What do you guys know about Lisbon? Thinking of going in late April.
I know that I liked it a lot when I visited in 2015. Be sure to make day trips to Sintra and Cascais.
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What about driving to EWR?
Really liked it. Loved Porto more.
I hate most other American tourists.
I’m on a ferry and a private tour group of 9 Americans are here too. They’re sitting together, speaking loudly and half have their masks off. They’re wearing flashy clothes and jewelry. The rest of the people here are quiet and wearing their mask.
I assume they too are dying for this to end.
Americans definitely loud and fat. Define “flashy” clothing though, because my experience is that Euro’s definitely dress a lot flashier with name brands, etc. and Americans are much more likely to be wearing a $30 shirt that tells you the exact city and state they are from, which is not flashy at all.
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We have a relative to visit in Lisbon so that is definitely our base of operations.
What was your experience with use of English? We have no Portuguese so we’re a bit concerned about communicating effectively and also being respectful. Should I learn to say “This is much nicer than Spain!” in thr local language?
I don’t recall any issues in Portugal speaking only English.
If you have the time, definitely try to get up to Porto. We drove from Lisbon to Porto, visiting some of the large monasteries, stopping a night in Tomar, and then a night 1-2 hours east of Porto along the Douro river, and did a lazy drive into Porto, making a couple stops here and there for wine/port tasting.
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It’s on the Asian side. We visited today and that area is quite nice, but most people stay on the Euro side. I can recommend a couple decent restaurants in the area between Galata Tower and Taksim Square.
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American tourists either seem super cool or incredibly annoying with almost no middle ground. I suppose most of the cool ones are probably more in the expat category than tourist though.
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Clothes that just look expensive. They weren’t the stereotype fanny pack wearing types with kids in tow.
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Looks like I’ll be waiting until the summer to go to Turkey. Plane tickets are ridiculously expensive during my break in April. Easily double the price. What a bummer.
My tentative plans for May and June (fingers crossed)
One big overland route through N. Pakistan and N. India. I’m still not sure if it’s better to start in Pakistan or India, I’ve gotta do more research, but this seems like a pretty great route.
Possibly Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda afterwards…
It feels weird not doing any real travel travel in over 2 years :0
I’m still kinda expecting something to come along and fuck it up.
And on a side note, what would you guys do with a car if you had to leave it for 4 months or so?
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Will be spending a long weekend in Košice, Slovakia during Easter.
Got tentative plans for splitting two weeks between Armenia and Georgia in July. Wanted this trip last year but covid restrictions made it impractical at the time.
Trying to get the logistics down for travelling to Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave within Azerbaijan. Was a lot easier before the Azeri army took back the ghost towns last year in a 6 week war. Now, Russian peacekeepers control border crossings into it. So it’s a bit tougher to travel there than when Armenians controlled entrance from the west.
Looking forward to being banned from my first country this July 
Just had to google Nagorno Karabakh, interesting, it’s got a much longer wiki page than I was expecting…
From what I gather when talking to people who were traveling in Georgia/Armenia/Azerbaijan, Georgia is the overwhelming favorite!
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NKR (a.k.a Republic of Artsakh) would be the first enclave I’ve ever been to!
Nice! Looks like it’s just that one little arm that attaches to Armenia. So do you need an Azerbaijan visa?
Cool flag though, looks like it was made with 80’s graphics
No. Russia controls the visa process for NKR nowadays through Yerevan.
Entering NKR makes you a criminal according to Azeri law. So I’ll be banned from entering Azerbaijan.
Ahh gotcha, well who needs Azerbaijan anyway?!
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Baku is beautiful, i hear. also their brandy rivals the best cognacs.