We, like many of you, spend a lot of our time thinking about and planning our next trip. Unfortunately, here in the United States, it isn’t as easy to get to places as it is in some other parts of the world. It is even worse when you live in the middle of the country as we do because we can’t even jump in a car and head to another state without it taking at least eight hours. It certainly isn’t the same as our time living in Frankfurt when we could decide to go someplace on Wednesday and spend three or four days visiting another country with a short two or three hour train or plane ride. As we finalize arrangement for our next trip, it is likely that we will spend around twenty hours in the air before we reach our destination. Taking that amount of time just to reach a destination makes it hard to explore as much as we would like. Obviously, just being in Europe doesn’t mean that suddenly you can go wherever you want, whenever you want, but it does make it a little easier. We have been reminiscing a lot lately about our time in Frankfurt and there are days when we miss it terribly.
I can relate to this completely. We travelled from Australia to Italy – 27 hours in total. Landed Christmas Day
The longest trip we have taken so far was to Chennai, India and we literally spent 24 hours on a plane. We need time machines to move us from one country to another 🙂
Couldn’t agree more
I will be starting an expat life this summer. I’ve heard from others also that it will go fast, and I will miss it after coming home; but right now I am just scared and can’t imagine how I might feel later.
I wish it was going to be Europe, because I also love how easily and quickly you can go from one country to another.
DH accepted a two-year assignment in Shanghai – so if you ever get to China, look me up!
On the upside, I should have great content for my blog. 🙂
How exciting! I’d love to go to China as an expat, but am finally stuck in one country, what with job and personal life. Go for it, you’ll love it!
Yes, it does go very fast. We don’t blame you for being nervous. When we moved to Germany for 5 1/2 months it was tough getting used to the culture, the language and the area. It took us about 4 weeks to start getting acclimated after that things got a lot easier.
There are several places, not as easy as Europe, but in that area to go see. You will have a blast in Shanghai and we will definitely look you up.
We are looking to see your blog posts about your adventure!!
close to home vacations work for me, but I understand. The bests flight options outside of Canada in my area, are from Halifax- four hours away. Even then everything flies to Toronto and then abroad.
Yeah, sometimes close to home vacations are the easiest. We wish airfare wasn’t so expensive here. It was extremely reasonable when we were in Europe. There is a lot more competition.
Higher populations, closer together make it so much easier to travel.
Yes, I never have enough time when I visit the USA, there are so many places I’d want to go to, but the only real solution would be renting a car for at least a month. Sigh. Maybe some time in the future. This year I’m aiming for 2/3 days to finally visit Detroit when I go to Chicago…
It can be tough driving here, places are so far a part. We have not been to Detroit, but have heard it is nice. We are in Chicago 2-3 times a year because our youngest daughter lives there :), good excuse to visit.
I have the same excuse 🙂 but only get there once a year. I’ve been fascinated by the causes/effects of the Detroit bankrupcy for years: the huge population decrease and resulting social issues, zoning, re-planning, architecture etc. They managed to save the municipal museum which is meant to be remarkable 🙂
I agree completely. I sometimes wish I lived in a bigger city (not that I’m in a tiny town but we are limited) so we had more direct flights especially international ones. I’m envious of Europeans who definitely have more travel options than Americans.
We are about an hour away from the Denver airport, which gives us the best options, but we always have layovers somewhere. It was so easy in Europe. The train system in most areas is incredible and flights are extremely reasonable because of the completion. Maybe the US will get there someday 🙂
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Yes agree, it takes us five hours just to drive to Sydney airport for a 24 hour flight to Europe. We are always amazed at how easy it is to travel to another country in Europe
Beautiful pictures.
Thank you 😀