Booking the Perfect Hotel Abroad

When embarking on a great adventure abroad, booking hotels can be daunting! And I've certainly seen my fair share of terrible housing - hotels and hostels. But there are definitely steps you can take to hedge your bets and land a nice hotel.

Take the Local Economy into Account

A $30/night hotel means VERY different things in Pair verse Thailand. For $30 bucks in Paris you might just get mugged and see some very mysterious stains on the covers. In Thailand you're staying at the Ritz! True story, we stayed at the fanciest hotel of my life in Thailand for next to nothing. It had a bidet, heated toilet seat and unlimited free snacks. It was awesome! Especially since we are used to staying in hostels and travel on a budget.

Read TONS of Reviews

Obviously, I recommend good ole fashion Trip Advisor, but also look for blogs. I like hearing travelers' first-hand experience - just make sure they are trustworthy and have a similar travel style to yours. Be on the lookout for paid blog posts as that may create a bias. Read the best AND worst of each hotel, but rely on the middle reviews.

Trust Your Traveling Friends (wisely)
Finally, ask your friends for advice! Hopefully you have nice, reliable friends who live a similar lifestyle/ travel style to your own. Before you ask for their favorite place to stay, be sure to get an idea of their preferences. Are they a hotel kinda gal? Or a backpacking hostel lover?

If you need help deciding which hotel is best for you, I'd love to help! Check out my website at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com. 

Why I Love Lonely Planet

I've found that when it comes to trip planning, there seems to be an endless supply of travel resources. The next step is trying to determine which resources are trustworthy and worth using. While I can't give you tips on every travel site out there, I can offer my two cents on LonelyPlanet and LonelyPlanet.com.

One Stop Shop
Lonely Planet has EVERYTHING! You can book insurance, flights, hotel, tours, car rentals and more! If you like to read blog posts, they've got those too! I particularly enjoy their beautiful travel videos. It's just a very well-run site and one I enjoy using. There's even a forum where you can get advice and offer tips and tricks with fellow travelers. Finally, they also have an online shop with guidebooks and phrasebooks galore!


How I Use Lonely Planet
I personally use Lonely Planet for two main things: Activity recommendations and their travel books.
One of the first things I do once I've picked my next trip destination is check it out on LonelyPlanet.com. They have so many great, reputable recommendations! I always look at the top things to do, best restaurants and places to stay. I feel a little safer and reassured knowing that the things I'm doing have the Lonely Planet seal of approval. I have never yet been led astray!

 I own a zillion print versions of Lonely Planet books on everywhere from Portugal to Spain to South Africa to SouthEast Asia! I swear by them. It's always my first recommendation to anyone traveling somewhere new. Right now, I'm planning for the grand canyon, and sure enough! I am using a Lonely Planet book to help me plan!


Try it For Yourself!
You don't have to take my word for it. I definitely encourage you to try Lonely Planet out for yourself. You may find certain features really help you out, while others aren't really for you. And that's OK! Planning a trip is complicated and using multiple resources is encouraged.

If you still need a little help planning your trip (or you hate planning and just want to GO!), I'd love to help! Check out my company at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.

My Dream Destinations

As a perpetual traveler, my list of places I'd love to go is ridiculously long. Instead of listing them all out, I decided to pick my top 3 trips Let's start with the upcoming trip - Portugal!

Portugal
At this point, my husband and I are just a few weeks away from our road trip around Portugal. We wanted a mix of adventure and relaxation and I think it will be perfect! We are spending a few days exploring some cultural sites and laying out on some gorgeous beaches. We're starting in Porto, going down to Luso and Coimbra then it's on to Lisbon. We are spending a few days in Lisbon before closing out the trip in Lagos. Neither of us have been to Portugal before, so we are ready for a brand new adventure!


Australia/ New Zealand

This has been on my bucket list for ages! I've been to this part of the world as a small child, but I hardly remember it. Both countries just look absolutely breathtaking and I hope to take a few weeks and do it upright sometime soon! I want to do the bridge climbing, I want to hike the hobbit town and maybe even go to the Sydney opera house! So many adventures await!

Iceland

And finally, Iceland. Oh, Iceland. I've almost gone on two or three trips to Iceland, but ultimately I've ended up going somewhere else. Iceland is relatively cheap to fly to, and who doesn't want to climb a glacier?! I have every confidence that I'll get there one day - probably sooner rather than later.

So many, so little time. If you want help planning your next adventure, check out MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com!

City Highlights - Barcelona

I'm starting a series where I'll be covering the highlights of some of my favorite cities. To kick things off, I thought I'd dive into one of my absolute favorite cities: Barcelona. There are so many places in Barca that are worth checking out, but here are a few of my favorites!

#1 - The beaches! Even in the wintertime (which is predominantly when I've spent time in Barca) the beaches are absolutely gorgeous. You can relax and soak up the sun in the summer, or in the cooler months just take a stroll and enjoy the view. There are even spots along the beach with make shift soccer goals set up and workout equipment.

 

 A shot of some beautiful beaches during sunset - taken from a train

#2 Ice Barcelona - If you are into the night life, Barca has several unique clubs and bars, but my favorite is the Ice Bar, aptly called Ice Barcelona! It's a lot of fun! The walls, chair, bar and even the glasses are made of ice. They give you fun, puffy silver jackets to wear along with some gloves. It was a ton of fun!

Hanging in Ice Barcelona around Christmas time

#3 La Sagrada Familia - The legendary Barcelona Artist, Antoni Gaudi designed several structures throughout the city, and arguably his most famous work is La Sagrada Familia. This breathtaking (and enormous) church is an absolute must-see; just be prepared to see some construction since it will be another 10 years or so before the church is completed.

The beautiful (and hard to photograph) La Sagrada Familia

#4 Park Guell - If you want an idyllic view of the city, Park Guell is the place to visit! Like the Sagrada Familia, it was designed by the magnificent Gaudi. The tiling is beautiful and there are some beautiful hikes as well. The outer area is free, but if you want to get the best views you'll have to pay just a few euros to enter the center area.

Park Guell at sunset is my favorite

 #5 - Camp Nou!!! - FC Barcelona, the professional soccer team of Barcelona, is the heartbeat of the city. If you don't have a chance to go see a game in person, at the very least it's worth touring the museum and stadium. Soccer is a huge part of the culture in Barca, so even if soccer isn't your cup of tea, I still recommend checking it out!

Down on the field during the tour

I had the time of my life at El Clasico! If you're not familiar, it's a legendary game between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. The atmosphere was unlike anything I've ever experienced.

I'd love to help you plan a trip of a lifetime to see the sights of Barcelona. Give me a shout at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.

Adventure Vs. Relaxing Honeymoon - Which is better?

My fiancé and I are getting married in June and we are so excited for our honeymoon! We both love to travel and adventure, but we know after the craziness of our wedding, we might want to relax on our honeymoon. That sparked the great debate: Adventure vs. Relaxing honeymoon - which is better? There are definitely pros and cons for both, so I'll walk you through our decision-making process.

Let's start with relaxing. After a crazy 6 months of wedding planning, we are already starting to feel burnt out. If we had a few days to just get away from the madness and celebrate our new marriage, we both know that it would be amazing. We both love a good beach day, but aren't sure if a resort of beach town would be the best use of our time off; we really want to make the absolute most of our special trip.

As for adventure, we just had the trip of a lifetime in South Africa this past August. We went bungee jumping, hiking, visiting with elephants and monkeys and even shark cage diving! It was insane! By the time we made it back to the US we were almost more tired than before we left. It was an absolutely amazing trip, and we definitely wouldn't trade it for the world.

We ultimately decided to compromise and do a little of each! We will be going on a road trip through Portugal! There are plenty of beaches where we can rest and relax, but there is lots to see and do as well! We will be splitting our time between slow, relaxing days and adventuring days exploring local towns and immersing ourself in the culture. We may even take a day trip over to Seville in Spain! It's going to require plenty of planning, but I'm up for the challenge. 

I'd love to help you plan your special trip! Check out MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com for more.

International Road Trip?

My fiancé and I are officially getting married this June (YAY!) and that means it's time to get cracking on planning our honeymoon. We've tossed around several ideas, one of which is an international road trip! Doesn't that sound like a ton of fun!? Even if we don't end up doing it for our honeymoon, I think we will end up doing it eventually.

There are SO many places that we want to go, but I think we've narrowed it down to eastern Europe - specifically Budapest, Vienna and Prague.

I think the trick to a successful (and relaxing) road trip is to not hit too many cities. By keeping it to just 3 cities over the course of 10 days, we get to spend 3 days or so in each place. These cities are also close enough together that we won't spend all of our time on the road, but far enough apart we'll get a taste of a new culture at each stop. 

It's also important to note that there are some inevitable challenges that come with road trips, especially when in a foreign country! You must tlearn all the rules of the road in each country - they can be drastically different than what you're used to! This will take quite a bit of planning. It's advisable to do research and learn what is required to rent a car and what's needed to take said car and go across country lines. 

Be prepared and bring plenty of snacks and you're sure to have a blast!

If you want help preparing for your own international road trip, my company can help! Visit MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.

Table Mountain - Cape Town, South Africa

Our trip to South Africa was pretty jam packed, so we wound up only having a few hours of free time in Cape Town. We put that free time to good use by visiting Table Mountain! It was absolutely beautiful and the views were amazing.

Essentially, you can either hike or take a cable car up to the top. Then, up at the top there are some beautiful trails for you to hike!

On one side of the mountain is the ocean and on the other are some pretty spectacular views!

The Ocean Side of the mountain

My sister and I on the city side of the mountain

You can even see the world cup stadium! So cool!

Cape Town has a bit of a reputation for being dangerous, but we kept our wits about us and didn't go out after dark. We, thankfully, never felt unsafe and had no problems when traveling through this beautiful country.

Our trip was a blast! And don't forget, if you're loving these travel posts to check out my travel company at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.

Bloukran's Bridge Bungy Jump in South Africa

I've been lucky enough to have some pretty amazing adventures recently, but I must say one of my absolute favorite experiences was bungy (That's how they spell it in South Africa) outside of Cape Town! 

It was terrifying and absolutely exhilarating. I'm just surprised that I got the whole group to do it with me! 

First, they walked us out alone this absolutely terrifying/beautiful walkway that led out to the middle of the bridge. We were literally underneath of where cars were driving. It was pretty scary, but also awesome. Cars were just driving along while we flung ourselves off the bridge.

The whole gang before we jumped!

Before we went they weighed us and put our weight (in kilos) and our jump order and time. I weigh 63 kilos, I was Jumper 2 and our jump time was 9 a.m.

My "I'M SO NERVOUS" smile

Getting hooked up! I definitely asked them to make sure I was hooked in nice and tight. They then waddled me over to the edge and counted down, "3-2-1-BUNGY!" They didn't give me time to think AT ALL (Probably Definitely a good thing). When they said "BUNGY" I just did it! I even managed to leap and sort of swan dive off this HUGE bridge!

I DID IT! 

After you jump they lower someone down to help reel you back in. 

We are working on a YouTube channel where the full video will be posted soon! It's pretty epic.

Bungy jumping has been on my bucket list for a very long time and I am SO happy that I was able to finally cross it off! Bloukran's bridge is the world's largest bungy. How cool is that? It was my first time ever bungy jumping, so why not go big? It was such a rush! The free fall was far and away my favorite part - the dangling afterwards? Not so much. Though my sister was the exact opposite. 

Overall, I absolutely recommend doing this jump if you're ever near Cape Town. Something to note is it is a bit of a drive outside the city - like 4 or 5 hours. We broke the trip up with some fun stops along the way. You'll  learn all about those in upcoming blog posts!

Meanwhile, check out my company at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com and sign up for an adventure of your own!

Lots of love,

Lena

Laundromat Adventure - Making New Friends

I had to do laundry in a Spanish laundromat, and boy was it an adventure. There isn't one close to our hotel so I had to take the metro and explore a bit. Then when I found the laundromat they were out of detergent and so was the market next door. I then had to go around the corner and get more but I got horribly confused about what was detergent and what was softener. After a lot of confusion I bought the world's biggest bottle of what I thought was detergent and headed back to the laundromat where I met the friendliest woman on the planet. She helped me get my clothes going but asked where my soap was... oh no. Yup. Sure enough it was in fact softener I had bought. ACK. Luckily they had loaded detergent into the softener dispenser and my new friend knew that so she helped me out and we got my clothes going.

I then had my very first prolonged actual spanish conversation!!! We talked about the weather, how we missed summer and the beach. We talked about food (I pretended to like seafood because I know a lot of sea vocabulary, haha) and it went pretty darn well! There were times I was just nodding along, but for the most part I knew what she was saying and could respond when she asked me a question! I'm pretty darn excited about this and I think my Spanish is really improving. Who knows - in three weeks when I head home maybe I'll be super awesome at Spanish! We shall see.

Sometimes it's the little experiences that stick out and for me this was one of those. It was so cool to just interact and get to know a stranger in a strange place in another language. I hope this is the first of many such experience

Barcelona Baby!

I love this city. Upon arrival we did a lot of recon around the hotel were the team would be staying in Placa Espanya. I'm slightly exhausted from running around so much, but it was great to get to know the area.

Since we've been in Barcelona we have hit all the hot spots: La Rambla, La Sagrada Familia, the Olympic village/ port and I even got to see an FC Barcelona game in person! It was every bit as amazing as I thought it would be. I got to see Messi score three times! It was phenomenal.

Tomorrow we are off to Park Guell (One of my favorite spots) and to tour the FC Barcelona stadium. It should be a good day.

I'm loving this city, but boy am I tired! My knees and legs are slowly giving out. I'm hoping to get some serious sitting time done in the relatively near future so I will be ready to go for Madrid!

Malena

A Unique Christmas 12/25/2014

First let me start by saying that I am very very blessed to have such wonderful people in my life and such wonderful friends that even on a Holiday when I have to be away from my family, I still found some amazing people to share it with.

I woke up in Rotterdam nice and late, just as a relaxing day should start. We threw in some laundry (OK Coletta did it... did I mention she's great?) and then went on a nice long stroll around the city. I had so much fun taking pictures at all the iconic places in Rotterdam! I even wore my shirt from the radio station I work for so they can get an international shoutout (pictures to come once I have a spare second, ha!)

Coletta's son came over and we had a declicious meal! It was a bunch of small dishes but they were so. good. It was a really fun time - we even played some Mario Kart!

Eventually I had to leave for Spain so Coletta and Erwin (And Pepper too!) drove me to Amsterdam Schippol and off I went. I had to get searched (both me and my bag, ha) but I had no real trouble catching my flight. I bought some impusle stroopwaffels because why not, man? The plane was for sure a budget flight...  no TP. NOT COOL. Luckily they had some paper towels, but ya know. I also sort of enjoyed the kareoke bar singer-song writer music they played for like 40 minutes (20 minutes each on take off and landing). I actually started laughing it was so bad. I tried to tune it out and read my book so the flight wasn't too bad.

When I landed I had to wait a bit for the shuttle, but it wasn't too long and I wasn't worried. There are always cabs! I got to the hotel no problems and met with my boss for quite a while. We finalized things and I headed up to bed!

The hotel is pretty nice. Very typically Spanish... except the shower is what I imagine standing in a hurricane would be like. Very chaotic with water seeming to come from everywhere...

Anyway, I'll update more tomorrow!

Malena

Never Stay at the Paris Hotel Liege

I am not a picky hotel person, I'm really not. I do tend to look at reviews, but often think people are too particular. It was not the hotel's fault that there was a noisy toddler in the next room etc.

That was why when I saw the numerous positive reviews for Paris Hotel Liege I figured it would be okay. Both me and my traveling partner agreed that this was just a place to sleep and would be fine. We knew we planned to stay in the city as much as possible so a nice hotel was low priority. However, little did we know what we were getting into.

When we first arrived I will say the staff was nice and it was very close to Gaar du Nord (the train station). However, the positive impression ended there. We climbed up an incredibly narrow flight of stairs and onto a landing that was dark. We actually had to find a light switch for the hallway. As we opened the door we were overwhelmed with the smell of mold. There was no toilet paper in the room. None. The towels were kind of just folded up on the side of the tub and there was no hand soap. We decided on our way down to ask for a new room. They were very accommodating and said we could switch the next day.

When we got back they had restocked the toilet paper, towels and soap (thank goodness!). That night we slept fine. However, the WiFi did not work well at all. The next day we decided we didn't really need a new room after all but forgot to let the front desk know on our way out. As a result we came back to quite the surprise. We went to our room and couldn't get in. We figured our key had just stopped working and went and got some help from the front desk who couldn't get it to work either. Eventually they got the door open and our stuff was gone. What.

It turns out they had just packed up our stuff (haphazardly - Coletta's toothbrush was in with my clothes) and moved it. Now none of our stuff was missing, but I mean that was so weird. It was very invasive. 

Upon inspecting our new room, we realized we were better off in our first room. This room's ceiling was about to cave in. Talk about water damage! Just a warning, some of the pictures are gross.

And of course there was the mold. Oh the mold. It was everywhere, particularly around the tub.

And in the toilet. (WARNING GROSS PIC BELOW)

And one of the weirdest parts of this hotel? My towel was not even from the hotel! I picked up a seemingly white hotel towel only to discover some embroidery on it. It was a website about camping in Paris. What. On. Earth.

I think the kicker was that there was actually a patch of floor missing. Yes, missing. Coletta just about fell as she tried to walk to her bed. The floor was gone and they just covered over it with carpet. That seems safe...

Luckily we were troopers and just decided that it wasn't a huge deal. The beds were clean (ok there was a huge bleach stain on my blanket - ew) and pretty comfortable. The WiFi worked alright in our new room and the location and price were right, but I would not stay here again. I also would highly recommend you find somewhere else to stay in Paris. I loved Paris, but not our hotel.