 | Friends enjoying a beach day on vacation. | | | | | Brekke Fletcher | Newsletter Editor | | | Welcome to the unofficial kickoff to summer travel. This newsletter usually focuses on a single location, but since it's Memorial Day weekend in the US, the great stock-piling of sunscreen has begun. This is a very special summer travel edition to help us all kick off the warm weather season with style: think summer Fridays, long weekends, outdoor adventures or lazing by the pool, visiting beaches and forests and lakes and mountains, taking road trips, train trips, plane trips and boat trips. | Whether you're an obsessed planner or a last-minute, spur-of-the-moment renegade, we have a lot of the same questions. About budget, about crowds, about (sigh) Covid. Fear not, dear readers, we are here to get you where you're going with as little discomfort as possible. No matter what the summer holds for you, whether you're jetting to faraway places or taking a local day-trip, you can find your bliss with your friends at Lonely Planet, all summer long. | | | | | Brekke Fletcher is a travel writer and editor whose work has appeared in TIME Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and CNN. Now she oversees Newsletters for Lonely Planet and loves every minute of it. | | | Based on no science whatsoever, here are Brekke's top five tips for peeps planning to get away this summer. | | | | | Plan ahead. It's not too late to make plans if you haven't, but you should get on it. Book your flights and make your reservations in advance, including restaurants, museums, national parks. | | | | | Just keep testing. Hot vax summer it is not! Covid is a continued reality, so if you do travel, make a point to test before, during and after. And even though you don't "have to," wear a mask when you fly or when you're in crowded indoor spaces. Who wants to get sick? | | | | | Set alerts and compare prices. If you have some ideas but are not ready to commit to a destination this summer, get your Google on and set multiple alerts and comparison shop across airlines, car rental companies and hotel sites. | | | | | Midweek magic. If the pandemic left you with some more flexibility, consider starting your holiday midweek. There's more availability and fewer crowds. Don't travel on a summer Friday if you can avoid it. | | | | | Prepare for sticker shock. Prices for flights, hotels, rental cars, gas and basically everything are high. It may cost you more to travel this summer, but if you know that going in, you are poised to make strategic decisions that maximize your dollar (or Euro or other currency). | | | When we put out the call for your burning summer travel questions, you came in hot with so many great ones. We couldn't answer them all, but we picked a few that came up more than once, and asked our Lonely Planet network travel contributors and experts for their take. | | | What is the best national park or summer beach destination to visit this summer if you're a person with disabilities / use a wheelchair? | There's nothing better than enjoying the great outdoors! This summer, I'd highly recommend visiting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park if you're looking for a great accessible national park or Panama City Beach, Florida if you're dreaming of wheelchair-friendly beach days. | – Cory Lee, Founder, Curb Free with Cory Lee | Great Smoky Mountains National Park has a few accessible trails, including ones that you can roll on in your wheelchair and there are even a couple that you can drive your vehicle on. In particular, I love driving through Cades Cove and trying to see bears. If you're up for a trek, Clingmans Dome has a paved path (it's quite steep though!) and there are jaw-dropping views from the top. | | | Where is the villa where they filmed Downton Abbey: A New Era? | I looked this up right after I saw the movie last week. The villa inherited by Violet Crawley is actually La Rocabella in Le Pradet, on the coast of southeastern France. If you have tens of thousands of dollars to burn, you can also rent it for your own private, Crawley family-esque Cote d'Azur sojourn. Or you can just watch the movie again. – Brekke Fletcher. | | | What are some of Europe's best foodie destinations in Europe for the summer 2022? | | | I would point myself to one place: Spain. And in Spain, I would gravitate to San Sebastián, a handsome coastal city of nearly 200,000 people in the Basque Country. | In and around San Sebastián's Old Town and adjacent Gros neighborhood, the narrow streets are flanked by diminutive bars pouring txakoli, a vaguely effervescent local white wine, and serving pintxos, bite-sized morsels of deliciousness, some bars only specializing in one sort of thing. | In one evening, you can do a pintxos crawl, hitting five or six spots. For example, start by popping into Atari Gastroleku for the grilled foie gras wading in a shallow pool of a corn-white chocolate salsa and then move on to Bar Txepetxa for anchovies topped with sea urchin. Then cross the river to Gros to indulge in ox carpaccio at Rita and then to Hidalgo 56 for the volcán de morcilla, a mountain of blood sausage crowned by a raw egg yolk. – David Farley, travel writer and Lonely Planet contributor. | | | | What are some of the best budget destinations in the US this summer? | | | | | Head to Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas, which is the oldest US national park, predating Yellowstone. You can bathe in thermal springs after hiking 26 miles of trails and stay at the Holiday Inn Express Hot Springs, where rooms start at just $115 a night. And unlike many National Parks, Hot Springs National Park is completely free to visit. | | | Make your way to the artsy town of Yachats on the Oregon coast, where you'll find charming (and affordable) oceanfront motels like the Fireside and the Silver Surf and memorable fish tacos at the Luna Sea Fish House. Don't miss a hike on the 804 Trail, where you can see dramatic blowholes and tidal pools filled with colorful sea life. | | | | The most affordable all-inclusive vacation you can take with your kids and pets: an RV trip. Orlando is a great call, with RV rentals for as low as $70 a night and lots of free things to do, from walking around Lake Underhill Park (which has the best sunset in the city) to cycling along 265 miles of bicycle lanes. – Laura Begley Bloom, travel writer and Lonely Planet contributor. | | | Expert tips for summer trips | More questions, more answers and more advice, ideas and inspiration for what will be a very well-traveled summer of 2022. | | | You people really love train travel – one of our most popular articles this year is also the subject of one of our most in-demand books, Lonely Planet's Guide to Train Travel in Europe, which sold-out from our store but is still available elsewhere. Get a feel for the rails here. | | | How would you rate this newsletter? | | | This email was sent to you by: | Lonely Planet Publications Ltd. | 1101 Red Ventures Drive, Fort Mill, SC 29707 | | | |
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