I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope that 2014 turns out to be a great one for all. Here’s to hoping for some big credit card offers and great trips to come in the future!
Yesterday I posted a recap of Where We Went in 2013.
For my first post of the new year I’ll keep it brief.
I haven’t been posting many jumping photos recently so I figured that a good start to the new year would be a jumping photo compilation including a photo or 2 from each country that we visited in 2013.
2013 was an awesome and busy year of travel for Kim, Lucas and I.
While we don’t travel for work (all of our trips are for leisure), we still managed to take 9 trips this year.
We visited a diverse mixture of countries and U.S. states, flying mainly with miles and points. (I haven’t included roadtrips in my totals.) We only paid for one of our flights due to it being such a good deal.
In case you’re interested in how how we used miles and points to pay for our flights, I’ve included links to my trip planning posts to each of the places we’ve visited.
Back in October, Budget Travel had a slideshow about a frustrating topic, travel sites where photography is not allowed.
It drives me nuts when I visit a site and see the horrible rule posted informing us that no photos are allowed. It’s pretty much a guaranteed way to start off my visit in a negative way.
Continue reading Budget Travel: 9 Travel Sites Where Photography Is Not Allowed
Although Kim, Lucas and I don’t celebrate Christmas, we still enjoy seeing decorations and the elaborate displays set up for the holiday season.
It isn’t hard to find great Christmas decorations close to home. In Brooklyn, three neighborhoods stand out for their elaborate displays- Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and Mill Basin. There is even a Brooklyn Christmas Lights Tour which costs $55 and runs every night from November 30 until December 31 at 7 PM. The tours are ran by A Slice of Brooklyn.
From there you could always head into Manhattan to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, check out the amazingly decorated store windows and visit holiday markets.
Reminder: I’m giving away 2 American Airlines Admiral Club Passes. Enter for a chance to win HERE.
Kim and I love animals and have had many great and memorable experiences during our travels. I wrote about our Top 5 Animal Encounters which you can check out here.
Over the years there have been a couple of amazing animal videos on YouTube that really stand out.
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve come across an exciting, new animal video on YouTube.
A couple of days back, I was skimming over the top articles on Yahoo. An article with a very interesting title caught my attention.
Continue reading Amazing Wildlife Video: Lion Sent Flying By Buffalo
Lonely Planet has a list of Ten Day-Trips From New York that I found to be pretty interesting which could possibly be of use to us in the future.
Kim and I aren’t big on day-trips but we like to take short weekend trips from home in Brooklyn, NY (staying over for a night or 2) at times. We’ll usually head to Philadelphia, other areas nearby in Pennsylvania or go upstate to New York.
Lucas used to hate being in the car, mainly due to being stuck in his car seat but as he is getting older, he is much better in the car now. Day-trips might be something for us to consider in the near future but then there is the factor that I don’t love to drive!
Last week I used Gogo Inflight internet on Thanksgiving during our flights to Florida with Air Tran. This definitley helped to pass the time during the trip and I even got to finish a post or two while up in the air!
I just received an e-mail from Gogo offering 30% Off Your First Month.
I don’t really have a need for a monthly Gogo pass but if I did, I think this offer would be an excellent deal. Continue reading 30% Off Your First Month Of GoGo
This past September, we finally got to attend a festival that I’ve been dying to go to for years- Oktoberfest. We had an incredible time and I’d love to go again in the future.
Fodor’s included Oktoberfest in a slideshow that was of interest to me, 14 Festivals To Attend Before You Die.
Festivals included in the slideshow take place all around the world. Some of the festivals I’ve heard of and would love to check out in person, while some of them were new to me.
Continue reading Fodor’s: 14 Festivals To Attend Before You Die
Many of us playing the miles and points game are always on the lookout for a great deal or other ways to save a bit while traveling.
Kim and I like to head to destinations which are off-season at times. This could lead to incredible value as well as having sites pretty much all to your self.
Many times off-peak does not equal a bad time to go.
A couple of trips that we’ve taken that come to mind are Guatemala in late June/ early July which can be the rainy season and Egypt/ Jordan in mid August which can be a time where it is extremely hot. In both of these cases we had a great time and were lucky to visit sites which were a lot less crowded than their busier times of year to visit.
Continue reading Lonely Planet’s Best Value Travel Destinations 2014
For this week’s Flashback Friday I’d like to focus on another major interest that Kim and I have while traveling: animal encounters. Some of our favorite travel memories have included these experiences.
We’ve had many great animal encounters so it wasn’t easy to pick a list of our favorites but I had decided on selecting a top 5.
Here is the post:
This post was originally published on April 26, 2012.
