Safe Travels - Roamancing

On Travelling Alone

May 8, 2013 by Megan Ho 2 Comments

People always advise young girls from travelling alone. Though their concern is usually for safety reasons, I’ve always avoided travelling alone because I thought I would get lonely. After all, aren’t the beautiful places in the world better enjoyed with the people you love? Then, last summer, a last-minute trip to Europe for a family wedding meant I ended up making plans to travel alone for the first time. And lo and behold, I loved it.

I had journeyed alone to other countries before, but this was different. Other times, I had met up with friends or stayed with people I knew. This time, I was travelling to Budapest, Vienna, and Salzburg before meeting up with family in Zurich, which meant for the two weeks before Switzerland, I was truly alone.

I wasn’t nervous for my safety, but I was prepared for not having a travel companion. I packed several books and a travel journal, expecting to have a lot of time to myself. Instead, to my utter surprise, the exact opposite happened. I was so busy making new friends and going out that I couldn’t steal a moment to myself!

Beautiful Budapest

The small hostel I stayed at in Budapest was prime for meeting other travellers. Every day I was heading out with other travellers – English, Australian, British, and Finnish, to name a few – to sightsee and drink in the evenings. I even travelled to Austria with the Australian and met up with the Brazilians in Vienna. Meeting other people, finding things to do, and making new friends were so much easier than I had anticipated. Safe to say, I didn’t crack a single one of my books on the trip.

More recently, I took a trip to South Africa. Since I was there for a wedding, for the first half of the trip I was in a large group made up of all the Canadian guests. Afterwards, my boyfriend and I went off on our own road trip. While I enjoyed myself and had a fabulous time, it really highlighted all the things I loved about travelling by myself. The excitement of being by myself, exchanging stories with other travellers I had just met, and pretty much doing whatever I wanted were all absent. There was little unpredictability and spontaneity and I missed it.

Even so, I was glad that I was never alone on this trip and that was for my safety. Before leaving, I was very aware of South Africa’s reputation for violent crime, and my friends didn’t help by worrying and advising me not to go. I’m incredibly glad I didn’t take their advice and went anyway, but I’m also glad I wasn’t alone. As much as I am a strong, independent woman and traveller, it was reassuring to always be with someone else. While I never felt threatened, and I felt very safe in large cities such as Cape Town, the extended road trip my boyfriend and I took through rural areas could have been a lot more dangerous on my own. What if the car had broken down? What if I had been stranded? What if I had been lost in an unsafe area? Having another person, especially a male, made those travels a lot safer.

Road Tripping in South Africa

Looking back, I can conclude that my travels in South Africa didn’t change my feelings on travelling alone. I still love it, and it’s still my preferred method of travel. However, I was reminded that it is important to be smart about it, and I acknowledge that some locations are safer for solo travelling than others. If I were to visit South Africa again by myself, I would stick to the large cities and I wouldn’t take a solo road trip. But I wouldn’t be afraid to go. I look forward to travelling alone again, even though I don’t know when or where it will be, and I hope everyone out there tries travelling alone too. Even if you think it’s not for you I hope you’ll try it, even just once – you never know, it might surprise you. After all, it did for me.

Filed Under: Africa, All Aboard!, Around the World, Europe, Megan Ho, Our Travelers, Safe Travels, South Africa Tagged With: Budapest, Cape Town, Group travelling, hostel, Road trip, road tripping, solo travel, South Africa, Travelling alone

Air Travel Tip: Park n’ Stay

December 29, 2012 by Erica Hargreave 2 Comments

Flying with Cato

I am a wee bit spoiled in Vancouver when it comes to travel, as not only do we have one of the most beautiful airports in the World, but I live close to it. This means it is only a short cab ride away, that even with traffic at it’s worst is unlikely to take more than 20-minutes to get to. And if you’re downtown, you can now hop on the Canada Line straight to YVR. So very convenient.

Much of my International Travel, however, I fly out of Toronto’s Pearson Airport, for the simple reason of my most beloved and highly social cat, Cato. She is now a Senior in kitty years and as a writer and digital storyteller she is use to having me around. She likes having people around, so having a cat sitter check up on her twice a day while I am away, does not cut it for her when I am on an extended trip. So I fly her to my Mom’s in Ontario (she herself is an excellent traveler, and often ends up being a bit of a celebrity in the airports we visit), for her to catch up with her Grandma while I am away. Beauty of this plan is it also gives me an excuse to take a few days either side of my trip to spend time with Mom too.

But I digress, my original point was that the flaw in this plan is that I do not enjoy the same convenient access to YYZ from Mom’s that I do to YVR from home. Up until last year, the choices in my mind were self drive and park, get someone to drive me, or take Airways Transit. Self drive and park seemed expensive (and what if traffic was extra bad – Toronto is the land of traffic jams after all), getting someone to drive me is a lot to ask my Mom (who hates driving into Toronto and hates seeing me leave), and Airways Transit always means extra early leaves and isn’t exactly cheap.

All the ingredients for a goodnight sleep before my flight at DoubleTree by Hilton. (wine brought by me)

For all of the above reasons, when Deb Corbeil and Dave Bouskill of ThePlanetD’s Round the World Adventures mentioned to me that they enjoy a Park n’ Stay near Toronto Pearson Airport before flights, I decided to look into it before my next trip. The idea being that with a night’s stay at the hotel, before a flight, your parking for up to 2-weeks is included in the cost of your hotel stay near the airport, and the hotel provides a free shuttle to and from the airport. Brilliant! The Park n’ Stay that Deb and Dave recommended that I tried was DoubleTree by Hilton and I am so glad I did.

A couple of reasons why this worked for me:

The cost ended up being comparable or less expensive than Park n’ Fly at the airport or Airways Transit;
It forced me to be organized the night before flying, so I got a proper night’s sleep before my flight (I am notoriously bad about rushing around to do everything and then only getting 2-3 hours sleep before a flight); and
It was clean, comfortable and relaxing (complete with a chocolate chip cookie at check-in).

Definitely a travel technique that I plan on using again, and that I’d recommend to others!

How about you? What is your tip or trick to getting to the airport on time, well rested and organized?

Filed Under: Air Travel, All Aboard!, Around the World, BC, Canada, Erica Hargreave, Ontario, Our Travelers, Planes, Trains ..., Safe Travels Tagged With: Air Travel Tip, Airways Transit, Canada Line, Dave Bouskill, Deb Corbeil, DoubleTree by Hilton, getting to the airport, Park n' Fly, Park n' Stay, ThePlanetD, Toronto, Toronto Pearson Airport, Vancouver, Vancouver International Airport, yvr, yyz

Taking Time to Thank a Veteran

November 11, 2012 by Emme Rogers Leave a Comment

The more I travel the world, the more thankful I become for the freedoms, equalities, and way of life we enjoy in Canada. Much of these are a result of the women and men that faced horrors I hope to never see, to keep us safe and fight for our freedoms, along with those of others. For that reason, I find it so important that I take a moment at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month to take a moment and give thanks.

Off now to find a veteran to thank.

Filed Under: All Aboard!, Emme Rogers, Events, Our Travelers, Safe Travels, Travel TV, Tunes from the Road Tagged With: freedom, remembrance day, veteran

Road Tripping #CrossCanada With Cats

May 19, 2012 by Emme Rogers 8 Comments

Now it is true that I may have a great love for cats, but I am not the crazy cat lady, despite what some people might think. We only had two cats in the car on our recent road trip #CrossCanada, because their were two of us in the car, we each have one cat, and as we were in Ontario, the cats had to get home to BC too. You see, nothing crazy here, all perfectly normal. You can put away that lovely white jacket now.

So we did learn several things from our first cat car caravan …

First of all, there is no fighting for shotgun, the cat gets that …

Ahimsa Media CEO, Cato Cat, takes shotgun.

… and whatever other spot she wants in the car. You will after all have bigger battles to fight with her, like 4 am is not the time we wake up to start driving. Don’t blame her. Blame changing time zones and whoever it was that fed her breakfast at 6 am the week before you left.

I am cat, hear me roar!

Cats and ducks will travel surprisingly well together.

Cato Cat & Lucy Duck

A few tips:

Put aside a space just for the cat with her own blanket or cushion.
The floor of the front seat makes the ideal spot for the litter box, as the cat can easily get to it and it won’t slide.
Use shallow containers with lids for food and water dishes (like empty sour cream containers).
Be sure to have plenty of drinking water in the car.
Carry wet knaps to clean out dishes with ease.
Figure out some way of providing the cat with shade when they need it. They do get sunstroke and car sick, just like we do. (and yes, we found this out the hard way)
Make sure your air conditioning is working.
When parking, find a shady spot (even if it means you have to walk further) and leave the windows open a crack.

Cato takes a Breather After Getting a Queasy Belly

Oh, and take out stock in lint rollers.

A few cat road trip essentials.

Happily the extreme shedding subsides after the first 24 hours.

And despite how the above might sound, it was actually quite easy and enjoyable road tripping with cats. But then we have pretty gosh darn special cats.

Filed Under: All Aboard!, Around the World, Canada, Emme Rogers, Our Travelers, Planes, Trains ..., Road Trips, Safe Travels Tagged With: #CrossCanada, cat road trip tips, cato, cato cat, cats, Fuzzywiggle Furrypants, Fuzzywiggle Furrypants Roo, Lucy Duck, road tripping, road tripping with cats, traveling with cats

Dealing with the Flu While Traveling

April 5, 2012 by Emme Rogers 16 Comments

Been pretty miserable the past few days, having been hit very unexpectedly with a nasty bout of the flu. Have had everything from an excruciatingly sore throat to ringing ears, fever, throbbing head, runny nose, stuffed sinuses … And through it all, an incredibly groggy brain and absolutely zero energy. You get the picture.

Now I’m one that has no patience for being unwell. There is just too much to do to waste time in bed, feeling blah. I’m not one to run to the drug store for pharmaceuticals though, as I’m rather susceptible to the side effects … so that’s always a last resort for me … especially in another country. Instead, I hole up with liquids, movies, books and a comfy bed and couch. Usually a little R&R and I’m back to the races in no time. That hasn’t been the case the last few days though. I’d been hit hard and have been down for the count. By Night 3, I’d hit the over the counter flu relieves, and today, after coughing up lovely yellow stuff from my lungs all afternoon, I finally called a real doctor and got some real drugs tonight.

All this got me thinking, what would I have done had I been on the road or in another country? I certainly have been in no condition the past few days to even go for a stroll around the neighbourhood, let alone take part in full action packed travel days. And with how much pain my sinuses have already been in, the idea of stepping on a plane in this condition makes me positively cringe. So what would I do?

As much as I’d hate to waste valuable time in bed, sleeping it off, while there are adventures to be had, I realize this is probably what would have to be done, along with consuming lots of fluids. And even though I hate unnecessary drugs, I’ll be adding some Beechams Flu Plus to the Travel First Aid Kit.

Curious to know what others do, I asked across the social feeds, and here are the responses I got:

Kat Code: Ginger tea with crushed garlic, a dash of cayenne, fresh-squeezed lemon juice and honey to taste.
Yvette Vigor: Chicken soup, hot whiskey and an early night.
The Time-Crunched Traveler: I stay in bed.
Panorama Retreat: Drink plenty of liquids.
Christian Germany: Drugs. And tea.

Panorama Retreat also passed along this USA Today Article ~ Advice for Traveling with the Flu.

Would love to update the posts with your ways of dealing with the flu on the road. Just add your tips in the comments below, and I’ll update with a link to your site.