Taking the Low Road

Take a little liquid laundry soap
and be prepared to do hand laundry.

Here’s where I can get on a tear if I don’t watch myself. For reasons unfathomable to me, washers and dryers in the U.K. (and in all of Europe, from what I can tell), are absolutely pathetic. No matter how you slice it, one load in their teeny little front-loading washers (half a load in even an average-size U.S. washer) and anemic dryers takes three hours – minimum. That’s if you’re not drying jeans or towels; they take longer. Yes, longer, as in four hours.

Why? Why? Why? Most European countries have 240-volt electricity. They could toast their clothes in 10 minutes if they would just make their electrical engineers put on their little thinking caps. But I digress.

Now we’re back to the get-as-much-as-possible-from-our-trip mentality. We’re not babysitting laundry for four hours, period. You can if you want to, but we’ve found it’s quicker to hand-wash clothes as we go, let them line-dry while we’re out touring, and iron only if we really, really did a rotten job of pressing out the wrinkles by hand before hanging.

“Why not just drop them off at a local laundry?” you ask. That’s more time spent finding a reputable one and more than a little angst spent hoping they don’t turn my clothes into doll’s clothes. I simply don’t trust anyone else not to shrink my clothes. Since we pack very, very light, we can’t afford to have even one piece of our miniscule travel wardrobe taken out of the game.

Besides, it’s really not as bad as it sounds. First off, we’re not getting filthy digging ditches all day: we’re walking leisurely through world-class museums and historical houses. Secondly, it rarely gets what we’d call HOT in Scotland. Their summer “warm” is a wimpy 65 degrees. We just don’t get hot enough or exert enough effort to make it necessary to launder our clothes after every wearing, or even after every other wearing . . . or sometimes even after a whole week of wearing. Really.

After the first two trips, we realized that we Americans think we have to launder our clothes a lot more than is actually necessary. Taking a page from previous generations on both sides of the pond – who somehow managed to live for a very long time without automatic washers and dryers  – we hang our clothes in such a way that they can air out each night or during the day while we tour. Guess what? A lot of odors dissipate after 24 hours of hanging time.

So lighten up, resign yourself to a little hand laundry, and skip the expense of paying someone else to launder your clothes. Try out the washers and dryers if you like. Who knows? You might get lucky. But if your experience is the same as ours, you won’t be unpleasantly surprised and you will be mentally prepared to suds up your duds in the sink.

(I don’t have to tell you, do I, that packing dry-clean-only clothes is about as un-thrifty a wardrobe choice as you could make?)

Pack what you can’t live without for two days
in your carry-on.

This isn’t new information if you’ve done much traveling anywhere, but it’s particularly applicable to foreign travel. There’s just no accounting for where luggage ends up sometimes. There’s also no accounting for why it takes so long to catch up with you. There’s no accounting for how much out-of-pocket expense you might spend to replace your stuff. And there’s no accounting for the convoluted logic the airline will use to avoid reimbursing you for expenses you incurred when it lost your luggage.

This is another one of those hard-learned lessons. We left our coats, cameras, and toiletries in our checked luggage one trip – the only trip when our luggage’s ETA turned out to be a trifle later – as in two DAYS – than ours. We were dead in the water those two days of that trip – the shortest of all the trips we’ve taken, wouldn’t you know.

Lesson learned: pack anything that would be impossible or next-to-impossible to replace (my husband’s CPAP machine for his sleep apnea, for example) or anything that would be very expensive to replace (a whole cache of toiletries and medicines, digital camera, or smart phone). We each throw in an extra set of undies, jacket, hat, and camera in our carry-on daypack, and we’re set. We don’t miss a beat while the folks at American Airlines are trying to figure out where they sent our luggage.

Pack ALL the toiletries you’ll need.

This sounds more nitpicky than it actually is. I’m well aware that Rick Steves claims buying toiletries in a foreign country can be “fun.” I’d just like to point out that fun is a relative term, and my idea of fun must differ from Rick’s.

Here’s my main reason for advising you to avoid the toiletry aisle in Tesco; everything in it costs way more, even before the exchange rate. (I guess, without Walmart, there’s not enough competition to drive prices down to what we’re accustomed to paying in this country.) The frustration quotient is my second reason; it’s way higher than I’m comfortable with. Third reason? It’s wasted time.

I learned this the hard way a few years back. I’d run out of my three-in-one (cleaning-storing-wetting) contact lens solution. Replenishing it turned out to be a very expensive and time-consuming proposition – and this was in Scotland, where I could read the packages. If this had happened the year we toured Paris, I’d have been in trouble.

After running low on this and that during our first and second trips, I began to pay close attention to exactly how much of our toiletries we used. From then on, I was able to pack what we needed – and just a little bit extra. No more frantic shopping for contact lens solution. Just be sure you break everything into three-ounce or less containers; you know the drill.

Don’t forget OTC stuff either. With all the excitement of preparing for a four-week trip, not to mention the stress of getting four weeks’ worth of work done ahead of time, my body is usually run-down by the time we lift off and highly susceptible to whatever germs are zipping around the cabin. Not long after our arrival, I usually find myself with a first-class (unlike our cabin seating) head cold.

On our first trip, I made the mistake of packing minimal OTC medicines. After looking high and low for antihistamines, I asked a chemist (pharmacist) if antihistamines were unavailable in the U.K. No. Turns out they’re kept behind the counter, and you must ask for them. You don’t need a prescription. You just need to know to ask. When you’re jet-laggy and coming down with a whopper of a cold, your brain may not think to ask these sorts of questions. In fact, I find when I have any kind of physical problem, I don’t think too clearly.

Solution? Look in your medicine cabinet. Pack a week or two’s worth of every OTC that you normally keep in it. If it’s in there, you’ve obviously needed it. If you needed it in your own country, in your own home, going about your regular routine, there’s a 50-50 chance you just might need it on your holiday abroad. (We would all like to think not, but let’s be real.) Take it. It takes practically no room in your luggage. Then when your body begins to reel with a cold or flu . . . and your brain follows it, just go to your handy-dandy, home-away-from-home medicine kit; dose yourself; make an early night of it; and save yourself some time, frustration, and money. With any luck, you’ll feel way better the next day and won’t miss even one day of touring.

If you take any kind of prescription medication, you already know to pack enough for the entire trip, plus the prescription itself. If your copy is the predictably unreadable kind, ask your doctor’s office to e-mail a printed version for you to take – and tell them what country you’ll be visiting. They may know something you don’t about the pharmaceuticals available in that country and how lenient chemists can be – or not be. I’ve never had to track down a prescription medicine abroad, but I’ll bet it isn’t an easy process, especially if there’s a language barrier. And I’ll bet it isn’t an inexpensive process either.

Ever since 9-11, we’re all conditioned to the one-quart Ziploc bag routine, but I still pack our hanging toiletry bag. Why? Because spacious bathroom counters pretty much don’t exist in the U.K. – at least not in the places we’ve been. A savvy traveler told me this, as she sold me our toiletry bag 12 years ago: she said, “Trust me, honey, you’ll have to hang all your toiletries. There’s seldom anyplace to set them.” She was right. After we’ve made the airport security folks happy, I recombine all our toiletries and medicines into our one hanging toiletry bag, and we’re good for the remainder of our trip, or until we fly again.

Be okay with packing your own lunches and snacks.

Like Tip #2, this one’s kitchen-centric. Since, when we home-exchange, we have a fully equipped and well stocked kitchen (after we patronize the local grocer), it stands to reason that we should pack our lunches and snacks. It’s a no-brainer. It can be exactly what we like, and it’s quick . . . unlike waiting in the queue at the only kiosk outside Castle —– along with a tour bus of 60 European tourists. You’re wasting valuable time. The food is even more overpriced than at restaurants because the kiosk vendor knows he has a captive audience, and it’s usually pretty awful – not to mention skimpy. If you’re like me, you may begin to wilt from low blood sugar during the long wait. If you have diabetes or any other health issue (like my hypoglycemia) which makes it imperative that you eat at certain times, eat certain types of food, or avoid certain foods (I also have celiac), then preparing a sack lunch begins to look more and more sensible.

Ditto for snacks. We usually make sure we’ve eaten just before beginning a tour, snack between it and the next place, and have another snack before the hair-raising drive “home.” You’d be surprised how carrying your own food with you and maintaining a steady blood sugar level can keep you sharp, energized, and fully engaged on your long-awaited trip.

A quick explore through our exchangers’ kitchens has always yielded a thermos for coffee or tea. We bring our own heavy-duty plastic cutlery, space “blanket” (compact, 4 oz., metalized polyester often sold for camping emergencies) for picnics, collapsible plastic cups, and liquid hand sanitizer. (After we almost lost an exchange family’s fork, we decided not to take that sort of stuff out of an exchange home again!) We throw this stuff and our foodstuffs into one of our daypacks, and off we go – with no pricey food to scope out and buy during the entire time we’re out touring that day.

Think of food prep as part of the adventure.

I know what you’re thinking. “Fix food on my vacation?? Not a chance, sister!”

Hey, I’m with you. In fact, I can beat you at the non-cooking gig. As a rule, the kitchen is not the room where I hang out. In my early Mom Years, our kids thought a typewriter was a kitchen appliance. Now, in the Empty Nest Era, I’m the only woman I know who has to dust her stovetop. I don’t watch cooking shows. I don’t ask for other people’s recipes and, oddly enough, no one ever asks for mine. Go think. Eating is something I do to stay alive so I can do other things. Food prep? Something I do so that I can eat so that I can stay alive so that I can do other things.

Got it? I . . . DON’T . . . LIKE . . . COOKING . . . except when I’m in the Scottish Home Exchange mode because then, I’m not in my usual hike-up-the-skirts-and-run mode. I’ve noticed just living in someone else’s home and working in their kitchen gives me a different attitude toward food prep. And when I get to buy fresh-from-the-farm veggies in a quaint green grocer’s shop, dicker over lamb chops with a Scottish-brogue butcher, select baked-this-morning bread at a local pastry shop, and walk home with it all poking from my daypack (like a real European), I feel . . . like I’m a Scots woman living in Scotland – not the dreaded Ugly American.

Furthermore – here’s where it gets way weird – I actually enjoy rummaging around in a foreign kitchen, looking for the sieve, the vegetable peeler, and the bread knife as my husband and I prepare our evening meal. Seeing how someone in another culture does things and adapting to those ways makes even food prep downright exotic. Who knew cooking in someone else’s kitchen could be so much fun?

And furthermore – again – changing into comfortably loose lounge clothes after a packed day of touring and then eating leisurely by ourselves in peace and quiet just can’t be beat. At least, that’s what we think. And that’s before we factor in the huge cost savings.

It seems to us that most U.K. countries have done a more thorough job of limiting the number of discount stores and bland restaurant chains than the U.S. There’s good news and bad news here. The good news is that there are still plenty of thriving mom-and-pop stores, tea shops, pubs, and restaurants with a wide variety of good food on offer. The bad news? They’re all expensive – before the exchange rate. Depending on the year we traveled, we’ve had to multiply menu prices by 1.69, all the way up to 1.89 one year. While the rates are a tad more favorable for Yanks these days, you may still choke (we fainted) if you’re like most middle-class Americans accustomed to Denny’s . . . or Lenny’s . . . or whatever non-descript eatery you frequent most often here in the States.

When you prepare your own evening meal in a fully equipped kitchen in a foreign country, you not only save money, you learn a lot, run into more locals (who like talking to Yanks, for some reason) while grocery shopping, and feel more a part of the culture – all with a great deal more tranquility – than when you dine in a hotel that caters to loud-mouthed American tourists.

Join a home exchange program – or something similar.

I just happened to learn about a home exchange through a tiny little article in Scottish Life Magazine, way back in 1997. Turns out that two-paragraph article about a home exchange had been printed without the home exchange director’s permission. Oops. His is a “closed” home exchange, meaning the only way new members get in is through personal recommendation by existing members – not through media advertising or publicity. That’s how he controls the caliber of the membership. (Wondering how we got in? With a whole lot of impeccable references, lots of trans-Atlantic phone visits with the director, and a little shameless schmoozing.)

So. Don’t even ask. I can’t recommend you because I don’t know you. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can do your own research. Since we joined our home exchange in 1998, this sort of vacation method has become far more common. With the Net, it’s possible to do a lot of checking to ensure the organization you work with is legitimate. And you will want to do that; doing your due diligence in this case is essential.

Almost always, members in our exchange program are willing to exchange vehicles, as well as homes. We’ve even had exchangers leave their NTS or Historic Scotland membership cards for us to borrow (though I think that may have been just a teensy bit verboten).

So think about it. You have a nominal home exchange membership fee (ours is $85 USD), some sort of fee per exchange home (ours is $150 USD), and that’s it for lodging. Check out B&B costs in Scotland, factor in the exchange rate, and you’ll see that our $235 USD might get us two nights in a tatty inn or bargain-rate hotel (okay, maybe three nights, since the pound has recently taken a nose dive) – rather than the two weeks we spend in a stone cottage with all the mod-cons. And because we usually have the use of our exchangers’ car, we have no car rental fees and very little public transportation costs (other than the flight over the pond).

We’ve taken five trips (ranging from two and a half weeks to five weeks) to Scotland and other countries – all through our home exchange fella and have never – repeat, never – been disappointed. For that reason, we’ve never even looked for another home exchange or an alternative method. But I’m quite sure there are plenty out there. LOOK.

If I haven’t convinced you and you’re still a little queasy about allowing someone you’ve never met to stay in your home, research self-catering properties. Though there’ll be no vehicle with the property, at least you’ll be able to prepare your own food which is still a considerable savings.

Here’s the disclaimer right up front. My husband and I have traveled in the British Isles for a total of 17 weeks. Our tips our strictly our tips; they’re what we learned – sometimes the hard way – from our driving experiences. They’re not a compilation of anything we’ve read in any tour guide or friends’ experiences. As such, they may not jive with what Great Aunt Harriet told you or what someone who took public transportation might have told you. Can’t help it. Our experience is our experience.

Street signs are often hard to find – and optional.

Be aware that people walk in the UK. They don’t drive two blocks for a carton of milk as we Yanks are prone to do. You’ll probably be as surprised as we were by the large amount of pedestrian traffic at all hours of the day and night. Most all their signage is printed and posted with foot traffic in mind – down low – where pedestrians can easily see it.

That having been said, UK cities’ and villages’ solicitous concern for all who are trying to find their way around stops right there. Evidently, their cities and villages have few or no rules or codes for street signs. You’ll have to keep a sharp lookout, as they don’t uniformly show up on posts at street intersections. While walking, you have plenty of time to search all over each intersection for these signs. While driving – on the left side of the road from the right side of the car in an unfamiliar city – you don’t.

You might find one a couple of feet up from the sidewalk on the front of a building on the SW corner of an intersection. The next one might be at chest height on the opposite side of the street, again, on a building – but in a different color and completely different style. The next one might be an actual street sign on a pole at the NE corner of the intersection. But there might be none at all at the next intersection.

That brings us to our Tip #2.