Names and Places

What’s in a name?

Something I’ve learned over the past week of my sabbatical: naming a blog is like naming a kid or a pet – everyone has an opinion on the name you choose and none of those opinions align. I’m going to be traveling for 7 weeks, and enough people have asked me to send them pictures that I figured it would be easier to just start a blog for anyone to read and see pics. Boy, did I have that ALL WRONG. You can’t start a blog until you come up with a name for it, and it’s really hard to find something that conveys the right message, particularly when you don’t know what kind of message you want to convey. I was this close to naming it, Katherine’s Blog, and being done with the whole thing.

Fortunately, my Legacy-honed ability to work well under pressure and meet deadlines came through yet again, and I came up with this one. Generic enough to let me ramble about travel while also sneaking in a post to rant about the Cubs or Bears, all while satisfying my inner Harry Potter geek. So, I give you, The Blog That Shall Not Be Named.

Where to next?

Tomorrow, I am leaving (on a jetplane, of course) for nearly 7 weeks in Europe: 29 nights in Italy, 4 in Malta, 3 in Lithuania, 3 in Latvia, 4 in Estonia, and 4 in St. Petersburg. I’m excited, but mostly just glad it’s nearly here and I am done planning. Don’t get me wrong, I could plan trips for a living I love it so much, but it’s a lot to pull together in a fairly short amount of time.

A lot of people have asked me the same questions about this trip, so I’m going to do a little Q&A of the most common questions:

Are you nervous to be gone for so long?
Yes and no. I didn’t study abroad in college, and I’ve never been gone longer than 13 nights, so this is considerably different than anything I’ve ever done. But, I’m super excited to see all of the things I have planned in each of the 10 cities I’ll be visiting so I think that will distract from any homesickness. I’ll also have full technology use on my phone, so I can call/text/email if/when I’m feeling lonely.

How do you plan all of this?
Very carefully. Wherever possible, I use the guidebooks written by my travel hero, Rick Steves; I visit various travel forums for the places I’m visiting (Rick Steves, TripAdvisor, Fodor’s, etc.); and I do a lot of google searches. I work out an itinerary (how many nights in each place) and figure out transportation between cities. Then I put everything down that I want to see in a Word doc (I’m old school, but there’s probably an app these days) and start grouping my interests together based on when they’re open and where they’re located. I will occasionally move stuff around due to weather/interest/time/etc once I’m in a location, but for the most part, I like to go in knowing approximately what I’ll do in a given day.

My biggest fear for this trip is that I’ve screwed up a date somewhere without realizing it and have two hotels booked for one night and none for another. Hopefully, that homeless night is warm and dry…

How do you pack for 47 nights?
I spent A LOT of time on this for this trip, which is not the norm for me. The problem is the weather – traveling in spring means you could get very cool temps or really warm temps, or likely both. I’m also visiting Mediterranean countries and northern Baltic countries, which have really different climates. So I’ve hemmed and hawwed quite a bit over whether I should bring more short sleeves or long sleeves, pants or capris, sandals or boots.

My buddy Rick Steves will say to just bring 5 shirts and wash them, but he’s also a lunatic. There’s no way I can wear the same 5 shirts for 7 weeks if I don’t have to, so I’m bringing about 2 weeks’ worth of clothes and will do laundry in my AirBnBs. I need options. I’ll still only bring a travel backpack and a 22″ roller bag. How I’ll get all the stuff I buy home is another question that I’ll figure out…later.

Why do you do this?
I really love to see new places and experience new things and new cultures. There are 7 billion people living lives completely different than mine, and yet still the same in so many ways. I want to see and experience what they do, and I’m lucky enough to be able to so I go. My one goal with this blog is to hopefully encourage others to go, too!