Recurrent thrift in food and lodging; currency. Saving money. And fraud.

Travel hazard.

All these small economies will be offset by the fraudulent additions to your credit or debit cards you use when you travel abroad.  You probably will encounter fraud in varying degrees any time you travel - from the minor second bill added to the first that you signed, to the larger. So check your statements and make sensible decisions about what to do. Meanwhile, accepting that hazard of dealing with human beings, press for resolution if it is worth it, and in all cases, do these steps to feel better about it.

We used these methods to get more out of our money, just back from Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein and Northern Italy, the Northern Italy region now added to our earlier more southern-focused Italy Road Ways. 

Switzerland car-picnic site, Alpine porch down the road with teen drummer at the corner. Ba da Boom bip bip beedy swish bang.

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1.  Car-picnics.

In countries known for excellence and freshness in cold cuts, breads and lox, get the gas station sandwiches and a Fanta.  Ours in the US, vending machine sandwiches, are awful.  In countries where these foods are a specialty, not a scrap heap, and where the bread is made for immediate eating, not shelf life, even a commercial sandwich tastes like Granny just made it before you left for school.  The cold cuts have none of the gummy hardfat armorall greasing up the surface, the bread tender in, crusty out. Get some when you get gas.

Fanta.  This soft drink formula over there only has 93 calories per bottle, not our 150 or so that is common in our soft drinks.  Tastes tart, but delicious and gives some fizz.

Dan Widing with car-picnic: 93-calorie Fanta and gas station sandwich, Switzerland

2.  Starters on menu.

Dinnertime now. More economies to scale. At dinner, the goal is relax, and then to stay alive until breakfast.

So, eat a big, big breakfast.  It costs (say $10 added to a good hotel bill for each person, folded into the room rate but avoidable if you ask).  But it costs $3 for a cup of coffee anyway, plus whatever else in a bakery you find, and you won't find cooked eggs or the buffet with cereals and good stuff out on the street, and you lose lots of time.  Splurge.  Hotel breakfasts win. We do not hoard for lunch. Enough is enough.

At dinner, order your beverage, if you like, then order a "starter".  These are larger than our hors d'oeuvres, a small plate really, and if you are still hungry, order another.  Full entrees are off the charts.

3.  GPS.

Take your GPS.  Sadly, ours worked for only a few days because the connection in the lighter outlet in the rental car gave out.  Thanks, Hertz.  Inspect much? Be sure to specify a working lighter connection.  If you prepay the car, however, you get a better price and may preserve a chance of some recoup for flaws. Too many previous renters doing what we wanted to do - recharge shavers, camera batteries and use a GPS. Back to the converter.

4.  Hostels and inexpensive pensiones.

We wanted to plug in the address for any place that a guide book or hostel list suggests at an inexpensive price.  No other way to find them.  The full list of hostels in each country is available at each hostel.  We found they charged in Switzerland about $35 per person.  Go for a room with more capacity for late-comers, and the price goes up.

A GPS will also help locate business hotels.  We like Ibis.  They are everywhere, at airports and major interchanges especially.  About $150.00 per night. Small economies add.

5.  Baggage carry-on strategy. Lightening.

This was a heavy trip, with four countries and two guidebooks each, at least.   Make room by taking less other stuff. With the climate changes we expected from Alps to hot Italy, we did just one of each kind of onion-layering. Used to take a change. Not with these books around.

Uses of the books:  The glossy paper ones with pictures are heaviest, but most useful for us in figuring where to go. Use the wordy and pictureless Lonely Planet type once you are there, and add a Rick Steves type for the walking tours and detail but on fewer topics.

Lots of weight there. And there is the need to organize maps, daily stuff for the back seat, foul weather gear, once you have the car.

Russian doll routine.  We put additional smaller bags in larger bags to get there, and then had the additional storage for the trunk. We combined daily wear into one small duffel (a fold-away, snuck into the bottom of the backpack), and left our backpacks and additonal stuff for storage overnight in the trunk. Clear out all traces of tourist from the car, and hope that the mere rental license plate will not lure a thief.

Luggage Array, economy flights, carry-ons

You are allowed  a) a bigger bag for up top (the backpack),  b) one smaller for under the seat - find a shoulder cross-the-body one so it stays on your shoulder when you carry it all (do like Russian dolls with any smaller bags for maps later); and c) a third handbag for trips to the loo, your blinders and earplugs. Dan prefers only two carryons, I add the shoulder compartmented handbag just to have it once there.

Economize on nightwear. In case the WC is down the hall, take no usual dedicated silly jammies. Sleep in a substantial-fabric black T-shirt dress. I have an ancient Jockey. Sleep in it, and go down the hall anytime and look dressed. Add a belt and feel swanky for evening dinner - never did that, but could have. For freshening up at dinner, I just take a dedicated white shirt. Just keep up with the laundry. Back seat great for drying.

Travel for No Return: The Statistical Side of Planning

Did you ever think, 

As the....

Imagine the unimaginable. Your trip may not end as you wish.  Fuss?  No.  Plan? Yes. Simply plan what you can for yours, and move on with your other decisions.  Death planning. Go ahead. Say it.  And now this:  the Post Mortem Sorters. The Sorters are coming.

Sapinta, Romania. The Merry Cemetery: Firing Squad

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Some people don't have the chance to plan. See these carved wooden headmarkers Sapinta, Romania - called the "Merry Cemetery" - and it shows how each person went.  Most carvings show sad scenes - here a firing squad, there a child looking up in alarm with an auto approaching, there a sickbed.  Others are simple depictions of the person's occupation - here a butcher in his shop, there a woman, sewing.

Your marker may not lay out how you end, but you can at least be remembered for not burdening those remaining, more than the situation already does.

 Regardless, it should be part of your trip planning.Small checklist here, to be added to and revised:

1.  Your will.

2.  Tidy your bureau drawers and closets and pitch the worst. Find something embarrassing, etc?  Out it goes. 

3.  Put all odd things in piles of the same kind of thing, to make it easier for the sorters even if you did not know what to to with the stuff.

4.  Credit card and bank account protection. 

• A house organizer notebook - lay out bank accounts and numbers; lay out each credit card held, and its number and the phone number to reach the company; or at least have that information out and ready for review fast. 
• Pay up the credit cards if you can, and prepay what you can on each credit card, in case a payment comes due while you are away or before you get organized when you get back.  Citicards will return to you an excess payment (they want you to be late) when they realize you overpaid, but American Express will hold it as a credit.  So pay Citicard its excess just before you go.  It usually takes them a month or so to see that there is an excess amount in there.

5.  Housekeeping

• A reminder list for daily, weekly, monthly stuff - those left here may well not remember to water the plants.  
• Financial periodic payments - lay out what to expect in the way of property tax, insurances, etc.  
• Where is the main water cut off, the electrical cut off,  the utility rooms, any odd things about your house another person might not know
• Laundry - reminders about how to use and where to turn the water off.  Expect who is left to be somewhat incapacitated by the news of your demise, and this helps whoever comes in to help
• Who is the electrician, the cable guy, who ya go'n' call.
  

6. Instruct who is left here (assuming your cards are joint) to suspend all bank or commercial credit cards you took with you immediately upon your demise or incapacitation.  Your cards will repeat will be misused.  Bank on it.

7.  List anything left undone that you can think of.  Reminders about anything.

8.   If you are traveling with someone with disabilities, and you are a full or partial guardian,  so that there is a state-appointed monitor of any kind as to planning or care, confer, and obtain permission to go, even if not legally required. No activity anywhere has guarantees of no harm - even softball - but have a backup for your own common sense.  Great experience with a series of past trips, of course, as we have had, removes some variables, but never all. Change, change.

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None of this is prescience.  It is common sense.

http://www.europeroadways.com/

2009 Trip Pending. Hand-Span Non-Plans in the Bucket. Guides.

Scoping out a trip II. 
Update for 2009

Here: the informal steps at home, a recap and update on how we plan; and resources for assistance abroad when trouble strikes. We are anticipating going to Switzerland, Austria and Northern Italy, but plans can change.  Wherever, check for travel warnings, hazards related to specific governmental instabilities and whether the State Department is in a position in a given country to assist a traveler in trouble. Swine flu. Think of it.  Then go anyway, if you choose. Note that you will not get medical treatment through an embassy or consulate. Get your own treatment/evacuation insurance and drive carefully.

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Assuming no swine flu, follow along, and find the serious resource list for epidemics and disasters at the end.
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1. Area. The Handspan Guide to Scope of Trip.
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Take a AAA planning map of Europe.

Those have route numbers, but little else. Take an average adult hand with fingers tight together and out. Note fixed handspan. Lay handspan on AAA map. We can do a handspan in two weeks, with days before and after for the travel. Say, 14 nights on the loose. Put handspan with heel on Geneva, as this year's arbitrary but central landing and leaving point. Aim hand directly east, cover Switzerland, and find Graz, Austria, at the outer end, perhaps Zurich to the north, dip into Northern Italy south, and enjoy all the Alps you can find. Handspan for scope.
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Aim hand directly south, cover part of Switzerland, and find Marseilles at the outer end, with Provence, and Northern Italy on the way back to Geneva. If you like runs, see if there is a ferry spot available to Corsica, then do that and add a big run back with fewer stops in Italy on the way.
Dan is considering all this, plus variations. It does not matter to me.
,
2. What to see. The Red Pencil Guide to Destinations, Attractions.

Tailor your maps, and use your guidebooks to highlight.
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Which map. We like the Hammond-type attractions maps with the sights indicated for day-to-day driving, not the AAA route numbers maps that we use only for when we need route numbers. Dan has travel books, and is putting postits on each page he likes. Then he circles where they are in red pencil on the attractions map. Wherever there are the most red circles, we aim there. Easy.
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3. Routes. The Weather Guide to Direction. Computers.
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Weight to weather. If we land in Geneva in the rain, we probably head north to Zurich over flatter land. If we land in the sunshine, get the Alps when you can. It does not matter with no reservations anyway.

Google maps, for those carrying computers (we don't - we use public internet cafes or the hotel business center, if there is one) has a new feature. Search for driving directions. See Google maps. Enter your country, and get a route from A to B. Then, when you see the weather, or decide to do a side trip, click and drag from any point on the route to the new attraction, or to anywhere not in the Alps, for example, if there are a series of storms coming.

The new routing comes right up. We will have an old GPS (easier to conceal, less space, see #4 here) and plan to use it for alternate routing.

People with iPhones can do that click and drag with google maps in the palm of their hands. We, even if we wanted to spend the money, are concerned about using fancy gadgets abroad, where others can see. Too much of a lure for someone seeing us merrily at it at some place, and then following us to get it. We are not paranoid, just do not want to attract any attention at all. We did lose our luggage in Blarney's parking lot several years ago, and have no illusions about everybody being other-directed.

Back to computer directions at google maps. Check your point A to point B on the Terrain tab. Click on terrain and you see exactly where the elevations are.
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4. The Terrible Departure Guide to Exits: Additional Electronics.
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We always have several terrible departures per trip, where we can't figure out how to get out of the town, and go in circles. Or we are in endless suburbs trying to find the old town. This time, we are taking a GPS - ordinary lap variety, to be kept well concealed at all times, with no devices on the windshield. We understand we can download Europe on our old TomTom. Why not. Otherwise, we st2009 and all is well. Less money, same great spirit to go, swine flu hovering but early fall will be better than later, we think. So, we are off. Just about.
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5. The Frugal Fashionista Guide to Carry-Ons.
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Other years: To avoid checking luggage through, Dan has a backpack, I have a backpack that is just a duffle with shoulder straps. All floppy, no frame. Can jam in anything. Jam in another floppy duffle for the car trunk. For under the plane seat: Take a small soft tote, put your handbag in it along with your other toys and books, carry the tote as your handbag. Some planes even permitted an under-seat tote as well as a handbag on your lap, under the seatbelt. Clothes: We did one set to wash, one set to wear, one set for spare. And then a few things with color, even a white, not just the black and tan I live in, and something for a change at the end of a dusty day, like a boring skirt or additional pants. Shoes for wet, shoes for dry, and silly flats to double as slippers to rest the feet. First aid, extras, lots of room. Jam it in above the seat.
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This year: No checking through. So skip any additional clothes. Depend on the underseat tote-handbag duo arrangement. Airlines are tough now on carry-ons, so we are cutting back even more. We used to be able to wail our way on board with something a little bigger than the model shape at the airport. Now, not even trying. One set to wear, and one set to wash. Nobody cares anyway. But still that something for the end of the dusty driving day. A freshen-up. And the same shoes as before. Actually, we are wearing the same stuff we wore years ago - just find it and stick it in again.

DK glossy books are too heavy. Wish they went with paper covers. We use ours - not for show a home.

Now Dan is looking at Cathar country. Next year, that and the Pyrenees, perhaps.

6. Travel hazards. U.S. Department of State

Back to how to weigh hazards. Find travel advisories or travel warnings through the State Department site as a start, at ://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.html/ Criteria for the list:

• the country is dangerous or unstable, and has been for a protracted period of time
  
• the United States cannot assist travelers in trouble because of lack of consulate or embassy there, or because of a drawdown in staffing

Other topics: International Travel, ://travel.state.gov/travel/travel_1744.html/ Some menu selections:

• Pandemics, health, think Swine Flu, at ://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/health/health_1181.html/ See also the Centers for Disease Control at ://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/. Find the latest on H1N1 (swine) and its Novel H1N1 combining avian, pig, and human things, ://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/content/outbreak-notice/novel-h1n1-flu-global-situation.aspx/ See the travel health kit there at ://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/content/pack-smart.aspx/ No room for clothes.
  
• Financial scams, including "emergency" requests for help for an American in distress, at ://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/financial_scams/financial_scams_3155.html/ Expect your card numbers to be duplicated, keep all receipts, alert your card company as to countries planned (they may freeze the card if not notified in advance and charges appear) and then change all your numbers as soon as you get back.
  
• Maritime piracy, at ://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/piracy/piracy_4420.html

8.  Travel records - assume all disappear

• Go to your contacts section for your email
• Set up something innocuous that looks like a person so only you can find, and put in the notes there some coded form of your credit card numbers so that they do not read as credit card numbers (be creative) and phone numbers to the companies, your passport number, again coded for your use only, etc.  
• If the issue was theft, go to the local police immediately and document in a report what was stolen.  That police report helps support your request to get back in the US without a passport. Get a certified copy of the police report, contact number and person there. Then contact the embassy-consulate.
• You can even, if you blog, set up a blog that only you can access (restrict the permissions to the writer and that is you), and scan in a misleadingly titled post there your information and pictures of your credit cards and passport. More online access.
  
• If you lose everything, you go online as a start back to sanity.
  

Swine flu, the Trip Monster?

http://www.europeroadways.com/

When Down is Up. Modified Relationship Roles; Table the FUD

Dan Widing, Antwerp docks, Pan-Earth All Cuisines Restaurant

Two to Go: Roles on the Loose
Travel with Disabilities

Here is a small essay on how we travel with a son with disabilities.  The conclusion will be - it depends on the "disability" and the person.

The caution is this: If non-disabled people can't put in perspective the fear of foreign, our children with disabilities won't either.

So, use your head, but do as you like.  Go down to the docks where the merchant marine real world lives, for example, and see who is there.  Watch and watch out some more, but then start seeing, talking. And find a menu with comfort home food from anywhere. Fear, uncertainty and doubt. The great restrictors.

Fear, uncertainty and doubt.  The ultimate in propaganda techniques.  See FUD at http://www.cavcomp.demon.co.uk/halloween/fuddef.html/.  Use of FUD keeps people from even considering the merits.

FUD pushers are wrong in politics, and in travel. Put merits and analysis first. Putting FUD first restricts thought - perhaps that is why it is so successful in keeping people in line. Can we find out that fear of "foreign" loses its hold when you've seen that there are people over there; and that you, without a safety net, and not hunkered behind the barrier of a bus, were welcomed. Welcome to the Pan-Earth All Cuisines Restaurant. Then back down the other docks to where the old Norwegian cruise ship is permanently docked as a floating hotel - a Flotel.

Dan and friend, Martinskirche, Linz, Austria

Watch the Role Changes
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How we do it as a partial family, and why:

Philosophical topic: Why travel with one parent, one child, rather than with the whole family.

Know your child.  This approach works best from the start where a child has

• curiosity, 
• enough flexibility to take changes in setting in stride, and 
• ability to fit behaviorally into travel mode where strangers are all around, all the time. 

 Dan here is now adult, and has Down syndrome, but highly responside. He can and will do most anything. The rest rests on the caregiver. Any parent can choose to expand a child's horizons or not, many can do that with college, or the child can do it on his own, and we see travel as Dan's college equivalent. At a small fraction of the cost, with economy travel and compact rent-a-cars and eating and sleeping wherever. And with bonuses for us: his increased independence, interest in world affairs - who's first to get the paper - and the library - and ease with people.
1. Regular family travel. Exhausting.

Family travel reinforces preexisting roles: who is the parent, who the child, which children conflict, where are the buttons to push. Wearing. Age brackets equal too many variables:

• agendas,
  
• abilities,
• interests,
  
• fatigue-patterns,
• tolerances for uncertainty and spontaneity
  

Family travel limits possibilities. How to

• find a place to sleep for more than two, at the last minute
• dash somewhere to get in before it closes
  
• eat local and be happy with what arrives
• stop and chat with someone local

2. Modified relationship role travel. Surprising.

Flip the child role into the adult in how the two of you interact, discuss, plan. A dance floor.

Swans, Poland. Travel in pairs.


Our modified relationship travel sets one adult with one child.

We travel as two, either Dan and me, or Dan and his Dad.

Dad likes plans. So they do things that way, in the US usually.

Dan and I go farther afield and don't plan. We even have a song about who are we. Hey, Dan, who are we? We are the Car-Dan Tour Company. Ba-da-bing.

The roles change immediately, whether Dad's way or ours. We are two adults on the road.

For Dan and me, decisions are pooled, any time a decision does not require an immediate heavy hand judgment call for safety.

For as many decisions as possible, Dan has the last say. Which way to go on this unmarked crossroads? That way! And we're off. Let the consequences fall as they may, including a U back to where we once were. What to eat on this unknown menu? The fourth down this time? Fine. Waiter?

Dad likes to know where he is going, so they stop more for directions, and call ahead for sleeping. That also works if you have the patience for it, and don't mind spending the time.

3. Travel as an economics course.

Part of the planning is looking hard at exchange rates, budgeting. Dan is part of that. With costs in Europe so high in 2008, and finances tanking here, we did a smaller road trip to and wandering around Quebec. We have hopes for 2009 abroad, but that depends on currencies.

4. The magic of a twosome.

The wisdom of two's. You would hardly believe how many welcoming smiles we get - every country. From the most rural Romania, a village tavern where a Down young man and his parents were eating; to Madrid.

We see what changes this direct experience approach had with Dan. Dan has become a man of confidence with interesting tales to tell. See Europe Road Ways, Hub. Where did Great-Grandma come from. He now knows. He has been on his own in cities in many ways, has street-smarts. Anything can happen, but we do our best to gauge what is feasible.

Vienna street scene, with Mozart and Dan

See him now. Down Syndrome on the Move. This may be the most amenable disability for travel, but that may be because we know it best. Dan now knows the places on screen when he goes to the movies, he wants to see the news, and is eager to talk with anyone about where he's been.

The few bad apples we did find, as anywhere, didn't leave a bad taste for long. FUD. fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. In anything, find out for yourself, within reason, and let your child see you finding out, and making decisions as you go. Don't let them tell you what to fear and what not. See Hello, Fodder, Propaganda Study.

Recommendation for a start this way.

Start with Ireland. Food similar, language fine, different side of the road, but so many castles all around, less trodden than England or Scotland. Take one kid to one country. And the next year, the other kid to another country. Skip the camp. See castles, and Cromwell's cannon. Then go further afield.

Next trips. Regret. The destruction of Iraq. The lack of safety now in the Middle East for Americans, anyone. Yemen. A dream now. The tablets, the parchments, the lands of Eden. History anywhere, tenuous. Barbarians do it through the centuries.

Salute to Ali in our town, who owns the coffee shop and plans to return for a visit to Yemen this month. Say hello from people of good will here.

Swansongs.

Maybe imposed by conditions nonetheless. Schwanengesang, see Schubert at ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwanengesang; or ://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Schwanengesang. Schwanenlied. See ://everynote.com/songs.show/114453.note. Swan song. Look it up, the last song, in legend, at://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19970808. Not for us yet, but as we tell Dan, we have to be prepared to fit the times. My son and I - a child of my heart.

Swans, ever calm except when unsafe and startled, then watch them move. Then it is back to calm. Good lesson.

Good times - see http://www.europeroadways.com/

The Budget - How It Can Become Possible. Antidotes to HGTV addiction

A PRIMER ON SAVING MONEY FOR A TRIP, AND PLANNING FOR SIMPLICITY OVER THERE.

This year, with various monetary and other policies ripening, dollar tanking, market and governmental transitions here and abroad and other international concerns, we may not go away this spring. Maybe not even in the fall. We do not take these for granted. We do cross our index fingers and back away when HGTV says go spend on potlights.

1. At home: Saving up.

Crazy House, Sopot, Poland, from an untraceable source (mass email, no attribution) so, fair use?

1.1 If you have a choice, do not upgrade. One shower head in the bathroom. Learn to turn around.
1.2 One sink in the bathroom. Take turns.
1.3 A stove and refrig that are reasonably easy to clean, and work. Replace at low end.
1.4 Skip curtain fads or anything else that go in or out of style. For example, use a really good Venetian blind deal, even if costly - more flexibility (try the kind that puff out and get fat when they are used to block out light or the neighbors, very soft-looking. Not like daggers of regular Venetians). Whatever.
1.5 Consider two small kitchens, different floors, instead of one mammoth. Eat breakfast on the first floor, lunch and family dinner at cozy lower level if it is bright and a walk-out, possibly, as we do, but of course that all depends. There are only three of us, and all adults. We do not have child supervision issues.
1.6 Buy nothing unless the old one fell apart or depresses you beyond measure. There are no Joneses, just you and your sense of you.
1.7 Enjoy your wall color, or non-color, for a long, long time; no holes in walls - tilt your pictures on something, and change them as you like.
1.8 No jacuzzi or giant tubs. Too much dusting. We hear that people keep their plants in them anyway. Read in bed. Now they talk on TV about bacteria in old soap scum. Sit in that?
1.9 Eat in, occasional happy hour out.
10. Love. Love formica. It is warm to the touch, quiet if a mug drops, and easily and inexpensively replaced if someone damages it. The Formica Swiftboaters are granite salespeople with their own agenda.
11. Love. Love eye-level lamps, no overhead potlights, no overhead anything. See the warmth of soft lamplight. Then see yourself under sparkly potlights. Great, creeping crow's feet! You can even move lamps around. You! Yourself!

2. On the trip: Spending Smart.

2.1 Sleep wherever is closest the center of town, even the tiny places, but after checking room first. We have never had a cleanliness problem. Saves energy driving again, after you check in, and parking in town. Sleep where you can walk.
2.2 Pay bill each morning so hotel fees do not creep up and hit you at the end. Move out if the fees are too high.
Korun, Czech Republic currency, honoring 17th C. philosopher, educator, Jan Komensky (Comenius)

2.3 Do not skimp on parking. Be safe.
2.4 We don't buy things. But we love photos.
2.5 Eat dinner at the tapas time, avoid places with tablecloths. Pub food is fine. Late dinners, with many courses may be customary, but are more expensive.
2.6 Wash hands all the time. Stay well.



3. Preparations: Tips for Smooth Passage

3.1 One backpack or overhead size bag, one big handbag for under seat, in which you can fit a smaller bag for convenience later. Limit may be two pieces of luggage. Don't argue with them.
3.2 Time your arrival and departure to cut out a day of rental car if you can - check when their minimum times start and end, and what the extra day will cost. Return the car if need be, and take the bus back to do what you want.
Le Sars,France

3.3 Prepare to get lost and enjoy the neighborhood. We found LeSars here at the Somme area in France. World War I.

http://www.europeroadways.com/