Welcome to 2015

The Huffington Post writer, Suzy Strutner recently offered 21 Travel Resolutions To Make For 2015 which all make very good sense (despite the fact that there were only 19 suggestions in the article), but then, who's counting?

Well, actually, I was. Anyway, among her suggestions I particularly liked:

• Get lost
• Start a conversation with a local
• Read something on the history of your destination before you get there
• Be spontaneous and open to straying from your itinerary

Get Lost
Of course, there is 'lost' and there is lost. While I have never been completely lost, and therefore at risk of personal danger, I have found myself wandering through some of the far corners of major cities well away from the usual tourist haunts. The key to this type of getting lost is to make sure you are doing it during daylight hours, and not after dark - which may well result in the risk of personal danger. During the day, it is much easier to pick out landmarks that help orientate and guide you through unfamiliar neighbourhoods. If you do find yourself running out of daylight, head to the nearest major road or avenue. These tend to be well patronized and well lit. If you can't find access to public transport like a subway station to get you back to familiar ground, you should at least have a better chance of finding a taxi along a major thoroughfare to get you safely back to your hotel or accommodations.

Start a Conversation
To be honest, I'm not great at starting conversations with complete strangers, but I am more than happy to respond to complete strangers if they start conversations with me. In this way, I have met a number of people during my extended travels, and those meetings have all helped to make my trips more memorable and enjoyable. With the advent of social networking online, it is much easier to maintain contact with people you meet on the road, and I have added several contacts to my Facebook page after having met friendly locals during my travels. Of course, the other benefit of getting to the know the locals is that you also get to know something about the country you are visiting and what makes it, and its citizens tick.

Read Some History
I am a great believer in this suggestion. I have always been a voracious reader, and now that I am travelling again, I make a point of reading as many non-fiction books with subject matter that matches the country or city I am planning to visit. This is made so much easier to do with tablet devices like iPads, Kindle's, and other any number of other eReaders now available at very reasonable prices.

My iPad has hundreds of books stored on it, and while most of these are fictional novels, I also have a large selection of historical non-fiction books as well. I great source for free eBooks, one I have written about on numerous occasions, is Gutenberg dot Org. It is a rare day when I can't find a good book on that site on almost any topic or country you care to name.

Be Spontaneous
I know some people who are not happy travellers unless they have preplanned and booked every aspect of their journey. The problem with this is that there is no room to manoeuvre if schedules get changed, delays occur, or if they want to make even minor changes to their itinerary during the course of their travels. I must admit that I have tendency to go to the other extreme on this question. I like to leave my itinerary as flexible as possible.

For example, after spending almost four weeks in New York City during my 2012 trip to America, I took in Lancaster and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (seven nights); Washington, DC (five nights); Savannah, Georgia (ten nights); New Orleans, Louisiana (five nights); and Tucson and Flagstaff, Arizona (fifteen nights). The trip was bookended with four or five nights in Los Angeles. While my arrival and departure dates were fixed, and my accommodations in New York City were also pre-booked and confirmed, pretty much everything else I eventually did was worked out as I went along.

Of course, not everyone has the luxury of spending three months in the USA, or the freedom to indulge their whims as I did, but the principle remains the same: Build some flexibility into your vacation, no matter how long to give the unexpected a chance to surprise you and enhance your trip in ways you had not planned on.

Since Suzy Strutner's article was a couple shy of the promised 21 suggestions I thought I'd offer a few more of my own:

• Break out of your comfort zone and try something different (a new location, food, activity)
• Travel Solo (if you normally travel with others, or travel with others if you normally go alone )
• Book and organise your own vacation, don't leave it to a travel agent
• It's never too early to start planning your next holiday, so start now!

I will cover these suggestions in a future post. For now, I hope you are looking forward to a New Year filled with health, happiness, much love and lots of travel.

Amtraking America

Welcome to Amtrak

~ During my 2010 American trip, I travelled via Greyhound Bus from New York City to New Orleans (with stopovers in Philadelphia, PA and Raleigh, NC). I have written an extensive six part road trip report of that journey beginning here…

That trip went so well, that I was keen to repeat the experience―albeit along a different route―during my 2012 visit to America. To that end, following my three week stay in New York City, I caught the first of what I thought would be many Greyhound Buses, to Lancaster, PA.

During my stay in Lancaster, someone suggested I use Amtrak to get to my next destination―Harrisburg, PA., a short leg by any standards. Since Greyhound Buses shared facilities with Amtrak, it was easy enough to do―so I did. That was it. I was immediately smitten. Seduced by the comfort; the leg room; the ability to get up and walk the length of the train; the large windows; the smooth, traffic free flow of the carriages; and more. The run from Lancaster to Harrisburg was over in under an hour, but I was hooked. I decided that if the opportunity arose to travel by train again, I would seize it.

Washington, DC to Savannah, GA

When I left Harrisburg, it was by bus for Washington, DC. But when I left America’s national capital, for Savannah, Georgia, it was on the Amtrak Atlantic Coast Service that takes in New York - Washington, DC - Charleston - Savannah - Jacksonville - Orlando - Tampa/Miami. There was no turning back after that. Given a choice between spending nearly eleven hours on a train or a bus, there is only one choice, and that of course is the train.

Atlantic Coast Service route guide

In researching current prices for this entry, I was able to confirm what I already knew, that depending on how and when you choose to travel, it can be cheaper to take a train than it is to take a bus. For example, current prices (as of Sunday, 14 April 2013), for the Washington-Savannah run are US$101.00 for the morning and afternoon trains, and US$173.00 for the evening train. The same route by Greyhound Bus ranges from $85.00 (advance purchase) to $159.00 (refundable ticket). The Standard Fare is $142.00.

Using the example above, the bus is cheaper than the train service. However, even though I was initially looking for the cheapest tickets available, I did not hesitate to spend the extra $16.00 for the space and luxury of the train. Oh, and it helps that some of the Amtrak services include WiFi as well. And did I mention the restaurant car? And the observation carriage with its comfortable seating that allows you to sit back, stretch your legs, and enjoy panoramic views of the passing countryside? All in all, the experience is better; the ride much smoother; and the journey certainly seems to pass much quicker.

After the Richmond stop I walked up to the restaurant car for a coffee and Panini. It occurred to me that a coach paying passenger could spend most of their trip here in relative comfort. In fact, it was a whole lot easier to use my iPad there where I could rest the device on a table and type, than to balance it in my lap, or hold it for extended periods.

Also in the restaurant car one has an opportunity to take part in conversations with a number of other passengers, rather than sit alone or converse with the person in the seat next to you in your designated carriage―assuming they want to talk in the first place.

New Orleans, LA to Tucson, AZ

Alpine, Texas

From Savannah, I rode a Greyhound to New Orleans, and after a five night stay there, I boarded Amtrak’s Sunset Limited service for Tucson, Arizona.

For the record, current prices on the New Orleans-Tucson run are $143 (Amtrak), and $188 (web only) to $232 (refundable) for the Greyhound Bus. That’s a difference of $45 assuming you buy the cheapest tickets, or a difference of $89 (if you purchase a refundable Greyhound ticket) in favour of Amtrak. As the saying has it: It’s a no brainer.

I have taken to referring to Amtrak as one of America’s best kept secrets. Almost everyone I spoke to about my train travel was amazed at the prices I paid, and my glowing recommendations. Most assumed that travelling by train would be far more expensive than by bus, and had therefore never considered the Amtrak service.

If there is a downside to using the rail network, it is that compared to the Greyhound Bus network, passengers have many more choices available to them when travelling by bus. The American rail network is a pale shadow of what it used to be, which is a great pity. Never the less, what remains covers all the main urban centres and for my money, it just can’t be beaten. At the very least, take time to compare prices between the Greyhound Bus and Amtrak services. Like me you may become a convert to the joys of rail travel.

More Information

Amtrak… 

Greyhound Bus… 

Jetlagged and Muddleheaded

Click image to view larger size



So here I am, still jetlagged and feeling muddleheaded, adjusting once again to being back in Adelaide, Australia after my latest three month extended travels through America.

The route map above, plots out my trip from New York City to Los Angeles, California, although the map doesn’t show my day trips out of Flagstaff, Arizona, from where I headed out each day in my hire car to the Grand Canyon (twice), Sedona and environs, and up to Monument Valley, Utah.

This completes my third visit to the United States in six years, and I’m delighted to say that once again, I had a great trip, during which I met many friendly locals, and spent more time in hotels than I have ever had the dubious pleasure of doing so before now. However, just to be clear, I did not drive myself across America. The route outlined above was shared between several Greyhound Bus rides, and what is left of the great Amtrak rail network, as well as the afore mentioned car hire.

Over the coming weeks and months I will begin to process the encounters, the highlights (and low-lights), and the hotel stays, and try to encapsulate my experiences via this blog. I have thousands of photographs to sort through, discard or enhance and utilise here, and more hours of video footage than I can ever hope to examine, edit, shape and put to good use in some way, shape or form. But what’s a traveller to do? The answer I guess, is to take each story as it comes and try to extract the heart out of each experience, and write about it in a way that will be of interest and use to readers who stumble on this blog.