Have You Ever Used TripAdvisor®?

When selecting or booking hotels there are a lot of internet companies that you can select. If you are a frequent traveler you are familiar with Travelocity, Expedia, Hotwire, Hotels.com and there are many more. I have found that some of the ratings and visitor comments on these sites are sometimes a bit suspect. For several years I have been using TripAdvisor which can be found at www.tripadvisor.com.

The site can be used in a couple of different ways. If you know the name and city of a hotel you are interested in, you just type it in on the search line at the top of the website. They will then give you access to all the reviews and information they have about the hotel. All of the reviews are written by people who have stayed at the hotel. TripAdvisor claims that they are receiving 16,000,000 + hits a week, and goodness knows how many reviews are being written (they say over 10,000,000 reviews are on the site). Yours truly is registered with TripAdvisor and I have written reviews, particularly on hotels we used last year in Mexico.

When you access the reviews you will find that the most recent evaluations are at the top, and as you go down the list they are older, but always dated as to the time of posting. Some of the reviews are priceless, both good and bad. Some of the evaluations are really opposite, so you have to read between the lines as to what the writer thinks is important.

The other way the site can be used is just to put in a city that you are interested in. That option is the next section below the search. You can enter your dates, price, and the currency you want quoted for the room rate. When you hit the “find hotels” the site gives you all of the hotels that they recommend and the average room rate. Down the page you will see listings of the evaluations. Just click on the first one and you can read all the evaluations for the hotel. For each hotel they give the TripAdvisor Popularity index and the traveler rating based on the number of reviews.

One nice advantage of the search for hotels is that on the left of the hotel listing it gives you a place to map the hotel, check photos of the hotel, and check rates. The rate box is very helpful as it gives you a chance to compare prices with several booking sites not connected in any way with TripAdvisor. As an example when writing this article I was looking at hotels in Christchurch, New Zealand and the options for the hotel I looked at were Hotels.com, Expedia, HotelClub.com, and RatesToGo.com. If you wish to book a hotel, you then can do so right on the referred to booking site.

The TripAdvisor site has a lot more features which you might want to explore when you are navigating their choices. I recommend you take a look and start exploring your travel options.

An Easy Way to Get Started on Foreign Travel

That first trip out of the United States can be a bit intimidating. Anytime you step off into the unknown will have some trauma attached to it. After you have completed the experience you wonder why you were so uptight. Other than a few family trips to Mexico (which I don’t really count) our first trip with all the family was to England. It was easy to do (they allegedly speak English), but watch out, as your kids will easily become addicted to international travel. These days we can hardly keep up with them.

A suggestion I would make for that first foreign trip would be to travel to Ireland (they also allegedly speak English). We have now visited the Republic of Ireland twice and have had two delightful trips. You can do the country either by guided tour or a self drive holiday. I must admit, and from my writings you would suspect, that we always try to go for a bit more adventure (or excitement) and thus always do our own thing and avoid the tours.

Our most recent visit included a week of driving around Western Ireland. Getting used to driving on the left side is not too much of a problem. You and your passengers just have to keep thinking, and yelling, keep to the left! I suggest a rental car with an automatic transmission so you also don’t have to retrain yourself with a gear shift on your left side. A trip to Ireland in the late spring or early fall is just perfect, as often it is not raining, the temperature is pleasant, and the crowds of the summer tour buses haven’t started, thus you can visit and explore without a lot of hassle.

Both of our Ireland driving trips featured bed and breakfast vouchers. This is a system where you are provided with a guidebook that includes over 1,150 listings of bed and breakfast homes throughout the Republic and Northern Ireland. Those B & B’s that accept vouchers are clearly marked with a “V”, which includes most of the properties. Take a look at www.tandctrade.com and it will explain all about the system. We have bought our vouchers on both of our trips through travel agents. Two of the companies that provide these prepaid vouchers are www.avantidestinations.com and www.cietours.com. On our most recent trip we bought, with the assistance of our travel agent, through Avanti as it was a bit cheaper than C.I.E. All of the vouchers were en suite (you get your own bathroom and don’t have to go down the hall) and included a full Irish breakfast, and in some cases ordering from a selection on a menu. I am still trying to convince Mary Ann to provide smoked salmon with my scrambled eggs!

In this modern age of cell phones, we have an unlocked phone, so you can buy a sim card in any country you go to, and thus can use the phone in that country. We usually would decide about a day ahead as to what town we would be in, then select the B & B we wanted, and then call them for a reservation. Also in this generation of the internet a lot of people just book on the B & B website which is listed for each property. Using B & B’s, and farmhouses, is a lot of fun as you can meet and talk with a lot more natives, and also meet travelers from all over the world. The B & B industry is becoming very sophisticated, with a lot of homes built specifically for the purpose, rather than a conversion of a regular home.

My suggestion is that Ireland is small enough that you can easily tour most of the country on a 10 day visit. You can fly into either Shannon or Dublin, pick up your rental car, and then make a circle tour around the country, returning to wherever you flew into. Such an itinerary would not require driving more than five hours a day, allowing a lot of time for exploring.

Now that you know how easy it is to start an adventure in foreign travel, call a travel agent. By the way, if you don’t have a passport yet, apply right now so you will be ready to go at a moments notice!

                                   Kinsale B & B

                                  Kenmare B & B

(Published ABA Senior Lawyer Division Voice of Experience newsletter Winter 2007 issue) (Published in Spring 2008 JD Record)

How to Find a Vacation Home in a Foreign Country

Impending retirement requires that you have a plan. Our plan was to select a winter retreat at a different location somewhere in the world each year. With a few months of full time judging left, it was time to get busy putting this plan into action, if we were to have a successful first year. It also would go a long way towards guaranteeing an exciting retirement for two people who like to travel several times a year. Twenty five years ago we visited San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and found it a wonderful colonial city in the heart of Mexico with a wonderful mix of art, music, crafts, exquisite cuisine, and a good mix of gringos to help you over the language problem. Over the years I had kept my eye on San Miguel as it grew into a celebrated world travel destination and felt it would be would be an easy transition into our “winter retirement formula”.

Along with searching for vacation homes, I also learned how to use the internet for writing a daily travel blog. For an in depth look at the vacation home we found (Casa Tranquilidad) it is shown in words and photos on my blog which you can view at http://tomoffthebench.blogspot.com/. Now how do you find such a wonderful casa? The trick is the wonder of the internet. You can go to Google and type in “vacation homes in…(name the country or city).” That will bring up all sorts of options which will get you started on your search.

One thing you need to keep in mind is lead time. I was surprised when I started searching in San Miguel de Allende in October for a March arrival. It seems that in locations where there is a heavy snow bird population, that many properties are just renewed year to year. Thus you have to reserve a year ahead. In various websites when I selected a home I found out there were not a lot of vacancies. Most websites on this type of subject will break down into location, price range, photos, and on the best sites there are calendars showing availability.

For a little tutorial let us go to the website where our casa is found:

http://www.vacation-homes-san-miguel.com/

This company had a very helpful agent who lived in San Miguel de Allende. We met her in person while we were in San Miguel when she brought by folks to look at the casa, I assume for next years or next falls rental. Next click on “search rentals” and then go to the section on monthly rentals of $2,000 to $3500 a month. Scroll down until you see Casa Tranquilidad and then click on the name. That will take you directly to the description and information about our casa. The full website for that view is:

http://www.vacation-homes-san-miguel.com/rentallistings/casatranquilidad/index.html

Directions show you how you can work your way through the possibilities available for this company. Be sure and click on more information and photos at the bottom and you will see a complete description of the property and rental conditions. If you know Mary Ann and me, we usually are the happy recipients of dumb luck and that was the case with the rental of Casa Tranquilidad. After I enquired about a couple of properties the agent quickly responded that the properties I requested were not available, but she had a new casa just coming available, that had never been rented before. She sent photos and the description and the rest is history. We were the very first “guests” other than the owners and hope we were good stewards of this magnificent home. In searching for a property we actually had very few requirements. We wanted a home with a washer and dryer (little did we know that the maid would do all the laundry), access to an internet DSL line, and a place to park the car. The only thing we missed on was the car garage, but you can learn our parking lot saga from the blog.

You might wonder (as a lawyer and a Judge I did) about the legal parts of the rental. We entered into a lease with the rental company and not with the actual owner. In fact we did not know who the owner was until a phone bill arrived at the casa. We paid half of the lease payment at the time of the acceptance of the rental and the other half 45 days before our arrival. There was also $500 damage deposit for such things as excess phone bills, DSL line, etc. The rental payment covered all the utilities and the payment of the maid, gardener, and ordinary repairs.

There are a lot of web sites for finding vacation rentals, both in the U.S. and around the world. These sites will sometimes specialize in various locations, or might be a broad based worldwide site. As a start take a look at some of the following:

http://www.vrbo.com/

www.DestinationVillas.com

www.VacationRentals.com

www.GreatRentals.com

www.ClassicVacationRental.com

www.RentVillas.com

If you are interested in San Miguel de Allende, there are a lot of rental opportunities on the internet. Other companies that you might look at are:

http://www.sanmiguelrentals.com/

http://www.premiersanmiguel.com/sitepages/pid1438.php

http://www.atenearealty.com/

http://www.goin2travel.com/sanmiguel.htm

http://www.greatrentals.com/san-miguel-de-allende/s/8032/fa/find.squery

http://www.casaselegantes.com/

http://www.san-miguel-house-rentals.com/

This is enough reminiscing about San Miguel. I have to get started on my search for a vacation home in New Zealand!

(Published by the fall 2007 ABA Senior Lawyers Division “Experience” magazine)

What Have I Learned From Travel Planning?

I am not sure you would call travel an addiction, but it certainly gets into your blood. Because Mary Ann and I usually go to locations outside of the United States, people who know us have an expectation that we are off to somewhere exotic in the near future. When we do not have something planned, I think it is a disappointment for the questioner that we have not planned the next trip. I must admit that I find myself anxious, and somewhat at a loss, when no trip is in the works! It is only in the last ten years that we have been traveling frequently, and I have learned a lot about travel and planning for a successful trip.

• I receive several free travel newsletters by e-mail each week, and one of them arrives three or four times during the week. This newsletter is the Frommers newsletter. Their format includes a section on “deals and news” and then a section of “Reader’s Voices” asking questions, stating problems, or making suggestions. This “Reader’s” section allows for answers or responses. The newsletter is a great resource and I print many items that might be fun, helpful, or educational in the future. You can subscribe to the newsletter by going to the website at www.frommers.com.

• The most unusual newsletter I receive is The Travel Insider written by David M. Rowell. It arrives on Friday and is mostly informational and editorial about interesting developments in the travel industry, alerting readers about travel problems, and lambasting the big air carriers. His weekly column is a fascinating read. You can subscribe to the newsletter by signing up at the website which is www.travelinsider.info.

• The third newsletter is Smarter Living deal alert. It sets out the top travel deals of the week, travel advice with references to articles by Smarter Living travel writers (and others by hyperlink), and sponsor deals. All of these newsletters are free, other than being subjected to their ads. Subscription to Smarter Living can be found at www.smarterliving.com.

• The fourth newsletter I receive is the Independent Traveler. Each week it provides information on destination communities, travel articles, the editor’s picks, travel resources, bargain box deals, and interactive opportunities on message boards. Sign up for the newsletter is at www.independenttraveler.com.

• I also receive the monthly National Geographic Travel newsletter. This newsletter has been substantially upgraded and is now very helpful with interesting destination articles, travel tips, and great photography. You can subscribe (for free) to the newsletter at www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/.

• If you have been following my travel articles, you know that I am a frequent user of go-today.com. This is a website travel packager that can be accessed only by the internet (or by phone for an extra fee). I have purchased foreign trips from them on the internet to Vienna, Tuscany, Paris, London, Brussels, and Bangkok and everything they have promised has been delivered. Check out their new website and you will see the wide array of one week trips offered to Europe, South and Central America, and Asia. The package usually will include air travel, hotel, breakfast, sometimes pickup and return to the destination airport, and a half day city tour the day after arrival. It is well worth your looking at their website at www.go-today.com. A competitor to Go-Today is Gate1 Travel. I have their website on my favorites. Their similar packages (and escorted trips) are found at www.gate1travel.com.

• Finally, for those of you who enjoy travel writing literature (like I do), please look at www.worldhum.com. This site reviews recent travel books and interviews travel writers. It is also a very helpful site for hyperlinks to travel journals, travel magazines, travel blogs, newspaper travel sections, book stores, and a myriad of interesting travel websites. The title of the site is World Hum – Travel dispatches from a shrinking planet. Take a look at it.

This article was published in the Winter 2004 issue of the ABA Judicial Record newsletter.

Luggage Incompatibility?

  Never enough bags?

After 40 years of marriage and always traveling together, you would think Mary Ann and I had things pretty well worked out. Au Contraire! We seem to have had a four decade dialogue about what luggage is necessary for any particular trip. The conversation begins in earnest as the suitcases come out for packing. Needless to say, I have never won the argument. I have come to the conclusion that our luggage and packing philosophies are exact opposites. Here are the basic positions:

Mary Ann’s Philosophy: She has never seen a suitcase she didn’t like, or in other words, the continuing quest for the perfect travel bag.

Tom’s Philosophy: Who would ever need more than a lightweight backpack to carry the three t-shirts, two pairs of khaki pants, underwear, extra pair of shoes, and six cigars? Of course, this traveler is a person of excellent taste, style, and looks like an ugly American at Disneyland.

As this saga has continued through the years, I think it has resulted in the purchase of at least 50 suitcases. Every relative in our family has at least one discarded set of our old (meaning we bought new) suitcases. In addition, if you are a traveler you really do want to attend our yard sales, as luggage is always available. As a new bag arrives my question is always “Do we need that bag?”

In our travel the basic complement is at least three bags:

• The Carry-On Bag – Must fit under the seat in front of you (no easy task with airline seats that are shrinking) and also serve as a footstool for a certain short legged woman.

• The Husband’s Bag – Must be capable of holding everything the male needs, plus space for six pairs of women’s shoes.

• The Wife’s Bag – A bag bigger than the husband’s bag because she will need at least two changes of clothes for each day of traveling. This is complicated, because most often the wife I know best can’t make up her mind about which outfits she will want to wear, so the possibilities multiply far beyond the 2 X travel day basic formula.

All fun aside I do have some basic true advice about luggage:

- Do try to pack only what you really need (remember your back problem!). Most travelers, including Mary Ann and I, always take too much.

- Remember you have only two hands to lift and pull luggage.

- Every bag you have must be on wheels and have a pull bar.

- If the bag isn’t light before you pack it, it sure won’t be light after you put all that stuff in it!

- Remember when you are a frugal traveler you may have to lift all those bags up four stories of the European pension that has no elevator.

As I think back about all those suitcases, my only wish is that I had bought stock in Samsonite in 1963!

The Rest of the Story by Mary Ann Warren

(I must be a saint to live with that man!)

First of all you, must understand the first part of this article was written by a man who has never packed his own suitcase, nor has he ever traveled with only three tee shirts, two pairs of Khaki pants, underwear, and an extra pair of shoes. He does, however, always pack at least one cigar for each day of the trip.

He is also wrong in saying I have never seen a suitcase I didn’t like. The problem is that I am indeed in search of the perfect bag and have yet to find it. This, however, does not stop me from trying and I have learned a lot of things about luggage in this search.

• Cheap is not always good. When I have purchased inexpensive luggage that looks perfect, it always comes apart on the first trip. The zippers seem to be the first thing to go, and that can be embarrassing if the suitcase comes open as you pick it up in the airport.

• The larger the better is really not a good idea. I admit as I have gotten a little older I find a nice mid-sized bag much easier to move around. Of course this does mean you have to cut down on what you take, but not by much.

• I do love the person who invented wheels for luggage. One reason for new bags is that the design of the wheels keeps getting better and the luggage is easier to pull.

• Another favorite, which I always carry, are plastic bags of all sizes. You can buy large vacuum bags for sweaters, which when you push the air out will compress the clothes to a quarter the space and they still look great when you arrive. Also, zip lock bags can be used for everything from candy to bottles that might break.

• Always carry extra folding bags in your suitcase when traveling. They are great for coming home with extra bottles of wine or gifts for the family, and are a whole lot easier to use as extra carry-on bags than paper shopping bags.

Please remember while the Judge is honorable, and very honest, his view of luggage is a bit tainted by back pain.

© Thomas C. Warren & Mary Ann Warren 2011 (Published in the summer 2004 ABA Judicial Record and the winter 2006 Senior Lawyer, the newsletter of the ABA Senior Lawyers Division.)

Some Really Good Travel Ideas

Your very accomplished ABA Judicial Record newsletter editor, Joel Medd, when checking about this article said, “Hope you can send me something. If not, TAKE A TRIP NOW, or tell us about planning for a successful trip.” What a coincidence, Mary Ann and I, did recently complete a trip to Belgium, enjoying a very nice visit to Brussels, Bruges, Ghent, and Waterloo. That story will wait for a future article as in this issue I want to give you a few tips about making your self-guided travels easy, safe, and with as little hassle as possible. These are personal (or stolen) ideas which we have tried and time tested. The list is:

 Give up on the old fashioned use of travelers checks. We used to always use travelers checks, but these days they are hard to cash, and in many locations are not accepted at all. We have switched to using debit cards and credit cards. ATM machines are everywhere and so easy to use (even as a bank machine challenged old judge I have only screwed up the transaction a couple of times). Of course I am always frantic looking for that first ATM! You receive the best exchange rate and get the amount of cash you need quickly, safely, and easily without a lot of extra fees. We also used to carry a lot of U.S. currency, but no longer do that because the banks and currency exchange folks seem to charge an arm and a leg for the privilege of discounting your money and these are hard to find with the advent of the Euro!

 Have you ever heard of Rick Steves? He is the guru of self guided travel. His videos are all over public television and he publishes a new book, map, and guide on most European countries every year. Mary Ann and I have not followed his format for train travel yet, but we swear by his very practical advice about visiting tourist sites, touring cities, and what to really see and what to eliminate. He can save you a lot of money and time. As an example he advised to buy a pass to all the museums in Paris at the Metro station. With such a pass you can enter the Louvre and all the major museums by using the group entrance, thus avoiding the 2 hour line at the main entrance. His books on various cities, countries, and Europe as a whole are found in any book store. Also you can get his advice free at www.ricksteves.com.

 Mary Ann insists I tell you to always carry a fold up cloth bag in your luggage. Why for goodness sake? It is so you will have the extra suitcase to put all the “stuff” in, that your spouse has probably bought on the trip. You can then check it through on the return trip rather than look like a pack mule. I speak from experience! Just contemplate bringing back the 11 sweaters from Ireland, the pottery plates from both Italy and Portugal, the beach blankets from Mexico and the olive wood crèche from Israel. Oh, the list can go on and on! My poor back.

 The conversion to the Euro all over Europe (with a couple of exceptions such as Great Britain) has been a real relief. You don’t have to figure out all the conversions to the lira, the franc, or the deutschmark and you don’t return with all that useless currency. The Euro is roughly the equivalent of the U.S. dollar, and the subparts of the Euro are on the decimal system like our cents. When you change countries you no longer have to change money. Hurray!

 After that long overnight flight to Europe, don’t you dare take a nap when you arrive. Been there-done that-big mistake. Keep moving for that first day even though you are groggy and tired. This will get you on the time change schedule and get rid of the jet lag faster. Then try and just sleep the regular hours that night. You will be better for it.

 Before departing on the trip slim down your billfold or purse. Get all those extra credit cards and other information out of there. Your debit card, one credit card, medical card and driver’s license should be plenty. If you lose a card or the billfold you will have fewer people to notify. If you and your spouse carry different credit cards, you will still have one to use if one of them can’t be used. Also make copy of both sides of the cards, and your passport, and put that copy in a separate place in your luggage. Follow Rick Steves’ first rule of travel, and use a waist or neck money belt when touring around in crowds, public transportation, or anytime when out and about.

 Finally, I suggest that in the first day or two or your destination arrival that you get yourself acclimated with one of those two hour (half-day) city tours. The cost is rarely more than $25 and it will give you a really good perspective of the city you are in, and what you will want to return to see.

Happy travels! Go get started. 

(Published in the Summer 2003 ABA Judicial Record)