Every place you visit is different and every trip is different.  Some trips are for relaxing (ie. Hawaii), some are for activity (ie. hiking in Wyoming), some are for sight seeing (ie. Paris).  But there are five things that we do on every trip and you should too.  Here they are:

Visit a Grocery Store

Once we had kids, we started going to the grocery store on all our trips, to get milk, diapers, snacks, whatever, and I realized it is a must for every trip whether we needed something or not.  Whether you are in Vermont or Italy, a local grocery store or market gives so much insight into the local culture and is a delicious excursion.  It doesn’t have to be a fancy grocery store or farmers market, any will do.  In Paris, the cheese section is incredible; in Italy, the pasta section takes up an entire aisle; in Bali, there are fruits I have never seen before; in Death Valley, there was chili and hot sauce galore.  It is fascinating and a treat for the senses.

Eat/Drink the Local Specialty

Sometimes you LOVE the local specialty, ahem Italian pasta, sometimes not so much, ahem bibimbap (just not my thing), but it is a fun adventure either way.  I have found this to be even more important with kids.  Our kids are relatively picky eaters (white foods 24/7), but by exposing them and trying new things ourselves, they have slowly started to occasionally eat more diversely at home too.

Learn These 5 Phrases in the Local Language

I am terrible at languages, it is not my thing, so in general, I do not try to learn a ton of the language of a country we are visiting.  90% of the time, you can get by with English, some grand hand gestures, and a big smile.  However, I have found that 5 key phrases in the local language go a long way towards building relationships to then shift into hand gestures and smiles.  The five phrases I try to learn wherever we go are:

Hello/Good Morning/Good Evening/Good Night
Please
Thank You
Yes/No
Excuse Me

Walk Around

We are big hikers/walkers in our everyday lives, so it is probably not surprising that when we travel we do A LOT of walking (20,000-30,000 steps a day).  When we travel, I have found that walking is the best way to see a city.  It gives you the opportunity to talk to locals, see the scenery, and stop along the way.  The first thing we do when we get to almost any location is go for a walk to see what is happening and orient ourselves to where we are staying.  The picture below was from a trip Mr. H and I took to Naples, Italy this fall.  We arrived at 11PM and the streets were ALIVE.  We dropped our bags at the hotel and got out to stretch our legs and take in the night life, incredible!

Take Public Transit

Trains, planes, and automobiles, public transit is an adventure and kids LOVE it.  We try and take a bus, train or something in every country we go to.  It is a total adventure, sometimes successful, sometimes not as much, but fun either way.

So those are our five travel musts for any and every trip, what are yours?

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save