To be honest, it began months and months ago. G & I just got married last Saturday, though, so now I'm no longer obligated to be working on wedding planning and can return my focus to honeymoon planning. We're now less than two months out, and I must admit I've been planning for a better part of a year so far.
Partly this stems from my first trip to Europe. I had just turned 20, was in art school, and one of my best friends was doing a work study program in the north of England. Seemed like as good a time as any to take my very brief summer break and go over for a visit - prior to that, I'd only been on a plane once, to Utah, for a school trip about 7 years earlier. Needless to say, I was very excited. I was going to spend one week with Amanda in England, and one and a half weeks in Spain by myself. I'd studied Spanish in school for about 6 years and was looking forward to getting a chance to actually use it. A great plan, but here's where the "learn from my mistakes" list begins.
1. I just called up the airline and bought a ticket.
Yes, this was pre-internet days so there really wasn't an an Expedia-like option, but I'm sure I could have gotten a better deal through a travel agent, or probably anywhere else. As a point of reference, we paid about $100 more per ticket to Europe for this trip - 11 years later.
2. I did little to no research on what kind of rail pass to buy, and just bought a Eurail pass.
Considering I was only spending time in one EU country, and not a ton of time at that, I should have gone for the country-specific pass, which is a money-saver.
3. I planned to spend very little time in each city I stayed in.
I think this is a pretty common mistake - you're getting ready for a trip you've been looking forward to for years, and you try to cram too much into the time you have because you don't want to miss anything. I stayed in 6 cities during my week and a half in Spain, in most cases only spending one night in each town. I sure saw a lot of country out the window of the train - not an experience to regret per se, but considering I sometimes didn't get into town until late afternoon, then hung around the train station to book my ticket out of town for the next morning, ultimately ending up spending about 16 hours in a place, half of them sleeping. . . not the best idea. I think Rick Steves gives the very best advice on this subject, that I wish I'd followed: "Don't try to do everything. Assume you'll come back someday."
4. I carried around a Europe guidebook, and a Spain guidebook, and barely read either of them.
Okay, so very few people will use every part of a guidebook to any one country, but seriously, what was I thinking?!? A guidebook to all of Europe is roughly the size of two bricks glued together, and weighs about the same. I can't remember if this was because I wanted something for England, too, but holy crap, I could have just bought another guidebook for England and saved myself from carrying around a completely unnecessary 10 extra pounds! Or torn out the section about England and cut even more weight. While the Europe guidebook was a ridiculous foible, I did get a lot of use out of the Spain book - that's how I found all the hotels I stayed in, figured out how to get from place to place, and got times of museums and other attractions. What I didn't do was read much about any of the history of anywhere I went and anything I saw. Mistake. I've since learned that (for me, at least) the more I know about something I'm looking at/eating/exploring, the more meaningful my experience is. Walking down a street knowing that this is the same street that some major historical event took place on 500 years ago is a lot more inspiring than just walking down a street thinking it's a cool looking old street. Not that that can't be enjoyable, too. As a traveler/visitor, there's no way you can know everything about anywhere you're going to visit, but knowing more sure makes for a more richly layered experience.
Even with those rookie mistakes, I managed to have an amazing trip which helped foster a love of travel, specifically solo travel, that I've never gotten over (and never hope to). Some of the fantastic things I did manage to do were: see amazing art (el Prado is a seriously awe-inspiring museum, if you're ever in Madrid it is not to be missed), eat fantastic food, tour the Alhambra in Granada, go to La Sagrada Familia by Gaudi in Barcelona, make a pilgrimage to Figures to see the Salvador Dali museum where he is actually buried, check out flamenco and get a night tour of La Juderia in Cordoba, and take a ton of wonderful pictures (always a plus for a photographer).
All of this is trying to justify my endless reading of book about Italy, learning Italian, listening to travel podcasts, watching Italian movies, reading travel blogs, and attending several Rick Steves travel seminars. Basically, I just really enjoy it, and would probably be doing the same thing if we weren't planning an actual trip (actually, I have been doing this for years, with no definite trip in mind). So here begins the catalogued travel junkie log. . .
