Step 1: buying a good travel book

Choosing the best travel book might be a hard task for those who really look for the appropriate match at each situation. As I'm not among those who are great fans of changes, I usually buy the current edition of the old Lonely Planet. Yes, I'm aware that its design isn't the best and that important information isn't always easy to find, specially in the 1200-paged English/American Edition of India - not handy at all! But tradition is tradition, and I dare to say that I really like to see all those books looking so similar standing at my special travel-book shelter ;) However, buying a book you don't really need at THAT precise moment might not be a very good idea if it's the last weekend before Christmas, if the termometer points at sparse minus 17oC and if the whole city decided to go to the same bookstore as you!

Despite of the fact that it I stood more than half on hour at the line in front of an open door (oh, dear, it was freaking cold!), and that the book that usually costs 29 US Dollar has been sold for 31 Euro (I'm not that good on mathematics, but I'm aware that the dollar isn't that strong for ages!), I finally got my brand new travel guide and went happily home. Apart from this one volume, we also got a small Portuguese edition of the "New Seven Wonders" published in Portugal and a french India Guide (actually this was my Xmas present - yes, there's still a lot of books we apparently do need!) Unfortunately we couldn't bring the LP with us to our Xmas break (I really mean it, it isn't a handy book), so we had to wait until January 5th to start getting some reading...

Let's get started!

Last X-mas my fiance and I decided to do something special together instead of spending money in presents we do not actually need. We're usually kind of creative when choosing gifts to each other, but due to our lack of inspiration, we agreed about making something we really wanted to. Anyway, who needs more medieval literature books?... Let's make a longer trip!

We actually travel quite a lot, we've been to a lot of different places since we met (i.g. July 2008), usually couchsurfing around Western Europe (Vienna, Prague, Krakow, Paris, Basel, Berlin, Pilsen, Madrid, Santiago de Compostela, Barcelona, Coimbra, etc.), but also visiting family in Brazil, Luxembourg and Portugal. But this time we wished we could go outside Europe and see how the sun shines there. First of all, we discussed about the places we both would like to see once in life, but the list is actually huge! His includes Romany, Egypt, Turkey, New Zealand... and mine are Sierra Leone, Liberia, Iran, Greenland and the South Pole. Well, not exactly what we could call a perfect match! ;)

Anyway we agreed about some places, like:

1. Japan - yes, but too expensive
2. California - yes, but we don't really feel confident about the USA
3. Cuba - yes, but if I cross the Atlantic, I'd maybe rather see my family in Brazil

But we were getting close... so I dared: why not India?! Well, India is perfect! It's one of the world's oldest culture, has great views and nice beaches, a lot of History everywhere and a really fascinating people. Besides, it seems that you can cross the country by train with not more than 15 Euro. Deal!!!