Unusual Items in our Suitcases
Obviously, packing for long-term travel is a bit different than when going on a short holiday. For our first 2 years of travel, we were very minimalist. I was surprised and proud of the fact that we had such few things considering all the crazy stuff we found in our US condo when we were getting rid of our stuff. Three-year-old grocery store receipts? After being on the road for awhile, though, one begins to “need” some simple but unusual things.
Should you visit Olomouc?
While we were in the Czech Republic, I decided to take a reader’s suggestion and visit Olomouc, a medium-sized city on Czech’s eastern side. We were already in Brno, a train ride lasting less than 1-1/2 hours from Vienna. Olomouc is located about 1-1/2 hours from Brno, so I figured what did we have to lose? Since it had been a while since we had couchsurfed, I decided to make an attempt and we found a host pretty easily. Apparently,...
Gaining foreign vocabulary for travel
I’m always mystified when I meet travelers who don’t know a single word of the language for the country they’re visiting. No one expects you to be fluent, but at least learn some of the important words like “thank you.” And with all the technology available at our fingertips, there’s really no excuse to not have at least some local vocabulary for your visit. Here are just some of the tools available to you. Websites For trying to...
Visiting Europe via Romania
If you’ve been following our time in Romania, you know many of the reasons why we love it here and think it would be a good base. I wanted to highlight a bit more about using Romania as a travel base, however. Romania is in a great location in Europe. While its position being surrounded by other countries wasn’t always a good thing in its past, it offers some advantages in the present day. One of which is being served by many low-cost...
Say what?
One of the joys of travel is dealing with language barriers and mistranslations. To get the most out of an experience, I and many other travelers try to learn at least a few words in the local language. It’s amazing how just being able to say something as simple as “thank you” in the local tongue will put a smile on someone’s face. Sometimes, though, you get a situation where you or the other person looks confused, or breaks out into...
