Being and independent traveler always applies to me, and that's why I think you all might find this advice interesting and useful.
1. Always do your research before you go, and then have back up resources. I say this with all the wisdom that I possibly can. Before I visit a country with the intent of renting an apartment, taking public transportation and visiting specific sights; I do my research.
Recently we visited three countries in northern Europe and were intending to look around, but had some key points in mind. I wanted to visit two cathedrals and an island in Helsinki. I wanted to visit Kadriog and walk the city walls in Tallinn. I wanted to go to the ABBA Museum in Stockholm. Didn't seem like much to ask, however, I had to make sure that the activities would be open on the days of the week we were in town. It's mandatory. The Russian Cathedral isn't open on Mondays in Helsinki. There are daily hours for walking the city walls in Tallinn. The ABBA Museum is so popular you have to schedule your tickets in advance to get in. Had I not done my research, we may have missed out on some of the key things we were intending to do.
Always do your research. Always do it ahead of time. If an attraction says you need to schedule in advance; do it.
2. Be thorough when renting an apartment. This is important. I normally use VRBO to be fair. It's my style. We like to rent apartments when we can and when we're going to be out for a while. It's just so easy to live that way. You don't have to take so many clothes if you can do laundry. You have a kitchen for breakfast, snacks and even a meal if you don't feel like trudging around finding a restaurant that day. It's a great way to travel and not that much more expensive in most cases.
Here's a story for you, however. I showed up in Helsinki which was no problem getting from the airport to the train station as it wasn't our first trip to that city. We had a general lay of the land in our heads, because of previous experience. Finding our apartment should have been easy. I had all the information connected to my phone. All I had to do was go on my rental app and pull up the information and voila! We'd be settled.
Always have a backup plan. My phone's data for the country didn't kick in. It was solved by the following morning, but we needed to get into our apartment that night. We were supposed to go to a pickup location for our keys and then go a short distance to the apartment. What could possibly go wrong?
I couldn't connect with the app. I did finally get to use the Wi-Fi of the Subway sandwich shop in the train station and pulled it up that way, so it was solved, but it would have been easier had I just downloaded the instructions to my phone ahead of the mess. I will never not download instructions again.
We also discovered that addresses aren't all they're cracked up to be in Helsinki, and we had a terrible time finding the address of our apartment. Once we found it, it was a great place in a great location. It all worked out.
3. Location, location, location. About those apartments. Make sure that if you intend to take public transportation, your accommodations are near a stop. That seems simple, but it's not always. When you look to book accommodations online, take advantage of that little map. I always do. I will measure the distance from that location to the nearest bus, tram, metro, or train every time. You will need to get to where you are going every single day. Make sure you can get around easily.
As far as that goes, make that decision of whether or not to rent a car based on the geography of where you're traveling to. Does your location have good mass transit? If not, rent a car. When we went to Iceland and St. Lucia, it simply wasn't in the cards to use mass transit. Northern European cities and Porto; it was far easier to get around by mass transit than it ever would have been driving.
Once again, download a map, just in case. Always have a backup plan. I always have metro maps on my phone. Every time you think about where to stay, how far it is to the airport or whatever; remember to think about how willing you are to carry your luggage between stops.
Here's my story. I made this mistake. I couldn't really get a visual on Tallinn's old town. My fault. I saw pictures and videos. Didn't help. I rented an apartment in old town. The host only sent part of the instructions. Not good. I had to find someone with a local phone to call the host (I'd learned by then to download all my information). We finally got some help from one of the amazing locals. I love the people in Tallinn, by the way. Then, we had to drag our bag up a cliff. Oops! It was hard, but it all worked out. Always do your homework. Always make sure the mass transit will work for you.
4. Always make sure your connections are going to work out. Do a dry run. It's one thing when you're visiting a single location overseas. In most cases, you just go home the way you came. However, when visiting multiple locations and countries, and flying into one country and home from another; you need to make sure it will all work.
We had a couple of glitches last time.
One was in Tallinn. Tallinn was full of little glitches, but still well worth the visit. I'd visited Slavic countries before, and it wasn't a surprise some of the things we found. First, getting our mass transit cards was more difficult than it needed to be. How and where to get them wasn't really clear. We did figure it out.
One of the good things in Tallinn for the first timer was that there were no undergrounds. It was all bus and tram with trains and ferries. We could always see what was around us. That actually helped tremendously.
It helped because the maps at the stops were not reliable. After a bit of discovery that the trams in particular didn't always go where the maps said they did, and that there were different maps at nearly every stop; we decided to make a dry run to the airport to make sure we could get there when necessary.
Our first try was not good. We then had to regroup and try a different route. The second try worked. We had mapped out our route to the airport and found that the only accurate mass transit map was at the stop at the airport. Crisis averted and our trip to Sweden went off without a hitch.
We also made a dry run to the ferry port in Helsinki, but it was all good and the first try there worked. The trams in Helsinki that go to the ports have a T right in the line identity for terminal; as in ferry terminal. The dry run also allowed us to book our ferry passage to Tallinn ahead of time and then not have to wait in line with our passports on the day of travel. Win win.
5. Last, but not least; be flexible. While we were trotting around northern Europe, I was notified that there were some changes to our flight schedule for the trip home. The change was to a very early flight. Stockholm has a high speed connector train from the city to the airport, so it's an easy ride. However, our early flight left us having to leave the city before the train began running for the day. Also, the mass transit in the city wasn't running that early. We were staying in a district outside of downtown. So, how to get from our apartment to the train station and then to the airport before anything was running for the day? That wouldn't work.
I hopped on my app and looked for alternatives. What I found was that the same people who operated the apartment we were staying in, operated apartments at the airport. They were more than happy to switch us over, allowing us to travel to the airport the evening before. We stayed at their airport apartment and then took the shuttle to the airport in the morning. It all worked out, but you have to be flexible.
Due to the crazy flying schedule we ended up with, I also booked the night we got back at the hotel where we parked our car, so we could get some sleep before a sizable drive home. Be flexible. It will save you a lot of grief.
There you have it, some advice for independent travel. I still highly recommend independent travel. Just know that it all does land on your shoulders when you're not working with a company, but it's a rewarding way to travel, because it's you making all of your own discoveries around the world.
Be prepared, be flexible, have back up plans for anything on your phone, do your research and enjoy!
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