I couldn't resist designing this vacation inspired by my favorite vampire novel. The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova's epic 2005 novel, is an epic story of a father and daughter chasing Dracula across Europe. 

Start off in Oxford and wind your way down to Istanbul over 7 magical weeks. You'll travel by train through stunning countrysides, climb a hill to reach a castle towering above a brilliant lake, page through centuries-old books in hidden libraries, explore secluded monasteries, take tea in tiny jewel-colored shops, and of course, like Paul and Helen in The Historian, be on the lookout for vampires! 

What cities will you visit? (deep breath) Here we go! Oxford, Amsterdam, Paris, Collioure, Vernet-les-Bains, Montepulciano, Venice, Lake Bled, Ljubljana, Kostanjevica, Budapest, Athens, Crete, Split, Mostar, Dubrovnik, Sofia, and Istanbul!

This is the trip of a lifetime, perfect for lovers of literature, spookiness, and the romance of train travel. Tempted? Fill out our travel interest form and simply write "The Historian" in the "where would you like to go" section (no need for additional details!). We'll reach out to you right away to begin talking about your grand adventure! 

P.S. Though not intended as a guided tour, if you had a group and wanted a guide, we could do that (schedule permitting) for an additional fee. 

Summer is the peak travel season for most destinations, and demand is higher than ever. How can you help your summer travels go smoothly? Here are four simple tips. 

1. Leave more time than you think you'll need. Get to the airport three hours early for international flights, pad the time you leave your hotel room to reach a museum, and head to restaurants before you're “gotta eat right now!” hungry.
2. Be flexible; go with the flow. Things might not go according to plan (unbearably long lines at a food cart festival, a violent thunderstorm when you planned a hike…). If you don't rest the hopes for your vacation all on one activity, and you aren't afraid to pivot to different plans, you'll be better able to roll with challenges.
3. Be prepared, but not anxious. Carry a mini first-aid kit with bandages and basic medicine in your bag in case you get a blister or feel sick; keep your water bottle full; pack an umbrella. But most of all, if you forget something, don't panic. Unless you are truly going into the wilderness, you likely can buy what you're missing or find help if needed.
4. Use the “six-month-old baby” metric. Travel can be stressful, and when you notice yourself getting crabby, treat yourself as you would a six-month-old baby. Ask yourself “Am I hungry? Tired? Thirsty? Over-stimulated? In uncomfortable clothes?” and then get what you need. Being tuned in to your own needs can turn an irritating day into an enjoyable one.

We get it. You don't get the chance to travel to Europe every day, and you want to see as much as you can. So you want an itinerary that takes you EVERYWHERE. But let's look at the opposite sort of trip for a moment. There is a lot of value in choosing a single city and staying there for a week or more. Why? Here are a few reasons.

• Depth of experience. You begin to feel you know the city. You have a favorite bakery you stop at every morning. You can navigate your way to the nearest Metro stop without looking at a map. You have time to notice more details about the people, the architecture, the culture, the history (and of course, the food!). You don't have to make choices between three different museums you want to see--you have time for them all.
• Comfort. You only unpack once, and you only re-pack once. Your hotel room begins to feel a little bit like a home-away-from-home, instead of just a place to catch up on sleep. 
• Pace. Have you ever heard someone say they feel like they need a vacation after their vacation? If you have a fast-paced trip, where you're cramming as much in as possible, it might be amazing, but it will also likely be exhausting. Slow the pace down, and you'll give yourself the chance to relax and breathe as you engage with your destination. Come home from your trip feeling rejuvenated, not exhausted. 
  
  

Kate Thomas from Travel Pro Theory sums up another important reason: for every day of travel you add, you are basically losing a day of vacation. Travel days are busy and tiring, and it's unlikely you'll also be doing sightseeing or exploring on those same days. 

Of course, you know yourself best, and if you love a fast pace and don't mind a lot of travel days, then go for it! We're not saying this is the only way to see the world--just that it's a wonderful, often-unappreciated one that we think more people should consider.

If you do want to see multiple cities, a great way to do so is with a small-group tour. Then you won't have to worry about travel arrangements, you won't need to use your energy figuring out how to navigate new train stations or airports, and you'll have the comfort of a knowledgeable tour guide's presence to introduce you to a new place. Even with small-group tours, though, watch out for ones that try to fit, say, five countries into one week. That often means moving at an exhausting pace. Our recommendation is to find a tour that gives you at least three full days in each city you stay in (hey, like one of ours, perhaps!).

 ​Have you been procrastinating on getting your passport? It can seem intimidating, but it's really just a few simple steps. We thought we'd break them down, to make it as easy as possible for you. Because, of course, having a passport is the first step that leads to you, for example, eating a pain au chocolat in a Parisian boulangerie.

These steps are to get a new passport or a renewed passport in person. There are also renew-by-mail options, and (rolled out as a test last year) online renewal options. But this traditional process is currently the most straightforward and reliable at this time, in our opinion. 

This is also the process to get a passport at the "routine" or "expedited" rate, but is NOT the procedure if you need a passport for an emergency or for urgent travel. You can learn more about what to do in those cases at this link.

So, let's get you a passport!
​

1. Go to this link and click on "Fill out or Download your Form," and then choose either Option 2 "Renew Your Passport" (if you got your last passport within the last 15 years) or Option 1 "Application For A U.S. Passport" (if it's been more than 15 years since you got a passport, or if you have never had one). You can either use the "form filler" option or the pdf option. You'll fill out the form (it's stuff like name, address, etc., plus it also wants a bit of info about your parents) and print it out.
   
   --note: if you don't have access to a printer, you could drop in at a post office and ask for a paper copy of this form.
   --note: if you'd like to select a different gender marker on your passport than was on your previous one, that's totally fine, and you can read more about that here. They have the options F, M, and X.
   
   
2. Go to this website to schedule an appointment at a post office to get your passport renewed. I recommend choosing the type of appointment "new passport with photo services" so that you don't have to get your photo taken separately, but if those aren't available in your area, you can get your photo taken separately (Walgreens, for example, takes passport photos). You'll search for a location and make the appointment thru the website. Some post offices do have drop-in services if you don't want to make an appointment. You can check the ones in your area here.
   
   
3. Your fee (as of March 2023) will be $130 for renewal or $130 + a separate $35 if you have to do a new one (if it's been more than 15 years). You can also pay extra to expedite the processing, and to expedite the shipping. Typically they don't allow you to pay by card (though some will, apparently, I would ask first as it's not common). You generally must use a check or money order (yes, in 2023 :-) ). 
   
   
4. When you go to your appointment, bring your expired passport (or other document(s) from this list), your filled-out form, and your checkbook (and your passport photo, if you had it done elsewhere in advance). You can check the current average processing times here.

And of course, once you have that passport, it's time to use it! Fill out our Travel Interest Form and we can begin building you the perfect vacation!

It's important to us to contribute positively, in whatever small way we can, to the places we visit. To that end, we will be donating 10% of our profits from our Cakes and Coffeehouses small-group tour of Budapest and Vienna to the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union. Founded in 1994, the HCLU is the leading Hungarian human rights NGO. They monitor legislation, pursue strategic litigation, provide free legal aid, provide trainings and run awareness-raising media campaigns. 

The HCLU's "Equality Project" focuses on fighting state-level discrimination of the Roma people and people with disabilities. Their "Privacy Project" works to ensure that state intervention into the lives of public citizens is only to the extent that is absolutely necessary, and that the state provides services relevant to protect human rights (such as health care, public education, and social services). Their "Political Freedoms Project" works to ensure people can form their own opinions on public affairs and express their opinions about the operation of the state. They specifically focus on freedom expression, freedom of the press, the right to assembly, and the transparent functioning of the state and the freedom of information facilitating it.

You can learn more about them at hclu.hu.

We believe travel is important, but we also recognize that travel (air travel in particular) has a negative environmental impact. We already do our best to lessen the carbon footprint of our group tours by using trains, taking public city transportation, and walking whenever possible. But we want to do better.
 
Starting with our Cakes and Coffeehouses group tour of Budapest and Vienna in June, from now on, we will be using Gold Standard to purchase carbon offset credits for all transportation involved with our group tours--including the transatlantic flights of all group members. 
 
Carbon offset credits aren't a perfect system, but they're a start. If you'd like to read more about them, you can learn more here. If you're interested in purchasing carbon offset credits for your individual travel, that's something we can happily add on to any package. 

And, of course, if you'd like to read more about our upcoming group tour offerings, check them out here:

Cakes and Coffeehouses: Budapest and Vienna
Spirits: Dublin, Belfast, and Edinburgh

You know we focus on Europe. It's our first love, our specialty, our obsession. South America is not our area of focus, but we'd still love to help people interested in visiting. That's why we want to share information about a trip that Angela Richards, a travel advisor friend of ours, is running to Cartagena, Colombia. It's going to be amazing. (This isn't something we're trying to sell you, by the way. We don't get a commission, we have no involvement, we just think it's a great opportunity and we want to share it!)

Read about the trip in Angela's own words: 

"We are headed to Cartagena, Columbia, March 9-14, 2023. We will be immersing ourselves in Columbian culture through a tour of Palenque, the first free African town in the Americas. We'll discover how this distinct African culture has been maintained for centuries. We'll also learn about traditional music and dance, folk medicine, and Palenque's unique language. There will also be a tour of the Walled City of Cartagena, which has a rich colonial history.

If you'd like to join us (and we'd love it if you did!), pricing starts at $1200 per person. This includes:

• Five-night stay at an all-inclusive resort
• Round-trip airport transportation*
• All meals and drinks while on the resort
• 2 Immersive Excursions
• Travel Protection (credit only)
• ME! And comfort from knowing you won't be exploring an unfamiliar destination alone.

*Airfare is not included but can be added."

​You can learn more about it and sign up here!

“Know yourself” isn't just a quote from Socrates and a song by Drake--it's also our best advice on how to have a great vacation. This is your vacation! You're taking time off work, spending money, and making arrangements for pet care or housesitting, so don't waste that effort on something that will leave you frustrated. Make sure you have a trip that is perfectly suited to you.

Here are three questions to ask yourself when making vacation plans. They aren't meant to be yes or no questions; rather, consider each question a spectrum where you might fall anywhere between the two extremes.

1. Plan it all or leave it open? Do you want to make sure you don't miss a thing, and get every tour, museum visit, and restaurant reservation booked in advance? Or do you want to leave each day wide open, ready to be filled with whatever sounds good in the moment?
2. On the go or take it slow? Do you love the hustle of moving from one place to the next, seeing as many places as you can? Or do you want to linger in one place, really getting to know a locale more intimately?
3. Tried and true or something new? Do you love returning to the same much-adored spot you've been to many times before? Or do you want to go somewhere completely unfamiliar?

As you make your 2023 travel plans, think about how you would answer each of those three questions. It'll help to ensure your vacation is your vacation, something you'll truly love.

You can learn more about what a Leaping Hound Travel group tour is like on our What to Expect page!