Where We've Been and Where We Are Going

Jeff has a running joke about me...that I'm not happy unless I have at least 3 trips booked at any given time!  And I'm embarrassed to say, he's not wrong!  Last year I traveled to the Florida and the Bahamas on Enchantment of the Seas with my mother and teen daughter. In September and October, Jeff and I traveled to Eastern Europe and Danube River cruise on AmaPrima, and we took a college visit trip to Minnesota. So it seems there is always a trio (or more!) of trips to pack for each year. But I would argue (and I do!) that this because we take a very programmatic approach to fitting in the destinations we want into an already really busy life, and generally, we plan travel well in advance. 

With short vacation times, and our usually aggressive plans to see and do a lot in that short time, we like to book trips early to have plenty of time for planning and to ensure we get our first choice of all the components we want. The best hotels, cruise cabins or guides can book up even a year in advance!  We almost always book our trips a year or more in advance.

That all changed this year!

{People with more time, and fewer responsibilities can afford to wait it out and see what specials might pop up last minute.  You can get some good deals, but usually only on trips or components that for some reason didn't sell well in the first place (think cruises during hurricane season, or hotels that might be a little down at the heels or a destination off season)  If you don't mind making those kinds of compromises to save some money; waiting till the last minute is a great way to get a good value.}   

Sunset from the Grandeur of the Seas; wondering about that distant Island!

Cuba

For years, when we've cruised the Caribbean from Florida, and I've always looked out the window on our sea days as we passed by Cuba, and been fascinated about this place.  After all, the place we just left- Miami, throbs with energy and music of a huge Cuban American population there. What is the island they left like now?  It's another of the world's politically complicated place, but our travel philosophy has always been that going to a place and learning about it, meeting the people (if that can be done safely) is the best way to learn about the differences and make an informed opinion.  I knew that for years an embargo trade and travel in Cuba had left citizens of the US on the outside, and people in Cuba unable to share the stories of their lives with us.  In 2000, some limited travel on "people to people" exchanges was allowed by the US government for the reasons I mention above, but they were discontinued in 2003, and resumed again in 2011. Ever since sailing by (at quite a distance to stay in International Waters) and seeing the lights glittering on Cuba and miles of undeveloped beaches, I imagined what it might be like to visit there.  

I put a "people to people" tour to Cuba on my list, when the licenses started being offered, but having at least 3 trips booked already, I didn't exactly have a "spot" on the calendar for a trip to Cuba.  But we wanted to fit in a short trip, between other travel we had planned.  At the time I had trouble finding an operator that offered a shorter trip; several were island tours lasting 10-15 days. (Overseas Adventure Travel, National Geographic, Natural Habitat, Roads Scholar, Friendly Planet etc) That's a luxury of time we didn't have, so I put it off and other trips made the top our list.  Our daughter almost traveled there with a high school group (and we were angling to find a way to latch onto that trip- after providing some pretty good photos of a prior student exchange, we were hopeful the lure of Jeff's photos might convince the teachers to let us join as chaperons!) but the tour company the school planned to use failed to secure the necessary license and that trip was cancelled. 

On December 21st, President Obama announced the normalization of relations with Cuba.  Politically, it will be debated, but one thing that will not be debated is that a change in US policy will mean changes for Cuba. Eventually, I imagine, US based Caribbean cruise ships will make regular ports of call in Cuba, and I will likely set foot there many times in the future.  But the announcement increased the urgency for us to see Cuba now before it changes!  This thought was confirmed when I called Insight Cuba to ask about their trips.  The representative, who has spent considerable time in Cuba, explained that her friends there could not wait to sell those old 1950s cars and buy modern ones! And I can just imagine the American antique car market salivating over those old cars coming into Miami via barge!  While we talked she confirmed my feelings that things are and will be changing in Cuba and NOW is the time to go to have a sense of that change when when I step off a cruise ship into Habana 10 years from now!

Less than 6 months to do my research!

So, we did something completely uncharacteristic for us!  We booked a trip less than 6 months away!! (only 6 months to plan- how will I cope!?!)  In June 2015, we will take Insight's Jazz in Havana tour. Insight offers people to people tours with guides and all the appropriate licenses. It's under the umbrella of a development organization that uses all the profits from the Cuba trips to pay for volunteer travel to other locations across the globe where they do development work.   It is only 5 nights, so fits perfectly in our schedule. The Jazz in Havana trip with visits to art galleries and museums, artists homes, and meetings with jazz musicians in Havana night clubs, is perfect for our daughters; a saxophone player and a design student.  Jeff is already salivating over the photographic opportunities, and I am looking forward to practicing my Spanish, dancing and meeting Cubans for myself in their home!

Cuba seen from the Navigator of the Seas

So...what about the other 2 trips Jeff insists I must have booked? Well, there might be more than 3 booked now!  I have plans to travel to Florida next week and hope to blog live how to find "real Florida" among all the man made tourist attractions!  In April we will be sailing Adventure of the Seas from San Juan Puerto Rico, visiting Barbados, Antigua, St Marteen, St Lucia, and St Croix. Lastly, we've booked passage on the Azamara Journey from Miami to Cartegna, Columbia, through the Panama Canal and along the Pacific coast of Costa Rica in early 2016.

Resolved!

I really don't make resolutions. They always seem so doomed to failure.

Resolution 1:  to lose 10 pounds. That seems to fail shortly after consuming the Valentine’s Day Whitman’s sampler entirely in one day.

That’s not to say I don't make changes; I do! For instance, when in the middle of yoga class on a hot July day, it occurred to me that now was the time to practice being more fully present to my family when they were in my space. (an example: look up from the paper as a teen drifts to the refrigerator and engage her every time) I made the decision to make a change because that was the moment it occurred to me that the sands in the hourglass of time I have in the same room with my young adults is rapidly running out! I find that big (or little) epiphanies leave me feeling "resolved" to do something instead of a creating a stack of required "resolutions" at the beginning of a new year, like some kind of the performance improvement plan. Why wait?

A yoga class on Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park

A big epiphany for us was that living the life we want cannot happen if we don't prioritize the things that matter to us as a family! Many years ago it occurred to Jeff and I that between jobs, family responsibilities and health concerns that prioritizing traveling would be something to resolve to do NOW, not in some distant future when the timing was finally right! A single week long trip from Boston to Australia (extending a conference Jeff was already paid to attend) taught us the wisdom of doing now what you can, rather than putting it off for the perfect time, when we have (pick your favorite excuse!)  more money, more time, more time to plan, fewer responsibilities. Not every trip we've taken has been as long or as comprehensive as we've wanted, but each has been a stake in the ground to say "we are resolved to see the world together, now, in whatever way we can and while we can.”

An iconic nighttime view of Sydney Harbor, Sydney Australia

Being a traveler doesn't require one to go far and wide, or make expensive or elaborate plans. We have an longtime friend from high school, Lisa, who travels all the time. She's not fabulously wealthy, or retired, but she treats every journey like a traveler, whether she goes to Peru or to the local outlet mall with her niece. It's an attitude of discovery and awe she exhibits everywhere she goes! And it inspires me to look at every trip with the same kind of attitude! 

I hope that our blog is a place that will inspire your own resolve to travel whether near or far, and a place to share your ideas that inspire others! 

Happy New Year! 

Coming up next:

• Where we went in 2014

• Where we plan to go in 2015

Why Bother With a Local Guide?

Our recent trip to Eastern and Central Europe had me thinking about the advantages of spending money on local guides during our travels.

It seems when we are trying to travel on a budget (and aren't most of us!) we look for ways to economize. In general when Jeff and I travel we prefer small groups or traveling independently. One of the things we won't economize on is good local (and often private) guiding in the destinations where we travel.  One of the things we've learned over the years is that a good local guide is invaluable and usually worth every penny.

Here is why:

1) Some places are not easy to navigate on your own; the language is unfamiliar and it could be easy to get lost in areas that may not be safe for tourists.  Having a local guide ensured we could see the places we wanted to and stay safe while we did it.  This was the case for us in Ecuador at the tourist craft market in Otavalo.  There is great market for the locals just  a few blocks away from the tourist markets.  Our guide offered to take us there.  Unfortunately, when we visited, there were also a couple of never do wells looking for tourists wandering in that area. We were cased for a moment by a pair of them who noticed us, they reversed direction and started following us.  It only took a meaningful look from our guide, Robbie, for them to move on.

With our local guide in Otavalo, we were able to go to the local market safely

Having a local guide helps you stay safely on the tourist path, but also allows you to get OFF the tourist path safely.  If you want to venture into a place where locals live and work and stay safe and have someone who can ease the transition between local and tourist, a local guide can do that.

We had this experience in Istanbul...we were able to stroll in a residential neighborhood and witness an impromptu market for sheep being sold for a national holiday.  Without our guide, we might not have felt safe in the neighborhood, and with our guide, we had the opportunity to take photos of this market because he could ask the people there if taking photographs would be ok.

Impromptu sheep market in Istanbul

2) Even in places that are "easy" to see and tour on your own, having a local guide adds context to what you are seeing...this was especially important on our most recent trip because so much of the history was recent history and we were touring with people who actually LIVED it. Hearing their thoughts and opinions created a far richer experience than just wandering around and reading about it out of a guide book.

An example of this was our local guide Magdi Pelech in Budapest. One of our interests was learning about life in a communist country, and Magdi had lived in Hungary through the 70's and 80's.  She had stories to share that made the seeing the "sights" far richer than if we had just been touring around using our guide book.  The picture below is what you would see if you visit the Rock Church on Gellert Hill. When we toured with Magdi, we learned that she never knew this church existed! During the Communist regime, the cross was removed, the monks were forced to leave and the entrance was cemented over (you can still see some of the cement around the entrance today) While most of us knew that religion was suppressed as part of communism, hearing about how easily it was literally erased from the consciousness of a local person was very interesting to learn!

Rock Church in Budapest

3) We are not retired, time is precious, and we have little time to "get lost" and miss hours of sight seeing time.  Losing oneself in a place is a luxury professional travel writers may have and write poetically about in glossy travel magazines (while someone else is paying for their time and travel!) Most of us are on a shorter holiday with little time to spare.  It's fun for most of us to stumble onto a market or celebration and change touring plans (this happens to us all the time!) but time spent arguing over a transit map, or going in circles for an hour is not the same as whiling away an hour in a cafe, or ditching a tourist site to watch a festival parade.  I like to have a local guide who can maximize our touring time, including finding the perfect place to while away an hour with coffee!

Turkish coffee and tea

4) If you want to participate in something unusual (like that festival parade!) or avoid a traffic jam up (due to a strike for instance), or avoid traveling to a closed-for-renovation museum, a local guide is your best bet. They know what is on, what to avoid and how to maximize the tour to your time and interests. For instance, Magdi knew there was a large horse race going on in the City Park on Sunday. While it might have been interesting, it would have impacted our ability to see the other sights in the City Park that day. By going the next day, we avoided the crowds and closures due to the local event. Or if we had decided to go to the local event, having a private guide would allow us to change our itinerary to accommodate that!

5) A local private guide can tailor your tour to your interests and to your pacing in a way that a group tour can't.  Jeff and I like to cover a lot ground, so we like to work with a private guide and not be beholden to bathroom breaks or bus loading for 20 or 50 people. Being a photographer, Jeff often looks for a guide too come out early or stay late when the light is good. If he wants to stop for a longer time to get a shot, the guide is happy to indulge us and we aren't holding up the group. This happened in Istanbul when Jeff wanted to get a shot of the sun setting over the Old Town from the Asian side, we arranged for our guide to stay out late with us to get his shot.

Sun sets on the Suleymaniye Mosque

A good guide will also pace your tour for your group. When my sister in law needed a little break to sit in Budapest, Magdi would provide a safe, comfortable location to rest for a bit or for her to wait while the other 3 of us moved on to saw another sight nearby and then return for her later.

Taking a much needed break after a long touring day with Magdi Pelech in Budapest

6) A certified guide often has professional credentials that allow them to skip the lines or use a special guiding entrance with their clients. We had several instances where our private local guides flashed their credential and went to the head of the line while other tourists had to wait.  It may not feel "fair" to our US sensibilities, but I feel like you do business as business is done in the places where I visit, and in many places having a credentialed guide saved us lots of time in lines!

7) Its not as much of a splurge as you think it might be!!  In many places excellent local guides can be found for $100 dollars a day or less.  In some bigger more expensive tourist areas you might pay $100 per person for a 1/2 day, but generally, it's well worth it to assure that your trip includes the the kinds of experiences you want and smooths the way to have them comfortably and safely!

 Tips for Finding Good Local Guides

Use a good destination specialist travel agent

Finding a great travel agent is whole other topic, but it's very important to find an agent who has been to the place you are going, and/or has local resources where they regularly refer clients. They also have to be willing to listen to YOU and what you want. It's not as easy to do as it seems, there are still a lot of generalist agents (whom I refer to as "let me book that for ya" travel agents- they sell what they sell, and usually only do what you could do yourself on line, and don't offer any expertise or advice about your itinerary and local guides to use.) My advice is don't book with an agent until you've had conversations about your destination with them.  If they don't know more than you can learn from a travel brochure, move on.  What you want to find is a travel agent with expertise and contacts for guiding in the destination you are visiting!  

• Ask friends who have had great trips about their travel agent, I recommend mine (Travel Beyond) to everyone because I meet a lot of other tourists and they want to know how we managed to have the experiences we've arranged! 
• Research the businesses of the destination experts on Trip Advisor whose advice you respect 
• Look for Wendy Perrin's WOW list of destination specialists http://www.wendyperrin.com/wow-list/

Ask friends who have had great guides

Nothing made me happier than recommending Michael Kay's excellent Costa Rica Expeditions to friends traveling to Costa Rica for a 25th anniversary and hearing that they had an amazing al fresco surprise anniversary dinner planned for them by CRE. I knew I had had an excellent experience with them, and I knew they would have great experience too!

Read reviews and trip reports on travel review sites

Read reviews on Travel websites for your destination; take notes about guides mentioned who have consistently good reviews.

Book an Organized Small Group Tour

We've taken some smaller group tours that bundle lodging, travel and guiding.  The best of these include excellent local guiding, and the tour company does all the research to find them! Of course you still need to adapt to the needs and pace of a group, but generally, we've found that there is still a very high level of knowledge and quality in the guides.

Adventures By Disney provided excellent local guides for our small group of like minded travelers in the Galapagos and in Andean Highlands in Ecuador

On a really tight budget? Troll social media

There are options that may be short of being professional guides, and that's a risk- if you are paying, its always good to check that the guide has the credentials required by their destination.  Without them, you never know what you will get. But if you really can't pay for professional guiding at all you can at least have a "local" experience.

• You can find friends of friends who live in your destination and might be willing to show you around.
• Take advantage of "free walks" offered in some cities.
• You can also use message boards and forums to find others traveling to the same destination on the same days to share the cost of a private local guide. It can be difficult to tailor these tours to your needs, but if there is a set itinerary and everyone agrees and pays directly to the guide, it can work well.  We made some very good real life friends when we chartered a sailboat with online "friends" we connected with on Cruise Critic.

Bonding on Calabaza in St Thomas during a squall with new friends we met "online" and shared a sailboat charter with. (I promise the sun was out for most of it!)

I'd love to hear your ideas too!  Any tips to share for finding great guides?