The Art of Travels - Part I (Bardalo II)

My own attempt at being creative ;P

I have always been fascinated by all kinds of artworks and this fascination continues on even while I am travelling! To me, art and travelling goes hand in hand and art is another aspect from which I can obtain a better understanding of the culture of the place that I am visiting! Art, is in itself, a creative form and in order to appreciate it, one would have to think out of the box and in a rather creative manner. I found this approach relevant and helpful when trying to understand a new place when travelling. It helped me to see that new place from all corners and opened up new perspectives which makes travelling all the more interesting!

Street art in Singapore

Amazing art on the buildings in Paris!

I have recently came to appreciate street art and some of these street arts that I came across while travelling had left me dumbstruck and just in awe by what was captured by my eyes. Since then, it had become a game of treasure hunt whereby I find contentment in being able to see the beauty hidden in our surroundings! Art is everywhere and if you keep a lookout, you would be able to find it in the least expected places.

Art found in the least expected place, Singapore

Of all the various street artists, there is this particular street artist whose works I had started to follow and he is none other than Bardalo II, a Portuguese artist. It was his latest project “Big Trash Animals” that had caught my attention. In this project, he basically collects large waste materials (such as damaged bumpers, burnt garbage cans, tires, and other appliances) and assembles them to form a huge realistic animal form. Bardalo II started this project to draw attention to the current problem of waste production, where there is a generation of a huge amount of materials that are not reused resulting in pollution that ultimately has a negative impact on planet Earth!

Bardalo II's "Red Squirrel" in Dublin

Bardalo II’s artworks are hard to miss due to the sheer size of the mural and his artworks are displayed in many countries (which resulted in a personal goal of trying to locate as many of his artworks as possible while travelling). I find his artworks mesmerising mainly because it really takes a lot of creativity to create an animal mural out of things that had been deemed as trash and doing it in a way that makes people forget about everything else but just to focus on the beauty of the artwork.

Bardalo II's "Big Racoon" in Lisbon

Bardalo II's "Plastic Fox" in Lisbon

Bardalo II's "The Beaver" in Paris (Note: the man in the photo as reference to the size of the artwork)

Hope that you have enjoyed the artworks presented in this post. Do look forward to the upcoming coverage of street art found in the various different countries! Cheers! :)

To travel or not to travel, that is the question to ask thy wallet...or not?

To many, travelling means having to fork out large amount of money which resulted in them not travelling as often as they would like to. But is that true? Is there really a need to spend a large portion of your savings on your travels? Are there ways to get the most bang for your buck so that you do not have to compromise on your travelling experiences? Well, my husband and I do have some tricks up our sleeves that has enabled us to keep our travel spending in check and we would like to share them with you!

Prior to the trip

In a typical scenario, one would usually follow the sequence of first deciding on the travel destination, followed by online booking of the relevant flights and accommodation and ta da, the trip is set! Or is that so? Well, you could actually save quite a bit if you tweak that routine slightly.

For us, we will “F.A.R.T.” prior to the trip to make sure that we are getting the best travel deal possible! Wait, what? No, I know what you are thinking of but that is not the case, it is just an acronym for “flexibility”, “apps”, “research” and “time”.

Flexibility

It is a common practise to fix a travel destination so that the planning that follows can be done seamlessly. However, by being fixated on a particular destination, one would be subjected to a limited range of flights and accommodation available and no matter how costly they may be, one would have no choice but to make do with this high cost.

It is a common knowledge that every country has its own high and low tourist season, and generally the flight and accommodation will be cheaper during the low season. But why do we still want to travel to places during their peak tourist season? Wouldn’t it seem like a better deal to be able to enjoy all the perks of travelling to a foreign land without the need to fight for space with tons of tourists and better still, at a lower cost?

Although it may be true that there are many alluring reasons for the influx of tourists to particular travel destinations at specific timing of the year, there are still many wonders to be uncovered during the low tourist season of the same said destination. Furthermore, there might be other even more interesting activities awaiting you during the low season! With the world so big, saturated with many different places to travel to and explore, by exercising flexibility in your travel expectations as well as travel destination choices, you will find that you have actually opened up a lot more cost-saving options!

Travel goal: To be as flexible as the Tower of Pisa ;P

With a change in mindset, my husband and I will usually select “anywhere” as our destination on the flight booking apps when planning for a trip. This will generate a list of destinations for us to have a rough gauge of the travelling cost to these different destinations. If a particular flight booking app does not have the “anywhere” option, we would manually key in several different destinations and compare the travelling cost.

To step up the game, we would also be flexible in our travelling dates by playing around with the travel to and fro dates within a two week time frame. You would be surprised by how great a difference in the transport cost travelling a day or two earlier or later could make! With just these two methods alone, we could then make an informed decision on the most cost-effective destination to travel to for that particular time of the year.

However, things does not end here as we will usually shortlist two to three destinations from the list of destinations generated. Thereafter, we will use the hotel booking apps to have a general feel of the accommodation cost at the selected destinations. The destination that we finally decided on will be the one that is most cost-effective in terms of both flight and accommodation cost! In short, rather than allowing our travel destination limit the flight and accommodation choices, we have allowed our flight and accommodation choices to pinpoint to our travel destination!

Bonus tip #1: Be careful when selecting flights with the lowest cost, especially for flights at very weird timing of the day. The main reason being if the flight is scheduled for very early in the morning or very late at night, there might not be any public transportation to the airport and thus would require travelling by taxi, which can be quite costly in some countries! Hence, when selecting your flights, do factor in the transportation cost of travelling to and fro the airport as well - the cheapest flight might not be as cheap as it seems in the end!

Apps

Flight/accommodation booking apps can make trip planning a much easier task. We have found these apps extremely useful in providing the data that we need to be flexible about our travel destination as mentioned earlier on. Our usual go-to app for flights is “skyscanner”, which will scan through all the available flights and list them out in order of their cost. Although there is the option to book the flights directly through skyscanner, we would usually not book through them but through apps or website which offered loyalty programme. Some of these apps or websites include “Expedia” or “booking.com”, which basically rewards customers who always do their travel bookings through them, either in terms of points (to be redeemed later on) or flight/accommodation cost at discounted rates. If you are already a user of such apps/websites, I would recommend to stick to them as sometimes their members’ price or rewards scheme can be quite attractive which is useful in cutting down on the travel expenses. These apps/websites, apart from being good sources to check out the accommodation prices of the selected destinations, may also offer greater discount if both flights and accommodation are booked through them. Of course, with so many different travel apps and website available, there is a need to be prudent and only go for the reputable ones so as not to fall victim to online scams.

Bonus tip #2: Using a credit card that offers rebates or websites that offers cashback for purchases done through them would be like adding a cherry on top of a great travel deal!

Bonus tip #3: If the trip is more or less confirmed with no reason for a change in plans. you may consider booking the non-cancellable rooms as they are usually cheaper than the cancellable ones. A good thing to look out for when looking through the accommodation option would be to opt for one with free WIFI in the room and free breakfast. This may seem trivial but being able to have access to the Internet might be essential to prepare for the next day’s itinerary in the comfort of the room and a good breakfast also enables you to have the energy for the day’s exploration. Furthermore, hotel breakfast also ensures that you can start your day at your scheduled timing and not be left at the mercy of the opening hours of the outside bakeries or restaurants.

Research

If time permits, it would do some good to research on the travel destination. As bulk of travel expenses are spent on transportation, food and admission tickets to attraction sites, doing some brief research on these might help to save some money. The public transport system is different in different countries and it would be good to have a clear idea of how it works prior to arrival. Having some knowledge of the public transportation system would allow for travelers to make informed decision about the most economical transportation to and fro the airport, the most value-for-money public transport to utilize out of all the various options and whether to pay cash for each individual ride or to get a day transportation pass.

Be aware of the public transport system of your travel destination!

Bonus tip #4: While researching on the public transport system, making a mental note of the hotels that are located in close proximity to the tourist attraction sites to visit would help in prioritizing the choice of hotel accommodation. Choosing a hotel that are within walking distance to the attraction sites can minimize the use of the public transport and hence help to save some money!

As for food, we usually read through travel forums or google review sites to identify the most value-for-money eateries. It would be a bonus if we managed to find information on the eateries that the locals usually frequent. One such example would be the hawker center in Singapore, where it is usually packed with locals and offering delicious food that are around 3-4 times cheaper than those in restaurants! If there are no information that we can find online, we will usually ask the hotel staff or even locals that we meet during the trip on the eateries that they usually go to - nothing beats getting information directly from the horse’s mouth!

Having the best churros at this cafe frequented by the locals :)

Bonus tip #5: Try to keep an open mind about which eateries to visit while travelling because in some places, the best eateries are often not mentioned online and which are only known to the locals! Although equipped with a list of eateries to head to during our travels, my husband and I will still be on the lookout for these “hidden” eateries! Once we have identified one of such eateries, we will step in to explore the place slightly (looking out for signs like reasonable food prices and whether the customers seemed satisfied with the food) before making a bold move to dine in there. More often than not, we have had the most delicious and value-for-money meals in such eateries!

Apart from transportation and food, payment for admission tickets to the various attraction sites is another major money-draining area of a trip. As most tourist attraction sites worldwide have made their site information available online, it would be good to do some online research and check out for promotional bundled admission ticket deals to the various attraction sites as well as checking out if there are discounts for tickets purchased online instead of at the attraction site counter. It might also be good to try and use credit cards that offers rebates when purchasing admission tickets online. Although all these savings does seem trivial, when these little savings add up, it an help save a lot of money!

Bonus tip #6: Try to look out for special dates whereby there are free entrances to the attraction sites (for example, most museums and major tourist attraction sites in Paris offer free admission on the first Sunday of the month) or discounted tickets at certain time of the day (some museums might offer discounted admission tickets at night on certain days of the week) and plan your visits accordingly!

Look out for free admission to the Louvre in Paris to catch a glimpse of Mona Lisa!

Time

As mentioned earlier on, we would usually allocate a time frame of two weeks to schedule in our travels so that we can afford to find the cheapest flight and accommodation option of the week. In addition, we usually do not wait till the very last minute to book my flights and accommodations as the price will usually go up nearer to the actual date. Planning earlier in advance would also enable us to have more time to find the best deal, hence time is the essence in more savings when planning a trip!

Tick tock....tick tock...

Bonus tip #7: Sign up for frequent flyer programs so that you can get the first hand alerts on promotional flight deals which can be quite attractive at times!

During the trip

So then, are these cost saving tips only applicable to the planning stages of the trip? What if you are already on the trip and would like to save some money along the way as well? Well, fret now, as we do have another set of cost saving tips to use during the trip and that is “S.T.O.P.”, which stands for “sim card” “tours”, “offbeaten paths” and “packing”.

Learn more about the local lifestyle while travelling :)

Even before we “S.T.O.P.”, we would evaluate the living standards of our travel destination upon arrival. Why do we even do that? Well, having a rough idea of the standards of living would enable us to know roughly if the cost of transport, food, souvenirs and other items are going to be more or less costly from where we came from and in turn, we would know how much local currency we would need to exchange for at the money exchange counters. It would also prep us to make mental evaluation of whether the cost that we are paying for in any instances are reasonable. There are many ways to evaluate but the one that we use most often is to compare the price of a MacDonald’s set meal. The set meal at MacDonald’s are more or less similar in different countries and since MacDonald’s can be found in almost anywhere in the world, we find it to be a rather useful gauge of the standard of living in different places!

Sim card

Staying connected, whether is it with our travelling partners or to the world wide web, is a necessity during our travels. Even though many telecos have the international roaming option which offers users the convenience of using their own telephone sim card, it can be quite costly to use them. Hence, whenever we touch down on our travel destination, my husband and I would usually start looking around for an appropriate local sim card to be used during our travel period. More often than not, this local sim card will come in handy when we are lost and require the use of google maps to find back our bearings or to book admission tickets online or even to call and make reservations at restaurants. It is definitely a less costly way to stay connected as compared to the use of international roaming!

Bonus tip #8: When travelling to different places within the same continent, try to find a sim card that can be used in the various different country of the same continent as that sim card would usually be more budget friendly as compared to buying individual sim cards for use in each country. In the event that the local sim card is too costly or difficult to get, fret not as you can still use the free WIFI back in the hotel or public areas to do all the necessary googling as well as screen-shot a series of maps of the places to visit for the day as references.

Tours

Sometimes, while travelling, we might identify certain places that are located quite near to where we are but which can be a hassle to travel to. Hence, for cases like this, we would usually look out for local tour agencies that offers day trips to the places that we are interested to visit. Of course, there is a need to evaluate if the cost of these day trips are reasonable but so far, we had enjoyed all our day tours which enabled us to visit places out of the city and saved us the trouble of figuring out how to get their on our own. I guess paying slightly more for the intangible convenience is certainly justifiable!

Bonus tip #9: Many countries (especially in Europe) offer “free” walking tours around the city, usually led by one of the local volunteers to share the historical stories of the city as well as to bring tourists through the major landmarks. At the end of the tour, tourists are free to tip these volunteers as they deem reasonable. We had joined many of these walking tours and have found these tours useful in getting to know more about the place that we are visiting! It also saved us the hassle of having the look up the history and significance of the various important landmarks located in the tourist attraction sites! Furthermore, meeting like-minded people who are interested to find out more about the place of visit is indeed an added bonus!

Offbeaten paths

Although there are often a list of “must-see” attraction sites in every country, my husband and I are not the type to follow the conventional ways. We prefer to explore the offbeaten paths and will try every possible means to explore places that not many people are aware of. Often, when we return with stories of discovering a unique place which even the locals are unsure of, there is a sense of accomplishment knowing that we manage to do things differently. Furthermore, as these offbeaten paths are not as well known, we usually have the whole place to our own, without the need to fight for space with tons of other tourists. Having the luxury of exploring a place at our own pace in our own little space certainly make such exploration all the more wonderful!

Not sure which path to take....

Bonus tip #10: Do make sure to do sufficient research on the offbeaten paths before embarking on it to so as to minimize risk of running into any danger!

Packing

Most budget airlines impose a fee on checked baggage and hence for all of our travels, my husband and I would usually try to pack all our stuff into our own cabin bag so as to save on the checked baggage fees. However, regardless of whether we are taking an international flight or a budget airline, we will still stick to one cabin bag each because (a) we can avoid having to wait at the baggage carousel and can leave for the city straight after exiting the immigration checkpoint and (b) it is easier to travel with less baggage!

We will also usually pack an additional item when travelling on a budget airline and that is food! Most budget airlines charge extra to cater food on board and we often find the food selection to be quite limited as well, hence most of the time, we would pack our own food to have on board. This not only helped to save some money but also ensures that we are fuelled up on food that we actually like and which indirectly translates to a great beginning of the trip when we touch down!

Bonus tip #11: My husband and I will usually pack some instant food or snacks to bring along for our travels in case the food at our travel destination is not to our liking or the cost of living is too high to be always eating out. This little habit of ours not only helped us to save on our travel expenses, but it has also armed us with enough food stores to fuel our energy needs especially when travelling on the offbeaten paths where it might be difficult to get access to eateries.

Try something different when travelling...you never know what exciting surprise awaits you!

So, there you go - our “F.A.R.T.” “S.T.O.P.” strategies for getting the best bang out of our buck for our travels! What are some of YOUR strategies to save money while travelling? Feel free to share with us in the comment section below! Looking forward to hearing from you! :)

Guided tours or free-and-easy style of travelling? Part II - A guided tour to Morocco

Following on from my previous post that compared guided tours with free-and-easy style of traveling, in this post, I will run through my considerations and highlight the main key take-aways of joining a guided tour for our recent trip to Morocco. Despite previously stately that going free-and-easy was our preferred way of travelling, my husband and I still ended up signing up for a tour package to Morocco. So why the change? Did we want to do things differently? Have we figured out something that makes one style of traveling more superior than the other? Well, as in all my other posts, we believe that the key to making a trip enjoyable is to select a choice that is most suited for that particular trip. In this case, we have decided that joining a guided tour was the best option. The two deciding factors that pushed us to sign up for the tour package were time and safety. Other considerations that further fueled this decision included ease of traveling within Morocco, presence of a local guide / experience driver and presence of group mates with common travel interest.

Time constraint

We decided to head to Morocco towards the end of our Europe tour - which translated to lots of packing of our stuff to be shipped back to our home country. This indirectly resulted in us not having as much time to research on the places that we would want to visit in Morocco or to plan our route accordingly. There were many places in Morocco that we desperately wanted to visit and as we did not want to give any of those destinations up owing to time constraint, a tour package that can provide a succinct overview of Morocco in a condensed amount of time sounded ideal.

Safety concerns

Safety is always a priority when it comes to traveling for both my husband and I. Although many have mentioned that Morocco is a relatively safe place for free-and-easy travellers, we were still not confident of traveling on our own in this foreign land as we had came across quite a few horror accounts of travelers who had just returned from Morocco. Furthermore, it would be our first time traveling to the African continent and we were not sure what to expect and questions as follows started to pop up in our heads:

• Would the language barrier be a huge problem for us?

• How reliable are the public transport system there since there is a need to cover mountainous paths and long distances between places?

• Are things done differently in general, i.e. what are the dos and don’ts for each region?

In view of these concerns, joining a guided tour with a well-thought travel route and experienced guide knowing how to deal with unexpected situations on the ground seemed like a better bet!

Ease of traveling within Morocco

In Morocco, there is a need to travel long distances to get from one town to another and travel routes have to be planned carefully so that accommodation options are within reach when night falls. Joining a guided tour would take away all the worries on route planning and we would enjoy the ease of traveling from one town to another. I realized the importance of this when I fell sick on the trip and had wanted nothing more than to rest on the van during the long road journeys. If we had been traveling on our own, we would not have the luxury to do that and we might even have to fret over getting onto the correct public transportation to get to our destinations. Furthermore, in every country, there are just some places that are only known to the locals and apart from taking care of all our transportation for the trip, our local guide would, at times and if time permits, lead us to photogenic and off beaten places that only the locals know. Through this, we could easily see another side of Morocco without the need to wander about or getting lost trying to find unique places to explore.

Presence of a local guide / experienced driver

Joining a guided tour would mean the presence of a tour guide who will provide information and history of the places of visit. In the case of our Morocco trip, a local guide was assigned to us and not only did we get to know more in depth about the place of visit, we got to know it from a local’s point of view! In addition, the presence of a local guide also fulfilled our desire to interact with the locals and to know more about the culture and way of life through these interactions. Apart from our local guide, we were also assigned an experienced local driver for whom we were grateful for many a times when we had to navigate through the treacherous mountain roads. I certainly cannot imagine entrusting my life to any other random drivers if my husband and I had decided to tour Morocco on our own! Owing to the presence of our guide and driver, my husband and I need not bother about doing any in depth research for this trip or fumble about liaising with the hotel or making advance booking for tickets to the various tourist attraction spots and could literally just sit back and enjoy the trip where everything is taken care of!

Presence of group mates with common travel interest

Other than the fact that there was safety in numbers, it was also quite fun to travel in a group. Apart from having someone to help my husband and I to take photo (we seldom have couple photos when traveling on our own), we are basically grouped together with people with the same travel interest. It was especially enjoyable when we take turns to share our travel experiences with the group whenever we sat down together for a meal or for a break. There was also strength in number, especially when we want to negotiate with our guide on alternative places to explore!

Draw backs of joining a guided tour for our Morocco trip

Even though we decided to join a guided tour, there are inevitably some drawbacks to it as well. For one, there is less flexibility be it in terms of places to visit, the amount of time given to visit a particular site or the choice of restaurants for our meals. The best example of such inflexibility was during our trip to Fes. As listed on the day’s itinerary, we were scheduled to visit the shops selling local products even though most of us were not interested in purchasing any and would rather spend the time exploring more of the other parts of Fes or to proceed on to Chefchaouen. The need to cover all the places stated in the itinerary within the short seven days tour often also resulted in a rather rushed trip. On certain days, there were so many places packed into a day’s itinerary that it literally felt like we were rushing from one place to another, with just a touch-and-go approach to the visits. Thankfully, there were other days where the pace was slower and we could make use of the time to ask our local guide about the places that we visited in a hurry.

Just want to take a break...

A cooperative spirit among members is important for the proper functioning of a tour group. Another draw back of a guided tour is that there might be the presence of some “black sheeps” who will spoil all plans for the whole group. A good example of this would be some of our tour mates wandering off by themselves during the first two days of our tour which resulted in our guide having to spend time to relocate them and hence having lesser time to guide us through the place of visit. Fortunately, this “phenomenon” only lasted for the first two days of the trip and everyone started to be cooperative for the good of the whole group thereafter!

Glad that everything turned out well!

Lastly, the price attached to a package tour can be a huge drawback as well. If we were to be calculative, it would be quite evident that the cost of joining a package tour would be higher than the total amount of money we would have spent if we had traveled on our own. However, in this case, we figured out that that extra cost had saved us quite a bit of trouble and was definitely money well spent!

The precious memories are for us to keep...

In conclusion, given the variety of traveling style, there is a need to weigh the pros and and cons of each traveling mode to identify the style that best fit a particular trip. For our trip to Morocco, the perks of joining a guided tour definitely outweighs its drawbacks and my husband and I were glad that we made the decision to join the package tour which enabled us to have such an enjoyable and unforgettable trip. Would we continue to stick to guided tours for our future trips? Well, we will definitely go through the mentioned considerations again and who knows, we might even try other styles of traveling.....

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Related posts:
Guided tours or free-and-easy style of travelling?

Dear Diary.....Casablanca (Morocco)

Dear Diary.....Marrakesh (Morocco)

Dear Diary.....Ouarzazate (Morocco)

Dear Diary.....Todgha Gorge and Sahara Desert (Morocco)
Dear Diary.....Ziz valley, Kasbah Asmaa hotel and Ifrane (Morocco)
Dear Diary.....Fes and Chefchaouen (Morocco)
Dear Diary.....Rabat (Morocco)
#random_thoughts........Morocco

What is travel fatigue and how to overcome them?

Have you ever felt constantly tired after a period of travelling? The initial excitement of going on a particular trip has worn off and you cannot bring yourself to explore yet another must-go touristic site? Do you suddenly feel that all the places you are visiting looked more or less the same and cannot help but wonder why you want to visit all of them in the first place? Are you puzzled over how much you preferred sleeping in over going for the walking tour that you had signed up for with much enthusiasm at the start of the trip? Are you already sick and tired of the local foods and delicacies whose photos had never fail to make you drool while you were planning the trip? Do you just wish that you are back at home now? Well, all these could be signs of travel fatigue, a point in time during your travel when your mind is suffering from information overload coupled with the physical exhaustion of the travel which eventually leads to the body shutting down emotionally.

I, for one, have fallen victim to travel fatigue several times. Believe me when I say that I love to travel, to explore and experience the different cultures all over the world, to taste the local delicacies, to see the many wonderful man-made architectural wonders as well as to immerse in the beauty of Mother Nature. However, despite my love for travelling, I too, am not spared from the clutches of travel fatigue.

So, are there any remedies for travel fatigue? Well, as travel fatigue affects everyone in many different ways, with its onset and duration varying among different individuals, it is important to slow down and observe when and how one starts to feel its onset. Targeted approaches can then be applied to overcome it. For me, my strategies to overcome travel fatigue can be expressed by the acronym P.R.E.S.S.:

Prevent the possibilities of developing travel fatigue

I have always believed in the notion “prevention is better than cure”. Hence, after a few episodes of struggling with travel fatigue, I figured out there is a need to identify my triggers for travel fatigue and to prevent them from occurring. For one, I noticed that I tend to fall prey to travel fatigue with an increase in the duration of my trip. After a few trial and error, I finally figured out that a short trip covering only one location might be better for me as compared to a two weeks long trip covering multiple destinations. The need to adjust and adapt to different systems in different countries over and over again in the same trip proved that it could get quite overwhelming for me at times. This often resulted in me seeing things in a blur and not enjoying the trip at all! Hence, for now, my husband and I have opted to do weekend trips to just one particular location each time more frequently. We found ourselves enjoying our trips much more after making this change.

Other than shortening the duration of our trip, we also looked at other aspects that would aid us in preventing the onset of travel fatigue. The two most prominent aspects were making sure we had proper rest and ensuring we had adequate nutrition prior to the trip. In the past, I used to spend quite a bit of time trying to perfect my trip itinerary (often at the expense of my sleeping and meal timings) and I would end up feeling mentally and physically exhausted at the start of the trip. The exhaustion coupled with the sudden influx of external stimuli and having to rapidly adapting to changes during the trip often resulted in two scenarios: (1) my body slowing shutting down emotionally in response to all these stimuli = onset of travel fatigue; and (2) my immune system cracking under all these pressure = me falling sick during the trip = instant trigger for travel fatigue! Hence, in order to prevent all these from happening, I have learnt to take things easy and to give priority to good rest and good nutrition prior to a trip!

Relax

So what happens when we still suffer from travel fatigue despite all the preventive measures taken prior to the trip? Relax is the key! What better way to overcome the mental stress of trying to figure out how things works, navigating our way around in a foreign land and struggling with language barrier during a trip than to take it easy and learn to relax? As a perfectionist, I tend to want to make sure that I covered all the places that I had identify prior to a trip and this has undeniably caused me much unnecessary mental stress. Over time (and with constant reminder from my dear husband), I soon start to learn to relax and to go with the flow of things without getting all fussed up and obsessed over my itinerary. By learning to take things easy, not only have I reduced the probability of a bout of travel fatigue, I have also had the time to really observe and immerse myself in the culture and way of life of the places that I am visiting. That, to me, is without a doubt how travelling should be!

Eat

Food is an important element of a society and in order to learn more about the culture of a place, we often made it a point to try out the local delicacies during our travels. However, food preference is still after all very subjective and undeniably, there were instances when the local foods were not to our liking or we became quite blasé to the local cuisine after a while. So, when that happens, do we not eat at all? Well, it is definitely not wise to do so. Travelling itself can be quite strenuous and food is important to provide us with the energy to continue with our exploration. Without proper nutrition, physical exhaustion would soon be joined by travel fatigue. Worse still, when I suffer from travel fatigue, my appetite drops further and soon, a vicious cycle starts to form and the fatigue would just worsen with time. In the past, whenever we got sick of trying out the local cuisines coupled with the fact that we needed more time to cover all the places that we had planned for the day, my husband and I would just forgo lunch just so that we make it to all the various touristic sites. However, we did find that this arrangement usually get us down in no time. We have since made it a point to have proper meals during our trips and are enjoying ourselves more than ever! We have also now made it a point to always bring some familiar snacks or instant foods with us to satisfy our picky taste buds for instances when the local food is not to our liking. To us, a trip can only be truly enjoyable when our tummies are filled and body fuelled with the energy and nourishment from food!

Sleep

Sleep is very important to my husband and I. Poor sleep often resulted in our brains not being alert enough to react promptly when required and causes a lot of mental stress over time and this coupled with the physical exhaustion from inadequate rest often triggers the onset of travel fatigue for us! Hence, for all our travels, we usually opt for travel accommodations that can allow us to sleep comfortably at night to prepare ourselves for the long day of exploration the next day. For travels where jet lag is unavoidable, we also try not to pack too much into our itinerary for the first few days as priority is always given for our body to have the proper rest that it needs!

Slow down your itinerary

What good will come out of sticking to a fully packed and rushed itinerary when one is starting to feel the onset of a travel fatigue? We have figured out (the hard way) that there is no point in doing so as we will only be going through the motion of checking off places on the list and not enjoying the sightseeing at all! Slowing down on our itinerary seems to have a positive effect on overcoming travel fatigue for us. At the very onset of a travel fatigue, we will usually slow down our pace, put aside our itinerary and find a nice cafe to just sit and chill (sometimes even at the expense of having to give up visiting one or more of the touristic sites on our list). We found this method to be very effective as we will be ready and more enthusiastic for more exploration after that and the sense of enjoyment for the rest of the trip actually increases as well!

So, for me, “P.R.E.S.S.” is the way to overcome travel fatigue. How about you? What are some of the methods that you found useful in combating travel fatigue? Feel free to share with all of us in the comment section below! :)


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Dear Diary.....Comino Island

Dear Diary,

On this bright and sunny day, my husband and I woke up feeling all hyped up and excited about our trip to Comino Island. The ride to and fro on board a cruise ship was included in our ExplorePlus tallinja card and we could not wait to utilise this perk! It was also on this day that we reckoned we could finally take a nice break from all the walking - to just enjoy ourselves on board and take in the beautiful view sailing on the crystal clear waters of Malta! Well, let’s just say that it was not as relaxing as we had expected...

The small ship from Valletta to Silema

The cruise ship that will bring us to Comino island was by the company “Captain Morgan”. We were told to board the ship at Silema and to get there, we had to take the Valletta ferry service - a short boat ride between the Valletta harbour and Silema harbour. The “Captain Morgan” cruise ship departs from Silema daily at 10am, cruising pass several harbour bays and finally docking at Comino’s famous blue Lagoon where there will be an allocated free time for us to either sunbath/swim at the blue lagoon region or to head inland to explore the island. The cruise ship will then depart from Comino Island at 4.30pm and bring us back to Silema.

Our "Captain Morgan" cruise ship...

As we only had this particular day to venture to Comino island, we most certainly did not want to miss the ship. Hence, we headed off from Valletta much earlier than was required. It turned out to be a great decision as there were some confusion over which cruise ship to board. There were just too many “Captain Morgan” ships docked at Silema harbour! After a while of asking around, we finally found our cruise ship. As it was a free-seating arrangement, we decided to make our way to the open-air upper deck of the ship and found ourselves comfortable seats in a corner with a great view of the sea. Soon, crowds of people started to stream in and fill the ship. After a delay of almost 30 minutes, we finally set sail for Comino island. Prior to departure, we were told that there will be an audio commentary highlighting to us the various landmarks that we will pass by during the 2 hours journey. Unfortunately, it was quite noisy at the upper deck and we could hardly hear the commentary. In the end, we gave up trying to figure out what was said and just admired the nice sea view and the cooling sea breeze on this hot summer day.

Halfway through the journey, we started seeing people heading to the lower deck and arriving back up again with cups of drinks and it was only when a Spanish lady sitting next to us explained that we were entitled to a free flow of drinks that we understood what was going on. We also heaved a sigh of relief as we can finally break free from having to ration our water supply! Did I mention that it was a nightmare trying to buy bottled water in Valletta? There was even one night when we were so desperate for water that we tried drinking tap water - bad idea as the mineral taste of the tap water was too much for us to handle! There were not many major supermarkets spread out across Malta as do most cities that we had visited. For the rare few mini-marts that we came across, they were always closed as we were either there too early in the morning or too late at night. What a bummer! Well, it was good thing that we now had free flow of drinks on board to keep us hydrated on this hot day!

The lunch...with extra protein added....

We arrived at Comino island at around noon time and were given instruction to head to the lower deck to get our lunch. We were expecting a cold buffet spread but it was nothing like it at all! By the time we got to the lower deck, there was already a long queue for the food. Each of us was given a plate and the ship crew would dish out some pasta, a slice of ham and some bread onto our plates. Carefully guarding the miserable plate of food that took great efforts to obtain, we soon found a seat at the lower deck and started tucking into our food. To my horror, halfway through, I actually found a huge bee trapped under the pile of pasta! Horrified and filled with disgust, I hurriedly pushed the plate out of sight and at the same time, struggling to stop myself from kicking my husband who had jokingly commented that I had extra protein added! Thankfully, we have had the habit of bringing snacks with us wherever we go and it was at that instant that I was extremely grateful for that extra weight in our bags!

Another reason for us to get away from the blue lagoon...

After that unpleasant lunch episode, my husband and I just wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle on the ship. We soon found ourselves on the island, armed with only two small bottles of water, a few snacks and a small guide book on Comino island (which was on loan from our Airbnb host). The land was mostly barren with not much shade from the scorching sun and we decided to follow one of the faint walking paths. Apart from the massive crowd found at the blue lagoon, the other parts of this island are very quiet and surreal. There were literally no one else in sight other than us - it was hardly a surprise coming from the fact that there are only 3 permanent residents on this island! We were feeling both glad (that we are finally away from all the noise) and anxious (at being the only two humans in that pathway) as we explored the place. As we were expected to be back at the ship by 4pm, we spent the next 2.5 hours walking along the foot path (occasionally deviating slightly from it and ended up getting lost), taking lots of photos, enjoying each other’s company on this empty piece of land and just enjoying the view all around the island. Despite the fatigue and sun burn from the walk, it was truly an enjoyable walking trip in what seems like a place of our own!

Literally no one else in sight on the island..

Santa Marija Battery

Santa Marija Tower

Lovely clear waters surrounding the island..

Such scenic views...

Overall, we felt that although there were quite a few issues with the cruise ship provider that did not quite meet up to our expectations, having a positive mindset and outlook has enabled us to enjoy it nonetheless! At the end of the day, the gorgeous view of the crystal clear blue water around Comino island seems to have the magical effect of making everything seemed worthwhile - certainly ending our Malta trip on an excellent note! :)

Yours Truly,

Claire

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