[ There is a comment section, but no way for me to actually answer questions that are sometimes asked in those comments. I have decided to answer them at the beginning of the following month's blog. In October, someone asked how old I was when my dad died. I was 32.]
My favorite sport is travel. You may say that’s not a sport, but just
trying to get through TSA at the airport is a marathon event: the dead lift of
carry-on onto the conveyor belt, emptying your pockets and removing jewelry
before the person behind you pushes past, and hand raises as you pass through
x-ray, all while juggling a ticket and passport. And when you consider that a
flight to Europe costs about the same as the basic equipment needed to take
fencing lessons (my other sport), I stand by what I’ve said.
While I travel with my husband for vacations to destinations we’ve both
never been to, when I go to the UK and Ireland, I usually go alone. His
attitude is, “I’ve been there before; I want to go someplace different.”
My take is that there are still so many places in the UK and Ireland
that I’ve never seen, I still need to go back.
Our conversation usually goes something like this:
Him: It’s cold there.
Me: It’s warmer there in the winter than it is here.
Him: It rains there.
Me: Surprise, surprise, it rains here, too.
Him: Not all the time.
Me: I spent a month in Ireland, and it rained one day in the Republic,
and one day in Belfast while I was there.
But I don’t push the envelope. He knows I like to travel more than he
does. He doesn’t mind. I go without him. There are places in the world I refuse
to go. If he wants to see those places, he’s welcome to go without me.
You may wonder why I don’t travel with someone else, instead. I have
done that. It has its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, you get to discover
somewhere with another person and share the experience. Often my friends can’t
afford the trip or don’t have the time off from work to go. Others have
commitments that don’t allow them to go. Of course, the introvert me also needs
my alone time. Traveling with someone else is exhausting.
I carefully plan my trips, and if someone is coming with me, I give
them a copy of the itinerary. It isn’t because I have to be in charge. In fact,
I ask the other person where they want to go, what they want to do and see. I’m
usually met with, “Oh, you know places better than I do. Whatever you pick is
fine with me. And when I give the suggested itinerary, they never tell me if
they aren’t interested in something I’ve listed. They give me the, “Oh, this is
great.”
I don’t like to arrive in a country with no idea what I’m going to do.
I did that once, and it was disastrous. I thought the other person had planned
that part of the trip. They hadn’t, and as a consequence, we saw only what we
could figure out how to get to on foot with our trusty Tourist Information
maps.
It is frustrating, though, when you’ve planned events for the day,
especially when some include buying tickets (in advance) for a timed event, and
the other person isn’t ready on time.
Sometimes we miss the event entirely.
Yes, vacations should be relaxing, but they shouldn’t be boring. And I
hate wasting money, especially over someone else’s disorganization. When I was a child, my family almost never went on vacations. I have
worked too long and hard to be able to afford vacations to have someone else
treat it like it’s no big deal.
It’s also frustrating, after you’ve done all the planning because the
other person won’t participate, only to find they had their own agenda they
didn’t tell you about, and spring it on you at the last minute.
I have also travelled with someone who constantly sabotaged me
throughout the trip. It reached a point where a foreigner I’d met actually
asked me if said person was really my friend.
I mean, really, if you ask me to make all of the decisions, and you’ve seen
and approved all of them ahead of time, don’t play games with it. I don’t jam
pack the schedule. I have one, or perhaps two things per day scheduled, and the
rest of the time is to relax and do spontaneous things. There are even days
with no plans.
Maybe I’m just difficult to travel with. It’s hard to see me from the
outside.
It’s simply easier to travel alone.
Of course, traveling in general has its own issues.
Unless I’m going to Ireland, I have to fly into London to go anywhere
in the UK. This is because there are no direct flights from where I live to
places like Wales or Scotland. First I'd have to fly to Toronto, Washington, D.C.,
Amsterdam (!) or Chicago – which is in the wrong direction.
That means changing planes, which in turn involves collecting my carry
on, standing in the aisle for an extended period because people refuse to wait
for the row in front of them to get out first. They don’t stop to consider that
would be faster.
Instead, the (expletive, expletive) people in the back race up the aisle
before the doors are open, and often before the seatbelt light has gone off, in
the wrongheaded idea that they need to be the first one out.
This is another reason I call travel a sport. I keep expecting to hear
the winner of “first person out” announced once we arrive in the airport, along
with medals for first, second and third place.
Then there’s the Olympic race to wherever your connecting flight is
leaving from – usually at the other end of the airport – and resettling in
another plane for the now at least seven-hour flight.
I’ll pay a bit extra for a non-stop flight, thanks.
Once at the final destination, there is a mad dash so as not to be the
last one in line at customs.
Customs is its own special world. I usually arrive in London between 6 am
and 10 am. Mine is never the only flight. There are several hundred packed like
sardines in each flight, since they moved the seats closer together. Want more
leg room? It’ll cost you an additional $80. Care to move to business class?
Another $2,000, please. They know at the airport what time the
various flights are due to arrive. They come in at the same time every day.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of people, mostly sleep-deprived, waiting
to have their passport stamped.
There are perhaps 20 customs kiosks, yet never, including pre-Covid,
are there more than two customs officials for British and EU passports, and two
for the rest of us. Bring a good book and maybe one of those canes that opens
out into a chair; it’s going to be a while.
The next leg of my journey is the trip from Heathrow or Gatwick to
Central London. After collecting my checked luggage, finding the correct lift
to the trains or the underground and purchasing my ticket, the journey is
lovely. The trains are clean, well-lit and smooth-riding. They leave often
enough that they’re not jammed with travelers.
It’s a nice change after an overnight flight where, unless you’re
gifted in being able to sleep anywhere, or wealthy enough for business class,
you get little to no sleep. Often the first two hours of the flight are taken
up with the noisy prospect of flight attendants offering some form of dinner,
and the last hour pretending it’s been long enough since dinner to feed you
breakfast. In any case, there’s too much noise – and often crying babies – to
allow for any sleep. And four quiet hours don’t exactly provide the recommended
good night’s sleep.
From Heathrow, the high-speed train arrives at Paddington station,
where I maneuver my luggage – which, over the years I’ve whittled to the size
of a carry on suitcase – and whatever small carry-on I have, which usually contains
my electronic devices.
I usually spend my first day in London to reacquaint myself with the
place that feels the most like home to me. If I’m leaving that night to go to
Scotland, I need to take the tube to King’s Cross station. There, I can get the
night train to Edinburgh or the train to Hogwarts.
Once at King’s Cross, I can check my bags at Left Luggage, and start
seeing the sights I’ve chosen for the day.
If I’m going to Cardiff, Wales, I don’t need to leave Paddington, since
the First Great Western train line leaves from Padding to Cardiff. If I am going
directly there, it’s usually only a short wait for a train, and in two hours
I’d be in Cardiff.
On my most recent trip, I opted to spend a few days in London, and take
day trips to nearby places I hadn’t yet seen, as well as a few plays on the
West End – London’s equivalent to Broadway.
Staying in London means there’s still the matter of baggage. Most
places, check in time is 2 or 3 pm.
Since I arrived in Paddington before noon, I had to deal with what to do
with the luggage.
Most hotels and B&Bs will allow you to drop off luggage before
check-in time if you’ve made arrangements, at no additional charge. If they
don’t, there’s Left Luggage at Paddington for a nominal fee.
I usually try to get accommodations near the railway station I’ll be
leaving from, to keep from having to navigate stairs and escalators when I’m
trying to catch a train. I’ve learned from past experience that the cheaper
places are inconvenient to railway stations going elsewhere, and they usually don't have elevators, so you may have to carry your luggage up a few flights of stairs.
Getting luggage around London is its own event. It’s almost always
necessary to take at least one underground train to get from place to place.
(This assumes you’re not going to splurge for a taxi, which I have done in
smaller cities that don’t have the underground.) I’m adept at minding the gap
and getting my suitcases over it most of the time. Most tube stations usually
have lifts or escalators to transfer you from different level platforms and to
the street level.
There is sometimes a problem when the underground station is quite old
and not attached to a railway station. In this case, sometimes there are
neither lifts nor escalators, and it’s necessary to take a long stairway, made
to seem longer if your luggage is heavy.
I have stood at the bottom of a set of tall stairs, looked up and
sighed, gearing myself up to pick up the heavy suitcase and making the climb,
pulling myself up the railing while my suitcase threatens to pull me back down.
Fortunately, my experience has shown that Londoners are incredibly
generous people. Most of the time, someone on the way up the stairs will see me
preparing, and simply pick up my suitcase without a word, and carry it up the
stairs, then wait for me to get to the top to claim my bag. They have my
eternal thanks.
Of course, on the tube there are signs telling people to give up
certain seats to those with special needs, pregnant women and the elderly.
While I have never been handicapped or pregnant, apparently people can look at
me and conclude I’m a senior citizen. While my chronological age qualifies, my
inner self still identifies as 25, so it’s both a shock and a bit of an
embarrassment to have someone give up their seat for me.
What’s really difficult is trying to decline the kindness when I will
be getting off at the next stop. People take it almost as an affront for this
senior to decline the designated seat just because the train will be stopping
about the same time my bum hits the seat.
Sometimes people will assist me with getting my bags off the train.
Often, the most difficult place to manage luggage is where I’m staying.
It’s really important to check out the finer points of hotels and B&Bs.
Some hotels are more like B&Bs unless they’re big name places like the
Sheraton or the Marriot.
If you book through Bookings.com or Kayak.com or any of a growing
number of such places, you can find out whether or not there is a lift in the
hotel. You can also request a ground floor room, but they don’t guarantee you
will get one.
If the booking site doesn’t have that information, they usually have an
email address for the hotel, and you can find out that way.
If you really can’t manage multiple flights of stairs with your
luggage, you may have to opt for a name-brand hotel which is often – but not
always – more expensive than those with more old-world charm.
Once free of suitcases, the underground, walking and taking in the
sights are much easier. There is no need to rent a car in London. Aside from
the extra city tax when you rent in the city, there are buses and the
underground to go anywhere you want within the city, and trains for places
outside the city. Walking from place to place is fairly easy.
The usual suspects – Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament,
The London Eye, and Trafalgar Square – are walking distance to one another.
Hyde Park, St. Paul’s, The Tower of London and Carnaby Street are fairly quick
underground trips from there – just keep your Oyster card topped up.
If you want to be spontaneous with visits to things like the London Eye
or the Tower of London, you’ll need to stand in line (or queue up, as they say
in London) for a bit. But a quick visit online either to the place’s website,
VisitUK.com, Viator.com or Bookings.com, among others before your trip can get
you advanced tickets and allow you to skip the queues. And definitely take
advantage of the hop-on-hop-off busses. It’s a great way to get the lay of the
land, as well as a ride from place to place, if not the most direct one.
Traveling can be exciting, even with some of the drawbacks. Like all
sporting events, it’s all a matter of planning, and being realistic about what
you physically can do.
The best tip I can offer is make a list of places you want to go, make
sure you don’t list more places than you have days for vacation, then cut the
list in half, and you’ll be in the right ballpark. Even if you guess wrong and
have extra time, you can always add things. Just remember that traveling from
one place to the next takes time, too.
