Travel plan idea blog

Travel Plan Japan

Simon Calder from The Independent tells of his experiences on a travel plan in Japan. The plan seems to be Tokyo - Hakodate (on the island of Hokkaido) - Sapporo - Fuji-Yoshida* - Kobe - Kyoto in 7 days. The author claims it was stress free thanks to Japanese hospitality and bullet trains, but that seems too fast for me.

A practical tip from the author is to get a 7 day Japan Rail Pass while my own tip would be to read my flying section for reviews of JAL - my wife and I usually like flying with them and the prices are usually reasonable.

* The author didn't get much of a view from Fuji mountain, but a friend of mine said she saw the most beautiful sunrise imaginable from the peak (though reaching the peak for sunrise means hiking up the mountain in the dark. Dress warm and bring lights.

How to book last minute travel online

USA Today had an interesting article by Jessica Labrencis about her experience booking last minute travel online. She mangaed to find a nice package from Boston to New Orleans. I did a quick search on some of the sites she mentioned and found that last minute deals to Rome are far more expensive than London, Amsterdam, and Paris.

I also noticed that you can find the best prices by being flexible with your dates. For example the same London vacation cost $689.00/person from March 2- March 6, but from March 5-9 was $718.00/person.

Sanitation on cruise ships

I recently wrote about how cruise prices are increasing. ABC is also covering cruises, and had a Primetime Live segemnt on cruise ship cabins. What they found was nasty:

...they found other things that were disgusting, though not actually dangerous to your health — dried semen and urine on blankets, furniture, and walls in each of the cabins in which they stayed.

For example, on one cruise ship headed to the Bahamas, an ultraviolet lamp exposed dried urine by the door handle and on the vanity stool. Dried semen was on the carpet and on the blanket. The cabin cost nearly $2,000 a week.

I'm not ready to say that taking a cruise isn't a good travel idea, but this will make some people think twice about going on a cruise...

Book early, do your research

One of the most popular travel ideas around is to take a cruise. It's getting more and more popular and as demand increases, so does the price.

Cruise prices are climbing. It seems that people are as comfortable traveling as they were before 9/11 and cruise lines are cashing in on higher demand:

Passengers are inching closer to spending as much on tickets and extras on board as they did during the boom times of 1999 and 2000, analysts said. Carnival, the world's largest cruise company, had its most profitable year ever in 2004 and expects to do better this year. No. 2 Royal Caribbean Cruises and smaller players also report strong demand.

It seems that the best way to get a bargain these days is to book early:

"In February 2005," Funk continues, "the cruise industry is stronger and it's absolutely necessary to book as much as twelve months in advance if you want a particular ship, date and cabin during peak cruise travel periods."

Just make sure to research more than price when you choose a cruise. For example after reading about this nightmare cruise, I wouldn't try Princess cruises to Alaska.

Traveling against Uncle Sam's wishes

Bobby Fischer has been in trouble ever since he traveled to Yugoslavia to play chess in 1992. He is now in jail in Japan because he was traveling with a fake passport. However, he is getting a real one from Finland.

If he ever gets out of Japan he'll be able to travel in the Schengen countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

For people traveling with electronics

USA Today talks about a neat-sounding product for travelers with lots of electronic gadgets:

The $120 iGo Juice is a multipurpose power system sold in Radio Shack stores and online. Adapters at one end of the Juice can be used to draw power from standard AC wall outlets or from a DC plug, such as a car's cigarette lighter or plugs offered on some airplanes.

This way you don't need as many cords for your gadgets (laptop, cell phone, PDA, digital camera, MP3 player, GameBoy, portable DVD player).

New Zealand travel plan generator

New Zealand.com has an interesting driving route generator. You select where you would like to go: All New Zealand, North Island, or South Island. Then how long your holiday is: 3-7 days, 8-13 days, or 14+ days.

A search for South Island and 8-13 days turned up two nice travel plans:

Christchurch – Fiordland – Christchurch (9 Days)
Start Christchurch / Finish Christchurch
Embark on a nine day journey that will fill your memory with mountain scenery and unusual eco experiences. Includes: Ashburton, Catlins , Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill, Lake Tekapo, Milford Sound, Mt Cook, Oamaru, Omarama, Queenstown, Stewart Island, Te Anau, Timaru, and Twizel.

Christchurch - Milford Sound - Christchurch (12 Days)
Start Christchurch / Finish Christchurch
Circle the South Island, beginning and ending in Christchurch. In twelve days you’ll gain a lifetime of amazing memories. Includes: Ashburton, Blenheim, Christchurch, Dunedin, Fox Glacier, Franz Josef Glacier, Greymouth, Haast, Hokitika, Kaikoura, Milford Sound, Nelson, Oamaru, Punakaiki, Queenstown, Te Anau, Timaru, Wanaka, and Westport.

Skiing in Korea - part 2

A month or so ago I wrote about Hongcheon ski resort in Korea, where I went but didn't ski. This time I went skiing for the first time ever.

Somewhere between Pusan and Chinju is Muju ski area. We were there Saturday night, and arrived at around 6:15 just before they opened for skiing at 6:30. Traffic and parking weren't too bad. The skiing looked better than Hongcheon, but I never made it up the slope. I was at the bottom trying not to crash into all the other beginners...

The next day we went sledding. Sunday afternoon, around 1:00 PM, traffic was terrible and we ahd to park pretty far away from the actual park. If we had been going to the ski area we might still be in traffic.

But we were going to the sledding area where for about 7.00 you get to go sledding on their little orange, plastic sleds until they close at 5:00. Around 3:30 or so, the slope was pretty icy which meant more speed and more collisions. The sleds, like shopping carts at Emart (the huge local grocery stores), don't seem to go straight.

The sledding area wasn't too crowded and they only let 10-12 people go at a time. After walking back up the hill for 12th time or so we were pretty tired (my legs were a little sore from my first ski experience the night before).

A new book with an interesting travel story

I just saw on BBC World Fast Track a story about Around the World in 80 dates. The author searched the world for true love and after dating British men who were unsure of themselves, Scandanavian men who are good conversationalists, Mediterranean men who were romantic, American men who were confident and flirtatious, and Asian men who, if I heard correctly, were too short (I live in Asia and know for certain that not all Asian men are short so I hope I heard wrong), she finally found true love (love at first sight no less) at Burning Man. This book by Jenneifer Cox has not been released yet, but you can save 25% at the moment by pre-ordering from Amazon.

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is on my list of places to go to for the first time, so i was happy to find this list of free things to do (there's a lot more to do in Memphis than visiting Elvis's home).

You've got a voodoo store, a local culture center with art and music, botanical gardens, several interesting-sounding museums, and some "famous" ducks that I had never heard of before:

Peabody Hotel
149 Union, (901) 529-4000
The march of the famous Peabody ducks is free and takes place daily at 11am and 5pm. Afterwards, take the elevator to the roof to see the ducks' home and the wonderful views of Memphis.

By the way, this comes from Deborah Crawford (BellaOnline's Family Travel Editor) who takes requests. I don't know how responsive she is, but you can ask her to feature a particular place in her new column.

How cheap should Hotels in Phuket be?

I met someone who wanted to go to areas of South East Asia affected by the tsunami because of the bargains currently availble. There are many wonderful places that need tourism more now than ever before so traveling to certain places ravaged by the Tsunami may just help these areas get things back to normal.

For example my brother-in-law and his wife went to Phuket, Thailand for their honeymoon and loved it, but Phuket is not known for being inexpensive. However, currently hotels in Phuket are offering steep discounts to try to win back tourists. One report indicates that hotel rooms are generally 50% cheaper now than before the tsunami, but that some travel agents are pushing for even bigger discounts.

The British travel agents suggesting further discounts were not well-received:

A British tour operator said such offers would not hurt the island's image as a high-end destination.

But the request was met with a cold response from local hoteliers and the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the Nation said.

"If Phuket hoteliers accept this, then we have to give the same rate to all travel agents around the world. This will not help tourism at all," Opas Netr-ampai, the owner of Club Andaman Phuket, was quoted as saying.

New for 2005...

The Chicago Tribune lets us know what's new at some big travel sites. Orbitz has a Ski site, Expedia has improved its hotel search and added hotel reviews, the tripadvisor.com message boards get a plug, priceline is getting traditional but not forgetting its roots, hotwire is paying more attention to Europe, and Sidestep is putting its toolbar online.

Travel deals to Europe

I recently wrote about a European vacation plan. Two of the cities I mentioned were Prague and Budapest. Phil Marty recently wrote about a good deal to those two cities:

My wife, Bonnie, and I spent three days in Prague in the Czech Republic and three days in equally splendid Budapest, Hungary. Our package included six nights of hotels, round-trip air fare from the United States to Prague, round-trip air between Prague and Budapest, transfers between hotel and airport in both cities, a half-day tour in each city and continental breakfast each morning for - drum roll, please - just a smidge more than $1,000 each.

He has some advice about where you can look for travel deals to Europe.

Traveling solo

Jane Engle talks about the difficulties solo travelers face searching for bargains and offers some advice, including where to look for bargains and rooming with strangers.

A single lady from London reports that the worst part about being single is that when you come home you realize that no one missed you while you were gone. Anyway, her story about traveling to New York might be worth reading if you ahve nothing else to do.

No helping the Cuban Nuns

As long time readers will know, I don't support the ban on travel to Cuba imposed by the US government. Here's a case where a Catholic couple took a trip to Cuba to do some missionary work and take a vaction. Now they're going to court to appeal a $5,000.00+ fine.

Learn from Bill McGee's misfortune

Here's an informative article about some problems that have cropped up while this one reporter was traveling. He's been promised one rate over the phone (by Delta), made the reservation, and then told at the airport he has to pay a much higher rate. He's been billed for phone class twice by the Kensington Close Hotel in London. He's been billed twice for a Spirit flight.

It seems that all of the situations except the Delta one have been resolved.

European travel plan - Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary

I've been dying to get back to Europe ever since I left Italy. Here's a possible European vacation. Covering 6 cities in semi-Eastern Europe, I would like to find time to spend more time in each, but I've posted my personal minmums here. Travel between cities would be by train as they are rather close.

Three days in Krakow in Poland. Be sure to read the walking tours.

Two days in Wroclaw, which looks so beatiful in pictures.

Four days in Prague. The people I know who have been there call it the most beautiful city in Europe.

Three days in Vienna. I remember seeing some movie about an American man and French woman in Vienna and the setting was so much better than the movie...

Two days in Bratislava. For some reason all the web sites about Bratislava seem to be down at the moment so I can't check any of them.

Two days Budapest. I'm scared to schedule a long term stay here because I hear the pollution is bad. I suppose it would be no worse than Bangcock (I was OK there), but you never know until you get there.

Flights for this one might be tricky. Major cities like London and New York will have direct flights to Krakow. Others might have to fly into Warsaw which has gotten bad reviews from friends who have been there.

You might try reversing it and flying into Budapest or I suppose you could start anywhere in the chain - Prague - Vienna - Bratislava - Budapest - Krakow - Wroclaw would be fine. The train ride from Budapest to Krakow seems like it would be the longest so keep that in mind.

Frommer's advice on package tours

No escort to follow around (which for me is a good thing) but one stop shopping where you can buy airline tickets, hotel rooms, and sometimes other things like event tickets and rental cars all at once. Frommers lists a few sites where you can look for these packages.

I visited Go Today and found one (actually a bunch but I'm only telling you about one) I wish I could go on:

Amsterdam, Brussels & Paris Special - Air Inclusive 6 Hotel Nights

Spend two nights each in the cities of Monet, Rubens and Van Gogh.

Travel 1/6/2005 - 3/10/2005 from $649 plus tax Purchase deadline: 2/17/2005

Low-fare guarantee

American Airlines recently announced that if you find a better price on another website they give you 50.00. Other airlines and web sites have already done this:

As with the Orbitz, Continental and Northwest promise that customers who find a lower fare on another travel Web site will be refunded the difference and be given a $50 voucher for future travel.