I have made many long-distance trips in the past. Whether this is a car trip with my family to Florida or a multi-hour flight across the states, I can confidently say I have some experience with this. However, none of this can be compared to the length of cross-continental trips. For most people, it involves at least one connecting flight and some transportation on the other end (taxi, train, etc.). While even planning such a trip can be difficult, actually “walking the walk” per se is on a whole other level.
My abroad trip began in Venice, Italy. I decided it would be more beneficial for me to land in Rome and train from there to Venice. Then, on the way back, I will take a couple of days in Rome to explore some more. This made my travel plans very different from the majority of my peers. They included two flights and two different trains, plus a hike to end the journey.
I first started at the Cincinnati Airport, my home base, you could say. My flight out to Boston was delayed by thirty minutes. Five minutes after landing, boarding for my flight from Boston to Rome started boarding. To add to the fun, I had to cross five concourses. Following instructions from the flight attendants and gate agents made this process much easier, and I made the connection on time. Then, I was off to Rome on an overnight flight that landed at eight in the morning. Unfortunately, I did not sleep as well as I had originally hoped. After passing through customs and grabbing my bag, I sat down and got some coffee as I had a couple of hours to pass before I left the airport by train.
Utilizing trains has been a very different experience to traveling in the US. I have done metros in major cities before, but in Rome, I had a prepaid ticket on a pre-determined route to get me to Venice. This included a Regional train out of the airport to a major station within the city and then a transfer to a high-speed train that completed the rest of the four-hour journey. Finally, when I got off of that train, I walked about a mile to our accommodations.
Overall, this journey took about 20 hours to complete. It is definitely the longest trip I have ever taken. Having it all planned out ahead of time and understanding the next steps at each stage really helped me get through it easily. Now I’m here in Venice and cannot wait to get on with the rest of my trip abroad.
