Let this be a lesson to you ladies and gentlemen, have your ducks in a row before you sit down to plan your trip, or else it will DRIVE YOU CRAZY!
On this Valentines day, as my boyfriend traipses around Japan with his best friend, I’m sitting at my mom’s house planning out my trip to London and Italy with my sister for her graduation. Let me tell you- this is not easy. First, there’s the timing aspect. It has to be after graduation (and possibly after a graduation party to pay for it), but before she starts grad school in the fall. All of these factors combined leaves us with only a short time period to plan the trip, which also, unfortunately, happens to coincide with the most expensive time to travel to Europe- the summer.
After a lot of back-and-forth (will we stay with a friend in London for a few days? Will it be too expensive to book two separate tickets from two separate places? Will a hostel really be that much cheaper than a hotel (that answer might surprise you)). After all of this back-and-forth, I think we have a plan we can get on board with (and, hopefully, afford). It goes a little something like this:
Fly into London, stay with friend for a few nights
Book a cheap(ish) sleeper train that will take us from London to Rome (with a short stop-over in Paris, which I see as a plus, my sister is on the fence about it)
Stay at a cheap(ish) hote that got decent reviews and apparently is in a decent area of Rome to get to sites and such (NOT a hostel, surprisingly. This hotel is actually cheaper than the decent/safe hostels we were looking at, and we get our own room. I guess we’ll have to let you know how it works out when we come back).
Book a couple of day trips around Italy
Fly out of Rome back to NYC
Overall, I think it will work. This is my sister’s first trip like this, certainly her first out of the country, and it’s our first alone together. So, I think it’s safe to say we’re still in the midst of figuring out our ‘travel relationship,’ but we’re coming along quite nicely. And soon, my friends (after we actually book this trip!), we’ll be here:
And here:
So, my friends, until we actually book the flight…bis bald…see you soon!
P.S. Does this intimidate anyone else?!
I mean, I thought the New York City subway map was scary, but this is what Chris had to deal with for his trip from the first airport to his hostel in Tokyo before he boards his second flight to where his friends live. Can’t wait for that update!
Like this:
Like Loading...
Well Chris has made it safe and sound to his final Japanese destination—Niseko. His journey wasn’t without its bumps, though. After finding out that he had booked his connecting flight from New Chitose to Niseko on the wrong day (arrive in Tokyo Sunday afternoon, but booked connecting flight for Saturday, rookie mistake), he had to do a bit of reconfiguring.
