Travel for the Over 30s

I spend a lot of time online and it takes a great deal for me to be impressed these days - but this little online site TripIT has just blown me away. If you have ever had trouble managing your own online trip itinerary this site is for you.

You may recall in the old days that the most exciting thing was before you left of a big trip you went down the travel agency and they presented you with your pages and pages of travel itinerary - plus usually a spare to leave with your nearest and dearest at home.

Well its been along time since anyone has done that for me and I distinctly remember the last time I organised a 6 week trip to Europe that I ended up with an endlessly updated spreadsheet - which I then had problem priniting out at 3am the night before we left!

TripIT has seen a market need and provides a brilliant solution. Sign up for a free account then when you get those emails confirming your flight and hotel bookings you just forward it to TripIT and they automatically compile them into one, easy to read itinerary.  Automatically and for free! They claim to be able to automatically generate itineraries from over 500 different sources including Airlines, Hotel chains, rental car companies and major online travel consolidators.

But its better than that - TripIT also allows you to edit your itineary and add items in so you can add planned events without actually having to book them. And then you can share your itineary with a number of different emails so everyone stays up to date on your holiday plans.

There is a up sell to the paid version which automatically notifies your mobile if there are flight delays and changes - more use to the frequent business traveller - but check it out whatever your budget - free is good!

I came across this site a while ago and its the real deal. Developed by someone who really has travelled the world and has some great advice on how to  travel the world  to share.

The site is a beautiful example of flexibility of WordPress and how nice a site can look - especially if the owner is a talented photographer as well.

How To Travel The World takes the wanna-be traveller through the whole process of deciding if to travel, pre-trip preparation, finding a place to stay and even returning home.

Its focused mainly on the younger backpacker market but there are tips and tricks for all ages here. Not sure whether you should buy point-to-point or round the world ticket check out the RTW tickets pages. Even if you are not down to last $10 - why waste money on unnecessary items, my pet hate is over-paying for a so-called “hotel” when a hostel would have been cheaper and better quality!

I think these types of websites are going to really take off as people get tired of over-paying for vacations but still want to travel - the bonus is that the cheaper you travel the more likely you are to have a great travel experience

Today is a bit of a guest post from Simon from Overland Wannabe which is a great looking blog about a journey into the unknown as Simon is looking for a good used van in the UK - so if you have any ideas on this head over to his blog and leave him a comment!  Simon left some recommendations on European hostels on my previous post and offered the following in, in part, to my query on more information.

Packing list for European Hostels

• Obviously normal packing stuff is required
• Towels - you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve forgotten a towel
• Sleeping bag - sheets are normally provided but don’t count on it (Lis notes; in contrast sleeping bags are not allowed in Australian hostels but beds are provided with duvets and sheets)
• Dressing gown or respectable pyjamas, some hostels are friendly enough that you can walk around in a dressing gown, it also makes the transition from boiling hot shower to not so hot room easier

Booking into a European hostel is simply a case of calling up and asking if they have space, most places are still 4 to 8 in a room, with sexes being separated.  A few are also offering smaller rooms, but for these the price will be higher.

How Much Does A Hostel in Europe Cost?

17euros - that seems to be the average price of a western European Hostel
12euros - is the rough average of an eastern European Hostel

Both usually include breakfast and free showers.

What Facilities to Expect in a European Hostel

This mostly depends on the hostel’s location.  If you are close to, or in, a larger city or town expect the facilities to be less as the city will be your playground.
Outside of the larger cities then expect a small bar serving hot food and local beers, pool tables, TV/Social Rooms, Cooking areas (mostly a few microwaves and electric hobs) and a dining area for those that serve meals throughout the day.

Most Hostels cater for any age and you will probably not be alone how ever young or old you are!

Best place for finding Hostels - Google of course!

Lissie notes that hostelworld.com and hostels.com are good places for mainly unbiased reviews - just read between the lines - some people expect 5-stars for 10 Euros!

And yes the castle is a hostel too - Koblenz on the Rhine in Germany

Photo Credit

OK the Internet is awash with Top Tips to Save Money on Vacation so lets get a bit more specific. This is going to be an occasional series where I look at ways to save money on your next trip.  They are not prescriptive, they won’t all work - they are just some thoughts which may help. Let me know what your favourite money saving tricks on  vacation transportation are in the comments. And yes I found an excuse to use some of my favorite traffic photos from Vietnam and Cambodia!

Travel Off-Season: avoid school holidays, avoid Christmas-January period in Australia, avoid Europe in July . Going off-season avoidthe crowds too.

Book a Middle of the Night Flight. Often flights are cheaper mid-week, they are often even cheaper at middnight -  I wonder why?

Travel by Bus Not Train: Usually a plane is even cheaper, but if you want to see something than usually a bus is cheaper, especially in Australia and UK.

Travel by Public Transit Not by Taxi:  A taxi is easy, relatively safe way, to travel in a strange town. Sometimes there are no other options - Dubai springs to mind, but that’s rare. Many cities have excellent public transit system, in rush hour its often to take the train from Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport of London’s Heathrow.  Of course you will need to have packed light to take advantage of this.

In many developing countries - don’t use public transit - its really not designed for tourists! Instead hire a tuk-tuk, rickshaw or motorbike rider - and yes they do take luggage, and no there are no safety belts or child seats provided!

Delay Collection  Of Your Car : Don’t collect your car from the airport just to pay for it to be parked at your hotel for a few days while you get over jet-lag and find its easier to use the metro or walk to see town. Delay hiring a car until you are ready to start touring - this can work at either the start or the end of your vacation.Hire the Smallest Car Possible. If there is one of you consider a motorbike or scooter rather than a car. Otherwise hire a small car, it will be cheaper to run, easier to park and cheaper to hire! In some countries - you won’t actually want to drive -an hiring a car with a driver for a  daily rate may well be cheaper than tours or a trying to drive yourself.

Drop Off Your Car At The Same City Sometimes you will get a fantastic price on a relocation of a vehicle, but usually its significantly cheaper to drop off a car in the same place as you hired it.

BookYour Flights and On Ground Transport Early  Booking early will sometimes get you good deals - particularly with budget airlines. There can also be savings with major car companies if you book early.

Use a Local Car Hire Company .  There are normally local hire car companies which are a lot bigger than the familiar names. The cars may be older - but who cares - they still work!

Will there be a lot of romantic couples looking for a Valentine Day travel deal this year? I suspect so, people will still want a short break to make Valentine Day special with their loved one.

The issue is going to be where to get the best travel deal for Valentines. Book early? Book last minute for Valentine Day travel specials? Well its hard to generalise as your part of the world may vary but there are lots and lots of travel deals around so why not try these apprpaches for the best travel deal for Valentines or any time.

• last minute bookings will generally get you the best hotel deal. Try sites such as lastminute.com   or expedia.com but double check the reviews of the property at tripiadvisor.comto see if its quite as good as the advertising;
• consider a luxury hotel in your home town or a nearby resort area. Skip the traffic and the hassle of winter driving and stay local but in luxury - leave the cell phone at home to have a real holiday!
• look for extras and upgrades - maybe let management know its your anniversary - even if its not! Those top-end chocolates and roses can make all the difference - well the chocolate anyway!

Going on holiday once you are over 30 seems to be an issue especially for those who are still single. Going on holidays for the over 30s solo, appears as daunting as dining alone or living alone.

Going on holiday solo for the over 30s doesn’t have to be  nerve racking - but here are some tips on holidays to avoid if you are looking for a holiday as an over 30.

• Avoid anywhere that says “party scene” or “spring break”  - this is code for all the American teens going to somewhere like Mexico because they can drink legally at 18 rather than 21!
• avoid Mallorca Ibiza and similar if they say party scene - seriously if you are over 25 you will feel way, way out of place
• if you don’t have kids don’t go anywhere which advertises itself as “family friendly”. Look out for, and avoid, resorts with baby sitting serivce, kids eat free deals and creches
• think hard before you isolate yourself in accommodation which you can’t escape from e.g. cruise ships and all inclusive resorts on islands.
• if you are solo or with BF rather than a SO avoid honeymoon destinations- theres nothing more bloody depressing when you are single - whether you are over or under 30!

I think as an over 30s you should probably looking for something a little bit different:

• an unusual holiday hotel -maybe stay underwater in Dubai or in a nuclear bunker in Switzerland
• an activity based holiday - a holiday with people who share your interest in architecture or photography or whatever else will be interesting regardless of their ages
• an adventure holiday -head off to an entirely new country - your age will be the last thing on your mind!

And just remember that it doesn’t matter whether you are over 30, over 50 or over 70 - you can still have a fantastic holiday - holidays over 30 rock!

Photo Credit

Well I don’t expect a whole lot of traffic this time of the year so I am just spreading some linkluv around. Midlifetravel was my very,very first website. I had a blog at blogger - but this was a real, fair-dinkum websites. It was the website that I had to write! Some people have a book in them but I had a website that needed writing!

I hadn’t figured out at that stage that the easiest and cheapest way to have a website is to use WordPress, even for a website which doesn’t look like a blog - say my portfolio site so I bought Dreamweaver and spent the quite time of this time of the year to work on it and and produce my very own website!

The idea was to write down all the travel advice I kept on giving people over the years, friends of friends got sent to me for travel advice so I figured that it might be useful! I spend days and days writing it all down and then figuring out how to upload pages to my server.  I like the name: it was like a midlife crises - but for the traveller! It couldn’t have the word traveller in it though because the American’s can’t spell traveler properly.  It had the same target group as this blog: those people who are not on their  gap year travels for first ever big OE - there are lots of sites which cover that market well. Instead  I wanted the  advice for people who were maybe being told to take a tour but had a gut feeling that independent travel was cheaper and more fun!

Well I wrote the website, and that was it really! I had no idea how to promote it or how to make money from it. I could traffic to it now I think - but to be honest I am still unsure how to make money from it - its still a fairly broad topic!

A lot of people seem to be concerned about the concept of carrying lots of cash safely with them when they travel overseas.  It really isnt’ a big deal people - there seems to be a concern that’s its somehow illegal. Carry cash is one of my favorite ways to save money traveling

For almost all countries its not illegal to carry large amounts of cash but there are a few rules:

• many countries will ask you to declare sums of cash over $10,000 or so - I know Australia does- this is presumably because of money laundering concerns, you don’t loose it you just have to declare it on arrival or departure. Lets face it most of us aren’t carrying that much cash!
• a lot of countries have restrictions on carrying their own cash in or out of the country. This is rarely actually enforced and I got a great rate for Syrian dollars on the Turkish side of the border - its your call on the risk here
• a lotof currencies are plain worthless outside the country - Vietnam’s dong and Cambodia’s reals are two that spring to mind immediately - avoid having any left when you leave - particularly if you are flying out.  That’s why backpackers are willing to sell you dong and reals in Bangkok- they stuffed up basically! Bargain with them too!

What currency you carry is up to you but US$ , Euros and pounds are the most accepted.  In the Americas its really only US$ that matter while in parts of Affrica and Asia any of the three will do.  Australian dollars are not much use further from Australia than Bali or SE Asia.

Yesterday I talked about whether travel guides were still relevant today. Today I thought I’d talk about alternative information sources.

There are of course the big travel forums such as Lonely Planet and Bootsnall but for my money some of the best information and especially background information can be found right here on the today network which represents a whole world of bloggers.

From Europe first off we have Portugal, with its pretty, ancient capital of Lisbon. Portugal is one of my favourite countries of the whole continent - the place did invent Port after all - and the food is fantastic particularly if you like seafood!. Also from Europe we have a blogger based in Prague - or Praha as the locals call it. Capital of the Czech Republic - this beautiful town was firmly behind the Iron Curtain the last time I did long trip to Europe - so its absolutely on the top of my list for the next trip.

Still in Europe I was born in England and did my first couple of years of school in Edinburgh , Scotland. Love the history and the culture of Scotland - the climate is a bit of a problem though!

Moving a lot farther east Hong Kong is a popular stop-over for long-haul flights out of Australia and also of course the doorway to modern China. And you have to love anywhere that issues a cold weather warning when its going down to 12C!

Downunder Australia is a continent-sized country which takes 5 hours to fly from one side to the other. I live in Perth, Western Australia. On the other side of the country is a blogger promising us lots of lovely photos of beautiful Sydney.

Alaska is as about as far as you can get from Australia climatically - I’d love to go there one day - though not in the Dark Days of winter!

One final one - not a Today blog but I found him via entrecard which I found via today - and he really does represent my kinda of travel: this is why I travel and thanks for the link Bischoff!

Did I miss any other local bloggers on today? Drop me a comment a link!

I wrote a few days ago about carrying large amounts of cash when I travel, as an alternative to plastic cards. To do this safely the trick is to not to actually carry the vast majority of your cash in your wallet. In fact I rarely carry more than a day or twos worth of cash in my actual wallet. The rest goes in my money belt. But not just any money belt - and not the type of money belt that most people take: which is something that looks like this:

There are numerous versions of these: they are in silk and cotton even leather, they even come in a deluxe version with place for padlock. They all miss the point - these things are not comfortable to wear and they aren’t even secure! Wearing something close to your body is bloody uncomfortable - if you are wearing anything but the loosest shirt it will be visible. Its also easily pick-pocketable too -unless well below your waistline - which again makes it - bloody uncomfortable. I’ve seen someone loose cash out of money belt which was below the waistline, with a shirt tucked in over the top - the bus was admittedly crowded and the Bolivian woman who did it was good - but it happens because everyone knows that travellers carry their money in a belt around their waist! Except that normally these belts get left in your luggage, or even in your day-pack. Anywhere to avoid the inability to bend over that these belts povide!

There are variations of these belts, the most common is the neck pouch. Try slinging a passport, vaccination card, couple of plastic cards and a wad of cash around your neck all day - you will get a sore neck or worse. The deluxe ones come with piano wire so they can’t be cut - pity the thief won’t know that until they try using their knife on your neck!

A money belt that actually works :I use a shoulder holster money belt. These hang over your shoulder and under an arm. I sometimes connect mine to a bra strap but with the right amount of weight they will stay put. They hang free - not close to the body - which makes them a lot cooler to wear. Because they are under your arm its also a lot more descret. I still wear a reasonably loose fitting top to conceal it but it works - I know I’ve worn it for months at a time.

That said, when I travel alone I don’t carry all my cash and valuables in the one place. I sometimes just fold a $100 into a diary or my laundry bag - but I better solution came along: something that looks like a legit belt - in fact is - but has a narrow zippered compartment which will hold a few notes.

Even if I am not wearing a belt everyday this is useful hiding spot. Another option is small pocket which loops around a regular belt which hangs down inside your clothes: but I think this option is more subtle.

You can also get belts which wrap around your leg to hide a few dollars - wouldn’t be big enough for a passport - but  I wear skirts too much for this to work for me- it would certainly work for many guys.

So there you go there are quite a number of options for money belts - but none of them work unless you wear them - and you won’t wear them unless you find them comfortable!  When I am travelling solo the belt never leaves my side. I don’t trust room safes - they are a pain to use anyway, but I never leave my moneybelt in the room if I am having a shower in the ensuite - the belt comes too - and yes I do sleep with it. Tell you what it works I’ve never lost anything more serious than my wallet!