Back 'home' in Spain. Travel tips and reflections
I left my flat, along with the majority of my things, in Pontevedra the 27th of July. From there I traveled along the northern coast of Spain, flew to the the US and visited a friend in New Jersey, then went back 'home' to my parents house for a week, then a week in the Adirondacks, then home for another week, to California for 10 days and finally back 'home' for a couple of days before a weekend in Boston then a flight over to Europe. I have been bouncing around place to place for the whole summer. However for the backpacking trip, left my 'home' in the US and stared traveling the 15th of August and was traveling until the 23rd of September. After 5 1/2 weeks of travel, 6 plane journeys, 5 train trips and various other transportation, here is what I have learned:
1) Don't be cheap.
There is something drastically different between traveling at a low cost and traveling cheaply. Handover the extra $2 for the nicer, more centrally located hostel. In the big picture $2 is nothing and there is nothing worse than sleeping is a smelly, dirty hostel and feeling like crap (this happened to me in Brussels and it was subsequently my least favorite city I visited). Save money on food. Go out and be social but eat before you all go to dinner and then just have a drink with everyone. I did this and saved at least 10€ every time everyone went out to dinner. But don't be penny pinching when you agree to go out to dinner with some. Just split it and enjoy the rare dinner out because no one like the persons that argues about the 20 cent difference in drink costs.
2) Break up the routine
Going city to city, cathedral to cathedral can become so repetitive that you start to not enjoy the city as much. Break up the city tours with a day trip. When I was in Zagreb with my brother we started to get a bit bored of all the city site seeing so my brother found this great day trip out to the Plitvička Jezera National Park near the border with Bosnia & Herzegovina. The gorgeous blue lakes and hiking trails were a needed change up from the cobble stone streets.
3) Allow yourself the occasional sleep in
I will admit that I am not good at this. But the excitement of travel, new cities, new people and checking out the local night life can be exhausting. Allow yourself once a week to just not set an alarm and wake up when you wake up. Its hard when you only have a couple of days in each city, but a good sleep in is needed to recharge your batteries so when you do go out site seeing you won't be dragging your feet.
I am sure there are more tips and advice that will come to me later, but I would say that those three things listed above are the greatest things that I learned that I will be sure to implement the next time that I travel!