tippy toes on tipping
Coming from a country where tipping isn’t really a way of life, we always struggle when we travel. From tipping the cab driver, hotel staff, wait staff, tour guides and so on and so on. What is the etiquette?
We’ve seen how they do it on tv but somehow when we are in the moment, it doesn’t quite feel as smooth (or look as smooth no doubt). The first opportunity to tip is usually after the cab driver unloads our luggage from the boot of his cab and we pay him the cab fare plus a bit more via the “secret” handshake. And before we can turn around, the hotel’s bellboy has snatched up our bag and is welcoming us to the hotel as we secretly hope that we have some small notes to tip him (because can you really ask for change? That would be awkward, right?) At the front desk, the staff are super friendly, and extra helpful to secure us the room with a view and a king size bed. So does that person get a tip? And how do we do it tactfully? Slide the bill across the counter? It’s all too confusing! And we’ve only been in the country for less than a day!
It’s time for food, so when do you tip? At what level of service? We have begun noticing that maybe overseas restaurants are catering for us Aussies who don’t quite know how much to tip, so a service charge seems to be appearing more often on the bill these days. This is absolutely fine by us because it helps us but somehow it seems odd when there is no service.
The next dilemma we then face with tipping is house-keeping! Is it better to tip daily or at the end of our stay? We choose to tip daily as its only fair for the housekeeper who does clean the room to receive the tip. But then where do you leave the money? We entertain putting it by the bedside but what if the housekeeper thinks its our money so doesn’t take it or thinks we are testing their honesty or takes a larger note on another day because we have accidentally left it lying around? Our solution has been to write a thank you note with a smiley face 🙂 and place it with the money (on the pillow – too tacky?) and that seems to have worked so far.
Tipping is such a delicate yet critical part of travelling. It’s about getting the act right as to not offend or belittle anyone. It’s about balancing the amount to show gratitude but to also make sure you have the right combination of denominations in your wallet to tip suitably. It is an art and maybe one day we won’t be tippy toeing about how to tip gracefully!
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turkey: our 11 day itinerary
So our excitement to go to Africa has been stunted by nothing other than us. Due to a multitude of reasons and factors, we have decided to postpone this trip and instead venture elsewhere. It was a toss up between several countries and Turkey has beat the rest.
However, about two days after locking it in, the riots began in Turkey. Oh no! We do know a few people who know people who are over there travelling now. Hopefully by September, it is calmer. Well, it has to be okay, everything is locked in and paid for. According to smarttraveller.gov at present it is stating “Exercise a high degree of caution” – which was what Peru was on when we were there. Guess it is comforting that its not on “Reconsider your need to travel”. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all unravels.
All the same, we are very excited. Our itinerary is looking like this:
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travel philosophy
Kenya, Tanzania and Dubai are officially creeping up on us! And we know what that means…. that we need to lock in the holiday after that.
We have a travel philosophy, that we NEED to have our following holiday booked before we go on the next one. Why? Purely because then it gives us something to look forward to when we get back. People return from a holiday and get withdrawals and dread the fact that they are back to the “daily grind” (maybe not everyone but we know we did). So to fill the void of the holiday euphoria, we overcame that by living by our travel philosophy. And sure enough, we land in Sydney with the excitement of knowing our next destination is in sight. And it works!
So back to the fact that Africa is creeping up on us, we need to start getting our act together and book something. There is Tasmania in January (where we’ve been – but this time with the extended family). Then there is talk of Hong Kong in April. And then dreams of possibly something bigger in July to escape the winter – Europe is beckoning us once more!
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pins in our world map
And that lonely black pin that is sitting in the middle of Australia is our latest addition to the world map in our study.
Every time we look at this map, it reminds us how little of the world we have actually seen and how much more we have yet to explore. Every pin holds many memories, mostly all fond with the odd hiccup that one would expect when travelling.
 Africa currently has only one spot in the Indian Ocean, dotted on Mauritius – one of our 2005 adventures. Later this year, we will be fortunate enough to be able to add a few more pins into the African continent but this time on the mainland. In fact, it was only today that we have decided to begin the process of getting our visas for our trip to Kenya and Tanzania.
wise monkeys abroad 