Travel Is Educational

You can always pack lighter
I’m great at packing light, but I’m also great at overpacking. When we fly somewhere new, I give myself a finite space to pack in, but I can overpack my small bags. This year traveling to Scotland, and having to pack dressy clothes for a wedding, we had half a carry-on full of items that we were basically just wearing once or twice.

I love gadgets, but I need to remember to pare down. I don’t always need to take my iPad with me, or 3 magazines I never read, and I definitely need to reevaluate everything in my toiletry bag, because I’m still not using some of the items in it. The only extra item I was really happy I took with me was a second jacket. I brought a packable winter coat with attached hood and then a separate rain jacket. I figured if it was really cold, I could wear both, as the one could have zipped into the other. I didn’t have to do this, but I did need my rain jacket on the last day of travel, because it rained all day and then poured for an hour straight. I joked that we got 2 weeks worth of rain in an afternoon, because we were really lucky the whole rest of our trip.

You can travel with family and still like them after
I don’t really travel well with many others. I like my space and need to recharge from group time. Being with people 24/7 is a lot for me, especially when those other people aren’t like me. I worried that 5 of us sharing a vacation rental would be too much and either I would yell at people halfway through the week or they would think I was a jerk because I would hide in my room after a day out. 

We decided to plan our days out the way we wanted to and then let family know they could join us or not. We did some stuff with people and a lot of stuff on our own and then met up for lunch or dinner or connected when we all got back for the night. At one point, Eric and I were at the same place as his sister and her husband and we didn’t really hang out until we were done with our tour and then had lunch together. Having expectations that you don’t have to spend all your time together so everyone can do what they want and not get sick of each other is pretty important.

Uber and other rideshare can be cheaper than public transportation
This is especially true in places like London where tons of people are going to and from the airport and there are few ways to get there if you don’t live there and have a car. We paid something like $70 for the two of us to take the Heathrow Express, because we didn’t realize we needed to book tickets 3 months in advance to get the much discounted price, but we also were traveling at peak time, so we couldn’t buy discounted tickets going back either.