Our affordable London hotel (lower left) was under the Eye!
It wasn’t that long ago when finding a hotel meant pulling out my Lonely Planet Guide and telling the taxi/rickshaw/tuk tuk driver to take me to whichever guesthouse was recommended. Many other travelers used the same method and inevitably places became too popular and overcrowded. Sometimes I found lodging by word-of-mouth and by getting advice from other travelers, but often these recommendations were based on the very same guidebooks. Sometimes lodging solicited me. I remember coming out of immigration at the Kathmandu airport and being accosted by a sea of people offering beds in their various guesthouses and feeling overwhelmed by it all; the sights, the sounds, the hustle, the bustle. But that was in the 80’s, when international phone calls were only for periodically checking in with worried relatives at home and incoming mail was so slow it had to be sent general delivery weeks in advance. Read more
The actual trip is just the filling in the sandwich. Extend the trip with anticipation and remembering. Planning and getting excited can be alot of fun and both will make the trip easier, more rewarding, and more memorable. The first stage of the trip is the pre-planning that engages your kids and prepares them to be excited. The middle stage is the trip itself – from the plane trip to the museum to the restaurant and back to the hotel for bedtime. The finale happens after you get home – share the trip with friends, keep exploring, and (not to be too trite) make the memories last…
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