Ten more things…
- Sunscreen, even on slightly overcast days
- SPF clothing such as shirts, trousers etc for extra protection
- Long sleeved shirts and long trousers for sacred sites
- Stay hydrated, especially when temperatures start rising
- Insect repellents, even in cities such as Porto or Lisbon*
- Business cards for your digs re; walking or taxis back etc…
- Spare specs if you wear glasses or contact lenses
- A torch – either a pocket option or on your phone
- Personal medication, condoms etc. You know it makes sense!
- Notebook and pen for directions, running costs, notes
* Little bar stewards had free meals off me in both of these cities – not as nasty as the oft encountered caber tossing Highland Midge though!
Ten things… to take with you
- Your camera – digital compact, DLSR, smartphone, tablet or even film!
- Travel towel – to dry self or roll laundry in when washing on the road…
- Wet wipes – to clean up after spare ribs, fixing a bike or on a hot day!
- Body spray – high temperatures and it’s sweaty when you’re in a crowd!
- Bottle of water – handy at any time (sparkling rather than still).
- Trousers with zipped pockets – to keep thieves at bay
- Bags that can be locked or have pull-tight openings – see number 6!
- Copies of passport, travel docs & insurance (and phone numbers).
- Comfortable shoes, sandals or boots suitable for what you’re up to
- Loose change – for purchases in shops that don’t want €20 notes…
Insurance…
It was a long way down from this spot!
One thing that’s surprised me over the last few months is how many people are logging onto forums or asking questions on newspaper websites as to whether they should take travel insurance or not.
To me, it’s a no-brainer. Yes, you should is always my answer as I have pre-existing conditions that have to be declared in the wake of having had a stroke, but I’m also aware that the EHIC card doesn’t cover you for all eventualities or things like repatriation in the event of a biggie occurence.
Yes, specialist cover should be sought for dangerous sports etc, but even if you aren’t going paragliding or doing free-fall, there’s always the possibility that something unexpected might happen.
My stroke happened three days after a medical at a new GP practice and a few months after a nasty infection occurred following a small graze on my left leg (open leg wound for 3 months and an abcess inside open leg wound too).
There’s always the effects of liquor mortis to consider – either down to your consumption or a visiting meathead intent of drinking themselves into oblivion. Or inattentive drivers, unknown allergies or stumbles in the street…
Yes, the insurance premium will add more pounds or whatever to the cost of the trip, but it may be a lot less than the medical bills or those for repatriation to a hospital in say the UK after a crash or medical problem, especially if it’s happened on the other side of the world or in the US of A…
Treat ’em and street ’em may not be possible!
LDN calling… again!
And this is just one part of the candy store…
Well, I did say that there was a madcap venture in the planning and it’s done, dusted and over.
Down to London on the overnight coach on Wednesday, a day of wandering on Thursday and then back home on last night’s overnight coach…
Madness? One of my favourite bands!
I’d done this before, but Caroline hadn’t, so the tickets were booked via the National Express website, we got the last bus into town and hit London at 6.20 am yesterday morning.
First breakfasts were in McD but there was a lot of walking to do before we got back to Victoria Coach Station so second breakfasts were to come along with lunch in student places and a pub meal at the end of the day…
In between meals, we hit the river, Covent Garden, Piccadilly, Kensington, the RGS, the V&A, Harrods (where the chocolate hall pictured above was encountered) and a few other places too.
Retail therapy came in at Harrods (best hot dog ever, and much cheaper than the average cost of a cinema version), Stanfords (map and new locks for my travel bag) East and Rohan (scarf and winter jeans for Caroline).
Pret had a few coffee sales and couple of Greene King pubs supplied liquid refreshments plus a set of bar meals as we killed time before the home run.
There’s more to say, but there’s a story to file about it first for another outlet, so it will have to have a delay to telling it here on wisepacking.
Not only, but also…
The postie knocking on our front door at 11.30 am this morning wasn’t appreciated, especially as we’d got in at stupid o’clock and that the postie was knocking to ask us to take in a packet for our next door neighbours!
Grrrr…
The right guide?
Which guide is the right guide for you?
There’s a whole lot of reading going on, largely because the weather around wisepacking towers is not that condusive to heading out, no matter what clothing/footwear is being used at the time…
There’s four paper guidebooks and two language helpers on the desk in readiness for our next trip and a new one on the Kindle section of my iPad too (this one’s a brand new revision of an existing title and I haven’t as yet found anyone selling the new paper version…).
The four on the desk are from Rough Guides, Lonely Planet and DK Eyewitness whilst the new Kindle on the iPad is a Pocket Rough Guide.
Why four books and why are they from different publishers?
That’s all to do with getting a more rounded picture of the places we’re going to as each has its own take on the cities and what there is to see and do. As you can see from the above photo, there’s a lot to be said for hanging onto old editions of guidebooks as these can provide further information as certain stuff may be mentioned in one edition of said book, but not another, even though the sight or establishment is still operating….
These guides from the big names are being complemented by a set of city guides in Kindle format from the Atsons and Unanchored series of eBooks or those produced independently by the authors themselves..
Some have been paid for whilst others have been free downloads, but all are being read to get more information and yes, there have been some good tips that are being noted and stored for use on the ground when we hit the cities we’re going to as a means of ensuring that our euros go that little bit further by not resorting to big name eateries for drinks or snacks.
At the moment, all of the main guidebooks are providing good information in a very readable format, something that is a great improvement on our findings when researching the various trips to Portugal.
Rough Guides were our favourites on these trips in either full country or Snapshot/Pocket Rough Guide formats. These paper tomes were used in conjunction with info gleaned from Julie Dawn Fox’s books on Portugal and Porto along with tips from Julie’s website – https://juliedawnfox.com
You may wonder why I favour paper books over techno books…
1) Because paper books are easier to read on the hoof.
2) The indexing is usually much better in paper books.
3) They don’t require charging up at regular intervals.
4) They’re more discrete to look at when out and about.
5) Sections could be copied or cannibalised from the main book, especially if you’re going to one town, city or area for a few days or a couple of weeks.
No matter what the information in the books, the format or who the publisher is, there’s one aspect that’s never left out or forgotten about – using our eyes and ears to discover places, events or eateries.
We’ve spotted posters on noticeboards about museums, stumbled across eating places, taken river trips or found interesting shops by just following instincts and heading off in what turned out to be the right direction…
Although I’ve just bought that new Pocket Rough Guide for the iPad, it’s only going to be used as a guide on a forthcoming trip.
Although the booking has been done, what we do when we get there is largely going to be made up as we go along. There’s a couple of daft ideas floating around, but whether they come to fruition is another matter…
Not in a guidebook, but the Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum was found after seeing a poster on the wall at a campsite washing up area…
Tech or no tech?
The old ways are the best – sometimes
The Internet may be the future for most things, but there are times when it’s a bit like asking HAL to open the pod bay doors…
Have tried to do two sets of bookings over the last few days, one for rail tickets and the other for airport fast track.
In the case of the rail tickets, it was easier to get into the car and drive down to the station where the train in question is going from as a means of getting the sensible answer and the tickets – the out trains to our destination are being replaced by buses, but the website couldn’t tell me whether this was a full replacement or a partial replacement.
The lady in the ticket office resolved the matter in a couple of minutes, loaded the times into her computer, taking payment and printing the tickets.
After five attempts at getting fast track, I checked to see whether any payments had been taken out of the bank and then rang the helpline.
After explaining the situation, the fast track was booked, the payment taken and the confirmation email sent. By the time I put the phone down, the email had arrived and it’s now been printed off and stashed in the appropriate file in readiness for the start of the trip.
Technology, don’t you just love it?
What’s in the pockets?
Langdale, Lake District, U.K.
News from the BBC News website regarding a multi-pocketed jacket to stash tech in whilst travelling or going about your daily business…
May pass on buying one though as I usually find a jacket with four pockets suffices as my wallet, keys & change are usually in zipped trouser pockets.
The other factor I would take into account is the amount of tech I take with me – a dumbass phone, a four year old basic Kindle and a basic Nikon point and shoot digital compact camera.
That’s all I need as I’ve found electronic guidebooks aren’t as user friendly as their paper counterparts (in full, photocopied or surgically reduced formats).
I have Kindle versions (and other format electonic guidebooks on my iPad Mini and my desktop), but I still prefer paper guidebooks.
What’s on the Kindle then? Travelogues, biogs, ‘how to’ books and the occasional novel too. Nothing too heavy though – I read to relax rather than fill the brain with stuff it doesn’t need!
The above pic is a reminder of where I used to read three books a week either in the pub or the tent after days out on the hills.
That link to the Beeb?
Holiday fever?
UK or not UK? That is the question…
Plans and bookings have been made for 2017 and there are ideas in the melting pot for others in the UK and Europe.
Airlines, holiday companies and hotel chains are already sending me emails regarding their offers for next year whilst Expedia have just awarded me + Silver status on their rankings, something that goes alongside the Genius status awarded by Booking.com earlier this year.
[I will hasten to add at this point that I personally don’t regard myself as a genius in any way, shape or form – I know what my school results were and that my degree from University Of Sunderland is a Desmond (a 2:2).]
But I digress. I suspect that there will be a few more emails over the coming months giving me more details of what their promotions are.
Yes, I’ve unsubscribed from one accommodation provider’s email list as I was getting so many emails alerting me to deals going on in places I’ve already been to over the last twelve months and to deals in places that I’ve already booked for in early 2017.
I already know what Rohan’s sale items are though as a catalogue arrived via snail mail earlier in the week and this has been backed up by an email a few minutes ago.
Items of interest have been identified and that’s to my advantage as I decided not to take up the offer on a 20% off full price stock voucher for use in the Leeds store a couple of Saturdays ago.
Have the prices gone down? Yes, and by more than 20% – one will have a 30% reduction whist the other has a 50% reduction.
They’re both fleeces, but they will come in useful as a couple of existing fleeces have seen better days.
A couple of t-shirts have also caught my eye too as selected colours in the Element T and Merino Union 200 T ranges are also being given the 30% off treatment come Tuesday 27th…
The above will come in useful as Caroline and I head off to either European destinations or those here in the UK.
We haven’t been up to Scotland for a while now and whilst Caroline has been to both Northern Ireland and Isle of Man, I haven’t – yet!
I’ve not been up to the Borders for a while and it’s a few years since we spent time in the Lake District. Our North Norfolk hideaway has changed management recently, so a few days may be spent in one of the hostel’s en-suite rooms or on one of their campsite pitches.
A return visit to Suffolk could be on the cards, as could London or Brighton and Hastings. My last visit to Brighton was way back in the 1960s and whilst Caroline and King Harold have seen Hastings, I haven’t…
Anything else? Have a good holiday season, wherever you are in the world!
And that pic?* Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales
TV or not TV?
Yes, the holiday fortnight is upon us, as is the seasonal selection of programmes and films destined to be on our screens (or not)…
We gave Strictly, SPOTY and The Apprentice a miss and as Caroline was out on Saturday night, I caught up on an episode of Endeavour series 3 and the first couple of episodes of To Play The King (with Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart).
Last night’s viewing was two episodes of a sixties classic – the first series of The Man From Uncle in glorious black and white. Sharp editing, sharp suits and a hint of what was to come gadget-wise too. Not much screen time yet though for Ilya Kuryakin (David McCallum gets more in his average appearance in NCIS fifty plus years after his role as Napoleon Solo‘s Russian sidekick).
There’s more of a travel feeling to a programme highlighted in the Radio Times at 6pm on BBC2 over the next three nights – The Real Marigold Hotel. Six personalities head to India and it’s interesting to see who they all cope with the experience.
Four are back for follow-ups on experiences in Miami and Tokyo soon and there’s a new set of names heading to India for the second series of The Real Marigold Hotel.
In the meantime though, there’s always the film that inspired the reality show – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which has been given an early evening Film 4 slot on Sunday 25th – albeit in an edited format (I somehow suspect that the DVD of the same title will hit the player around the same time as a way of avoiding edits and adverts).
The Beeb are showing a of their few home-grown films too – The Lady In The Van, Pride, What We Did On Our Holidays and Saving Mr Banks.
Anything else? Well there’s a bit of Yorkshire in the air at 9pm on Thursday 29th as The Brontes come to the fore on BBC1 whilst over on BBC Four there’s a bit of slow TV as The Flying Scotsman takes to the tracks of the Severn Valley Railway at the same time…
There should have been another programme to watch at 9pm on the same day, but that’s been pulled from the schedules. Truck mechanic, bike racer and adventurer Guy Martin started an attempt in early December to ride around Britain on a pedal cycle with the aim of covering around 4800 miles in twenty days.
After 800 miles in four days and eight hours, an achilles tendon injury brought the attempt to a close at John O’Groats. One suspects that Guy will try again once he’s recovered from the injury problem…
Will we be watching It’s A Wonderful Life again? Possibly…
And might I be watching the film that’s become my favourite one set on December 24th?More than likely, even though it will be at home rather than in a cinema this time. It’s Bruce Willis, that colour changing white vest and Alan Rickman…
Yippie-ki-yay, it’s Die Hard!
Ho-Ho-Ho…
Deals, or no deals?
Somewhere in Europe… but we’re going to the country next door!
It’s Black Friday and despite all of the emails, television coverage and advertising, we have proved that resistance isn’t futile.
Yes, there is money to be spent today, but that’s going to be at the farm shop, newsagent, supermarket and petrol station.
I’ve had deal information on hotel bookings, electrical stuff and a load of other gubbins, but most of it has come in far too late for yours truly.
And that because the deed is done – the next trip has been planned, largely booked and paid for because I found our own deals for our visit to Andalucia by delving into the search engines of Skyscanner, Expedia and Booking.com last week.
The end result is a trip that’s a day longer than originally planned so we can make full use of our time in Spain and one that is currently running under budget, despite that extra day!.
Although a fair bit of research had been carried out using both the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet books on Andalucia and Spain, the time taken to book the flights, overnights and the bus travel between the destinations on our trip took a little over 24 hours.
Whilst that 24 hours also includes sleeping, eating and the other things that make up a day, it also reflects that there’s been some due diligence in checking out the various elements being used to put the trip together.
The flights we’ve chosen aren’t at silly times of the day or night (but there was a £46 premium paid for choosing our own seats and taking advantage of an ‘offer’ on priority boarding).
The hotels, guest houses and hostels we’re using are all highly rated whilst the bus travel is more cost effective than using trains – the only time we’ve paid full price for a bus ride is for our travel between Seville and Cordoba, largely because that journey is on a Saturday and no discounts are available.
With airport transfers being paid on the ground when we get to Spain, all we have left to book in advance now are the rail tickets to Manchester Airport (cheaper to get to by rail than it is to drive and park the car for the duration) and for two tickets for the Alhambra in Granada.
Will we do these bookings on Cyber Monday?
Might do…
wisepacking 
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