What's something you wish you knew about a holiday destination before you got there?

[OneUmberJoker]

How far out of the way it would be.

Eh? How did you not know that.

I agree. I think the hotel I stayed at in Bologna got Usain Bolt to time the distance to the centre of town.

Lol. Yes my partner sometimes says ...'a 10 minute walk....by who '? Lol

In the age of Google Maps with Satellite and Street View, there's really no excuse for not doing a bit of research before you book! Easy as anything to see how far away things are, whether that's the town, shops, restaurants, bus stops, the beach.

Scotland in August is swarming with midges.

You won't believe this, but it rains in a rain forest.

Our guide for a tour of Daintree RF in Oz had a big selection of rainwear in the jeep, apparently it's very common for people to come unprepared !

Book every tourist activity in Italy in advance or you'll be able to do none of them.

See, we did that with a place we stayed in a couple of years back - lovely quiet residential area down a little alley, short walk to beach and town. What google maps didn’t inform us was that the little alley was actually some kind of main rat run from the main road to the beach and beachfront restaurants, meaning constant traffic up and down all day every day 🙄

In Southern Italy, even in the bigger tourist towns, taxis are like gold dust! Imperative that you get the accommodation to arrange to collect you from station or wherever and when you find a safe driving, polite and helpful driver, save them to WhatsApp, tip them well and otherwise treat them like long lost family members :)

And Italians use WhatsApp for everything. Forget booking on line in these places. Giovanni will give you the number of his BIL who will sort the boat trip who will put you in touch with Rafael who will drive you to Alberobello via his favourite cheap restaurant and take you back after. My phone is filled with Giovanni's - amazingly helpful and friendly.

Keeping on the Italian theme, Taormina is built on a cliff face. You need to be fit.

@TuesdaysAreBest

taormina is brilliant though, love it, but when climbing Etna take closed in shoes you don’t care about getting dirty (that volcanic “sand” is really sharp at grey!)

That lanzarote is bloody cold in February!!

Do you know if there the case in Sorrento? (Re taxis)

I always check tripadvisor, google maps etc nowadays, but before all these:

-That the 5min walk to the shops was actually down multiple sets of steep stairs down the side of a hill. Any shopping you bought equally needed to be hauled back up the stairs (Palma, Spain)
-The hotel was doing noisy renovations which also blocked our view of the sea or anything else (Koh Chang, Thailand)
-The caravan park/campsite had flying fox bats resident on site which stank, chattered and pooed in the natural swimming hole. They also set off a gun each day to try to deter them (Mataranka, Aus)

I haven't been to Sorrento but think they are slightly more switched on than in the deep South from what I have read. My caveat applies - if you find a good driver - adopt them - especially with the windy roads to Amalfi ;)

God, yes Taormina is STEEP! Someone told me that it was a short walk up the hill to Castelmola - I nearly died of fright going up there on the bus. It was worth it though. I discounted some nice looking accommodation as I realised I didn't want to walk up 100s of steps on my way home from dinner. Our tour driver had issues with his power steering driving back down the hill from Forza Di Agro on the Godfather Tour. I have more grey hair than I used to :)

Beware any accommodation that talks about an elevated position, it means up a bloody great steep hill without a pavement, tap hat you have to negotiate every day to go and do anything.

also as PP have said, walk timings are always underestimates. We once did a “45 minute” walk round a small lake that turned out to be 45ish minutes to the far side of the lake, then about another three hours up and down about seven scree laden steep hills along the other side. We kept on thinking we must be nearly there and surely it would be worse to turn back now….

Sorrento is good for taxis and also buses.

That the standard ticket to visit the Alhambra doesn’t get you inside the palace- for this you need to book at least 6 months in advance and pay a crazy amount of money.

I didn’t realise that Split was such a big city. I had only seen pictures of the marina and old town. Was expecting it to be more like Dubrovnik. The view from the road from the airport is of high rise plus industry on the outskirts. And obviously it is home and work for a lot of Croatians, so not complaining, but I hadn’t realised.

Again for Italy:

If it says 'hills' it probably means mountains. Specifically the Umbrians have a different idea of what a hill is to me.

Google maps is in 2-d not 3-d. There is a big difference between a 10 minute saunter on the flat and a 10 minute slog up a near vertical hill.

Even if you check the hill town has a lift/escalator, the week you go there it will be broken.

Agree with steep hills thing. There are steep hills and steep hills.

We stayed at a house on a very steep hill recently and one of us ended up only leaving the house if he could go by car as he thought his knees were going to be destroyed by the walk.

The fairly quick walk to town and back as it looked on the map was actually more like a full workout. Will definitely research a lot better next time!

We went last year and I don’t remember it being crazy price. Just checked and it’s 22 euros from the official website (admittedly not easy to find). I thought it was a bargain for the amount of time we were there.

It was mid 20s when I was there in February! Maybe unseasonably warm!

When handing something to someone or taking something from someone in Cambodia, use your right hand. It is rude to use your left hand for that purpose.