I went to Europe for a month or so in September/October 2019. Did I tell you this?
Here’s the bucket list I made for that trip. I didn’t post it earlier because I have a hard time convincing myself people actually care about this stuff.
1. Hang out with my mom and sister
My mom has never been to Europe and once, offhand, mentioned that she’d like to go, so my sister planned a cruise for the three of us.
And it was a great time because my mom and my sister are fun people. We played a lot of cards and chinese checkers on the boat and explored a lot of cities.
2. See a ton of cities. Like a ton.
We started in Venice, Italy and stopped in:
- Dubrovnik, Croatia
- Kotor, Montenegro
- Corfu, Greece
- Santorini, Greece
- Mykonos, Greece
- Athens, Greece
- Taormina, Sicily
- Naples, Italy
- Pisa, Italy
- Rome, Italy
- Vatican City
It was tiring, but excellent. Only three of those cities were repeats for me. So many places in the world are astonishingly beautiful.
3. Eat more food than you should
Gluttony is the name of the game in cruises and it’s really easy to overeat. I think I gained twenty pounds.
Food is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Room service in the middle of the night. Tea at 3 pm. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Snack. Late night buffet. Taco bar. Burger bar. Peanuts at the bar. So many bars.
You never get back to hungry. There’s just not enough time in between imbibing. Imbibing means drinking and not eating.
It’s so hard to not eat to your heart’s content and beyond contentment into misery.
Cruises are gluttony. And the food was good, but my palate isn’t sophisticated.
4. Explore a bit of Eastern Europe
After my mom left, my sister and I went to
- Warsaw, Poland
- Riga, Latvia
- Tallinn, Estonia
- Helsinki, Finland
There are a lot of really sad museums in Warsaw to visit. It’s a modern city with excellent public transportation that’s free on Sundays.
Riga and Tallinn are adorable cities that are very walkable and old.
Helsinki was okay. I wish we had gone farther north to try to see the northern lights. Next time.
5. End the trip in London because you haven’t been there in a while.
And because flights from London to the States are easy to snag. We also took a quick stop in Edinburgh, Scotland and stayed at the most adorable bed and breakfast.
6. See cool things in person I’ve seen on TV.
We saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Stonehenge. We went to Pompeii. Pretty cool. There was a new Banksy piece near London we managed to see. I get why he’s popular.
7. Be done traveling for a while.
Before the Europe trip, I went to Cleveland to visit a friend from law school. After the Europe trip, I went to Illinois to hang out with my family. All told, I was gone for more than six weeks.
No more traveling for a while.
I wrote that, but then I spent three weeks in Illinois in December, so it wasn’t “a while.”
Would you recommend the cruise you took? I am thinking of visiting Tallinn, Riga and Helsinki etc, a Baltic trip with my family, and finding the choices bit confusing. It is difficult to figure out cruise pricing. Would you recommend using an agent to get the best in terms of quality and price? I visited Dubrovnik, London and lived in Edinburgh for a year and loved it.
I know what you mean by not traveling for a while. It can be so overwhelming. I try to limit to just one nice trip/year.
Thanks for sharing!
The Tallinn, Riga, Helsinki part of the trip was not part of the cruise. My sister and I did that on our own, just buying flights and booking hotels along the way.
I like the site cruiseplum.com. It gives you the final price with tip and everything included. Most cruise lines have agents that are pretty helpful, but kind of pushy.
As for whether I would recommend a cruise, I’m very torn. They’re super fun and I’ve always enjoyed my time, but it’s an exercise in gluttony and over-consumption and bad for the environment, so I feel guilty about taking them. That might have been my last cruise.
Thanks for the suggestion. I have taken only one cruise before, and, yes, I felt bad about over-consumption and the environment. I also felt almost harassed by the staff about tipping. But I enjoyed all the live music and just watching the water, the birds and the sky. There are people who claim that it is cheaper and more pleasant to live out their retirement on repositioning cruises than downsizing and eventually ending up in some facility. These cruises are at least 1/2 off and far less crowded than the regular cruises. Just one of many options to consider!
I personally wouldn’t want to retire on a cruise, but I see the appeal.
I love your site. Thanks for sharing your journey with us. Regarding travel (which is on my bucket list!)…how do you find affordable hotels in Europe/Asia/whereever?
Thx!
This was not a cheap trip! We mostly did nice hotels after the cruise. In my 20s, I couch surfed. If I’m by myself, I’ll rent an airbnb for a month. If I’m with someone on a budget, I stick to hostels. I wanted to try house sitting when I was out there, like in Edinburgh, but the dates just didn’t line up.
Hey, no Spain or France??? May be all was part of your cruise?
It is a lot of places you’ve covered… Bravo.
The cruise was just the first part with my mom. The second part was on our own. No Spain or France this time. There are so many places in the world!
Sounds great! You fitted a lot in. I was in Pompeii, Rome and Stonehenge over the last 3 years or so. Yep – Europe has SO much to see. I visited Odessa in Ukraine once but havn’t really seen much of Eastern Europe.
Would be great to meet you if you ever come back to Ireland. I havn’t travelled anywhere near as much as I would like due to mainly not having the travel money and time away from work. Real reason is I’ve mostly worked a lowish paying job that didn’t allow me room in my budget to save up travel money.
Anyways, time to make plans to change that. Make this Irishman happy and let’s have coffee next time you’re here!
I love Ireland, but I’ve only been once.
Hey Thriftygal – I really love following your blog because I am also a young woman striving for FI. I’ve searched your blog and was wondering if you would be interested in addressing a few topics in a little more depth? First, can you talk about the social implications of FI? Such as balancing your FI goals and while still spending money for social events? I don’t want to come off as too cheap to my partner, friends, and family, but FI and controlling my spending is an important goal for me. Second, if you can go into anymore details about the financial side of FI, that would be cool … like specifics on how to determine how much money to save. I’ve done a lot of calculations and the predictions all say I won’t reach FI for another 20 years. =(
1) That’s a hard question. I really pinched my pennies when I was working as a lawyer and my excuse for not doing social things was because I had to work! It was mostly true.
I think you have to build in some cushion for entertainment or else you’re going to go insane. Say yes one out of every three times. Say yes if it falls on a Tuesday. Say no if you don’t actually want to.
2) It’s all about your income and expenses. The bigger the gap between the two, the better off in life you’ll be. You have control over both, I think. I know that seems obvious, right?
Take your expenses for the year and multiply it by 25. That’s how much you need to retire. Minimize your expenses, maximize your income.
Twenty years seems like a long time. Do you have a lot of debt?
I really enjoy your blog. Thanks for sharing your experiences. Just a question about one of the photos. What is that item you discovered in the grocery store in Dubrovnik?
It’s an eggplant with a weird nose!
In August and September 2019 My wife and I spent two weeks exploring Italy followed by a three week cruise from Rome to Boston (with lots of stops in the Mediterranean, the Azores and Canada). We really enjoyed the trip (despite my getting sick for part of it). We also started in Venice (where I celebrated my birthday). I’m also an attorney and semi-retired (though not really early retired). Maybe we crossed paths in Italy.
Yeah, I remember seeing you in Venice. 😉
That sounds like an epic trip.
Cool you found the musicians of Bremen statue.. I didn’t realize they have it outside Bremen though, lol. Did you rub the donkey nose for luck i see its shiny in the picture too!
I didn’t realize there was more than one
Oh, glad to hear Helsinki got a lukewarm review… I tried to convince my friend we should stop there on our scandanavian theme trip and all he said was “do you want to go to hel”? which is their unfortunately named airport code… is it hard to meet new people when you travel with your family? thats always a nice part of traveling for me
Yeah, that’s the only downside to traveling with someone you know – you don’t meet as many people.