Deciding on a trip

Deciding where to go become much harder than I anticipated when my boyfriend said he wanted to join me. I had already been planning to go to England a solid year before we started dating but I didn't anyone to accompany me. So having a companion to join me thrilled me even though it also complicated things a bit.

Including England as part of our trip was a definite. My love for the country grew strong every year since before I can remember. It helped that I started becoming a fan of lots of BBC and E4 shows while I was in college. I had every desire to visit red phone booths, historic castles, Big Ben, and the London Eye in person.

However, my boyfriend -- never having visited Europe -- wanted to visit at least one other country. We spent quite a while seriously considering the London, Paris, & Rome trip before I realized I wouldn't have nearly as much time in England that would quench my immense desire for the country. Then I suggested going on the England, Scotland, & Ireland. There were two dilemmas with that trip: 1) I had already visited Ireland in college; and 2) again, we wouldn't be spending enough time in England. We even briefly considered London, Paris, & Amsterdam.

At that point, we ruled out all trips that included three countries. It came down to English Countryside & Wales versus London & Paris. Both trips meant spending enough time in England while also getting to experience two different countries. I would have been happy with the former trip but obviously we came to a mutual agreement upon the latter trip.

In the end what swayed us to do London & Paris was the optional excursion to Stonehenge, which Tom appreciated more. I was also swayed by the optional excursion to home of Monet in the village of Giverny. We'll also have a chance to go to Wales as we travel on our own to Cardiff Bay to visit the Doctor Who Experience museum!

I plan to talk more in depth about our itenary in the next few blog entries. I'll do a quick run-down in my next post but then provide more detail in following posts.

Until then, au revoir!

First, a little background...

For my first entry, I'd like to share some information regarding my trip. First, I will be traveling with my boyfriend whom I will have been dating for over a year by the time we leave for our trip. This pleases me more than words can express because he shares my passion for traveling (we have a long list of places we'd like to travel to together). We went back and forth for quite some time trying to decide which trip we should take. I was set on going through GoAhead Tours as I had gone through their "sister website," EF College Break when I was sophomore in college with friends (we went to Ireland during St. Patrick's day and it was amazing).

The appeal of going through GoAhead Tours is that it's basically all-inclusive. Your trip includes: round-trip airfare, travel between cities, hotel stays, breakfast daily, a tour director, and private tours with your group to various attractions. Additionally, you can add on optional alluring excursions such as a visit to Stonehenge & Bath, a ride on the London Eye with pub dinner, an evening in Paris that includes a boat cruise along the Seine, and many more. You can opt to go on one or more of these excursions. Yet even if you decided to not do any excursions, you'll still have an enriching cultural learning experience from the tours that are included in the first place.

It might sound like you're bombarded with tours from one look at the company's name. However, if GoAhead Tours is anything like EF College Break, then I'm looking forward to plenty of free time to roam around each city that we visit. When I visited Ireland in 2008 using EF College Break, some of my favorite memories included renting bikes on the Aran Islands to explore the little town, discovering the beautiful parks of Dublin, and wandering the shoppes of both Galway & Dublin. These were things that my friend and I did on our own as we looked for things to do in Ireland at for little cost. So having free time is definitely an important aspect for my upcoming trip.

I'll end this post for now. I plan to come back to update on how we decided on our trip to London & Paris as well as our upcoming itinerary for all to follow.

Until then, au revoir!