Well, this spring we are shaking it up a bit.  For the last few years we have followed our preferred pattern for traveling. Find a home base and from there explore.  Valencia, Spain last year. Ontiente, Spain the year before.  The Dordogne or Occitaine, France and years ago Umbria, Italy. All were explored from a place we called home for two or three weeks, or in the case of Valencia, two months.

Years ago we used to travel a bit like the bad movie, “If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium.”  (Don’t know it? Don’t bother looking for it. As you might guess it’s about traveling through Europe with a different hotel room every night).  Our version wasn’t quite that hectic or silly, and certainly more interesting, but we did cover a lot of ground in a relatively short period of time when that’s all the time we had. It suited our circumstances then just fine. Can we still manage that? Or have those travel muscles atrophied?  

This year our primary travel focus is the Highlands of Scotland with a week in the Fife region, a few days near Edinburgh, a week in Somerset, and a couple nights in both London and Paris.  Not quite a different hotel room every night, but definitely more movement than we’ve been used to.  The closest we’ve been to near constant movement was four years ago in Spain, mainly in Andalusia, and then we relied upon a nearly full-service travel company to manage all the different hotels, train trips and tours. It was a breeze! Can we do it by ourselves this time?

Well, we aren’t totally on our own.  We’ve shared the planning for the core 21 days with our travel companions and then tacked on 14 additional days on our own.  Even so, the trip involves more than 10 different plane, train and car rentals reservations and 15 different hotels, B&B’s, and vacation rental stays. Lots of planning went into each step.  Lots!  Some pieces of the trip our friends planned.  Some we did. Many we planned together.  We talked, discussed and debated options, texted and emailed ideas and then reservations back and forth.  Some parts of the trip are planned in great detail (dinner reservations on our walk along the Fife Coastal Walk where a hiking service carries our bags from inn to inn as we carry a light rucksack) and others left open (a couple nights in London with only a vacation rental booked).

Making all these arrangements wasn’t the only challenge.  In addition to the four day hike along the Fife coastal path, we also want to do some hiking in Glencoe, around Ullapool and Wester Ross, and near Fort William.  That meant packing bulky hiking gear and enough clothes for those stretches when we wouldn’t have access to washer/dryers.  Weather in Scotland is unpredictable, especially in May.  Sun, rain, wind or even snow at higher elevations? So we also have to pack rain gear and warm layers. Then there’s London and Paris where those hiking shoes will never be seen!  And by the end of the trip the weather in London and Paris could be quite warm.  Short sleeves?  Shorts?  Sandals? Not enough room. Didn’t take long for us to realize our usual carry-on roll-aboards wouldn’t hold it all.

We purchased every book we saw on Scotland over the last year and then had to pare down to just two (plus the one Mary smuggled in when Peter wasn’t looking). Camera?  Bring the big, good camera or rely upon our iPhones?  Big camera won.  Binoculars?  Just one pair. We’ll have to share. And so it went. One large suitcase, one roll-aboard and two backpacks later we were packed.

So how will it go?  Will we survive packing and repacking our bags every second or third day?  Will it get old fast trying to find a decent espresso in each new location or even worse, not finding any at all. Will we miss having our boulangerie, our patio, our market, our neighborhood or will the variety and parade of new vistas more than compensate?  

Stay tuned.  The adventure has just begun. Oh, and our first hotel was the lovely Holiday Inn at the Newark Airport—a transit stop on our way to Paris.