Merge and Purge

Let me take you on a little travel news tour uncovering how changes in the works, will impact the way we buy our airline tickets. Unless you persistently follow travel news, you may not be aware of what is happening. This little post could save you some time and potentially some aggravation.

For years, Travelocity has been a go to site for seeking out the best prices on airfare and hotels. This was part of my arsenal when I did my searches. Now, I can scratch it off the list. Here is why…

As quoted from Skifttake “As expected after the early termination of a Federal Trade Commission antitrust review two weeks ago, Expedia Inc. acquired Travelocity outright for an underwhelming $280 million in cash.” The full story is here. Of course, they will maintain the Travelocity name and website for those not aware.

Well, Expedia is on a shopping spree for sure. Not only did they bargain for Travelocity, when you are on a streak, why stop there? They went after and acquired Orbitz, another former competitor. This narrows the field from the four major players: Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, and Priceline down to two. Are you keeping track or do I need to spell it out for you? EXPEDIA and Priceline.

If you were not aware, Expedia also owns Hotels.com, Hotwire, Trivago, CheapTickets and eBookers, Venere, CarRentals.com, Classic Vacations, Expedia Cruise Ships, plus others with lesser-known names. Priceline’s stable includes Booking.com, Kayak and Agoda.com. Most roads will lead to Expedia.

Other mergers you may or may not care about, depending on your search style, Skifttake also reports “Switzerland-based Bravofly has an agreement to acquire Lastminute.com, often referred to as Travelocity Europe, for $120 million. Subject to regulatory approvals, the LastMinute.com deal is expected to close in the next couple of months.”

This news will certainly help me purge my travel searching bookmarks. Hunting through multiply versions of Expedia will result in a paraphrasing of Albert Einstein’s quote “Stupidity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Until something happens to them, my favorite search engines are Hipmunk, Adioso, Google Flights, and Drungli.

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A Taylor Without a Needle and Thread

An endless time ago, in a cyberspace far, far away, I had enrolled us as participants for Workaway. If you have not heard of Workaway, you are amongst the majority. For as ingenious as the concept is, it is still one of those best kept secrets. It doesn’t intend this to be the case, but with enough information on the Internet to populate a galaxy if it were paper based, Workaway is just a tiny, insignificant note among the heaps.
To quote from their site “Workaway.info is a site set up to promote fair exchange between budget travellers (sic), language learners or culture seekers and families, individuals or organizations who are looking for help with a range of varied and interesting activities.”


If farming is your thing, then you will want to know about WWOOF World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. Both organizations offer people of all ages to avail themselves of new experiences.

Shortly after signing up with Workaway, we received dozens of requests for volunteers. At the time, my main objective was to find someone with SEO experience to assist with my three professional websites. Those who were qualified wanted a stay weeks long. Those who could accommodate a short stay had no experience in SEO. After tweaking the needs multiple times, it seemed less than likely for us there was no match made in heaven or in virtual reality.

As a last ditch effort, I changed our needs to one less arduous. I was looking for someone who had talents and expertise in Photoshop or Lightroom. With over 7,000 photos on my computer, there was a need to cull from the herd those that were salable. Once that was done, there were spots or objects that needed ‘healing’.

After receiving a request from Taylor, I knew she was the person for the job. She claimed she had the skills I needed and only wanted a short term stay. Multiple e-mails later, she appeared at our door late in the evening, but was ready for work the following morning.

Taylor endeared herself to us immediately. She is intelligent, hardworking and courageously has embarked on an around-the-world trip for one year. After careful planning, she arranged her airline ticket with over 15 stops in various points in the world. To extend her budgeted money, she has wisely involved herself in Workaway to ease the pain of paid accommodations. As it turned out, Taylor edited over 1,500 photos in her short stay with us, but more importantly, she carved a place in our hearts. We included her in a couple of special dinners held at home with friends and she joined us for beers with a group of my former students.

When it was time for Taylor to move on, next stop Istanbul, we were close to tears. Still, Taylor shared the link for her blog, so we can continue to feel close to her and her adventures. She is a good writer and has some great photos. Let me share the link with you here.

No needles, no thread, but Taylor did an incredible amount of sowing herself into the fabric of our lives.

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Aussie Aussomeness

Yesterday, I arrived home to get an inquiry about accommodating a couple from Australia. Having hosted numerous Aussie and Kiwi guests in the past, this was not earthshaking news. What Susan Packer added to her note was quite awesome. She read about us in the Travel section of the local newspaper. This is what she included:

“The article was a full page feature in the weekend Travel section of The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's Age newspapers, so it's about the biggest travel-related coverage that you can get in Australia!”

Needless to say, it brought tears to my eyes that we are continuing to receive far flung coverage. We have had fabulous reviews written about us in the largest travel magazine in Africa, based in South Africa years ago. Now our coverage has spread to another continent.

This is the quote from the article “Buda B&B (budabab.com; $65 for two, $21 supplement for one-night stays) spruiks itself as "The Best in Pest"; the owners have an incredible knowledge of the city.”

The online article from the Melbourne's Age newspapers is here. You can read all of their other recommendations.

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Keep Calm and Carry On, But the Rules Have Changed Again

Last week, I posted an article in Facebook about the changing rules of the airlines with regard to their rules for carry-on pieces. Half jokingly, I stated that if an investigation were to be pursued, it would probably uncover a co-conspirator relationship with the luggage manufacturers. How often have people bought a smaller carry-on because the last one was not small enough? 

Unless your suitcase is from the planet Imsk, like Shrinking Violet of the Legion of Super-Heroes fame, you are gonna be stuck with a conundrum at check-in time. Airlines used to report their size requirements in linear inches: you added the total length + width + height. If you met their maximum magic number, you were safe regardless if one side was bulkier than the other. You were still sitting pretty.

Two different experts have a bit of differing information. You can read Peter Greenberg here and George Hobica from Airfarewatchdog.com here.

Most importantly, check before you fly, check again on the way to the airport, and one last time while waiting in line to check in. The rules are changing with great momentum.

The second most important thing: Buy stock in a good luggage company~

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Cádiz, Spain Here We Come

We are doing our first home exchange with a woman from Cádiz, Spain. The exchange will be from July 31st to August 10th. 

Ron is thrilled, because of the proximity to other places. Seville is only an hour by train. We are taking our friend Kat with us. We will fly home from Madrid, so we will spend the last night there.

Other day trip ideas are here.

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Hungarian Travel

This is now old news, but still interesting. I had saved an article about Hungarians' summer travel plans and then forgot about it, but here is it anyway.

According to a survey conducted by the state tourism agency, of all those surveyed who stated they had plans to travel, 62% of them said they will stay exclusively in Hungary. An additional 10% said they will shake it up a bit by mixing Hungary travel with some international jaunts. 

Those who plan to stay within the country can be found at Lake Balaton where they will spend 7.5 nights, with no one planning on extending it to 2 weeks or beyond. 

The 3 foreign destinations of choice are Austria, Croatia, and Romania. 

There were quite a few on our flights to and from Bari, Italy I must say.

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Back in the Writing Saddle Again

Yes, I have a memoir in the pipeline, but no one hanging over me to battle the computer to get it written. However, when my last Frommer's editor contacted me yesterday, things were different. There is a different editor for just about each book. She asked if I wanted to rewrite the Hungary chapter of the Frommer's Europe book. Of course I do! It is 34 pages, so not quite cumbersome, but having looked over the last time it was published, there are a number of things that need updating. I have until April 2nd to get it done. I do love seeing my name in print.   

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Free Dinner and Then Sticker Shock

We were invited for a dinner at the Vörös Postakocsi Restaurant because they were so pleased with the review I wrote about them in my Frommer's book. We went last night for a lovely dinner; I had the ribs, which I definitely don't see too often on menus here. With all of that pork, I was wallowing in our good fortune. If only it had lasted a bit longer. 

Today, I checked my online bills. That trip to the dentist was on my card. After misreading the consultation price list, I was way short on cash. That little voice told me it was too much of bargain, but I smacked it back in place. I tried using our euro ATM/Mastercard to pay the balance, but the bank has a limit of 700 euros  a week. This was way over that limit. Handing over my charge card, I at least felt smart about using the one that does not have a currency conversion fee or foreign usage penalty. With a credit limit of $34,000 on that card, I knew I was good to go. 

When I looked at the statement today, first I gagged, then I hyperventilated, and then there was nothing more to do than resign myself to the expense. It converted to $3,769.18. 

We just bought our airline tickets to New Zealand for our December vacation. They were $4001.00 for both of us. So, if I had left my teeth alone, we could have gone to New Zealand
twice.

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Cheap Flight Hunting

As my moniker suggests, I love budget options. When it comes time for find cheap airfare, I really scrape the bottom of the Internet barrel looking for the tools to aid my search. One thing that I really find is a time waster is having to go from one web site to another. Today, I came across a great site that consolidates the searches. Cheap-Flights.to makes it easy to compare fares, hotels, car rentals and package deals. 

Cheap-Flights.to uses the major consolidators: Kayak, Expedia,  Orbitz, and Mobissimosearch engine individually, saving on time and potential typing errors with dates. putting links to each of them directly on your search page. There is no need to put your data into each

Just one example proves the point. I did a sample search for Budapest to Riga for October. On Kayak the cheapest flight was on Polish Lot Airlines for $285 pp, but when going to the final stages, the grand total is $569. 

Orbitz shows the flights as $116 pp, but with taxes $295 for a final total of $59158. 

Mobissimo did the worst, sending me on to Ebookers in the UK. The least expensive flight was 319 BP, which at today's exchange is $492, although there may have been more charges had I gone through with the booking process. Interestingly, they are still using the same Polish Lot flight to Warsaw as the others, but then changing to Lufthansa. 

Expedia has a total fare of $474, making it the champ for this round.

I will certainly be bookmarking Cheap-Flights.to for my future travels.

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Price Increase on US Passports

Just around the corner on July 13, 2010 the cost of getting or renewing a US Passport will increase.The fee for an adult passport is stated as $110.00, however, there is an additional $25.00 fee for 'processing'. Why not just say $135.00? A passport for children under 16 years old will be $105.00.

Passport renewals will save you the $25 processing fee if you do not go to a county clerk or post office. Mail in your current passport as proof of identity along with your application. The alternative is to use a private expeditor service, which negates any savings, but if you are in a time crunch it is worth it.

The $25 administrative fee is awarded to the official passport acceptance agents such as the post offices and city governments who provide the legal service of applying for a passport. Due to the hours of hand holding they have had to do with numerous applicants, they have complained that their current fees are not cost effective. With this new fee, the Department of State will review the increase in application fess to determine if there needs to be another increase sometime later the year.

Another "gotchya" is to add extra pages to a valid 28-page passport book will cost an additional $82 starting July 13th.Up until now, it has been free. If you think you could use extra pages, get them now if you still have some years before your passport expires. 

A larger passport of 52 pages as opposed to the usual 28 pages is available at no additional cost when you renew or get a new passport if you ask for it. Extra pages are needed by frequent travelers going to countries that require a visa.

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Luck of the Irish and Some Foot Stomping

After thinking about having a summer vacation last year, the long "To Do" list this summer with fall teaching immediately following, I had to put my foot down. There had to be some R & R (rest and relaxation) for R & R (Ryan and Ron). R the elder is doing his annual trek to Denver and a little town in Iowa that no one has heard of outside of Cedar Rapids. Though he is visiting family, he does claim there are fun times involved. Personally, I love his family, but there is no family in the world I could handle for longer than 3 days including the days of arrival and departure. 


Having been a staunch supporter of equal rights for decades, I demanded petitioned and then threatened to have a fun time this summer also. Foot firmly planted after putting my foot down, we booked a week in Dublin for August. Hunting for a cheap airfare is like looking for an udder on a bull, but we finally found one. The key is being flexible with dates, but we had to fit it in between guests coming and going.


The last time and only time we were in Dublin was 2001. We loved it then, taking some side trips to Tara and other locales. Then we also spent a week in Galway, equally enchanting. Other day trips are on the list this time. I am not mailing anything this go around. The last time, I mailed myself souvenirs I did not want to carry, but they never arrived. 


Dublin, making the thought of the summer vacation ending, bearable. 

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Katie, Katie

Katie wrote in:

If you mean it and I can find time in all the planning I would be pleased to meet you. I have been an avid reader of yours since the first madness descended on me to move here.
Over that now and back to not so perfect but way more tolerant England. Can't comment on the US because I have never been there but I find this place really maddening. An idea just popped in my head, I live near Szentendre, so if you are interested I could show you around and have that cup of coffee. :-)

Change experiences, although I don't think anything short of a lottery win would make me want to stay here.
BTW which dental practice have you used and do they do cosmetic dentistry? Tried to look for it in the archive but hit a few dead ends. Thanks.
Take care now
Katie


Hey Katie,
I am coming on to spring break soon starting on March 31st. If you are still around then I would love to meet you for a coffee. There is a shop in Szendendre I have been wanting to return to. You know the town is in my travel guide? I was there recently to show it to a friend and update the info for the 8th edition of the book. 


Either way, if you are free then, let's get a coffee.
The dentist I went to is Haifa on Akacfa, but I would check with MedicalTours Hungary for other options. You can check them out here.

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Paris Rentals

Reader Ray and partner Kim from New Orleans just sold their apartment in Paris. However, he turned me on to this website for apartment rentals. Just click here.

If you don't know square meters, but do know square feet, you can click here for a automatic conversion engine.

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Ron Makes a Friend

After making 'new best friend' status with the travel information guy in the lobby, Ron booked a dinner dhow boat cruise for tonight. We wanted to go tomorrow night, for my birthday, but Chris, the travel guy was not certain. They needed a minimum of ten people, but they only had 6 so far for Tuesday night. Monday was a sure thing; they had the minimum already. Convinced we could possibly lose out, we settled and handed over 45 euros per person. This particular boat is run by the Tamarind Hotel, a five star property in town. They will be sending a car for us at 6pm, we sail at 7pm and are returned to shore at 10pm.

Now that Chris has attained 'new best friend' status, Ron was assured that all of the other tours he wanted to sell us were absolutely the best bargains in town. We had read about these "Vayas" a spiritual forest you could visit, but once you reached them, you could only be escorted by a spiritual tribal member. There were restrictions in the forest. You had to speak softly, you could not kiss another person, and the tribal person could communicate with the trees. This gave us hope that there was something to do in this city, so we asked Chris about it. Being Ron's new best friend, I let the two of them discuss matters; however, each time Ron returned, he would say that Chris spoke so fast, he was not sure what he had said. The crux was that the forests are a ways out of the city, meaning you have to hire a driver. Forests are within government protected parks, so there is an entry feee of $20 per person to enter. 


My offering was to check the tour companies in town to compare prices. We looked for one in our tour guide, but could not find it, finding another close by. We stopped in, explained what we wanted and the man kept saying "Yes, okay, okay, okay". When we stopped talking so did he, so we had no clue if he understood a word we said. After a long pregnant pause, he said he could arrange a driver for us for 7,500 shillings. The driver would take us to the forest, we would pay our $20 admission to the forestry office, and then the driver would take us to a beach for an hour and back to the hotel. The beach was our second requirement. We said we would think about it and possibly return.

On the street where our hotel is, Moi Avenue, there are about sixteen banks. In some blocks there are four banks side by side. Finding an ATM machine should be easy and it would be if we had a Visa ATM card. As we prowled the blocks, we came across another tour agency and decided to give them a try. Once upstairs, their office is down a hall where there the fron part of the building is being used by a language school. In the two rooms of the language school, you have the options of learning Spanish, Italian, German, French, Arabic, or Swahili, but not English. At the tour office, their English was perfect, the owner understood us and made an offer of picking us up at 7am and delivering us back at 3pm. We would drive 2 hours to the forest, spend time there, go to a boardwalk area for bird watching, and then on to the beach, have lunch there if we wanted and to return to the hotel at the end. It sounded like a full day, but again we said we would think about it and return. 

I have not rid myself of the stomach bug, so being close to a bathroom is a priority. Let me clarify that being close to a western type bathroom is a huge priority. Many toilets are the squat type sans any paper products. I cannot trust my balance nor my supply of tissues to hold out.

Once again the temps were in the high 90s with chance of thunderstorms. The skies were alternating black and blue like a bad bruise. Drained from the heat and knowing I only had Internet paid up to tomorrow at 4pm, we spent the afternoon reading, computing and napping. At 6pm, our car was here for our dhow dinner. The hotel is on the outskirts of the city taking about thirty minutes to get there. Docked at their private dock was a grand boat, the deck covered with tables, the tables covered in linen, crystal, and china. Our table was on the upper deck. It was lovely. Although a set dinner, each of the four courses had two offerings. We started with a seafood salad, I had cream of butternut soup,  Ron had tomato, both of us had lobster, and for dessert cherry cheesecake. As soon as all were boarded, the tables were full with about thirty people total and we sailed off. A band on board entertained during the evening with soothing music. At the next table, by himself was a young man who started out with "Since I am alone here, I will need someone to talk to. Can I talk to you?"  Once he started, he did not stop. From Australia, he is working on his doctorate in African studies with a special interest in the Congo. His department would not allow him to travel to the Congo to do his research for safety reasons. Instead, he decided to teach a year at the Gibson School in Ethiopia to gain experience.  On an Ethiopian teacher's salary, he decided to do one major trip over the holidays, hence his being here. He ordered water for our table, but then said he had no money to pay for it, so we said we would. He chatted for the first forty-five minutes with us, but then went to try to take pictures. We went downstairs and when we returned, he was chatting up the African couple sitting next to us. They bought him a mixed drink and a beer.


Dinner was wonderful, the cruise was lovely, the music was a special touch, and the service was stellar. At the end of the cruise, the staff came around with our bar bills. Ours was 230 shillings for the bottle of water. The Australian's was 4,500 shillings for the cruise itself. He argued that he had pre-paid just as the rest of us had, but strangely when we docked he was the first off and disappeared like Casper the hustling ghost. I never heard him even thank the African couple for the drinks. All in all it was a wonderful way to spend an evening and highly recommended.

I was betwixt and between needing the facilities on the ship or waiting for the hotel. 

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Forgotten Costs of Travel

Besides those pesky hidden costs that the airlines are now sucking our blood for, there are other not so insignificant chunks of change that are required to travel far and wide. Today, Ron and I went for our Yellow Fever vaccines. The ones we had years ago expired last year when we were safely in Australia. This years is Kenya and Tanzania, so we needed to get shot up once again.

Budapest has quite an efficient, if not inexpensive World Health Travel Clinic. Doctors are trained in communicable diseases in every part of the globe. With our immunizations records in hand, we entered the waiting room with twenty people who already beat to the door and took a number. With thoughts that we should have packed our next meal, shock is not superlative enough to describe the fact that we were in the doctor's office within fifteen minutes. After looking over our records, Ron needed more shots than I did. How did that happen? Anyway, we received our Yellow Fever, Tetanus booster, and Typhoid or was it Jungle Fever? I am not sure, but it was one mama of a needle that took a good long time to empty out into my bloodstream.

She discussed Malaria treatment options. The last time we were here, the doctor was more than willing to share homeopathic ideas and we have gone that route more than once. This doctor insisted on telling us of a new medication that has less side effects, but costs 20,000 Huf a box and we would each need three boxes. Let me see, 20,000 x 3 for each of us equals 120,000 Huf total at today's exchange rate is $668.00 or 448.80 Euros or 49,582.83 in Kenyan shillings. No, we will go the homeopathic route, thank you very much for the information.

This little outing to the doctor is not of course covered by the health insurance, because once you leave the country and the EU, they are not going to cover you anyway. Our hour of in and out set us back 43,355 Huf or $241.30 or 162.16 Euros or 17,911.19 Kenyan shillings. 

The next set-back is the travel insurance. 

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I Have Been Sleeping Around Again

It is a tough life being a travel writer, but someone has to do it. I had to sleep in a luxurious hotel last night, but before anyone gets too jealous, it was only four stars. I am not going to mention the hotel, because they should not get the free publicity. After all, I did not publish photos of all of the other hotels I have slept in in the past. You may be able to see the plate of fruit on the table. The classier hotels that have managers with a sense of good marketing, provide a little "gift" when a writer is staying with them. Nice touch! When it is a bottle of wine, I bring it home to Ron, but fruit gets smashed along the way. Besides, I had a number of things to check out in the area, so I knew I would not be home right away. I have another hotel to stay at tomorrow night. We will see how well they treat me there.

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Photos, Photos, Thousands of Photos

Sometimes, I come across something which seems like a great idea, but involves time and mental labor. Once I start on a project like this, I cannot stop until it is completed putting other more mundane things aside for the time being. I had heard of Shutterfly for saving pictures online and basically just ignored it, because I had all of my pictures backed up on Kodak Gallery. Something sparked my curiosity about Shutterfly, so I looked into it. What I could do there was different. I could basically build a web site of all of my albums in one place, where anyone could access them at any time without my having to invite them. They did not have to save a link to each album, everything was in one place. This was a wonderful idea, because not only do I take pictures for memories, I love sharing what we have seen through my personal lens and filtered thinking. Once I started uploading, I liked the results. What I did not anticipate was that this would take me a week of nine hour days, basically to upload all of the albums, sub-albums, and assorted photos. Some I do not like the resolution of, but this is because they were taken on APS film when we first left the States in 2001 and were transferred to CD while we traveled. This technology was new and scarce in Europe at that time, so the results were not always wonderful. Some albums like Ireland and England are short changed in the early years. When we left the States in 2001, we had only intended to be traveling for a year and had to carefully budget our money. I was a frugal photographer then; film was expensive, developing more so, and money was tight. It was not until much later when I made my first digital camera purchase that the world opened up and I could shoot to my heart's content, deleting later. Some of the albums, you would swear I never deleted a photo, but believe me I was usually heartless in trashing many photos. With that preamble, I invite you to see my photo site, which you can return to or sign up to an RSS feed to be notified when it is updated. I still have some Szeged photos to put on that are still on the camera. http://ryanandron.shutterfly.com/ If you lose the link, it will be in the sidebar on the right side of this blog.

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New Writing Assignment

Through a professional travel writers organization I joined, I found an advertisement for destination experts being needed. Budapest was on the list, so I sent off my C.V. and all of the other required information. Thursday, I received an e-mail stating they would like for me to write for them. I am reading through the contract and other information they sent today, but it looks like I will be signing on the dotted line. The site is www.nileguide.com.

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Kodak Gallery Issues

Kodak Gallery turned out to be a problem for a number of people to access the photos, so I am trying this a different way. There are Picasa slide shows embedded into this blog, but if you still have problems and want to see our photos, go to www.budabab.com to click on the Photos link.

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Santa Came Early

What has been keeping me busy has been getting grades done. Oh, yea! Also, Dawn arrived this last week with my new toy that I ordered through Amazon.com. My newest toy is below. I have been getting it up to speed downloading Firefox and all of my programs I cannot do without when traveling. This is so small, it fits into my shoulder bag, but the 9" screen is easy on the eyes. It is faster than I expected and just as fast as my 8 1/2 lb laptop I used to carry when we traveled. Now, I can take this along during the day for quick notes as we travel down under. We leave a week from tomorrow for 4 1/2 weeks. Specifications

• Operating system: Windows XP Home
• Internal memory: 160 GB hard disk drive (HDD)
• RAM: 1 GB DDR2
• Processor: 1.6 GHz Intel Atom
• Memory expansion: Slot for MMC/SD(SDHC) cards
• LCD: 8.9 inches, 1024 x 600 pixels
• Networking: 54g Wi-Fi (802.11b/g), 10/100 Fast Ethernet
• Peripheral connectivity: Three USB 2.0
• External video: One VGA
• External audio: One headphone and one microphone port
• Webcamera: Yes, 0.3 megapixels (VGA)
• Battery life: up to 5 hours
• Weight: 2.5 pounds (40 ounces)
• Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.7 x 1.33 inches

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