Our original itinerary had us leaving Barcelona for Istanbul on April 22nd. However, our flight was canceled and Turkey announced that no one who has been in Spain in the prior fourteen days will even be allowed into the country. Our Airbnb host in Istanbul was kind enough to give us a full refund but our plans were screwed up because we were booked to fly on United from Istanbul to Denver on May 24th. But it's not a problem, because United has generously offered to allow us to change our flight with no change fee, right?

Most of the time when we travel overseas we don’t rent a car. Cape Town, though, is one of those places where we know there’s enough stuff not easily accessible by public transportation, so we are renting a car there. Of course, we've done a lot of travel in the US, where you almost always need to rent a car, and much of that travel is to Denver, where rental cars are notoriously expensive. Sometimes the car rental is the most expensive part of a trip—more than the airfare or Airbnb! So I thought I would share some of the techniques that I use to try to get the best deal on car rentals.

Safety and security is something that we think about as we plan our destinations and our travel logistics. Although, it’s probably not as big of a factor as one might think. In our experience, most places are about as safe as any other (there are definitely exceptions) and we take the same precautions we would take if we were just heading to Denver or Tampa or any other major city we’ve lived near. Of course, some cities require better pickpocket awareness and there are scams in touristy areas you have to be aware of (in Hanoi, a scammer tried to pull a shoe repair scam on me).