We try to use airline miles for our flights as often as we can. If we use money to pay for flights it's almost always because we have a particular date requirement that we need to satisfy or we are traveling during a peak period and there are no discount mileage fares available. This article will talk about the basics of using airline miles frugally to give you the most benefit … [Read more...]
Travel Insurance: Don’t Leave Home Without It
Travel insurance is something that many travelers, especially younger travelers, ignore. In this post I'll discuss our experiences in searching for and purchasing travel insurance that cost little enough that there is no reason to forego having the additional protection. When I took my first international trip abroad as a young man I had quit my job and had no health … [Read more...]
AirBnB Pros and Cons
AirBnB and other online vacation rental booking agencies provide a valuable service. They allow you to book longer term accommodations, usually at a lower price than local hotels, with the security that the place you booked actually exists. The alternative to a service like this would be booking through an online ad service like craigslist.org and sending money to the … [Read more...]
Should You Consider Using a VPN service?
A VPN is a Virtual Private Network that operates across a public network, e.g. the internet. It allows users to send and receive data across the public network as if their computing devices were attached to a private network. VPNs are often used by companies to allow their employees to securely connect to the corporate intranet when they are travelling or working from … [Read more...]
Finding and Booking Vacation or Long-term Rentals on Your Own
Maybe you don’t like being tied down to specific arrival and departure dates, or you want to see the place you are renting in person before you rent it, or you don’t like the idea of paying an extra 10% fee to an online booking service when you could spend that money on food or renting a better place without the fee. Finding and renting a place on your own isn’t really that … [Read more...]