FOREWORD

Everybody who travels has their own unique style of travel, and so do you, whether you realize this or not. You may be the kind of person who likes to relax in luxury; stay at high end hotels, eat at exquisite restaurants, and use your travel time to enjoy the finer things in life.
Perhaps you more gravitate towards the historic and cultural aspects of any venue, and seek out interesting historical information; information that enriches and you can take home and share.

Perhaps you prefer a more idyllic, slow moving vibe, where you want take in the quiet, relaxing, slow moving tendencies of nature: a quiet lake, or leaves int eh wind, or forest. Or perhaps the more physically challenging attributes nature has to offer.

Or perhaps you simply want to “be” in a place, take it in, understand it, feel it and experience it with no particular requirement, in a nice, unhurried fashion.

Or perhaps a combination of any of these depending on the time of year, your moods or any other variable. None of these are exclusive of the other.

Point being is everybody has a “style” they with which they travel and often they find out what it is after a few trips in. Perhaps they liked the “idea” of one style, but found they liked the other style better. And just because you have a style that is typical for you does not prevent you from trying out other things and incorporating them into your style. After all, traveling, whether for business, pleasure, or both is something you should enjoy.

One of the most egregious examples of an unfulfilling trip is when people ignore their own preferences, and the trip becomes a nonstop rush from one attraction to another, ticking boxes on a laundry list, to the point where it becomes an exhausting series of destinations, where the itinerary has no breathing room.

Finding out YOUR style of travel goes a long way to not only a fulfilling and memorable trip, it also helps you in other ways: from saving money to packing and planning correctly and strategically. If you can predict what you gravitate towards, you can be mentally and financially prepared. If you know how to save on the most expensive aspects of your favorite way to travel, you’ll be ahead. If you prefer to plan your trip a la carte, with a little practice you’ll know where to look. And if you find that frustrating, travel agents are a resource, too, who have some information you don’t.

Everybody has a style they travel; their own brand in line with their tastes.

In this blog, not only will you become familiar with the style of travel my wife Mary and I gravitate towards, you can get ideas on how to incorporate things affordable into your style. After all, traveling is exploring the world around us; that majority of the world we are not immediately familiar with. It is the thrill of navigating that, enjoying that unfamiliar place. The hotels we stay at, the restaurants we eat at, the food we try, the people we meet, the modes of transportation we use.

And you come home with the experience of having “been” somewhere else, and nobody can take that away from you! I hope you enjoy traveling with us as much as we enjoy traveling with us!