Travel Tips by Steve Jobs -- Part 2

Travel Tips by Rick Steves Jobs
Chapter 2:  Transportation and Navigation

I tried to capture my emotion about Lee's suggestion that we head down this isolated mountain trail for a little walk in the wilderness.  It was smack dab in the middle of the busiest part of Luxembourg City, but it felt like no one would know if we got murdered in there...  Despite my paranoia, we walked through the canyon not once, but twice.

1. Be polite to your airline gate agents.  My dad used to work in airline customer service and he got yelled at by passengers all day long.  Even when your agents are cranky, you don't have to be.  And sometimes, when you are friendly, they'll change your seats to the exit row so that you have more leg room for a 10 hour flight!
   
2. Buy train tickets 2-6 months early for the best prices.  Our high speed train from Brussels to Paris would have cost $100 or more the last week, but we paid only $29.  2nd class is just as good as first class, sometimes even in the same train car, so don't ever pay for 1st class on a train.  All major trains have bathrooms on board.  Some even have food for purchase and/or wifi.  I bought our international train tickets (trains between countries) on the website oui.sncf, which lists all the possible ticket options from various companies.  These tickets often have assigned seats and are specific to a certain train and a certain time.  I bought our Belgium only tickets at belgiantrain.be/en.  These tickets were the same price whether I bought them early or the day of, but having them in hand meant I didn't have to buy them at the station so it was one less thing to worry about.  They weren't specific to a certain train, just a certain day and travel zone.  So, as long as I was on a train between the two cities listed on my ticket on the day listed on my ticket, I was fine.

   

   Our train from Brussels to Paris covered nearly 200 miles in just 1 hour and 20 minutes

   
   

   

   I get motion sick if I'm not facing forward, so I wedged myself into the corner and sat backward in my chair on the train to Fontainebleau.

   
   
3. Double check your ticket details.  Before purchasing tickets, make sure that you have chosen the correct stations for arrival and departure.  Some cities have multiple train stations so you want to make sure that you are coming or going from the one closest to where you will be staying.  Also, there are lots of train stations in Europe that have similar names (i.e. Luxembourg Station in Brussels and Luxembourg Station in Luxembourg City).  We sat leisurely for 20 minutes in Gare du Nord in Paris, awaiting our train to Luxembourg, wondering why it still hadn't shown up on the departure board, only to finally remember that we were traveling from Gare de l'est!  Fortunately it was only 5 minutes away, but if it was one of the other Paris stations, we probably would have missed our train.

   

   Gare de l'est in Paris, from the street above

4. Understand train departure/arrival boards.  Some train companies have an app you can download to your phone that would enable you to view your tickets, buy tickets, or see train schedules.  I found the schedules in the stations to be more complete and accurate.  You will find digital departure boards similar to airport screens that will list all the upcoming trains and which train platform they are departing from, as well as any time delays.  What I found even more useful for tickets that have flexible usage (like a Eurail pass or the Belgian train tickets that were only specific to a zone and a day), were the printed schedules posted on the station walls that had every train in and out of the station listed with the times throughout the day, as well as every station that the train stopped at in between.  These were especially helpful for our trips around Belgium because there were generally several trains going past the station we were headed to and this enabled us to be certain they would stop where we needed them to.
   
   
   
5. "Compost" your train tickets.  That means to insert it into a machine to get a timestamp on it verifying that you paid and entered at the right place.  I think this may just be a thing to worry about in France, but a good thing to be aware of either way.  The "composting" machines in France were little yellow machines similar to the ones you tap your bus/train card on in Utah or a machine where you would pay to park in a big city.  They were generally at the entrance to a train platform or series of train platforms.  You inserted your ticket into it and it would give it a time stamp.  Sometimes you'd take a ride without ever showing your ticket to an employee.  But most times someone would check at some point in your journey, and if your ticket hadn't been "composted," it was as if you hadn't paid.  If in doubt about what to do with your ticket, you can always ask an employee.  They are very friendly and almost always speak English.
6. Keep your ticket even after you think you're done with it.  Three reasons for this:  First, on long train rides, they may check your ticket more than once, so don't assume you're done with it just because someone looked at it.  Sometimes you need to scan your ticket to exit a platform, too.  Second, on metro/subway rides, you generally need to insert your ticket to open the gates for entering and exiting the platform, so if you don't have it getting off, you might get stuck or have to ask for help or even buy another ticket.  And, third, some metro/subway/bus tickets are good on multiple forms of transportation for a set amount of time (90 minutes, for example) so you can continue using the same ticket until that time has expired.  If you throw your ticket away after a subway ride somewhere and then decide an hour later to get on a bus/subway to head in another direction, you would have to pay again instead of benefiting from using the previous ticket.
   
   
   
7. Download offline maps before leaving home.  Sometimes you will be without internet access, but Google maps works even without internet if you already have the maps downloaded to your phone.  To do this, first bring up a map of the area you will be traveling in.  Then, click on the small icon with the 3 lines in it in the Google Maps search bar.  Then select "offline maps" from the dropdown menu.  Then click on "custom map."  This will open up a screen that will allow you to zoom in or out on the map underneath and select an area that you want google to download.  Once it has been saved, you can rename it.  Saving maps offline takes up memory on your device, so I usually only save a map of the area I will be in, opting for multiple small maps instead of one gigantic one.  (For example, for our trip to France, Luxembourg, and Belgium, I downloaded 6 maps of the various cities we'd be visiting instead of 1 giant one of all three countries.)  Google Maps saved our bacon in Ireland where there were so many little winding roads and it was easy to get turned around.  We could even search for grocery stores and restaurants on an offline map so it was useful for more than just not getting lost.
8. Print a few maps of important locations.  Even with my Google Maps love affair, because I never want to put my trust 100% in the hands of technology, I like to print up a small map of the most important locations for me to find.  I printed up a small map that showed how to walk from each train station to each hotel so that we could navigate to our hotel without problems -- just in case my phone was out of power or my offline maps didn't work.  That way we could get to a place with wifi and a person to help us without starting off walking in circles.

   

   At the Luxembourg Train Station

   
   

   

   Ready to walk around Genval, where I used to be a nanny

9. Familiarize yourself with transit bundle deals.  Most large cities have day passes or ticket bundles that you can purchase that make getting around cheaper.  For example, in Brussels or Luxembourg City, you could pay for a single or multiple day pass that enabled you to use all local transportation for a period of time as much as you needed.  (We didn't do this because we took so few subway trips in Brussels that it was cheaper to just pay 2 euros for each ride, and we walked everywhere in Luxembourg.)  In Paris, you could pay for a single or multiple day pass, OR you could buy a bundle of 10 tickets for 14.90.  We chose the bundle of tickets as the best deal for us.  They were transferrable/shareable, so it enabled us to take 5 rides for much less than if we'd purchased the tickets individually (I think it is 1.90/ride in Paris).

   

   Riding the Metro in Paris

10. Walk whenever possible.  I've just given you lots of secrets for how to get around on train and public transportation, but the truth of it is that walking is always the most enjoyable way to explore a city.  You can really get a feel for the layout of a city, as well as the people and where they work and live, when you don't miss huge swaths of it traveling underground.  You will discover markets and neighborhoods and restaurants and small quaint streets as you wander.  So, bring comfortable shoes, grab a paper city map from the train station, and walk.  I like to plan my day so that I cover sights that are closest to each other.  For example, I might take the Paris metro to the Les Halles stop, but then I'll walk gradually eastward to Le Centre Pompidou, the Stravinsky Fountain, the Picasso Museum, the Marais neighborhood, and end at the Bastille before catching a metro ride back home.

    

    One of the many nooks and crannies in Luxembourg City that we wouldn't have seen unless we were wandering around on foot.

    
    

    

    A lane through the middle of a ritzy neighborhood in Genval

    
    

    

    We loved wandering around Bruges at night

    
    

    

    Ghent was very pedestrian friendly (assuming you didn't get run over by someone on a bike)

    
    

    

    One of the old entrances to Bruges, only accessible on foot.

11. Rent a bike in Bruges.  If you want to be in awe of a country designed to be friendly to bikes, go for a ride in the countryside around Bruges, Belgium.  We rode our bike along a canal, all the way to the Netherlands (It sounds cool to say it that way, but it was only about 10 miles).  Then we rode to the North Sea (again, just about 10 miles).  Then we rode back to Bruges.  The entire time, we rode in lanes or on trails that were specifically for bikes.  The bike rental place gave us a map of the bike routes and there were signs all along our journey that showed the numbered points we were passing.  And best of all, it was FLAT so it was a leisurely, lovely bike ride.  Other cities are similarly bike friendly, but Bruges northward was so flat that it made it much less work to be on a bike than it would have been elsewhere.  Plus it was beautiful.

    

    Riding from Bruges, Belgium to the Netherlands

    
    

    

    Welcome to the Netherlands: our own bike trail, a hand raised draw bridge, and a windmill

    
    

    

    Lee after we stopped for lunch in the Netherlands

    

    A small portion of the bike parking lot next to the Gent St. Peters train station

12. Bonus tip:  wear compression socks.  This is something you'd expect a grandma to say, but I don't have any grandkids so there.  Plus compression socks come in super cute varieties now, thanks to runners making them cool.  My feet used to swell up on airplanes and long car rides and then they'd hurt for the rest of my trip, but ever since I adopted this granny habit, my feet are much happier.  Just throwing that bonus tip out there...