Researching travel

[Jakob]

I have been looking for travel references and destination ideas. I have searched for travel publications reviews and I was not confident that these reviews were objective. Oh course, the pictures are beautiful, yet this is obviously not an objective metric of a quality experience. My DW and I have not traveled much as we focused on raising our 3 girls, now grown. Our travel agent last sent us to a tourist attraction, though it wasn’t her fault I gave her short notice.
What we prefer is an active, not commercialized, quality (not pretentious, or pampering), and meaningful experience. We like good food and prefer to experience the culture of the locale. Accommodations need not be over-the-top, but clean. It seems that the travel agents and magazines do not address these issues. We are patrons of our museums and they offer trips, this may be a start. If anyone has any suggestions for references, ideas, or sources I would appreciate your assistance.
Thank you, J.

 

[njhowie]

What kind of budget are we looking at?

Where do you live, roughly?

Looking to stay domestic or international?

 

[travelover]

If you are not familiar with Road Scholar, you might find their offerings to your liking. https://www.roadscholar.org/

 

[Nemo2]

- Think of somewhere you'd like to go.

- Get on a plane/ship and go there.

- Look around.

- Tell us how you liked it.

- Doesn't have to be complicated.

 

[OldShooter]

There is a quirky little magazine that is probably what you are looking for: https://www.intltravelnews.com/ Most of the content is written by readers traveling on their own dime. I have been reading it for years and have written a number of articles for them. I suggest that you pop for at least the online subscription, but I think you'll enjoy the paper version too. Online lets you search all the previous issues for your favorite keywords. Some searching is available without a subscription too, so you can try before you buy.

It's a pretty low budget operation, printed on newsprint, and a little skinny as advertising has suffered during the pandemic, but I'm sure they'll be back strong.

A while back they published a very good series on travel insurance. Search the author's name: "wirtanen"

You sound like a good candidate for private travel. We have used https://www.bushbaby.co.za/ a number of times and had a great trip in central Europe with Patrick Peneff (https://www.bulgariaprivateguide.com/) With private travel you pick exactly the kind of hotels, B&Bs, etc., the food, the itinerary, etc. DW likes cooking and Patrick arranged four or five private cooking lessons as we traveled, one with a delightful grandmother in a village that no one has ever heard of.

 

[martyp]

There are thousands of people posting videos about world travel on YouTube. You can often find videos made within the past week which is particularly important during this time of travel restrictions. I was thinking of going to one of Thailand’s southern islands but from the videos I can see that businesses are closed and that they are ghost towns. Not appealing.

 

[harllee]

One of the best trips I ever took was to New Zealand (actually went twice). It is a long way to go so I spent 6 weeks each time. Right now the country is closed to foreigners due to Covid so this would be a trip for the future. What DH and I did each time was to rent a "Camper Van". A small van easy to drive (but they do drive on the left) with basic sleeping and eating space. Many people do this is NZ. NZ is fairly expensive so this is the most inexpensive way to go. There are nice camp grounds everywhere. NZ is wonderful--great outdoor adventures and also many neat museums, hot springs, local culture etc. Very safe, English is spoken, easy to travel on your own, no need to be with a tour group. It is a great place to visit.

 

[Jakob]

Trip recommendation to New Zealand.

Good tip, I’ve actually been thinking about New Zealand. I’ve been considering taking up stone carving in my retirement. There is a man that offers classes there and I thought that might be a good combination of travel interest as well as taking a class. Have you seen the movie “the worlds fastest Indian?” It’s a very good movie about a man from New Zealand who modifies an Indian motorcycle. This movie is based on true events. It’s stars Anthony Hopkins. Thanks for the tip.

 

[OldShooter]

Agreed, NZ is a good trip and a camper van is a good strategy. When we went the main attraction was flexibility -- not needing to nail down AirBnBs or hotels weeks ahead of time. We flew for a week (https://www.flyinn.co.nz/) then back to Auckland to pick up the camper. (@harlee neglected mentioning the NZ wine as an important attraction.)

We rented a camper van in Alaska, too. Same reason: flexibility in stopping.

 

[Sunset]

Thanks to above posters for the New Zealand recommendation.
Looks like we have to move this up on our list before we get too old to camper van.

 

[Sunset]

I have been looking for travel references and destination ideas. I have searched for travel publications reviews and I was not confident that these reviews were objective. Oh course, the pictures are beautiful, yet this is obviously not an objective metric of a quality experience. My DW and I have not traveled much as we focused on raising our 3 girls, now grown. Our travel agent last sent us to a tourist attraction, though it wasn’t her fault I gave her short notice.
What we prefer is an active, not commercialized, quality (not pretentious, or pampering), and meaningful experience. We like good food and prefer to experience the culture of the locale. Accommodations need not be over-the-top, but clean. It seems that the travel agents and magazines do not address these issues. We are patrons of our museums and they offer trips, this may be a start. If anyone has any suggestions for references, ideas, or sources I would appreciate your assistance.
Thank you, J.

What type of traveler are you ?

Do you want to be guided or rent a place for a week and go out from there on the local bus/subway/train to see sites ?

We did a Viking river cruise in June a few years ago, it was our introduction to Europe. We did the 14 day Grand European Tour, it was expensive, and great. It was the type of tour where they took you to various spots they had picked out (some choice) and a lot of walking touring.

Afterwards, now that we had an idea of Europe, we booked 10 days in a hotel in Barcelona a mile or so from the tourist area. We were in a local neighborhood, so got to see folks laundry , and shop/eat at local restaurants around the corner. We took the local bus to many tourist sites or walked a few miles to them, spending as long as we wanted at each site.
Then we hopped on a cruise ship (reason we went to Barcelona first) for 25 days.


Two different ways to tour..

 

[OldShooter]

Thanks to above posters for the New Zealand recommendation.
Looks like we have to move this up on our list before we get too old to camper van.

We like the "Eyewitness Travel" books for trip planning. https://www.amazon.com/DK-Eyewitness-Travel-Guide-Zealand/dp/1465439625 Their emphasis is on the destination, not on endless and somewhat outdated lists of hotels and restaurants. We use Steves, Frommer, and (usually better) the internet for that.

And to make life easy the camper van can be mostly a mobile bedroom. We use campground showers instead of the claustrophobic van bathrooms and we eat in restaurants every night, sometimes taking a cab from the campground. Usually restaurant lunches too but having the OJ, croissants, and coffee in the van is nice for breakfast.

 

[Nemo2]

What type of traveler are you ?

+1 Are you a tourist or a traveler? A world, (literally), of difference.

 

[Scrapr]

You have a lot of good advice here. For me I use Rick Steves video & message board, Frommers & Trip Advisor. I am very careful on Trip Advisor when looking at hotels. I look first at the negative reviews. If there are repeating issues (mice, nasty owners etc) then I move on. There are some nice activities or attraction on Trip Advisor that might get you started.

I think I would determine what kind of traveler you want to be. Do you want to be supported the whole way? Get up at 7:00 & jump on a bus? I see a suggestion above on hiring a private guide. That might be a hybrid way to have some support. Or you can put the whole trip together. Find an area, look at hotels & transportation & activities. It's work but fun too. There are "free" walking tours all over bigger cities. You tip your guide afterwards depending on how you liked it.

 

[harllee]

Agreed, NZ is a good trip and a camper van is a good strategy. When we went the main attraction was flexibility -- not needing to nail down AirBnBs or hotels weeks ahead of time. We flew for a week (https://www.flyinn.co.nz/) then back to Auckland to pick up the camper. (@harlee neglected mentioning the NZ wine as an important attraction.)

We rented a camper van in Alaska, too. Same reason: flexibility in stopping.

I love NZ wine too but NZ wine plus Camper Van plus driving on the left could be a problem. Drink the NZ wine AFTER you park your camper van for the night. I love NZ seafood--there are many food trucks along the way. We had reserved the van ahead of time but had no reservations for camp sites, we just winged that and did OK. I think we also made a reservation for the ferry between north and south islands.