Apparently renting a house instead of paying for a hotel room is the new hotness, as both Conde Nast Traveler and Peter Greenberg have lately started hyping the vacation option. We have to agree that rentals are dope, and they can be a good way to save money if you're traveling with a big group.
We actually just got back from a villa rental trip, though "cottage" would probably more accurately describe our pad than "villa." Still, we learned a few things that we hope will make your own villa vacay better.
Yesterday, we were a little miffed by the packing tips of One Bag that came off as a bit sexist. (Asking ladies to pack one ugly pair of shoes and to use a bathing suit tankini top under suits? As if! Should men wear their speedos as an alternative to briefs at a big meeting?)
Thus we were spurred to create our list of packing tips for the ladies. We travel quite a bit and we never check a bag. These are some of the little things we do to make sure all our stuff fits into one stylish green Kipling carry-on suitcase.
Have you tried to book an airline ticket lately? They're getting expensive! But without a miraculous drop in the price of oil, fares are only gonna go up this summer.
Luckily, airfare obsessive Rick Seaney has a terrific tip for keeping your costs down as prices go up: Hedge. Usually it's detrimental to buy plane tickets more than about six weeks before your departure. But Rick says this summer, you're better off locking in a price now before fuel surcharges--and prices--go up yet again.
We love this tip because it's so insider-y. Airlines do the same thing when buying fuel; it's been helping the bottom lines at Southwest and JetBlue for years. If you're gonna stay within your summer travel budget, better get booking now.
Of course, we should mention that there's always the chance that fares will end up dropping on your particular route, but that's the risk you take when you're playing the oil futures market. Hey, now you know how the airlines feel!
Do you ever feel bad for flight attendants? After getting hassled by rude passengers, spending hours and hours locked on planes and getting jerked around by management, they then have to find a place to stay for the night. (The airlines only comp hotel rooms on layovers.) You can help out--and make a few bucks--by renting flight attendants and pilots beds at your place.
Setting up a "crashpad" is easier than you think, if you've got some extra space and live close to an airport, says the LA Times:
Crashpad layouts vary with the property and may be a spare room in someone's home or an entire house devoted to airline renters...many crew members look for crashpads that have kitchen privileges, WiFi, nearby restaurants or a grocery store, laundry and, of course, close proximity or convenient transportation to the airport.
Sleeping arrangements are usually same sex and same profession: Pilots tend to bunk with other pilots and flight attendants with other flight attendants.
We can only imagine the shenanigans that you could get up to hosting a bunch of pilots and FAs at your house. Then again, like anyone else, they probably just want to chill after they're finally off the clock.
We've always thought that the fares from central London out to Heathrow were a bit steep, and apparently we're not alone. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair also didn't bother buying a ticket when he was heading to Heathrow to catch a flight to the US this week.
The usual fare for a first class train ticket to Heathrow is £24.50 ($49), but neither Blair nor his aide bought one before the trip. When inspectors discovered them, one of the policemen protecting Blair offered to pay for a ticket, but the inspector just told them to forget it.
So if you think the Heathrow Express prices are too high, there is a simple way to avoid them--just rule the country for a few years and nobody will make you pay. Apparently if you earn something like $4 million a year, nobody expects you have to have such a "cheap" train ticket.
When I traveled around the world with two girlfriends last year, the three of us often relied on dumb luck and the kindness of strangers to get us from point A to B safely. And if we missed a bus or a flight was delayed? No harm, no foul--after all, we had 12 months to accomplish our globe-lapping mission, right?
But that ease-of-attitude drastically changes when you're planning an eight-day trip to Ecuador with a new boyfriend. My method for making sure everything went right was to carefully plan every detail so that nothing could possibly go wrong. Which, of course, was the fastest way to ensure that everything did.
As dominoes toppled, I struggled to maintain the new girlfriend illusion that I'm a fun, lighthearted traveler--and not a thoroughly seasoned, take-no-bullshit road warrior. In the end, all pretenses went to pot and bitchy won out. My top four travel snafus--and solutions for next time--after the jump.
If you are use to watching VH1 reality marathons on JetBlue, or CNN election results on Virgin America, boarding a US Airways flight is a big-time let down. The planes look like they just got out of Dr. Brown's 1985 DeLorean, and the in-flight entertainment is, um, pretty much flight attendants reading advertisements. (No joke; be sure your iPod is charged and loaded.
But there's one thing that'll help. With oil prices going up by the day, airlines are forced to make their hay elsewhere. On most carriers, that means change fees--once a flat 50 bucks--are now a profit center. Nowadays, you'll pay maybe $100 and the difference in airfare.
When it comes to standby, many airlines will not only make you pay, but they'll keep you in the dark until there is no way for your bags and you to make it to your port of call at the same time.
There's just a month to go until the Budapest Spring Festival kicks off, so we thought it time to tell you how to find a place to eat in this pretty city. We suggest trying a neat website called Chew.hu.
We're already quite taken with the name, but the content is also terrific. Chew.hu has a Top 33 list which they describe as a "No-PR, No-BS List of Better Budapest Restaurants." The list--and, no, we can't figure out why 33 is the magic number--features a large variety of cuisines from Indian to French to Hungarian to Bavarian, and each restaurant is linked to Chew's sister site Caboodle where you can read what others have to say about the place.
Chew.hu also publishes regular blogs and updates about the wining and dining industry of Budapest. They're not afraid to pursue what they think is right, having recently got pretty upset at a popular restaurant that was including large "suggested tips" on the bills. They also keep an eye on where scandalous rotten meat is ending up--it's an ongoing saga--and tell you where you can get your jellied pigs' feet.
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