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Yeah I'm not seeing prices anywhere near that. We're in Minneapolis which always strikes me as a little more expensive to fly anywhere than it should be, maybe on account of everything being so overwhelmingly Delta with little competition. Ended up booking a trip to DC because we've got a friend there we haven't seen in a while, and putzing around the Smithsonians is pretty easy as far as "decisions" go.
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Dec 5, 2016 17:51
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FISHMANPET posted:Yeah I'm not seeing prices anywhere near that. We're in Minneapolis which always strikes me as a little more expensive to fly anywhere than it should be, maybe on account of everything being so overwhelmingly Delta with little competition. DC sounds fun. Just for reference though, check out google flights. You can definitely get $600 and sub-$600 flights to Europe from Minneapolis pretty easily. My family usually flies Delta and they don't pay much more than that even including their connection from the local airport to MSP then to Europe and back. You need to be pretty flexible on dates though, flying out and returning on a weekend I doubt you can get much for sub-$800. Just checking right now for dates in early spring, I see Munich, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Paris all at sub-$500 and Marseilles and London for $550 from MSP. Eastern Europe airports are all a lot more expensive than I would have guessed, all around $1k regardless of the dates I pick. VVV: Missed that you said your dates were limited until first two weeks of January. Also, it's not like travel always has to be abroad anyway to be enjoyable! Saladman fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Dec 5, 2016 |
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Dec 5, 2016 18:38
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One of my specific requirements was also a very narrow band of time to travel in (basically a few weeks between Dec 16th and the first week of January). She's a teacher and so doesn't have a ton of flexibility with travel times. I saw $300 to Paris which would have been amazing but the timing wouldn't have worked. Also as far as being "easy" goes I'd been contemplating an all-inclusive type of thing because it would completely remove the burden of making any decisions. As much as I enjoy traveling and seeing and doing new things, we've come to the conclusion that we kind of need a vacation that doesn't challenge us mentally. I keep calling it decision fatigue but I think that's not quite the right term but basically we're both tired of making decisions and that's what we'd like a vacation from. DC is easy in that the universe of options is pretty narrow (for example, which of this handful of interesting Smithsonian should we visit today) versus travel in a foreign country where the number of choices of things to do and places to eat just becomes overwhelming because the choices are essentially limitless.
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Dec 5, 2016 18:51
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oops wrong post
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Dec 19, 2016 03:40
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Does anyone know of good travel resources for people wanting to travel in the midrange of budgets? Most magazines/blogs/etc. either cater to the backpacker/hostel community, or the uber-lux rich.
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Jan 8, 2017 00:01
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futurememory posted:Does anyone know of good travel resources for people wanting to travel in the midrange of budgets? Most magazines/blogs/etc. either cater to the backpacker/hostel community, or the uber-lux rich. What resources are you looking for? Places to stay, things to do, restaurants/bars, etc.? Accommodation-wise, I'd say your best bet is to follow business travel recommendations. Obviously, that is less likely to work for bars and restaurants, and not at all likely to work for activities.
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Jan 8, 2017 01:20
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And what's the destination and what's the budget? Midrange in the Maldives is very different than in Thailand.
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Jan 8, 2017 17:19
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Oh, just completely in general. I'm researching where my husband and I should go next - we're definitely planning a 3-week trip to Japan later this year, but we have an additional week to play around with. Internationally we've only traveled to Western Europe so far (Italy, Spain, London, Paris, Bruges, Amsterdam) and have averaged around $90-150 USD/night on a room. I realize that this area of the world is much pricier than others and that that money would go a much longer way elsewhere, that this is all relative, etc. We've done business-style hotels before, but we prefer smaller hotels run by families or smaller boutique hotel chains. Typically we just rely on TripAdvisor, but the reviews on there tend to be written by an older set of people (we're 29-30). This led to us staying in a beautiful, but stupidly stuffy B&B in Portland, OR that was completely not our scene. Most publications and blogs I see are either about hostel travel (I wouldn't be opposed to some of the "luxury" hostels with your own room, etc.), or super luxury like you see in CN Traveler and Nat Geo Travel. We both hold down full-time American jobs, so we usually have limited time a year to go somewhere. There just doesn't seem to be a middle ground in most publications between staying in a dorm with 8 others and spending $300/night somewhere. It was just more of a general question than specifics.
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Jan 8, 2017 18:06
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futurememory posted:Oh, just completely in general. I'm researching where my husband and I should go next - we're definitely planning a 3-week trip to Japan later this year, but we have an additional week to play around with. Internationally we've only traveled to Western Europe so far (Italy, Spain, London, Paris, Bruges, Amsterdam) and have averaged around $90-150 USD/night on a room. I realize that this area of the world is much pricier than others and that that money would go a much longer way elsewhere, that this is all relative, etc. Airbnb has revolutionized the issue of lodging in many places. I've used it successfully in North America, South America, and Europe. Asia is likely to be a bit different due to the culture and language barriers but I'd still give it a go.
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Jan 8, 2017 19:08
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futurememory posted:Does anyone know of good travel resources for people wanting to travel in the midrange of budgets? Most magazines/blogs/etc. either cater to the backpacker/hostel community, or the uber-lux rich. Airbnb is my go-to. For $120-$150/night we've found a lot of nice options in most places. In my mind, midrange travel is basically eating in affordable, yet quality restaurants and spending extra on experiences — i.e. we did a day-long Vespa tour in Tuscany for like $200 and a cooking class in Rome. These weren't "luxury" but we would have never done them if we were on a backpacker's budget.
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Jan 11, 2017 07:29
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So after a few years of travel I have a drawer full of foreign currency. What's the best way for me to turn all of this silly monopoly money into USdollars? I know i'll take a hit one way or another but I'd like to minimize that. E: I'm in NYC if that helps. Avian Pneumonia fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Jan 15, 2017 |
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Jan 15, 2017 20:25
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Avian Pneumonia posted:So after a few years of travel I have a drawer full of foreign currency. What's the best way for me to turn all of this silly monopoly money into USdollars? I know i'll take a hit one way or another but I'd like to minimize that. Your bank may be able to convert it and probably will charge lower fees than a currency exchange. The only other option I know of is to search for currency exchanges near you.
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Jan 15, 2017 23:09
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Avian Pneumonia posted:So after a few years of travel I have a drawer full of foreign currency. What's the best way for me to turn all of this silly monopoly money into USdollars? I know i'll take a hit one way or another but I'd like to minimize that. Personally I'd keep it in hopes of future travel. But if you really want to change it and are fully aware of the asstastic conversion rate you're going to get, there are a bunch of currency exchange places all over NYC. Yelp or Google are your friend.
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Jan 16, 2017 07:27
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You can just take it to the bank. I took a bunch even like UAE dirhams and the teller in the grocery store branch exchanged it.
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Jan 16, 2017 07:47
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Mackieman posted:Personally I'd keep it in hopes of future travel. But if you really want to change it and are fully aware of the asstastic conversion rate you're going to get, there are a bunch of currency exchange places all over NYC. Yelp or Google are your friend. I used to think this way until I got rear end-hosed out of $100 on Indian Rupee 500 and 1000 notes that I had in my drawer after they got banned. I head to India every couple of years for work so I figured I would keep some cash around, bad idea. Gave them to a friend to cash for me, but his trip got cancelled last minute. Same thing when I went to Uganda, dude from work hooked me up with some notes from when he was there a few years prior. Went to give a cab driver a note and he explained how the country had deleted all the old money, and replaced it with new. Fortunately I had the same amount in new bills, but the old money was worthless. Also some countries get sketchy on the age of money, whether it has any creases, or any writing on it. There are only a few country's notes that I would keep long term in any amount beyond collectors purposes.
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Jan 22, 2017 19:26
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Yeah, even Sweden has the same problem although their time limit was longer. I'm not sure when they stopped issuing the old bills, but at least as of last summer the vast majority in circulation, even from ATMs, were the old style. The last gen goes out of acceptance on June 30 2017 and become worthless even at banks on June 30 2018. A lot of places (well, maybe just taxis) stopped accepting them even on june 30 2016 which I thought was funny because new bills were still hard to come by from atms even by may 30, 2016. Most stable countries besides sweden seem to accept old currency indefinitely. I got an old, 1930-1990 style, $20 out of an ATM a while back and had no issue spending it to my surprise. A few notes have changed for CH, UK, and EU recently but all the old ones are valid indefinitely afaik. Although the replacement €10 note is hard to even distinguish from the old one, and as soon as CH switches it's notes even the week after you'll never see an old note. Swiss efficiency for money handling is appropriately legendary. Any idea if there's a way to easily find out which countries have invalidated old banknotes? My parents would've been screwed out of like $500 in kroner if I hadn't coincidentally noticed and knew that they had a ton for a country they go to once every 5 years.
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Jan 23, 2017 09:58
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e: Never mind, went ahead and got insurance already
Teriyaki Koinku fucked around with this message at 16:54 on May 22, 2017 |
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May 22, 2017 16:33
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Traveling from Korea to Washington at the end of July. I found an okay-priced ticket from ICN to IAD, but it's got a 2hr 45m layover in SFO. I've done that before flying alone and it wasn't a problem as a US citizen, but any idea if it's a doable timespan for a non-citizen to get through immigration, security, etc.?
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May 24, 2017 10:15
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Mr. Belpit posted:Traveling from Korea to Washington at the end of July. I found an okay-priced ticket from ICN to IAD, but it's got a 2hr 45m layover in SFO. I've done that before flying alone and it wasn't a problem as a US citizen, but any idea if it's a doable timespan for a non-citizen to get through immigration, security, etc.? As long as your flight is somewhere close to on-time, that should be more than enough time to get through immigration and customs.
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May 25, 2017 02:38
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Not sure if this is the right place to ask this (didn't see anything for Connecticut) and it's sort of last-minute. We're from Texas and my wife has been working on a project in Boston and in Windsor for her company, so she's been traveling here a lot. This is her last week, and I came up so we could spend the weekend in Boston, but now we're in Windsor, CT until Thursday and while she's working I'm looking for poo poo to do. Is there anything around Windsor that is interesting? It has a small-town feel, but I figured there'd be some historic sites or monuments or maybe some places I could just walk around and photograph. So far there's Mystic Seaport which looks fun, not that I had in mind to spend ~$30 but seems like a good place to take my camera. I admit I could've done more research before we got here but if anyone has any ideas for museums or historical sites that are open during the weekday I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions for my budget of $30 or less per excursion.
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May 30, 2017 14:59
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What are good travel forums for less-visited countries? This forum is pretty decent for Europe and North America (and maybe Asia too, I never check those threads) but there isn't a lot here when you post about Latin America or Africa for instance. Lonely Planet's forums are sometimes OK, but even then fairly thin, like I was kind of surprised that even there Cameroon only has 2 threads within the last month—and only one had responses, and that was a single response. I was looking into Algeria a while ago, and we ended up going somewhere else instead, but I had little luck finding anywhere you could ask questions about it, even then searching in French as well, not that I knew where to look. I've found plenty of static resources about less-visited countries, but mostly blogs and stuff where things are often massively out of date.
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Jun 21, 2017 21:22
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Any other VRBO like sites that are not crazy on fees? Every time I find house it jumps up 300 to 600 bucks from fees
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Oct 6, 2017 23:34
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Texibus posted:Any other VRBO like sites that are not crazy on fees? Every time I find house it jumps up 300 to 600 bucks from fees You mean as a person looking to rent a place? On AirBnB the cleaning fees are usually like 30-50% of a single night's rate (e.g. 3 nights @ $100/night -> usually around $300 in rent + $50 in fees although the amount is entirely up to the person renting the place and it is not officially standardized at all). I have never, ever seen anywhere where the fees are anywhere even remotely close to doubling the price and I've rented maybe 80 apartments on AirBnB, although never for a one-night stay.
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Oct 7, 2017 16:40
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Saladman posted:What are good travel forums for less-visited countries? This forum is pretty decent for Europe and North America (and maybe Asia too, I never check those threads) but there isn't a lot here when you post about Latin America or Africa for instance. For active forums on obscure places, there is not really a clearinghouse. Gotta find 'em one-by-one.
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Oct 9, 2017 07:00
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I'm considering going to Georgia/Alabama/Mississippi/Tennessee. I always like to have a guide book with me for easy perusal, but there doesn't seem to be any for the deep south. Lonely Planet has one, but it hasn't been updated since 2001. Other than that there are only books about Florida and New Orleans. I guess I don't really have a question, but how in the hell are there not any books for these places? They do get SOME tourists, right?
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Apr 14, 2018 10:50
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Per posted:I'm considering going to Georgia/Alabama/Mississippi/Tennessee. I always like to have a guide book with me for easy perusal, but there doesn't seem to be any for the deep south. Lonely Planet has one, but it hasn't been updated since 2001. Other than that there are only books about Florida and New Orleans. As far as the Tennessee/North Carolina area the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited in the United States (and very beautiful) so there's gotta some be books for that. Not sure how much info they would have on the surrounding areas but I bet a book on Nashville would help. I've lived in GA all my life and if you like hiking/backpacking I can say that the N GA mountains are very very pretty and surprisingly rugged in some areas what with those ancient Appalachians and all. There are some really pretty rivers (the Conasauga comes to mind) and waterfalls (Jacks River, Panther Creek Falls). I backpack up there a lot and those destinations are fairly accessible for a day hike.
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Apr 15, 2018 18:40
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Hey this is a kind of generic question, but how do people ensure that they are able to withdraw money in foreign countries? I have 3 different cards from different banks—a 4 digit PIN unchipped bank card on Plus/Interlink/Star, a 6 digit chipped bank card on plus, and a 6 digit chipped bank card on Maestro. I usually try the 4 digit unchipped card first because it has no withdrawal fees, and quite often it is not accepted, e.g. in Tunis this past week I tried 3 or 4 ATMs and it never worked. Conversely, there are a couple places I have been (Bolivia and... Uruguay?) where my 6 digit card was not accepted, but the 4 digit PIN card worked fine, as in the ATMs did not even allow more than 4 digits to be input. I've been trying the three cards out of curiosity whenever I travel for the past year or so, and not infrequently one card or the other will not work. I've heard some people say that for a 4 digit PIN in a 6 digit machine you can press "00" after the 4 digit PIN to have it work, but that seems to be entirely mythical in my experience. So far the only places I've been where I could not get any card to work was Cameroon, but nearly 10 years ago, and Cuba, even though 2 of the cards are non-US. Can you always go into a bank or something to make it work, if you actually need to get money but the ATMs won't accept your cards? I've googled "how to withdraw money in foreign countries when ATM does not work" but all of the results are basic advice about forex fees and per-withdrawal fees.
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Aug 6, 2018 22:51
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I was looking for something like this a while ago, might help somebody, or me also if I forget it: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/airports/ist/routes Basically I wanted to see what cities have direct flights to/from where I live, and on what days. Flightradar24 provides a really good summary of this; way better than Google Flights' map, which only lets you set one specific day instead of the full week.
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Aug 31, 2018 12:35
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My family of 6 (with 4 small kids) are traveling to Hong Kong in a few weeks. Is there a thread I can read with on-the-ground updates on real life in Hong Kong? I didn't see anything specific to Hong Kong travel. I'm not really looking for the political discussion, more a realistic heads-up on what we can expect to see and encounter. I'd like to avoid miring my kids in an international conflict, but I also don't want to overreact and cancel what could be an amazing trip for all of us. We're staying a few days near the airport and a few days near Victoria Peak.
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Aug 29, 2019 07:27
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I am going to Canada from the US next week for a bit. If I want to text someone in the US from there, do I need to add +1 to their number, and vice versa? Or will everything still work as usual without having to modify numbers?
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Sep 11, 2019 03:29
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Detective Thompson posted:I am going to Canada from the US next week for a bit. If I want to text someone in the US from there, do I need to add +1 to their number, and vice versa? Or will everything still work as usual without having to modify numbers? It should work as usual because Canada uses +1 for their phone system as well.
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Sep 12, 2019 19:10
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https://wearebamboo.com anyone used them before? it came highly recommended from a trusted source who did a Thailand and Cambodia trip. I did a semester abroad and 45 days backpacking around Australia and New Zealand but that was in 2000 and things/I have changed. I'm looking at taking their Costa Rica trip to ease back into travelling where a lot of the stress is handled by someone else. Let me know if there's a better thread for this and I'll go there. Thank you!
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Sep 22, 2019 01:58
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General opinion about hotels.com? I like that I can pay for a hotel with a gift card (theirs are sold locally). But my concern is their prices might not be great? El Gallinero Gros fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Dec 16, 2019 |
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Dec 16, 2019 19:39
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El Gallinero Gros posted:General opinion about hotels.com? I've used them a few times and I have no specific complaints, they've never hosed anything up for me.
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Dec 18, 2019 17:13
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El Gallinero Gros posted:General opinion about hotels.com? Their prices are usually not that great, usually they're identical to using Agoda or eBookers or Booking.com or directly booking through the hotel's website. I tend to use Booking.com or Hotels.com because it's nice to have everything centralized if I'm doing a trip with like 4 places to stay, and I've never had an issue with a hotel stay, with dozens of uses of all of the above websites. I just book with whichever one is cheaper, but 90% of the time all 4 booking sites offer the exact same price and conditions (cancellation policy etc). I have almost never found booking through the hotel to be cheaper than using a third party website, and often it's more expensive. The only hotel I ever book with them directly is Hilton (oops, wrote "Hotels" here at first), or sometimes with hotels in unusual places, like for safari lodges. Saladman fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Dec 19, 2019 |
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Dec 18, 2019 18:10
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I don't even bother using comparison sites anymore because 9 times out of 10 the price difference being more than chump change is either the cheaper place is being misleading about additional fees/taxes or it's some weird situation with restrictions. Also, if you consistently use the same site, you'll get additional loyalty deals or discounts on your searches anyways. In other words, use the one whose layouts/features you prefer. FWIW the only one I hear stories about beyond just a regular amount of clerical errors or overbooking accidents is Expedia. kuddles fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Dec 18, 2019 |
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Dec 18, 2019 22:01
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kuddles posted:I don't even bother using comparison sites anymore because 9 times out of 10 the price difference being more than chump change is either the cheaper place is being misleading about additional fees/taxes or it's some weird situation with restrictions. Also, if you consistently use the same site, you'll get additional loyalty deals or discounts on your searches anyways. Oddly, Expedia owns Hotels.com, yet I too have had awful loving experiences with Expedia itself and no problems whatsoever with Hotels.com.
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Dec 19, 2019 16:17
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Is there a good resource that doesn't look shady as hell for all-inclusive resorts? A buddy and I just canceled our trip to Japan over everything closing for Coronavirus, so I'm thinking a mindless trip to a beach for several nights with booze included would be adequate to take our minds off it. It would be last-minute. I did Google "last-minute trips" and came across a shitload of links; the problem is narrowing it down to the reliable ones. We both have passports. I was thinking like Punta Cana or somewhere else in the Caribbean, maybe? I've never done a resort trip before, so I'm a complete noob.
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Mar 5, 2020 04:10
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You can check cheapcaribbean.com to see what they're offering sales on. I had friends book through them and it went fine but I've usually used them to locate resorts or regions that had lower prices and then booked things separately on my own. Their descriptions of resorts are decent too. Places in the Caribbean may be closed too, depending on when and where you're looking. Not a viable long term strategy for them since their entire economies are based off tourism and given the levels of chlorine in the pool water it seems an unlikely place to spread any kind of disease, but just double check where they're going on letting in arrivals before you put down non-refundable money.
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Apr 28, 2020 17:44
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Does anyone have any other temporary housing recommendations outside of BlueGrounds or Sondor? I know there's HelloLanding but the reviews are absolutely awful and I do like the ones I mentioned earlier but I am just trying to see if there are any other options I might be missing.
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Apr 18, 2021 21:51
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