Best Time to Time Travel

December 1, 2012 — beat the peak, holiday, Pittsburgh, travel. off peak

Gotham City

Today is the first day of the slowest travel time of the year. For the next two weeks hotels, flights, attractions, and everything related to tourism will be experiencing low season. This will abruptly come to a halt on Dec 15. If there is a place you want to visit but like to have the best service at the lowest price now is your moment. Get while the getting is good. The essential key to happiness in travel is beating the peak. If you fly on Sunday after Thanksgiving in the US you will be accompanied by the largest crowds of the year. Wait a week and a magical thing happens. Along with happier staff in hotels, restaurants, and airports the people know know the secret of hitting the road the first two weeks of December are a far less cranky group than the one that will stand in line for absolutely everything at the end of the month.

Carnegie in Pittsburgh

Phipps Conservatory

Last year at this time I went to Pittsburgh, where I grew up, but had not been since 1965. I had the best time finding landmarks and taking in the whole Gothic Christmas scene downtown. I went to Phipps Conservatory, a fond memory from youth, to enjoy the holiday botanical show. I enjoyed a superb performance by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and perhaps best of all I was invited to a family home to get down Steeler style. Although I didn’t go out to Oakmont to see my own suburban home with a basement, cheering the Steelers with a family of serious fans in their basement did bring back big memories. Naturally the place has changed since 1965, but since the three rivers made it what it is, the rivers still define the city. Once full of coal barges, lit up by the steel mills running all night, the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers form the mighty Ohio in Pittsburgh.  This strategic point, where Fort Pitt is memorialized, made Pittsburgh the gateway to the west.  It certainly worked for me.  I moved to Venezuela in 1964 to be a petroleum princess, then to Texas in 1966 so my dad could be an Aggie.  I never lived in a cold place, or the eastern part of the country again after that departure.  I was an ice skating whiz at the age of 10, but I tried it in Zermatt when I was about 47 and found I had truly lost my ability.  I decided against the rental skates last year, not wishing to leave the ‘Burgh on crutches.  Just watching brought back enough fond memories for me.