Brown is the new black and Kangaroo Island is the new Galapagos. Trek Travel is offering a new, luxury Australian trip starting with a New Year’s Eve celebration in Sydney, Australia overlooking the famous Harbour Bridge at midnight, followed by a unique ride through South Australia culminating on Kangaroo Island – an untouched island with expansive native bushland, diverse wildlife and pristine beaches. The trip, which is open to anyone who is moderately fit, consists of nine days of wine tasting, culture, great food, nature, urban exploration and of course cycling.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. She co-founded and publishes the group travel blog YourLifeIsATrip.com and is currently at work on her first book "I Could Live Here".
NEW LODGING & LEARNING PROGRAM “OLD FAITHFUL WINTER EXPEDITION”
The Yellowstone Association Institute and park concessioner Xanterra Parks & Resorts have added the new “Old Faithful Winter Expedition” to their line-up of popular Lodging & Learning programs this year.
Lodging & Learning programs offer the expertise of Yellowstone Association Institute naturalists/guide during the day and the comfort of park lodges at night. Each program includes accommodations, some meals and Xanterra’s “Snow Card” good for 10 percent off meals, in-park transportation, tours, ski shop services and select retail items.
“We consistently hear from participants that the instructors’ knowledge and enthusiasm about the park create experiences that could not be achieved on a self-guided tour,” said Jeff Brown, director of education for the Yellowstone Association. “The interior of Yellowstone in winter offers so much, especially for groups seeking an in-depth view.”
The Old Faithful Winter Expedition features two nights each at the only Yellowstone lodging open during the winter – the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and the Old Faithful Snow Lodge. Under the guidance of an Institute instructor, stops throughout the park will include the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone Lake and various geyser basins. Available Saturday through Tuesday beginning Dec. 27, 2008 and Jan. 10, Jan. 24, Feb. 7 and Feb. 21, 2009, this program features four nights of lodging, breakfasts, lunches, welcome gift, in-park transportation, snowshoes, one-hour hot tub usage, unlimited ice skating and optional evening programs. Rates start at $929 per person, plus tax, based on double occupancy and $1,163 for single occupancy.
The activity level of this program is easy. The class is limited to 12 persons.
This winter the two organizations will also offer Lodging & Learning programs with the titles “Winter Rendezvous,” “Family Winter Holiday,” “Winter Wildlife Expedition,” “Yellowstone on Skis,” “Winter Wolf Discovery” and “Winter in Wonderland.”
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. She co-founded and publishes the group travel blog YourLifeIsATrip.com and is currently at work on her first book "I Could Live Here".
What’s cooking?
Team Savories: Bonnie Synder (right), Leroy Smith (center), Austin Whitherspoon (left)The scenic mountain location of my hometown, Ruidoso, New Mexico is the perfect setting to combine a vacation getaway with a fun and informative cooking class. Explore new cuisine and techniques. Create fabulous food through hands-on participation. Whether you are an experienced gourmand or are just beginning to discover cooking, an interactive cooking class with my friend, and incredibly talented certified personal chef, Bonnie Synder, and her team at Savories Culinary Studio can help take your cooking to the next level.
The hands-on cooking classes are taught in the studio’s professionally equipped kitchen built exclusively for culinary instruction and inspiration. Classes are limited to small intimate groups which allows personalized instruction. Cooking classes include printed recipe handouts and a generous sampling or meal of the food prepared, served with wine/beverage. Knives, tools and equipment are provided. All you need to bring is an appetite for food and fun!
For information and reservations visit www.savories.net. See Savories in action on these YouTube videos. And, if you sign up, be sure to let me know so I can join the fun!
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. She co-founded and publishes the group travel blog YourLifeIsATrip.com and is currently at work on her first book "I Could Live Here".
Austin-Lehman Adventures Founders Outline Top Inn Favorites Included in 2009 All-Inclusive Itineraries
When you’re on a panel of experts, what kind of advice do you give? Dan Austin and Paul Lehman, founding partners of Austin-Lehman Adventures (ALA) that specializes in immersive, active travel experiences, enjoy positions on the Forbes Traveler 400 Experts Panel. As travel authorities, they recently outlined the top 10 favorite inns ALA will utilize on its 2009 all-inclusive itineraries.
“Narrowing the field to 10 really challenged us,” says Lehman. “But it was a good exercise because it was strongly influenced by guest feedback so it gave us an insight into what folks look for when it comes to choosing an active travel vacation.”
As longtime travel veterans and founding partners of ALA, Austin & Lehman have served on the Forbes Traveler Panel of Experts Since 2006. They just completed their nominations for the Forbes Traveler 400 Luxury Hotel List, due out Oct 1.
Lehman notes that while ALA seeks the best accommodations in each of its destinations spanning Alaska to South Africa, in ALA terms “best” doesn’t necessarily mean the most exclusive, the biggest or most expensive.
“We look instead for intimate, locally run inns, lodges, B&Bs and resorts whose unique charm and history give our guests a true feel for the region. Each of our properties offers surprising luxury with an absence of pretension. From claw-foot tubs to wood-fired saunas and overstuffed pillows, we’ll indulge you in all the comforts and then some,” notes Lehman.
Austin & Lehman’s 2009 Top 10 Accommodations Picks:
- Fox Island, Kenai, Alaska: Guests boat-in to log-hewn cabins sited in rocky cove on a private three-square-mile island. ALA’s Alaska: Best of the Greatland.
- Burrowing Owl, Okanagan Wine Region, BC: Dramatic views of mountains and vineyards from the balcony of a charming 10-room guesthouse. ALA’s Okanagan Valley: Canada’s Wine Country.
- Spring Creek Ranch, Jackson Hole, Wyoming: Year-round luxury resort on a wildlife sanctuary enjoys Conde Nast Traveler’s Gold List designation. ALA’s Grand Teton: Valley Floors to Jagged Peaks.
- Hotel San Juan de Dios, Chiapas, Mexico: Gardens and private gardens, antiques and chimneys grace guest accommodations of this one-time hacienda in the historic region of San Cristobal de las Casas. ALA’s Mexico Chiapas: Rainforest to Ruins.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. She co-founded and publishes the group travel blog YourLifeIsATrip.com and is currently at work on her first book "I Could Live Here".
According to PCWORLD, Over 85,000 phones, 21,000 PDAs and 4,500 notebook computers are left behind in taxis every year. Well, now there is an easy way for someone to turn those items in as well as have them returned.
Founded in 2004, Atlanta-based ImHONEST.com is a non-traditional lost and found service that provides identification and recovery for items of value. In addition to offering an affordable and user-friendly solution for owners to proactively label and register their valuables, ImHONEST.com makes it easy for the finders of lost items to act on their honesty.
Two of the most common reasons that lost items are not returned to their owners are the inability to identify the owner of the lost item and the lack of an easy way to return the found item. The ImHONEST.com system, with its user-friendly label registration and reporting system, solves both of these issues. ImHONEST.com makes it easy for finders of lost items to return the items to their owners by providing:
- Personalized labels containing a unique ID code
- Choice of toll-free and online “found item” reporting
- Over 4,000 drop-off locations at all of The UPS Store® locations
- Pick-up service from any residence or business location
- Support for international shipping of found items
- A gift rewarding the finder’s honesty
In keeping with the company’s mission to promote honesty and aid those in need, 20% of the online purchases of ImHONEST.com labels are donated to charities. Before finalizing an online purchase, customers choose a charitable organization from a list that includes organizations such as World Vision, Doctors Without Borders and March of Dimes.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. She co-founded and publishes the group travel blog YourLifeIsATrip.com and is currently at work on her first book "I Could Live Here".
Save money and change your travel life for the better with these 25 tips from the editors at Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine.
- There are companies that will ship your luggage (or your skis or your golf gear…) so you don’t have to schelp them to and from airports. Here’s the thing: Most simply ship via FedEx or a similar service. You’ll save half - or even more - by going directly to FedEx.
- When booking a hotel room, never mention your membership discount privileges (AAA, AARP, military, government, etc.) until after you’ve been told the room rate.
- If you arrive in Orlando without a hotel reservation, go to the Official Visitor Center of the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau (8723 International Drive, corner of Austrian Row). Ask for the “Black Book,” a list of cut-rate offers phoned in by frantic area hotels with vacancies for that evening. Orlando’s Official Visitor Center is open every day of the year except Christmas.
- Upscale hotels charge for just about everything: Telephone calls, Internet, breakfast, sometimes the gym…. Most of their guests are traveling on expense accounts and don’t put up a fuss. But mid-range hotels tend to include that stuff for free. When you’re not sure, ask before it’s too late.
- If you can round up at least two other couples to share the cost, you can rent a luxurious villa in the tropics. Unusual Villa & Island Rentals (800/846-7280 or 804/288-2823, www.unusualviallrentals.com ) has a large inventory of multibedroom homes; rented by at least three couples together, they cost as little as $800 per couple per week, or $400 per person per week.
- Swapping your home or apartment for one in another city is always the least expensive way for large families to enjoy a vacation. Companies arranging swaps include HomeLink International (800/638-3841, www.homelink.org), Intervac (800/756-4663, www.intervac.com), and HomeExchange.com (800/877-8723, www.homeexchange.com).
- Tour operators that book packages with charter flights (such as Vacation Express, Funjet, and Apple Vacations) also sell just the flights - for far cheaper than regularly scheduled ones. The potential downside is that charter flights usually go weekly, and if you miss your flight or the plane conks out, you’re stuck. Consolidators, which sell discounted fares on regular airlines, are another resource. The best ones, like 1800FlyEurope.com and India specialist HariWorld.com, work out deals with the airlines that fly to a certain area.
- By joining the free Playbill Club at Playbill.com, you can find half-price theater tickets in New York and other U.S. cities without standing in line at a theater kiosk or waiting to buy tickets on the day of performance.
- Before you leave home, buy the sunscreen you’ll need at your local pharmacy, where it costs half the price charged at most resort gift shops. Invest in some basic snorkel gear, too, so you can avoid being overcharged for rentals.
- If you’re booked on an early-morning flight, look into the Park and Fly packages offered by airport hotels. Most include a one-night stay and free parking for up to seven days. The total cost is often less than what you’d pay for a week in the airport lot.
- It’s often cheaper to buy a ticket to London and then fly onward to other European destinations via a regional low-cost airline like EasyJet (www.easyjet.com) and Bmibaby (www.bmibaby.com).
- Prices for car rentals and hotels fluctuate, so never give up sniffing out a better deal. When you locate one, snap it up - and cancel the old reservation. Just make sure the cancellation policy won’t bit you in the rear.
- Bid low, score big! While Priceline is now a full-fledged booking engine, it’s most valuable for its bidding system. We like it for hotels in cities, but be wary of two-start hotels and below, and research neighborhoods in advance. BiddingForTravel.com has examples of successful bids. The law of supply and demand means you’ll do better at business hotels on weekends, at resort towns on weekdays, and anywhere off-season.
- When renting a car, photograph any damage the car may have before leaving the rental agency; a digital camera records the date and time of each picture. The documentation will end any debate over responsibility when you return the car.
- Be sure to check baggage weight limits before you leave home. Low-cost airlines like Ryanair charge $8 per pound or more for excess baggage - a particularly nasty surprise when you probably spent less than half that amount on the airline tickets themselves.
- So, you’re halfway through your vacation and your digital camera’s memory card is full. Now what? Go to an Internet café and upload your pictures to smugmug.com. The site offers unlimited photo-storage space for $40 per year.
- Local specialty foods make great souvenirs, and grocery stores are the best and least expensive place to find them. Chocolate-covered macadamia nuts from Hawaii, beautiful tins of tea from England, pots of mustard from France, and bottles of infused olive oil from Italy are just a few examples.
- Before you book a room over the phone, check the hotel’s site for its “Web-only” rate. It’s often cheaper than the best quote you’ll get by calling reservations because you’re paying for the room up front and the cancellation policies are more rigid.
- If you’re traveling overseas, be sure to check the fine print concerning passports before you leave home (go online or call the country’s embassy). To enter Tahiti, your passport must be valid for at least three months beyond your date of departure; South Africa requires at least two blank (unstamped) pages for entry.
- Don’t assume that because you rented a four-wheel-drive SUV, you’re free to go anywhere you want. Most rental agreements do not cover dirt roads and if you get stuck, you’ll have to pay for towing and any damage done to the vehicle.
- On your computer, delete your cookies occasionally. If you look for flights one day and then go back a few weeks later to see if prices have gone down, the cookies stored in your system may direct the site to go back to the original search (and price) rather than starting again from scratch. Deleting your coolies makes the website think you’re a new visitor.
- Make a color copy of your passport and laminate it. Tucked in a book, purse, or paperback, a copy of the first page of your passport is tremendously useful when completing forms or registering at hotels. If it’s lost or stolen, no big deal. You still have the real McCoy safely stored away.
- Bring a cooler on road trips. Collapsible ones can be packed in the outside pocket of your checked suitcase; hard-sided ones can be filled with clothing and used as an additional piece of luggage. Stocked with ice, drinks, snacks, and picnic items, the cooler will save you time and money on the trip.
- Palm Beach (PBI), Fort Lauderdale (FLL), and Miami (MIA) are a short drive from one another, yet the fares to reach them can be dramatically different. Before booking a flight, research all area airports. For New York, try LaGuardia (LGA), Kennedy (JFK), Newark (EWR), and Islip (ISP). For Los Angeles, try Burbank (BUR), L.A. International (LAX), Long Beach (LGB), and Ontario (ONT).
- All cruise lines offer shore excursions, but you can book directly with the tour companies ahead of time and save money. Unlike with ship-sponsored excursions, however, the ship will leave without you if you’re not back onboard in time.
Source: Arther Frommer’s Budget Travel
Stumble It!
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. She co-founded and publishes the group travel blog YourLifeIsATrip.com and is currently at work on her first book "I Could Live Here".