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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Travel: Setting the Objectives of Your Trip

The best trips are both entertaining and educational. But if you are looking for entertainment alone, there is no reason to go abroad. If you want to go to the beach, try Destin, not Thailand. Visiting a foreign country can be fun. The foods, accommodations, people, geographic wonders and public events all exciting. But travel exposes us to new people, attitudes, historical sites, and culture that is truly enlightening. Nothing made for good traveling experience than simple curiosity.

Study where you are going before you make your plans. I am privileged to be married to an incredibly talented traveler. When we zero in on our next trip, Monty will get out her travel books to discover what there is to see. We have a strong preference for Fodor’s series, because it discusses both the places to see and the accommodations available. It is also helpful to look at the itineraries in tour brochures to see where they go. She would also read novels written by or about people of the country being visited and leave the histories to me. The simple fact is that the more you know about the country, the better your experience will be.

To me a trip is most rewarding when connected with a special interest. Monty and I are most attracted to art. Travel is an indispensable means of enriching both pursuits. I cannot make an fair estimate as to how many art museums we have visited. It must be in the hundreds. Art reflects the history and character of a country.

We have also preferred to limit each trip destinations to one or two countries. When we took a tour to Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Chile, and Lima, it seemed that we spent about as much time on the air plane as in our destination and left too much unseen in each of those very interesting places. On the other hand, we spent over a week in Portugal, and it was one of our favorite trips.