Travel & Planning

Gifts for Travelers 2012

December 13, 2012 By Jillian

Looking for great gifts for travelers? Have travelers on your holiday gift list or wondering what to put on your list this year? For all your travel-happy friend and loved ones, you might want to consider any of these awesome gifts:

Gifts for Travelers Who Like Photography: Joby GorillaPod Tripod

We’ve used these tripods for our waterproof video camera (that’s how we got the Rocketman footage), for point and shoots and now there’s a bigger one for DSLR cameras. It’s great for having a flexible, small, lightweight tripod on the go – a necessity if you’re filming something from the back of a crowd or looking to take action shots of animals. Ranging in price from $12 – $60, the GorillaPod line comes with all sorts of new accessories, including a level so you can say good bye to slanted shots.
Click the link below to peruse them on Amazon:

Gifts for Travelers Who Like to Be Plugged In: Skullcandy S2IKDY-101 Ink’d 2.0 Headphones

For a $20 set of headphones these things are incredible and a great, inexpensive gift for travelers. I’ve owned an older version of these headphones for about four years and they’ve traversed the world with me. Great sound quality and they seem to be able to take a beating- what more can you expect for $20? The new version even comes with a mic so if you’re listening to tunes on your i-phone you don’t have to unplug to take a call.

Gifts for Travelers Who Like Electronics: Kindle Fire Wifi

I know I will probably take a beating for this, but I just cannot imagine taking a i-pad on the road. The cost of the item is enough to make me double over in paranoia every time my bag is removed from my hands. Needless to say, we have a Kindle Fire with wifi and let me tell you- I love it. Not only can I download plenty of reading materials, but I can also update the blog (hello!) and with one press of a button download instant videos from Amazon for those long flights/bus rides. Perfect gift for travelers on the go. We watch videos together using a headphone splitter and have never had any problems or complaints about quality. Plus, the battery life is longer than my laptop. Go figure.

Gifts for Travelers Who Like Adventure: Go Nomad 7 Solar Charger

Let’s say your are the err more adventurous travel type. No Hilton in your future? Staying in places with intermittent electricity? Look no further than the Go Nomad to get your phone up and running when you are without electricity. We used our Go Nomad for the first time when camping in Utah and within 45 minutes my smart phone had 30% battery. Sure it’s not as fast as a wall charger, but it sure beats being out of battery for days on end. It is incredible simple to set up, in less than 3 minutes we were set to go for a USB charge. The Go Nomad is slim and lightweight, taking up no more space than a magazine in your pack. They also have adapters for laptops and items that plug directly into the wall. A great gift for travelers who enjoy getting off the beaten path.

Gifts for Travelers Who Like Utility: MSR Pack Towel

If you thinking of gifts for travelers, a pack towel isn’t exactly a sexy gift. Trust me, most travelers aren’t looking for sexy, they are looking for useful. I admit that we’ve lost our fair share of pack towels as we traveled around the world, but remarkably my beloved yellow MSR XLarge packtowel survives after being used nearly every day for 2 years. It stood up to constant hand washing, hanging in the wind, sea water, river water and god knows what else. Sure it’s a bit dingy and discolored, but it’s still functional. Except when we were in the jungle during rainy season, this towel was dry by morning. It fought mildew and never got smelly.

Cruising Turkey’s Blue Coast

November 7, 2012 By Jillian

Turkey’s blue and turquoise coast is a glistening stretch of turquoise water, small inlets and hidden ruins. Although you can travel the blue coast on land, the experience is much better by sea. After all, who doesn’t love to be lulled to sleep by the waves?

We booked a cruise from Fethiye –Olympos (you can also book in reverse) on a gullet, or a traditional wooden sailing boat. Between sleeping on board and sailing from beautiful turquoise lagoon to beautiful turquoise lagoon it was a lovely vacation to travel – but it came with plenty of warnings. Like everything on the road, tourist adventures are a little bit of buyer beware. We stocked up on plenty of information before arriving in Fethiye on tour companies, boats, things to look out for and warnings about short-cuts that some operators take. Armed with that information we had an amazing experience along Turkey’s blue coast and so can you. Here’s what we learned:

Get recommendations from others who have taken cruises recently. Captains and tour operators can change ownership quickly so it’s best to have a recent recommendation.
Don’t go with the cheapest operator! We learned this the world over, but the cheapest operator often skimps on something- food, water or maybe even a crew that doesn’t speak English! Be prepared to pay a fair price for your cruise, if someone is 50% cheaper, trust us, you’ll know why within the first 24 hours onboard.
Ask about what is included, and get it in writing. Many Turkish blue cruise prices do not include alcohol – if this is important to you do some quick calculations before you get on board.

Like anything in tourism, going in with the right information can make the difference between having an amazing, once in the lifetime experience and an experience that could have been better. Although many tour operators will sell Turkey blue coast cruises from Istanbul, it is best to wait until you are at the coast to book your tour (if you can wait!) as you’ll be able to check out the outfitter and ask questions yourself.

IF YOU GO: Turkey’s blue coast is incredibly popular with tourists, but that doesn’t mean it is overcrowded. We found that the beaches and lagoons were not crowded with boats, most of the cruise we were the only boat in a harbor. There’s also a beautiful hiking trail, called the Lycian Way that follows the coast to Anatalya if you get a little sea sick. Don’t miss a chance to explore the various Lycian ruins along the coast. From sarcophagi near Fethiye to the ancient city of Olympos and the mythical flames of the chimera, the area is rich with cultural heritage sites that are well worth the visit.

Five Ways to Save a Bad Travel Experience

September 28, 2012 By Jillian

Bad travel is suffocating. There’s no other way around it. Choose a bad location? a bad hotel? a bad restaurant? You can always wake up the next day and move, leave or eat somewhere else. Bad travel though, when things just never seem to go right is suffocating.

It is going to happen to you. You are going to go out of your way for a place that sounds amazing from a review. You will find yourself in a place that took forever to get to, that is supposed to be authentic and amazing, only to question the sanity of the person that gave you the recommendation. Worse yet, you’ll find yourself trapped for a few days, because as usually happens in these types of situations, there is no transport out for the next 24 hours.

Yay.

So now you’re in a bad location, without a way out, and your luck, the hotel that was recommended? It’s out of business/full/dirty/rundown (choose your own adventure on that one). Nothing is going right and you are trapped. So what are you do to?

Bus from Uyuni to Sucre — Boy this was a bad idea.

Fortunately bad travel has benefits. You may have to look hard to find them, but in the perspective of Nietzsche, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Here are five tips we have to save a bad travel experience:

Get Exploring. It might take awhile to find, but there has to be some redeeming quality of that place or else it wouldn’t exist. Leave the confines of your lodging and hit the pavement. Wander, get lost, smile at strangers, stop for a drink, grab an ice cream. In short, explore without a plan. Speak to as many locals as you can and ask them what they recommend. We were stuck for several hours in a dusty village in Eastern Turkey waiting for a bus during Ramadan. Everything was closed and the Internet cafe had a terrible connection. We retreated to the bus station. Two hours later we were singing with the drivers and bus station managers as they strummed their guitars to Kurdish love ballads. Redeemed our entire stay there.

Relax. If the place you are in really, really, stinks then take the opportunity to find a quiet place to spend some time alone. Bring that paperback you have been trying to get through for days or bring your journal to catch up on travel notes. At least you’ll have something interesting to write about. Find a cafe or even a stump where you can be alone with your thoughts. It might seem solitary, but at least you’ll get some time to recharge your battery, that in and of itself can save a bad travel experience.

Build Character. There’s nothing like a little adversity to build character. It might be frustrating, and you might find yourself angry, but that’s life. If life was always predictable and as advertised it would be a bit boring wouldn’t it? Sometimes the worst place and the worse experiences turn out to be the best memories of your travels. That is after weeks pass and you are able to laugh about it. Remember the food poisoning in Ethiopia? Worse travel experience ever. One of our funniest travel memories years later.

Dinosaur prints in Sucre — We thought the dinosaur prints outside of Sucre would be cool. Wait, you can’t see them in the hill 300 yards behind us?

Make New Friends. If adversity builds character, it is also good about strengthening relationships. The unexpected and unpredicted are often the best ways to make new friends or strengthen your relationships with your travel partners. Save a bad travel experience by meeting new people or taking a moment to laugh with your travel partners about how terrible the experience is. If you are traveling alone, finding someone to commiserate with might feel like meeting your new best friend. If you are traveling with a partner or with friends, bad travels or a bad vacation can be saved by a deck of cards or a few rounds of improvisational story telling.

Take control. Remember, bad travel is just that. It is still a vacation from the normal. It is still travel. It comes with the good, the bad and the ugly. Take control of your satisfaction, ask for a recommendation for a nearby place that might be better, or a day trip that might get you out of your current location. You have to take back control of your travel.

It is going to be a challenge to see the benefits of bad travel when you are in the moment, but I promise you they exist. If things are really going bad, before you make any rash decisions, take a moment to think about your situation, your options and how you can save a bad travel experience. Remember, your satisfaction is your responsibility and you travel by choice. You are never truly trapped by your decisions (at least not for the long term!). Make the best of every bad travel situation, at the very least you’ll have great stories when you get home!

Building Your Travel Web

September 21, 2012 By Jillian

[Editors Note: We wrote this post for Meet, Plan, Go! as an inspirational piece for their blog. We loved it so much that we couldn’t help but share it here. We’re hosting the 1st South Florida Meet, Plan, Go! October 16th. Click here for more information.]

What’s in your travel web?

Remember in elementary school when your teacher stood in front of the class and taught word associations?

“Blue is to sky as green is to grass,” the teacher would say. “Hard is to pavement as soft is to pillow.”

These simple exercises created a web in our brains, associating words, experiences and memories into our pattern of communication. For me, travel is a web of associations. It’s not a singular word or a series of experiences; it is a web of experiences that build, influence and complement each other.

Travel is to explore. To explore is to take chances. To risk is to experience. To experience is to feel.

To feel is to make a memory. To remember is to want for more.

My travel web started small, incomplete and somewhat fragile. As a teenager when I left for a teen trip in the United Kingdom I had little idea of the path I was starting to lay out for myself. Three weeks were over in a flash and before I knew it that trip had faded into the darkness of my memory. Years later I spent a few weeks in France, then Canada and finally I was studying in Italy. To this day I’m not quite sure what pushed me to make the impulsive decision to spend a few months in Italy, it must have been something lurking in my web.

You see, my travel web is made up of emotions.

Travel for me is an intensely emotional experience. It’s emotions that are triggered when I hear the muezzin call Muslims to prayer, smell cinnamon and cardamom in a market, and taste the juice of a passionfruit. Joy, surprise, happiness, mystery, reflection, excitement, existence, these are the emotions that I associate with travel. The moment I leave and the moment I return I dip into my web, fishing around for the right emotions. 90% of the time I can never catch the right one.

But that is ok.

Because a web is there to catch you when you can’t catch yourself. When you feel excited to leave on a career break when you know you should be at least a little afraid. When you feel afraid even though you’re about to reach for your dream. When you feel sadness at returning home even though you are heading into the arms of loved ones and when you feel longing to be back on the road when you’ve just gotten settled.

Your travel web, the association of experiences, feelings and memories you create yourself as you explore the world is there to catch you. You don’t need to build the largest, strongest or tightest web in order to break to follow your dream. You simply need to trust it. If you’ve never been out of the country, that doesn’t negate a trip around the world. If you’ve never taken your two weeks of vacation that doesn’t prevent you from broaching the topic of a career break sabbatical with your boss. It simply means you’ll have to learn to trust yourself and trust your web.

On the first day of my 21 month trip around the world I didn’t know where I was sleeping that night. It was an immediate far cry from the “type A” personality that walked briskly down the hall of a multistory office building the month before. I think I left that personality at the border. Over the next few weeks and months I broke nearly every travel rule I had laid out for myself – no overnight buses (broken on the first night!), no meat from street vendors (broken on day 2), don’t drink the water. Looking back it was my travel web that saved me – the trust and emotions I had built into that web were what allowed me to take the changes, weigh the risks and reap the rewards of a journey around the world that changed my life.

That’s the best thing about your travel web – it is constantly expanding, reaching for new areas and filling with new experiences. It is flexible, stretchy and the associations you make, the experiences you have will only serve to enrich your web so that they next time you can stretch a bit further, push a bit harder and go a bit longer.

The Airport Security Dance

September 18, 2012 By Jillian

Getting through the airport these days isn’t easy. In fact, between taking off your shoes, belt and pulling apart your personal items to get at liquids or a laptop, it can feel all a bit too personal for a machine, if you know what I mean.

For more than 10 years travelers in the United States have been subjected to increased security regulations. Remember the colored homeland security threat levels? Living in DC we used to joke that it never dropped below yellow, or elevated. At one point it seemed like the rules changed every time I flew and I never knew which items were allowed, what needed to be pulled out of my luggage or what was safe to go through. The public outcry, especially as the years passed since 9-11 grew.

Last year when TSA came out with the full body scanners, the public outcry was so loud that they were forced to put together a national education campaign to help “re-educate” the public about the scanners and their privacy. While I will applaud them for their efforts to educate and inform the public, it seemed a bit disingenuous to say that these scanners would provide increased safety after certain YouTube videos surfaced of people waking through with potential weapons.

Needless to say, I almost always opt-out of the body scanners, choosing instead for a full pat down. Sure, it is a lot more invasive than walking through a machine, but it is my little way of standing in protest against these body scanner machines. Though the TSA personnel is always professional and friendly, the pat down is a bit of a pain and certainly takes more time. So why do it? I do it because I want their opt-out numbers to increase so that maybe somewhere a politician will think twice about funding what some have called security theater.

IMGP2400 — No security concerns here in the jungle airport of Bolivia.

Learning the Steps

I can’t say that I know all the steps to get through airport security with my dignity and luggage intact, but I’ve learned a few things over the years. First, always treat the security personnel, no matter where you are, with respect. Yelling or getting angry does you no good, in fact it is likely to heighten the situation. I saw an American get so frustrated in Turkey that she started screaming at the luggage checker. Guess who was last on the plane?

Second, know the rules before you show up, especially if you are flying into the US or Europe from another region. Many overseas airport personnel have had basic training to perform additional security checks for passengers flying into the U.S., but that doesn’t mean they will know everything. Add a language barrier and you could be saying good bye not only to you contact solution, but your smoothie and medication as well. Be prepared to check or through questionable items out. If you choose to opt-out of the full body scanners, plan a little extra time into your pre-flight routine, especially if it is your first time through. It doesn’t take that much longer, but give yourself an extra 5 minutes so you don’t feel rush and don’t foul out at rule number one.

What are your thoughts on airport security? What are your tips for making traveling by air a breeze?

« Previous Page
1
…
4
5
6
7
8
…
22
Next Page »