I spent my New Years day at the 125th Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. It is quite the spectacular parade. This parade has a 5 1/2 mile route all the way down Colorado Blvd. It starts at 8 am. This years theme was “Dreams Come True”and included 48 floats all made out of flowers. This year featured a float by Honda that is the longest float in history. Many people camp on Colorado Blvd the night before and ring in the New Year with thousands of other people. This is a huge party! Beware when driving down Colorado Blvd the night before the parade, you car could get sprayed with shaving cream or silly string.

It was a beautiful day for the parade, warm and sunny. There were a lot of spectators and fans. Both schools that were playing in the Rose Bowl later that day had floats in the parade. This year Michigan State and Stanford were the schools competing in the Rose Bowl. I must have been in the Michigan State fan zone. When the Michigan State float went by the crowd around me went wild. It was very exciting, with all the cheering and chanting, very exciting!

On Thursday, January 2,2014 the floats were being featured along a 2.5-mile stretch of roadway at East Sierra Madre and East Washington boulevards. If you missed the parade or if you want to see the floats up close, this is a great time to go view them. This will take about 2 hours to view them. Over 900 volunteers are there to answer you questions.

Every year many cities around the world do amazing things to ring in the new year. Most of us sit at home and watch these things happen from our tv. I want to go experience them personally. Many years I have watched the Rose Parade and thought I want to see it in person. The past 2 years I have had the opportunity. I am so glad I did. It should be on your bucket list. After a little research from this years New Year celebrations, I am making my own bucket list for New Years. I want to London, Paris, Dubai,and Sydney. What other celebrations am I missing? Where would you want to go to ring in the New Year?

Happy New Year everyone! How did you spend your New Years?

I want to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. For those of you traveling or staying home, may you have a safe and blessed season.

It’s Christmas time and everyone is busy celebrating, decorating, entertaining and shopping for the perfect gift. It can be a very hectic and stressful time of year. This year I am trying to sit back and enjoy the season more. It is a very fun time of year. This led me to think about gift giving. Giving the gift of travel is a great gift.This gift is not only great for Christmas but for graduations, birthdays, and wedding presents. The gift of travel is giving the gift of great memories and experiences that will last a life time. It can be the most unforgettable gift. This can be done on almost any budget. You can book the full package trip on many travel sites (go-today, Expedia, AAA, Travelocity) or give gift cards to airlines. Most airlines offer gift cards. This recipient can save them and use them with other gift cards or use it toward a ticket.

US Air
Delta
Continental
United
American
Frontier

Can be purchased from the websites. I did find you can purchase Southwest gift cards at grocery stores and earn points with the purchase. This is all very easy to do and takes the stress out of shopping.I hope this helps both the gift giver and the traveler.

Happy travels everyone and Merry Christmas!

Recently I saw a posting on Facebook “You can’t do everything for $300. How could I go to Chile for that amount?” This sparked an interest in me. How can you? It reminded me of an article I read about home swapping. This family traveled the world on a budget and they did it by trading homes.
I did some research. There are several “home swapping” websites. Some charge a membership fee and some are completely free. Home swapping has been going on for a very long time, with social media, it is becoming popular. There are several things to consider with a home exchange. The biggest thing is, is it right for you? I suggest to do some research. Understand the process and really think about if you are comfortable with strangers staying in your home.

There are 3 different types of home swapping. There is the full swap. This is where you stay in their home while they are staying in your home. There is the swap in which you can stay in a second home or a vacation home. There is staying at the home with the people there during your stay.

Allow time when decide to do a house exchange. There are many decisions to make and things to work out before the house swap. Think of the type of exchange you would like to do. Find the website you want to use (free or pay a membership fee). Decide where you want to vacation at and find a home you like. Will you allow the use of your car for the use of their car (this can save money on transportation). Cleaning the home, do you clean it yourself or hire a professional? Do you leave food? What do you need to put in a secure area? Do you leave animals for the guests to take care of?
Home swapping can save a lot of money. If it is a free swap or even a minimal fee swap, this could save you thousands of dollars. You can cook at the home and save money by not eating out. Some homes offer the car, bikes and other amenities; this will save you money on rentals. If you have sky mileage, you can fly for free or extremely cheap. This is a very frugal way to travel.

The possibilities are endless. One idea is if you are traveling with friends and you use your home for the swap, your friends could pay for the food. This will be their contribution. It will save even more money. Pair that up with sky mileage this would be a very frugal vacation.

Have you vacationed this way before? Do you have an extremely frugal vacation you want to share? I would love to hear about your experiences.

One of the blogs I follow, had this post yesterday http://boardingarea.com/onemileatatime/2013/12/01/us-airways-100-bonus-shared-miles-returns/. This is a very good deal. This deal is offering a 100% bonus on sharing miles from December 2-6, 2013. So if you share 50k miles, the person you share them with gets 100k for $567. This is enough for business class to Asia.The problem I found is I didn’t have a sky mileage account for US Air. You need to have one for at least 12 days to participate in this program. I quickly made my account. Next time I can participate. I am posting this just in case you have an US Air sky mileage account. I hope all of you take advantage of this offer. It will be exciting to hear about the travels you took with the miles. Now this is frugal travel!

This week at Von’s grocery stores is a great deal on gift cards. Spend a minimum of $150 on participating gift cards (Best Buy, Toys r Us, Macy’s, iTunes, Regal, AMC, Gap, Bath & Body Works, Starbucks, Sephora, Petgo, Micheal’s, Lowe’s, Amazon, Forever 21, Kohl’s, and quite a few more) receive $25 off your next purchase. You will also receive 4x’s the gas rewards. This is the perfect time to get all these rewards, then use the cards next week on Black Friday. I take this money and save for future travel.

At Farm Fresh Grocery stores for each $100 dollars on participating gift cards you receive $20 off of groceries. I do not know exactly which cards are participating, please read the fine print listed at the store. I do know you can receive gas rewards with their store program.

If you are buying $200 or more, ring them up separately. For example: if you are buying $300 in gift cards at Vons, separate them into $150 increments and ring them up in 2 transactions. This will give you 2-$25 off you next shopping trip.

Are the grocery stores in your area offering special deals? Please let me know. Thank you and happy saving!

My experience in Italy is the inspiration for this post about hotel selection. Staying at the right hotel, helps set the mood for your trip. I didn’t realize that until I made it to Venice, Italy. On my Italian vacation I stayed in 3 cities and obviously 3 different hotels. Each time I checked in I compared the hotels. Quickly the pattern presented itself. I did not realize how much the small things really mattered to me. When I booked this vacation I did it because of a travel deal I saw on Groupon Getaways. I had never been to Italy, so I left it up to the travel agent to choose the hotels. That was a first for me. I had only booked a trip through a travel agent once before. Until now I would do all the trip planning, book all the hotels myself. This time I trusted the agent. She did her job and booked hotels. Here is my comparison:

Hotel #1 Serena Hotel Rome, Italy

1. Location: This hotel was inside the city walls and within walking distance to many popular sites. It was around the corner from the train station. We had train tickets to Florence and our hop on/off city tour bus picked us up at the train station so this was very convenient.
2. Size: This hotel room was moderately sized. For a European hotel room it was actually slightly bigger than standard. It had 2 twin beds close together, a mini fridge, and other basic room amenities. The room was located on the third floor (which is really the 4th; they count the bottom as ground level).
3. Elevator: This hotel had a small 3 person elevator. It was cute. It had the iron doors. It was an open elevator so it did not feel as closed in. I only took the elevator to get my luggage upstairs. All the other times I took the stairs because I’m mildly claustrophobic.
4. Beds: I felt the beds were a little hard. My sister loved them. I guess it’s just a matter of preference. I slept fine on them. The sheets were clean and no bed bugs (yes I do check).
5. Bathroom: The bathroom was a decent size with enough shelf space for all of our toiletries. The blow dryer was horrible! I could do a better job than that. Small shower but it was not too bad. The towels were great. These were almost bath sheets, I really liked those. No wash cloths. They did have thin linen tea towels that we used as wash cloths.
6. Trashcans: One in the bathroom and that was it. I did not know this would bother me, but it was inconvenient.
7. Wi-Fi: This hotel offered free Wi-Fi. You had to enter a code. This is normal, but you had to enter it every time you went on the Wi-Fi. The code was a crazy number/letter combo. The Wi-Fi kept kicking me off. This was very frustrating. Plus you had to have a new code every day unless you specifically asked for a 3 day code.
8. Safe: This room had a safe. It was easy to use. We put our extra cash, passport and any other valuables in it. This is a great feature everyone should get in the habit of doing. Do a trial run with your safe empty first.
9. Breakfast: This hotel included breakfast. The breakfast was basic. It had ham and cheese, rolls, yogurt, fresh fruit, Danishes, cereal and toast. It was an automatic cappuccino machine, but it made amazing cappuccinos. I looked forward to a cappuccino every morning.
10. The staff: The staff was so friendly and helpful too. Good suggestions and directions.

Hotel #2 Cimabue, Florence, Italy

1. Location: This hotel was a distance from the train station. First went to the information desk to see where the hotel was located. If the hotel was around the corner we would walk, if not we would get in the taxi line (we knew approximately how far it was so as to not let the taxi driver can’t over charge us). The trip cost about 12 euros. The hotel was just a few blocks from our tour bus stop. This was convenient and money-saving, since we did not always have to take taxis.
2. Size: This room was slightly larger than the one in Rome. There were two twin beds slightly close together, a mini fridge, and other basic room amenities. This room was on the 2nd floor.
3. Elevator: There was a small elevator with enough room for my mom and 3 pieces of luggage. We sent her up with the luggage and my sisters and I took the stairs.
4. Beds: The beds were slightly softer and I slept great. Clean sheets and no bed bugs. We needed to ask for more pillows, they provided them with no problem.
5. Bathroom: The bathroom was a little bigger. This had the same towel situation as the last hotel. This hotel had a great blow dryer, Thank God! I finally could blow dry my hair.
6. Trashcans: One in the bathroom and one in the room, this was great.
7. Wi-Fi: Wonderful Wi-Fi. You only logged in once and it automatically started when you walked into the hotel.
8. Safe: This room had a smaller safe, but it worked fine. My Kindle did not fit in it. The hotel itself was very safe. After 9 pm the external doors were locked and you had to use a code to get into the lobby.
9. Breakfast: This hotel offered a Continental breakfast. No ham but cheese to put on the rolls. The fruit was canned and not fresh, but the cappuccinos were made by a barista, fresh. They were very yummy. I looked forward to them every morning.
10. Staff: The staff was so sweet and hospitable. They were very hard workers.

Hotel #3 Tre Archi, Venice, Italy

1. Location: This hotel did not seem far from the train station but having to walk over 3 canal bridges with no ramps it’s farther than you think. We paid a man 30 euros to take our (8) bags to the hotel. This helped because we didn’t have to deal with them and he showed us the way. On the way to the airport (for an especially early flight) the water buses are not running. You have to walk or take a water taxi for 120 euros. In retrospect we should have paid for the taxi.
2. Size: Cracker-jack box pretty much sums it up. This room was very small. They could not fit two twin size beds in it, only a full size bed. No night stands either, just shelves nailed to the wall. It was on the 2nd floor. This was actually 57 steps (my sister counted). You could not lay your suitcase down and open the door all the way. My sister’s and mom’s room was a regular European sized room. I think they blew it giving the smallest room to the girl who write’s the travel blog.
3. Elevator: There wasn’t one. We had eight bags to get up 57 steps. Even the man they sent to help rolled his eyes. This was the end of our trip so we had a lot of stuff by now. When we were leaving we just let the suitcases slide down the marble stairs at 6 a.m.
4. Beds: One full size hard bed. One very flat pillow each. Clean sheets no bed bugs.
5. Bathroom: Tiny. The blow dryer was okay; it worked better than the first hotel. Nice towels. No water pressure and it went from hot to cold during your shower. I could not seem to wash the conditioner out of my hair no matter how long I tried.
6. Trashcan: One very small one in the bathroom. There was no room for anything else.
7. Wi-Fi: They wanted us to pay 5 euros for 24 hours of access and it only worked in the lobby. What is the point of that?
8. Safe: It was complicated but it worked. My mom and sister’s did not work. We used the one in my room.
9. Breakfast: Their menu consisted of yogurt and rolls. There was some spreadable cheese. There was also a cappuccino machine that kept locking up and not working. We believe there was no caffeine in the cappuccino. We actually thought they put sleepy time tea in it because we were even more tired.
10. Staff: The staff was rude and not very helpful. The lady at the front desk kept looking at us with a “stupid Americans” look. I think the man helping with the luggage wanted to slap her for putting us on the 2nd floor. I almost wish he had.

After I compared the 3 hotels, I realized little things can make all the difference in your stay. Most of the items were not a big deal. By the time I got to Venice, the elevator, room size, location, water pressure, breakfast, Wi-Fi, and friendliness did make a difference. I thought Venice was pretty, but my experience was not great. The hotel put a damper on my mood, which altered my opinion of Venice.

This experience, I learned some good lessons. I know now what research I need to do. Tripadvisor.com is a great tool for this research. Now I will book great hotels with everything on my “must have” list. If there are things I do not like, I will go to the front desk and change them.
Now it’s your turn. What are the things you need or look for to make it the right hotel for you? Please tell me about some of your experiences and/or comfort preferences. Thanks and happy travels.

Italy was a lot of fun. I saw beautiful cities, buildings, artwork and met some really nice people. The people you meet along the way can really enhance the experience. I thought it would be fun to take their picture and share them with you. I took notes, but I was surprised how much I remembered on my own. These people left an impression on me, I hope I did the same for them. The weird thing was that I met 3 other people named Wendy.