Travel Advice and Lessons Learned from an Unqualified Teenage Travel Guide
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From February 14 to 22, I travelled with my family on vacation to Europe. I will not pretend to be an expert in anything besides procrastination, so do not refer to me as you might Rick Steves—these are just some things I learned and enjoyed while on the trip!
Taxi drivers in Germany, Budapest, and Prague have no regard for their lives or the lives of their passengers. I write this with the utmost respect, but when the whole car ride consists of my mother swearing under her breath and keeping a death grip on the “oh-shit” handle, running multiple stop-lights, horns blaring non-stop, and a driver speaking Czech and German and a car full of Americans that can barely say hello in French and Spanish (and cheers in Gaelic), it is not your average taxi ride to the pub.
Like most that travel to Europe, I learned just how amazing good public transport is and how it makes life just so much simpler. As someone who finds it difficult to walk from Bishops to the Wheel, I also found it astounding how much people walk in those big cities and how much you end up walking when sightseeing.
On a similar note, wear good shoes – comfortable, easy to walk in, and semi-fashionable if you can. The whole trip can hinge on whether you are wearing good shoes or not.
The food is good. Really good. It was mostly meat and potatoes where we were but somehow it was nothing like the meat and potatoes meal hall serves every night.
Don’t limit yourself to just having local dishes, though. I’m not saying go to McDonalds, but these countries are very international and while the traditional cuisine is very good, there are a lot of cultures to experience and locals don’t simply eat their traditional Hungarian/German/Czech dishes every single night. So, have Thai food one night, or do Italian or Greek, but I would say do not go anywhere where the sign is in English or has the word burger in the name. Also, don’t eat near giant tourist attractions, they are probably more expensive and nowhere near as good.
Drinking a glass of wine too many while with your family in an Italian restaurant in Prague is definitely an experience. Especially a restaurant packed to the brim and everything a traditional Italian restaurant in your imagination would be like, with everyone yelling in Italian and Czech, bread being pulled out of thin air, accompanied by olive oil and vinegar, wine flowing and flowing, the power going out not once but twice, with applause after each resurgence, yet the lack of sight just causing more candles to be lit and more orders of wine.
While the Turkish Baths may be a “Tourist thing” as my friend Robert from Hungary told me, they are more than worth visiting. From the bath built in the 1500’s that you could barely see anything in through the haze to my favorite, this gargantuan structure in the middle of a park in Budapest. We got there just as the sun was setting over these steaming bodies of water with a million people from a million different places speaking a million languages all existing peacefully together. Each one had a smile across their face as the sky went from blue to pink to orange to black.
Buying a phone plan is most definitely the smartest thing you can do. Sure, it may take some of the romance out of getting lost in the cobblestone streets, but in February it can be cold and the movies make getting lost look a lot more fun than it really is. You can always just turn your phone off for that experience if you really want it. The ability to use navigation and search things up online like how to access public transit and the like is second to none.
Take time to do nothing. On trips like ours, where we had a short of window of time to see as much as we could, you get tired and can become unappreciative of just how lucky you are to be in Europe. Find time in the day to sit in a café or a park for an hour and read or journal or people-watch. Stillness is so under appreciated by our go, go, go society, but to just sit and feel the city go by around you will make your traveling experience so much better.
It’s so touristy, but those scooters really are fun in a city. One of my favorite memories is flying around Budapest on an electric scooter, in the middle of the road and narrowly avoiding being hit by trams and cars and bicycles. I was defiantly a nuisance to those trying to navigate the narrow streets and go about their daily lives, I hope they will forgive me because I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Finally, don’t feel the need to see every castle and museum and stained glass and bridge. At the end of the day those things are cool, but at least for me when I look back at my trip I think about my sister roasting my parents and talking with my family about where we all see each other five years from now, or meeting some fellow Americans in line in this old farmers market tucked in-between these massive buildings. I know it’s cliché, but the little things are what’s most important. The journey not the destination, as a sign in my Meme’s house reads. Enjoy who you are traveling with and the people around you, and you will have the trip of a lifetime.
Safe Travels!
