Home again and thinking about the next trip

It is nice to be home. Our bed is so comfortable!  The garden looks splendid, if a little overgrown. We are full of ideas and energy to do up the house. And of course it is lovely to catch up with family...

This morning as we walked through the reserve (we are on a  health kick to try and get rid of the extra weight we have gained) Alan and I debriefed on the the highlights and best memories from the trip.  We are keen to do another big trip in a year or so.  I feel I will be much better prepared for the next trip based on what we learnt from this one.

Next time:

• I will take less clothes
• I will buy some of those special quick drying travel trousers (much as I don't like the look of them) and quick drying underwear
• I will be realistic and take some clothes in a bigger size to accommodate a bit of weight gain
• I will stick with Shauna's excellent travel tip of having clothes sorted in the suitcase in plastic bags for tops, underwear, extras etc. to avoid having to pull everything out all the time
• I will take a small hairdryer - not so much for the hair but for quick drying of washed underwear
• We will definitely take a compass - having got lost at least once a day, this would have definitely helped
• We will take a fork, knife and spoon and plastic plate each and a corkscrew
• Preplanning of travel and accommodation really saves time and energy
• Location in a city is the number one priority for accommodation
• Booking tours in advance is a good idea - some of our best days ended up being on the tours we took - Amalfi and Pompeii, Countryside Provence etc.
• Good walking shoes and bandaids are essential
• Posting things home worked well and everything arrived okay
• High capacity memory stick or hard drive for backing up the photos on the laptop
• Take several universal adapters in case you lose one or more
• Hold on to small change and notes for tips
• When driving on the right hand side of the road, remind yourself particularly at the start of a journey to keep to the right!
• Download photos every day and remove from camera - keep in separate folders for each day on the computer as it is easier to organise them all later.  Backup regularly.

That's all for now - time to get out in the garden again.