This post is up so late today because I am in the airport the airplane New York now! I think I spent this whole weekend on the computer or on the phone making travel plans. Long story short, always make sure your e-mail itinerary also means you have tickets. Apparently they can charge you money and send you a schedule with the tickets you wanted to purchase, but not actually give you tickets. Therefore, when you try to check in, they say you have no tickets. Whaaaaaa?
This was intended to be a post about yummy falafel I made, but I scrapped it in order to vent and share some travel plans!
In a few months I will be headed to Europe! We spent Saturday evening and Sunday morning planning out our route and searching for the best deal for our flights. Mission accomplished! We had quality time with our cameras and a huge dry erase board that I drew our calendar on with proposed dates, cities we wanted to visit, and possible routes.
The final itinerary includes London, Southern Ireland, Paris, Brussels, Ghent, Bruges, and Amsterdam!
*Update: See the whole trip here!*
It will be a pretty long trip, and living out of a suitcase for nearly a month will be pretty ridiculous! So, now to plan hotels, activities, and (most importantly) restaurants for everywhere. I do like a bit of flexibility here and there, but I have the tendency to overplan rather than underplan. In fact, if anyone has suggestions feel free to email me at
vintagezest (at) gmail (dot) com or comment below.
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A couple of years ago, we went to Eastern Europe, which was a huge undertaking for our first multi-city trip together. Just the having to exchange money every few days was a big pain at times. That trip took us a while to plan because we went to Budapest, Vienna, Prague, and a couple cities in Croatia. We had never experienced any of those cities, so it was all new to us!
I accrued a bunch of experience in the planning of that trip and during the trip itself. Hopefully, this will be a much easier and smoother experience. At one point during that trip, we tried to check in for a flight that ended up being cancelled due to low numbers, but we were never informed. We were stranded in the airport and ended up walking around Zagreb before heading to our final destination very late. Needless to say, we will triple check with the airlines next time directly instead of relying on our discount sites. FYI, Malev Airlines has since gone out of business...
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Luckily, although I can be very Type A, I feel like getting lost is sometimes part of the experience, and makes for a great story after the fact. Don't you think so too?
Over the next couple of weeks I will also start to share some of my travel tips, even though I'm no travel expert. However, I did manage to squeeze this blog post into today's rotation using the free Internet I scored on the plane! Yes!
Today's travel tip is to utilize the chat function for the Internet service provided on the airplane. I was in mid-type when I had to shut off my phone. Therefore, I didn't know if the falafel recipe saved. I asked the customer service if I could have 10 minutes to check, and she granted me a full hour! Score! That's how I get to publish today by typing on my tiny iPhone keyboard. But hey, it works!
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Also, for tomorrow's sewing rewind I have a few items to share which are invaluable when traveling. They're not as necessary as a suitcase or neck pillow, but I can't leave home without them (cue VISA ad).
Does anyone have any travel advice or horror stories to share?
