Travel tips: who needs hotels anymore?

Traditionally when we go on holidays, we used to go to a travel agency where they could either help us build a trip with their limited options, or sell us a package (something still interesting).

Now the biggest travel agency is Internet. We we create our custom trip, filter options like dates, type of travel and get listings of suitable options.

At the same time we can check for reviews of either the website we are using, the hotels they suggest or even the destinations.

The idea of the is post is to give you some of the tools I use and stress the idea that we don’t need to book expensive hotels anymore, that a new bree of websites where you can rent apartments wherever you are planning to, could threaten hotels in the future.

Flights

Kayak will let you search for the cheapest dates to go to your desired destination or suggest you cheap destinations for your selected dates. Kayak has an incredible iPhone app and a pretty good iPad app.

Alternatives to Kayak: airfarewatchdog, yapta, farecompare…

If you are looking for a set of flights around the world, then I have to recommend you the one we used: http://www.roundtheworldflights.com/

Hotels…

Kayak will give suggest you hotels, and it uses the most notable hotel booking sites such as expedia, booking.com, etc…

If you want Cheap Hostels and Bed and Breakfasts, the we use: HostelWorld, it is great for that.

A cool resource for knowing if the hotel you are about to book is OK with tons of reviews, is: tripadvisor (also for iPhone and iPad).

Another cool tool for hotels (specially for the US) is room77 a website where they show you the best rooms for a specific hotel, with the views and so.

but… who want hotels?

Who wants to book a hotel when you can find a great located and flat or a room shared at an incredible spot…

We went to Paris booking an apartment with hometown, luxury apartments for a fraction of what you pay for a hotel, located at the heart of Paris (highly recommended). I also used Isabel’s apartments in a couple of occasions, also great apartments, even if the website is not that nice.

Here is where I want to go:  big websites covering apartments all around the globe.

The most notable:

•  Airbnb (my favorite): this one is the more professional website, the one with more investment in it. It is incredible the choice you can find there, apartments, rooms, everywhere!
• Homelidays: this one is strong in Europe. You can find a nice house in the beach, with swiming pool for a fraction of what you would pay for a hotel…
• Lofty: similar to airbnb but smaller.
• and one focused more in france: abritel

Now if you want to sleep for free, then you have to use couchsurfing: a huge network of people all around the globe that will let you use their couch to sleep for free.

Mini Stove

Room 77

This website offers you a very cool service (in the US so far).

Room 77 is a site (and iPhone app) that helps you choose the right room in a hotel.

Normally you go online and book a room, and in the same hotel you could have very different room, one facing the sea, one with a building on the site. The idea is to have a database of the best rooms for each hotel… cool isn’t it?

Having breakfast by the pool

Life is good ;-) 26 degree and Geneva airport closed…

Posted from Mbour, Thies, Senegal.

Chiling out at the pool bar

Enjoying a Gazelle beer by the pool.



Posted from .

Saly Portudal, Senegal

Posted from .

Take a 12 min trip on San Francisco cable car in 1906

Take a trip back in time. This 11-minute reel of film, shot from a cable car on Market Street, captures a city full of life and promise, which was destroyed only days later in the great earthquake of 1906.

Packing like a pro

22 Incredible Photos of Faraway Places

Thailand

Chances are you already know Steve McCurry as the man who took one of the most iconic photos of our time. It was of a 12-year-oldAfghan refugee girl who’s piercing green eyes told us her harrowing story. The image itself was named as “the most recognized photograph” in the history of the National Geographic magazine and her face became famous as the cover photograph on their June 1985 issue.

Beyond just that one photo, McCurry has shot over a million images spanning 35 years. More than anything, he is one of a few that has that amazing ability to capture stories of our shared human experience. As he says “Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape that you could call the human condition.”

Looking through his large body of work, we get to experience fantastic faraway places we can only dream about visiting. It’s in his incredible photos that we feel connected to the world at large, appreciating our similarities and our differences, our cultures and our histories, and our past and our present in a truly unique and everlasting way.

Afghanistan

Yemen

Tibet

Cambodia

India

Burma

Eastman Kodak let McCurry shoot the last ever produced roll of Kodachrome transparency film. The film, known for its rich saturation and archival durability of its slides, was discontinued last year. The roll will be the subject of an upcoming documentary by National Geographic. Can’t wait to see it.

Steve McCurry

(from mymodernmet)

Time off

Just to tell you tht I am taking some time off. We are on holidays in Salou, in Spain, with limited Internet access.

Back in August ;-)

Traveling? Create your own travel guide

Stay.com turns travel planning into a fun and social activity. Have fun discovering some of the best attractions, restaurants and hotels around the world, collect places you find interesting in your own guide and share it with family and friends.

Forget about your already outdated travel books. Stay.com has updated information on thousands of places to visit for your next vacation or business trip.

Simply collect everything you find interesting in your own personal guide. This way you can bring along all the details you need. You can print your guide in a nice compact format which is easy to fold and put in your pocket.

A very cool idea!

Barcelona for a while

From the 17 till Saturday we stayed in Barcelona. We met Quio and Anna, Sergio… we went to Salamanca for lunch with the family… relax.

Then to Geneva.

Key Biscayne

In our last day in Miami, we packed and checked out. Had breakfast and put everything in the trunk of the car. Then we headed to Key Biscayne where we spent most of the day.

We went to the lighthouse and to the beach, then we went to Boaters Grill, where we had some seafood before taking the car and drive to the airport.

End of trip. We took the plane, of course Iberia did not give us the right seats, but there was a very nice lady who gave us hers, so we could put Kai in his little bed.

Miami: downtown, little Haiti and design district

We spent the day exploring other parts of Miami. Distances are big there. We went first to have breakfast at bayfront, in downtown. We did not manage to get breakfast at the hotel because we went down too late… but breakfast at bayfront was nice.

We walked around and went to downtown. After that we took the car and drove to little Haiti and the design district where we had lunch in a very nice Italian restaurant (no pizza). After lunch we drove to coconut groove, visited a commercial centre and finally went back to Miami Beach. That day we had dinner at the hotel by the pool. Very nice.

Everglades

After having breakfast at the hotel, we took the car and headed towards Florida city and Everglades, in the south west of Florida. And incredible natural park that is like a the biggest delta of the world, coming from a lake and instead of ending in the sea like a traditional river it does so in this particular way, so a mix of salty waters from the sea and spring waters from the lake and rivers. The only place in earth where you can find together alligators and crocodiles.

There was a lot of people with incredible digital cameras just to photograph the birds. The wild life in the everglades was incredible, honestly. We took a boat the took us through the canal and to the lakes. Very nice experience, seeing all kinds of animals and birds.