What will you do when disaster strikes?

That may sound melodramatic, but this article by the lonely planet gives a little food for thought when encountering unfortunate circumstances while you’re traveling. The article discusses the current shut down of airports across Europe after the volcanic eruption in Iceland. It probably (hopefully) won’t happen to you, but if it does, what will you do?

There’s really no way to prepare for every possible event that could go wrong while you’re traveling. It’s important to make sure you’re as flexible as possible with your travel plans and try to stay calm. When something comes up, decide what’s important to you. The businessman in the Lonely Planet article paid a cab driver over three thousand dollars to get him to Spain where his pregnant wife was waiting. It was important to him to catch a flight as soon as possible given his family situation.

If you have a little leeway in your plans, and you can take your time and evaluate your options, everything will probably work out a little better. Make sure you’ve built extra cash into your budget just in case the worse does happen. Really, even a missed flight or an unfortunate cancellation can end up costing you quite a bit more than you planned on spending, much less a disaster of this proportions.

When I was in Ireland, they had an unusually rainy couple of weeks that happened to coincide with changes in the dam system to prevent flooding further into town. At around 11:00 at night, the river and canal next to my flat flooded over. By 3:00am, there was 2 feet of water in the building, and around 4 at places on the street. The water took a couple of days to fully recede, and we were evacuated to different lodging. The experience would have been much worse if we hadn’t been flexible, and as calm as possible given the circumstances.

When you think Hawaii, most people think of pristine beaches, turquoise waters and every kind of water sport imaginable. Hawaii offers countless outdoor activities, both in and out of the water, and offers an activity for every kind of traveler, whether you’re looking for a relaxing time at the beach or an exciting active vacation.

This video from the travel channel highlights just a few of these amazing activities available on a vacation in Hawaii.From surfing, wind surfing, and snorkeling to sailing, the ocean offers a multitude of options. However, a visit to Hawaii isn’t limited to the ocean. Golfing, Hiking, Biking, Helicopter Rides, and rain forest exploration are all similarly worthwhile experiences. For such a small grouping of islands, there is a lot to do.

Hawaii also offers great opportunities for hikers of an level. This website is a great one to check out if you’re looking at hiking on your vacation. It is sorted by island, and gives a fairly comprehensive description of the trail, including the nature of the terrain and the difficulty.

We lived in Hawaii for a little over 4 years, and one of my favorite memories was exploring the inside the lava tube of a dormant volcano on the Big Island. On Maui, Haleakala National Park is well worth a visit if volcanoes peak your interest, and of course, even if they don’t. If bird watching is right up your alley, take the time to explore the rain forest!

I survived the road to Hana, will you?

I have been to a lot of cities in Europe, but my absolute favorite is Edinburgh, Scotland. We were in Scotland for 5 days, but we only spent about 2 days in Edinburgh. While I definitely enjoyed our tour of the Scottish Highlands, it would have been amazing to be able to spend those days in Edinburgh. I could have spent days just wandering around the city, browsing and checking out the amazing architecture.

Edinburgh has a rich literary history, and offers several tours and pub crawls with this focus.  My favorite was a small shop tucked in one of the side streets on the Royal Mile, featuring old and first editions of nearly every kind of text imaginable. Other than your stereotypical haggis, the food in Edinburgh was rather enjoyable. I’m not usually the biggest fan of soup, but I had it in nearly every restaurant we went to in Scotland, and enjoyed it immensely.

Scotland – The Edinburgh Documentary – Edited Highlights from Hendry on Vimeo.

This video gives a great overview o f Edinburgh, highlighting its history and displaying the medieval royal mile, as well as the Georgian architecture on the other side of the city.

I was originally planning on writing this blog about the importance of researching a little bit about your destination before for you leave for a trip. It’s a pretty important step, and it has made a huge difference in my enjoyment of the various trips I’ve been on. Spontaneous excursions are great, but it’s a good idea to have some concept of where you might want to visit, especially if you will have limited resources when you get there. Tourist offices can be a great resource when you get there, but it’s a good idea to find out what might be nearby that caters to your particular interests, and how you will get there.

That being said, I was reading through travel blogs for ideas the other day and I happened upon this post at Travel Fish, dealing with the dangers of over planning a trip until “your trip is nothing but a series of missed deadlines and connections.” When I was in Europe, one of my most frustrating travel experiences was the final day of my trip to London, not because we didn’t plan everything, but because we planned too much. WE trekked all over the city trying to hit every place we had left that we wanted to see, and I didn’t feel like I had nearly enough time to really enjoy any of them.  In the end, we weren’t able to make it everywhere we wanted to go, and it left the end of the trip somewhat disappointing, even though I had a great time (I got to go to the Sherlock Holmes museum and buy a giant book!).

If you get too caught up in planning every second of your time, you’ll never have time to relax, and when things go wrong, as they so often do in travel, it will make the experience all the more frustrating.

The longer the trip, the more important keeping in touch with everyone back home is, if not for yourself, then for the people (my mother) you leave behind. When you’re traveling abroad, international calls can be ridiculously expensive and not all service provider’s work in foreign countries. If you can unlock your phone, you may be able to get a SIM for a pay as you go plan in the country if you intend to be abroad for a substantial amount of time, but even then, calling internationally is not financially viable.

If you have access to the internet, there are several sites and programs available. When I studied abroad, most students used Skype to video chat back home. It’s a fairly easy to use, free program if you’re chatting from one computer to another. You can also use Skype to make inexpensive calls to landlines in the states. Download it here.

VOIP functions like magic jack require you to pay a fee for the USB connector and a yearly bill, but you can make unlimited calls to any landline within the U.S. for free using your internet connection. If you don’t have your computer with you, or you don’t have the privacy to use these kinds of features, there are still a couple of options out there.

General social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace can be useful tools. I found twitter to be particularly helpful, and when I didn’t have a lot of time to talk to each person individually, or write an e-mail, I could quickly update twitter and all of my followers could have basic information about what I was doing. I set my mom up with a twitter, and had it send my updates to her phone, so she could get info about where I was at and what I was doing.

Blogging is a pretty popular option as well, and it can work to share things with friends back home as well as serve as a reference for your own memories when you get back! Photo sharing sites like Flickr can also be useful for sharing pictures before you get back home, and can serve as a backup if something happens to your camera.

10 Things to Remember When Packing for a Trip

1. Pack what you need, not what you want (I promise, you do not need more than two pairs of shoes on any given trip, three at the most).
2. Research weather at your destination and choose items appropriately.
3. Layers, layers, layers.
4. Keep all of your valuables in your carry on (If it’s expensive, or breakable, leave it at home).
5. Remember. They probably have stores where you’re going. They also have washers and dryers.
6. Don’t fill your bag full, you’ll always find souvenirs and other items on the trip, and you want room to bring these things back.
7. Rolling clothes can often help with wrinkling, and packing efficiently (Putting small breakable items in shoes also works).
8. Check Airline baggage restrictions BEFORE you get to the airport (If you’re catching flight between destinations especially).
9. You’re probably going to forget something. It happens; don’t stress yourself out about it.
10. Lay out everything you want to pack for the trip on the bed. Put half of it back.

If you’re traveling around Europe as a student, particularly if you’re trying to do as many places as possible in a short amount of time cheaply, pack as little as you can. The cheapest and most efficient way to get around Europe if you can plan far enough in advance is to fly Ryan Air. You can get tickets between European countries for around 5 Euro if you’re lucky. However, if you have to check a bag, the price goes up significantly. Living out of a carry on sized bag has its complications, but it’s certainly possible. You can find some helpful tips for backpackers here.

The most important thing I learned when I was traveling around Europe was to leave room in my bag for souvenirs. I usually had clothes that I didn’t end up needing, but no room to put that awesome new Sherlock Holmes anthology I bought at 221 Baker St in London, or the copy of Longfellow’s poetry published in Edinburgh in the 1800s. Maybe I should have learned not to buy so many books when I traveled abroad.

If you’re thinking about traveling to Ireland, or somewhere in the vicinity, I highly recommend stopping by the Skellig Islands off the coast of Co Kerry.  Dubbed Na Scealaga in Irish, the Skelligs consist of Sceilig Bheag(Little Skellig) and Sceilig Mhichíl (Skellig Michael).

It is probably one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been. It’s a little bit hard to get to, but definitely well worth checking out.  The Skelligs are relatively close to Portmagee, a very small fishing town, whose claim to fame is an award winning public bathroom (it didn’t seem that great to me).  It is  also very close to Killarney, which is a great town to visit, and a good place to shop! A rental car (you have to be 26 in Ireland) would make this trip much easier given the limited bus schedule to the area, but t can be done on public transportation!

You can take a very small fishing boat out to the island during good weather, and the boat tours usually allow a couple of hours to tour Skellig Michael on foot. It’s quite the climb, but at the top is an incredible 7th century Christian monastery. I recommend you check it out if you ever get the chance!

If you’re looking for a great place to find a boat tour out to the Skelligs I recommend you go through Joe Roddy and Sons here . We had a great experience with the younger Joe, who also owns a very nice bed and breakfast nearby that offers package deals!

When you’re planning a trip, one of the first things that comes up is where you plan on staying the night. You can pick anything from a hotel, inn, bed and breakfast, to youth hostels, all with varying price points. When you’re on a budget, a lower star hotel or hostel, if available can be a great choice. It’s important to remember, however, that you get what you pay for. Unless you sleep like the dead, when you stay in a hostel, you’re probably not going to get a lot of sleep, and the bed is pretty much never comfortable.

When I traveled, we stayed almost exclusively in hostels, and I learned a couple of things from the experience. Not only does the hostel you choose make a difference, but also the kind of room you want to stay in. In Spain, we paid five or so more euro per night in order to stay in a room with only four beds in it. For the first three days, there were only three of us in the room, and I knew both of them.  It made a huge difference. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved Scotland, but by the end of the trip, staying in a room with 8 people and a lot of noise, by the second day of no sleep, it started to affect my enjoyment.

A couple of things to keep in mind when choosing a hostel:

1. How many people per room
2. Female/Male/Mixed rooms
3. Price
4. Extras (Breakfast, Lockers, Internet Access, Private bathroom, etc)
5. Security (Some hostel do not have locks on the doors, and some of them have very little protection against non-guests entering the building).
6. Location (both in terms safety and quick access to tourist sites).

The most important thing to consider when you choose your accommodation is do your research, find out what areas you wouldn’t want to walk home alone at night in, and don’t stay there. Read other users review and determine what you’re willing to compromise on for price and what you aren’t.  I found Hostelworld to be a fairly useful reference, and while the rating systems are not always accurate, usually the reviews can tell you what you need to know.

With that in mind, I leave you with this:

In honor of Valentine’s Day, let’s talk about relationships, specifically the one you have with your traveling companions. Think carefully before you invite someone along, and remember that even your best friend might not be the best choice.  I’ve traveled in groups of varying sizes with anything from friends, to relative strangers, as well as with family. Travel partners are important, and can have a huge impact on the enjoyment you get out of a trip. Take a quick look at this video which recommends some potential considerations when you’re traveling.

The video recommends that you discuss things like budget and the types of attractions you might want to see. Conversations like this become even more important the larger the group you’re traveling with. In my experience, traveling in very large groups is a stressful experience, and you don’t want that to ruin your fun.

When I was studying in Ireland, the first trip we went on that I planned myself was to Scotland. When I put the trip together I didn’t know most of the people coming with me very well and it made the situation that much more difficult. Finding way to get around with 9 people and no car was the least of our worries. On top of that, we had people who wanted to cook all of the meals in the hostel kitchen, while some of use wanted to experience the local cuisine. Choosing a restaurant was a nightmare, and we argued over anything from how much we wanted to pay to what food we wanted to eat. I never thought to talk about these things before we went on the trip, and it would of saved us a lot of hassle.

The lesson to learn from all this is to make decisions about these things before you go, so you’re aware of everything going in to the experience. If you stress out easily, make sure your travel partner can handle it. And like the video says, particularly if you’re traveling in a large group, don’t be afraid to split up if you need. Also important to consider is that there are some people that you probably just shouldn’t travel with. Don’t let your dream vacation be the thing to ruin your relationship.