I recently got back from a trip to London, Paris, and Amsterdam. I know we have a lot of readers there, but as an American who’d never been to Europe before, I found some simple takeaways I’d like to share:
Mobile saves your ass.
When we arrived in Paris, we got a cab to take us to our flat. We ended up with a cabdriver who didn’t speak English, of course, but also needed a magnifying glass to look at his Paris street map to find our destination (which was 4 miles away). I finally handed him my iPhone showing the route (which he proceeded to look at with his magnifying glass — while driving!) My iPhone and iPad came in infinitely handy when looking for stores, restaurants, and other landmarks. Mobile-enabled websites, easy-to-read online menus, and most of all, quick-loading pages are a huge help when traveling.
So does AirBnB.
Great flats are available for the cost of a hotel. Pictures, reviews, and recourse in case something goes haywire in the booking process are all available. It’s a real game-changer for travel.
A simple Google search ad can change your life.
Like the one below did – when I wanted to get a photographer to capture my surprise marriage proposal, and found an American photographer who’d be in Paris at the same time my girlfriend and I were.
You can read how that turned out here.
More observations to come in the next couple of days.
A huge congrats, Dan. And thanks for sharing the Tumblr site. You romantic, you.
Thanks, David. It came together quite nicely — and is making all her girlfriends jealous, which turns out to be point of it after all.