacation in mind.

In Part 2 of my Budgeting for Your Vacation series, I recommended some good websites to help you start tracking flight costs and we talked about some easy ways to help you start putting aside some money for your vacation.

Part 3 of my Budgeting for Your Vacation series talked about figuring out what type of traveler you are. Figuring out the type of traveler you are will help you to start to budget and will ultimately help you learn how it will impact your overall budget. I also provided you with some fun links to quizzes that might help you figure out your "travel type".

Budgeting for Your Vacation--Part 4 is focused on all the different options for lodging that you will be encountering as you plan your vacation. We've discussed Hostels, Bed & Breakfasts, and in this post I'll be discussing Hotels and the advantages and disadvantages to booking a local hotel versus a chain hotel.

Let's talk about chain hotels first. Most of us have a favorite chain hotel. If you do a lot of local travel for work or are a long getaway weekend person, you probably already stay at one particular chain over the others. You already have an idea of how that hotel chain operates and have had some good experience in the past with that particular chain. If you don't have a favorite chain, you might be more inclined to book according to your budget and you take what you can get unless it's completely unsatisfactory.

At this point, let me just say that if you're booking according to budget and you don't work with a particular chain, you might be doing yourself a disservice. Chain hotels are no longer exclusive to one particular hotel. Each chain is comprised of many different hotels with many different budget ranges and finding something in your budget within that chain is easier than you think. The reason, I say you might be doing yourself a disservice is that when you stick with a particular chain and you sign yourself up with their rewards program, your stays can accumulate points for you and can get you some nice freebies in the long run.

For example, I try to stay in any hotel within the Hilton chain. Hilton's program lets you earn points for your stay, miles for your mileage reward program, or a combination of the two. It's a great program and each individual hotel has its own little set of freebies associated with your level. Admittedly, it's not much at the beginning but a free newspaper, free in-room wi-fi, or a couple of free bottles of water are free and can save you a few dollars a day and that works just fine for me!

In addition to the loyalty programs with larger chain hotels, chain hotel locations are usually excellent, and you are all but guaranteed English speaking staff and some sort of overall familiarity. The downside of staying at a chain hotel is that you might not get a sense of the local ambiance, you'll probably be paying more than at a local hotel, and customer service, although good, might not be of a local flavor.

Locally owned hotels can be large, small, fancy, exclusive, earthy, and bare bones. Do some research before you choose a local hotel. I did quite a bit of research before choosing my local hotels. I've mentioned this website before but JourneyWoman is a GREAT resource for women traveling anywhere in the world. Before I went to England, I read through JourneyWoman's website and found The Cherry Court Hotel. I chose this hotel because other women traveling solo had chosen it as well. There was CCTV at the entrance and lobby area which made me feel safe. It had an awesome location about 1-2 blocks from Victoria Station. It had free wi-fi and provided a simple fruit basket for breakfast every morning. It's been in business for 25 years and other women travelers said they felt safe in the neighborhood and liked the owners. The nice part for me was also price. When I went to London, the British Pound was 2:1 so to be able to stay in central London for less than $100.00 a night was a bargain! Chain hotels would not have been able to match that rate in London.

Another great resource to find local hotels are your guidebooks. I talked about guidebooks in one of my Weekend Words to the Wise posts. Most guidebooks will make recommendations on lodging for all types of budgets. You will RARELY find a chain hotel mentioned in a guidebook. And that is because you aren't traveling to any of these places to remind yourself of America...you're going to experience the country you are visiting!

In Madrid, Spain, I found the hotel we stayed at mentioned in several different guidebooks with excellent reviews anywhere I searched for customer reviews. Hotel Europa in Madrid is centrally located on Plaza del Sol. It is an easy walk to the subway, it has a cafe downstairs with good food for any meal. Wi-fi is available in the lobby and in your room for an extra fee. The staff are friendly and knowedgable. Best of all, it's less than $100.00 a night for an excellent location with clean rooms.

Don't get me wrong. I think there's a place for chain hotels in our travels and in my next Weekend Word to the Wise, I'm going to talk about how to use locals and chains to make your trip an awesome experience.

Just remember that in your travels, whether in the U.S. or Internationally, local hotels can be a safe and economical part of your travels that you shouldn't discount.

Weekend Word to the Wise (Saving)

Today, my partner told me about an article she read in the November issue of Real Simple magazine.

In the very short article, the writer shared a tip he used to save money so he and his family could go on vacation. He stated that he used cash to pay for everything. When he received his change, if he got a $5 bill returned, he folded the bill differently than the rest of his cash and when he got home, he immediately put the $5 bill into an envelope and when he accumulated $50, he would deposit the money into a special, separate, savings account so he would never be tempted to spend the cash or to transfer the money from savings into his checking account. In a year, he had saved $2000, enough to take his wife and two children on vacation.

Back in September 2009, I wrote a post about Budgeting for Vacation and talked about different methods for saving for your dream vacation. This short article is a perfect example of what I was talking about!

It is possible to put aside enough money to go wherever you want to go. It doesn't matter if it's Europe or Florida. If you want to get there, you CAN do it!

Weekend Word to the Wise (Rest & Relaxation)

Sometimes when we travel, we are in such a hurry to make our arrangements, we do a quick search, find what we think we're looking for and go. It's not uncommon. We're busy people and just squeezing in a few days away is a task in itself. Some of us have children, some of us have pets, weekends are busy and filled with all the things we can't manage to get done during the week. So when we finally make the decision to get away somewhere for a few days, we find the quickest solution and go with it.

But what if we were able to stop, take a breath, and take a minute to think about what our needs might be when we're traveling. Sometimes a hotel is our best option, but what if we could find something for the same price or less that helps us feel more "at home" than a standard hotel room?

I recently took a couple of days off work and my partner and I went to Port Aransas, Texas to spend some time on the beach. I found some very decently priced hotels very close to the beach but none of them accepted pets. (Our dogs don't like kennels and we don't blame them.) I did a search for cabins & bungalows and found some cottages two blocks from the beach. The price range for these cabins in the off season ranged from $69-$120 a night. We chose the medium sized cabin for $89 a night. Our cabin had a queen-sized bed, a small living area, a full kitchen and bathroom. The complex was clean and well lit at night. There were barbecue pits and picnic tables outside for guest use. Pets were welcome with no extra fees. And we were easy blocks to the beach.

Directly across the street from where we stayed was a chain hotel offering a standard room for $99 a night. They accepted pets also but with an extra $10 a night fee and did offer complimentary continental breakfast.

So, for less than the price of a standard room, we found a nice, homey place to spend a few days with our dogs in a cabin that was one of first beach cabins to be built in Port Aransas.

I suppose my whole point is that sometimes in the middle of our hectic attempts to make time for some well deserved rest & relaxation, it's good to take a deep breath, count to 10 and rethink your options. You might find you have more of them than you thought you did!

Budget for Your Vacation--Pt. 3 (What Kind of Traveler Are YOU?)

So now we've discussed some ways to save for your trip and how to budget for it but there are some other factors you need to take into account before you go much further.

We need to figure out: "What kind of traveler are you?"

In my opinion, it is important to know what kind of traveler you are because how travel defines you and how you define travel will ultimately affect your budget.

There are many different types of travelers and I don't believe that we are all one distinctive type of traveler, rather we are a combination of several types; however, I do believe that there is one defining type that stands out in us more than the others.

Types of travelers? Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you travel for enjoyment or is it something you feel compelled to do?
• Do you travel for extended periods of time or are you satisfied with quick weekend getaways?
• Do you like domestic travel or international travel?
• Do you make a budget and stick to it or are you a free spender when you travel?
• Do you enjoy solo travel or are you inclined to travel with a partner or travel buddy?
• Do you like to make your own itinerary or do you prefer to buy a tour package that takes care of all the details for you?
• Are you a history buff who has to see all the historical sites of the place you're visiting, do you prefer art and museums or maybe none of these?
• What about eco-traveling and adventure traveling?
• Are you mixing business and pleasure?
• Will you be taking some courses during your travel or perhaps making a pilgrimage to a religious site?

All of these things will have an overall impact on your budget and they should all be considered as you sit down to decide how much money you will need to make the trip of a lifetime. Personally, I am a mix of all of the above. I prefer traveling for extended periods of time but I also enjoy a long weekend getaway every now and then. I enjoy travel of all types, whether it's domestic or international, but I prefer international travel. I like to stick to a budget but I may decide to spend freely in one particular location. I enjoy traveling both solo and with company. I prefer to create my own personal itinerary when I travel but I am not opposed to purchasing a tour package if it meets my needs. I'm not a history or art buff but I do enjoy learning about what makes each city I visit unique and most of the time, that does involve history and art.

Do some broad research about the places you want to travel to and don't limit yourself to one location. Read about several places and pay attention to what grabs you the most. Is it the chance to see some long standing historical monument? Is it the idea of roughing it in a bare-bones eco-lodge on the beach? Is your favorite sports team going to be having several home games while you're visiting the area? Is there a particular religious monument you've read about since you were a child that stands out in your vacation dream?

If you started doing broad research into several cities across different countries, you probably have a good idea of which one of them stands out in your mind more than the others. Begin picturing yourself there and think about all the things you want to see and the places you'd want to visit while you're there. Find your dream location on google maps and go to the street view; do you see yourself walking down that street on your way to class or to dinner?

Once you're able to determine what type of traveler you are, you will be able to plan travel much more quickly and will have a much better idea of how to budget for your trip, even if you find yourself purchasing a last minute flight for an awesome price that you weren't anticipating.

Here are some fun little quizzes to try to help you figure out what type of traveler you are:

http://www.bootsnall.com/quiz/traveler/

http://www.nicolewilliams.com/connect/quiz-what-type-of-traveler-are-you

http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/awtqclF/What-Type-of-Traveler-are-You

http://www.davestravelcorner.com/backpackers/quizzes/quiz.php


And lastly, don't forget that no matter what type of traveler we believe we are, in the country to which we are traveling, we're probably just considered "tourists". Be kind. Be generous with yourself. Learn a bit of the language and enjoy yourself!

Budget for Your Vacation--Pt. 2

We've discussed reasons to quit delaying your dream vacation and we've found some great tools to help us budget for our trip. Here are some of my own tried and true methods of saving for that trip of a lifetime.

• Use websites like Yapta to help you track airfare to your dream destination. If you've already purchased a ticket for your flight, Yapta will also track the price for that particular flight and that can help you decide if it's worth paying the change fee for the difference when prices drop
• Use websites like Airfare Watchdog or Travelzoo for deals on flights originating from your city.

As I mentioned in the post prior to this one, I am not a "saver" by nature. While I was working at my part-time job, one of the benefits I took advantage of was the employee credit union and direct deposit.

I sat down and looked at how much of my part-time check I needed to make all my bills and have a little bit of spending money until the next payday. Anything extra, I allocated towards my new savings account at the employee credit union. You are probably asking why it was so important to do all of this saving at the employee credit union? Why not just open a savings account at my local bank and put the money in there? Here's the deal breaker for me...I CANNOT SAVE. If money falls into my hot, little hands, I spend it. If I open a local account, I have access to that money all the time. I have no willpower in these things. I've tried but I really can't do it. The employee credit union was in Minnesota. The ATM card they sent me was just that, an ATM card. Not a debit/credit card, an ATM card...and I only got one.

So for me, it was necessary to determine how much money I could put away and it was easier for me to have this money automatically taken out of my check to go directly into my savings account. It was better for me to have the bank be very far away so I could not readily access the money. And it was better for me to take that one ATM card, wrap it up in plastic wrap, wrap that up in foil, put a whole bunch of rubber bands around it, and throw it in the back of my freezer. Now the card was never in my possession and if I wanted to use it to take money out of the account, I would have to go home, dig it out of the freezer, remove all the rubber bands, then the foil, then the plastic wrap, then go back out to an ATM machine to get the money. You get the picture. Honestly, by the time I got home, I had usually lost the inclination to go get the money.

I've since then opened an account that is interest bearing and has a debit/credit card associated with it. I still do my trick of never keeping the card on my person and I still work at making it difficult for me to attain the money at a moment's notice. I like this account because it is independent of my local checking account and is no way tethered to my personal accounts so if I lose it, no one has access to my personal accounts. I also like that it has the debit/credit option because with the VISA logo, I know I can use this card pretty much anywhere in the world. I also made sure before I opened this account that there would be no surcharges for using ATM machines out of the country. The only charges I incur when I'm traveling overseas are a 3% charge for converting the currency. (Don't forget to calculate the surcharges into your expenses because if you don't, you might find yourself short of money towards the end of your travels.

This was how I saved and it worked for me. I didn't stop there either. I canceled my cable. I began throwing all my change into jars and I used that money for incidentals I might need for my trip. If you're familiar with Coinstar (these are coin counting stations in stores like Wal-Mart or your local grocery stores), Coinstars allow you to take your change and convert it to pre-paid cards for stores like Amazon, JC Penney, Borders, Cabela's and Eddie Bauer's for no fee! You just take your change to the nearest Coinstar, dump it in, choose which pre-paid card you want and voila!, you have money to purchase some of those neat travel gadgets you've been reading about!

These budget calculators and techniques may not be for everyone. Everyone may not view traveling as something more important than a new car or siding for your home. But if you're willing to make some sacrifices and cut back on some guilty pleasures, then your dream vacation may not be as far out of reach as you once thought it was. Even if you only put $25.00 per paycheck away every month, at the end of the year, you'll have $600.00 and $600.00 may be the price of a flight to your dream destination!

Budget for Your Vacation--Pt. 1

How do you budget for your vacation? Do you have a savings account specifically for traveling? Do you decide where you'd like to travel to, try to decide what it might cost and save specifically for that destination?

It doesn't really matter which you method you prefer, the important thing is that you decide where you'd like to go and either make sure you have enough money or start saving and be ready when the right fare pops up.

I am sharing with you several links to some of the best budget travel expense online tools (with the exception of one that is an excel spreadsheet) that are geared toward the budget traveler. Most of them calculate basic costs that you have probably already considered but some of them have some line items that you might not have thought of as vacation expenses but that will impact the amount of money you will actually have on hand to spend while you're travelling.

The first budget calculator I'm linking to is from the Independent Traveler website. This site is a great source for independent travelers and it's loaded with information and several useful online tools the any traveler can utilize (see GlobeDiva travels packing hints for a link to independent traveler's interactive packing list). Independent Traveler's travel budget calculator is a basic travel budgeting tool that allows you to calculate the overall potential cost of your trip that you can save, print, or email to your travel buddies. The nice thing about this particular budget calculator is that there are several empty boxes that allow you to put in personalized costs that make your budget unique.

The next budget calculator I like is from Solotravel.org. This website is geared to solo travelers of all ages. It offers tour providers and trips that are solo friendly and their travel budget calculator allows you to estimate a "per day" amount you might need to budget for a specific country. The link to that calculator is here. Begin by entering the country to which you wish to travel. Continue by choosing your preferences for eating, accommodations, alcohol intake, internet usage, extra costs and the number days you will be staying. You are given a total with a rough idea of amount of money you will need per day in the currency related to the country to which you will be travelling. A link for a currency converter is also available.

An easy to use travel expense calculator comes from easy-budget-planner.com. This is NOT a travel website but a website that offers everyone lots of FREE budget planners. The travel expense calculator allows you to calculate whether you have enough money in your savings account for your trip. If you see that your proposed expenses put you in the negative overall, you know it's time to change your travel plans by making some cuts here and there or time to add more money to your savings account.

If you're dream vacation is a cruise, here's an excellent little travel budget planner that focuses on cruises and expenses aligned with them. Get Sunny is the website and although some of the links on the site come back with errors (as of this writing) the link for the budget planner works just fine. This great little calculator has categories for every possible expense related to cruises you can think of and then some! Once you've completed the calculator, you get back a detailed budget with break-downs for cruising, air travel, transportation, accommodations, sightseeing, and other expenses. Once you've got your total, you can even email it to yourself.

Here is an excel spreadsheet from the website Round The World Trip that helps you budget for an "around the world" trip! After you click on the link you will be taken to the web page that has the actual link for the spreadsheet. Once the spreadsheet opens, you will find instructions on how to use it to help you budget for your trip. This spreadsheet focuses more on countries in the Eastern European area, North and South America as well as Africa, but there is virtually no focus on Western Europe. The instructions ask that you not edit the cells so for me, this spreadsheet serves to give me some ideas on how to work make my own spreadsheet that could help me budget for a really long, round the world type trip; however, I'm not really inclined towards using spreadsheets and I have found the other budget calculators mentioned throughout this post serve my purposes just as well, if not better. I'm including this spreadsheet link for those of you that prefer to budget in this manner.

The final website and budget calculator I'm including is not quite like the calculators I presented above. This particular calculator allows you to figure out how much money you waste on little daily habits (like that Starbucks latte you stop for every morning) and how much money you would save if you just cut back, or eliminated, one or two or several, of these habits. Once the amount of savings is calculated, you can click on a link that shows you where you could afford to travel to with the extra money you saved over the year. This calculator is on an awesome website called TravelMuse and it's a bit similar to Tripit in that it allows you to plan your trip, search the web and save information you're interested in, and share with your friends, all in one place. The savings calculator I'm referring to is called Yaycations and it's really eye-opening to see how much you could save for a trip just by cutting back on a few luxuries. You can also utilize TravelMuse to book travel if you're so inclined. I may never book travel from here but I will definitely use it as a resource to compare costs with other search vehicles. The site is very intuitive and easy to use. This is a fun site to play around on and dream of far away places.

Next, look for my own personal techniques that helped me save enough money to make it to Italy in the upcoming post!

Budgeting for Your Dream Vacation

For those of you who don't know me personally, let me put this right out front for everyone to know. I am not rich. As a matter of fact, I made my very first trip to Europe while I was in the middle of bankruptcy (the kind you repay, not the kind where all your bills are written off).

I share this information with everyone because the most common statements I hear from people when they begin talking about their dream vacation is "I don't make enough money" or "I can't afford that kind of trip right now" or "Maybe when I'm retired".

So I'm asking you...if you can't travel right now, when will you be able to travel? If you can't afford to travel right now, when will you be able to afford to travel? If you aren't making enough money right now, in this economy, what are the chances you will be making a lot more in the years to come?

I ask you all this because I know from experience that for most of us living in the mid to low end of the middle class, these opportunities will probably never materialize. We will probably never get that fantastic paying job making a six-figure salary and as we grow older, our time will probably never be as free as we envision it being in the future. So I ask you, WHY WAIT?

Why wait until you have that job paying 100K a year? Why wait until you retire to take the trip of a lifetime?

I've learned a few things from personal experience that finally sunk in after it seemed everything was falling down around me and I'd like to share these things with you in the spirit of travel and adventure.

• There is no time like the present. You hear this saying all the time but do you ever really stop to think about it? My mom and dad had so many dreams for their retirement. They were going to travel throughout the U.S. My mom loves New Mexico and they really wanted to spend a good deal of time there. My dad retired a few years before my mom did so he had some time to bum around and live the carefree life for a bit while mom finished up her last few years of work. In the middle of waiting, my dad suffered a couple of strokes that incapacitated him and eventually led to his death. All their dreams gone in less than 2 years. I learned several things from my parents and from this experience: First, my parents instilled love of travel into me. We always took summer vacations to where ever my aunt happened to be stationed so I got to see a lot of the U.S. and Mexico this way and we always had a free place to stay. Second, life isn't going to stop just because we think we're finally ready to do what we've always wanted to do. If we don't do it now, we may never get to do it.

• If you think you'll never have the money to travel, you will never have the money to travel! As I said above at the opening of this post, I'm not rich. I don't have a rich mom or dad or grandmother or aunt or uncle to hand me money whenever I need it. What I make is what I live off of and if I need more, I take on more jobs. A few years ago, I bought a house. Owning a home when you're single isn't always easy but I felt I was up for the challenge. A few years after buying my home, all hell seemed to break loose at one time. The sewer line broke, my roof was leaking torrentially into my home, and all of a sudden, my tightly wrapped budget was coming apart faster than I could pick up the loose ends. I didn't have a contingency savings plan for emergencies. The only way I could do the major repairs on my home was to get behind on my house payments. The bank was about to foreclose so I filed for bankruptcy and went for the option that allowed me to pay my creditors back. The only problem was that the courts, in all their wisdom, garnished OVER HALF of my paycheck. With what was left, I had to make a house payment of over $1,000.00 plus my utilities, food, and gas. There was no way I could make that work so I began seeking part-time employment. The Lord blessed me with a second job and I began working evenings and weekends in addition to the occasional consulting I'd been doing for the last 15 years and my full-time job. It was not easy. I worked anywhere from 80-100 hours a week and was so tired I wasn't sure how I would continue to do it but I pushed myself to work day in and day out. It was in the middle of all of this that I would re-visit my old dream of traveling to Italy. I wasn't sure when I would make it there, my bankruptcy was a 5 year ball & chain and I could barely see myself making it out of my financial predicament anytime soon. But the more I worked, the more I wondered what I was doing all of this work for with nothing to show for it but a house, a car, and some material objects. It was about this time, my thinking began to change. If I was already making some changes in my spending habits, why not make more changes. The time was ripe for it and if I didn't do it now, then when???

These two times in my life were the impetus I needed to push me forward and propel me where I wanted to go...and where I wanted to was ITALIA!

Now that you know a little bit more about me and how I gave myself the opportunity to travel, in my next post, I will share with you some hints and tips that worked for me and helped me move in the direction of my dream vacation.

After England 2008

I'm entering this post approximately one and a half years after my trip to England. I had the opportunity to re-read my posts and blogs as I got ready for my trip and my travelogue as I traveled through England.

Here are a few of my after-comments as I sit back and reflect:

1. Prior to leaving, I did some rough calculations on how many times I thought I'd be riding the train and tried to factor in my potential use to determine whether or not it was worth my money to buy my rail pass in advance or wait and buy point-to-point when I got there. I decided to buy ahead of time and I should have waited to buy point-to-point in England. I REALLY wanted to go to more places than I had the time or inclination to get to and I ended up losing money on transportation. Lesson--Factor in the fact that I might get so doggone tired that I can't drag myself to the train station to make it out of town!

2. I didn't anticipate how crowded Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum would be and I wasted some time in line and I reallly should have decided well in advance if I even wanted to go to this museum. While researching my trip, I thought it would be a nice diversion but once I got there, I realized I didn't really care if I got in or not and wasted time getting there and trying to decide if I wanted to continue to wait. Lesson--Stick with my gut feelings about whether or not I want to visit an attraction, even if all the reviews are positive and everyone tells you to go.

3. I knew there was allot to see and do in London but I really underestimated how many things there were to do and how long it would take to do everything. Lesson--Work hard at overestimating all the things I want to see and pare down according to how much time I plan on spending in the area.

Other than these few things, I've got to say this trip was an awesome experience. It was my first experience traveling overseas alone and even though I got a little homesick, I loved the experience.

Traveling alone makes me feel as though I can do just about anything! If I can get completely lost and find my way back to my hotel, if I can make my way all over London by tube, train, and bus without panic, if I can walk and walk and walk until I think my legs are going to fall off and STILL keep going, if I can do all of these things and more and do them away from my personal safety zone, then I can do anything.

And if I can do it, you can too!