I realized today that I have not been a good Travel Blogger. Not because I haven't chronicled places we've been in the past couple of years, the way we've gotten there, food we've eaten or people we've met along the way. Rather what I have failed to do is keep up between trips, sharing what we learn between trips as we prepare for the next one. So today is my first attempt to make up for lost time.
First off, let me describe our upcoming trip and some of the things we have been thinking about along the way. We will be gone for a total of 24 days, flying internationally, self-driving from Rome, through Tuscany and onto Venice for 5 nights, 7 nights aboard a cruise ship, picking up another car in Venice, making an overnight stop in Verona to see Adele, then heading south into Campania to stay with friends for 8 nights, before flying back to Southwest Florida.
We will be traveling the first 12 days with great friends so with this in mind and knowing what traveling in Italy is like, we are not packing like we'd normally pack for a 24 day trip. We are limiting ourselves to one medium sized soft-sided checked bag and a small carry-on each -- this way we can make sure all four of us will fit into a mid-sized European model car with our bags. I don't know about you but after living and driving in Italy for 2.5 years, I wouldn't drive a mid-sized US sized car in Italy. The roads are too narrow and gas prices too high. The second constraint has to do with logistics of moving bags from available parking to hotel rooms which can be fairly far and sometimes without elevators to 2nd or 3rd story rooms. So keeping size and weight of our bags in check was an important part of our preparations.
The bags we're taking have been with us for years - Valerie will be filling an REI soft-sided wheelie duffle - the Wheely Beast 28" Wheeled Duffle. We bought two of these when we were limited to 20 kilos of soft-sided luggage for a Botswana safari 11 years ago. They are still going strong, well made, have lots of space, are fairly lightweight, have a good set of wheels and a strong frame.
My bag is a Red Oxx Air Boss that I bought 9 years ago when I started flying about 150k miles a year and got tired of checking a bag for every flight. It is bullet proof but requires really efficient packing and an external set of wheels (Samsonite Compact Folding Cart) for convenient airport transits. It has three separate strapped compartments and is recommended by the "One Bag" travel guru - http://www.onebag.com/business-bags.html - as their selection for business travelers. It has served very well for both business and leisure travel over these past 9 years.
One of the things we realized on our last trip was that ensuring we are drinking "good" water is important. We are always dragging bottled water onto our cruises because the cost aboard can be a bit stiff from time to time. Additionally, any way you cut it, buying water in plastic bottles just contributes to landfill issues - especially since recycling isn't consistent from place to place. So in order to get "greener" and save some money, we decided to travel with our own water purifier. Yes, I know, we're trying to save space and weight but having good water available is really important -- and forget about cruise ships, have you bought water in an airport lately? Ouch... So for our cruise and air travel needs, we checked into backpacker friendly purification (vice filtration - this way we ensure viruses are dealt with too...) options figuring when you carry everything on your back, you are optimizing efficiency vs. weight. We bought the Camelbak All Clear - http://www.outdoorgearlab.com/Backpacking-Water- Filter-Reviews/CamelBak-All-Clear To this we added a second Camelbak bottle to balance out my laptop backpack and give us about 1.5 quarts of water total.
Since the Camebak UV purifier is recharged via USB, it travels perfectly since I just hook it, along with our phones and ipads, to the USB ports on our laptops - saving us the weight of the little white recharger "cubes" that come with our Apple devices.
Navigating overseas is easy these days since we have GPS, right? Whoops, does your navigation system need access to Wi-fi or Cell Data while you are driving or walking? If so, this is going to be an expensive proposition. We chose to avoid this issue a few years back by purchasing Co-Pilot Live - US and European versions for our Iphones and Ipads. We have tested this extensively in Europe and are as happy with it as with any other GPS (they always manage to screw you up at least once or twice every trip) and the app works just fine with your phone in "Airplane" mode. https://copilotgps.com/us/
One good tip with respect to your GPS before you leave the comfort of home Wi-Fi is ensuring that all of your maps are updated (many megabytes of downloads) and that you can actually find the places you are traveling to. This can be a challenge in Italy where there are a number of different ways to describe various roads. Way easier to check and then double check using Google Maps where you are going before you leave and then add each stop into your favorites to eliminate fumbling around when you are driving a new car in a different and sometimes challenging driving environment.
I think my next pre-departure post will show my wardrobe and bag packing - I spent a fair amount of time (and tested the "Bundle" method on my last trip) researching this subject for our Italy trip...
Bundle Packing Video
Ciao'
First off, let me describe our upcoming trip and some of the things we have been thinking about along the way. We will be gone for a total of 24 days, flying internationally, self-driving from Rome, through Tuscany and onto Venice for 5 nights, 7 nights aboard a cruise ship, picking up another car in Venice, making an overnight stop in Verona to see Adele, then heading south into Campania to stay with friends for 8 nights, before flying back to Southwest Florida.
We will be traveling the first 12 days with great friends so with this in mind and knowing what traveling in Italy is like, we are not packing like we'd normally pack for a 24 day trip. We are limiting ourselves to one medium sized soft-sided checked bag and a small carry-on each -- this way we can make sure all four of us will fit into a mid-sized European model car with our bags. I don't know about you but after living and driving in Italy for 2.5 years, I wouldn't drive a mid-sized US sized car in Italy. The roads are too narrow and gas prices too high. The second constraint has to do with logistics of moving bags from available parking to hotel rooms which can be fairly far and sometimes without elevators to 2nd or 3rd story rooms. So keeping size and weight of our bags in check was an important part of our preparations.
The bags we're taking have been with us for years - Valerie will be filling an REI soft-sided wheelie duffle - the Wheely Beast 28" Wheeled Duffle. We bought two of these when we were limited to 20 kilos of soft-sided luggage for a Botswana safari 11 years ago. They are still going strong, well made, have lots of space, are fairly lightweight, have a good set of wheels and a strong frame.
My bag is a Red Oxx Air Boss that I bought 9 years ago when I started flying about 150k miles a year and got tired of checking a bag for every flight. It is bullet proof but requires really efficient packing and an external set of wheels (Samsonite Compact Folding Cart) for convenient airport transits. It has three separate strapped compartments and is recommended by the "One Bag" travel guru - http://www.onebag.com/business-bags.html - as their selection for business travelers. It has served very well for both business and leisure travel over these past 9 years.
One of the things we realized on our last trip was that ensuring we are drinking "good" water is important. We are always dragging bottled water onto our cruises because the cost aboard can be a bit stiff from time to time. Additionally, any way you cut it, buying water in plastic bottles just contributes to landfill issues - especially since recycling isn't consistent from place to place. So in order to get "greener" and save some money, we decided to travel with our own water purifier. Yes, I know, we're trying to save space and weight but having good water available is really important -- and forget about cruise ships, have you bought water in an airport lately? Ouch... So for our cruise and air travel needs, we checked into backpacker friendly purification (vice filtration - this way we ensure viruses are dealt with too...) options figuring when you carry everything on your back, you are optimizing efficiency vs. weight. We bought the Camelbak All Clear - http://www.outdoorgearlab.com/Backpacking-Water- Filter-Reviews/CamelBak-All-Clear To this we added a second Camelbak bottle to balance out my laptop backpack and give us about 1.5 quarts of water total.
Since the Camebak UV purifier is recharged via USB, it travels perfectly since I just hook it, along with our phones and ipads, to the USB ports on our laptops - saving us the weight of the little white recharger "cubes" that come with our Apple devices.
Navigating overseas is easy these days since we have GPS, right? Whoops, does your navigation system need access to Wi-fi or Cell Data while you are driving or walking? If so, this is going to be an expensive proposition. We chose to avoid this issue a few years back by purchasing Co-Pilot Live - US and European versions for our Iphones and Ipads. We have tested this extensively in Europe and are as happy with it as with any other GPS (they always manage to screw you up at least once or twice every trip) and the app works just fine with your phone in "Airplane" mode. https://copilotgps.com/us/
One good tip with respect to your GPS before you leave the comfort of home Wi-Fi is ensuring that all of your maps are updated (many megabytes of downloads) and that you can actually find the places you are traveling to. This can be a challenge in Italy where there are a number of different ways to describe various roads. Way easier to check and then double check using Google Maps where you are going before you leave and then add each stop into your favorites to eliminate fumbling around when you are driving a new car in a different and sometimes challenging driving environment.
I think my next pre-departure post will show my wardrobe and bag packing - I spent a fair amount of time (and tested the "Bundle" method on my last trip) researching this subject for our Italy trip...
Bundle Packing Video
Ciao'
Very good information. Have a wonderful and safe trip.
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