Although it seems I can't get enough of travelling my bank manager would strongly hope otherwise and is advising that I remain in England for the foreseeable future.
Having amassed more debt than anyone that isn't married; has no children; has no car and has no gambling/drugs/alcohol addiction has a right to, I feel it is time to keep my feet firmly on terraferma for awhile at least.
The last couple of trips have renewed my faith in solo travelling, as long as I do it properly and don't give myself too much time alone in empty hotel rooms.
My advice for both myself and anyone else is to do your research properly before you even begin to book. That way you will know the right and wrong times of the year to visit, where to stay, what to see, where to sleep, what to eat, which areas to avoid and equally stuff about languages, religion and finances that will come in handy.
Practice a bit of exchange rate buying for a few days will get you in the habit of seeing how things are where you live in the foreign currency so that when you do see prices in your final destination you already know what you are used to paying for the same item back home - thus if you feel that you are getting a good price or not.
Haggling is a skill that I advise everyone to have at least a passing familiarity with and one tip I learned off an American air pilot, when you need a room for just one night, is to phone up hotels around 10pm local time to ask if they have rooms that have not yet been booked and are willing to accept a discount.
The logic is that by 10pm there is much less chance of the hotel filling any empty rooms left and thus any guest is better than no guest. This has saved him and his family up to 45% on many occasions.
I have a new / old lodger staying for awhile so I cannot accommodate any visiting friends for the time being, but this should not be a long term problem for people wanting to come to England and stay with me.
Finally I am going to have to get to grips with Spanish and soon as my very special friend Maribel will be coming over to stay with me for a month or so and her English is limited to barely a few words.
No comments:
Post a Comment