Brad in Boots Travel: February 2019

Not taking my trusty bike

There is around three months to go before my trip away and my last travel blog I wrote was back in August. Obviously by now I am a bit more organised with my trip away. During this period, I have finished my bachelor’s degree in Historical Inquiry and Practice. Also, I have graduated with a trip to Armidale to collect my degree. I could have blogged the trip away, but it wasn’t really that huge of a trip. The degree explains why I am planning my trip around some historic locations with a history flavour.

Guide books

During this period, I have changed the travel arrangements even though I am still heading to the same locations. Logistics seems to be a huge part of organising my trip away. I had to go back and review what I could physically accomplish. One part of my journey in the UK, I had thought going from Portsmouth to Brighton and finish in Canterbury by train would be fun. The journey became very expensive. Looking at the UK Rail journey website it gave me a calculation of around £40 or $72 Australian dollars. Deciding I should review the large expense, I managed to find rail and coach to Canterbury via London to be around £12 or $21 Australian dollars. A huge difference in prices. Although you cannot book UK rail journeys until you are 12 weeks away, I had no problem booking a coach journey.

More travel guides and reality checks

The fun part of looking into the logistics has been the ability to book my German railway tickets around December. Don’t know what First Class would be like on the journey from Frankfurt to Berlin would be, but I aim to find out and the ticket emailed to me was in German. In the last week I was able to book my tickets online to Amiens in France, but they will be mailing my tickets out to me for free. The rest of the railway tickets I have to wait for the next few weeks before I can start making my reservations. There are some travel blogs I have used to give me an understanding of some of the railway stations and even some travel in Europe.

I have been listing what I am wanting to see while at every location, I am visiting. This means including long lists under the destination. I now have a 9 or so page master list that I will print off before I leave. It doesn’t mean I will see everything, but there are some sights I do want to see like one UNESCO listed cemetery in Stockholm, grave of Jules Vern in Amiens, Tyne Cot Cemetery in Ypres. There will be some locations that I will include onto my Youtube channel too as there is always plenty to see. I have to remember to pace myself and there are some guide books that I have found I would over extend myself if I even try doing what I want in one whole day. I have wanted to do the Waterloo battle site and the Herge museum (Tintin) on the same day, but realise I might actually be asking too much when the train journey between the two locations is around an hour. There is the Smurfs museum in Brussels and the Captain Cook museum in Whitby. I am doing some family tree research while I am floating through the UK, right after Brexit so hopefully there is no huge teething problems when I am visiting.

There have been potential problems that I would not say that are extreme in any way. Problems that could cause some delays. I accidentally found I had booked my stay in Copenhagen during a five-day music festival called Distortion in May. I had wondered why accommodation in Copenhagen was being booked out and then you have the travel articles calling Copenhagen the travel destination of 2019. The house, dance and Techno music isn’t the type of music I usually listen to, I have bought a ticket to this event as I will have night entertainment. My accommodation is next to the railway station too, so should be interesting. I am staying in the red-light district in Frankfurt, but its not a real problem at all. I think it would be entertaining especially after getting off a long flight. I have been checking websites for updated entry times to sites like Dover Castle. Around December the website said it would be closed the day I wanted to visit and when I checked back a week ago, I found that it would be open on the day I wanted to visit. Last time I was in the UK the castle was closed during the week in winter. I do have to remember other countries are not like Australia where many tourist destinations close in the chilly months.

To make my life easier with museum entry and travel, I will get hold of the local travel passes for example the Frankfurt Pass that grants entry to museums and other tourist destinations within the city. Not every location I am visiting will have one, but I think it will make my journey through the cities interesting. I have reached out to some museums through Instagram and even Twitter to ask questions and they have answered my questions. Social media seems to be gaining a huge footprint in tourism in 2019 and could become bigger. The trip is always getting closer and they days does seem to be moving quicker. I have never been on an eight week holiday before so it should be interesting and budgeting for the entire time.