Annie's 'Commandments' for Travel

(8 for now and I guess maybe two or four more to come because I prefer even numbers :)

1.  Always fly with an international carrier ... not an American airline.  Sorry Delta, United, American.  You guys don't hold a candle to the leg room, comfort of seats, in flight entertainment, quality and quantity of food, and in my limited experience the newness of the airplane fleets.  And did I mention the drinks are free?  Special shout out to Air New Zealand (see my earlier post!).  (Can I get sponsored for that? :)  If so, Avianca Airlines also provided a really nice flight experience to South America last year too!)

2. Be friendly.  People are kind, generous, and wanting to help.  I've so far found the culture abroad really is "pay it forward" when it comes to international travel.  I've heard it now a handful of times: "No it's on me, you treat when I come visit you" or "you pick a cool city to live (when I tell them I don't know where I want to live next) so that I can come stay with you" or just simply "I'm happy to help.  Maybe I'll want to come visit the US at some point and you can host me."  It all really makes me smile when I think about it.

3. Become attached and jump in!  Say yes to new opportunities, gatherings, events, changes of plans.  Of course I've had to say no to a bunch of things (gosh, it's a lousy feeling being a pragmatist sometimes!), but you never know when a new friend or ride offer (or job lead!) is going to come out of a simple invitation to a Saturday night party.

4.  Collect email addresses.  Send thank yous!  I've felt so taken care of on this trip and I'm so so thankful that I thought to bring gifts on this trip to give to new friends, kind strangers, and of course my hosts, but still it doesn't always feel enough.  I've been writing thank you/keep in touch emails along the way and by the end of every day it feels like I have at least two more to write!

5. Be realistic.  Don't try to fit in 2-3 years of travel into 6 months like I am.  I will undoubtedly need to come back to Australia, New Zealand, and obviously Europe even after 3.5 months there this summer.  There is too much to see and as I want to get a true flavor of each place I visit (which takes way more than just a couple days) I am for better or worse automatically signing up to revisit all of these places!  I thought I was being wise cutting out Western Australia (Perth has been compared to the California of Australia) the Great Barrier Reef (because who am I kidding, I don't much care for fish :) and Cairns, but I'm still finding it foolish that I thought I could do as much as I had hoped.  Looks like the first on the cutting floor is sailing the Whitsunday Islands.  Melbourne just took up too much time, but hey, no regrets!  So happy to have a reason to come back!  But now I'll know... slower can be better in order to take advantage of the proximity when you're halfway across the globe!

6.  Carry a smartphone!  It's nice to feel independent and detached from technology and be off the grid.  But it's also nice to not have to worry when you'll next have an Internet connection.  Especially when you're doing your planning on the go and winging the majority of your trip.  Plus, it also helps with making the world feel smaller and feeling more connected even when you're on the other side of the world.  I'll never forget finding out about my cousin Nick and Mike's show in Cambridge the day before thanks to Facebook's news feed on my phone while killing time in DC's Reagan airport on my layover to Boston!

7. Don't forget about travel time.  I once heard about someone called "Uncle Vince" who always forgot to build travel time into an itinerary so that if the group wanted to stay at a museum on one side of town until it closed at 4pm and the movie on the other side of town began at 4:05pm, well that was a splendid and very doable plan.  I knew to include travel time into my rough draft, e.g. Melbourne for 4-5 days, 1 day to Sydney, 12-14 days in Sydney (boy, did I get that reversed!), but now that I'm here I hate losing a day (or sometimes two!) sitting in a car!  There's just too much to see and if you know me I get antsy along the journey and just want to make good time and get there already!  Of course the journey can be fun too, but come see Australia's teensy tiny towns and you'll think they're all the same.  It took a CouchSurfer from Cairns staying with me in Tampa last year to clue me in that Australia is about the same size as the USA so travel time definitely needs to be taken into consideration!

8.  Don't turn down a home cooked meal!  It should be obvious, but not wanting to ever impose I foolishly spent my first two weeks always offering that eating out was fine!  (but truly no problems there... Melbourne has the best food!!)  In Sydney and the Blue Mountains I finally got to enjoy my first home cooked meals on the road... Yum!  I'll write more on these meals later because I want to share my pride in learning how to make profiteroles from a true pastry chef!