When you travel, you never know what you may experience.  As much as you plan, things may not always go as expected.  We have touched on a few items such as changing your planed itinerary, accommodation issues and traffic violations.  There are endless possibilities of things that may happen, so this should give you some insight on how to deal with a few of them.

Always have your camera readily accessible as you never know what may suddenly appear and you don't want to miss a photo opportunity.

Bigfoot at Heidelberg Castle?

Even with the best laid plans, things may go awry.  We are not talking about catastrophic events forcing you to cancel your entire trip, but rather minor inconveniences that may occur during your travels.  When minor inconveniences arise, you need to know how to navigate them.  The bottom line is, stay calm and positive and you will get through them.

The unexpected can happen:

• Italy is known for rail strikes preventing you from reaching your destination as planned.
• You may have booked an accommodation that seems to have lost your reservation or perhaps you booked your accommodations on the wrong date not realizing it.
• Perhaps you missed a train connection.
• You stayed on a Rhine River cruise past your desired stop and need to get back to your planned destination.

Whatever happens, it will become part of your adventure and more than likely give you an entertaining story to tell.  Part of that story should be how you resolved the situation.

Build in time for unexpected detours

Build some extra time into your trip to stop and explore sites or things you may see as you travel between your destinations.

On a trip driving through the Rhine & Mosel River Valleys in Germany, we planned our itinerary so that we had additional time to stop and explore anything interesting we spotted along the way.  We had planned a time range at each location to be able to see and do everything we wanted as well as spend some time just hanging out and relaxing.  If we ran into something interesting as we traveled along to each new destination, we would have some time to stop and explore, not taking away valuable time from other locations.

As we drove along the river valleys, we had plans to stop at specific locations to tour some castles and have lunch before arriving at our next destination for the night.  We spotted the Marksburg Castle up on a hill while driving and decided to take some time to check it out.  Having a loosely structured itinerary with built in time for possible detours allowed us to stop and explore the castle.

Marksburg Castle

Rhine River Valley, Germany

Itinerary Adjustments

An adjustment to our itinerary on our first trip to Europe set the course for our future travels.

Years ago, on our first trip to Europe, we flew to Frankfurt Germany where we stayed a single night before driving to Innsbruck Austria the next day where we stayed for two nights.

Innsbruck Austria

From Innsbruck, the plan was to drive to Fusson to see the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles before returning to Frankfurt where we would do day trips out and back to different locations for the remainder of our vacation.  Looking back, what seemed like a good plan was actually quite horrible due to all the time wasted driving and paying for a rental car. We did not consider trains as they were quite foreign to us at the time.

Neuschwanstein & Hohenschwangau Castles - Fusson, Germany

One of the most important things we learned on this trip was to get out of the larger cities such as Frankfurt and explore the smaller towns throughout the country.

When we arrived in Fusson, we bought tickets to tour the castles. To get to the Neuschwanstein Castle, you can walk the steep curvy road which is not actually a bad walk at all, or pay to take a horse drawn wagon to the top. We opted for the 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 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 for our out and back plans.

They suggested driving the Romantic Road from Fusson up to Wurzburg stopping at some of the small towns along the way and staying the night in Rothenberg ob der Tauber.

Germany's Romantic Road

www.RomanticRoad.com

We decided to take their advice as the Romantic Road was on the way and we could see what we thought.  Making this adjustment completely changed our view of European travel.  We made some stops in small towns along the way including Ulm, having the world highest cathedral spire church.  We continued on to Rothenburg where we decided to stay the night and explore the medieval walled city.  We found a small hotel just outside the city walls and asked if they could contact our hotel in Frankfurt to adjust our reservation, which they did.

Wurzburg Germany	Ulm Germany

We made an unexpected adjustment to our entire trip itinerary that changed the way we travel today.  We now spend time in larger cities, but find the smaller out of the way places to be much more interesting.  We are not afraid to venture out and do not usually set a base at one location for out and back type of travels.

Rothenburg Germany

Traveling without accommodations

If you are traveling from the US, in most cases, you will probably book your accommodations prior to your departure.

If you happen to be living in Europe and taking short weekend trips, you may be more apt to simply arrive at your destination and find accommodations when required.  Depending on where you are going and what you are doing, it may be worth it to be more flexible with your accommodations.

While living in England, we would often take driving trips throughout the country without having any reserved accommodations.  As we were sometimes unsure of our plans or where exactly we would be in the evening, would would look for Bed & Breakfast location to hopefully find a room.  We often did this during Shoulder Season (early spring / late fall) when the tourists crowds have gone and it's much easier to find a place to stay at the last minute.

We also took this same approach on a weekend trip to Amsterdam unaware that a large festival was in progress and finding an affordable place proved to be a little more difficult.  We needed a place for two nights and of course we were able to find places in larger hotels but rooms were extremely expensive.  We also found smaller hotels at a good rate but having rooms available for only a single night.  We did not want to have to change rooms and deal with our backpacks the next day waiting for the hotel's check in time, so after a little work and persistence, we managed to find a place in a good location at a normal rate.  We ended up wasting a bit of tourist time, but managed to work things out.

Having no accommodations

If you are ever in the situation where for whatever reason you do not have accommodations, you may have some alternatives.  Of course you can look for an affordable hotel for the night.  In very small towns, there may not be many possibilities, so in the worst case scenario you may have to hang out at the train station.

Look for an all night cafe or other locations that may be open through the night.  Find a taxi that may be able to take you to the next town where there may be suitable accommodations.

Airports can serve as a place to hang out for a night if need be.  We have often seen people (mostly younger kids) sleeping on the floor or across multiple chairs overnight waiting on their morning flight.

Traffic Tickets

Driving in Europe will be an adventure on it's own with different traffic signs, safety cameras and especially in the United Kingdom if you are not used to driving on the opposite side of the road.

See Automobiles for more on driving and traffic.

Traffic Signs

Safety / Speed Cameras

It's easy to miss a speed limit change and get flashed by a camera.  Just a note, and this may be rumor but from personal experience while driving in England, I can say it may be true.  Not all 'Safety Camera' or 'Speed Camera' boxes may contain an actual camera.  They may be moved around to different boxes so that drivers are unaware of which boxes contain actual cameras.  We actually got flashed one time while driving in England and never received a ticket.  Perhaps the photo was blurry and my car's license plate was not legible or perhaps there was no camera in the box?

On a trip through Germany (where there was an actual speed limit), while driving through a town, we were unaware of a speed limit change and were flashed by a camera.  When we returned our rental car, there was no mention of a ticket.  Tickets may take a few days to process and eventually you should received an email notification that you received a ticket and the rental car agency will simply bill your credit card which they have on file.

Fortunately for minor infractions like speeding up to 10km over the limit, fines are usually minimal.  Use the internet to lookup possible fines for driving offences in the country you have been visiting.

If you are using your own personal GPS Navigator such as TomTom or a Smartphone app, you may be able to install a service that will identify the locations of the cameras.  The service will usually beep to notify you a short distance before the camera location giving you time to adjust your speed.  This additional service usually comes with a fee.