I am certainly not claiming to be a veteran, or a well-traveled traveler, but I have come up with some notes that will make traveling next time easier for me, and perhaps for you, too.
GENERAL TIPS
- Travel off-season if at all possible. High season is expensive, crowded and lines are never-ending.
- Plan your trip around the most congenial weather.
- Check out airbnbs or vrbo for charming and ultra affordable digs. Read the reviews. Do a little research and find out what neighborhoods you want to be in first.
- Don't drink 3 bottles of cheap wine to get over your initial jetlag. Trust me.
- Buy tickets to major sites online well in advance. Be punctual, timed tickets are not flexible. Our Alhambra tickets sold out the first day they were released 60 days before our departure. You've been forewarned.
- Buy a plug adapter that allows 3 devices to charge at one time. Oh, how I wish I had.
PACKING YOUR SUITCASE
- Pack a carry on suitcase HALF FULL, I am not kidding. You will come back with lots more than you take. Yes, you will.
- Gals - one additional day purse (different from a larger one for the plane). Men, same type of setup, wear a manpurse, all the other guys did.
- Next time I will take 3 tees, 3 capris, two very light sweaters, one scarf, 2 bras, and 5 undies. A sarong for lounging in your room doubles as a scarf or shawl. We dropped off our laundry at a one day service in Granada, cost 10 euro. Easy! Buy more scarves there.
- Take one of those folded and velcroed nylon extra shopping bags in your purse, we used it daily.
- Two pair of shoes: sandals and a sturdier but lightweight non bulky pair. Change it up every other day to avoid blisters, etc.
- The ubiquitous bidet is great for washing off your dusty dirty feet at day's end as well as for small hand washing.
ARTISTS AND TRAVELING
- I packed way too many art supplies. What was I thinking?
- I am primarily a studio artist not an urban sketcher, so for me, a tiny sketchbook, a pencil, smudger, and IF I must bring gouache, next time a teensy mini set only. Once our tour began I had no time at all to sketch. I was hauling around about 5 lbs of bulky journals, paints, a zillion pencils and I regretted it. And due to the extra weight, I resented it. Bring the absolute minimum and find an art store if you really need anything else. Besides, it's fun to visit art stores in other countries.
PHONE
- Yes, you absolutely need one. We thought we would be fine with airplane mode on our U.S. phones. Within ten minutes of landing we realized we were dead wrong. We found a Mobileworld store and scored a couple of unlocked phones. Be sure to either bring an unlocked phone and buy a sim when you land, or just be prepared to pick up a phone when you get here. We bought a data plan for 25 euro giving us 18 hrs of talk, 1 gigabyte of data, and we used the heck out of it. Free Spain calling and texts and a phone number we could give out, perfection. We yelped everything, gps'd our way around town, and used Google translate, which was a lifesaver, and especially entertaining with cabbies. YOU MUST HAVE A SMARTPHONE!
- We had some tour folks who didn't realize that their U.S. phones were racking up some astronomical roaming charges. They actually thought they will be able to talk their way out of those charges when they get back. Do NOT be that person!
PHOTOGRAPHY
- Like art supplies above, this is very personal.
- I left my lovely Fuji x20 camera at home. I am mostly glad I did as I really put my Lumia 1520 to the test and it surprised and delighted overall.
- BUT - because I love photography so much and it ended up being my primary artistic expression while here, I would do a few things differently next time. I really really wished I had higher resolution, sharper images.
- I would invest in a smallish, touchscreen mirrorless camera, wifi ready, with a bunch of extra media cards (remember, wifi sucks, or erhmmm, is unreliable), and a good all-purpose lens with some zoom. That's money folks, but you know, you've got to have the tools that work for you. I took over 100 images at each place, at minimum. Probably would have taken loads more if it had been easier to do so.
- Cameras, as opposed to cellphone cameras, just work faster. Photo ops come up in a nanosecond and cellphones take a bit of time to set up.
- No dslr's for me, too big, too bulky and mirrorless are fantastic.
- My Lumia was burning up and it's hot in Spain. But the wall I hit was when wifi was abominable at best, my 32gb micro sd card filled up and I couldn't upload to the cloud, so thankfully I had my daughter's Lumia 1520 to use. But I was seriously up a creek without my camera, and wouldn't delete anything until it was clouded. Catch 22, see it? And then trying to edit on two phones, upload from both phones - nightmarish. Rhiannon was out reading and sipping wine every night, while I was in my room photo editing and cursing the internet! LOL.
WHY SPAIN?
- Honestly, this was not my first choice, but Rhiannon's. I am thoroughly besotted with Spain now. Awesome place. So glad to have traveled here.
- People are very friendly.
- Affordable! Omgosh, so affordable! Soon I will be back in sticker-shock California.
- Food! Try everything. We ate our way around the world in Spain. Portuguese, Italian, Catalunyan, Venezuelan, Mexican, French, and so on.
- Spain is very diverse, up in the Catalunya region, for instance, you can really feel the fierceness of independence with their distinct culture, language and history. As we traveled south, Spain changes quite drastically, which comes to full bloom in Ronda and especially Sevilla. Flamenco!
- Siesta is alive and well. Shop early or late, not in the middle of the day, everything will likely be closed. Take a nap, duh! Night life is alive and well here, too. Dinner starts at 10pm.
- Read a bit of history before you come. Watch youtubes, there are so many!
- If you have no foreign language skills and are not comfortable plotting out your entire itinerary with travel, hotels, and sightseeing, consider a tour, at least for the bulk of your trip. I can't say enough about our experience with the Rick Steve's My Way tour. Wow... I would so do another one, like in a minute! Here is the link to our My Way Spain tour, but check out the other options too. I am dreaming of the Adriatic or maybe the Basque tour next when I can scrape up more travel money.
BLOGGING
- I had a helluva time posting to Blogger. I am a committed WordPress gal and even though I know the rudiments of blogger/blogspot and appreciate that it is free, I found it terribly lacking for working from my phones (Windows) and tablet (Android).
- I took pics with my Lumia 1520, deleted a bunch at end of day, brought many into my Photoshop editing app, then uploaded them to blogger, wifi permitting, but I could not POST them from my phone. I had to switch to my tablet and post from there. Thus the fits and starts of my posts which I had planned on smoothly posting daily.
- I think I would bring my surface pro 3 (super thin laptop) next time just to have greater ease of use and a full keyboard for all the journaling. Even though my Samsung tablet is a pro version and I love it, it is just not as elegant as a laptop with keyboard for serious daily blogging. And to be able to arrange and organize the pics I uploaded, laptops are better. When I get home I hope to fix that all up. It's a hodgepodge for now.
- No bulky books, we used our tablets' kindle app and read to our hearts content, on buses, trains, in middle of night without turning on a light, and in many a cafe while enjoying tapas and wine. Best thing ever! Wifi only, no data plan necessary for our tabbies. Must have. Be sure to download the books you will be reading though. Wifi is unreliable and much weaker than at home. Or at least that was our experience.
Hopefully a few travelling folks can benefit from our travel tips. And don't forget to consult the Rick Steves site for all sorts of invaluable travel information. It is a veritable goldmine.
Pack light
lighter
lightest.
Then enjoy every spectacular moment!
Travel changes a person - for the better.
Awesome world we live in and share with awesome Others.
Xo
Thanks for sharing in our journey, much love to you.
Now go plan your next trip. Just do it.
