The One When They Travel to Italy

Our three month voyage to Northern Europe, England, Northern Africa, Turkey, and Eastern Europe began at 4:13am on Tuesday, September 12, 2023.

I woke in pure and extreme rage, annoyed I didn’t run to my parents the night before to grab my fancy super fast Mac charger. I drove twenty minutes there and back, in my warm jammies, cozy and humming, thanks to my ‘98 Camry’s epic sound and heating system.

The purpose of this essay is not - I promise - to convince you to forget your shit at your parents and buy a totaled Toyota. In fact, the reason I’m writing this is to share tricks for affordable travel that I’ve added to my mental leather tool belt over the last twenty five years of traveling this strange earth. Too many people shake their heads at my spur of the moment trips, but I can justify about anything. Questions like:

“Why did you go to Europe without a plan?!”

“You’re in Canada? ALONE???!?!?!?!”

“You two hardly know each other! Good luck in Europe!”

But I’ve defended myself tirelessly against these and other arguments. I always remind myself, when I’m wavering as my index finger hovers over my keypad to confirm the eight hundred dollar flight to Italy, that I will remember this more than working two jobs at home saving up for whatever.

In three years, when I look back on my first year with Ethan, I’ll remember how we, stupid in love and low on cash, headed to Italy for three months. We didn’t have a plan but we’ll make one. Or we’ll die. Either way; cool story.

I come from one of those families that swears they’re not rich. After meeting a wealthy new couple, they prove their relative poverty by explaining how they got lunch at a supermarket, sold a home for twenty five percent more than the price they purchased it for, or how our clothes are hand me downs, mended and embroidered by none other than my mother.

Despite stories about my father’s history of poverty among eight sons of two immigrants in 1950’s suburbs of Chicago, I struggled to make sense of the lavish excursions we were whisked away on, leaving our friends and taking our school work to go.

We took a three month trip to the east coast, visiting family in a grapefruit grove in Florida and celebrating my tenth birthday in Busch Gardens Theme Park. I still have the secret language translation key my sister and I jotted down in excited secrecy at a motorhome park (complete with a zoo in the info center).

All this to say, you don’t need to be swimming in dough to cross the Atlantic. Your voyage may be easier with a baby daddy in finance, but is your vocabulary really high enough to sustain a relationship of that sort?

And despite what common thought is regarding travel, it can be done, like anything else, at 2 or 200 — if you make it that old with your sweet new baby daddy advisor. Which you will. I mean, with that mindset, I’m sure you could travel to the moon! And be looking fiercely youthful with your favorite overpriced Japanese skin care routine.

But back to the purpose of this post, which I promise I have not forgotten. I want to share my three favorite travel tips to add to that mental leather tool belt that’s getting so empty. Although your bank account is looking unhappy and you’ve begun to see wrinkles around your eyes and your two year old won’t give you a break and your boss is breathing down your neck and all you’ll ever grow is a neck beard -

Let’s start with tip #1:

1) And this is gonna be hard to swallow if you are one, DO NOT follow your parent’s advice.

“Okay, but like remember when you were ten and really wanted to become a speed skater and you told your dad about it and you were rollerblading at the time so like you knew you could manage to at least begin the process and you told him hey i kinda think i really wanna try this out and he looked down at you in the summer humidity and just said you know thats gonna take a ton of work right like you cant just not work hard for that, Annie?”

I do. But I kind of wish I had just gone for it. I love ice skating and sprinting down ski hills in my ski swap skis. Skiing fast, running fast, swimming fast, etc. are all favorite pastimes of mine. I think it makes me better prepared for the inevitable day I get chased down a Parisian alley by undefeated paparazzi, screaming rumors about my intimate life as I speed up and leave them behind in the dust of the rotting city.

Speed skating medals that live in my mind aside, I always encourage myself to be courageous and do things my parents would gawk and shake their heads at. I say this because my own mother toted all four of her prepubescent children to Northern Italy with her husband in 2005 to give us the experience of a lifetime. We left Marostica, Italy with countless friends, newfound appetites for yogurt ai frutti di bosco, pizza ai prosciutto e funghi, e gelato alla ace.

When she shared the plan with her mother, my grandmother, jittering on and on about the house we would rent from old olympic bicyciclist friends (furnished!), the town we’d relocate to, and the excellent cycling available in the area, my grandmother Renee scolded her for making a decision so rash and drastic. Her youngest grandchild was hardly speaking, for Pete’s sake!

While she thought the decision far too extreme for a young family from Reno, my grandparents ended up visiting us during our two years of life in Italy, loving it, and probably apologizing to my mom after we fell asleep.

ALRIGHT POINT NUMERO 2:

2) Research before you screech - earch

Yes, that’s a real word… if you ask me. Language is arbitrary and I say that as a communication major and not in a cool way. Even if you now hate me because I spent my final year of college reading art history and researching graffiti’s role in the progress of culture, I can’t say this enough: you can become an expert if you are well versed in just about anything.

I know photographers who learned 100% of their trade through youtube education and hands-on practice. The same goes for traveling. If you’re too scared to book a flight to Boston and meet a friend for a week, start small; buy a book on edible mushrooms (psychedelic or porcini ;) and take a day trip this October. Head to the next state over and bring your best friend. Play some moody bon iver as you collect your loot in a wicker basket from Easter.

While you get brunch after you’ve cleaned your dirty hands, talk about how fun the day was. Talk about the snacks you’ll get on your long drive home, the podcasts you want to check out.

When you get back home, tired and slightly hungry despite one too many bags of popcorn or candy or coke, and as you rest your weary bones on your twin bed in your parents’ basement, your adventure-filled mind may start to wander toward a greater trip, a longer voyage; perhaps you’ve always been fascinated with the Egyptians; I mean, their makeup was so silly and those pyramids - how did a bunch of ancient people even begin to brainstorm an idea so incredible and then go on to complete the project?!

Point of this point is this point: stop second guessing yourself. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself you hate travel. Pesky planes and obnoxious overpriced hors d’oeurves. Maybe you had an awful string of trips with your family or your previous partner.

I completely respect those homebodies who would prefer a movie and a drink to a wild night in French bars. However, I myself have talked myself out of trip after trip. I was supposed to visit a childhood friend in Honduras, head over to Colombia, and meet another friend on the coast of Brazil last November. But I got the home scaries. I got scared of a mental state plagued by indecision, a lack of work, and an unhappy interpersonal life.

But what if I had gone? What then? Would my mental state have been absolutely ruined by surfing on the sunny beach while my friend ordered us lunch? Would I have had to borrow money from my older sister to cover my flight home? Perhaps the opposite would have happened had I gone…

I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I know the answer to this one: I know what took place as a result of a canceled flight. I know what happened because I didn’t go looked like: I stayed in bed until 11am, lamented my cancelled promise to my childhood friend, went to bed at 2am, stuffed with food my body didn’t need, and cancelled plans with my friends, as though my regretfilled attitude could be altered by regretting every moment of my existence.

I struggle with seasonal effective disorder, like 70% of Idaho’s population, and it means so much if I can escape the five long months of winter and experience a bit of sun and friendship.

Instead of respecting my desire to do this, I gave in to fear.

But honestly, what will I remember more in three years? A trip to South America? or two months in my family’s spare room, wasting away in envy and sorrow?

I’ll let you read between the lines there.

Last sub-point on this point: try credit cards. Treat them like debit cards.

In the famous words of my dad: “If you can’t buy it now, don’t buy it now”. I don’t think that man has ever experienced debt. He has inspired me to live well, live frugally, but well.

Try my favorite: the Capital One Venture card (great for travelers or home bodies alike with it’s $1k back after the first three months) or my new shiny AMEX card that gets me access to all the lounges on long flight days.

And last but not least, and perhaps most importantly:

3) BRING YOUR BEST BUD

This seems like a no brainer. But some people feel the need to prove themselves as a solo world traveler.

They stock their iphone with enough podcasts to silence an army, movies to put to sleep a thousand restless children, and a smut novel longer than this post.

When they arrive to their location, they stay at a hostel. They try to remember their mission: discover who I am, uncover my purpose in life, and of course, enjoy this new country through my fresh perspective.

Bet. Bet you a million bucks they meet a new best friend at the hostel, follow her to Germany, meet her distant butcher relatives, get showered in foreign love by foreign lovers, and get a slight addiction to European cigarettes somewhere along the way.

They promised themselves independence, but they found themselves making friends like it’s gradeschool.

Now if only they’d parted from home with the wisdom that, although we try to deny it with every withering breath in our bodies, we are built for communion. To commune in homes, churches, on bridges, under bridges, over railroad tracks and under willows weeping: we would die to protect independence, especially as Americans. But we find such peace at home, during our favorite Christmas carols, or on an autumn drive with our little sister.

Use this wisdom as a reminder to book your ticket to Egypt with your husband or middle school aged child or your college bestie. They will enhance the trip in every aspect:

When you feel too tired to order pizza, they’ll speak up. When you max out your credit card, they’ll call daddy for an extra few k. Your photos won’t be taken by strangers, but a girl who knows your best angles. Your friends will tell you what outfit to wear, who not to talk to, and keep you safe on your way back to the b&b.

Well that’s about all the ranting I can handle to share; thank you sincerely for reading.

Please leave all hate comments in the box below, I eat them for breakfast (and I’m starving).

Ciao baby!