Travel In Pictures
Welcome
Hi ! My name is Richard and you have arrived at my travel journal.
You can read all of spiel and find out more about me here. I've been travelling the world now for a few months armed with a bag of clothes, a laptop and my incredibly unreliable digital camera. Enjoy the blog and contact me if you'd like to join the scores of people abusing me.
5 things I’ve learnt part 1
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So I’ve now moved onto the great state of Florida and it’s great. There will be much more to follow on Florida shortly. For now I’m going to divulge a few things I’ve picked up on my travels.
1. Coffee and laptops don’t play nice together
One part of my travels that I am still struggling to get over is my unfortunate accident in Edinburgh where I manage to bathe my laptop in a mug of coffee. Embarassing yes! but a valuable lesson learnt don’t pour coffee onto your laptop under any circumstances. Read the rest of this entry »
Airport Hotels
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airport hotels is a subject I’ve not mentioned previously on the blog. I have touched on airport parking but after arriving at Bahamas airport and staying in their resident hotel I realised that research is key for anyone’s budget or sanity.
You see I flew into Bahamas and naively checked myself straight in at a high cost where as if I was searching for Gatwick hotels or Heathrow airport hotels I would have felt more comfortable searching because I know the area. Anyway the point I’m trying to make is that searching online can be done no matter where in the world you are landing. You can even see for hotels that are in close proximity to the airport for extra savings.
Swerving the credit crunch.
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As you may have picked up from previous posts I am always on the look out for money saving tips and to help me do this I mostly buy stuff I need at web prices. The credit crunch has hit everybody I know hard and I’ve been forced to try and cut my already meagre budget by even more.
Step in moneysavingexpert.com,this site is filled to the brim with Money saving advice from a fellow named Martin Lewis who is apparently a money saving expert himself. He even has his own fan site! Check out more about Martin Lewis and don’t forget to visit Money Saving Expert.
Living in Luxury at San Diego
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And I wonder why my budget is on its last legs! Following on from my last post I’ve been looking into San Diego luxury vacation rental. San Diego and California is a beautiful and place and there is lots to-do so having a great place to come back to would be great.
From what I can remember San Diego has a great list of attractions and my last trip there included a neat cruise- this bit I do remember, so I would like to relax a bit more in a upmarket renting. I’ll definatley need to be looking at San Diego furnished vacation rentals at the very least.
Anyway I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll keep looking at vacation rental San Diego and decide whether to go upmarket or get a modest place. I’ve a few other places to visit first so will see how my budget is looking closer to the time.
More research, America etc.
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I’m now in Paris and have just settled into my hostel. A hostel although usually the status quo of travellers wouldn’t have been my first choice normally. My funds are shockingly low at the moment so rather than a grovelling call to the bank I’ve been trying to research and organise my travels better. So far my hap-hazard preparation has cost me financially.
I’ve been looking firstly at Travel Coupons which could be a great money saver as I am constantly on the move and more than ready to accept last minute, cheaper deals. This USA Road Trip Planner is extremely useful for my plans of exploring America. America is a huge place and using a trip planner as well as a gas card could be brilliant.
All of this research has been taking place mostly on this Open Travel Info web site. A great guide in my opinion and definitely worth a visit. I think I may be using it more and more in the future.
More on driving America …
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In my last post I talked about travelling America via car and I’ve been looking further into it as I can’t wait to get there. What did I find ? gas cards, they seem to be a great way of saving money or dollars whilst I’m travelling the land of opportunity.
After all my fund aren’t exactly a bottomless pit ! gas cards are effectively credit cards for gas. Not to be confused with English saving cards that will give points or rewards for a certain amount spent over time. Many English reward cards will only give around 1% back.
Gas credit cards can give you as much as 20% cash-back which is great. They operate in the same way as regular credit cards where you can choose to clear your balance on a weekly or monthly basis. Another benefit is the fact that they save pressure time at the pay point which is important when you want to hit the road.
I’ve still to see the legal wranglings of a traveller applying and being accepted for a card but if I can get my hands on one I will definitely be doing so.
Thinking of America
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At some point on my travels I will inevitably cross the pond and do America! I would love to stop by Hawaii and have been thinking of the best ways to travel. Despite my recent problems with rental cars I have been looking at Hawaii Car Rental and Car Rentals, Maui.
America and American states such as Hawaii are much better travelled in my opinion by car and since I don’t want to pay the charge for shipping my car over, rental is the only option. In fact I believe any travel should be aided in some way by cars. That is of course until a greener method because available that is as convenient.
I have been fortunate to visit Florida when I was younger on a family holiday and without a car I can imagine things being really difficult. Therefore researching Miami Car Rentals has also been a must before travelling over to America. After all how can I visit America without seeing Disney Land.
Learning Italian in Italy
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Why? Easy to say!…. Have you ever tried to speak Italian or any other foreign language while walking in your country or while traveling on the underground, when you know the person you are talking
with, can properly manage your language? Do you remember the feeling?
You fell ridiculous, as trying to do something not natural at all.
Nobody is probably looking at you or understanding what you are saying, but you feel like everyone is doing it.
Even if at the end you’ll very proud of yourself, because you could make it, it has been stressful and it was a choice.
Well. Come to Italy! You probably know it….. but everyone here speaks Italian! It is just normal and anyone expects you to do that; even if some Italians will definitely try to speak your language or just English to make you feel more comfortable.
Even if all this seems obvious, in fact it is not. Being partly Italian means moving, laughing, walking, watching things as Italians do, or at least, means knowing how Italians do that. There is a whole
of it that only Italy can offer and this is the best way to get the grasp or to improve the knowledge of what “Italian” means.
Once you’ve got it, you can go on learning words, rules, functions and improving your skills in listening, understanding, reading and speaking, aiming first to be understood.
Being in a friendly and authentic environment is fundamental to promote a true learning process and that’s what Istituto Linguistico Mediterraneo has always done since 1981, when the school was firstopened and they started to deal with the subject of helping people in learning Italian Language and Culture. Several Italian Courses offered.
Pisa (open all the year) and Viareggio (open in summer) offer a good picture of Italian Culture and Habits in any season.
Living in a big city can be more adventurous, but the true Italian daily life is gone with the cosmopolitan lifestyle.
Italian have a motto: “Paese che vai, Usanza che trovi” (if you go in different country, you will find different habits). It might be a good idea to pursue this goal and get to know more about Italian Lifestyle,
besides monuments and cliché.
