It’s yet another new world out there in travel, something I can well attest to having just returned from travels to Spain, Greece, Sicily and Rome. If the COVID period of travel when I last wrote my travel tips was a challenge, the new realities  offer their own challenges because of the tremendous number of people traveling. Will this trend continue? As we move into the last months of the year, with Thanksgiving, the busiest travel day of the year, and the holidays coming up, it’s likely yes. So to be ready, I thought it’d be helpful to share some of my travel tips fall 2023 to hopefully save you time, money, and  stress.

If you’re using frequent flyer miles overseas, book at least six or seven months out. I booked last December for July and had a limited number of airline choices despite my using a professional service that books travel with points (www.point.me) and a Chase Sapphire Preferred card that works with a number of airlines.

Plan on traveling with heavy luggage? If staying at a small hotel or B & B be sure to check if there’s an elevator. We often stay at Air Bnbs which indicates if there’s an elevator, but this year we stayed at a number of small hotels and B & Bs and ended up in one case having to take heavy suitcases up five floors (fortunately the manager got her driver to help us).

Worth repeating is to put the key information on all your flights and accommodations on the app TripIt. It’s a fabulous at a glance schedule of the itinerary and is constantly updating information like flight delays, airline terminal, departure time, baggage claim area and sends text alerts of changes if you want.

Planning your own day tours? Great resources we’ve used in numerous places, from Tunis to Istanbul and Palermo are: ToursbyLocals, private or small group tours, often themed by accredited guides; Context Travel, tours with an art and cultural bent; Culinary Backstreets, foodie tours and cooking classes. Others I have looked into but haven’t used (and look intriguing) are Air bnb experiences and Trip Advisor day trips.

If you need to transit through another country airport to get to your final destination, if possible choose a city with a new or relatively new international airport like Istanbul (one of the best), Doha, Dubai, Madrid (Barajas), Singapore and Rome (Fiumicino). They have the personnel and the facilities to deal with the crowds traveling now and you’re less likely to miss your connection.

Even if you have all your accommodations and flights in an app, I still recommend printing out the confirmations especially if  you have a complicated itinerary. This is especially important with accommodations. Some hotels require payment in advance, others require a deposit, and still others have an add on such as value add tax that you need to keep track of.  On the print out I indicate the payment status, especially with booking.com and expedia.com.

A great tip from a well traveled friend: “There is a fantastic app that I use when shopping in Europe for easy VAT reimbursement. It’s called ZappTax. Works in Spain, Belgium and France.”
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zapptax-shop-tax-free/id1254346990

What about safety a good friend asked? We felt pretty safe throughout our trip — to Spain, Greece, Sicily and Rome. Of course, we took  precautions — like walking around with only one credit card, a small amount of cash, and no ID nor flashy jewelry; in my case wearing a cross body purse or a small shoulder bag that was serious leather (I say this as a relative  had her Longchamp cloth tote bag cut through the bottom); and Mr. W put his wallet in his front pocket rather than back pocket (he subsequently bought cargo shorts with side pockets with a flap which was better yet). We also never left our luggage in our car unattended. In terms of cybersecurity, we both have Nord VPN and never charge our phones or computers at  public charging stations.  The one time we had an issue turned out to be a good news story. We went to a bank ATM that had instructions only in Italian. I took out my phone with google translate and then, tired from the flight, I left the phone at the ATM. When I got to our room I realized I didn’t have my phone. William called me and the police answered, They had my phone! So we walked to the station and were whole again!!!

Dear readers, any tips you’d like to share? Please comment below. And safe travels!