We survived our first visitor ;) and a couple questions...

ccip82 · December 2012

My sister came to visit us from the States. (I actually purchased her ticket as a Christmas/Birthday gift since she is still a broke college student) We had such a great time. It was nice to show off our new home.

DD did suprisingly well for being in a backpack carrier/stroller/carseat for a week. The one thing DH and I noticed is we will probably most likely be taking our visitors to the same places...it could get old (and expensive) quickly!

So...when your family/friends come to visit what are you "expected" to do with them? Where do you take them? What is a typical day like?

We already purchased annual passes to most of the castles/historical sites here in Scotland..but I was adding up the cost of my sister's trip and with food/gas/train tickets/hotel in Edinburgh...it added up quick! (although it was worth it!)

adunkin · December 2012

It's the same for us. Most of our visitors go to the exact same places. I'm pretty sure I can write guide books to Brussels, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Koln. I love it when we score a good deal on Skyscanner so we can explore somewhere else. (When my brother and his gf came, we scored tickets to Venice for 56 Euro a person. Sweet!) Either way, we have to budget almost as much for our vacations as we do visitors coming here!

Elinetrouwt · December 2012

Adunkin, as you are in Brussels: have you taken your visitors to Gent yet?

Publius · December 2012

Honestly, if we're talking about somewhere I've already been and have no desire to see again I have no problem sending guests off to see it on their own. If it's free and doesn't require a lot of travel to get to I'll go with them, but I won't pay to see the same thing multiple times.

bandwife · December 2012

We live in the sticks so there isn't a lot to see.

That said, we try to do things we already have passes to like the historical railways and horse tram.

But mostly our visitors are here to see us because this just isn't a tourist hot spot and we'd have to book flights to go somewhere that is (Dublin, London, Edinburgh). We still end up spending more ??? than usual because we pay for any meals out and such. We're doing well financially and most of the people that have visited have stretched their budget just to get here and see us. Which I appreciate - having someone visit from home is almost like going home!

PittPurple · December 2012

Edinburgh is always worth it! :-)

We have done some sites multiple times but like Publius said, eventually you just let people do things on their own. A bit easier for me as I'm typically working so our parents just explore on their own. Otherwise, since guests are happy doing anything, you don't 'have' to take them everywhere. They're probably just as happy hanging out with you and having afternoon tea somewhere. And hiking is mostly free!

AmericanInOz · December 2012

I totally understand - it got to the point where with visitors to see us (in London) I provided them with a document on my 'top recommendations' to see the city, then I just went to work every day and they explored on their own. I'd catch up with them at night and on the weekends I tried to plan things I hadn't done a million times.

kelly321 · December 2012

I had a ton of visitors the year I lived in Berlin. In the 6 years since I moved away from Berlin, I haven't even had half as many as I had in that one year. I had no problem going with them to see the free stuff but sending them off on their own to do the English biking tour of the city (highly recommended by all my visitors if you're in Berlin, btw) or other things that I had no interest in seeing for the 50th time.

And honestly, with so many visitors it was nice to have a couple of hours to myself during the visits.

ccip82 · December 2012

Thanks for the responses!

We have a lot of definite visitors coming through next spring/summer so I will be keeping all of this in mind.

adunkin · January 2013

Elinetrouwt:
Adunkin, as you are in Brussels: have you taken your visitors to Gent yet?

Sorry! Haven't been back to this thread for a while. And yes - we've done Gent a few times. I love to travel and explore so I can do most places several times with it's through the eyes of someone new. (And Gent is an easy train ride or car drive. PM me if you ever want to do a coffee in real life. haha)

We survived our first visitor ;) and a couple questions...

Re: We survived our first visitor ;) and a couple questions...

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