We just spent three weeks in Italy, and I experienced European travel in a new way - as a partially disabled person. A first for me. Before the trip, I developed a meniscus tear in my already arthritic knees, and required minor surgery. However, I didn't have time for the surgery required, because of the trip - it would have to wait till I got back.

Thus we went on our trip with my weak and painful knee. Yes, we had fun and I'm glad we went. HOWEVER, it was different. We've traveled for many years, and it was certainly a compromised experience, especially in the cities. I'd walk a few blocks, then sit, then walk a few blocks, then sit...I had an especially hard time standing in a line or waiting for a bus.

This brings me to the point of the e-mail - if you are fit (at whatever age) do it while you are able to walk for miles a day, exploring those back streets and those monuments with some stamina. Even if you have a car and are in the countryside, those hill towns of course have HILLS and the parking lots are at the bottom.
Don't wait till you require a bus tour - even those can be strenuous.
Just do it. While you can do it the way you like. I'm not saying No to doing it anytime, in any way you can (like I said, I had fun) but don't wait too long.
Linda

Thanks for this Linda, I hope alot of travelers pay attention to your wise message. I've always worked in the medical field and you don't have to see too many people become disabled or worse to appreciate how limited time can be when it comes to the freedom of health! Carpe diem and at the same time, plan for limitations when you have to! Glad your trip went well.

Thankfully, I'm already on my way to restoration- my knees can be dealt with. Just this fall,in Europe, my substandard knees were walking many miles, many stairs and many steep hikes in the mountains. I expect to regain that ability! And if I didn't regain it, well, I had many many years of fabulous independent adventures. Probably more than my share, so I can't complain. I guess the target for my message is those who are thinking "we'll do that when we retire."
Linda

I'm glad your knee is getting better. And I agree wholeheartedly with your post!

I fractured my left ankle slightly over a year ago, and this May spent 20 days thru the CT and Tuscany... every night icing the ankle, which wouldn't start to swell until 5'ish..I think I'm cursed for life now with a bum ankle.

I couldn't agree with you more. 15.5 years ago I Found out that I had cancer. Through surgery and chemotherapy I believe that I am cured, even though oncologists nevere use that word and talk about "sustained remission" or "halting progression of disease". after a brush with death, you are more aware of your own mortality.

You never know if that trip you put off until the future might get put off into never. My Nona wanted to see Italy again before she died. Even though she lived to be 91, she never had enough money to go back. I lit A candle for at St Peter ad Vincola.
http://www.slowphotos.com/photo/showphoto.php?photo=32755&cat=4024

I talked two of my colleagues into coming to Paris with us a couple of years ago by telling them about another colleague who ate cans of tuna in his office for lunch for years, because he and his wife were saving for retirement in Hawaii. Immediately after he retired, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and died a little while after. At the funeral, his wife told us that her one regret was that they had put off a trip to Europe, and he had never gotten to go there. Life is too short to put things off because you think you'll be able to do them later.

I believe this is one of the most inspiring posts I have read !
Yes! to travelling! Yes to travel when you have to pace yourself! Yes to travel when you are older, but you are an interested person inside.Yes to adventure no matter what!
I love you,
Philip

The first trip my sister and I took alone to Europe was with the $$ our mom left to us after she died. It was the trip we never took together.

I will never travel again without thinking about the trip we put off until it was to late. Since then I have taken both of my children to Europe, and plan another great escape with my sister next year.

Life is to short~ live it while we can!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Deferred gratification or delayed gratification is the ability to wait in order to obtain something that one wants. This ability is usually considered to be a personality trait.

People who lack this trait are said to need instant gratification and may suffer from poor impulse control.

***********************8*

I suffer from "poor impulse control" when it comes to travel, and must have at least four weeks of "instant gratification" in Italy every year.

quote:

Deferred gratification or delayed gratification is the ability to wait in order to obtain something that one wants.

We have known many people with this personality trait. Their favorite thing to say is, "One of these days - when I get the time and money - I am going to ......." I often wonder how many of them had this inscribed on their tombstone.

My older sister now uses a walking frame, and she's in her early 30s. Although this doesn't stop her travelling, it does make her more reluctant to go with anyone other than me, because she simply can't do much in a day and doesn't want to hold others up. She jokes that she's an ultra-slow traveller! She sends me, armed with camera or video, to places she can't reach, so she can still share.

So yes, don't let anything stop you from travelling, but use the excuse of good health and mobility to travel sooner than you might otherwise.

Kat

The French like to diss [another European country] by saying "those XXXXXXs live in order to work. We the French work in order to live."
I vote for the French way. -- Why else do I live here?

quote:

I believe this is one of the most inspiring posts I have read !
Yes! to travelling! Yes to travel when you have to pace yourself! Yes to travel when you are older, but you are an interested person inside.Yes to adventure no matter what!
I love you,
Philip

Thanks, Philip; I love you, too.

jan

I don't believe in those distinctions. Every single day is a singular gift and if you forget that you will lose something.

I have begun to have an ongoing problem from a joint previously unaffected by my slight handicap. I'm learning what helps, but I am not stopping or slowing from it. I found this past week that I didn't feel it at all while I was slaving away for 10-12 hours, but the first time I really sat down, oh wow! Is that "use it or lose it?"

There are just no guarantees of tomorrow, even for those who do not drive in Italy everyday.

The first person to call me spry is dead meat.

I enjoyed the posts about delayed gratification. It is certainly overrated when it comes to positive things that give your life passion or joy. Lots of great stories here.

I have lots of friends who enjoy cruising. I might, though I don't think it is for me, for a variety of reasons. I always figure I'll do that when I'm too infirm or weak to travel any other way. Just so I can get out there in the world and see things.
Linda

Thank you for reminding us of this lesson. I have moments when I feel guilty for spending the money we do on travel and appearing to be so into the *now* factor of gratification. Then I remind myself - we're in our 30s, healthy with nothing stopping us from travel (other than time off and money) and I want to enjoy it while we're really able to. Who knows what the future holds, and I never want to *wish* I had done something yet not done it.

I'm still hanging out on the message board and I read your post, t-mac. It's too hot to be outside, and I'm feeling reflective, so here goes. I think the 30's are tricky. You feel you need to everything NOW: career, investing, kids...and travel. Most people seem to find the right balance for them.

It's all a matter of priorities. At this stage of my life (we're around 60) we have a house that needs attention. It's not crumbling, but there are needs. A wise and prudent person would maintain their most valuable possession - their home. So we do, sort of....However, we need new counter tops, the bathroom is worn and looks like the 80s, we should be stashing money for the inevitable new roof and furnace which will be required soon. I have a list. However....instead, we travel. First we travel, and if we have extra money after that, we work on the house. For most people we know, its reverse order. Their houses are impeccably maintained, and they don't seem to require multiple trips each year. We could do that- it is the smart thing to do, in many ways. We choose not to. We'll do it eventually. That doesn't make us better people- or worse people. It's just a different choice, I think. Enough philosophizing from me....
Linda

quote:

At this stage of my life (we're around 60) we have a house that needs attention. It's not crumbling, but there are needs. A wise and prudent person would maintain their most valuable possession - their home. So we do, sort of....However, we need new counter tops, the bathroom is worn and looks like the 80s, we should be stashing money for the inevitable new roof and furnace which will be required soon

one needs ot balance one's long term and short term needs at all stages of life. About the only thing that one can throw balance out the window for is one's children.

other than the furnace and the roof, the other stuff is cosmetic. My furniture is worn, and I need new carpeting (we just put on a new roof in dec 2006), but I lay on and look at the old carpeting, because my husband would say that we could get new carpeting if I don't go on that next trip to italy.

Yeah the 30s are tricky. In my case (I am 54), in my 30s the travel thing went out the window. I went to London in 2004 for the first ime in 18 years. i went to Rome for the first time ever in feb 2005. I have to balance travel with the financial needs of my children's education, but I don't go on those expensive blowout guided tours of Europe. Slow travel has really helped me learn things that make it possible to keep my trip costs down by doing it myself.

I'm with you guys, Linda and dragonpat. And it isn't just money. My husband and I had to go to Home Depot last week for some new faucets. It's probably 2 years since we were last there. "Some people are here every week" he pointed out. And their houses show it. The energy others might put into planning and decorating and redecorating their houses, I'd rather put into reading, and plannning and dreaming, and checking airfares...all the stuff of slow trav.

If I may be allowed to quote from my Accessible Rome pages on slow trav. "Several years ago I became confined to a wheelchair for most of my day. Like most people in wheelchairs I have varying degrees of "ability". While I can climb a few stairs, or walk a short distance, the marathon that is known as touring Rome far exceeds my capabilities. I also couldn't give up my passion for Rome. So I went to Rome in a wheelchair. Conquering Rome in a wheelchair!"

I have never visited Rome without having a mobility issue. Our first trip I was still walking but it was painful and limiting (not to mention the blood infection I got from a bee sting on my foot the day before we flew to Rome). I don't know the Rome of bopping up and down the steps to the capitoline, the top of the dome at St Peters, the long night strolls along the Tiber.

But I bet you don't know the Rome of the little old lady who reached out, touched my face and said blessings. Or the beggars who give ME money.

I bet you don't know the Rome of Italo, the baptist minister and his smallest parish in Rome. 60 families, Ukranian, Polish, Chinese and yes a few italians. I bet you don't know the Rome of the Sunday suppers at the church.

I bet you don't know the Rome of Filipo - whose brother emigrated to America because his daughter was crippled and in a wheelchair. He looked at my "accessible Rome" pages, cried and said "now my brother can come home because his daughter can live here too".

I bet you don't know the Rome of the 1001 small kindnesses shown to me every day by italians. The waiters who lifted my chair into the restaurant because I just couldn't get out of it that day. The guard at the Coliseum who let me use the staff's private bathroom because it is accessible and the public ones aren't. The McDonalds and Burger King staff who give me the key to the private bathrooms (waaaayyyy cleaner) again because of access without requiring that I buy something.

I guarantee you don't know the Rome of the Quirinal in a wheelchair. You are taken down a back hallway past the original line drawings from the 19th? century. The famous ones you see for sale all over Rome.

I can also guarantee that you don't get to see the back rooms of the Capitoline Museum which is where the accessible bathroom is. We saw egyptian gods, a bernini designed table, stuff that unless you are either disabled or live in Rome and can see the collection every time it rotates you will never see.

Or How about the Villa Giulia Museo Etruscani where we spent a laugh filled 1/2 hour trying to figure out the lift that goes 3 steps? And the lady in the gift shop wouldn't let me pay for the mouse pad - un regalo was her comment.

Let me not forget my "neighbors" on Via Chiavari who scream at anybody who parks in front of my door when we are in Rome.

Am I disabled? By conventional definitions - yes. But to me the saddest thing is people who allow their limitations to limit their travel. Just open your eyes and your heart. You'll see Rome or Paris or ??? You just won't see the destination of the every day tourist.

But God doesn't close a door without opening a window. I'll take my Rome any day and I bet a lot of other people would love to meet my Rome too.
One word edited.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Doru,

quote:

I have a list. However....instead, we travel

Same here!

although we ARE about to paint the interior of our house. Actually we are having a painter do it...

jan

I must admit that reading this thread has given me the justification I have needed. Yes, we have been planning our upcoming 3 week trip to Paris and Italy for several years. We said that we would celebrate each of our 25th wedding anniversaries together in Italy with our very close friends, and then the time actually came to making the commitment to go and there were now plenty of reasons why we just couldn't go: Two children in college, one still in High School and retirements that we would have to fully fund on our own because there are no company sponsored plans to help.We would have plenty of time to take a trip like this later. But why later? Why not now? We enjoy great health and mobilty now! We don't have a crystal ball to look ahead to our future and why not really celebrate twenty five years of marriage in a Big way! So,yes we should go and enjoy Now!

Wonderful topic! The moderators decided it should be moved to Everything about Travel because it applies to more than Italy.

In 1998, approaching the end of an international career which involved quite a bit of travel, albeit limited to USA and a good number of European countries, I was looking at canes and wheelchair as the mobility options left to me because of some advanced arthritic hips.

I was pretty concerned, as I could see myself confined to a very limited range of mobility. Of course, at the time I didn't know about Rome Adict and others like her, who have stared the problem in the eyes and defeated it.

I was much younger than the average candidates to hip replacements, and was wondering if the years of running and later jogging were any good and whether they contributed to the degeneration of those joints.

I was directed to an excellent orthopaedic surgeon, a runner himself, and in 1999 and then, 8 months later, in 2000 I had replacement surgeries, first the left hip, then the right. The surgeon was actually happy that I used to be a runner; he said he had a much better heart to work with!

The rehabs were hell, and at the second surgery I also had an almost deadly enc