How We Travel

The photo shows Judy outside of Gontran Cherrier. She is smiling because of the two croissants in her bag

A recent profile in the New York Times on travel celeb Rick Steves caused us to reflect on the choices we have been making about travel.  

For many people making travel plans, the goal is to find airfare and hotel bargains.  When we were young, we didn’t have much money and so finding inexpensive ways to travel was necessary.  We avidly read Europe on Five Dollars a Day, and the less spartan and more discerning Let’s Go series.  Steve went to Europe after his college graduation for 3 months on $600 plus airfare on a charter flight.  Needless to say, he was frugal on meals and where he stayed.  After spending a night at a truly horrid hostel in Amsterdam (big dorm style room with 40 or so people and no working plumbing), he upgraded to B&Bs, which consisted of 1 or 2 rooms in a person’s apartment and small hotels. Most were OK, and there were a few memorable experiences.  In Paris, the two guys he was traveling with, Steve Daniels and Ed Tobes, and Steve paid $2.00 apiece for an attic room 5 stories up in a small left bank hotel called Hotel Nesle.  The hotel was a few steps from the Seine and was run by an older couple.    Every morning the husband, who was blind, would climb the twisting stairway to the fifth floor room, carrying a tray with fresh warm croissants, coffee and hot chocolate.  Steve has loved Paris ever since.  

For Steve, frugality on that trip was a necessity.  People like Rick Steves have made it a virtue.  He recommends out-of-the-way hotels with bathrooms down the hall and restaurants where price trumps taste.  (That’s a phrase that has lots of applications).  Several years ago we traveled with Judy’s parents, and her father, a Rick Steves aficionado, insisted we select restaurants recommended by Steves and eat only the daily specials.  The specials were required by law in Spain and were low priced and mostly inedible.  We rebelled quickly and began ordering from the menu. Since we both grew up with depression-era parents, it has been hard to break the habit of always looking for the lowest price.  However, now that we are in this phase of life, we are trying to make conscious choices about the value of the money we are spending.  

Many travel sites and even mainstream magazines like Money make finding the best price on airfares and hotels the priority.  But through trial and error, we have found it is worth paying a bit more for direct airline routes that avoid excessive layovers and for hotels that are comfortable and well located.  We are not extravagant, and we don’t go to fancy hotels, but we are not 21 years old traveling with backpacks, and so paying for ease and comfort makes travel more pleasant.  In the past, we might have booked the smallest room available or sought out the cheapest (clean) hotel.  Now we consider several sizes of rooms and think about what it will be like to stay in it.  Will there be a comfortably large bed?  Will there be chairs for reading and a table so that we can have snacks in our room?  

Our big splurge has been switching to business class on overseas flights.  We began when we went to India two years ago, and realized that we would survive the grueling trip better with the flat beds available in business class. It was worth the extra cost.

As for restaurants, Judy is skilled at finding interesting places on the web and in food magazines. Most places we go to are fairly reasonable with the occasional splurge, like when we were able to get a reservation at Massimo Bottura’s restaurant, Osteria Francescana, in Modina, Italy, a few years ago. Having said that, we have learned that we are not large breakfast eaters, so we tend to find excellent bakeries and coffee shops.  When we are going to eat a large meal, we prefer to have it in the middle of the day, especially in Europe, where dinners tend to start quite late.  That way we can buy a little snack when we are hungry for dinner.  These choices are actually quite economical, when you think about it.

We have finally realized that we have the resources to make travel comfortable.  As we said, it took a little work, but we broke the habit of looking for the lowest price ticket or hotel room, and instead thought about what would contribute to an enjoyable experience.  Why scrimp when we don’t have to, and when we might not get back to our destination again?

As for Paris, we have found a hotel at the edge of Montmarte that is comfortable, well-located, and moderately priced.  And we can walk out the door and down the block to a bakery, Gontran Cherrier, with the best croissants and baguettes we have ever had.