Travel Tips by Sharon Wingler

Knowledge is Power

February 29 2008

Knowledge is Power Forewarned is forearmed. Be Prepared! These mottos apply to many things, travel included especially solo travel. The more you know about your destination in advance, the less time youll spend spinning your wheels when you are there. You'll have a head start by knowing the history, culture and layout of your destination. You'll want to know which of the attractions most appeal to you, when and how to see them.

There are four main sources of information: Develop and maintain your own travel files. If you love to travel as much as I do, you are forever reading travel magazines and the travel sections of newspapers. Clip articles on places of interest, even if you have no immediate plans to go there, and save them in a file. Keep a separate file for each country or state. When friends travel, ask them to bring back brochures for you and to recommend hotels, restaurants and attractions. Jot down this information and file it away. Then, when you do plan a trip, youll already have information on hand.

The internet is a fabulous source of information. You can look up weather, maps, hotel and flight information, festivals, holidays and other general tourist tidbits. The standard travelers tool is the guidebook. Consider it your textbook and dont be afraid to mark it up with highlighter and margin notes. You wont want to pack the heavy ones, but you could copy the pertinent pages or even carefully remove chapters. I usually buy at least two guidebooks for each destination because each author has their own point of view and each stresses different facets of travel. Insight guides, for example, stress the culture and are generously illustrated with color photos. Michelin provides details on history and architecture. You must chose the guides which most appeal to your taste in travel. Allow time to select these, either from a great travel store like The Savvy Traveler at 310 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago (phone: 312-913-9800, toll free: 888-666-6200) or from a major bookstore that lets you pore through books at a table while sipping a cup of cappuccino. The sole mission of tourist offices is to promote travel to the country they represent. You may call these offices for free information about your destination. Listings for more than 100 foreign tourist offices are in the appendix of my book, Travel Alone & Love It. Most of the phone numbers are toll free. Ask for brochures, maps and information about specific areas of interest to you. Often the staffs are friendly enough to chat with you about their country. Fantasize! As you read your books, brochures and articles, picture yourself there. What do you imagine yourself to be doing? What are your surroundings museums? parks? cafes? concerts? cathedrals? Are you smiling? Are you talking with people? Let yourself daydream and enjoy the vacation before it even starts.