Your Heritage Tour: Is This the Year You Find Your Relatives?
Are you ready to embark on your heritage tour? Many people are embracing heritage travel by visiting their ancestral homeland. They long to make the connections to their family’s past. Some are looking to find additions to their family tree, either with ancestors who lived there before or with relatives who live there today. One thing is certain, when you visit the country of your homeland, it will touch your very soul.
If you’ve been tracing your family tree and doing genealogy research until your eyes want to fall out of your head, it may be time to put down those pencils and start planning the vacation of a lifetime. After all, would you rather learn about how your relatives lived through a book or create experiences first-hand while sipping a cappuccino at a French café?
So how do you begin planning this journey?
First, you need to prioritize the things you want to do and accomplish. Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you plan to return at some time or will this be the only trip you will make there?
- Are you mostly interested in furthering your research?
- Do you want to discover the many features your homeland has to offer, like the food, architecture, famous sites, landscapes, people and other attractions?
- What things would you most like to experience, see and do while you are there?
Bondant Garden, Wales
Once you answer these questions, you’ll have a pretty good idea as to how you want to travel and what you want to do on this journey. If you have never been to your ancestral homeland and you don’t think you will ever return, you may want to include as many experiences as possible within your budget and time frame.
Limoncino
You’ll create more lasting memories by seeing, smelling, tasting, touching and listening than you will by spending all your time in the library or public records. On the other hand, if you plan to return or have been there before, you may want to find that bit of information you’ve been longing to discover and haven’t been able to find anywhere else.
How soon should you begin planning?
In an ideal world, you’ll want to give yourself 9-12 months in advance to plan your journey. You can, however, arrange it in a shorter time, depending on when you want to travel, how you want to travel and what you already know about the destination. The more time you give yourself, the better able you will be to research the destination and make the necessary arrangements to create your dream vacation.
We specialize in planning heritage tours and we’ve found lost cousins, discovered hidden places, unearthed ancestors, and helped people to explore their ancestral homeland and connect with their past. It’s the most rewarding vacation you’ll ever embark on and one that will fill you with wonder and lasting memories. So no matter if you want to dig into the genealogy archives or just walk in your grandparent’s footsteps, we’ll help you customize your dream trip. Call us today to get started.