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| Venice |
"Not only can you travel independently to Europe, but you can do it much more cheaply and easily than you thought possible."
I always hope that sentence will galvanize my listener into action so that he'll race to buy my book, Europe on a Dime: Five-Star Travel on a One-Star Budget, and start planning a trip. After all, the book holds your hand, step-by-step, so you can plan a European experience that is easy on the budget. Truly, Europe on a Dime practically makes the reservations for you!
But no matter how sincerely I promise to walk people through the process, it's never quite that easy to convince them. No matter how tantalizing the thought of traipsing down the Champs d'Elysee or cruising the canals of Venice, there's usually a "yes, but...." counter to my promise of cheap and meaningful travel.
So, it's time to face those "yes, buts...." in the next few blog posts. We're going to take a look at the fears which keep people rooted to their La-Z-Boy recliners when they could be sauntering down exotic cobblestone alleys instead. We'll confront the objections head-on in hopes that everyone will soon feel confident enough to plan a European trip.
I think one of the fears that keeps people firmly at home is the Heart Attack Fear. It's an illogical one because all European cities are equipped with excellent hospitals staffed with doctors who can care for you as well, if not better, than the doctors here in the US. Your chances of perishing from a medical emergency would be far greater in one of the remote areas of the United States with no quick access to a hospital, yet no one avoids visiting Yosemite National Park, hiking in Alaska, or fishing in the remote wilds of Montana.
In other words, fishing in Montana is far more hazardous than strolling the streets of Rome. If you would take a trip to San Francisco or New Orleans without a qualm, you can go to Europe with confidence. And, once again, I know from personal experience that all difficulties can be handled if you remain calm and approach each part of the problem in a step-by-step fashion.
It was about eight miles outside of Venice, Italy, that the bubble gum I'd been chewing lifted off the crown on my back molar and left a stub of a tooth in its place. I was grateful I hadn't absent-mindedly chewed the crown into smithereens or swallowed it, but that knowledge didn't make me feel any better about the gaping void in my mouth. And I couldn't imagine eating with a missing molar. That's what upset me the most. There are plenty of things I was willing to sacrifice, but missing a meal in Italy wasn't one of them.
