This is the second part of my mom’s guest post on travel planning! If you haven’t read the first part yet, you can find it here. Enjoy some more tips!
Tip #4: Location, Location, Location!
When reserving hotels, do not just focus on price alone. On the hotel websites, they may state that it take 15 minutes to get to all the attractions. In reality, travel often takes longer than that. For example, in Japan and in Germany, we have been to stations that have no attendant. It took us a while to figure out how to get small change to buy tickets. (And at one of the stations, there was no English option!) It will take a couple minutes sometimes to just try to figure out which platform to use to board the train! If you count the time to buy tickets and wait for the train, a 15-minute journey easily takes about 30 minutes for a tourist.
On our honeymoon, I booked a condo in a residential area. On the website, it said it was 40 minutes away from Rome. For half of the price, we got a new one-bedroom condo, so I excitedly reserved it. However, it took us on average 1 hour 15 minutes to get to Rome because it involved a switch to a different train network, we had to wait for the trains, and some routes were not that frequent. What that meant was that we spend over 2 hours each day “commuting” to the Rome city center.
If you stay close to the attractions, you also have the option to take a midday break when it gets too hot or it rains. When the kids were little, we had to go back to the hotel for a nap to avoid the melt downs and tantrums. In the crowded tourist areas, it is often hard to find a place to rest, and you will value that proximity to your hotel when you are tired.
Another benefit of staying close to the tourist attractions is that you are likely to get all the amenities you need as a tourist. In Florence, our hotel was a 5 minute-walk from a laundromat. After a few days of travel with 4 people’s dirty laundry, that was a welcome amenity. We dropped off the laundry then went for dinner, and picked the clothes up on the way back to the hotel.
Chirag and I are both more fond of rice than wheat. After a couple meals of sandwiches and pasta, we would often crave Asian food. If you choose hotels close to a major attraction or the main train station, you are going to find all kind of ethnic food. In Germany, we had Korean tofu stew one time, and in Austria, we had Vietnamese pho! You can find Indian, Chinese, Japanese or Thai food pretty much everywhere in the world. They are almost always near the old town, the train station or the main market.
Last but not the least, some hotels offer a beautiful view of the city. Some even offer exclusive access. Near Iguazu Falls, there are two hotels within the national park and many more outside the park. The Sheraton on the Argentina side offers a glimpse of the waterfall, but it is a 10-minute walk to get to the waterfalls. But the Belmond hotel on the Brazil side is right at the falls, 100 feet away. You have the waterfalls all to yourself before and after the park closes. Belmond costs about 30% more, but it is a superior hotel in every sense. And the cost of the Belmond, is cheaper than a 3-star hotel in Manhattan most of the time!
Tip #5: Hire a local guide.
Many of the tourist attractions are beautiful, but if you have a good guide to show you things and tell you the history and all the fun facts about the attraction or the city, the site becomes alive and you will have a deeper appreciation. When we were at Sagrada Familia, our guide educated us on the different architectural elements of the church, such as the sunlight projection through the stained glass and the symmetry of the church. It is almost like adding a narration to a documentary film, and everything just makes more sense.
When we were at Dubrovnik, our guide was a local who lived in the Old Town when it was bombed in the 1990s during the Yugoslavian war. She told us about the history of Croatia, from the ancient Dubrovnik to the the bombing of the old town in 1990s, then took us to see the Game of Thrones shooting locations and sample local Croatian produce at the market. At the end of the tour, we knew the culture, the food, the history, and some of hidden gems in the old town that is not overly full of tourists.
Not only is a guide helpful when you visit historic places, but they are also great when you go for outdoor adventures. When we visited Plitvice National Park, the guide map has 7-8 suggested routes. Some take 2 hours and some can take all day. It offered little explanation on what exactly you were seeing and how long or how steep the walk would be. Our guide took us on a less-traveled path that offered an even better view, without the crowd, and it was more shady. She made the tour so much more efficient—on top of the fact that we learned more about the ecosystem and the geography of the region.
Tip #6: Keep an open mind and try new activities.
When traveling with children and extended family, it helps to keep everyone engaged by offering a wide variety of activities. Some days you can do some sightseeing, and other days you can go for leisure activities such as snorkeling, zip lining, or cooking class. Especially when you are traveling with children, you have to keep traveling fun. Children are understandably less excited about Arts and History and more excited going down the Alpine Coaster. Mix it up and the kids have something to look forward to.
Another favorite activity of mine is attending cooking and foodie tours. I myself love to cook, and as Damini grow up, she started to accompany me to cooking class. At first I thought she would hate it, but it turned out to be fun for her as well. The food she made tasted as good as it looked. She herself was amused by what she was able to cook as well, not to mention that we learned a couple dishes to add to our cooking repertoire.
Though some activities may not be appealing to some, many become a convert after trying new things. The first time we went to Hawaii, I was trying really hard to find us a snorkeling tour. Avinash didn’t know how to swim, so he didn’t quite understand what all that fuss was about. Damini was a toddler then, so we had to take turns to snorkel. Avinash dipped his head in the water and was amused by all the colorful fish, so he went farther and farther. He’s been hooked ever since. Now snorkeling is one of our family favorite activities.
So keep an open mind and try something new!