Featured Current Travel Bargains —
• ITALY: Save 25% ($782/prs) for 1-week, full-package SPRING travel MAR—MAY 2025) to Rome; Siena or Rural Tuscany; or Cinque Terre.
• ICELAND: Best-ever 35.65% ($1,107/prs) under 2025 rates for 7-night fly/drive full-package for 2-location travel during APRIL-MAY 2025.
• THE HOLIDAYS in LONDON: Save 23.7% ($711 per person) for 1-week, full-package travel for Christmas &/or New Year’s 6DEC24—3JAN25.
• 2025 EARLY-BIRD SPECIAL: Book your 2025 travel by 31OCT24 and pay guaranteed 2024 rates — avoid any 2025 price increases!
see details
Realizing Your International Travel Dreams —
Home At First makes travel dreams come true with high-quality, excellent-value, full-service, personalized, custom, independent, international travel planning. Next time you plan to travel from home, travel with HOME AT FIRST.
Your journey begins in the immense sky.
Over the vast ocean, you sleep
high above the storm.
Begin Your Dream Journey Here…
SIX STEPS TO MAKING YOUR Custom, INDEPENDENT, international Travel DREAMS COME TRUE —
1. DREAM
Do you dream of custom, independent, international travel?
• Maybe stories you have read or movies you have seen have inspired you.
• Or, maybe tracing family roots is your ambition.
• Or, maybe music, theater, or sports are your focused goals.
Whatever your reasons to travel overseas, your travel dreams can come true. This is where the travel experts at Home At First come in.
2. DESIGN
Tell us your custom, independent, international travel dreams. We design a free trip proposal for you, with all the right flights, lodgings, & ground transport you need to turn your custom, independent, international travel dreams into realities. When you accept your personalized trip design, send us your deposit payment. Then we arrange all the elements to make your dream trip come to life.
3. DAYDREAM
Read & daydream about your trip! Before your trip begins you receive a comprehensive guidebook keyed for your destinations. Thirty days prior to your departure you receive all necessary trip documents (tickets, vouchers, passes) plus detailed arrival information, including your overseas addresses, contact information for your lodgings and your hosts, and specific meeting plans for arrival day.
4. DEPART
Departure Day. Check-in and Security and two hours of Waiting-to-Board (sorry). Then the big bird soars, and the wise flier snores. Too soon breakfast interrupts rudely, signifying the approaching landing. Terra Incognito appears out the cabin window. A new world appears as if out of your airplane slumber. Dreams begin to transform into first impressions, but not yet hardened enough to be considered realities.
5. DECOMPRESS
Arrival Day. In some prearranged way — train, bus, taxi, rental car — you find your foggy way to your first night’s lodging. Bed’s invitation wrestles with your curiosity to explore, and bed mostly wins, at least for a couple of hours. You wake in a new place where you barely remember arriving. Time seems as fuzzy as your mind is groggy. You are hungry. Your first meal will help reestablish order. Relaxation begins, and Peace happens.
6. DISCOVER
Your custom, independent, international travel dream begins. A new morning — the first day of your new life. Take a walk. Eat a fresh pastry with a reassuring coffee or a change-up tea. Watch & listen closely. Hear strange language: even English words now sound foreign. Observe all around you. Dare to speak, to order, to shop. Can you find your way home? Home. Your new home. Comfortable. Roomy. You’re Home At First.
FIND YOUR CUSTOM, INDEPENDENT, INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL DREAM DESTINATION HERE:
Home At First Destinations
Our World of Custom, Independent, International Travel
Featuring Quality Hosted Lodgings in a large number of set destinations.
• 1-Week Full Packages • Ground Arrangements Only • Lodging Only
Jump ahead to see our Current Travel Bargains.
SUPERBLY LOCATED CENTRAL LONDON APARTMENTS:
• Tower Bridge North
near historic Tower of London & Tower Hill tube.
• Tower Bridge South
in fashionable riverside Bermondsey.
• London Bridge North
near Monument tube station.
• London Bridge South
near London Bridge station.
COTTAGES IN FOUR
ENGLISH REGIONS
Heart of England
The West Country
Northwest England
North Yorkshire
& by SPECIAL REQUEST:
• Cambridge • Oxford
• Cheshire & Shropshire
• The Midlands
Central England
LODGINGS IN THREE SCOTTISH REGIONS:
Scotland’s Heartland
Scotland’s Historic Capital
The Northern Highlands
& by SPECIAL REQUEST:
• Glasgow
• The Borders
• Isle of Skye
• Mull & Iona
• Outer Hebrides
• Orkney & Shetland
COTTAGES IN TWO
NATIONAL PARK REGIONS OF WALES
Brecon Beacons Nat’l. Park
Snowdonia Nat’l. Park
& by SPECIAL REQUEST:
• Southwest Wales
Pembrokeshire Coast National Park
COTTAGES & APARTMENTS IN FIVE IRISH REGIONS:
Tipperary & Clare
Cork & Kerry
Donegal & Sligo
Antrim & Londonderry
Dublin
LEFT & RIGHT BANK
PARIS APARTMENT LOCATIONS:
Central Paris
Apartments
in safe, attractive, desirable neighborhoods near attractions, the Métro, restaurants, and services:
Arrondissements 1-8, 11, & 18.
& by SPECIAL REQUEST:
• Provence
• Normandy
• Alsace
APTS. & CHALETS ACROSS THE SWISS ALPS:
Locarno & its neighbors
The Matterhorn & Zermatt
& by SPECIAL REQUEST:
• Eastern Switzerland:
Pontresina, the Bernina Alps, & the Upper Engadine
PORTUGAL
Fly/Drive or Fly/Rail
Choose 1, 2, or 3 Regions:
Apartments in central Porto with choice of rental car or rail pass
Apartments in historic Lisbon city or in seaside Cascais town. Choice of rental car or rail pass
Apartments right for the beach, for golf, or touring by rental car.
LODGINGS IN THREE DANISH REGIONS:
• Zealand: Copenhagen & Roskilde
Classic lodging locations in Copenhagen & Roskilde. Special request locations throughout Denmark.
OSLO, BERGEN, &
THE FJORDS
Plus Stavanger, Kristiansand, Lillehammer, Ålesund, Trondheim, Lofoten, & Tromsø
Lodgings at 8 classic & 5 special request Norwegian locations including the World Heritage Site fjords.
NORTH & SOUTH ISLANDS — A ROAD TRIP OF DISCOVERY:
Individually planned itineraries using boutique lodgings with outstanding hosting in:
• 6 North Island regions
• 6 South Island regions
BETWEEN BRITAIN &
THE CARIBBEAN:
Bermuda offers much
more than its famed pink sand beaches. We offer cottages & inns across the island.
AMAZING ROAD TRIP
Small Hotels & Inns along Iceland’s Ring Road, starting from Reykjavik. See volcanoes, geysers, glaciers, waterfalls, & black sand beaches.
Independent fly/drive itineraries combine with most European destinations.
Do you have a unique travel goal for Europe? Home At First researches and custom-plans individual itineraries to your specific dream destinations, with all the lodgings, flights, and ground transportation needed to accomplish your goals.
WE CUSTOM-PLAN DREAM TRIPS TO:
• England • Scotland • Wales • Ireland • Isle of Man
• Austria • France • Germany • Greece • Italy
• Netherlands • Portugal • Spain • Switzerland
• Iceland • Denmark • Finland • Norway • Sweden
d
A Letter from Home…
Are You Rich?
“I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor, and rich is better.”
I like the quote, which I first heard as a college student. It was then attributed to Mae West, which probably added a certain suggestive sly humor to its audacious obviousness. Later, when I heard the same quote attributed to Sophie Tucker, its flavor changed from daring to simply loud, and lost its appeal. Now I read that many others – including silent film actress Fannie Brice – all have been tied to the quote’s origins. So, I’m back to square one – I like the quote but am completely unsure of its origin.
Equally, I’m not sure of its application. As a personal financial statement, its value addresses the practical economic realities of human existence, especially in modern times. Money, for many, is the root – not just of evil, not just of success, not just of lasting fame. Accumulating money becomes the point to living. One judges and is judged by one’s accumulated wealth. One’s legacy is tied inseparably to one’s bottom line. Ascetics, hermits, and other renouncers of personal riches who seek meaningful lives apart from possessions, power, and press are viewed as outliers, oddballs, or simply as the exceptions that prove the rule: trading all of one’s potential to gain riches for a life of poverty and suspect hygiene convinces most observers to throw their hats in with the Kardashians and not with the Gandhis.
Organized religions often speak ill of wealth. But many religious organizations display their ostentation zealously. The Vatican is much less about sackcloth and ashes than it is Michelangelo and Bernini. St. Francis and Buddha are revered for their renunciation of lives of material pleasures and their acceptance of lives of basic subsistence. But despite our admiration for these spiritual and intellectual models, few of us have known anyone who has purposely made this lifestyle trade. Moreover, almost none of us believes that anyone who is homeless is seeking enlightenment.
If being rich is the better option in the minds of most moderns, then what defines rich? Many of us know of people for whom their estates, possessions, and bank accounts are burdensome complications. Tales of fame and fortune being ruinous to character are commonplace throughout literature, probably because they surprise us as unexpected, convince us we are correct believing that too much of anything is probably bad for you, or let us enjoy a healthy feeling of Schadenfreude. If comedy celebrates common people achieving unexpected success, then tragedy often recounts how the mighty have fallen.
If being rich means courting disaster — there’s nowhere to go but down — then maybe being rich isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
But maybe being rich isn’t just about money, power, and fame. Maybe being rich is just as much about being unsatisfied, unfulfilled, unsure, and unrecognized, while at once being curious, challenged, and daring, and then becoming intrigued, inspired, and amazed. But most of all being rich is about being and staying positive.
I’m rich. I explore the world and wonder at what I find. I sample the prized foods and traditional customs offered me by welcoming strangers I meet. I share conversations with people whose different lifestyles and locations introduce me to new points of view. I see marvels on the largest and smallest scales. I am honored by the acceptance of others in their homes. I walk in beauty – other persons’. And they share it willingly.
I live simply. I require little. What money I have provides for my practical necessities. I take great pleasure whenever the world reveals its mysteries to me. And I seek opportunities for that magic to occur.
I’m rich. I travel.
_____________________________________________________________________________
How to Get Rich: Independent, International Travel, Simplified.
We anoint 2024 with a theme we believe fundamental to Home At First travelers, and the motivation behind independent, international travel: “Life, Simplified.”
What’s this all about?
Modern life bombards our senses with a daily diet of stresses — health, financial, political, and more — as we attempt to navigate across a minefield of electronic distractions, social obligations, career demands, and family & social obligations.
For for many people travel offers a way to temporarily take up residence in a life we would like to lead, a life optimized, a life simplified.
We spend our lives searching for our happy places, where our interests are piqued, our relationships renewed, our energies invigorated, places where our numbed senses — paralyzed by the stresses of everyday life — reawaken with the thrill of discovery.
Travel is our purposeful search for happy places. We take the minimum with us: a few clothes, almost no food or drink, only basic medications. Half of us take mandatory make-up. Most of us — and this only for the past 25-30 years — bring one or more electronic lifelines (phone/camera with/without laptop). Otherwise, we abandon much of our lives: our cars, our houses/apartments, our work schedules, our hobbies, our shopping rituals, our social circles, and we deregulate our religious practices, eating habits, TV watching, & our sleep timing.
In place of these vacated routines travel fills the vacuum, and does so according to whim, impulse, curiosity, instinct, and native urge. When traveling, we sleep, eat, drink, and bathe not according to the rigid schedules of our real lives, but only when we physically must or when we casually want. Almost nothing is done by rote repetition.
Nearly everything is new, unfamiliar, and interesting, as when we were children or young adults just starting out. And our attention to the details of this newness brings us alive. Food tastes bigger; smells are more intense; colors appear more vibrant; new sounds command our attention as new sights turn our heads and demand focus. Even the tactile requires careful inspection: the feel of leather, of fabric, of stone, of wood. Suddenly we are in Wonderland where things apparently familiar are markedly different and draw us to them.
Overwhelmed with newness, travelers have little time for complexity. When green is suddenly greener, water sweet, morning dew bejeweled, and lingering evening light soft, there’s no time for incestuous political squabbles on TV, the neighbor’s dog on the lawn (again), rushing to the drugstore before it closes, or getting that coveted 8AM tee-time. When everything is new/weird/attractive/confusing — from the language you hear (I wish I paid more attention in high school French class), to the signage you don’t understand (no parking? one-way? pedestrians only?), to the food that smells inviting but you’re not so sure of (snails? goat? wild boar? horse? whale? reindeer?), to tipping (yes? no? when? where?), to finding aspirin (you mean they don’t sell aspirin over the counter in drugstores?!) — life becomes simple again. Successful travelers experience the delight of the new, the euphoria of the different, and the fresh-start joy of living simply.
Importantly, living simply and traveling well — and affordably — begin with a phone call or email to Home At First.
— Ron Fahnestock, Editor
Sign up for Travel Bargain Alerts!
We’ll send you breaking news of special bargains for custom, independent, international travel to your favorite Home At First destinations — like the ones in the right-hand column. Notices come as we discover them — usually 1-3 times monthly — and typically offer savings of 17-30% off full-packages with flights, lodgings, and land transportation.
FIND OUR BEST VALUES HERE:
4 OUTSTANDING DEALS
FOR CUSTOM, INDEPENDENT, INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL IN 2024 & 2025!
• Travel in 2025 for 2024 rates! EARLY-BIRD SPECIAL
• NEW FOR SPRINGTIME! ITALY: MARCH-MAY ’25
• BEST-EVER SAVINGS! ICELAND: APRIL-MAY 2025
• Hurry – Sale Ends Soon! THE HOLIDAYS IN LONDON
NOW BOOK INTO
LATE-SEPTEMBER 2025!
OUR ANNUAL
WINTER • SPRING • SUMMER
TRAVEL JANUARY – SEPTEMBER 2025
Travel in 2025 for Guaranteed 2024 Rates!
• Friday Departures 10JAN-12SEP, 2025
7-Day Independent Full Packages
to Home At First Destinations in:
• THE BRITISH ISLES: London, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales
• EUROPE: Iceland, Italy, Paris, Portugal, Switzerland
PACKAGES INCLUDE: Independent Travel with Round-Trip Transatlantic Flights + Inn/Hotel or Apartment Lodgings with English-speaking hosting + City TransPass, RailPass, or Car Rental + Dedicated Guidebook for your Selected Destination(s)
To Lock in Guaranteed 2024 Rates for your 2025 Travel, you must
BOOK & PAY BY OCTOBER 31, 2024
Book Now to Get the Best Selection of 2025 Dates & Locations and to Avoid any Price Increases for 2025 Travel!
2025 EARLY-BIRD SPECIAL DETAILS
A GREAT TIME TO GO!
$AVE 25% – $782/person!
in the Spring of 2025!
CHOICE OF 4 FANTASTICO ITALIAN REGIONS:
TRAVEL 21MAR – 24MAY25
CHOOSE FROM 4 SPECIAL ITALIAN REGIONS:
• ROME: Old City Apartments Walkable to Roman Ruins & the Vatican. No car needed.
• SIENA: Exquisite Walled Renaissance City with superb food & wine. Rental car or railpass.
• ALTA MAREMMA: Historic Rural Tuscan Highlands Estate between Siena & the sea. Rental car needed.
• CINQUE TERRE: 5 Colorful Coastal Villages in NW Italy with noted walking path. Railpass or rental car.
7-Day Italy Independent Full Package:
Independent Travel with Transatlantic Flights
+ Apartment Lodgings + Ground Transportation
SUPER NEW OFFER FOR 2025!
BOOK BY OCTOBER 27, 2024
• Daily Departures 21MAR25–16MAY25
SAVE 25%; SAVE $782/prs!
$2,345
PER PERSON DOUBLE OCCUPANCY
OUR BEST-EVER SAVINGS ON ICELAND TRAVEL
Out of this world –
IN THE SPRING!
TRAVEL 01APR25 – 31MAY25
7-Day Independent Fly/Drive Full Package:
INCLUDED in the INDEPENDENT FLY/DRIVE FULL PACKAGE:
• 7 Total Nights Hotels/Inns in Reykjavik + the Arctic North Coast or the Tectonic South Coat
• Round-Trip Flights from JFK, EWR, BOS (new!), or BWI (new!) to Reykjavik, Iceland
• Airport Transfer to Reykjavik city
• 5 Days of Car Rental
• A Detailed Printed Guide geared for your trip
• Smorgasbord Breakfast Daily
UNBEATABLE NEW OFFER!
BOOK BY OCTOBER 29, 2024
• Daily Departures 01APR25 –23MAY25
SAVE 35.65%! SAVE $1,107/prs!
$1,998
PER PERSON DOUBLE OCCUPANCY
MAKE 2024 THE YEAR YOU TRY IT!
The
Holidays
in
London!
This 7-Day, Independent, Full Package Travel to London Includes Transatlantic Flights, Central London Apartment Lodgings, London Transport Pass (valid on the Underground, Buses, some Trains, even some Riverboats), and our London Activities Guide full of suggestions for getting the most out of your visit.
DEPARTS DAILY 6DEC-27DEC24
WHY TRAVEL ALL THE WAY TO
LONDON FOR THE HOLIDAYS?
TO HAVE A DICKENS OF A TIME!
& Experience a Traditional London Holiday Season:
• Christmas Shopping on Bond, Oxford, Regent, & Carnaby Streets, and at South Bank Christmas Markets.
• Christmas choral services at Westminster, St Paul’s, & Southwark Cathedrals.
• London Theatre adds many special Holiday shows, like The Nutcracker.
• Join the Carolers at Trafalgar Square nightly.
• Christmas Cheers! Find the Holiday spirit at festively decorated historic pubs.
• Traditional Foods: experience a Holiday high tea, & a traditional roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.
• Ring in the New Year! Join the throngs at the New Year’s Eve fireworks & New Year’s Day parade.
• London museums offer special Holiday programs & are mostly free.
HURRY! LIMITED AVAILABILITY!
BOOK BY OCTOBER 27, 2024
SAVE 23.7%; SAVE $711/prs!
$2,288
PER PERSON DOUBLE OCCUPANCY
SUBTRACT AN EXTRA $50/prs —
Mention “Queen’s Guard Paddington”
When you book your Holidays in London trip!
LIMITED OFFER — RESTRICTIONS APPLY
HOW TO BUILD, PRICE, & BOOK YOUR CUSTOM, INDEPENDENT, INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL —
Contact HOME AT FIRST: (800) 523-5842 (toll-free USA & Canada) • +1 610 543 4348 (worldwide) • info@homeatfirst.com