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Travel to Austria-----daughter just was chosen for special olympics world games

Ottakee

By Ottakee,
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Ottakee

Ottakee

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My 19 year old daughter was just chosen as one of 2 cross country skiiers to compete in the world Special Olympics games in Austria in March 2017.

 

Does anyone have experience traveling to Austria?  We know nothing and dh and I have never traveled internationally before.  We are hoping to save/raise enough money for one of us to go as well.  Her trip will be covered through Special Olympics fund raising but we have to pay 100% of our trip.

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maize

maize

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Austria is a lovely country to travel to and travel within; I lived there for several years as a teen and my parents moved back when my own children were small so I have made the back and forth trip many times. Do you have specific questions? Will there be group accommodations at your end destination or do you need to make your own arrangements? Will you have some time to do your own sightseeing and travel?

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Ottakee

Ottakee

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We don't have a lot of details yet as we just got the call an hour ago.

 

We will be in/near Graz Austria.  My dd will be traveling with the team.  Dh is planning on going along and if we can swing it, I would love to go along and possibly take one or more of the other kids.  We don't know yet if we will be able to travel with her afterwards or if she must stay with the group for the return flights.  Other than needing passports, we are basically clueless right now.  

 

We will be getting more details with dates, cities, specifications, etc. in the new few weeks.  She will also have a 1-2 week trip to Vermont in December.  That is way more doable for the family.

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Laura Corin

Laura Corin

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General advice for travelling overseas:

  • passports,
  • insurance (health may be covered by your existing insurance, but check that it includes medical evacuation; also think about whether, for example, unavoidable delays - volcanic eruptions etc. - would cause a financial strain that should be insured against),
  • currency (obtain a small amount of currency in advance so that you have cash on hand),
  • check your phone plans to see what the most economical way to be in touch with your daughter will be while you are there,
  • investigate what kinds of debit/credit cards to use - both what will be cheapest, and also what technology (the UK, for example, is all chip-and-pin now).
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Ottakee

Ottakee

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Congratulations to your daughter?  How was she chosen? 

She was a gold medalist in one of her cross country ski races this year so that put her in the running.  Then she was chosen by the state level committee as one of only 2 from our state to go.  This time they are taking cross country skiers and snow shoe racers.  That really bummed out my other 2 that are gold medal winners in snowboarding and figure skating.

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Ottakee

Ottakee

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Another thing that makes her super excited is that she has been studying German this year in school and can speak/understand a bit (more than any other Special Olympics Athlete most likely) and my dh understands German and speaks fairly fluently.  Most people don't expect a Native American to speak German  :lol:

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OneStepAtATime

OneStepAtATime

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:hurray:  :hurray:  :hurray:   So awesome.  Congratulations to your DD.  Also to your other kids for their accomplishments.  Way cool!

 

As for advice, what Laura said plus:

  • Definitely check typical (ahead of time) and actual (right before you leave) local weather conditions and compare them to what you are used to when planning your wardrobe.  
  • Travel light, if you can.  
  • Wear layers that are versatile.  
  • Look into power converters for things like hair dryers and phone chargers.  
  • Bring comfortable walking shoes that are already broken in.  
  • Keep in mind special diet considerations.  
  • Plan to stay up as long as needed to get onto local time before you crash.  In other words, if you land at 7am local time and were unable to sleep on the plane don't immediately go to the hotel and sleep for 5 hours.  Stay up as long as you can to try and adjust more quickly (unless special health considerations make this a bad idea).
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Nan in Mass

Nan in Mass

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Another thing that makes her super excited is that she has been studying German this year in school and can speak/understand a bit (more than any other Special Olympics Athlete most likely) and my dh understands German and speaks fairly fluently.  Most people don't expect a Native American to speak German  :lol:

 

Oh that is great!  It should make the trip much nicer.  If nothing else, she'll have some idea how to pronounce the place names, have fun reading the signs, and be able to order a drink or a pastery!  Much more satisfactory than if she couldn't.  What a great incentive for studying German!   Does she speak any Native American languages?  Or have a passport?  If she belongs to a nation, would that be something that she could bring to the Olympics with her somehow?  (No idea if I got the terminology right or how the Olympics works or if this is something anyone would want, so if this is really off base, please forgive me.)  If you are renting a car, check out European signage.  On our first trip, it took me awhile to figure out that what I was guessing was a do not enter sign was really just a no parking sign lol.  (To top the driving difficulties off, there were rotaries everywhere and it took awhile to figure out how to drive a standard diesel.  You had to wind it up higher to shift.) I haven't been to Austria, but I have been to Switzerland and Germany and a few other European countries. This advice might not apply?  Beware of cobbled streets.  They are harder to drive on than regular ones because they tend to get very narrow and windy fast. Make sure you know how many beds of what size are in any hotel rooms.  We had to pay quite a lot extra for putting extra people in the room.  It was more of a pay-by-person situation than pay-by-room.  If there is a continental breakfast offered, make sure you check the hours.  It is easy to sleep past them, what with the time change.  Try to figure out how tipping works before you go.  Don't forget to bring the proper adapter plugs for any electronics.  Beware of public toilets - some of the payign ones self-clean after the door is opened to exit, making it an extremely bad idea to hold the door open for another family member to enter without paying.  They will get a shower if they do.  We used ATMs to get local money (other than a bit to start).  This might not be the cheapest way to do it but it is extremely easy.  You may be able to fix it so you can text on your phones but not make phone calls.  This was cheaper than other options for a recent business trip and texts were sufficient for our purposes.  You can use skype to talk to people at home.  My information may be outdated, but we used hotels, internet kiosks, and internet cafes for our internet needs.  You might want to bring extra data cards for any cameras and an extra battery, especially if you are taking a lot of videos.  Have fun!!!

 

Nan

 

Nan

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SKL

SKL

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That's great!

 

I traveled in Europe with my kids 2 summers ago.  We went through Austria by train.  We stopped in Salzburg and toured the sites of some of the filming for the Sound of Music and an old castle looking over the city.  It was one of my kids' favorite stops.

 

I have no advice for flying in and out, but if you can hang around a while you might be able to do more than just Austria, since it is in the EU and you can travel around EU pretty easily by train.

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Faithr

Faithr

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Congratulations!  How exciting.  I have no real further advice except to say drink lots of water on the flight so nobody get dehydrated.  That really helps with jet lag too.  Also, melatonin if you are having trouble with jet lag.

 

I've been to France and Spain with kids, but never Austria.  However, we've had two Austrian exchange students stay with us in recent years.  Austrian German is actually a little bit different but I think Austrians also know the Germany German too!

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