Monday, July 24, 2017

Relaxing Travels?

My friend Mike and I started planning our summer travel just after the first of the new year.  He moved to Morocco a couple of years ago to teach at an English speaking school so we decided we'd meet up somewhere in Europe shortly after we finished up our school years.  We've both had several European adventures between the two of us so finding a destination neither had been to was a bit challenging.  After throwing around some places that peaked each of our interests, we finally settled on Scotland with a few additional days in the Lake District of Northern England.
Neither of us were terribly comfortable taking on the task of driving in the UK, so we decided public transportation was the way we would go.  We made accommodation arrangements before we left as well as long distant train reservations for our long travel days.  After some research, we also decided we couldn't go all the way to Scotland without seeing the west of Scotland and the Isle of Skye, so we did arrange a 3-day tour that left from Edinburgh before we left.  I'm not a huge fan of "Tour Bus" travel, but we decided that was our best way for that particular destination.  Other than those plans we wanted to play the rest of the trip by ear, which is my favorite way to travel.
This trip was probably the MOST relaxing international vacation I have ever had.  I think that the stressful last few months of this past school year had a positive impact on this trip.  When I travel, I'm usually a serious researcher.  I like to know about the places I go and make sure I have at least some understanding of the history and culture and a list of things to do and see.  However, other than the basic information we looked at when deciding on where to go, I did NO additional research.  I had no preconceived notions and expectations about my destinations.  Actually, I had two basic ones.  First, I figured language wouldn't be an issue we'd have to worry about.  Second, having previously traveled to Ireland, there was an assumption that the two countries would be geographically similar.  I was correct about the first, and mostly incorrect about the second.  Anyhow, my point being, we traveled to the UK without a long list of must-sees or must-dos.  We went to bed each night without a plan for the next day, slept in each morning, and devised our day's activities over breakfast.  Being so far north, dusk didn't come until 10:30/11:00 so even though our days started later, we still had a lot of light left.  It was my dream schedule actually - stay out late and sleep in late.
I came home with over 900 pictures on my camera - the blessing AND curse of the digital camera age.  I have finally finished sorting through and editing them.  I'll share some in my next few posts.

11 comments:

  1. What a grand adventure! Just yesterday I was reminiscing about the summer I did a study program at Oxford and a friend had spent the summer working in Saudi Arabia. He detoured through the UK on his trip home and spent a week with me, including a fun weekend exploring Wales.

    I'm currently following another blogger's summer excursion to Scotland, so I'm really looking forward to seeing/hearing about yours, too!!

    Feel free to share all the photos you want! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, did you study abroad?!?! That's so neat. I have no complaints about my university experience, but my only regret was that I didn't spend time abroad. Such an experience at that age.
      I'd love to know what blogger you are following who went to Scotland too. I have so many pictures to share, but I'm going to have to pick and choose in order to not bore anyone. :) I'm working on a photobook - which I make for all my trips - so once I'm done with that I will have some time to get them uploaded on the blog.

      Delete
    2. It's Sage (Jeff) and you can find the link to his blog (Musings) in both Vince and Ed's sidebars. He's only posted a few entries about it so far.

      My study abroad experience was just a summer program for students from the US. Maybe I can email you about it sometime. My younger daughter got to do a January language immersion program that was fun, too.

      Delete
  2. I'm excited to see your photos! What a relaxing trip--no pressures!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was! I got sick with a throat infection the night before I flew home, so spent the next three days in bed. However, I didn't ever feel jet lagged or out of sorts due to being tired (just sick). I'll have to remember that for my next trip - low key!!

      Delete
  3. That sounds like a great trip.. I am looking forward to seeing those pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Delighted you found it so relaxing.

    ReplyDelete
  5. When visiting new countries and places, I sometimes like to go with the arranged tours and then follow them with my own explorations as well. The arranged tours definitely eliminate some of the stress of figuring out how to go about seeing everything.

    Saying that however, when I spent some time in the Lake District and Wales, I rented a car and jumped right into driving in England. For the most part, there were always enough cars about that I never struggled to stay in the correct lane. The only times I had problems were parking lot situations where I would be backing out of a parking spot into the correct lane. Somehow my brain just couldn't compute that when going in reverse!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whenever I go to a big city, I like to take one of those quick city overview tours to get an idea of the layout of the place. It gives me a good idea of what/where I want to spend my time.
      On some of our traveling through the villages in Scotland, with roads barely able to fit one car let alone two, we agreed that we made the right decision. While I like road trips and even driving on them, in situations like that the driver doesn't always get to enjoy the drive, worrying more about the driving. While we didn't have the flexibility of having a car, we both got to sit back and enjoy the trip without the stress of pulling into the wrong lane. :)

      Delete
  6. So happy for you and sounds as if it was just what you needed. I am blessed to have a wife who does thorough research about places we go and plans a loose itinerary based on that. She consults me along the way but heck, if she's good enough to put all the work into it, I feel it's incumbent upon me to pretty much go along. She has never steered me wrong either!

    We are leaving for Ireland August 24th. We are going with another couple -- or they're going with us -- and we WILL be renting a car! We did it in England a couple of years ago with my wife doing all of the driving, so she says she's up for it again.

    ReplyDelete