Planning for a big trip can be a daunting experience for people. Where do you go to find the best deals? Which sites are legit? Which hotels are the safest to stay in? What if my flight is delayed? What if it is cancelled? Understandably, most people do not enjoy the intricacies of planning a big trip and preparing an actual itinerary.
This week the deals are taking you to Africa, the Caribbean and to our northernmost state; Alaska!
When we first arrived in Venice, I was ecstatic. I had been dreaming about visiting this city for years and I was finally making that dream come true. As soon as we stepped outside of the train station and onto the steps of the city, I was in awe. Venice was more beautiful than I could ever imagine. The photos I had seen previously had not done it justice.
Taking it all in, I let out a long sigh of relief to finally be there. The tourists were busy taking pictures, while the locals were going about their business. I could see the gondolas from where I was standing and immediately longed to be sitting in one. I could also see the Ponte degli Scalzi bridge ahead of us.
Not that long ago, the majority of the world was not privy to obscure and far away lands like Slovakia or Estonia. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in your orbit who had been to Budapest, let alone Bratislava, Slovakia. How many people did you know who had whitewater rafted in Jaco, Costa Rica? Now, with the onslaught of #travelgoals, you have tons and tons of “wanderlusters” who make it their mission to go to the places that “no one” has really been to. In doing so, they turned so many places into tourists traps.
Gone are the days of real wander and meaningful travel bucket lists. Social media is saturated with accounts galore dedicated to the #travellife. Sure, we’re guilty of it ourselves here at OMPT. However, during some of our most recent travels, we have found that desire once more to be in the moment. We stopped taking so many pictures for our social media accounts, and decidedly took them for ourselves. You’d be surprised at the amount of photos we have from our last major trip; South America, which we have yet to share online – and that trip happened nearly 5 months ago!
When we first set out to plan our epic European itinerary, we thought going to Barcelona wouldn’t be an issue in terms of a language-barrier. Boy oh boy, were we wrong!
Lets start at the beginning of the planning. Eldris was looking into things to do in the other cities we were going to be visiting and preparing her excel sheet (yes, she does excel sheets! more on that in a future post LOL). I started my research on the first leg of our trip; Barcelona.
For most of my life I lived in sunny Miami, Florida. It was pretty cool, I loved my city. Naturally, everyone assumed that I was from there. However, the reality is that I was born in Fort Worth, Texas. I had almost no memory of my time there since my parents moved our family when I was about 3 or 4 years old. In my mind, I had no other hometown other than Miami.
When my peers would assume that I was born in Miami, I would correct them and tell them the truth. None of them had ever heard of Fort Worth. They had, however, heard of Texas and automatically assumed I was from the Wild Wild West. SMH. It would irk me to no end. They’d ask: do you ride horses to get to places? Are there any actual roads? Did you live in a farm? Were you born in a farm??? How many cowboys do you know? And my favorite (sike!); did you have to milk a lot of cows?!
OMPT, for short, is comprised of the #travelingbesties: Eldris & Delmy. We’ve been best friends for nearly 20 years! For a while now we’ve been traveling and going on epic adventures together. We came up with OMPT, in part, as a way to share our experiences traveling the world with our peers back home. We believe just about anyone can travel the world with the right budget, just as we do.
We’ll bring you travel deals, tips and tricks. We also like to keep ourselves up to date on any pertinent travel news, so we’re dedicating a whole page to that. You’ll also find awesome photos of our trips, both together and individually. We hope you enjoy our page and follow us on our social media platforms as well (links at the top for FB & IG)!
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