I will be the first to admit that navigating through the oodles of travel planning and booking sites on the Internet can be daunting. Travelocity, Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz, Kayak and Priceline all promise to find the cheapest flights, hotels, car rentals and cruises available. Well, another site has come to play with the big names.
World, meet Travel Grove.
At first glance, Travel Grove looks like many of the other travel booking sites on the web. But the icons across the page highlight more than just cheap flights, hotels, cars and cruises. This site is also a travel community, resource center and forum. Now we’re talking about a site I can potentially get behind.
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Posted in: Resources
“Whatever you do, make sure you spend a day at the spa in the hydrotherapy area.”
It was the single, very definite piece of advice that the Holland America representative gave me over the phone the day before I left for my cruise aboard the ms Eurodam.
I made a note of her advice, then put it out of my mind. I have never been a pampered-type of girl. I get the $6 hair cut, have owned the same tube of mascara for about 5 years and would much rather go shopping for a new pair of sweatpants than a dress. So it may come as no surprise that, not only have I never been to a spa, but I’ve never gotten a massage or manicure.
Aboard the ms Eurodam, however, I was given the opportunity to check out the hydrotherapy area and get a spa treatment as long as I shared my experience with the readers of Kaleidoscopic Wandering. With a deal like that, how could I refuse?
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Posted in: Do
On my recent cruise to the Caribbean, we spent one day on Grand Turk, one of the 40 Turks and Caicos Islands. Grand Turk is only seven miles across, and approximately 5,600 live there. It was devastated by a hurricane in 2008, and the island is still working hard to recover from the destruction of the storm. We took an auto tour of the island, and the movement of the vehicle coupled with the rain did not make for many good pictures of the buildings and landmarks on Grand Turk.
Nonetheless, I did get a few decent photographs despite the crummy weather.
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Posted in: Photos
I have never been so excited for the Olympic Games to start.
I thought that perhaps it was because I’ve been reading up on the subject for articles on Matador Sports for the past couple months, researching information about the last-minute skiing issues, increased security and Marjan Kahlor, the first woman to represent Iran in the winter Olympics. Or maybe I was just tired of watching week after week of football that any different sporting event would have been welcomed into my living room.
But as I waited anxiously from my West Coast home on Friday night, reading everyone’s updates on Twitter and Facebook about the opening ceremonies they were watching in real time, I began to realize the significance of these games to me.
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Posted in: Contemplation
Don’t let excuses hold back your travel dreams. Though many Kaleidoscopic Wandering readers are familiar with the travel industry, many others are not. As part of the Why People Don’t Travel series, I’m taking a hard look at five different things that keep people from traveling. In this series, I hope to provide solutions and additional resources for people who would like to travel more.
Today’s travel concern: “I don’t have the money to travel.”
Perhaps you’d like to cuddle with your honey in a romantic destination such as Paris. Or maybe you’d finally like to take your family to the happiest place on Earth to spend a week with Mickey Mouse and the rest of the Disney gang. Or this could be the perfect year to cash in your banked weeks of vacation for a trip through Asia.
At some point in time, we all need a vacation or yearn for a few weeks of unrestrained travel. The problem, of course, is that—regardless of where you want to go or for how long—it’s going to cost money. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to get away for a weekend with your significant other or mix and mingle with the seven dwarfs.
In fact, travel can be affordable.
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Posted in: Reasons to Travel, Resources
You know those tropical destinations that tout miles upon miles of sand beaches? The ones where, in the photos, these long stretches of beaches are fringed with palm trees with beautiful blue water lapping up onto the shore.
And when you arrive to the tropical getaway? Wait! Where did all the people come from? In the picture it looked like you had this whole beach to yourself. But now you’ve got to fight for your few square feet of sand.
It’s an all too typical scene in beach getaways, but that’s not the case in Huatulco, Mexico.
That’s not to say you’ll have your own stretch of beach, though. In Huatulco, five of the area’s nine bays have been designated as a national aquatic park, which means everyone can enjoy them from afar, but no one gets to claim them with beach chairs, umbrellas and tropical drink stands.
But I like it that way. I think there should be more beaches with nothing but sand. I got to enjoy them all anyway … from the comfort of a catamaran as it made its way out of Santa Cruz marina and across the ocean for a day of relaxation.
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Posted in: Do, Go
Australia is big. Really big.
One marginally effective way to get across it is by hitchhiking. But hitchhiking is never just hitchhiking, a theory solidly proven by Tony Horwitz in his book One for the Road.
Early in this travel narrative, he notes that hitchhiking east to west across Australia is the country’s “answer to Route 66 and the Appalachians.” And then: “I found myself crawling along a scar of used-car lots connecting one smoggy suburb to another.” This is all before he even leaves Sydney.
But once he hits the outback, Horwitz’s tale becomes a hilarious foray into body-biting bugs, relentless heat, dead kangaroos, sketchy travel companions, beer, beer and more beer. He catches a ride with a woman intent on wiping out the kangaroo, wombat and Tasmanian devil populations through the Nullarbor Plain. In Coober Pedy, he chats it up with folks hoping to strike it rich with opal mining. On the western coast, he attempts to lend a hand aboard a crayfish boat, but with the rough waters splashing over the side, Horwitz does nothing but spend the day “calling Earl.”
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Posted in: Reading
There’s something about ancient sites that drives people in droves to overrun what should be otherwise quiet and peaceful places. Machu Picchu (which I witnessed firsthand last year) and Chichén Itzá are two such examples.
So I was pleasantly surprised to find the grounds of the Mayan ruins in Copan Ruinas, Honduras, to be essentially bare. The ruins in Copan span about 14 square miles (not all of this is accessible to the public), and archeologists have found 3,450 structures within this space. The Mayan ruins in Copan Ruinas are among the finest examples of Mayan artifacts, and the site is covered in carvings, petro glyphs and statues. The public space is expansive, and visitors are welcome to roam the grounds at their leisure.
The grounds are part of the allure. With so much space and large Ceiba trees casting shadows across the lawn, this is not only a historic marvel but also a beautiful, natural place.
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Posted in: Do, Go
