As my trip progressed, I made a note of some general ideas that occurred to me that weren't really specific to a particular day or event. I've saved that list to share in this last post relating to my 2016 summer trip. So here they are, in no particular order:
- When I was packing for this trip I looked at my large suitcase and thought about pulling it around for every change of hotels, possibly up and down stairs if I got a hotel without a "lift". I made a last-minute decision to borrow my son's smaller suitcase and leave a few things out. I was so glad I did that! I was planning to use a small backpack as a carry-on anyway and I really didn't need all of that suitcase room. Next time I take a trip I'm going to think hard about how I might downsize even more.
- In spite of the above, the next time I travel in the summer and am not sure I'll have air conditioning I might pack one of those tiny little fans they sell for offices. It would have been really nice to have along....
- If you like to do read as I do, an e-book reader is an excellent way to carry around weeks worth of books without adding much volume or weight to your load. I have a first-generation kobo and it can hold more books than I would read in a year. It was always in my purse and during the time when I was on my own I'd pull it out and read a chapter when I stopped for a meal.
- A question: why does the U.K. not believe in water fountains?? I noticed this the other time I traveled in Great Britain too. The British are such lovely people in general and I think they implemented recycling long before we did in North America, but they seem to have a blind spot when it comes to water. In hot weather there are lots of warnings posted about staying hydrated and I agree it's very important, but the only way to do that while traveling in the U.K. seems to be to keep buying little plastic bottles of water. I have a nice refillable bottle that I use at home and my workplace has drinking fountains with high spouts so that I can fill it up when it gets low. But in the U.K. it was fairly rare to find a drinking fountain or even a bathroom sink that would deliver water in a way that I could drink out of it or fill up even a small container. I wasted a lot of money and created a lot of trash buying plastic water bottles. The one exception was the hotel at Canterbury, which had a "water station" in the hall, where you could fill water bottles with your choice of still or sparkling mineral water. I chatted with another North American guest at this water station and instead of discussing the cathedral or other things about the hotel we just raved about how happy we were to find all this free water!
- British grocery stores sell very good nutritious sandwiches. And there are often grocery stores at the center of town -- even small ones in downtown London and in train and tube stations there. This is such a nice way of getting lunch when you're traveling. It's cheap and convenient. I usually don't want to spend the time and money for a sit-down lunch when I'm sightseeing. Restaurant meals are fun but you can get tired of them on a long trip. I love being able to walk into a grocery store and buy a sandwich and a piece of fruit and maybe a bag of "chips" and then eating it in a park. Or packing it away in my bag until later when I want it.
- I wish we had trains like the British trains in North America! They are great for long distances and short ones too. David and I took trains from London to York, then York to Edinburgh, and then Edinburgh back to London and each one made only a few stops. They were comfortable and quiet and very pleasant. They even had someone with a "trolly" selling drinks and snacks. They stopped in the middle of town instead of an airport that was far away from everything. There were several choices of times every day. A very civilized way to travel. And when you're only going a short way they've got great trains for that too. We took a train for our day trip to Stirling Castle from Edinburgh and I took trains from London to Dover to Canterbury and back to London. Those stopped at more places, but were still quite comfortable and convenient and with frequent choices of times. I noticed people who got on at one town and got off one or two towns later and they just paid cash to the conductor instead of buying a ticket at the station. That must be really convenient. So much nicer than driving to a nearby town and having to find a parking spot.
- One more thing about trains: my only complaint is that some of the trains running the smaller routes don't have enough room for luggage. They have small overhead racks that are fine for a backpack but no place for suitcases. I was lucky that when I used these trains they weren't full and I was one of the few people with a suitcase, so I could just put my suitcase on the seat next to me. But what do they do when the trains are more full? A train going from Dover to London can't count on all of its passengers being on day trips....
- One of the challenges of a long trip is laundry. During the miserable heat wave in London I was sweating through clothes so fast that I took a bag of icky, sweaty clothes over to a nearby laundry service. I felt very pampered getting them back that evening beautifully clean and folded better than I've ever folded them in my life. But it was expensive and not something I wanted to do all the time. For the rest of the trip, I managed to wash my clothes in my hotel room. Here are some tips:
- Wash a few things every evening; don't let them all pile up
- If you're going to be moving around, pack a few plastic bags in case you need to carry damp clothes in your suitcase.
- Try out something like Eucalan -- a hand-washing soap that doesn't need any rinsing. I have been using it for my hand-knits for years and it works just as well on other kinds of clothes. It just takes a capful in a bathroom sink full of room-temperature water. Dump in a shirt or two and some underwear and let it soak for 20-30 minutes, maybe turning it over once if some of it wants to float.
- The trick is getting things dry afterwards. I drain the water out of the sink and then gently squeeze out each item until I can't get any more water out of it. Then I roll them up in a towel and squeeze that. And then I hang the clothes up to dry. Almost everything will dry after that treatment in one or two nights, depending on the weather. Sticking a couple of extra clothes hangers in the bottom of your suitcase is a great idea in case there are no hangers where you're staying.
- If you're lucky enough to have a hotel room with a heated towel rack, drying is even easier. I worry that these things get too hot to be safe with some of my clothes, so what I do is put a towel on the rack and put clothes over the towel. It still speeds up the drying process quite a lot.
- This gripe may be a little silly or a specifically North American hangup, but What is the point of toast racks??? Every place I stayed included breakfast and in general the food was good, but in every place but one my breakfast included very cold, very dry toast served in a toast rack. If you live in North America, you may not even know what a toast rack is, so I put a picture beneath this point. It seems to be an appliance that is perfectly designed to take nice warm toast and make sure it turns into cold, dry, unappetizing toast as quickly as possible. Why???? I normally really like toast, but this ruins it. I understand that if you're serving breakfast to lots of people in the morning it may be difficult to make sure everyone gets theirs when it's warm, but why would you spend money and space on these little gadgets that make absolutely sure everyone's toast will be stone cold and all dried out? Do they really like it that way? Or do they just think it's a fancy way to serve toast in spite of the consequences? There, just had to get that off my chest. A great mystery....
- This next thing may sound odd coming from a Computing professor, but I tend to be a late adopter of some kinds of technology. I think I use so much of it at work that I'm not always eager to acquire it in my personal life. I was one of the last people I know to get a cell phone and then one of the last to upgrade from a simple cell phone to a "smart phone". The last time I went on a major trip I had just bought my Android phone and hadn't really progressed beyond using it for phone calls and messages. So this was the first trip I took with apps on my phone and I must say I'm finally a convert. I carried much less paper and found many apps that saved me a lot of time and bother. I did bring along my laptop, but I didn't do much with it except writing this blog. Before the next time I travel I may try to get comfortable with the blogger app and save a lot of space and weight by leaving the laptop at home! (Although maybe I still would want a regular keyboard for blog and e-mail....) Here are some of the apps I enjoyed using during this trip. My phone is an Android, but I believe most or all of these have equivalents for Apple phones.
- The camera! I suppose that goes without saying, but it's a better camera than the little point-and-shoot I own. I brought the latter along as a backup but never used it.
- The calendar to keep track of our travel reservations and other plans
- Dropbox to manage some files that I wanted to have on my laptop as well as my phone. These were mostly notes about times and places and directions.
- hotels.com to keep track of our hotel reservations
- VIA rail to keep track of our train reservations in Canada (getting to & from the Dorval airport)
- The British Airways app -- electronic boarding passes and up to date flight information.
- trainline for managing our British train trips
- Transport for Edinburgh, which helped us navigate the bus system in Edinburgh. Really wonderful to have this kind of help when you're in an unfamiliar city! If you tell it where you are and where you want to go it will display complete information about times and bus stop locations. You can even buy and use electronic bus tickets -- completely paperless. You just buy tickets with your credit card on the app and let the app show them to the bus driver when you get on the bus. I hope the London tube system will figure out something like this to replace Oyster cards. Maybe even Kingston Transit someday....
- The London Tube Map: You tell it what station you're close to and what station you want to go to and it tells you all the details: what line to get on in which direction, what stops you'll pass, where to get off to transfer, how long each step will take, and so on. The tube system is complicated enough that this saves a lot of time and error.
- Games on cell phones are really nice ways to combat boredom during those little bits of dead time that happen while traveling -- waiting for a train or a flight, etc. My favorite ones that I've got on my phone are Ken Ken and a solitaire game but there are millions to choose from. I like to read and knit, but neither of those are very comfortable for small bits of time.
- Google maps: Most people probably are familiar with this program and the app is great too for figuring out how to get places when you're in an unfamiliar city. It's possible to download an area and use the app version of the program offline, but there are limits to the offline use. In particular, it won't give you walking instructions, just instructions for driving, which are not always what you really want if you're on foot in a European city. Still, it's helpful for planning out an excursion ahead of time or for getting an idea of how far away something is.
- I've saved my very favorite app of all until last: Here We Go. The next time I take a trip if you told me I could take along only one of my long list of apps I would probably choose this one. I use it at home too when I'm walking to a place I've never been before or when I decide to explore a new neighborhood or a new route when I'm walking for exercise. It is a fairly simple mapping app. It's not as fancy as Google maps, but its advantage is that it works much better offline without using up data (which is so expensive, especially when you're overseas). Before you go on a trip you download maps for places you're planning on going. After that, this app will work with the saved maps even when you're away from both wi fi and data. You tell it where you want to go (from your current position or from another position if you're planning ahead) and it gives you a map showing your location and the suggested route to your destination. You can change the scale and move around on the map to suit what you need. It knows about footpaths as well as roads. It will also give you directions (such as "walk 80 meters and then turn left on Elm Street"). It vibrates your phone when it's time to make a turn, so you can shove it in your pocket and not have to watch it all the time. And -- my favorite feature -- if you take a wrong turn it will help you recover in the most efficient way without insisting that you retrace all your steps. (I tested that feature very thoroughly on this vacation and can vouch for it!) It occasionally acts up or is slow to update the map, but it still works very well. If it misbehaves just restart it. My family will tell you that I have a terrible sense of direction and am very talented at getting lost, but this app got me all around London and helped me walk to Dover Castle and lots of other places on this trip all by myself. It's so much easier and more convenient than constantly unfolding a paper map and finding your place on it. On the last day of my trip the app updated itself and announced some extra features, such as public transportation, but I have never used them; I have only used it for walking. For walking in an unfamiliar place, though, I recommend it very highly.
- After that long list of apps, it's obvious that I used my cell phone heavily on this trip. Taking pictures and making it show maps for long walks really does run down the battery. I tried to start out each day with the phone fully charged, but even so there were many days when the battery couldn't last through everything I wanted to do. So I'm very, very glad that I brought a good portable charger along with me -- one of these, although I'm not sure this is exactly the same model number as mine. There are a lot of chargers like this out there and I can't recommend one over another, but I highly recommend having something like this. I carried it in my purse all the time and if my phone (or ipod or kobo reader) started to get low on power I just plugged it in and left it in my purse with the charger and let it charge back up for a while, then plugged the charger in at night so it would be ready to help out again the next day. Spend enough money to get one that can store enough charge to charge your phone (or other devices) several times before it has to be charged up again, just in case.
- It's fun to have some kind of pedometer when you go on a trip like this that involves a lot of walking. I've already mentioned my fitbit in this blog and I really enjoyed having it along. It's a watch that doubles as a pedometer so it's no extra trouble to take along. I got one that measures my heart rate as well and I find I don't use that feature and I'm not sure how accurate it is. If I had it to do over I would go with a simpler, cheaper model. But the important thing is that at the end of the day when you get back to your home or hotel room with tired feet you can look at your step count and feel very virtuous! Sometimes when you tramp around on a trip (or at home doing errands) you don't realise how many miles you're going.
- If you do have a pedometer, let me recommend a fun web site to go with it: Walking 4 Fun. It was created by someone who does a lot of long-distance walking trips. You create an account and every day you enter the number of steps you have taken (or the number of miles you walked if you prefer). You select one of the hikes the writer has done and each day the web site will tell you how far along you are on your virtual hike and show you pictures of what you've passed on your way and some of what the writer wrote on his blog about that area. It's fun! I've already "hiked" the whole Camino de Santiago (the French as well as the Spanish section) plus the West Highland Way and the Great Glen Way in Scotland and have started on the Appalachian Trail. During my vacation the beautiful and interesting things I really did pass were enough of a motivation, but sometimes when I'm walking in my own familiar area the thought of adding to my virtual hike can add an incentive to go a little farther. And the web site is certainly giving me ideas for hikes I'd like to take in person someday.
- I want to end by sharing a few more thoughts about walking. It's the only form of exercise that I really enjoy. It's a lot easier on the body than running but it has many benefits. I was very pleasantly surprised the last time I went to the doctor. He asked if I was exercising regularly and I braced myself for a lecture, but told him I liked to walk and was getting 10,000 steps on my pedometer most days. He smiled and said that was excellent for my cardiac health and I should keep it up. No lecture! Besides the benefits for physical health, I have often found that a walk can do wonders to clear up my thinking. If I'm having trouble with a person or situation in my life and I take a walk I'll often find that a solution or at least a possible strategy will have popped into my mind by the end of the walk, even if I wasn't consciously thinking about the issue. Or if not, I will usually at least feel a little calmer about it. The same goes when I'm stuck on some kind of technical issue at work. I recently did a google search for the two words "walking" and "brain" and it came up with several pages that confirmed my feeling that walking is good for our cognitive health and can even help to combat the effects of aging on our brains and lower our risk of dementia. So if you are like me and have a tendency towards couch-potatohood, try taking a little walk several times a week and once that has become a comfortable habit try going just a little farther. You'll be surprised how far you're going before long and how much better you feel.
Happy Walking!
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