[McG]

Very exciting!

Many places allow pre bookings and I would do that wherever I could. Time is your constraint so don’t waste it waiting in lines. It also limits surprises.

Talk to your neighbours and people around where you live; they will know a lot more about options there.

People seem to use WhatsApp a lot more there. I would set that up and build your connection list when you are still in Canada. Get a SIM card when you’re there. I have bought on Amazon for short trips but I recommend getting a permanent number over there.

Get familiar with using trains and the metro/tube/subway.

Take lots of photos.

I do think that you have to identify which cities/areas you want to visit and absolutely check the tourist things off of your list. It would be hard to go to Paris and not go up the Eiffel Tower.

Recently, we have sought out a tour guide for one day or whatever when we travel somewhere interesting.

This might//might not work for you. We let each child choose a fun thing to do and an educational thing to do. We found way more engagement as they investigated things to see and do. This might be my favourite thing actually. We built a theme on one trip and it was so popular that they did it on another trip; “bones” and visited churches, catacombs in Paris and Rome, and graveyards and hauntings in Edinburgh.

Sports - football of course but also rugby is a lot of fun especially if you can get to a 6 nations match.

I’m looking forward to following you in this thread!