Hi from Rick: Inspired by Unbridled Fun
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| See how teenagers find fun in Spain — read Jackie and Zoe's blog this month. |
Dear Traveler,
I'm off for Norway now, my summer wanderlust being stoked by our teenage daughter Jackie, who's romping through Spain with her best girl friend this month — and blogging about their adventures daily.
Reading of the energetic vibe in hostels takes me back to my student days. One summer, I drove my grandparents around Norway. They stayed in the fine old hotels — places that smelled like aching joints, suffocating comfort, and sucking milk tea through sugar cubes. I insisted on staying down the street at the nearest youth hostel, where kids from around the world were tearing into (rather than gumming) the culture.
Of course, we can't be teenagers when we're triple that age. (Jackie is experiencing Spain on a quarter of the budget many think is necessary to travel well.) Still, we can be inspired by their unbridled fun — not gumming the culture, but tearing into it with carnivorous teeth and selfish abandon.
I hope you can follow Jackie and Zoe's blog as they tear their way across Iberia for the next couple of weeks. I will, too — commenting like any concerned and loving father. When Jackie's adventure is over, I'll resume my own blog, picking up with my trip as I swing through northern Europe for the rest of the summer.
In this month's Travel News, we'll do our best to stoke your wanderlust, too, with the latest travel tech tips (including news about my new iPhone apps), articles about Greece's Peloponnese and Ireland's Dingle, a guidebook power-struggle ripped from a perfect stranger's trip blog, and tales of travel serendipity from readers of last month's 'Risking the Slammed Door' story. Thanks for riding along with us.
Happy travels to teenagers at heart everywhere,
Rick Steves