"CAMP TIME!!" Personal Page by haysnoe

I have a fun little gimic that I use when I travel to Europe that I would like to share. It's not for everyone and I don't use it all the time but when I do it's very fun and rewarding and I love telling people about it as an option for their travels. This works well for me in Europe or US but should apply anywhere.

I call it Camp Time. When I was a kid I used to go to summer camp. As soon as we arrived at camp we were told to move our watches and clocks forward two hours. Thus, in short order our realization of time became instantly skewed towards a daytime full of activities. Even though our clocks said, say, 0800 when we awoke, it was really only 0600. Bedtime was 2200 though after the first day we really had no connection to the fact that it was only 2000. In this way the directors of the camp were able to pack in activities during the daylilght hours.

Naturally, you could reverse this if you are more interested in evening activities but most people don't need help in staying up later, just in getting up earlier.

This works great on my Europe trips because I absolutely treasure those instances when I'm the only person out waking in the morning at sunrise, the first person stopping for lunch (easy to stop and get a bite at what is really 1100 rather than waiting until 1300 when everyone else stops in), or the first person in the restaurant for dinner.

I'm not as interested (anymore) in the late-night activities and want to get as much of the daytime in as possible. This way, I might be walking over the Rialto Bridge at 0600 and it's just me and the fish vendors setting up on the other side. How nice to walk from the Latin Quarter to Eifel Tower without a honk or buzz of a motorbike.

Of course, if a train that I need to be on departs at 1500 it's not hard to set reminders to make sure I'm on it even though I think it's 1700. Ditto shows, other transport and the like.

If the last entry to a special place is, say, 1700 in reality, in camp time that could perhaps be just the right after-dinner thing to do before retiring for the evening.

If you ever try to implement Camp Time into your trips, let me know how it works for you.