Modern Strategies of Travelling Today (Part 2)

Booking.

• When booking, some sites automatically add extras that you might not like like travel insurance. So, if you see a checked box on a website, look closely for the fine print.
• Travel sites use cookies on your PC to let them know you've been there which is how they remember your name. However, these cookies also are used to avoid showing the same price every time you visit. Try deleting your cookies, and they will treat you like a new customer. Delete only ones associated with the booking engine as some cookies serve a useful purpose.
• The best deals are last minute, and to get them, you need to subscribe to e-newsletters from airlines, hotels and travel sites.
• Charter flights with packages booked by tour operators sell cheaper flights than regularly scheduled one. Potential downside of this is that charter flights go only once a week, or if you missed your flight or plane conks out, you're stuck!
• When airline slashes fares, competitors that fly same route tend to follow. So, if a carrier of your choice doesn't have any availability, try the competitors.
• Confirm all your reservations and cancellations as well. Be sure to get confirmation number, or even better a confirmation email. it's always a safe idea to have your proof in writing handy with you, or else, you're facing an uphill battle if the charge eventually shows up on your credit card bill.
• Pay all your bookings with a credit card to protect you in the event the airline or tour operator goes out of business.
• Whenever possible, fly nonstop and depart early in the day before delays can occur. In winter, avoid airports that usually experience weather-related delays.
• If you're on a cruise or in an adventure such as a safari, travel insurance looks much, much better because tour operators and cruise lines tend to penalize those people who cancel. Consider buying an insurance when you think the odds are decent that you won't be able to take the trip for one reason or another. Just make sure you know before hand exactly what are the coverage and which situations allow you to cancel and what the cancellation frame is.
  

Modern Strategies of Travelling Today (Part 1)

Trip Planning.

• If you're planning with a large group, complicated itinerary or going on a cruise, call your travel agent for an advice. You might also want to ask; - has the agent been on the place before?
• The best price is always out there somewhere. You can try meta-search engines such as Kayak and Sidestep that has good deals for flights, hotels, cruises and car rentals. Also good sites to search are orbitz, travelocity and expedia, although they tack on service fees.
• Keep track on the exact distances of all your itineraries between your hotel and to the place you're going. Use google earth's cool satellite images to gauge your distance.
• Keep searching for better prices. Prices for hotels or car rentals fluctuate, so never give up for a better deal.
• It's also wise to call your hotels directly for certain special rates that are only sold via phone; others are sold online. Take note however, that cancellation policies for this can be strict.
• Try getting a package. Here are some tips to consider before buying a package:
  
  
  1. To know if it's a real deal, see what it costs to book separately.
  2. Never trust the package description by the hotel or star rating; Do a research on the hotel on your own. If you aren't satisfied with the hotel being offered, you can always upgrade.
  3. If you're planning for a group tour or cruise, ask who will be joining you, - how mature they are or aren't, etc...
• In case of emergency, bring a photocopy of your passport with you. Another thing to do is scan your passport and email it (including your itinerary) to yourself and to someone you trust back home.
• Book directly to hotels whenever possible. Hotels are nicer to guests who searched for them out than to those who come via a third party booking engine.
  

Loyalty Programs.

• The value of a frequent-flier miles can be used for upgrades, free tickets and even magazine subscriptions. Use them ASAP because the value is in decline.
• Don't assume that miles will be added to your account automatically. Check your balance online and if the miles fail to show up within a week after you've flown, contact the airline reward program.
  

Travelling The Modern Style

There are many best advices you can get anywhere traveling wise. Too much of advice may lead you to nowhere and ending up loosing all of them out from your mind. So, I guess, brief and concise pieces of advice are the best, don't you think?

Consider these points:

1. Buy medicines - Get and fill prescriptions for sleeping pills and medicine for traveler's diarrhea.
2. If you're a member of loyalty programs, you can get better service, fewer hassles, lesser paper works plus great freebies and perks.
3. Maximize your cell phone by turning it into an address book with contact information for airlines, hotels, car-rental companies, and your car and health insurance companies. Get a local phone number too, just in case you are traveling overseas.
4. Buy boxes of antibacterial wipes in travel-size packets, then put some in your luggage and some in your car.

Happy trip! :)

ICE! at Gaylord National Resort

November 28-29, 2009 - Gaylord National Resort, Oxon Hill, Maryland

An early Christmas treat and as part of a late birthday treat by my husband, we went to visit Gaylord National Resort, a big hotel located at Oxon Hill, MD.

Our main purpose was to visit the ICE! show, but since it was the weekend, we thought of just spending a night there so we can as well see the lights. A little bit expensive for an overnight, but was worth it with all the spectacular colorful dancing lights and festive holiday decorations surrounding the hotel.

The ICE! show was great. It's like discovering a life-sized winter wonderland made entirely of ice! We got the chance to see life-sized holiday scenes sculpted from two million pounds of ice, including some ice slides that are more than 2 storeys tall!

The temperature inside was like 9F...freezing!...but we were provided with a thick coat to keep us warm while inside.

The ice sculptures were colorful, some looks like yummy candies, and some looks like real crystals.
It was fun!
The rest of the night was all fun as well.

Guide To Last-Minute Planning Trips

If you happened to be stuck with a rush planning for a trip, the following tips might help:

• Go check hotwire.com's Tripstarter and check the best and least expensive months to visit.
• Download tripstalker.com or subscribe to farealert.net. This way, you can track prices for a specific flight and alert you to fare movements.
• If you have various itineraries, try itasoftware.com that combines cities with airlines. Take note: You can't book tickets through the site, so take your search results to a travel agent.
• When reserving a last-minute ski holiday, be prepared to pa upfront. Most ski resorts consider booking within 90 days to be "close in" which means they require more than a deposit.
• Going for a cruise? Better book with a travel agent, not online - to access blocked off staterooms, or sit tight for "wave season" between January and April. This season are when cruise lines offer early booking rates off up to 50% off.
  

Is Your Phone Travel Friendly?

If you are always on the go, or travel more often, you no longer have to spend your dollar dialing information for a directory assistance. As long as your phone is text-capable, you can send a text message by typing the business name and the city or zip code you want to search and send your message to 466453 for Google or 44636 for 4Info. You will then get results with both addresses and phone numbers.

Pumpkin Patch

October 25, 2009

It was a good sunny Sunday with cool breeze. So, we decided to go and visit the lake view farm in triadelphia, Glenelg, MD for our pumpkin patch. We thought of this day as an extension of our 5th year wedding celebration and so there we go!

Not bad afterall, although we tried to find a big pumpkin for our jack o'lantern, we weren't able to. We thought we were not on the first few batches to get the most fresh pumpkin since the farm opened for the pumpkin season, but it was fine. We were able to choose two round ones for two jack o'lanterns on Halloween.

Here's Ging looking for her "ideal" pumpkin, and of course this is her first pumpkin patch! :).

Fall Foliage Trip

This has been my third year since I came to America. Two fall seasons had passed until I have analyzed I haven't seen yet the real beauty of nature when everything around becomes so colorful. my husband suggested we could got to Harpers Ferry in West Virginia to see the entire view. There are many places to see the beauty of fall foliage but this one is the closest to us from home.

October 24, 2009 - Harpers Ferry National Historical Park

This park is full of complex past with a colorful history. If you love history, this is the ideal place as well. During the peak of the fall season, here is a great place to see the colorful trees.
The park has many explorable diverse areas, from the 19th century restored buildings and exhibits to hiking and biking.

Herr's Snack Factory Tour

Me at Herr's Factory, Nottingham, Pennsylvania

It was a spur of the moment decision when we decided to drive down to Herr's for the snack factory tour. It was like an hour drive and we thought of catching the last tour at 3PM. We arrived at the place 15 minutes earlier, so we got some time to buy tickets. No cameras are allowed inside so strictly no photography please! Photos are always welcome outside, so we managed to get some shots :).
The tour is more on educational experience...ideal for kids and school trips, but fun for everybody else. Why? Because the best part is you get to taste free corn chips freshly made from the actual factory. It was tasty!!!
It was as well a fun experience visiting the real factory, with the people actually working inside, and you get a glimpse on how the products are being made from scratch to packing.
After the tour, we got one FREE pack of potato chips each! :).

Shopping!

It was overwhelming to know that while on our way back home from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, we saw Tanger Outlets!!! I was grinning and my husband knew what that meant, lol! So, we dropped by to see some things. We thought they might have special deals on that day. We only visited 3-4 stores and I finally decided to just go. The entire mall is big and I can't bear the cold hopping in from store to store while I was on the outside...brrr!!! I bought some few things and that was enough ;).

Dutch Wonderland

It's such a perfect timing that our hotel (Continental Inn) was just beside this amusement place! Since we ran out of itinerary, it was the last stop we visited before heading back home.

Dutch Wonderland is a 48-acre amusement park that offers entertainments such as story telling and theatrical high diving, and with a large water-play area. It has 32 rides ideal for families. It's a small theme park, but you can still do lots of things in there.

We did the Sky Ride, hubby was scared and so was I, lol! We both have phobia of heights, but the height was not too high enough to give me shivers on the spine. That helped us eased a little bit :). Then we had fun riding on the tug boat as well.

The Strasburg Railroad

Aren't we glad we can still immerse ourselves into a rich, educational experience learning about steam railroading until today? This fun, informative experience is not only for students but for the entire public who enjoy and appreciate exploring the engines and rail cars up-close...and the best would be riding on these beautifully restored trains, don't you agree?

Well, we did had fun, indeed! Riding on a presidential coal-burning steam train as they would say is more than fun! It's like you walked through the past where famous people in the past had been through. We had a 45-minute (presidential) train ride that departed from East Strasburg station that took us through the Amish countryside to Paradise, PA then back. During the trip, you'll see more than 1,000 acres of Amish farm fields still plowed by horses and mules. You see Amish buggies on railroad crossings and cool farms!


The best part? You enjoy food and drinks and entertainment while aboard the steam train on Strasburg Railroad. A little bit of a change to that of visiting a zoo. LOL!

Visiting Strasburg Railroad is like experiencing romance and adventure in the early 20th century that comes to life.

The Amish Farm & House Tour

It's just interesting to be learning all about the lifestyles and beliefs of the Amish people. This tour was really informative. One good thing you should sign up for an Amish tour is you can surely learn about the correct information about the old Order Amish lifestyle.

We got the chance to visit the actual Amish community, saw 18th century farm house, wide variety of farm animals that they raise, an authentic Amish room school house, a typical Amish residential home, etc...

The Amish people don't want themselves being captured for photos. So, cameras are not their "cup of tea." Although you can take shots around the community as much as you want, just don't include them on your photo shoots! A belief you should respect, and they would respect you in return.

Longwood's "Eye of the Water"

This was our 4th visit to our favorite Longwood Gardens, but my first time to see this fountain called "Eye of Water." Obviously, it looks like an eye! :)).

This water feature only runs from mid-April to mid-October. Much more ideal to visit during summer!

I've learned that this "eye" sits above a 90,000 gallon reservoir which supplies the main fountain garden and the waterfall of the garden.

Celebration Station

We drove to Mesquite, TX and dropped by at Celebration Station to see what's in there and we reached the place super hungry! Good thing there is one place of pizza place inside where we ordered enough to eat.

This mini theme park has both indoor and outdoor entertainment complex. There are mini golf areas that you can play with - ideal for kids or families.

We thought of playing the mini-"putt-putt" as hubby would say, lol! It's cute and fun! By the way, I won the game with my hole-in-one twice! :).

Longhorn Cattle Sculpture Park

When you're in downtown Dallas, this park is easy to find. The park is located at Pioneer Plaza by the Dallas Convention Center and at the intersection of SOuth Griffin and Young Street.
The park is pretty obvious when you start seeing bronze statues of longhorns leaded by statues of 3 cowboys riding on their horses. It is landscaped with a flowing stream and waterfalls that leads to a small stream of water with some bronze cattle statues that are crossing through it. The sculptures are considered to be the largest bronze sculpture of their type in the world.

The park is based on honoring the Dallas cowboys' past by celebrating the trails that brought settlers to Dallas.

Just a note to keep in mind: Don't touch or ride on the sculptures during extreme hot or cold weather temperatures. I tried touching one of them during my visit one fine hot day in summer!...OUCH!, really hot! LOL!...almost burned one of my fingers!

The 40 Steps

This spectacular platform is located at the end of Narragansett Ave. The stone stairs goes down to the side of the cliff on a balcony overlooking the sea.

This historical landmark were popular during Newport's Golden Age where it used to be the gathering place for servants and workers close to the mansions.

From the landmark, you can see stunning views of the ocean, the mansions and the cliff sides.

Note: It's important to highly consider warning signs around the area. Wandering off the path can be dangerous particularly during summer when thick bushes and vegetation may run to the edge of the cliff making it hard for you to see dangerous areas to step on.

The 10-Mile Drive

There are so much things to do and see at Newport, Rhode Island. If your time is limited, the "10-Mile Drive" would be the best option to do to see most of the island's historical community, the fabulous recreational public parks and shorelines.
Did you know that the "10-mile drive" ranks as one of the most popular "drives" in the country?

The Ten Mile Drive which includes Newport's Ocean drive and Fort Adams is historical. It is also known as the scenic drive due to the impressive coastal views and historical landmarks. The directions are pretty much easy to follow since the place is small and most of the roads are one-way. You can print the driving directions online.

We had fun doing it! After all the muscle strain from the Cliff walk, this drive was much more relaxing!...and way much more convenient :).

By the way, summer is always a good weather to spend your time along the coastal views if you want to stay longer in the outdoors.
Take note: Other than summer, the rest of the season at RI will be cold!...I mean...REALLY COLD!

Tips For Driving An RV - 2

(continuation of Part 1)

• Showering. - To conserve water, shut it off while you lather in the shower, before turning it back to rinse.
• Driving. - It's a bad idea to exceed speed limits in an RV because you need extra distance to stop. Try finding long entry ramps when merging into highways to accelerate so you have enough space. Use your side mirrors, too.
• Hills. - If hills are too steepy, you won't be able to make it to the top, no matter how hard you push on the gas. It helps to buy a mountain guide available at truck stops so you can identify troublesome hills. Approach any grade over 10% with caution.
• Entry Step. - Most RV's have pull out entry steps so it's easy to get in and out. Make sure to stow the step before you drive. If it happened you left it out, and you're driving, you can't see it. When the step hits a curb or someone's car, you're in heavy trouble!
• Dumping. - Wait until the tanks are at least 3 quarters full before you empty them. Otherwise, they won't drain properly. The black tank is the sewer waste, and the gray tank is the water waste. Dump the contents of the black tank first so the soapy water from the gray tank can clean out the hose.
  

Tips For Driving An RV - 1

If you plan to rent an RV for an out of town trip or you have one of your own, you might want to check and recheck the following tips before you go on a long trip. It's always good to be prepared always!

• Parking. - Practice parking before going anywhere. If you're at a campground and you try backing up for the first time, you might hit something that might lead you into trouble.
• Directions. - Get meticulous directions. Let other people know you're driving a 36-foot motor home that needs the straightest, easiest route. Making a U-turn in an RV is a nightmare! You stop traffic!
• Pets. - Taking your pet with you is one great advantage with RVing. You don't need to leave your pet in a kennel at home or hotel room. You're bringing your home on the road, so do the same for your pet. Bring his stuff and all will be fine.
• Packing. - If you're renting, most companies offer packages with sheets, towels, dishes, pots and pans. These eliminates the hassles of having to pack those items.
• Fuel. - Most motor home generators automatically turn off before the fuel tank is completely empty. There's still some gas left to drive on, but you must fill the tank up right away.

(to be continued...)