Changing your travel style or a day on a double-decker tourist bus

When I was growing up “the family vacation” meant taking the family tent – a monstrous canvas structure-- to a campground and ‘roughing it’ for a week.   As kids we loved it!  Hiking, swimming, and making s'mores over the campfire at night.  I think my young, adventurous parents enjoyed it most of the time also (though not the take down of that canvas tent after it survived the previous night’s rainstorm).

At least the tents got easier to handle!

Over the years I experienced different types of vacations, most of it fairly frugal budget travel: camping, motorcycle camping, hostels, and the pre-Airbnb rented room. 

I am finding that my travel budget hasn’t really changed – it is still well into the frugal budget category –but maturity is demanding some changes and concessions must be made.

Somehow we managed to get all our
gear into that tiny car.

The lodging more often has an ensuite though the occasional shared bath still happens.  I still ride the big city metro or take cross country train, but an occasional taxi ride is allowed.

You definitely want to sit
on the top deck.

But the biggest concession, in my mind, is the double decker bus tour.  I NEVER thought I ‘d be one of the multitude of tourists riding one of those buses through the streets.  I needed to explore the area on foot; feel every cobblestone, look in all the shops.  Really experience the area.   Plus, those buses don’t really fit into the frugal travel budget. 

Never is a long time.  Too long for me apparently.

I have now done the double deck bus tour in two separate cities with my husband.   

We wouldn't have gotten this view of
Quite had we not taken a bus tour.

The next day we went back
to explore the Basilica.  If you
are brave you can cross a
catwalk and climb the tower. 
 (We were brave!)

The first was in Quito, Ecuador.  We had been in the country and on the road for a month and it was the last two days before we flew home.  

 After a walk to the historic area of the city we realized we were just tired and not really enjoying our day.   The bus tour office was just a street away and the tour really wasn’t too expensive.  Low and behold that double decker bus gave us a nice overview of the city.  And while it didn’t make many stops to explore, we were able to visit some of the best sites the next day.

I was just happy not to be driving in Paris.

Our second double deck bus tour was in Paris. 

  

Once again, we hadn’t planned on doing a bus tour; walking and the metro had been getting us everywhere we needed to go.  

 Food poisoning changed our plans.  We huddled in our hotel room for a full day – one of us sick, the other one worried.  By the next day, our last in Paris, we were ready to do something, just not a very strenuous something. 

 The original plan involved a walk, a metro ride, a train ride, and a bus ride to Monet’s garden.  The back-up plan led to a hop-on, hop-off bus tour on the Montmartre route.  Bus tour it was.  We mostly rode and enjoyed the cityscape, though we did hop off for lunch.  If might not have been the most exciting day but allow us to see a bit more of the city without stressing a still delicate constitution.  

It's always an adventure!

Travel.

It’s about compromise.  As the years go by and our health changes we are going to have to acknowledge that the trip won’t be the same trip we might have taken in our twenties. 

It will still be fun, it will still be adventurous, it will still be travel.  It will just be a little different.