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Traveling
Low to the Ground
From GypsyNester.com
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see
also: Walk!
Traveling
low to the ground is our style of getting around. We're
not big on throwing money into all inclusive resorts, hate
being told what to do and enjoy meeting the "real people"
at our chosen destinations. It's all about discovering things
for ourselves and jumping into the culture at hand. No set
plans.
We love
to be afoot, seeing everything from ground level. You'd
be surprised at how much you miss whizzing by at 60 miles
an hour (though we have found that the best way to find
out about a place is from a good
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taxi driver--the
true ambassadors of the world--and the snarkier they are the more
we love 'em!).
Street food,
weird shop owners and cheesy tourist diversions are all more enjoyable
when you discover them for yourself. We'd have a lot less to write
about if we woke up in a gated resort with nothing more to think
about than the planned menu and whether we're going to play golf
or join twenty other tourists on a day trip.
We've learned
the "international sign language" that gets us through
much of the tasks at hand. This sometimes involves some innovative
on-the-fly signing. Imaging poor David in the Italian pharmacy
trying to get the point across to the stunned man behind the counter
that his lovely wife is all clogged up and in the need of an enema.
Hilarious fun. Or the night in a bar in Spain "discussing"
American politics via cocktail napkins and crazy arm flapping.
What great memories (really!).
Sometimes
renting a car and pointing it in a general direction is a great
way to go. We spent a week in France in some wonderful places
we would have never found in a guidebook. Stayed in a room in
a Medieval castle, watched pastry eating "tough guys"
in Bordeaux and ordered the special at a cafe in a quaint little
seaside town. Our waiter at the cafe actually went to his home
and returned with an encyclopedia to show us a picture of a ray
so we would know what it was we were eating. Who says the French
are unfriendly?
Our goal as
Gypsy Nesters is to try new things, see as much of the world as
possible, taking the time needed to truly fall in love with a
place, gathering out-of-the-box memories as we go.
For us, this
can only be accomplished low to the ground.
see
also: Walk!
David & Veronica,
GypsyNester.com
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