Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
When setting your big-picture structure, it's essential that you determine which days of the
week are the best days for your day trips. For instance, Mondays are often problematic
days for visiting small towns in Europe, as many of the sights in those towns are closed.
Wherever you plan to visit, though, you'll need to find out the particular details of your
destination on your own. Fortunately, this information can be obtained from any quality
guidebook, and it's a good idea to cross-reference the information in one guidebook with
the information found in a second guidebook or online to be sure. In a later chapter, we'll
talk about how to handle unexpected inconveniences if they occur, but a better approach is
to avoid them completely.
Once you determine approximately where you'd like to be on each day, you should
start to think about transportation. Using your standard resources of guidebooks and the
Internet, you should be able to determine the best ways to travel between your various loc-
ations. Try to build plans with clear knowledge that transportation exists and will be avail-
able at reasonable times between the various places you'd like to go. It's not always neces-
sary to purchase tickets ahead of time, but it's advisable to do as much research as you can
to make sure that the traveling goes as smoothly as possible later on.
One last point regarding travel is that renting a car on your trip could be a bad idea, in
my opinion. In addition to introducing the possibility of losing your way, driving requires
your attention. Unless there is a sight of personal importance to you can only be accessed
via automobile, there's little reason to rent a car and many reasons to take public transport-
ation instead. Even the potential for time saving can be outweighed by the enjoyment of
talking to locals or relaxing with your travel partner in a train station or coffee shop while
you wait for your train. Nowhere was I more glad of this lesson on my travels than in Mo-
rocco, where my wife and I wisely decided to hire a driver. Thankfully this decision spared
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