Category Archives: DreamsofTravel
Blurry Morning On Dal Lake - Kashmir
This is what happens when you get up at 4:15 am to take photos. It all becomes blurry. This is Srinagar, Kashmir, India
New Year Resolution: Travel This Year Tip
The itchy, red, tired eyes start to swell from staying up all night as the cold winter chill bites at the nose. A trusty scarf and a cap and jacket helps deter the cold from preventing the gawking of the fireworks display to come. People surround to share the celebration of the new year to come. Maybe not just huddled to stay warm, but perhaps in an elegant dress and dapper attire as a band plays music until the wee hours. This is the time of year that reflection happens, and the question is asked: “What did I accomplish this year?” As the countdown begins, the list of new resolutions start to fill the brain. “I need to lose more weight… for real this time.” “I will find myself a new job.” “I will start a new hobby… that does not include my Xbox controller.” “I will travel more this year”.
Most New Year’s resolutions never get accomplished. Heck, most New Year’s resolutions never even get started. The losing of weight resolution always seems to ends by sitting on the couch after 2 days at the gym. But the last resolution on the list, that is something we can help with. That resolution to travel.
So where does a person even start? Planning the trip is one of the hardest things to do. Well a great place would be to check out the article posted about how to plan a trip. We wrote this article, to help get it all started… so that you don’t go back to sitting around the Xbox.
Where do you go? Knowing how much a flight costs is one of the largest decision on where to go. A great resource to help figure out where to go, would be farecompare.com. You can find more at this article on how farecompare can help you get cheap flights and help decide on when and where to go. This is a much better way than throwing darts at a map on the wall.
Now that the destination is set, where does one lay their head? Well hotel can be pricey and a hostel is not for everyone. Well a good alternative to both can be found on AirBnB.com. An article of AirBnB can be found here. It is a great alternative to paying through your nose or sleeping with roaches.
After landing in the airport, one of the worst nightmares is that the luggage does not arrive at the airport on that same day or at all. How does someone deal with that? Well we have that covered as well. Check out this article of what do when luggage gets lost or how to reduce the risk of luggage getting lost.
So these articles may not make a person thinner or find that dream job of doing nothing and getting paid for it. We do hope however it allows someone to accomplish that goal to travel more. What are some of your resolutions this year? How can we help you accomplish them? Do you have any useful tips for someone who wants to travel. Leave a message below, send us a tweet
// on twitter, or post on our facebook. Heck even send us a message. Let us know.
How to Plan a Trip
In a few days I head off to Vancouver, an area in which for the past few weeks I have been doing a lot of research on. Although there was a lot of planning I still have no itinerary, no plans and no set schedules. I kind of like this. The idea was not to plan every day. I just wanted to get ideas and options of where to visit and how I could integrate myself into British Columbian culture. So how did do this? Well people ask me that all the time. “How do I plan my trip to ____ ?” (fill in the blank). You too probably find yourself asking this question. The best thing is to look at your resources. Here is how I planned my trip to British Columbia and some of the resources I used.
Ask The Question
How do you decide where to go? You could just open up a map and just point to a place randomly. But how do you know if it is a good place to go. One of the best resources are your friends and family as you know and trust them. So I asked my friends and family, “So where should I go for my next vacation?” Some suggestions were to Philippines, I guess my friends missed me there. Some suggested Colombia, but I had just recently returned from there. From a gathered consensus from friends, family and associates, Vancouver and British Columbia was to be the next destination. I was told it was like San Francisco but more beautiful. Since San Francisco is my favorite city, I decided to explore it as an option. And more beautiful? I had to see this or myself.
Get the Book
Now that I there is an idea of where to go, the next concern is if it is plausible or even an interesting enough place to visit. So I headed off to my neighborhood bookstore and purchase a guidebook on British Columbia. Usually, as most people do, I choose the Lonely Planet guides. This time I decided to spring for the Moon Handbook. It was slightly cheaper and wanted to try something different this time.
Flipping from page to page of the book I explored through the information; like if I needed Visa or not. Also if there was a cost to enter Canada. I also viewed the photos of the book to see if there was gorgeous places worth visiting and photographing. I read about culture and history, and the ideal daily budget.
For those who just don’t want to go out and buy a book, there are other resources that I used. One online resource for free is on wikitravel.org. Wikitravel is a cross between a Lonely Planet guide book and wikipedia. It is user submitted information to build guided information on travel in countries and cities around the world. Another good free website is lonelyplanet.com. The best tool is the budget per a day feature under the Practical Information section.
The Flight
Okay now that I have figured out that British Columbia is an interesting place to visit, what about the cost of a flight? Headed to to farecompare.com to see the average price of flight and when the best time to go is. Find it is expensive to go during the summer time of late May and June, which is when I planned. The cost so far is $280 round trip from SFO to Vancouver. I also checked out alternatives like a train through Amtrak.com, but it was not any cheaper as I would have to fly to Seattle.
Now the big question is when do I buy it? Well i know that the best day to buy is Tuesday. So I sign up for alerts on Farecompare.com on when the flight costs drop. I also pull out my iPhone and use the Kayak app to set up an alert of daily price updates.
About 6 weeks before my round about date I found a price I was happy. Usually prices drop the lowest around 6 weeks before your date of leaving as I have learned from farecompare.com’s blog. The price was $210 for the roundtrip through West Jet. (I actually found one as cheap as $180 USD through Virgin, but a non serious medical emergency prevented me from purchasing.)
Budget
After checking the flight, I checked the daily budget on Lonelyplanet.com and found that the budget per a day was about $120 Canadian per a day. The vast amount going towards to hotels. So I decided to do some research there first. I did some research on tripadvisor.com. Tripadvisor is a place to get user reviews on hotels and hostel and places to stay while traveling. I also put out a question on where I should stay at while in Vancouver on Gogobot.com. Gogobot is a social network for traveling, where you can get advice from friends on both gogobot and Facebook (as it can tie to your Facebook account).
I also proceeded to check out Wyndham‘s website and mobile app. The website is great because it has a lot of features. The mobile app is useless. I have a corporate discount and could not look up the discounts on the app. The website did get me enough information. The lowest cost I could find was $85. That was too expensive for my taste. So I decided to look into a hostel with a private room. The best deal found on hostelbookers.com and hostel world.com for a private room was about $80. This was not bad, but perhaps there was something cheaper.
The next stop was to AirBnb.com. AirBnB is a place where wonders can offer their home or apartment for rent. It has both a gorgeous and easy to use interface for both their website and their mobile app. With some research an apartment was found for $70 but even better, was a room in an apartment for $45. This allowed for the budget to be dropped like crazy. This allowed to stay with locals of Vancouver, possibly allowing for great advice of local places to visit.
Find Stuff to Do
The next thing is to find things to do. This is not to make a plans or Itineraries, but rather to be able to talk to locals of where else to go. It also allows for going somewhere when exploring and advice do not go as intended. It is also to find other travelers to be able to explore. Gogobot.com is a great place to find these points of interest. Again I posed some questions of where to visit on Gogobot. The ideas poured in and gave me ideas of places to photograph. This also allowed me to know where to avoid touts and hagglers from the obvious tourist spots. But also where I can find other tourists if I need to feel the need to be around someone of the traveling kind.
So with all these tools I still have no itinerary, no places to visit, and no plans. A lot of resources were used. Going into vancouver will be well informed, yet open to adventure of the unknown. Feel free to use some to the tools suggested here to help you plan your uncharted adventure.
What are some of the resources you use? Do you ever plan your trip out? Perhaps you love these resources too? Write a comment below and feel free to follow us on twitter and Facebook and follow our feeds.
The Way - Pilgrimage Travels
When I saw the movie The Way, by Emilio Estevez, I was moved by character development the man played by Martin Sheen. The movie follows Tom, a Crabby doctor who goes to France to claim the body of his son after a tragic accident. Tom decides to take a journey on a path his son never finished through beautiful northern coast of Spain. The journey he takes is a famous christian pilgrimage known as “The Way of Saint James” or “The Way”. Tom meets some companions and on his journey and on his this path learns more about himself.
This reminded me of why I love traveling. When you travel, you learn more about yourself. Even more so, you learn more about a culture and other people, even more so if you experience a pilgrimage. In my travels I have experienced a few pilgrimages including the holy city of Rishikesh, India, climbing the Trikuta Mountain in Katra to Vaishno Devi Shrine in India, found myself at the Krishna’s birthplace in Mathura, India, and climbed the steps of Hanginan in Maasin, Philippines. All of these being spiritual journeys, and much like Tom, they landed on me at the last minute.
This got me thinking, Tom meet some interesting people on his pilgrimage, and so did I. I also realized that pilgrimages are great way to inspire travel, meet amazing people, and learn more about cultures of the area.
Always wanting to travel is dream of many. But where does one decide to travel to? And how do you decide? A pilgrimage could be the answer to such a thing. Many buddhists see the four holy spots of Buddha in India and is an inspiration for me to return to India. Many Christians walk “The Way” or “The Camino” like in the movie The Way and explore Spain. There is also the 88 Temple Pilgrimage in Japan. All of these are great reasons to want to travel and great inspiration for anyone to want to travel.
It is always amazing when you are doing something, and someone shares that same idea with you. That is great about a pilgrimage, you are surrounded by people who share your same ideas. My pilgrimage in Katra to Vaishno Devi I really got know my good friend, and meet some other great pilgrims, young and old along the way. In They Way, Tom comes across companions all walking “The Camino” all looking to find themselves, or just something. As one walks to lose weight and another is trying to quit smoking. They stumble upon writer with writer’s block who is finding his way. They all become friends on their common journey. Journeys like these are a great way to meet new people.
Tapas or Pinchos? Which do you order when you are in Pamplona? Well you could always be like Tom and find out the hard way. Something you always seem to learn about a pilgrimage is the local customs and culture of where you are at. Nothing like trying samosas for the first time and falling in love with them forever. Food is a great thing to experience on a pilgrimage, as you are forced to eat the local foods. You are also learning about the villagers in the area when talking about them, and finding similarities and differences, like whether to order tapas and pinchos.
So why go on pilgrimage? Well you do not have to do it to be spiritual, it is a great reason to be inspired to travel. You can make new friends along the way as you try new foods and learn new cultures. Pilgrimages are just a great travel experience. Do not forget to check out They Way on BlueRay now.
So if you could take a pilgrimage where would you go? Perhaps you would like to share an experience of a pilgrimage with us? We could use some good ideas of where else to go. Are there any other movies out there that have inspired you to travel? Write a comment below and feel free to follow us on twitter and Facebook and follow our feeds.