Guest Speakers were Sue and Phil Newdick. Sue grew up on an orchard in Riverpoint road, she met Phil at a singles club 40 yrs ago. Phil had owned London Fish Shop and Avis rentals and had done well so retired in 2005.In 2006 he had a heart attack while mowing the lawns. That prompted them to take up traveling sooner rather than later. The ‘freestyle travel’ which is it is about the journey rather than the destination. About 3 months before winter they decide where they want to go and make up the possibilities. They have transversed America a number of times using various forms of travel.
They then decided to travel to Europe and booked a bus trip which they don’t usually choose.
In 2017 they went to Russia and travelled from Vladivostok to St Petersburg.
They aim to stay 3-4 days in each place. They book a starting and endpoint and put together the bits in between once there. They only had a 30 day visa for Russia which is so big and vast. They travelled on the Transylvanian Railway – all trains were fantastic – the system is electric and crosses7 time zones. .
Apartments cost them $32.00 a day. They didn’t find language a problem. They had bought a smartphone for this trip and were able to book tickets and downloaded a GPS app to enable them to get around. Phil said the challenge taking photos were all the people taking photos of themselves that got in the way. Phil said he found that when he had Avis rentals that 40% of the money went to travel agents.
His advice about visiting Russia was to remember it is really important not to enter before your visa date and make sure you leave before it expires. They had pre-booked the Moscow to St Petersburg river cruise which is much cheaper than the Amsterdam to Budapest cruises. After Russia, they spent another 2 months going through the Baltic states. These are countries with small populations and the trains have disappeared so they took buses but travelled by train in Poland.
Phil and Sues talk was well supported with photos.