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Fall 2017 Travel Plans

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We’ve always said that having a baby wouldn’t slow us down – and we’re trying to make sure it stays true!  Of course we have slowed down a bit, but we have a busy fall planned.  We’ve completed a few successful overnighters (one weekend up in the Bay Area staying with my mom, and one down in LA at a hotel for a good friend’s wedding), and he did a great job.  So, what do we have planned?

  • Another weekend up in northern California – a couple of nights at my mom’s, and then our first real (mini) vacation as a family in Carmel.  We’ll be spending two nights there and have nothing planned other than enjoying the cooler temperatures!  We’re looking forward to a lot of walking, eating good food, wine tasting, and window shopping.
  • Oliver’s first trip to the beach in San Diego.  Mission Beach is my family’s annual vacation spot (although we kind of stopped for the past few years).  All of us are planning to go again, so Ryan and I rented a house right by the house everyone else will be staying in.  We’ll be down there for 4 nights and I’m really looking forward to morning walks on the boardwalk and relaxing afternoons on the beach.
  • Oliver’s first camping trip!  We’ve been planning to go to Yosemite since the beginning of the year and I can’t wait!  We’re staying in Yosemite Valley at Upper Pines (where we usually stay) and Oliver’s baby friends Emma and Austin will also be there.  So, it won’t be our usual camping trip with lofty hiking goals, but more of a relaxing trip.
  • Oliver’s first plane ride (notice a pattern?  A lot of firsts for Oliver!).  We’re headed to Denver for a week to visit Ryan’s family since most of them haven’t met Oliver yet!  Since we’re spending more than a long weekend there, we managed to sneak in a short trip to Aspen (I’ve never been!) with Ryan’s parents and brother and his wife.
  • And although it’s not booked yet, we’re also planning a trip to Europe with the help of international travel tips! We’re hoping for October, but we haven’t been able to get Oliver’s passport yet (we tried yesterday morning, but there were too many people so we have to go back sometime this week).  We haven’t yet decided where, but some ideas include: London, English countryside, Paris, southern France, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Bruges.  We need to book this soon since our planned departure date is in 7 weeks (!), so hopefully we can get serious about this in the next week or so.

Just writing it all out seems exhausting, but we are excited to experience old and new places with Oliver.  I am a bit nervous about some things – mostly the plane flights and dealing with feeding and naps while out and about (particularly in Europe). However, if you’re interested in becoming a travel writer, here are some helpful Tips On How To Become A Travel Writer. I’m sure we’ll survive!

 

Hawaii Here We Come (again)!

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We had an amazing time in Maui for our babymoon and, after seeing so many little kids during the trip, we decided that we wanted to make it back to Hawaii in 2018. Our original plan was to stay at one (or split time between both) of the Starwood properties on Kauai – the Sheraton or the Princeville St. Regis.  However, I got an offer I couldn’t refuse…

Thanks to my gold status with Starwood and the recent merger between Starwood and Marriott, I am now have Gold Elite status with Marriott.  I’m not exactly sure what triggered the deal for me, but I’m assuming that has a lot to do with it.  While the conversation with the salesman (and his manager) was more than 30 minutes, the short story is that I was offered another $799, 5-night deal to a nice hotel, similar to the Starwood deal we booked last October.

A few differences between this deal and the Starwood deal:

  • We had to decide on the call whether or not we would take this deal and can take suggestion from lawyers for estate planning claims to make the best decision.  Luckily sales people like to talk, and I was able to stall long enough to make sure Ryan was on board (since he was at work – I had to wait for a text back!).  This also means that I didn’t have time to google the legitimacy of the deal and had to go with my gut (which said to book it).
  • There are no blackout dates; although I’m still not sure if this means that there is unlimited availability each day.  So, we’ll have to decide on our dates soon so that we can lock them in.  Luckily we shouldn’t be as inflexible as we were for the babymoon.
  • The deal is for more than just the property in Kauai.  That’s what we’re interested, but I’ve been told that my $149 deposit can actually be used at a different property. If you need such property related information, it is best for you to get in touch with experts from https://webuyhousesinatlanta.com/woodstock/ this site and seek their valuable advice.
  • The $799 does not include a rental car, so we’ll have to pick up that tab on our own.  Since we’d have to do this with or without this deal, it doesn’t seem like an issue to rent a car on our own.
  • Both of us HAVE to attend the timeshare presentation, otherwise we risk having to pay retail price for our vacation, which is not something I’m interested in doing.  We were able to ditch out on the presentation at the Westin Villas in Maui, so I guess we won’t be as lucky this time around.

We hope to book in the next couple of months (I believe I have to book at least 60 days in advance of when we plan to travel), so hopefully there aren’t any surprises. I’m planning to go back to work at the end of January, so the current plan is to go just before I return.  One last getaway before work life begins again!

Asia Impromptu: Japan in a Month

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While a trip to Japan has been on our travel shortlist for some time, it has not been planned or talked about much (aside from watching an Anthony Bourdain episode or two). Keep in mind that our “shortlist” always has at least 15-20 big trips on it, so there’s no way to really plan out each one until we get a little more serious about actually taking the trip. Well, our fast-approaching Japan trip got real last Sunday, when Ryan and I were relaxing, researching plans for our Argentina trip, and reading the newspaper/doing the crossword puzzle. Ryan was looking through the travel section when he noticed cheaper than normal airfares from LA during the Labor Day holiday. Having no plans yet, he started to actually look at prices, and then verified those prices online.

The most intriguing destination was Tokyo, with fares on United (our current airline of choice, but I keep saying I want to switch my loyalty) around $700 round trip. We played around with different days for departure and return, and realized with our current remaining days off, we could only really get away for a long weekend. We spent the rest of the day researching Argentina and jokingly talking about Japan, as if it were going to happen.

Monday morning at work I started to dig through my email to learn more about unpaid time. We would only have to take 6 hours in order to add a few more days to our hypothetical Japan trip, so I wasted no time in asking my supervisor. Ryan waiting a little longer, but as soon as he got the OK on Wednesday, we booked! This was with very minimal research – although I did talk to a good friend who spent 4 days in Tokyo last year and loved it. The tickets were $799 round trip (we could have added another day for about $400 total, but since we again have two large vacations this year, I thought 7 nights in Japan would be plenty), which is much cheaper than our normal international airfare purchases.

Sashimi - from Japan Travel Guide

And now the fun begins! With less than a month to go, we haven’t booked a thing, but we do know that most or all of our time will be spent between Tokyo and Kyoto. We also know we will be staying at least one night at a ryokan, or a traditional Japanese inn. And of course we will be eating as much Japanese food as we can handle – sushi, sashimi, soba, udon, tempura – I won’t say “no” to anything!  (I’ve already spent a lot of time reading about the food on this Japan Travel Guide site – the picture above comes from the “sashimi” section.)

So now it’s time to scour the books and internet and figure out what our must-see sites are.  We toyed with a hike up Mt. Fuji, but since we only have 7 nights, neither of us are in great shape (I’m sure we’d be fine), and it requires packing special clothes and shoes, so I think we’ll have to save that for another trip.  So, our activities will likely focus on staying in town (instead of day trips away) to see as much of the two cities as we can with our short stay.  I’m looking forward to the research!

South America Round 2: Argentina!

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We’re going to Argentina!  We’ve been wanting to go back to South America ever since we got back from Peru, and we’re finally able to make it happen this year.  We’ve booked our flights into and out of Argentina and one of our hotels but other than that, nothing is set in stone.  That doesn’t mean we haven’t been thinking and planning, though!  We have a very good idea of things to do and places to stay, but just haven’t finalized or booked anything yet.

We have about 2 weeks in Argentina, and here is the high-level plan:

Map of Argentina - Itinerary

So, we’re starting up north in Iguazú Falls, and I’ve already booked the Sheraton Iguazú Resort & Spa, which is actually inside the national park.  It worked out great for us because I was able to book free nights (16,000 starpoints/night), and we will hopefully be some of the first people in the park both days.  The rate includes a free buffet breakfast (comparable rate for booking 3-4 months out would be $264-$330 USD, depending on whether you wanted the flexibility to cancel and pay upon arrival).  We’ll fly in on a Friday, and spend Saturday on the Brazilian side and Sunday on the Argentine side before flying down to Patagonia on Monday.

We are planning to spend about one week in Argentine Patagonia, splitting time between El Calafate and El Chaltén.  I can’t wait to see the glaciers, go hiking, and explore the southern part of Argentina. We haven’t quite figured out the split between the two cities, but we are leaning toward 3 nights in El Calafate and 4 nights in El Chaltén.  We plan to take a one-day cruise in El Calafate, as well as trek across one of the glaciers, Perito Moreno.  In El Chaltén we plan to hike several day hikes, weather permitting.  Just for fun, here’s a view of the glaciers that we will (hopefully) see on our cruise in El Calafate:

Glaciers from MarPatag Cruise

This picture is from the MarPatag site, which is one of the companies we are considering for the cruise.  They have two-night cruise that looks very luxurious and has been tempting us, but right now we’re sticking with the full-day cruise because it’s more practical (and a lot more cost effective).

Our last stop will be in (and around) Buenos Aires.  Right now we are looking to spend 5 nights there and fly out late on Saturday night.  One of my good friends just spent 3 months in South America and she advised us not to spend too much time in Buenos Aires.  However, we plan to do a couple of all day side trips, so I’m hoping that we won’t be bored after only 5 days and nights.  Plus, our research so far gave us a lot of good ideas for activities to do in Buenos Aires, so I’m confident we’ll enjoy our time here.

That’s all we have for now – since we do like to plan ahead, I’m sure we will be booking some things (like our activities in El Calafate and any day trips from Buenos Aires), but we’ll try to leave in some flexibility in case we change our minds once we are down there.  I’m looking forward to our second trip to South America!

Swiss Rail Pass Evaluation: Extensive Benefits Justify Price

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Swiss PassOur upcoming journey to Switzerland will be our first Europe trip since our first international trip together in 2009 in which buying a rail pass makes sense relative to purchasing individual tickets.  In our last train-intensive trip to Europe (Portugal/Spain 2012), we actually determined that planning ahead and buying tickets directly from the operator lead to greater savings than a rail pass.  This same rule applies to our planned travel in Germany and Austria during this trip, however the comprehensive benefits of the Swiss Rail Pass make it the clear choice for funding our transit within Switzerland.

The Swiss Pass is different from the passes offered by Eurail that are the standard in most countries.  Although Eurail offers regional or global passes that include Switzerland, the Swiss Pass, with its associated benefits, is only available from Swiss Travel System.  Also unlike the Eurail passes, the Swiss Pass offers free fare on local transit options, free admission to many of Switzerland’s best museums and attractions (link to master list), and free rides on many of the mountain cablecars and railroads.  Our first analysis, without considering these benefits, indicated individual tickets would actually be very comparable to a pass at around 305 CHF for our total train travel cost in Switzerland (cost of a 3-day flexi pass, 20 CHF shipping, and one ticket not included on the pass vs. 5 individual rail tickets and Mt. Rigi Majestic Round Trip).

Once we started looking at are other planned activities in Switzerland, however, we began to realize the benefit of the Swiss Pass.  The “flexi pass” we originally evaluated (which does not require the pass days to be consecutive), only offers the benefits on travel days.  Most of our planned activities will not occur on the same days we travel, so to take advantage of the Swiss Pass benefits, we needed to instead evaluate buying a normal 8-day Swiss Pass, which would cover travel and activities for our entire stay in Switzerland.  For a couple, this pass costs 365 CHF per traveler (including the 10% saver discount and 20 CHF total shipping for 2 passes).  Here are the expected benefits we expect to accrue with the pass per person (organized from largest value to smallest):

With this list, we value the Swiss Pass at 437.90 CHF, giving us 73 CHF relative to the individual cost.  Not spectacular savings, but combined with the convenience of avoiding ticket lines, it is a clear choice for us.  We really like how Swiss Travel Systems has put together a product that integrates sightseeing priorities, train travel, and local transit.

For others, its important to do an analysis to understand the value of a pass, and perhaps more importantly, whether a flexi pass or regular pass works best for their situation.  It is possible a multi-country Eurail pass makes more sense, if the sightseeing priorities don’t provide enough savings, and there are also other passes available that give you half price on train travel that may be worth consideration.