Let the Wild Rumpus Begin!

It's begun. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?

The planning! The madness! The mayhem!

The Big Trip '11 Extravaganza scheduling!

I'm so very excited.

The 27th of January was the day it all came together, you know. That was the day I filed my tax return.

It was also, happily, the day that the magical number 65,000 rolled over into my frequent flier account. That was the number I'd been working on for the past year, you know!

So that morning, after filing my taxes, I hopped onto my British Air account online and checked the balance. Cha-Ching! Score!

So I went immediately to the reservations site to book my free-except-for-taxes-ticket.

And then the trouble began.

I looked for flights to Istanbul. Then to Athens. Then just to London. NOTHING.

Because, you see, while I was busy accruing enough mileage to make my booking all those months, the people who were crafty enough (and already had enough mileage) had already booked up EVERY LAST BLESSED ticket from San Francisco to London. (BA allows mileage tickets to be booked up to a year in advance!)

And, if you know British Airways, you know that you have to fly through London to catch a connecting flight with them to ANYWHERE. So, I was stumped. No London, no tickets, no trip, NUTHIN'.

GROSS!!!!

I was just not a happy camper. You wouldn't have been either, would you?

Well, I wasn't ready to give up, just ready to get someone else involved. So I called up the British Air Mileage booking agent. And after being in the call queue for nearly twenty five minutes I finally got through.
I called them knowing that I needed to get ahold of a really crafty agent, one well-versed in travel hacking. So I was willing to call more than once, to wait on hold for twenty five minutes for an agent more than once, to get that special, crafty agent.

You know what I'm talking about. Some phone agents (for anything!) are good. Some aren't. The end.

And low and behold, as I was sitting on pins and needles at the edge of my chair when I began my phone call, MY AGENT WAS GOLDEN! She was the kamikazee travel-hacker superstar of the universe and I ADORE her.

I just wish I could remember her name so I could call up British Air to tell them what a gem she is!

Let me tell you what she did. She took all of my dates and all of my possibilities and told me: "Mmmm... I've got nothing."

The end.

Just kidding!!

When it was clear that this wasn't going to be done easily, I told her that I was flexible and if I had to spend a night or two in airports along the way, it would be just fine.  

And then we were free to move about the country. (Or several)  
Ding!


So, though it's not pretty, and not direct, I actually ended up with a flight itinerary that I'm thrilled about. It's multi-leg, and omitted the need for me to buy additional flights (except one), which I was prepared to do if necessary.

And my rockstar agent booked it for me with my 65,000 miles plus taxes.

I looked up a multi-leg flight, taking me to the places I've booked and it would cost nearly $3500 as a purchase.

Um, yah.

That would have killed my trip.

So here's the deal:
SFO>JFK (+ an overnight... really, only a five hour layover, not even worth leaving the airport)
JFK>LHR (+ an overnight... arriving in the early afternoon, giving me an ENTIRE 26 hours to play in London)
LHR>IST. Arrive Istanbul.

Play in Istanbul
Travel down the coast.
Go to Greece.
Go on a sailboat-island-hopping tour of Greece.
End up in Santorini. Spend a few days.

JTR>ATH ($80, this was the extra flight I purchased)

Spend the night in Athens at the foot of the Acropolis

ATH>LHR (+another overnight in London, another whole day to play with friends!)
 LHR>SFO = Home.

And if you don't speak travel: SFO=San Francisco, JFK = New York, LHR = London Heathrow, IST = Istanbul, JTR = Thira (Santorini), ATH = Athens.

So, sure, it takes three days to get to Istanbul. But really, that's just one more day than normal and I'll get to spend a night in a hotel, have a shower and do some sightseeing on the way. It's a brilliant way to fight the jetlag factor.

So kids, the moral of this story is: Travel hacking is very real. And it works. And if you're flexible, you just might end up with something fantastic.

I'm so excited!!!

What's your best travel hack ever?

Finalizing Friday: Tax Return

Today I'm thinking about what I did yesterday, namely filing my tax return.

Well, I'm not so much thinking about the tax return as the actual monetary return: REBATE, baby!

Are you stoked? Are you getting a return? Oh, I hope so!

Do you have big plans for it?

I do. I have lofty travel plans (and car paying off plans). As soon as the rebate arrives I'll be able to book my next trip. The big one this fall, you know. The super-duper exciting one.

I'm still having trouble deciding on a final itinerary. Because, you see there are places that I NEED to visit. Badly, for research's sake. (Did I ever tell you I am writing a book? I am. And I need to see some of the places I'm planning on writing about... it would be a good thing.)

The problem is that I probably won't have time to get to all of those places on one trip. Which means that I'm going to have to quit my job and wander around the world until my insatiable wanderlust and researching is finished. Riiiiiiiight.

That's not gonna happen.

So, for now, I'm just thinking about that tax return $.


What are you doing with your tax return money?

An Ollalieberry By Any Other Name...

When you go to the picture perfect town of Cambria, California, here are a few things you shouldn't miss:

1. (Of Course) Hearst Castle.

2. Elephant Seal Beach.

And now that the main attractions of the area are out of the way, let's get down to the nitty gritty:

1. Main Street. There are actually two sections to Main Street. Find them both. The first is located on the highway. Follow Main street away from San San Simeon to find my favorite stretch. The French Corner Bakery, Cambria Museum and an amazing little candy store. Art Galleries and yummy restaurants and other businesses with names reminiscent of Harry Potter locations make this stretch of the street absolutely perfectly ambient.

2. Moonstone Beach. Take a walk down the boardwalk, it stretches for miles up the coast and is a fantastic way to wind your way around the beautiful beach without getting sandy.

3. Indigio Moon. There are a TON of fantastic little restaurants on Main street. My favorite this trip is called Indigo Moon. They've got delicious fresh bread to complement an amazing menu with specialties like Pecan Crusted Halibut with a Lemon Orange Sauce and wild rice, Beef Bourguingnon with puff Pastry and Mashed Potatoes, Chocolate Torte with Raspberry sauce. Oh, culinary bliss!

4. Linn's Fruit Basket.

 

Another restaurant you CANNOT miss. I've heard tale of their amazing breakfasts, and though I missed having breakfast there, I had a great dinner. (The lovely Cambria Pines Lodge provided a buffet breakfast each morning that was much more economical than eating out each morning... being free) Linn's has this amazing house Foccaccia bread and to accompany it, something even more remarkable: Olallieberry preserves.

WHAT, you ask, IS AN OLALLIEBERRY???

Well, it's 2/3 Blackberry and 1/3 Raspberry. And its g-to-the-U-d. GOOD.

5. Go for a walk on the beach. Just do it. Enjoy the fog rolling in and the crunch of the sand between your toes and watch for Humpback whales. The Ocean. It's the place to be.

Don't Miss: The Perfect California Coastal Town

Seriously. I've found the perfect California Coastal Town.

I'm hesitant to share this one with you. Because I want to retire there. I want to be an eighty-something little bitty, tooling around there, volunteering at the local tourist hotspot.

Well, I'll share it anyway. It's a little place called Cambria, California.

Nearby is another great town called San Simeon. You may have heard of it. It's where William Randolf Hearst built "A little something" on a hilltop. La Cuesta Encantada. Hearst Castle.

Hearst Castle is a magical place. It takes you back to the heyday of the Newspaper Empire and you rub shoulders with the likes of Errol Flynn, Carol Lombard, Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin. Rare and exotic works of art are preserved and incorporated into the place. More than 25,000 antiquities have been cataloged there. You can see tapestries by Ruebens, A Medieval dining room, Renaissance church benches and Egyptian artifacts strewn about the campus. And don't even get me started on the outdoor swimming pool. It's the stuff dreams are made of.

And you can go visit it! 

And you should! 

Why haven't you???

When you do go and visit, be sure to stay in Cambria. Walk downtown in the evening, down to main street and bask in the lovely and unique little shoppes. Enjoy the yummy cuisine and bathe in the sea air.

Like I said, when I'm eighty, I want to have a cute little bungalow on the beach in Cambria and spend my days as a volunteer there at the castle, climbing stairs and answering questions, spewing factoids and exploring that beautiful place.

I'm a believer.

Don't miss Cambria.

Field Trip Friday: Central Coast

Today I'm headed to Central California's Coast to visit (again) my favorite swimming pool. That's right, I'm headed back to San Simeon, CA and La Cuesta Encantada. AKA: Hearst Castle with my sister, nephew and bro-in-law. Should be a blast!

Time for a fun, family field trip. What kind of trouble are you getting into this weekend?

Tahoe!

For the Martin Luther King Jr Holiday Weekend, I packed up my Jeep and headed for the hills! Three hours later I pulled into the driveway of a cute little cabin tucked away in North Tahoe. I had only walked in the door and dropped my bag when in walked my dear friends Lars and Stephanie. They'd driven up from LA for the weekend. A few hours later, our friends Jamie and Nelia and their two kids Adrienne and Eli showed up too.
And then the wild rumpus began!
We played in the snow.
We slept.
We ate.
We cooked.
We played Wii.
We stayed up too late, just talking.
We sledded and snowshoed.
And we just hung out. Just like we did when we were teenagers and then twentysomethings.

And best of all, we got to actually do something we talked about doing over ten years ago.

So here's to the first of many "reunion" weekends for our little band of ragtag friends, "The DLPC."

Cheers.

Faraway Fantasy Friday: Seven Sisters Waterfalls

The air was thick with Jungle humidity and smelled heavily of baking banana bread. But there we were, in the middle of the Grenadan rainforest, no ovens to be seen. Just lush tropical foilage everywhere. One of the local varieties of flora happened to be the Nutmeg tree. Passing through a private plantation, we also saw Cocoa and Banana trees. And that's where the perfume of spiced banana bread dripped from. It was intoxicating.

And that's why Grenada is known as the Spice Island. You can pick up nutmeg from the ground yourself - look for a bright red web wrapped around a giant walnut. It won't keep, but it's fun to see all the same.

That day, a friend and I had taken cab from town up into the mountain to go for a hike to "Seven Sisters." It is a series of seven waterfalls culminating in the purest, velvetiest, most gorgeous water I've ever beheld (or swam in).

Today I'm thinking about going for another hike and a swim in that pool. I'm thinking of getting caught in a Tropical rainstorm, enjoying the heat and the cooling rain and basking in the joys of nature.

Where do you want to be today?

Wrapping up Spring 2010 with Rome

A short flight from Malta back to Fiumicino took me home again to the city of my dreams.

I was to have three more marvelous days in La Cita Eterna before going back to Northern California.

Having been in Rome only a few weeks before, I knew the immense amount of effort it would take to get from Fiumicino to Rome proper, and what it would cost. I also knew that this time I would be staying nowhere near Termini stazione (The main Train station) and lugging my large framepack around the city on the buses was not a good idea (They are generally quite crowded with very passionate Italians... who don't appreciate tourists taking up extra space with large backpacks. I've been told off before.) Plus, I was on the ragged side of being a traveler, being nearer the end of my journey than the beginning.
Did you know that there isn't a metro line that runs through the heart of ancient Rome? There's not. They're trying to build one, but it's proceeding ridiculously slowly because every few feet they drill they find another archaeological something or other and have to stop and let the historians come in and excavate, etc. So don't expect to see that metro line within the next ten years.

Anyhoo. I found the answer after leaving the baggage claim at the airport: Private car. Or, a shared private car. Less expensive than a taxi and much more comfortable. Much faster than the train/bus route. I paid 35 Euro (negotiated down from 45) and shared the back seat of a beautiful Mercedes with another American woman, who is the exact opposite of who I want to be when I grow up. (She was nice enough, but all in all a very narrow-minded person who I was surprised to find traveling at all... instead of sitting at home with her cats.) About halfway into the ride, our driver turned and tried to ask who wanted to be dropped off first, but she spoke verrrrrrrrry little English.

One semester of Italian to the rescue again! I translated for my fellow passenger and told the driver (a very fashionable bleached-blonde Italian woman) to drop me off last. We launched into as much conversation as my bad Italian and her bad English would allow, much to the disdain of the cat lady next to me. After dropping off cat lady, my driver and I laughed and chatted freely and then, out of the blue, she pulled the cab over to the side of a narrow, cobblestoned Roman road and motioned for me to hop out of the cab.

"Andiamo! A Surprise... per te!" (Let's go, a surprise for you.) So I hopped out and we walked into... a pasticeria (a Pastry bakery). She told the lady at the counter what she wanted and then motioned to the case and said "Pick something." It was a marvel of baked Italian goodies, that cold case. Sugared cookies and colored pastry, cremes whipped into delightful frenzies and stuffed into shells. I picked a Cannoli, because I hadn't had one in Italy yet. I went to my purse to pay and the driver said to me "No, no, no! Io pagare!... Because-a you are-a so sweet-a!"

I mean, really, if I didn't love Italians before, how could I help but love them now? Seriously?

She dropped me at the door of the tiny hotel I would be staying at, a Maison, got out, kissed me on both cheeks and wished me a wonderful stay in Roma.

Could you wish for a better beginning to a stay than that? I don't think so. (Well, if it had been a drop-dead hunka Italian man who had done it... that could have been a smidge better. ;)

Faraway Fantasy Friday: A Haze of Pinks and Oranges

One afternoon while I was working aboard the MS Dawn Princess, I'd just finished teaching my afternoon classes. My Mother was sailing with me that cruise and she came to join me for Dinner. As we made for the elevator on the promenade deck, I noticed several people pouring out the door onto the deck, gawking. I looked out to the horizon above them and saw an impossible sight. The sea was perfectly calm and made of spun glass and the sun set all around us, thick, like a cloud of crystal sugar. Light pink and fluffy golden.

While we stood on the promenade deck of the MS Dawn Princess, awestruck by the event horizon happening all around us, my Mother asked me why I didn't run to go and get my camera. I replied that by the time I came back we would have sailed out of the anomaly. So I stayed put and looked and observed. It wasn't without regret. What I wouldn't give now to have a photo of that moment! I have never, never seen anything like it again.

I have touched the sky and kissed it’s intangibility. I have sailed a line through a world made of polished, mirrored sea, where the water met the air in a haze of pinks and oranges so thick that one could scoop streaks into them by simply reaching out to do it.

 Another Beautiful event at sea. 3am in the Baltic.

The DLPC Does Tahoe (again)!

Happy New Year!

Once upon a time, a group of friends were in their late teens. They'd been friends for years and finally found themselves mobile (as in having driver's licenses, cars and gas money). One summer they all packed into a car and went camping up at Lake Tahoe. It was a grand time. (Excepting the part one friend who turned out to be a complete dilweed and stole another friend's girlfriend and alienated himself from the group forever and ever amen.)

The first night everyone camped out under the stars, on top of large boulders overlooking a large lake. The second night the guys (note please that it was not the girl's idea) putzed out and we all split a motel room.

In a moment of euphoric bliss one afternoon, someone brought up the idea that one day, when we were all growed-up, we should all buy a cabin at Tahoe together and enjoy summer weeks and winter snow trips.

Well. We're all growed up now.

Or most of us are. 

Most of the group is married and of those, most have kids. (I'm the exception to both of those things, being neither married nor a mother. [But I'm an auntie and that's all sorts of fabulous!])

And well, none of us can afford a cabin at Tahoe, even purchased as a group effort. Life is expensive. Kids and cars and homes and holidays... all cost money. And these days it seems that the same amount of money that could have purchased a good deal of life-things doesn't do so much.

But enough fretting.

Because luckily, though we can't afford things like Cabins in Tahoe, some of us have friends who can.

And so, the DLPC will be going to Tahoe in a few weeks, to enjoy a reunion/day-dreamt about cabin weekend in that mountainous terrain.

Good times ahead, people.

What sort of vacation dreams have you made come true?

2010 Travel Recap

I would definitely call 2010 a successful travel year. I mean, really. It was. And if I made resolutions (which I don't) and if they included traveling a WHOLE LOT (but maybe still not enough to satisfy the wanderlust-ful-creature-that-lives-in-me?), I could totally check this year off as a success.

But since I don't make resolutions, because I think they're lame, and pretty much because I march to the beat of my own sometimes-syncopated, sometimes-out-of-sync drummer... I forget where I was going with that sentence.

Anyway.

Here's the list (It's a doozy!):

International:

Jordan

Egypt

Malta

Rome

Domestic: 

Tucson

 Utah

LA

Florida

Virginia

Atlanta

Monterey

Point Reyes 

Calisotga