Tips & Tricks for Summer Travel

*These may seem a little odd and would never come to your mind when preparing for a trip, but trust me there IS a reason they are on here.*

European summer’s are extremely hot. Air conditioning is very seldom around the city so its hard to keep cool with exploring. Having a little fan on you will help with the heat!

OKAYYYY.. I can not stress this enough. I normally don’t have issues on my trips with the use of my credit/debit cards but I was having to call my bank at least 2-3 times a day because my they kept detecting fraud. I did end up putting a travel plan on it but still didn’t seem to fix the issue. In order to avoid all of the troubles I went through, set it up in advance and hope for the best!

So we all know how much food we eat on vacation and on top of that most likely drinking a good amount of adult beverages… therefore a few hours on a bike probably isn’t the worst for you, lol! Boy did we regret this after 6 miles.. but it was also an experience. We biked in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I’m not exaggerating when I say a bike to them is a car to us, that IS their main form of transportation. They have bike lanes just like car lanes! It is much easier to get around the city riding a bike versus spending half the day in traffic and waiting for taxi’s.

This is super important! We all know our bodies to some extent but time change will take a massive tole on your body. Usually at least a few days before I head on a trip (work or personal), I will adjust my sleep schedule to the country that I am about to be in. Example; if its 4pm in Des Moines, its 11 pm in Paris so I will go to bed as if I were already in Paris. Don’t forget about the amount of jet lag you will have after the long flight to wherever you are going! Being somewhat caught up on sleep can only help.

Yes, you read this correctly. In Belgium, it apparently is normal to eat raw ground beef. I saw a famous traditional cuisine on the menu and wanted to try it out.. took a few bites, looked at my sister and said, “s**t this is completely raw.” Now, it took me awhile to get someone’s attention to let them know that I cannot eat this or I will get extremely sick. They told me if I wanted another plate I would have to pay for both or else I am wasting the food. Now, I can only hope the miscommunication was a language barrier for the most part. Moral of the story; research EVERYTHING before ordering it. P.S. I attached a picture of my raw ground beef patty for any of you that were curious as to what it looked like, LOL.

Its better to be early than late! Amen to that statement. Depending on what airline you are traveling on they may give you updates as to a busy airport/ long security lanes, but that is no guarantee. I had been told by fellow crew members that Amsterdam’s security wait time ranged from 1-3 hours. My sister and I only travel with carry ons but if you had bags to check and were traveling internationally I would add on an additional hour. Now, I am mainly focusing on international travel, however if you are traveling domestically still give yourself more time than you normally would. The last thing you want is missing your flight!

Finding a hotel with air conditioning internationally can be very difficult. None of the hotels we stayed at in Europe over the summer had AC at all. In most of the world, they believe it is bad for the environment, which they aren’t wrong. However, I have noticed that most the hotels will offer you a fan for your room which makes a huge difference!

Riding scooter’s was the most fun I had all summer, I’m sure my sister can agree! Uber’s can be pricy and even when you get in a ride you usually have to sit in traffic for quite awhile. Honestly, we saw the city of Brussels better than we ever could have walking or driving. Definitely recommend getting around on a scooter!

I saved the most important for last! All of your plane tickets, hotel rooms, reservations, train tickets, and bus tickets need to be booked months in advance! Not only will they mostly likely be sold out, but the price will be extremely high. Most of us set a budget when traveling so we do NOT want to have to spend out of pocket money on a ticket that we could have bought months in advance!