Around the World Travel Summary Part 2

Where in the world am I? In San Diego today. Trip Summary 2

 

Hi there. I'm Dr. Mary Travelbest, recently on a 90-day journey around the world, excited to connect with fellow travelers and share our experiences.

 

Listener Story Spotlight

 

 Today's listener story is about 79 year old Sandi Biback who I met in Toronto and helped organize an afternoon with women from the JourneyWoman organization.

She was called in to help and rose to the occasion. She is traveling to Bhutan in October and has shared several tips with me for purchasing Travel insurance. She's seasoned in Travel experiences and business conferences. She has been an active traveler for many decades. I tip my head to you, Sandi, and thank you for helping out in Toronto.

Quick-fire FAQ:

The FAQ for today is: about Single Supplements. These are extra fees that are essentially doubled when part of a package group tour. Refer to the notes for further information on this topic.

When do I want to pay for them or not? Look at this link. 

 

There may be times you will pay for this, but the practice is getting attention with cruise ship business, and the more successful ones are eliminating the fees or reducing them dramatically.

I had to pay for a whole room on my cruise from Helsinki to Stockholm for one night. It was a tiny room on one of the lower levels, with no window. I'll address this issue again in future episodes, but I'd like to hear from you on the topic, too.

 

60-second confidence challenge

 

Find a world map, whether it is a flat map, a round map, or an atlas. Get one and explore the map as if you lived in the world. You do. I challenge you to know your geography a little better than you did yesterday.

If you like today's Confidence Challenge, Chapter 3 of my book dives deeper—link in description."

 

See Book A for addressing all of these items.

Find it on our website at https://www.5stepstosolotravel.com/ or on Amazon. It's a several-part series.

 

Destination Deep‑Dive

Today's special destination is: 

A summary of my 90-day trip. Part Two

 I ended Part One of this summary with my visit to South Africa, specifically Johannesburg. Let's move forward now on the second half. I flew on the shortest day of the year in the southern hemisphere, June 21, to the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere on June 22, when I landed in Athens, Greece, flying through and stopping off in Qatar overnight. Qatar's airport was immense.e I was shocked at how large it was. It was actually like a little city and quite the Commerce capital of the world from my perspective. You could stay there for weeks without going outside if you wanted to. There was just so much going on at any time of the day. I tried to access the airport lounge as I had a very long layover. Still, they insisted I couldn't check in until three hours before my flight or something like that, so I had to shop and come back. When I did go to the airport lounge, it was delightful, even at two in the morning. My credit card for this trip allowed me to use the Priority Pass lounges and even bring a guest, so I took advantage of that benefit and passed it on to others who became friends along the way. Now back to Greece. I didn't have a clear plan for what I was going to do in Athens. I stayed at a hostel located in a not-so-great area of the city. It was on the fringe, and by that I mean the only stores nearby were small markets that primarily sold take-out groceries. No other stores, such as dry cleaners or dog grooming shops, were in the neighborhood. The residents here were mainly short-termers, not people planning to stay for very long, hence markets that sold convenience goods. However, they were not called 7-11's or chain stores, and inside, they had a small selection because the stores were small for the most part. There were many intersecting streets, and not all of them had well-marked names. I also had some struggles with Google Maps on this trip, but I enjoyed the visit nonetheless. I went to an island called Hydra. The locals called Ira, and then I also went and visited an island called Paris. I stayed overnight on the isla