step one to learning how to travel like a pro

     On our honeymoon, my wife and I decided to go to Italy.  So, we stopped at the local travel brick and mortar establishment and chatted with a very knowledgeable woman about our plan.  Our plan consisted of one thing... Go to Italy!
 We realized quickly, through good questions posed by our new agent, that booking our own way would lead to tremendous anxiety, forgotten 'must-haves' (like, a few spending options,  sites NOT to miss, where to eat and stay, passport imperatives, etc.), language uncertainty, road sign ignorance, differences in eating times and much more!  It dawned on us that the travel agent would be irreplaceable in making our honeymoon a GOOD memory.
     As it was the first time travelling together, (not to mention, to another country) our agent counselled my soon-to-be wife and I to look at a few tour options.  Picking a pre-planned tour itinerary may have been difficult for us to come to an agreement on, but it was NOTHING compared to picking where to eat in downtown Palermo the day we were 'on our own'!  You may be picturing some beautiful villa overlooking the the countryside; perhaps a quaint basement Ristorante with soup and panini.  But, that's not where we ended up...  After two hours walking up and down the quiet city streets (siesta...), standing on a street corner hot, bothered and not talking to one another, I saw them!  The beacon of every American with a need for a quick fix; a hungry load of children returning from a game or match; a snack before dinner; a spot to sip a coffee and chat.  Across a big piazza, above a couple plane tree (sycamore) tops, an American icon blazed in the hot, early afternoon sun... Golden Arches!   McDonald's!  McNuggets!  Double Cheeze!  A coke!  BEST meal of the trip!!!! Except in comparison to the rest of them...  :)
     So far, I've not addressed the topic of this post, however I write the above to segue into this tidbit of common sense we rarely access.  'Start from the beginning!'  I envisioned renting a car and racing a beemer down the Autostrade; procuring a gondola ride with flawless Italian; making reservations at a beautiful villa overlooking the countryside. AND YET,  I had know idea how to do all this! After answering our Agent's queries, I clued in to the fact I had no idea where to begin planning this on our own.  Based on our cluelessness and lack of experience in European travel we chose to take a 14-day pre-planned tour of southern Italy.  It came complete with most meals (one of which was dinner at a beautiful villa overlooking the countryside), 3-5 star hotel stays each night, a visit to Capri, Mt Etna, Pompeii, the Colosseum and SO much more than I (we) could have figured out on our own!  Our 'beginning' was to get HELP in realizing our dream of travelling to Italy for our honeymoon.

Picture of the upper slopes of Mt Etna, Eastern Sicily.  The ski/welcome lodge at lower right was destroyed by a lava flow and rebuilt.

     Back to the topic...  Step one is to TRAVEL, if you're going to travel like a pro!  There is so much to see and do, so choose a place to begin, procure the services of an agent,  plan it and GO!  Sure, you can (sorta) save money booking everything yourself, but I've found the prices are quite similar in the end, PLUS a GOOD agent (travel counselor) will know when to go, what to bring, how to pack, where to stop, when and why you should or shouldn't bring an adapter and/or transformer... ("What's up with this two hole plug thing that fried my hair dryer?!") Among MANY other bullet-points you didn't research!  Not to mention, you can talk to a live person when something comes up like: the hotel put you in the wrong room, and you know this because, " the picture showed a Jacuzzi with a King, and we got a stand up shower with a Murphy-bed!"  An agent (counselor) can get you through that happy... IF the mix up happens at all!
    "The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before."  -Samuel Johnson
   Start small, but out of your comfort zone... for some, the front door...  GO!
Peace be the journey!
timlambert.travelspy@gmail.com