Weekend Blitz

Jet lag on our trip to Turkey was no joke, so we ended up getting later starts to the days than planned. When we finally set out for the day, we headed for the Grand Bazaar and the Egyptian Spice Market–  one of our favorite adventures in Istanbul. Although they are very different than what I’d imagine they were like in years past (lots of tourists these days!), it’s fun to feel like you’re going back in time to visiting the bazaar for your weekly (or daily?) grocery trip.

I’ve never seen a more beautiful assortment of tea for sale

‘Mısır Çarşısı’ — the Egyptian Spice [...]

Our first two nights were scheduled in San Diego, but we landed at 8:45pm (11:45pm Eastern Time), and had to rent a car and get to our hotel. We crashed into bed and tried to rest up for our packed day ahead.

One of my best friends had plenty of wonderful things to say about her time at Coronado Island, just a quick 10 minute drive from downtown San Diego, so we chose to stay on the island rather than in the downtown area. Once we’d decided to stay on Coronado, I had to choose from the handful of hotels there. The famous Hotel del Coronado was a bit out of our price range at $400+/night, so we settled on the El Cordova Hotel just across the street. It is an old mansion [...]

On the eve of Jeffrey’s & my big Asian Adventure, I wanted to spend some quality time with my mom before Jeffrey and I packed up and headed out for months.

Disclaimer: I’m an idiot and haven’t signed up for the referral to make any money off any of the below credit card offers. This is this genuine advice as I see things. I have both of the cards listed below, however, take my advice with caution: I’m far from an expert on financial/credit matters, but happy to help where I can!

My mom had just applied for the US Airways Premier World MasterCard over Thanksgiving, so she received the Companion Certificate in the mail in late December. A little more on the [...]

As reported here on The Travel Trickster, you can find some seriously cheap flights from New York-JFK or Miami-MIA and Iguazu Falls-IGU:

The Deal

Book flights from New York-JFK or Miami-MIA to Iguazu Falls-IGU for as low as $474 to $524 for travel in January, February or March 2015.

Available travel dates for New York-JFK to Iguazu Falls-IGU in March 2015

By: …your local connection – CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

How to Get It

After a wonderful few very sunny and warm days in Bordeaux (more on the Bordeaux trip here: Walking Tour of Bordeaux, France), we headed north to the region of Pays de la Loire to visit my sister, Leslie.

BOOKING

We purchased our tickets at the Bordeaux train station, aka Gare de Bordeaux-Saint-Jean, about an hour before departure. We made sure to skip booking way in advance using a USA-specific site such as Rail Europe (read more about the best way to book a French train ticket in advance here: How-to: Booking French Trains (RailEurope vs SNCF)).

We were able to book our tickets for 37.30 euros each (~$46.43 USD); in contrast, the RailEurope version of the [...]

Help! You’re planning the trip of a lifetime to Southeast Asia but are completely stuck and don’t know what to where. It can be a bit intimidating: there’s a dress code for visiting temples (no bare shoulders or knees) but the humidity is absolutely gut-wrenching. So, there’s that.

On our trip to Thailand (my first foray into Southeast Asia), I packed adhering to the pretty strict temple dress code. I was quickly shocked to find out that a) yikes, even cotton pants don’t breathe like they should! and b) every other woman tourist there had not seemed to pack according to the dress code at all! And, what’s more, outside of each temple where [...]

Once we arrived in Santiago, we took a cab from the airport straight to our hotel — the W Santiago in the Las Condes area. Like all W hotels, the best word to describe the hotel was “glamorous.” Like, it seems like Kim K is going to be staying in the suite next door to yours. All W’s, although decorated differently with their own motif, all share the same party atmosphere and glam decor. The W even has a signature scent… to go along with their signature house music. When you’re at the W, you know you’re not going to sleep before 4am.

CHECK-IN

We arrived at the hotel after one 10-hour, nearly sleepless flight [...]

We booked our trip to Chile and Argentina using Delta SkyMiles which worked out fine for the flights to/from the US but making the best use of our miles intra-Argentina required some research.

We’ll start with a quick recap from our post on booking the itinerary (Delta SkyMiles to Argentina: How to book Aerolineas Argentinas Award Space). If you want to get from the U.S. to Argentina (and you’re using Delta SkyMiles, KLM/Air France Flying Blue points or other SkyTeam currency), you’ll have the following choices for the long-haul flights:

Here’s a pretty cool travel “trick”:  Turkish Airlines will either put you up in a hotel for the night or give you a free tour of the city if you have a long enough layover in Istanbul-IST. We covered the details on the free hotel room here (Secret Travel Trick: Free Hotel Layover in Istanbul with Turkish Airlines), now for the free city tour:

The Deal

You can participate in Turkish Airlines’ “TourIstanbul” for free by meeting the following requirements (can be a paid or award ticket):

We can all agree that Sir Richard Branson is a badass (his title is “Sir” after all!), but, apart from being a music industry mogul (Virgin Records), owner of numerous airlines (Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America) and even a promoter of suborbital travel (Virgin Galactic)–the man owns his own island! Yes, that’s right, Sir Branson owns Necker Island, a 74-acre private island in the British Virgin Islands.

Just Richard being Richard + short shorts

I first learned about this a few years ago while watching MTV Cribs, which came on right after Pimp My Ride, also known as how I spent my weekday [...]