Lesson's from traveling abroad: Packing toiletries

When it comes to a long trip, whether at home or abroad, a lot of thought goes into which toiletries to bring and how to pack them.  No one wants lotion spilling on their toothbrush.  No one wants to try and fail to find their favorite lip gloss/deodorant/tampons in another country. And no one wants to be lugging around extra weight in a backpack or a roller case.

Around this time Sar and I were splitting ways.  She was returning to the States and I was setting out for backpacking.  By now, some of my packing mistakes had made themselves clear and lucky for me, Sar was willing to help me out and take stuff back home with her.

Even though I took a lot of unnecessary supplies (you can find brand-name bandaids, toothpaste, and razors even in the less touristy countries like Romania), the Lewis N Clark Hanging Toiletry Case was one thing I got right. 

Lessons from traveling abroad: I love a mess but I need structure

My time in Romania was kind of a mess: The fire in the Isaiah Center moved all the operations to Rachel's house for the time we were there.  It also had prevented any of the staff from being able to prepare for the contractors, resulting in furniture strewn about and freezers left full of food to thaw and rot in the 90+ weather that we needed to clean.  My favorite mess was the one Alex left all over Sarah every time we went to visit.

Lessons from traveling abroad: doing laundry

One year ago I was a few days into my trip and -- being a savvy traveler -- I had packed a limited number of clothes because "You can always do laundry!"  True.  Very true.  While traveling you usually have two options.

1. Pay to use a washing machine.  This is generally outrageous.  In Wales it cost £3 to wash my clothes.  That's roughly $5.  And that was only for the washing machine.  And since everywhere else was more like £5 or $8.50, I took it.  And it was marvelous.  Machine washed clothes.  Glory be.  Such a little luxury after ten weeks of option number two:

2. Wash those clothes in the sink!  It is cheap cheap cheap, and with my tricks it is not so bad.

Regardless of the option you choose, you'll probably have to line-dry your clothes.

Lessons from traveling abroad: finding a street address

Budapest.  Sar and I had made it to Budapest.  It was around 1pm local time and we were too tired to know what time that was at home or how long we had been traveling so far.  Early morning.  Too long.  Something like that. 

We had fortunately had the presence of mind to get ourselves a place to stay that night in Budapest instead of trying to press on to our final destination.  I had found us an apartment listed on Airbnb for only $35 USD, right across the street from the train station where we would leave from in the morning.  It was perfect.

Well.  I thought it was perfect.

Lessons from traveling abroad: one year ago today

One year ago today I boarded a plane with my best friend and flew to Romania for my first trip to Europe.  When I look back over my time there, I think of all the lessons I learned which I didn't share at the time.  Sometimes I was too embarrassed to tell anyone, sometimes I didn't want to worry my mom, and sometimes it just took a while before I could put what I learned into words.  Now that I'm a year out I've had plenty of time to process the events, so I'm starting a new series called "Lessons from traveling abroad: One year ago today."

Tomorrow I'll talk about how your ability to use Google Maps in the US will have very little impact on your ability to use them in Europe.