Personal learnings from 1.5 month solo trip
Favorite spots: Dubrovnik, Alesund, Krakow, chamonix.
I went to too many places for not enough time. I only hit big cities. For me, it was too fast. I checked off a lot of places and did/saw a lot of cool things but it's all a whirlwind to me now looking back. I wish I had done less places for longer. I spent a lot of time on busses, trains and planes. I spent a lot of time in crowded areas looking at big, old buildings, which are amazing.
This is my city list in order and (days spent in city)
Madrid (3) Alesund (2) Bergen (2) Oslo (1) Warsaw (1) Krakow (4) Budapest (3) Vienna (3) Prague (3) (Two weeks traveling by car all across southern France with family, so won't include, although this was probably the best part of my trip, plus increased food budget!! I really enjoyed the slow, laid back, small town exploring this allowed for.) Rome (2) Cinque terre (4) Dubrovnik (4)
Don't get me wrong, My trip was amazing , in Norway I met distant cousins on my grandmother's side, it was a whirlwind trip but amazing and everyone is so friendly.
It was my first solo trip and I think I felt like I needed to do a lot and see a lot to make to worth it so I had everything planned out, tightly scheduled. I booked most of my traveling between destinations before I left the USA and had most of my sleeping reservations lined up too. I think that added a level of stress and expectation to my trip that detracted from the experience, but it was also nice to not be researching my next sleeping location while I was on my trip. Definitely need to find some middle ground here bc I would have liked some flexibility in my schedule to stay in places longer if I want. It's kind of a double edged sword the amount if pre planning and scheduling in my opinion.
When I go traveling again, I'm going to pick two or three counties and spend one, two or three weeks in each country, depending on my budget and time frame. A rental car and a Rick Steve's book is always a solid choice. I just feel like there is so much more out there and as much planning and research as I did it wasn't enough and there's always something I missed and many of these places I probably won't go back because there are so many other places I want to go! I'm not sure but I guess I learned to slow down and smell the roses.
Submitted January 01, 2019 at 09:55AM by kookluke http://bit.ly/2C3gQY3
0 Response to "Personal learnings from 1.5 month solo trip"
Post a Comment