Looking for help on international travel

My brother just spent three weeks in Provence--the north western part.

Took his five litre jug into the local winery on a regular basis and it filled up for about $15.00.

 

I agree with the suggestion to head North to Canada. I think Vancouver and Toronto would be fascinating cities to visit.

Or what about Chile or Peru? I've heard you can get some pretty decent deals on vacation packages.

Our next international trip is Tuscany and other parts of Italy in 2009.

 

That's lucky. Everywhere I walked some dude would walk past me whispering "crack? coke? lsd?"

It was still a fantastic place and deserves a quick side story: My bro and I went to Europe after we graduated (me, college and he, high school). One of our stops was Amsterdam, where we stayed in a youth hostel. As you all know, pot is commonplace there. Well, imagine my surprise and delight when I opened the locker assigned to me and found a dime bag and a pipe on the top shelf. A note accompanied the goodie bag: "Hey dudes. Traveling back to the states and can't take our stash. Enjoy Amsterdam!"

That kicked ass.

Anyway, I went to Ireland in August. Loved it. My fam and I stayed in an authentic Irish cottage, which really equated to something like a condo at a ski resort. Stay someplace in central Ireland so you can travel around. We rented a car and drove West and South. It was an amazing trip.

Sorry this is disjointed. I'm distracted by Grey's.

 

Anyone know a good website to check out B&Bs or to a lesser extent, hotels in Ireland?

 

I live in London and while the exchange rate has been killing me, it's not that expensive. If you book far enough ahead in advance, you can get a pretty good hotel room for two for around $100 (£45-£50) a night. And a week pass for unlimited subway and bus use in central London (zone 1) for one person costs little under $50 (£23.20). That'll take you anywhere you want to go.

Except for special exhibitions, the big museums are free to get into. Breakfast (of a sort) is included at a lot of hotels and you can buy sandwiches for around $5-6. And the Globe Theatre has hundreds of $10 standing tickets down "in the pit" for each performance.

So yeah, it's pretty costly but not out of your reach if you've got the yen. But like everyone else has said, September and October is a lot cheaper. The weather - relatively speaking - is still pretty good and the prices take their seasonal dip.

 

Yeah, I just don't think you're going to find flights to Europe for $750 during the summer. Think closer to $1,000, which is half your budget already.

And yes, the exchange rate sucks. In England right now, it's 2-1, so just about everything costs twice as much. The euro's likely to be trading at 1.50-1 by next summer.

Yes, the chances of hitting crappy weather increase outside the summer. But there's a decent chance the weather's gonna suck in the summertime, too. You get used to it.

If you're planning to get around to different places in England, you can buy a train pass. They sell them in different iterations. I think they have four days and eight days, consecutive and non-consecutive. They also sell them with access to trains to Scotland, Wales, wherever. I had a four-day, non-consecutive one, and I think it was...$160? Something like that. They're not available to Brits, only to tourists.

But here's the thing: They have four little boxes on them for stamping the date. If you just show them to the conductor, there's a good chance he won't do anything -- if he even bothers to ask you for a ticket at all. I used mine five different days, and ended up having it stamped twice. I went out of my way to get it stamped a couple times, and they looked at me like I was nuts. It was like they'd never seen the things. (I was in a residential train station that was off the beaten path, but still.)

There are similar passes for European train travel as well. I used www.britrail.com, but that site's being uncooperative and asking me to log in? So go here: http://www.railpass.com/new/passes/psBrit.htm?gclid=CPuTr5yTjo8CFQqZggodMiuRfA

And whatever you do, for God's sake stay away from Heathrow. There's a reason everyone hates that place.

 

I studied abroad in London two summers ago. London was the base city, but also went to Italy, Ireland, Amsterdam and Paris for weekend trips.

A few suggestions:
1. Once you figure out your flight to and from U.S., come up with a rough schedule of what you want to do and if you want to fly or take the train to those other places. I'm pretty sure you can get Eurorail passes for a week and that gives you some flexibility. When I traveled outside the UK I flew easyjet or ryanair. If you book those flights more than a week in advance you can get flights for as little as 10Euros with taxes.

2. Try to make a balance of tourist and off the path stuff. Sure you want to hit up all the tourist hot spots, but after a while you get sick of looking at castles or cathedrals. Some of the favorite things I did on my trips were the non tourists things. It was my first time in Europe, so I wanted to do all the tourist things, but it's hard to cram them all in and not always worth it. I went to Italy for five days, but it seemed like we spent most of the time traveling. In and out of Rome to different cities. The one full day we had in Rome we went to the Vatican, which took most of the day, but because it was our last day we felt we had to shove more things in, so after that went to Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Colosseum and Pantheon. I'm Catholic, so I felt I had to see the Vatican, and there is a lot of great things to see there. But, I didn't think the Sistine Chapel was all it was cracked up to be. There was a lot of other great art before it, and the Chapel is beautiful but after waiting a few hours in line to get into the Vatican, then an hour or so tour through the other Vatican museums you are tired. They shove too many people into the Chapel at once -- it's standing room only -- and you have to wrench your neck to see the ceiling...Anyways, so after the Vatican we rushed around to see all these other tourist spots, when if we would have just focused on one and relaxed it probably would have been better. Outside the Pantheon I told one of the guys I was traveling with that I had read about this place in grade school and high school world history classes, but couldn't tell him anything about it. But, because it was in a tourist guide I felt I had to go there and check it off my list.

Favorite part about Italy was going to Capri. That island is breathtaking. You get to have a feel for the locals and can see some of the bluest and clearest water in the world. We had a cab driver that said he went to America to learn English because Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, and other celebs came. We took a boat tour with a local and he showed us more than 5 grottos the water in each was clearer, blue-er and more beautiful than the next.

For trip to Ireland went to Dublin and mostly stayed around there. I wish I had seen the countryside. My parents went to the countryside for a wedding a few weeks after I went to Dublin and said it was amazing. Beware that the Blarney Stone is about a 3-hour train ride away from Dublin, so you need to make a day for it, or make it as part of a tour around the country. In retrospect I wish I hadn't gone and checked out Dublin more or the surrounding area more. It was another place that I felt I had to go to and check off a list. Favorite part of Ireland beside Guinness tour was taking one of the Dublin trains to the end of the line. We went to some small town on the coast and it was great to see the coastline. There was also a carnival with live music and rides going on, which was pretty cool. I don't know many people that can say they've been on a tilt-a-while in Ireland.

So, make plans for travel early, you can save lots of pounds/Euros/$ and don't be afraid to skip a museum/castle/cathedral to see something less conventional. The less conventional will probably be worth it and will give a truer feel for the country than being with all the other tourists.

Oh, and save more than you think you will spend and don't forget the conversion rate. Once you get over there your money is worth 1/3 to 1/2 of what you brought over there.

Note to self: work on concise writing.