I booked airfare for my September trip to Italy this past weekend. I’m terribly excited about going to this foreign land, filled with wine, wine, song, and wine. Florence is pictured above.I travel on a budget. My reasons are financially motivated. It can be pricey to travel, especially through Europe when you compare the dollar against the Euro these days.
Whew.
I think if I had a lot of money, I would still prefer to be frugal with my traveling dollars though. Why? Or I guess the correct word is perche’? Because when you go on a budget; staying in less expensive accommodations and eating where the locals eat, you’re more apt to discover the grit of a culture then if you stay in hotels with multiple, stars and dining at restaurants, with all the other people that are just like you; tourists.
Hell, I don’t have to leave home to dine with people like me. Don’t get me wrong though, I think fancy-shmancy is Oooooh, la, la nice, but when I’m traveling to a foreign country, I’m mostly in it for the cultural experience. I try and keep a low profile; blending into the background, like a voyer just taking it all in.
I’m the traveler that’s sitting under a tree somewhere on a blistering hot day, or stepping into a local bar that's playing great music; writing journal and pen in hand, ready to capture every nuance and passing moment.
On this trip, I’m spending a portion of my trip at a beautiful villa in the Chianti region of Tuscany and even these accommodations are inexpensive. There are twelve of us renting a six bedroom, six bath villa, it's more like a palazzo. As a group, we locked a great price down for the week, which if you’re interested, is a cheap way to stay at a nice place, but not break the bank doing so.
In between, I’m booking my overnight stays in London, Padua, Pisa, and the Cinqueterre by staying in hostels. Yeah, I know, I finally got around to the name of today’s blog. Digress, digress, digress, I suppose.
Anyway, I found a website called, Hostelbookers.com and so I changed the name to something I liked much better, and now I call it, Hostel Hookers, which of course is completely different connotation, but very fitting for me. To help you with the visual, the picture below is of the red light district, in Amsterdam.
I’m the traveler that’s sitting under a tree somewhere on a blistering hot day, or stepping into a local bar that's playing great music; writing journal and pen in hand, ready to capture every nuance and passing moment.
On this trip, I’m spending a portion of my trip at a beautiful villa in the Chianti region of Tuscany and even these accommodations are inexpensive. There are twelve of us renting a six bedroom, six bath villa, it's more like a palazzo. As a group, we locked a great price down for the week, which if you’re interested, is a cheap way to stay at a nice place, but not break the bank doing so.
In between, I’m booking my overnight stays in London, Padua, Pisa, and the Cinqueterre by staying in hostels. Yeah, I know, I finally got around to the name of today’s blog. Digress, digress, digress, I suppose.
Anyway, I found a website called, Hostelbookers.com and so I changed the name to something I liked much better, and now I call it, Hostel Hookers, which of course is completely different connotation, but very fitting for me. To help you with the visual, the picture below is of the red light district, in Amsterdam.
p.s. I’ll continue to give you tidbits of my Italy itinerary periodically until I leave in September.
Ciao!
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