If you think solo traveling is daunting...

This is an excellent post on the bare basics. Do your research!

New posts on Colombia and Hawaii to be up soon!

How to Plan Your First Solo Trip http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shivya-nath/traveling-alone-tips_b_3050338.html

New airline ticket pricing - good or bad?

I've just read recent articles from Time and the NY Times about how airlines are going to be testing this new pricing plan... charging frequent flyers HIGHER prices to get more revenue out of them.

Obviously, I do NOT like this plan because I travel all the time for business - what, so now I have to pay an arm and leg now for my fun travel????  It kind of negates the loyalty program.

Boo!

Paris!

Well! I got to spend a lovely Valentine's day with a very special person... Natalie! This year, Valentine's day happened to fall on the same weekend as President's day so we made her husband Eugene very jealous he couldn't come with us for our 4 day weekend.  Ha!

Natalie and I have both been to Paris before, and we got lucky because we scored the Air France direct flights from both SF and LA (her from SF, me from LA) with our Delta points, and it was a steal at only 60k miles!  60k for a direct flight to Europe?? This is the single best use of Delta points I have ever seen, and I will get into why Delta has THE WORST international redemption fares of all the three alliances. But getting back on track...

Day 1: I'm late to LAX because I tried to root my Kindle Fire and it wasn't having it. Give up, try to download a book on my Kindle reader and it breaks as I'm looking at it. So now I have no book/tablet for a 10 hour flight. Also, this is Kindle #6, I go through these things like.. I don't know what! Cursing. Flight is delayed. Woo! Fix Fire in time for flight and manage to download a book in time for takeoff. Get to Paris can't find Natalie in the airport, finally find her, get to hotel, shower, immediately go find a wine bar, have two carafes of lovely French wine, cheeses and oysters.  I have a meeting at 7 pm and I have to admit I was slightly intoxicated for what was an 11 am PST meeting. Oh well! Natalie ends up at an Irish pub for a bit while I'm at my meeting and I fell asleep.

Day 2: We go to this cute little outdoor market down the street. Chocolate croissants! Actually I ate one and I have NO idea what the big deal is.  But I hate sweets. There is a fromagerie and I buy some pate and foie gras and then I ate MY equivalent of a chocolate croissant, which was some flaky pastry thing with pate in it. Now THAT made me happy : )




  Next up is walking around, where I saw these really colorful marshmallows (they really like cute pastel colors in their food here!), saw the Panthenon, where I am standing in front of, and then we went to eat this ridiculous 4 course lunch with wine! Which was really good! We had this puree of cauliflower, duck, cheese, wine, all sorts of stuff. SO GOOD!

Next, I go take my siesta (still jetlagged, and I'm old!) and then we meet Cloe and Guillaume for dinner, who I know from my 2011 trip to Africa. When you spend a month in a truck with a group of people camping through 5 African countries, you get to know people. That is all! So it was great catching up, we had a lovely dinner where I ate rabbit in this sauce and I KNOW I've attempted to make it before but of course it was better at this place : )  And then we went to a birthday party for one of their friends. I don't know what was going on after that but this was definitely a hipster part of the neighborhood, and there was tequila being poured into peoples mouths, and for SOME reason, I don't know, there were people that started dancing on the bar and taking off their clothes, but they were guys!  Natalie made friends with a couple of gay guys and we accidentally stole someone's beer, it all worked out in the end though! Come to think of it maybe we were at a hipster gay bar. I have no idea except it would probably do well in SF. lol



Like Spain and probably the rest of Europe, France apparently goes to the bar until 2 am and then to the club until sunrise. So after this bar closed, we went off in search for a club. This went on until about 4 am when we found a bar, drank a beer, decided we were tired and headed back. After which I once again fell asleep (I'm a deep sleeper) and Natalie went on a really loud 1 1/2 hour Skype call and I apparently slept through the whole thing!

Day 3: Natalie and I wake up a little hung over and she goes to get this cheese from this fromagerie before they close for the weekend.  In the process she was soooo nice and bought other things for a nice lunch at Luxembourg Park (see, best Valentines day EVER! lol) but then the dude at the cheese shop wrapped everything EXCEPT the cheese we were going to eat today! So that didn't work out so well. 

Since it was Sunday, not a lot was open so we walked around a bit and found an area west of the Park that had lots of shops and cafes.  We did see a 24 hour cheese shop, but I forgot to take a picture : ) Then some more wandering and it was getting dark, so we went to see the Eiffel Tower since I've never seen it sparkle. Yes, I started drinking wine in the park because I'm a bum. But it does sparkle!

Then we had another dinner with some really amazing scallops. Everything is so pretty here. Again, best Valentines Day ever! lol


 


Day 4: We get up and go have what ended up to be a bit of a frou frou dining establishment.  I had a prix fixe menu with escargot and Natalie got oysters. I saw frou frou because I had a special tool to eat the escargot (see picture, this is NOT what they do in Morocco, that's more like they dump a bunch of snails into a cup and give you a toothpick lol).  and Natalie's oysters came out with dry ice and was smoking! Crazy!

I think from there we went shopping at Gallerias Lafayette, where I picked up some European food, caviar, some anchoas and a few other things I can't get in the States. Then we went to get chocolate, and macarons at Pierre something.  Again, I have no idea what the big deal about macarons are.  But I bought some!

Later that day we meet Cloe and Guillaume for dinner at their house, which was a very simple and delicious meal of cheese, charcuterie, wine, and this potato gratin thing which was really good! They have a really lovely flat right in the middle of everything and they were so nice to have us over for dinner!  Next we went off to another of their friends birthdays, as it was Monday it was a bit quieter. 





 Natalie apparently makes friends with French gay guys in about 3 seconds!  This is everyone with the birthday boy making faces lol.

 

Day 5: We are leaving today but the train broke or something.  Natalie and me being the resourceful people we are, asked a french person wtf they were talking about on the speaker, we found two dudes that were also going to the airport and split a cab with them.  They were pretty funny.  One guy was gay and he had the WORST southern accent ever.  Mix that with French and you can see what happens.  But they were super super nice and great conversation on the way to the airport.

At the airport, I managed to buy some more macarons and a wheel of cheese, and Natalie took off to go back to SF and I went to LA. And, we are both rock stars because we arrived and went straight to work. 

All in all, yes Paris can be done in a (long) weekend and if you have a short flight.  Lots of great things to eat, see, do and enjoy there.  Thanks to Cloe and Guillaume for taking us out, we had a wonderful time and I hope they come to California soon! 

Starwood and Delta Crossover Rewards - and other hotel/air promos

All,

I'm getting to Natalie and my awesome trip to Paris last week, in which I gained 5 pounds, but first, wanted to give a rundown of existing major hotel chain promos.

Tomorrow Starwood hotels is kicking off a crossover thing with Delta, where earning at the hotel will earn you Skymiles or SPG points at the same time. Sign up, because if you have status with Starwood, you get status with Delta as in free checked bags and priority access, or  if you have status with Delta you will get preferred service like late check out and club lounge access.

Hyatt is having a "meh" promo this season where you get 3000 points for every 3 nights.  Its just ok. But you can sign up here. 

American Airlines usually has some pretty decent promos if you are doing a trans Atlantic or Pacific flight - like double miles! They always update their promos here and you just sign up with your number.

United has the same but I have yet to find a halfway decent promo that gives me more United miles. You can find all their promos here. 

You  need to register for these promos before you fly, or you won't get the benefits.

Paris update coming soon!
 

Air Passes for Regional Travel

So I'm currently (frantically) trying to work out an itinerary for my upcoming trip to Brazil and Cartagena in March, and it's reminded me that I've had recently had several discussions with people regarding travel through very large regions.

• The other week I was having dinner with Christine and Jerin, who are thinking of taking a vacation!  They want to cover Europe, but time is an issue as they have 2 weeks and a lot of places they want to see.
• My cousin Kristina, who is currently freezing to death in her home city of Toronto, is thinking about coming with me to South America and since I wanted to cover a lot of ground over a short time (Brazil is nothing to sneeze at, a flight from Rio to Bogota is more than 6 hours!) we were looking for cheap yet economical ways to travel. 
• My friend Lisa pinged me as she's looking at options for her summer trip this year, hopefully to Southeast Asia.  She asked me a lot of questions but basically she wants to go everywhere at once! from China to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.

For all of these situations I would suggest looking into air passes.  Let's say I want to start in Rio, then go to Brasilia, then fly over to Lima and up to Bogota.  I put that in to LAN AirPass and voila! I pay for some stuff and I get 4 vouchers, which are flexible on the date you leave and cheaper than buying 4 one way tickets.  These are really good options if you need to buy some flights through a large area but don't have a lot of time to take the bus. I prefer the bus myself actually.  It's more scenic and it usually costs more to get back to the airport than the whole bus ticket, but I digress.

So as a reference, all major alliances do regional air passes.  There would include
Star Alliance
OneWorld
SkyTeam

In addition, airpasses I've looked into that are more specific to a region are:
LAN ( South America, 4 cities in a month or something)
Cathay Pacific (I can't find this link as it's usually a summer promo, but it was a really good deal, something like 3 cities in most of Asia for 21 days, and it included the trans Pacific airfare! Maybe it will pop up again)

Anyway, so if you're looking at traveling through several countries in a region and don't have a lot of time, take a look at this and see i it's a good fit.

Back to fare hunting for me!
 

Time for a Hawaii trip? Cheap flights to Maui!

http://www.fly.com/Deal/?Id=SFO013113&utm_source=tzoo&utm_medium=nf&utm_campaign=SFO013113&v=3


$267 from Oakland to Maui!?  Now you guys have no excuse not to come with me.

Seriously though, I think I'll be planning a weekend to Hawaii soon, likely late Feb/early March.

<3

Austin!

Hello all!   A couple of weeks ago some friends and I were able to run off to Austin for a long weekend. I've never been and haven't been to Texas for a while so this was very exciting!  We all know Texas is like its own country : ) I have to enter the disclaimer here that we were there for a bachelorette party (yay +Julie Maa )! so of course, like in Vegas, what happens at a bachelorette stays at a bachelorette.  However, we ate some great food, saw some interesting bars, and I did have time before and after the bachelorette so we can always discuss a little of that!

First, we start with my flight from Cali to Austin.  Because my plans change very quickly, I'm apparently not capable of planning properly and booked a ticket from SAN (San Diego) to AUS as I thought I was going o be in SD that week.  Of COURSE, I was not, and then had to pay a $150 change fee and a fare change to fly out of LA.  Tip of the day: if you have a variable travel plan and have at least gold status with an airline, you are able to change the TIME of your trip within the 24 hour check in period with no change fee, especially with United.  This trick did not work this time as I had to change the time AND the location and changing locations throws off every airlines load analysis.

The other point is that I was arriving very late Thursday night (as in 11:45 pm) while we had booked the vacation home for Friday and Monday... so I had the choices of either booking a hotel for Thursday to sleep in for like, 5 hours... OR.... I could try to sneak into the house a bit early.  I know that is probably wrong. But if no one was using it...So I rented a car and decided that if I couldn't get into the house, I would sleep in the car for the night! Yes, I am a bum and a nomad.  I won't get into the details but I got into the house no problem and was able to spend the rest of the night finishing a work charter and project plan which took me until 8 am the following morning.

The next morning I am doing some conference calls and things from the house, and Pam is the first one in around 2:30ish.  I picked her up, we did some grocery shopping for the group (where I found a THREE LITER bottle of Diet Coke! They really do make them bigger in Texas!) and then went to this really lovely sushi restaurant called Uchiko and had great sushi  flown in from that famous fish market in Japan, which I have now forgotten the name.  We got there at 5:30 and it was already a 1 1/2 hour wait! So we went to sit at the bar (which still took us nearly an hour anyway) and ordered our wine and food there. Unfortunately, my phone pooped out on me while we were there so I have no pictures of the food or the restaurant.  We had some lovely grilled shishito peppers, nigiri made out of ox tongue (really good!) and this really interesting corn polenta ice cream that Pam loves, but I'm only so-so on corn things. Still lots of fun though!


By the time we got back more ladies had arrived and we went out for second dinner! ;) and then some dancing. Jocelyn and I lost the rest of them, were walking around, and while I was texting and walking, I managed to TOTALLY wipe out on the middle of Dirty 6th and skinned my knee, ruining my lovely new snakeskin tights in the process.  This is the before picture of my awesome tights, and someone took a picture of my bloody knee later, but I won't gross you out.




Austin is really easy to get around. In the bar area there are pedi cabs that will bike you around. I personally think these are bullshit because we were on one and then the bike chain fell off like three times, and then we had to get off and walk up a hill. Then we were tipping them like $5-10! What is the point!?! I've been in tuk tuks in Southeast Asia that work better than this. The only advantage to them is that they can get around traffic. NOT impressed. Though I guess I'm the one who wiped out and hurt my knee, so I should shut up.

 We had rented a house near the downtown area... really cute house, and had lots of fun games and cupcakes and things : )

The bbq is very good here. I had the opportunity to try several types of bbq, and also ate an enormous chicken fried steak.  There is also a really lively food truck scene happening, I saw food trucks everywhere and lots of types of food! So yes we ate a lot and I don't regret any of it! Ha!

  We had a great time and it was really fun catching up with everyone.  Most people left Monday morning, but my flight back to LA didn't leave till 7:30 at night.  Also, due to getting up late and misunderstanding the check out time, we basically left the house with a hastily packed suitcase, and unwashed hair and unbrushed teeth. Not fun. I was pretty cranky.  So after dropping everyone off at the airport around 1 pm, I had a good 6 hours to kill and needed to figure out what to do.




First - I looked at spas. A tip for the traveling nomad - if you are stuck for a while and need to shower 1) if you have a gym membership like 24 Hour Fitness that is good at any location - this is a lifesaver.  If you have a gym with towel service, even better.  Unfortunately I did not have my membership at the time (I canceled my 24 Hour before I left for Spain) I resorted to calling around spas in the Austin area until I found out that the Four Seasons has a spa day pass for $30.

This is another travel tip but I was having trouble with my credit card.  I've been all over the world with my trusty Capital One card, all I do is go online and tell them I'll be in whatever country and no problems at all. And I travel quite a bit domestically.  Then I get to Texas and Capital One shuts off my card THREE TIMES. SO PISSED OFF.  It's like, oh, it's totally acceptable Christina would be in freaking Honduras, but OMG she's in Texas! Freeze the card!! Ugh.  So yes, if you are going to travel somewhere out of the ordinary, just to be sure, call your credit card company and let them know so they don't freak out.

Back to the spa.  I wanted to shower, and brush my teeth. And sit in a nice steam room and nurse my injured knee.   But... I was really hungry and there is a famous bbq place about 45 minutes out of the city......
So off I went to the Salt Lick, where I had this enormous amount of food by myself (this is why I regret having to try EVERYTHING when I see things), and I met a really hot waiter named Matt with an adorable accent, who sat down and chatted with me while I was eating and gave me some free dessert.  Apparently I don't look as much of a bum even with no makeup, uncombed hair and sitting by myself.   Win! 

Matt showed me around a bit and particularly how they do all this bbq smoking stuff, which is still a mystery to me but the food was really good!  I told him I had a few hours to kill before my flight and he said that while I wasn't going to find much to in Austin at that time, he recommended I drive over 10 minutes to Driftwood and go wine tasting.  Yes people! Wine in Texas! This dude was like reading my mind!  So off I went to try some wine, where I chatted with some really nice locals, bought a bottle of wine and took a picture of the BIGGEST cat I have ever seen:

I had a great time in Austin and would love to go there for a weekend again.  Very laid back city, friendly people, and the food is good.  Go visit! : D