Wherever you travel, there are artistic and cultural riches waiting to be appreciated. Just be there, take the time to notice it, add information, and shake. That’s our challenge as travelers.
I have spent 40 years teaching budget travel tips. But only recently have I discovered the most important budget tip of all: Understand what you are experiencing, and it becomes twice as rewarding. Think about it: If you equip yourself with good information and use it, a travel moment — for the same price — is suddenly worth double. That’s been my theme this year as I’ve worked on my guidebooks from Sicily to Lisbon, Belfast to Orkney, and now here in France.
Join me in a quiet Colmar courtyard to simply appreciate a statue by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the man who made our Statue of Liberty. He devoted much of his life to blessing our country with a statue that celebrates what he believed makes America great. And in this smaller statue — celebrating the great pillars of the world — Bartholdi trumpets many of the same values: hard work, education, justice, and patriotism.