How people travel is shifting. With sites like Airbnb, more and more people are moving away from staying in traditional hotels and towards a more local experience of renting apartments/houses or shared spaces with residents. There are lots of pros to using Airbnb for lodging - it’s often less expensive than a hotel (especially when split among a larger party, and if there is a kitchen that allows self-servicing some meals) and allows for a more local-feeling experience. There’s a lot of great material already written on this - like Adventurous Kate’s How to Use Airbnb and Have a Great Experience for a detailed explanation of the site, or Expat Edna’s post on 6 Airbnb’s I Loved Around the World to give some inspiration on the cool places you could stay worldwide.
If you’re a huge fan of Airbnb like I am, you may not need convincing why to consider using it. The next question may be the how - how to land on the perfect place to rent and have a successful stay. This is the how to effectively use Airbnb, following my method on how I sift and select where to stay.
Read moreStill thinking about planning a trip to Poland? My last post gave some itinerary help. Today is about some other logistics to account for as you start putting the wheels in motion. The other two big things to figure out when putting a trip together is transportation and accommodations. Here’s what we did, and learned along the way.
Read morePoland was an amazing country to visit, and truly one of my favorite trips I’ve taken during my three years living in Europe. But you know what the funny thing is? The trip almost didn’t happen. I have always wanted to visit Poland because when I look at my varied European ancestry, I’m more Polish than anything else. I’ve always wanted to step foot in Poland and connect to my roots on some level. But each year, for some reason the trip seemed daunting to plan, so we kept putting it off. Until Michael just put his foot down and booked round trip airfare to Krakow, knowing that this commitment would motivate us to pull it together.
If you’re interested in going to Poland but are in the same boat, I want to encourage you to put your reservations aside and plan a trip! The hardest part for me was putting together an itinerary that captured the highlights of this large country. Here are some ideas to help give you a head start.
Read moreI love doing travel research for European trips. I have a grasp on how to find interesting historical sites, museums, markets, local food specialities, and other things to do when visiting cities and small towns. But give me the span of the great outdoors and I don’t have a handle on the first thing to do.
My trip to Iceland this past October was one of the most incredible and wonderful trips I’ve taken in all of my time traveling through Europe, yet it almost didn’t come together. I was intimidated to plan, information seemed less accessible than other destinations, and the possibilities of what to see and do seemed endless. When the entire country is gorgeous, how do you narrow it down?
If Iceland at all appeals to you, I hope you don’t pass up the opportunity to go because it feels daunting to figure out. I am the least outdoorsy person out there (remember my appearance in Seefeld, Austria last December in a peacoat and jeggings among the Olympic-clad cross-country skiers?!), yet I can vouch it is possible to make this trip happen. So take heart! I’ve put together a few pieces of advice that would have encouraged me and helped me along the task of trip-planning an Icelandic adventure. So let’s do this together.
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