Rules to live by
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010As I move into a new phase of life, I’m also moving the travel blog into a new phase as well. I’ve started to look back through our photos and journals (more about that in another blog) to come up with things to write about. As we traveled we learned a lot and also started to get into some good habits. I’ll be sharing some of these gems and hopefully someone out there will find them useful.
Our number one travel rule is pretty simple and trumps all others: Whenever you find a decent toilet, use it. You really never know when you’ll cross paths with the next available/clean/functioning/free restroom, so don’t take any chances. Even if you just went at the last stop, try again. Let’s just say that there are some pretty scary bathrooms out there, and if you travel for any length of time, you’ll eventually have to use one.
Since that one was pretty obvious, I’ll move on to another rule we lived by: Whenever you stay at a new hotel check out a few blocks in all directions. It seems silly, but it’s easy toquickly get into a routine of going one way. One direction inevitably leads to “downtown” or maybe a better lit, better looking neighborhood. I fell into this trap in London and only found out after 2 years of staying at the same hotel for business that there was a 24 hour market just one block in the opposite direction. Doh!
If you never leave your “ant trail”, you’ll never know what great restaurant or park or shop might literally be just around the corner. So, rule number two is always take a short walk in the opposite direction. Of course, sometimes there’s nothing there but empty storefronts or dodgy people, but you might get a great travel story out of that too.
About the photo: We found a free shuttle bus to the train station just behind our hotel in Hong Kong. The concierge must have forgotten to tell us about that one.
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