Travel Preparation

We have been preparing for our trip to London, begining in mid-July. In fact, we have been preparing for 3 months, so far. We will be spending 2 months traveling around England, staying in 6 hotels in 5 cities London twice) as well as 6 National Trust Cottages. All of those stays are reserved. We also have car rentals reserved in 2 different locations. We were not able to rent a car through Expedia for more than 30 days, thus two rentals.

John is trying to get his head around driving in the wrong direction again. He did that before. I have to prepare myself for that, as well. We decided to have both of us registered as drivers. We never know when something will happen and the main driver won't be able to take the wheel. This week we visited AAA in Centennial to get our International Driving Licenses. They are the main agency across the country that provides those licenses.

We have purchased two suitcases, one to be checked and one to carry on with us. We have been traveling by RV for years and we got rid of all but one small, carry-on size bag. We won't be using it this trip, however.

We have researched cell phone SIM cards so we can use our cell phones in England without paying really big bucks on a Verizon international plan. We are reading travel books, studying the map of England, and researching where our ancestors lived in that country before coming to America. Learning more about those ancestors is a major focus of the trip.

Above I said we would be staying in National Trust Cottages. Those are historic buildings around England that have been converted into what are called holiday cottages. On our last fairly long trip to England we stayed in the Coast Guard Cottage on the Isle of Wight, in the lighthouse keepers cottage at the White Cliffs of Dover, and in an Arts and Crafts home outside London. We can shop in the local grocery stores and cook our own meals when we are lodging in these cottages. We're looking forward to it.

I hope to blog as we travel through England. We will have to wait and see what kind of internet we have. Also, we are each taking an iPad but leaving our laptop computers at home. Blogging is much easier on the computer.

This trip is how John and I are celebrating our 75th birthdays. We don't know how many more years we will be able to do this kind of independent travel so we wanted to do it while we are still healthy enough to enjoy it.