Personalize Your Hotel Room

As I've mentioned, I like to make my hotel rooms homey.  Oftentimes there are farmer's markets or flower stalls near your hotel.  If you're staying a few days, pick up a bouquet and enjoy!

If you're buying flowers in Europe, they will often ask you if they are for yourself, or for a gift.  (The latter are wrapped in a prettier fashion.)   Once in Paris, the gentleman listened to my fractured French protestations that the flowers were merely for me, and with a grand flourish, pulled out a few yards of ribbon and wrapped them gloriously.

Bon!

Bed and Breakfast and Social Interaction

I don't know about you, but the idea of Bed and Breakfasts kind of creeps me out.  I'm onboard with the coziness and the homemade breakfast -  it's the thought of actually sharing a house with the proprietor.  When I'm in a hotel room, I wish to keep up the facade that this is my home, if even for one night.  (If I stay longer, I personalize the room with flowers and books, so the impression is even more real.)

Knowing that the owner of the home is snoring in the same dwelling would make me tiptoe around, sleep chastely, and be afraid to run the water.

However, large hotels are so impersonal.  The solution?   Small, boutique hotels - the kind that get two stars in Europe.  They might not have an impressive lobby or pool, but they have charm - and anonymity!

A good example of this is the French Country Inn near Lake Geneva, WI.   The main building is a vestige of a long forgotten World's Fair, but most rooms are in adjacent, modern buildings, with WiFi and a fantastic breakfast!

French Country Inn, near Lake Geneva, WI

My #1 Travel Tip of All Time, Forever and Ever, Amen

The single best thing you can do to prepare for any trip is to buy a guidebook (or do significant research online, printing out maps and so on).   A $15 investment in a copy of Frommers Italy or The Lonely Planet Guide to War Torn Iraq will make your expensive vacation immeasurably better.

Often, people spend thousands of dollars on a vacation and head off with less research than they would put into a purchase of a gallon of milk. 

Be a savvy traveler, get the most from your trip - Buy and Read a good guidebook before you go!

My family - I'm at bottom, center.

The Day I Got The Travel Bug

I had a perfectly nice childhood, but from my earliest days, I was consumed with the desire to flee my home and travel somewhere, anywhere. This little story might illustrate what I mean.

My parents had old friends named Milton and Roseena, who hailed from sunny California. Once they came to visit us in Illinois, a visit hallmarked by Roseena asking Milton to "Fix me a drink" which he heard as "Peel me a grape" and scrounged around in our kitchen until he found one, peeled it, and brought it to her.

"What the hell is this?" she bellowed. So, these were unusual people. Also, I had no knowledge of California or its attractions, being about three.

But somehow, in the midst of their visit, Milton and Roseena started teasing me about bringing me back to California with them. Now, the average three year old is going to state unequivocally that they wish to remain in the bosom of their family. No, I was mentally packing which toys I would bring.

When the happy couple departed, they showed no sign of taking me with them. A rising sense of panic overtook me. I wanted to go to California, wherever that was!

The last I remembered was Milton and Roseena's Buick pulling out of our driveway, while I caterwauled on the stoop. My parents couldn't understand why I wanted to leave with strangers, but simply put, I wanted to travel.

My dreams since then have consisted of achieving that. And yes, I did make it to California, thirty years later.