How we spent a month abroad
On July 15, 2019 by Jay McCormickI like to write. I also like to spend time with the family, read, hike, ski, paddleboard, etc. I also have to work and perform other life chores. The point is that I have a lot of “stuff” I’ve wanted to blog about, even keeping detailed notes and outlines. But there are only so many seconds in a minute and, although I had different intentions, I lost blogging momentum…for a year.
Let’s try this again. Reim and I have decided that it would be a good thing to complete some of the blogs we had planned to draft months, or longer, ago. It may be interesting to some, be a resource for others, but more importantly, will be a way to document our adventures for our own re-consumption and reflection years from now.
So, the first in this series of past events of our grand adventure is a recap of our month spent abroad in the spring of 2018.
This post will be less anecdotal and more about how we did it, including planning, logistics, economics, apps, etc.
Planning
The overall plan was relatively simple to construct. Reim and I had already been to most of the places we intended to visit on this UK/Ireland adventure. This was intentional as we thought it would be easier to manage with this being the kids first significant international trip. We decided on the countries; England, Scotland, and Ireland with a day trip to Paris thrown in. Then we decided on the cities/towns/areas that we wanted to visit; London, York, Edinburgh, Dublin (and parts of western Ireland), Bath, and Oxford/The Cotswolds. We determined the number of days we would spend in each location and then added in some contingency in the event we wanted to take a day or two and visit some other place and/or if something didn’t go as planned.
The next thing we did was decide on a date range that had some flexibility (+/- a couple of weeks). We knew we wanted to travel in the spring before the summer tourist season so we could get better deals on airfare and lodging and so that we could avoid the crowds.
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles…
How do we get there and once we’re there and how do we get around when not using Bus 11? And there was a lot of Bus 11 usage…160 miles of walking over 30 days!
Planes
In the Fall of 2017, while sitting around a campfire in Durango, CO, we started researching airfare (there may have been a few local brews consumed…which usually results in booked adventures). Using Kayak, I looked at roundtrips from various major US airports. The thought was that we could find cheaper airfare for our international leg then use points to get to the airport from wherever we were at the time. It didn’t take long to find what we thought was a great deal on Iceland Air out of Chicago O’Hare. $415 round trip per person. I hastily purchased the tickets before the deal expired. In hindsight, I should have taken my time. The flight had a connection in Reykjavik, Iceland and Iceland Air offers passengers the opportunity to stopover without any penalty or additional costs. I knew this, but thought I could coordinate this after the tickets were purchased. Erroneous! Turns out you must request the stopover during the initial booking or you have to pay change fees and flight cost differences. It was going to be expensive so an Icelandic stopover was a no-go. Disappointing, but the next time and I will know…and there WILL be a next time. Note: we ended up finding really inexpensive r/t tickets for the Houston to Chicago leg so elected not to waste our frequent flyer miles.
One of the reasons the airfare was relatively inexpensive was that it had restrictions. One of the restrictions was luggage. It only allowed one personal item and one carry on per person. This worked perfectly for us as we didn’t want to carry a lot of luggage. We each carried a small backpack and a carry-on. If we couldn’t fit it in one of these bags then we didn’t need to take it. This also allowed us to be more nimble and not deal with large bags on trains, buses, and cars. We also knew we would stay at some Airbnbs so that we would have access to a washer and dryer (or clothesline).
We used Ryan Air to fly from Scotland to Ireland then back to England. The airfare was $260…total…round trip…for all four of us!
Trains
For the trains we decided to get a multi-day pass on BritRail where we could travel up to 8 days over a 30 day period. The pass for Reim and I cost less than $1000 collectively for standard class. The kids were free. We did receive a discount by purchasing the passes online. We had to do this several weeks ahead of time to ensure that the passes arrived to us in the U.S. prior to our departure. We would use the train from/to the airport, to York, to Edinburgh, to Bath, and to Oxford. This allowed us two additional days of travel in the event we wanted to take the train to some other destinations, which we did. We took a day trip to Brighton, which was very cool. We also did day trip to Paris. This was Ireland’s Christmas present and not covered under our rail pass.
For the London Underground (aka The Tube) we purchased prepaid Oyster cards for each of us, reloading them as needed.
We also used Taxies in the UK. We downloaded the MyTaxi (now called FREE NOW, I believe) which works a lot like the Uber and Lyft apps.
And Automobiles
After several trips to the UK and Ireland I finally mustered the courage to drive. It was confusing for about half an hour, but then it started to click and driving on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the car was fun. I had no Griswold issues, but did miss a couple of exits on roundabouts. Not to worry as there are roundabouts seemingly every tenth of a mile. In York, Ireland, Bath, and Oxford/Cotswold we rented cars using my Avis and Enterprise points for some freebees. As a Vail Resorts employee, I qualify for Hertz Gold status and leveraged that for a rental in Oxford where we received a discounted rate and an upgrade to a Mercedes SUV. We used the RingGo app to pay for parking.
Lodging
With the transportation plan nailed down, we moved on to lodging. The intent was to use my Hilton Honors points for hotel stays mixed in with some houses/apartments through Airbnb. This worked out great. We ended up staying 11 nights out of 31 nights for free. The remaining nights we stayed at reasonably priced Airbnbs paying anywhere from $90 (Edinburgh) to $160 (London) a night (This really took care of itself. While in Park City for ski school training, I stopped by the Park City brewery, had a couple of beers, and had another one of those screw it/YOLO moments and started booking Airbnbs). We ended up with some amazing places to stay in great locations. Additionally, a big advantage to the Airbnbs was having a kitchen where we could cook. We would purchase a light load of groceries wherever we were then pack the unused non-perishable items in our bags to take to the next location.
This trip could not have gone any better. We had no real issues. The kids didn’t starve, there were only a few tense moments, and we are ready for more across the pond adventures. In fact, the kids frequently talk about this trip and want to go back. So, with our points and rewards replenished we are planning a return trip to Europe in the spring of 2020. This time we’ll be spending significant time in Deutchland and surrounding countries before returning to amazing London. That’s the plan anyway.
Apps
We used the following apps extensively throughout our trip:
- United
- Hilton
- Airbnb
- Google Maps
- Tube Map
- Uber
- MyTaxi
- Original Tour
- National Rail
- Ring Go
- Apple Pay
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