When planning trips I love to do all the research and book everything myself. There’s a sense of accomplishment and something very satisfying about discovering great deals. I delight in finding obscure interesting tidbits about the places I’m visiting and usually find such information on blog posts written by the locals.

One valuable piece of information I have learned is this: When booking plane tickets online, or anywhere for that matter, always use the airline’s official website and not a third party such as Expedia or a travel agency. The reason for this is, should there be problems you can go to the airline counter at the airport and receive immediate help; whereas if you booked through a travel agency or third party the airport airline agents will politely tell you they are sorry, but you need to contact your travel agency, or whomever you booked through, to sort it out. And given the time zones etc. sometimes reaching the travel agency isn’t so easy or convenient. Just something to think about.

Another useful tip I learned while reading travel blogs is to book train tickets and bus tickets in the language of the country you are travelling in/to using a local site. It sometimes works for accommodation as well! You can frequently find awesome deals and save tons of money, not to mention travelling in style and comfort! When travelling in France with my daughter in 2011, I booked our train tickets on the local site from Paris to Avignon and got a smokin’ deal. First Class seats (with extra leg room, close to the food car) were the cost of econony seats on the English site. We saved $90 each – which allowed me to buy a heck of a lot of extra croissants!  Should your foreign language skills be lacking, like mine were, the trick is to have two browser windows open – the English site and the French site – so you know what the French site is requesting – it worked like a dream!

Amazing deals are always extremely limited in number. They are usually available 5 to 3 months in advance of your travel date and sell out very quickly!  It is wise to mark your calendar or set a reminder for yourself to book the very first day they become available or the likelihood of scoring tickets is pretty slim. The tricky bit here, is to keep in mind the time/date differences. For example, I need train tickets from Florence to Salerno on May 26th this year so I will be looking on Iltreno, the Italian website, on January 25th at one in the morning because we are one day behind Italy.  Fingers crossed that I get lucky and end up travelling first class for the 4 hour trip in a super-comfy extra wide seat at a super reduced rate. That would make my day – well that and maybe, just maybe, finding a bottle of chianti stashed in my handbag along with, you know, a piece of salami, some cheese, and oh look, there’s olives as well!

Now all of this sounds like a bit of work and it is, but I love the challenge of finding travel deals better than those advertised. I’m a little geeky that way – some might say a lot geeky – but hey, my wallet loves me and yours will too.

Ha! Thought the title might capture your interest.  I’m sorry to disappoint but it refers to my suitcase.  When I tell friends and family I’m travelling for three months with carry-on luggage they look at me like I might have taken leave of my senses. I reassure them I know what I’m doing, smile politely, and try not to become ruffled by their response.

“Why only carry-on?”, you might ask as well. The thing is, I have a total of seven flights over the three months, possibly more, and the thought of potentially losing my suitcase that many times almost makes me want to stay home!  Imagine being on the beach in Sardinia without my favourite swimsuit – the one that took me absolutely freaking forever to find because not any old swimsuit fits all my body bits anymore, or desperately trying to read toothpaste labels in Spanish or Italian to find one designated for hyper-sensitive teeth, or having to spend your first day in an incredibly amazing place racing around replacing things -just not my idea of fun. So I will travel with carry-on and suffer any consequences such as not being able to bring back one of those colourful Spanish pottery sinks like a friend of mine mentioned her friend brought back with her – in one of her suitcases no less.  Imagine!

Another reason for just carry-on is that I have reached a point in my life where “things” don’t matter like they used to.  I’m collecting “experiences” now and they can all fit in my brain no problem – leaving room in my suitcase for the essentials.  Now, this does present a slight problem because at times my memory is sh*t and those of you who know me well, know I struggle with this; but it is what it is, and I will always have my travel writing  to fill in the brain blips. Undoubtedly I will find a few things I’d like to buy, but having the constraints of carry-on will check those impulses and keep me “experience” focused. See, there are methods to my madness.

Who knows, I may throw all this yabbering out the window and arrive back on the tarmac in Vancouver with super-sized suitcases full of all sorts of wildly assorted things – but I doubt it. So to those of you hoping for souvenirs of my trip – this is your heads-up!

Maybe it’s good it’s taken me two years to save up for my travel adventure. My brain’s operating system doesn’t work like it used so having the past two years to research and delve a little deeper into things has afforded me the luxury of making mistakes – because mistakes will be made – life is just like that. Initally I was certain I was going to Sicily (you know, to hang out with the Mafia and slurp tomato sauce through a straw) but glimpses of my previous trip to Florence kept flashing in my brain like subliminal messages and once I paid attention to them things got sorted out.  What was I thinking!

The other gift time gave me was the opportunity to begin learning a new language – and since Spanish is spoken almost as much as English the world over, it made sense to me to learn Español. I know, you’re thinking why would she learn Spanish if she’s going to live in Italy?  Well, I’ve recently discovered that Spanish is very similar to Italian muchas gracias, grazie millie! And learning a new language has fired up some of those brain cells that I thought were long dead, no longer capable of performing an intricat synapsis. Since Spanish was my new language of choice then it just followed suit that Spain would appear on my travel roster. In fact, Spain is where I’m going to start – it knocked Italy right off the first place post.

And Sardinia? Well that was just listening to my heart instead of my brain; the beaches were beckoning and my soul responded.  Simple as that. Although, there is a piece of brain programming responsible for my strong affinity with the sea – that physical and emotional draw back to the water wouldn’t be so powerful without my brain’s remembering previous experiences.

So you see, my brain’s operating system seems to shortcircuit at times. It seems haywire, but eventually it does come full circle.  The circuit completes itself – just in a very meandering way! Aren’t brains beautiful!    

I feel like Santa…(you can sing the rest of this sentence) making a list and checking it twice trying to make sure I get the best price, Brenda soon will be living in Spain. Can you believe it!

Part of the excitement of travelling is the anticipation. For me this has been building for over two years as it has taken that much time to squirrel away enough money to travel and live in Europe for three months. Crazy, I know, but that’s the reality of a single woman on a retirement income. Come April 1st, 2016 my dream comes true.

I want to gather experiences in both Spain and Italy with my focus being “living like a local”. Living like a local means staying in one place for a bit of time.  I have chosen to live in Malaga, Spain for the month of April and in Florence, Italy for the month of May.  And, since I am a heart and soul beach bum, June will be spent on the Island of Sardinia exploring the many magnificent crescents of sand along the western coastline trying to soak up all that glorious sunshine before I head home.

Will I do some touristy things? Of course I will, but mostly I will live day to day in much the same way I do now as a retired person living in Vancouver BC.  I will shop for food at the local markets, go for coffee in the square each day – perhaps at the same favourite place I discovered immediately upon my arrival, watch the tourists and locals go about their day and hopefully adopt some of the local habits which may include eating dinner at ten o’clock instead of six. I might sleep until noon, stay up until the wee hours of the morning, or sit on the beach and read a book all day knowing I have many tomorrows. I won’t feel compelled to race about trying to see it all. I delight in just thinking about it!