{"id":24,"date":"2014-02-11T12:55:03","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T12:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=24"},"modified":"2014-02-11T13:09:30","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T13:09:30","slug":"pre-pro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/?p=24","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"

What they call pre-production in the film biz is my favorite part of getting ready for a trip. The life-long-library-loving journalist quadrant of my brain adores research. This is research plus anticipation. What\u2019s not to love?<\/p>\n

My modus operandi is to spend a couple of days comparing flights for optimal\u00a0 comfort \/minimal expense, and scour TripAdvisor.com<\/a> for potential accommodations, with a strong preference for B&Bs. Once I pull the trigger on the rooms and flights, I drill down: scan travel sites, compare guide books, watch travel shows, read novels set in the destination city, follow travel blogs, create a music playlist, Google map my way from where I’m staying to museums and other attractions. From that information, I craft detailed daily itineraries, with rain versus shine options. It\u2019s total immersion and a tad obsessive. Okay, more than a tad.<\/p>\n

One of the great pleasures of planning the trip is Imagining my adventure in detail. A novelist might call it world building. Nothing is sweeter… until I go a little crazy\u00a0from trying to anticipate every possible variable and slide into the delusion that I can control said variables. That way lies misery. Here’s the deal I make with myself. I get to plan and prepare and visualize all I want, but then I get out of the results business. Accept absolutely that I cannot control the outcome. What I can influence, is my attitude. As Rick Steves famously suggests, “If things are not to your liking, change your liking.”<\/p>\n

Which brings me to the apps. As part of my research, I wanted to track down books about the Louvre. After much fumbling around in the library, Barnes & Noble and online, I wised up. I realized I was looking on the wrong shelf, so to speak. I hit paydirt in the app store.<\/p>\n

I downloaded two iPad\/iPhone app guides to the Louvre,\u00a0https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/en\/app\/louvre-audioguide\/id526191255?mt=8\u00a0<\/a> and two to the recently renovated and expanded Rijksmuseum. The museum guides are free, by the way – go to the museum websites or straight to iTunes. HD images of gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous art. If you have an ipad, check it out.<\/p>\n

I opted to set up a My Louvre account on the museums website, as well as sign up for e-newletters from the Rijks. I’ve become a friend of the Louvre, Oui, je suis un <\/em>card-carrying ami des Louvre<\/em>.\u00a0 Not only does that put my money where my heart is, it entitles me to free entry to the museum for a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What they call pre-production in the film biz is my favorite part of getting ready for a trip. The life-long-library-loving journalist quadrant of my brain adores research. This is research plus anticipation. What\u2019s not to love? My modus operandi is to spend a couple of days comparing flights for optimal\u00a0 comfort \/minimal expense, and scour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-preparation","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7OBxc-o","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/28"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virginiaparker.net\/travel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}