I find myself more interested in travel than before

 

When I was married, my late wife and I would take yearly vacations and not go too far from home.  The only places more than a day's drive away that we visited were California and Nova Scotia.  I think that had she lived (and our marriage had survived), we would have found a way to travel more.  However, that's one thing among many things that is impossible to know.

After my wife died, I had a good income and I found myself traveling to widows/widowers gatherings across the country, organized by AOL chat room hosts.  For the most part, I was looking to meet friends, while others were looking to find new mates.  That pattern continues today with me attending meetups.  But I digress....

Over the years, I found myself flying out to places such as Biloxi, MS; San Jose, CA; and Pigeon Forge, TN.  Yet, I only found myself traveling out of the country on the two cruises I took and on the trips I took to Niagara Falls and Toronto.  I never put my desire to travel into high gear, and visited places that were truly far and wide.  Without someone with whom to share my experiences, I feel that I might have been afraid to take the risk of leaving my comfort zone.

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When the Twin Towers were attacked on 9/11/01, two of my colleagues from the bank were caught outside the US.  One was North of the border visiting Montreal and the other was vacationing in Salzburg, Austria. They were stuck outside the US until our government figured out what to do. I could only imagine what they were thinking, not being able to come home when they planned to do so.  As for me, I was one of many people tasked with getting our bank up and running after losing our data center in that disaster.  Although I was safe at home, travel seemed a bit scary.  Yet, within 6 months, I went to another widows/widowers gathering in Las Vegas, NV.

It wasn't until my former cruise partner (FCP) suggested it in the 2010's that I took my third cruise.  And I found that I enjoyed the experience, as it was comfortable and allowed me to leave my comfort zone a bit, because I started traveling as Marian.  Yes, I got some strange looks.  But it forced me to learn how to overcome my fears and be the person I am today.

Although my upcoming Norwegian Fjord cruise will be done as Mario, I figure that it is time to get out of my comfort zone again (albeit, just a little) and experience overseas travel.  Who knows?  It could become addicting....

Looking forward to traveling again.

 

Next year, RQS and I are planning on taking another "Bucket List" cruise, this time to the Norwegian fjords.  It'll be the last year that traditional cruise ships will be allowed into several of the fjords, so we decided to do it now and hold off on other cruises we may have taken first.

Right now, I have only 3 cruises planned, 2 of them fully paid for.  One of these cruises will have RQS and I spending 3 days in Bermuda, and the other will be an effective repeat of a cruise I took with XGFJ several years ago.  On the latter cruise, I'll be alone and presenting as a female.  Unfortunately, the one time I want to spend the money to have a portrait photo taken of me presenting as Marian, the cruise ship doesn't seem to have to have the portrait studio experience I want - something similar to what I experienced on Princess as Mario.

One of the things that excites me is the opportunity to travel and see new places.  Sometimes, I want to go back to places such as Alaska and Hawaii. And that brings me to the topic of last minute trip booking.  A while back, I started looking at last minute prices for the Hawaii cruise I took last year. And I could take the cruise portion of that trip for a very cheap price this year.  If you look at the pricing for the cruise above, you'll note that there is an important anomaly - the studio cabin is priced more than both an inside cabin and an ocean view cabin. For only $300 more than the studio cabin, the solo cruiser could cruise in a balcony cabin.  Add $1,000 for the airfare, and $500 for hotel stays,  and one could do this bucket list trip for about $3,000-$3,500, excluding shore excursions.

Although cruising is getting more expensive these days, it still can be a relative bargain.  One has to be willing to get into the nitty gritty and search for pricing anomalies like the one above.  But bucket list trips such as a Norway cruise are rarely discounted.  Hawaii prices will soon go back to normal, and I expect Alaska prices for good itineraries to be at a premium next year.  

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Not all of my travels will be by sea.  RQS and I are planning on doing another "Girls' Trip" with our friends from Texas.  Hopefully, they will be able to fit this trip into their schedules and budgets.  Shortly after our Chicago trip, I floated the idea of visiting San Francisco in the fall, given the low prices I've seen at a few hotels there this year. Some of the places I stayed in a decade ago are very reasonably priced, and I have found a few bargains that are accessible via mass transit.  We could fly into SFO, then take BART to Embarcadero, then take the Trolley (or bus) to a hotel at Fisherman's Wharf. This is a trip which deserves more time than we spent in Chicago, and may require the rental of a car for a day.

RQS and I may do another trip to Washington, DC, as well as a trip to Philadelphia and a trip to Boston. All of these cities are easily reached by Amtrak, and that helps keep our costs down.  Unfortunately, being in the Northeast poses another set of problems - it's harder for a frugal traveler to find bargains here. But if one avoids using a car and uses mass transit efficiently, one can make many a trip in this region affordable.  So don't be surprised to find me reporting on a spur of the moment trip soon....

Looking forward to new trips - a quick post.

 

As you might guess from my writing in this blog, I enjoy travel.  Right now, I have 4 planned trips in front of me:

1. A long weekend in Chicago with RQS and my Texas friends.
2. A Bermuda cruise with RQS.
3. A solo cruise to the Bahamas and back.
4. A Norwegian Fjord cruise with RQS in 2024.

Even with these trips planned, I am still trying to figure out ways to travel even more.  For example, I'd like to spend a weekend in Boston with RQS, and see things we couldn't see in our short stop there on last year's cruise.  I could always go back to DC with RQS, as she has relatives in the region that we both enjoy seeing.  And then, Philadelphia comes to mind, as I have not had the time to explore the city in my two trips there.

Unfortunately, travel costs money, and we have to answer a simple question: Where will all this money for travel come from?

The other day, I was chatting with my brother and the subject of my uncle's finances.  (No, I will not go into them here.)  But both of us had similar thoughts - we both want my uncle to enjoy the rest of his life as much as possible, and would rather that he spend it on him and my aunt, than for him to leave us a lot of money.  Yet, if we were lucky enough to inherit a few dollars, I would spend some of it on a bucket list trip with RQS.  My brother said that this was an excellent idea.

What will happen in the future depends on how my finances work themselves out.  If my investments do well, I will spend some of the proceeds on travel.  If not, I will dream about travel.  Either way, travel will be on my mind.  Hopefully, much of that travel will be as Marian, and not as Mario.

Cancelling one cruise and getting ready to book another.

 

The above is the cruise we were planning to take in February.  Looks like a good itinerary for a 7-day cruise, doesn't it?  But we had a very good reason for cancelling this cruise. The cost of getting to Tampa, staying a couple of days before and after (to see relatives and friends), and what we might spend in shore excursions caused us to rethink our plans, and change where and when we'll be cruising. 

Instead, we decided that the above 12-Day Norwegian Fjord cruise was a better value for us.  Yes, we may spend a little more money on this trip.  But we will see sights that will be closed off to most cruise ships in 2025.

Am I a bit apprehensive about this trip?  Yes.  It'll be the first time I've traveled outside of North America in my life (save for Hawaii, which I'll treat as North America, as well as islands in the Caribbean.).  But it is something that places me a little bit out of my comfort zone, and will help me grow as a person.

With this being said, I am a little sad that I will not be able to take this cruise in my female presentation. However, it will give RQS some uninterrupted time with Mario - something I know she needs very much.  And I'm glad to give it to her, as my need to present as Marian is not as strong as my desire for a healthy romance.

Luckily, my passport has another 4 years on it, which means that I won't be traveling outside the US during the first half of 2027.  Therefore, I have a lot of traveling to do in the next 3 ½ years, and then I'll have to take a break until my passport is renewed.  (This might be a good time to take another cruise on the Pride of America, as it never leaver Hawaii.)  

Do you have any bucket list trips that are worth taking?  Please let me know in a comment.

I might be planning another cruise soon.

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For better part of a year, RQS and I have been talking about taking a Norwegian Fjord cruise next year. Soon, we will need to plan for this trip, else we won't be able to take it at all.

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As I might have mentioned elsewhere, 2024 will be the last year that conventionally powered cruise ships will be allowed to cruise the Norwegian Fjords.  This is a classic bucket list cruise, ranked up there with Alaskan cruises, Panama Canal cruises, Hawaii cruises, and Atlantic crossings on a classic ocean liner. I know that this is a "budget buster" item, something that RQS will have a hard time affording with all the traveling we are doing this year and will likely be doing next year. So we have to think carefully as we plan this trip out.

 
Right now, I'm looking at options from 4 cruise lines: Holland America, MSC, Norwegian, and Princess.  The big problem is choosing a cruise with the right price point and length with an acceptable itinerary. This is something we have to discuss.  There are some 7-day cruises out there that look good to me.  But there is one 14-day cruise that I'd really like to take, a Princess cruise that sails out of Southampton and goes to both Norway and Iceland. But I'm not sure that we'll be able to take this cruise, given RQS's finance and scheduling concerns.

Assuming that we take the Norwegian Fjord cruise, this will be the first time I have left North America and the first time that I will need to present my passport for travel.  There is a big part of me that is afraid to take this trip, as it takes me well out of my comfort zone.  But everyone has to have a first time, and this might be mine.

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Unlike the Bahamas cruise that I'll be booking soon, this cruise will be taken as Mario.  There would be way too many complications for me to take this cruise presenting as Marian to risk making a mistake. However, when I eventually take my British Isles cruise or do the Atlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2, I hope to take it presenting as a female.   Unlike many British Isles cruises, the above cruise does not stop in France.  To me, this is a bonus - I do not need to worry whether someone I come into contact with will be able to (or bother with) speaking my language when on a shore excursion.  

As you can guess, I'm working on checking off bucket list trips while I'm still healthy enough to do so.  Hopefully, I'll be able to get through most of this list while I'm still in decent shape for my age and weight.

 

Booking a cruise

 

The above is a picture of the ship I was on when I took my Hawaii trip.  Some of the cruises I've taken over the years were booked by my former cruise partner.  Other cruises I've taken were booked using a large travel agency or directly through the cruise line.  Now, RQS and I are looking to use a local travel agent affiliated with a larger travel agency to set things up for a California Coast trip we are interested in taking.

Why use a local travel agent instead of using a random person from the cruise line or from a large travel agency?  In our case, we wanted to find out whether it was worth the effort to hand off some of the mundane arrangements to someone who gets paid by the travel suppliers.  And the jury is still out for me in this regard.

In the future, I plan to take trips which require much more planning than a simple cruise to Canada and back.  For example, I'm looking to take a Norwegian Fjord cruise.  One of the cruises I'm interested in starts in Southampton, UK  and sails to both Norway and Iceland.  Travel to countries in the EU Schengen Zone requires one kind of pass for US citizens, while the UK has its own travel requirements. If I am happy with the service an individual agent can give me, I will use that agent for more of my trips.  If not, I will need to find other ways that I can minimize the research headaches I must endure to travel where I want to travel.

Yet, not all travel questions can be answered by a travel agent.  For example, how open to gender non conforming travel is a destination?  In my case, I have skipped several islands on Caribbean cruises, so that I am not hassled by their customs personnel.  To get this information, I may need to ask friends in the LGBT community for help.  And then, I might end up contacting several tourist bureaus directly - but not using my normal snail mail or email addresses for requesting this information.

Hopefully, one day, I will be able to travel freely, to anywhere I want, as Marian.  Until then, it pays to be careful.

Now, I have an idea of what to give two kids for Xmas

Every year, I've bought something for the two children of my game night hosts.  This year is the same, except that I have much less time to do so due to my upcoming trip to Hawaii.  Yet, I have an idea of what to give them now, and will be ordering their gifts before the holidays.

It's nice to have people to whom I give gifts, to share with.  I had an insurance policy from a fraternal benefit society which wouldn't allow me to designate these two children the secondary beneficiaries of this policy.  So I'll look to leave these kids a little something in my will, and hope that nothing happens to me anytime soon.

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My year-end Hawaii trip keeps coming nearer and nearer.  And I'm looking forward to it.  I have to make sure that I have all the little things needed for this trip, and have been an active customer of Amazon since the day I was irrevocably financially committed to this trip. Since this is a bucket list trip, I will be sure to get lots of photos of the trip and make some sort of travelog for it.

Although I intend to travel with RQS, I have a good feeling that it will be hard for her to keep up with me due to financial reasons. This is a reasonable believe, based on our previous careers.  So, if I'm going to be doing a bit of travel, I will need a profitable line of business to pay for it.  I have some ideas of how I will achieve this, but will avoid talking about it for now.

By the end of the year, I will have taken two bucket list trips, and plan to take more in the next few years.  Having checked off Alaska and Hawaii, I'll have to go much further afield for my next bucket list trip.  I'm hoping that I can check off more than one of my destinations with one trip.  But this takes time and money.  For example, there is a cruise that will spend 6 days in Iceland, plus several more days in the Norwegian Fjords.  One problem: This is one expensive 35 day cruise!  So I will likely need to be more realistic in how I check off items on my bucket list.  I could spend a week in London with my niece, then sail back to New York on the Queen Mary 2.  This is expensive, but a realistic way to do things.

Hopefully, by this time next year, I will be able to check off another item on my bucket list.