We did it the other way, starting in Manarola and heading north. I felt old, getting passed by old seniors from Europe with their hiking sticks who were clearly in better shape than me. It’s an amazing trail!

Um, red? You might want to see a doctor about that…

Great point about making sure places are actually open when you want to go. I think I’ve taken it for granted that a large majority of the places and things I typically want to see have regular-ish business hours or are open 24/7 (e.g., something in a park or other public space).

This is AWESOME advice. I have no problem hitting up tourist spots but they can be a bit much (and sometimes hugely overrated). I try to balance those out with just living in the city eating and drinking away from all the popular spots too.

If the place you’re visiting has good public transit, I’ve also found that I strangely enjoy riding trains and buses to random places. It’s a good way to immerse yourself and get off the beaten path.

I’ve traveled to many corners of the planet and have a different take than most. Many people try to min/max their trip, filling up every minute of every day which doesn’t appeal to me at all. I prefer a laid back, impromptu schedule to give myself time to see and do stuff I didn’t plan and time to breathe and enjoy being in a new place. To me, the worst thing you can do is overplan and overschedule so you’re stressed out if something happens to screw up your tight schedule.

As for selecting what to do, I usually do tons of internet and book research finding things that sound interesting. I add everything to a list and to Google Maps as saved points and then try to cluster them into days, making sure I’m not packing in too much as noted above. I’m not especially concerned if I don’t get to everything–if I really enjoyed a place, odds are I’ll return and put focus on different experiences.

Even though I was on Reddit for 9 years, I never frequented r/startrek until this year and saw the mod posts about starting a fresh Lemmy instance. Being a member of the Federation in the Fediverse just really appealed to my geek brain.

Chicago has a weirdly high number of mattress chain stores. There’s a stretch near me that has 3 of them in the span of 4 blocks. They’ve all been there for awhile and there’s rarely ever anyone in them. No way these are legit businesses considering how often people buy mattresses.

I knew Sydney winters were mild compared to a place like Chicago but I still packed a few warm hoodies thinking it would be chilly. I definitely didn’t need them except a few nights when the temperature actually did drop.

Loved the city and surrounding areas we visited but if that’s your winter, I’m not sure I’d survive a summer visit.

My attempt at comedy apparently failed. That picture was taken two weeks ago when the daytime highs were like 65F/18C, pretty much the same as it is now.