When I was a child of about 5-6, my father was stationed at a military base in Ditton Priors England where we lived for about a year. We later moved to another base in Nancy France before returning to the USA. I can remember bits and pieces of living and traveling around Europe during that time and occasionally take similar photos of places I visited as a child.

Eddie at Manneken Pis - Brussels, Belgium

Out of college I worked from American and then United Airlines as a software engineer.  Working for an airline gave me the opportunity to travel easily and inexpensively although I was flying standby waiting and hoping for an available seat.  During this time, I made frequent trips to Hawaii and other locations around the country.  My first trip to Europe as an adult was with some airline friends to Frankfurt Germany.  We made Frankfurt our base as we explored the city and took day trips to other locations such as the Rhine River Valley and Heidelberg.

Eventually I left the airline industry to become an Information Technology consultant during the .COM era.  No more flight benefits so now I had to purchase actual tickets, but at least I got a confirmed seat!  I had not been back to Europe in years, then one day there was a flight deal from Denver to Frankfurt on British Airways for only $199.00.  I could not pass it up, so I purchased two tickets and then came home from work to tell my wife we were going to Europe.  She was obviously surprised as this was completely unexpected.

On this first trip to Europe as a couple, we were typical inexperienced European travelers.  We had a large suitcase we had to check in on our flights and had to pull it around everywhere we went and had smaller individual backpacks we kept with us. As my only experience was the previous trip to Frankfurt I decided to do the same thing.  We would make Frankfurt our base to explore then city, then take some day trips out.  We also wanted to visit another country so decided to rent a car and drive to Innsbruck Austria for a couple of nights before driving to Fusson to see the Neuschwanstein and Hohenswangau Castles before returning back to Frankfurt for the remainder of our trip.

Looking back, our travel plans were very inefficient as we wasted a lot of time driving to and from Innsbruck.  We had rented a car which was much slower and far more expensive than taking the train (trains were an unknown to us at the time) and we were paying for the car on days we were not using it.  We also made the mistake of not planning time to stop at interesting places we saw along the way.  We also did not plan time to explore the town of Fusson as we had only planned to visit the castles in the morning before returning to Frankfurt in the evening.

At the Neuschwanstein castle, you can walk the steep curvy road to the top (which is not really that bad), or pay to take a horse drawn wagon. We chose the tourist wagon as it looked like fun and it was raining quite hard at the time.  In the wagon, there were a few other people who were also Americans in the military stationed in Germany. We got to talking with them and told them our plans for the remainder of our trip. They gave us some advice on what to do rather than returning to Frankfurt.  They said our trip would be far more interesting and enjoyable if we avoided the large city of Frankfurt and spent more time in some of the smaller out of the way towns we would pass along the way.  They suggested driving the Romantic Road stopping in various locations and stay the night in the small medieval town of Rothenberg ob der Tauber. We decided to take their advice and were glad we did.  This change to our plans completely changed the way we travel and hooked us on European travel and exploration.  In Rothenberg we were able to find a hotel outside the city walls and they worked with our hotel back in Frankfurt to change our reservations for the remainder of our trip.

Germany's Romantic Road

www.RomanticRoad.com

From this trip, we realized what European Travel was all about, creating a flexible itinerary and stopping to see and explore interesting things you may find along the way.  We started taking annual trips to Europe to explore different locations.  With each trip, we started analyzing our travel techniques and experimenting with ways to improve and make them more efficient.  Hauling around a large suitcase was not the way to go.  We witnessed some travelers struggle with multiple large and heavy bags while others simply had a backpack and could easily navigate crowds and cobblestone streets.  We thought this was the way to go and it meant rethinking what to bring and how to pack.

On each new trip, we perfected how we travelled, not only with our luggage, but how we planned and organized our activities.  We switched to a rolling suitcase having a telescoping handle that could also be worn as a backpack but it could be uncomfortable and definitely did not look cool walking around with something that looked like a piece of luggage strapped to your back.   Through many trips and much experimentation, we were finally able to find Backpacks with the characteristics we needed for our travels.  Travel became so much more enjoyable and simpler once we had the right type of pack and perfected what we carried with us and how we packed it.

Years later, I returned to the travel industry, but not to an actual airline.  In my position at the time, I was offered the opportunity to live and work at our corporate offices in England for a period of 3 years.  This would be a corporate move to and from England where the company would pack us up, take care of all the logistics including visas, bank accounts, taxes and assisting with finding a place to stay.  We had always kicked around the idea of moving to Europe one day, so when this opportunity came about, we could not pass it up.

The interesting thing was that on an earlier trip to London England, we took the train to Windsor and can remember walking around thinking how cool it would be to live there some day.  At the time we had no idea how it would ever come about to live in Europe, much less the town of Windsor.  As it turned out, my company's headquarters was located just outside of London, a short drive from Windsor, so that is where we decided to stay.  We lived on Trinity Place next to the Trinity Church and had a small flat of about 650 sq. ft. that was a short 10 minute walk to the castle.  Life was good!

During our time in England, we devoted as much time as we could to travel.  We took easy day trips, single city trips and complex multi-city/country trips all meticulously self-planned down to the last detail.  With all our travel, we had our trip planning and how we packed down to an art.  Everything was fine tuned and went like clockwork.  Not only did we organize our own trips, but we planned and led trips for others during this time.

From our love of travel and all our experiences, I wanted to create a way that would automate and mimic the thought process we used when planning and booking our trips.  Not only should the website guide you through the planning process, but it should also provide Tips & Tricks helping you become a better and smarter traveler.  I also wanted to eliminate the need to carry pages and pages of pager containing your plans, maps and itinerary information adding weight and taking up valuable room in your backpack.  I was able to do this by creating a detailed Trip Profile page that can be printed (as a backup) listing only the important information you need while on your trip.  The most important and valuable tool you will use is our Mobile Trip Profile that when configured correctly will guide you step-by-step throughout your entire journey.

For every trip we plan, we utilize the website to help research, plan and track our bookings.  Our Mobile Trip Profile is an invaluable tool that guides us along our travels every step of the way.  We hope that you find our website as useful as we do and we welcome your thoughts and comments.