2016

Browsing Date

Tips and Tricks from the NY Times Travel Show

February 2, 2016 • By Kelly Glynn

Last month, I attended the New York Times Travel Show at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. It was a blustery, rainy weekend and what better way to spend my time but wandering aisle after aisle dreaming of tropical and exotic escapes. I arrived at 11 AM dressed in my sexy black buckled calf boots by Coach, spotted black leggings and a grey cashmere cape by Vince dressed not only for success but to be taken seriously as a travel blogger. To play the part, I have to act the part. I tackled the travel show like a tourist in a foreign land. Armed with my guidebook, in this case the “Official Guide” newspaper published by the New York Times, I mapped out the booths to visit for travel ideas, as well as the seminars I wanted to attend to learn the latest tips and trends from the experts.

Living the story at the NY Times Travel Show

I started in the exhibitor section marked Asia and visited with companies and people representing Sri Lanka and the Philippines where I sorted through the literature for beaches and 10-14 day itineraries. From a talk on Thailand, I crossed back through China where I enjoyed a tai chi performance. Eavesdropping on someone’s discussion of train travel, I sought to shorten the distances between the continents and I moved faster than an F-117 Nighthawk into European airspace. Romania is high on my must see list and after a brief overview of itineraries I figured I could possibly visit this summer. Who doesn’t appreciate the legendary tales of Transylvania’s howling wolves and medieval castles? Alas, I found two gentlemen lodged between Europe and Asia with a booth dedicated to rails and rivers. I immediately became fixated on a 15-day journey from Tehran, Iran to Istanbul, Turkey. It sounded like a perfect mix of history and culture and maybe a way to make a trip to Iran easy and safe.

China Await…Tai Chi for exercise and entertainment

With my feet starting to cry for a lighter load, I made my way downstairs to the conference rooms where the seminars were being held. On Saturday, I attended the discussion lead by Reid Bramblett of Reidsguides.com and Jason Cochran, editor-in-chief of Frommers.com called Own the Internet: Tips, Tricks and Hacks for Online Booking. I am a wee bit embarrassed to admit prior to listening to their talk, I was dependent on KAYAK and Orbitz for my comparison shopping. Now that I am fully in the know, I wanted to share their tricks for finding the best deals online. To read more information, please check out Reidsguides.com

1.) Don’t start with a Booking Engine but Compare Travel Websites using an aggregator like momondo, Skyscanner.net, Vayama.com, Cheapflights.com (I recently tested Momondo.com and found a flight on United Airlines for $500 vs. $1,000-$1,300 for a last minute trip to Florida). You may save 12-15 percent

2.) Be weary of inexpert reviews like paid raves and pans you might find on TripAdvisor. According to Reid, half to a third of reviews are fake. There are only about 300 content specialists, which make it impossible to check all the reviews. You should take into consideration a minimum of 20 but closer to 60 reviews before making a decision. Ignore the best and the worst and definitely trust snapshots because they are harder to fake

3.) Book your travel about four months in advance and watch fares on different travel sites. In some situations with limited supply or special occasions like the Olympics or Super Bowl, you may book a year in advance

4.) Keep in mind that many sites are now owned by the same parent company not likely giving you better deals or options. For example, TripAdvisor Media Group owns TripAdvisor, Airfarewatchdog, Cruise Critic, Gateguru, Viator, etc. Expedia with its latest purchase of Orbitz oversees Hotels.com, hotwire, trivago and travelocity. Lastly, Booking.com, agoda, KAYAK, Rentalcars.com, OpenTable.com and Priceline comprise the Priceline Group

5.) Search directly on low cost carrier websites like easyJet, Ryanair and Southwest

6.) Check out consolidators who buy in bulk like OneTravel, Fly International, Cheap Air

7.) For cruise shopping, search cruisedirect, Cruise Compete, Cruise Critic

8.) For smarter hotel deals, agoda, Booking.com, HotelsCombined.com

9.) For packages including air and hotel, tripmasters, go-today or Gate 1 Travel

10.) Be Smart. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is a bad deal

Customize your travel with Rare Travel Experiences and dream the ultimate dream

On day two of the travel show, I spent more time exploring “local” entertainment tasting the Bubble Tea from Taiwan, admiring the Irish dancers on the European stage, applauding the talent of the Puerto Rican salsa dancers and hoping the ladies manning Vermont’s Cabot Cheese booth didn’t notice my eat and repeat visit(s).

My passport doesn’t say I need to leave home by plane or train to travel. I can find it all in my backyard.

Puerto Rico does the Salsa

Having conquered the travel research part of my mission the day prior, I joined two back to back seminars:

How travel can have a social impact
How to improve travel writing and picture taking skills (more in my self-interest)

From Tourist to Change Agent: How to Make Every Trip Count featured five panelists (Gilad Goren, Travel + SocialGood, Leslie Engle Young, Director of Impact, Pencils of Promise, Taylor Conroy, Social Entrepreneur, Change Heroes , Kirk Reynolds, CEO, Discover Outdoors and Lucie Josma, Travel Photographer ) who discussed the movement within the travel industry to do good. Travelers especially Millenials are looking for experiences to explore the unbeaten path and to make an impact on local communities whether it’s in the United States or abroad. There is a focus on educational trips and partnerships with local restaurants, stores and guides. People travel because they are curious about culture, religion or a country’s history and volunteering or immersing oneself in a local project can only provide more insight into the place you are visiting but also the people who live there. In my experience in Colombia, I learned my local guide was being paid $5 a day but I was paying $125 a day to an outside organization. As a consumer, it is my responsibility to ensure guides and those who serve the travel industry are paid fairly and treated respectfully.

Approximately 1.3 billion people traveled the globe in 2015. Travelers are having an impact on the places we visit but we must work to ensure the impact and experience is positive for the visitor and the destinations we visit.

The last event I attended before calling it a wrap on the Travel Show satisfied my desire to create a new life for myself writing and traveling. Max Hartshoren and Paul Shoul of GoNOMAD provided tips for creating the perfect travel piece, which likely applies to the best story fit to print and the masterpiece snapped and likely not painted.

For aspiring writers:

1.) Find a hook – Don’t ramble (my biggest issue in life)

2.) Get right to the point

3.) Create an arc in your story

4) What do you smell and hear?

5.) Use dialogue

6.) Stick to one tense

7.) Use simple language

8.) Narrow your focus

9.) You are a reporter. Use details

10.) Offer a fresh perspective

For budding photographers:

1.) Imagine your picture is telling a story

2.) Wait for life to unfold

3.) Look at the people who occupy the space you are shooting

4.) Examine shape and contents

5.) Take a look around

6.) You decide whether the image should be in color or black and white. It’s personal

Now you are ready to plan your trip. Let’s Go!

1.) CREATE a budget.

2.) SELECT your destination based on your needs: Are you looking for a warm or cold weather spot? Do you enjoy the mad rush of the city or the quiet of the country? Do you want to relax or be super active? A mix of both? Are you traveling solo or with adults or a family and kids? What is your preference? A destination close to home or far away. What is the desired length of your trip?

3.) BUY a guidebook or read travel blogs about the places you want to visit.

4.) RESEARCH the transportation options based on the time and length of your travel. Should you drive, or go by plane or train? PURCHASE your transportation.

5.) RESEARCH your accommodation options: Hotel, Airbnb, relatives, friends, award points. BOOK your accommodations and note the cancellation policy.

6.) Are you more the DO IT YOURSELF personality or do you need to HIRE a guide? IDENTIFY the activities, monuments, museums or restaurants you cannot miss and plan to do those early in the trip.

7.) TAKE pictures and write down the names of places you visited everyday.

8.) WRITE how the trip makes you feel, or the history of a statue or let your hand move with whatever words come to mind.

9.) MAINTAIN records like receipts and itineraries, names of sites. Important to match up with your credit card or challenge if there is a dispute at a store or restaurant.

10.) BUILD lasting memories

My favorite booths from the New York Times Travel Show

Flight 001

Don’t start packing without a visit to Flight 001. They have everything you need to ensure your gear and you are ready to go

All over the Map…

RareFindsTravel.com

609.923.0304

Melanie@rarefindstravel.com

Customize your once in a lifetime trip

ToursByLocals

1.866.844.6783

support@toursbylocals.com

Unique Journeys on Rails and Rivers

+49 30 786 000 33

Trans-Siberian Railway (Mongolia – Moscow)

Silk Road (Almaty, Turkestan, Tashkent, Samarqand, Shakhrisabz, Khiva, Bukhara, Merv, Ashgabat)

Persia’s Rolling Carpet (Iran-Turkey)

African Explorer

Mekong Cruises (Laos, Thailand)

Let’s go to Europe…

Romania

Perfect Tour Romania

USA 818.907.9800

Intl +4 037 238 8888

incoming@perfect-tour.ro

office@perfect-tour.com (USA)

Ireland

Wild West Irish Tours with Michael Waugh & Trish Jenkins

info@wildwestirishtours.com

I love Prosciutto – Yum! Italian Food and Wine

How about eating and drinking your way through Italy?

Italian Days Food Experience

+39 338 421 66 59

Food and Wine Tours in Italy

Bologna, Venezia, Firenze and more

South America for the winter…

Condor Tours and Travel Inc.

USA 800.783.8847

info@condortoursandtravel.com

Best of Panama and Peru

Rainforest and Beach, Canal, Historical sites

I have my sights set on Sri Lanka in December…

Ceylon Express international

Varini De Silva

800.423.9566 (714.964.6896)

tours@ceylonexpress.com

Bhutan, Nepal and Tibet, Cambodia, India, Myanmar

And maybe the beaches of the Philippines…

SITA World Tours

800.421.5643

sitatours@sitatours.com

6-day tours Manila to Boracay or Cebu and Bohol

Rajah Travel

632.894.0886

funtasticph@rajahtravel.com

Travel in Europe, Asia and Australia and New Zealand

Alaska Bound…

Alaska Railroad

800.544.0552

Anchorage to Seward or longer Fairbanks to Seward

Rust’s Flying Service

907.243.1595

Flight Tours

Bear viewing, McKinley, Fly-in Fishing, Glaciers

Alaska Heritage Tours

877.258.6877

Wildlife, Denali Kenai Fjords National Park

Watching a beautiful performance of Irish dancers

North America

Visit Puerto Vallarta: Live it to believe it

January 12, 2016 • By Kelly Glynn

It’s 6:00 am in Puerto Vallarta and I begin to stir in my bed clinging desperately to whatever moments are left before the hillside roosters awaken me. There it is “ra roo ra roo” (warming up their chords) and then “cock-a-doodle-doo” and rooster cries give way to barking dogs and it’s like an entire chorus of animals participate in nature’s alarm clock. It will be another hour and a half before sunrise over the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range but the beautiful and tranquil Banderas Bay invites me to its shores and I hurry to dress and experience the Malecón (seafront) crowd free.

The symbol of the city of Puerto Vallarta, the Seahorse on the Malecón

As I hit the Malecón, I find a mix of locals and tourists exercising, bicycling, mingling over coffee, walking dogs and chatting about yesterday’s news. Shop and restaurant workers prepare to open for the day readying their businesses by cleaning floors and windows and tidying up merchandise and setting tables. A crowd gathers outside Starbucks as anxious tourists wait for coffee they trust and free Wi-Fi. It may be a holiday for me but it’s prime season for locals where tourism accounts for 50 percent of the city’s business.

Puerto Vallarta, nestled in a bay on the Pacific Coast, is a top tourist destination in Mexico. To borrow the city’s tagline, “Live It To Believe It” only tells half the story. It’s a city where people live modestly, work dutifully and retire blissfully. Although not founded until the 1850s, Puerto Vallarta once acted as a supply point for ships traveling from the Philippines to Spain in the 1500s and 1600s and a hiding spot for smugglers and pirates.

Today, Puerto Vallarta is a top destination for cruise ships and for tourists seeking respite from the chilling temperatures of their homelands. It’s a place to splash in the water, play a game of tennis or a round of golf and absorb the guaranteed 80-85F (26-29C) temperatures. You can lounge by the pool, kick up your heels in the sand, sip margaritas and piña coladas and buy bottles of tequila as souvenirs but considering stepping outside the comfort of your all-inclusive hotel and experience the heart of Puerto Vallarta.

The heart of the real Puerto Vallarta beats in the City Center and the Romantic Zone.

Old Lady of Guadalupe, Catholic Church, Main Square in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Start by walking the Malecón and observing the tranquility of the bay, stop and admire the architecture of the main plaza easily located by finding Our Lady of Guadalupe Church or simply look for the tower adorned with a decorative crown and containing the bell and clock. It’s visible from a distance. Be sure to note the bronze sculptures and flower beds scattered along the water’s shores and sneak a picture with the city’s icon, the seahorse. From the City Center, walk south along the Malecón toward the Romantic Zone. Here you will find a flurry of activity no matter the time of day. There are beach vendors, restaurants, bars, tourist shops, jewelry stores, art galleries and more. Depending on the time of day, you should grab a drink or bit to eat on the beach, sit for a massage, have your hair braided and banter with the vendors selling everything from wood carved turtles and painted bowels to sunglasses and silver jewelry. The “No Gracias” signs fitted at nearby tables will give you an immediate idea for what you are in for but it’s all part of the fun.

Malecón at sunset in Puerto Vallarta, View of the main square

It’s a small world in Puerto Vallarta where generations of families live and work. My parents “Joyce and Michael from Chicago” are locals or snowbirds from November until May when they escape Chicago’s harsh winters for the warmth of the Pacific coastline. I am a beneficiary of my parent’s 2008 whimsical purchase and while I may not understand the allure at times I certainly know the magic of Puerto Vallarta is the people.

My parent’s house manager, Ivon, works three jobs to ensure her boys have the best possible education and countless opportunities. My non-Spanish speaking parents would be absolutely lost without her. Her oldest son recently found out he has been accepted to a university near Manchester, UK and will be leaving Puerto Vallarta at the end of the month. When I asked Ivon if she thought her son would come home, she said with the face of a concerned mother, “I hope not.”

When I asked Ivon if she thought her son would come home, she said with the face of a concerned mother, “I hope not.”

The local people in Puerto Vallarta are my parent’s friends and family. Other than the sunshine, they are the main reason my parents come back year after year. My parents look forward to lunch on the beach to see Mel, the silver vendor, Carmello who sells sunglasses or runs with my dad at the city’s track and Arelligo whose wife makes handmade bowls often of professional sports teams like the Seahawks or the Blackhawks and my favorite team, the Michigan State Spartans. There is Emma and Chico at Daiquiri Dicks restaurant who greet my parents with hugs. I can hear the chatter up and down the beach now, “Michael from Chicago is back in PV.”

Clear skies, courts are empty, Let’s play tennis at the Sheraton, Puerto Vallarta

I play tennis with Martin at the Sheraton Hotel. His daughter is in year seven of a 10-year program for pediatric medicine. She wins awards all over the country for her work. He is a proud father. He is my friend. We play a little tennis and laugh a lot more. At Yoga Vallarta, I am Joyce’s daughter. Despite my mom’s recent hip surgery, she delights in the classes and the friendships she has made there. Sometimes I am not sure if I take classes for exercise or to hear all the stories I have missed since my last visit.

My parents celebrating that their company is leaving the next day. On the rooftop at Bistro Teresa’s Puerto Vallarta

For me, Puerto Vallarta is a place where I can explore, shop, eat, relax and practice my Spanish. It’s my home away from home but I rarely unpack my bags. There are many organized and worthwhile tours available for tourists. You can hire a water taxi to visit the islands, walk the plank with the pirates, catch a boat to see the whales blasting out of the water and soaring through the air or if adventure is your thing, there are zip lining trips where you can fly through the trees of the Sierras. I prefer to wander the cobblestone streets in desperate need of repair, courageously play hopscotch with the buses and visit with the local shop owners and buy, buy, buy whenever possible. My drawers are filled with silver rings and bracelets from Mel, my kitchen stacked with colorful handmade serving bowls from Arelligo and my dad owns more sunglasses from Carmello than the Sunglass Hut produces in a year (I borrow from his collection).

Ready for our pirate adventure. Megan and Danielle in Puerto Vallarta

Puerto Vallarta is a vacation spot, it’s a destination, and it’s a place to mess up your passport and escape for a time. Together, this city of locals, retirees, ex-pats and transplants make up one working, thriving community of people making the most of life.

Book your flights now, Puerto Vallarta beckons and maybe if you are lucky the Love Boat will be making another run…

$1 USD is 17.92 Pesos, the Looney is 12.65 Pesos and 1Euro is 19.58 Pesos. There are direct flights from Chicago, Houston, Newark, Seattle, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Edmonton and Calgary. Hurry, snow is in the forecast.

My Favorite Spots in Puerto Vallarta

Eating

(Full disclosure: I’ve never had a bad meal in PV just better meals)

Casa Naranjo – Family run. Try the pork chop or the sea bass. Quiet off the beaten path spot

Bistro Teresa’s – Location location location and great food (new spot off the main square). See the view stay for the food

Tapas Barcelona – A view is worth a thousand words and so are the dates wrapped in bacon and the potato salad

Vitea – Great spot to watch the sunset. My personal favorite Mojito and red snapper dish

Trio – Take me back to the days of Humphrey Bogart and the kitchen with Julia Child

Joe Jack’s Fish Shack – Ask for a rooftop table and don’t miss the macaroni and cheese and bucket(s) of shrimp

Daiquiri Dick’s – Stellar service and friendly staff, ideal location, strong drinks. Food is so-so. Make it a beach day

River Cafe – Nestled under palm trees along the river, a nice romantic spot for brunch or dinner. Live music

Lindo Mar Resort – Location further south from Romantic Zone in Conchas Chinas stunning views for a drink or snack

La Dolce Vita – Delicious salads and pizza with a margarita to wash it down the hatch. Off the Malecón

Shopping

Mercado Isle Cuale and Mercado Municipal Cuale

The Farmer’s Market with crafts and food – Saturday mornings in the Romantic Zone – Main Square (by Daiquiri Dick’s)

River Cafe Jewelry Store

Elements of Design – Home decorating, pillows, rugs, beautiful merchandise

Cassandra Shaw Jewelry – Eclectic and every day jewelry emphasis on bold silver pieces

Galleria Dante – Serves as a pseudo museum as well as a place to buy tasteful pieces of art

Sonia Borrmann Design – Hand made jewelry that resembles works of art and Sonia is a lovely person

No Name Boutique – Linen dress and bathing suits

Myskova – Beachwear several locations

POPOS – Men and women’s Swimwear, clothing and crazy sandals

Playing

Yoga Vallarta – Yoga and spinning classes

Sheraton – Tennis lessons or put your name in for a match

Fit Club – Clean, nice equipment – typical gym

Vallarta Adventures – Whale watching, zip lining, visit other islands

Pirate Ship – Children should cruise during the day, the ship comes alive for adults in the evening. Fun show

Art Walk – Hit the galleries and sip some wine. Wednesday’s starting around 6:00 pm.

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