The Travel Diary

How To Travel The World For Free (Seriously)

2009-08-27T02:09:00.000-07:00

I found this article Written by Tim Patterson...

You can travel the world for less money than you spend each month to fill up your gas tank.

World travel is cheap and easy. In fact, with a little practice and effort, you can travel the world for free.

The idea that travel is expensive and difficult is bullshit peddled by tour companies, hotel chains and corporate media.

The tourism industry wants you to buy cruise packages and stay at all-inclusive resorts.

They want you to choose a travel experience the same way you would choose a new jacket at the mall. They want your Credit Card number.

The tourism industry doesn’t want me to reveal the simple secrets of free travel, but I’m going to share them with you anyway.

It can be scary to venture into the world with nothing more than optimism and good-will, but personal freedom begins with a leap of faith......

Kerala Tourism Blog

2009-08-10T00:05:00.000-07:00

Kerela is one of the most beautiful places in India... This place being one of the largest exporter of Spices...to Beautiful Backwaters where you can rent HouseBoats and Enjoy the Beautiful Nature.

You can also enjoy the Panchakarma (An ancient Indian Ayurvedic Treatment using Herbs, Massages and Spa) technique which brings you closer to the Nature and You get the deepest Relaxation.

I have just found one blog that is dedicated to Kerela Tourism and this blog is maintained by Saju M whom I met on a Social Networking site. Please do visit his blog where he takes us to the various part of Kerela and all the Information we need to know about that place

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Something Funny

A Philippines Travel Blog

2009-08-08T01:18:00.000-07:00

Though I like to travel but then sometimes are limited by resources like money and time... But then it is also interesting to know about another place. I recently came across this Blog where the author mentions his travel experience across Philippines.
I am sure you will enjoy it too...

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Something Funny

The Golden Gate Bridge - San Francisco

2009-08-03T05:18:00.000-07:00

Photo Source: vgm838

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay onto the Pacific Ocean.

As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, it connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County.

The Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed during the year 1937, and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. Since its completion, the span length has been surpassed by eight other bridges. It still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City.

In 2007, it was ranked fifth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.

Fremont Street Experience Las Vegas

2009-07-28T23:41:00.001-07:00

Sirens of Treasure Island Show

2009-07-28T23:39:00.001-07:00

Bellagio Fountain Show Las Vegas

2009-07-28T23:07:00.000-07:00

Another View:

Disneyland experience - LA

2009-01-07T22:05:00.000-08:00

After coming back to LA our next destination was Disneyland..A place where everyone can enjoy and can spend the whole day and stay until night to watch the electric parade and firework show..this place is totally different from other amusement park..

So we started from our hotel at 10o’clock and by 11 we were in the happiest place of the world ‘Disneyland’..we took a map from ticket counter and soon started planning for the whole day which helped us to cover everything..

The park contains various entertainment areas with special themes like the Main Street USA,Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland..the place features rides,games and attractions for visitors of all ages to enjoy.

We started our tour with a 3D Show..there was a long queue but thanks to the fast pass system which allow us to skip that line..our favorite rides are Pirates of the Carribean, Indiana Jones and many more.I was so happy by seeing all the cartoon characters which I used to watch in TV infront of me..we enjoyed like anything..we took photos with as much as we can and watched a show in the fantasyland where we saw Cindrella, sleeping beauty and many more characters.amazing experience….as we don’t had any information about parades so we missed that but we enjoyed the Firework Show at 9 pm which was awesome..we almost cover everything…last but not least we took a train ride which showed us the whole place.

Things to remember….

Time management - This is a huge park and you need to properly manage your time and it also depends on how many days you want to spend. I think we covered around 80% of the park in one day.
Fast pass system…which allows guests to insert their ticket into the machine at the most popular rides in the park and can skip the long queue
The map and show time schedule... use it to plan a fun day.

This article is written by my wife, her first attempt to write a blog... I think she did a perfect job...

The Trip to San Fransisco, Solvang Valley, Yosemite

2009-01-06T08:22:00.000-08:00

Our three day trip started from the China town of LA and during this three days trip we are covering following places:

Solvang Valley.
Hearst Castle
San Francisco City tour.
Yosemite Valley.

Day 1: Solvang Valley And Hearst Castle

As we passed through the beautiful beaches of pacific ocean and we entered the beautiful valleys of California. And this route took us to the a small picturesque danish town of Solvang Valley. We reached here in afternoon, so not only we have to manage our time to take the meal and walk around that place. This beautiful area represented the danish culture and that can be seen the way shops and buildings were constructed and also there was a beautiful view of the valley at a distance. We also went to a local bakery 'Solvang Bakery' and on seeing the various bakery items me and my wife could not resist the temptation to order few items and immediately eat them...

One of the items we ordered at Solvang Bakery.

Which one should I select.

Below the windmill.

View of Solvang.

Our next destination was Hearst Castle, This castle was build by built by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. It is located near San Simeon, California, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Hearst Castle presents guests with a choice of five different guided tours, including daytime and evening opportunities. We had a pre-selected tour arranged by our tour guide as a part of our itenary. This was a beautiful place with collection of various Artifacts collected from various part of world.

We reached San Francisco late in the evening...The hotel booked by tour operator was Crowne Plaze, It was a nice hotel and the bed was too comfortable...

Day 2: City tour to San Francisco

Today was a day for City tour...Before that our bus stopped at San Francisco China town and our tour guide took us to a Chinese Dim Sum restaurant...Our sightseeing tour consisted of: Palace of Fine Arts,Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, Lombard Street, Castro St., Saint Mary Church, Twin Peaks, San Francisco City Hall and we also took San Francisco Bay Cruise.

Day 3: Yosemite Valley

This was our return trip to LA and this trip also included a visit of Yosemite Valley. Upon entering the Yosemite State National park we were enchanted with the scenic valley. We were driving through a lush green valley surrounded by mountains and river flowing on one side...(This kinda reminded me of one of my previous visit to Manali in India which is a nice hill station india).

This kind of serenity takes you away from you the vicious element out of your mind and body. It gives you a immense pleasure of admiring what nature brings to you. Occationally you can view wild animals enjoying the luxory of a lifestyle amist the natural heritage.

The Yosemite also host a number of waterfalls, Bridal Viel is one of the tallest waterfall in world and its also taller than the Niagra Falls...This made my count of viewing 2 tallest waterfall in the world. The water flowing through the river and falling out of a waterfall alway make me envy of the freedom of moving freely and the smell of the water soaked soil giving the aroma of life.

The toughest part of any trip is to leave the place and people you meet even for a brief moment. Only thing that remains is the memory of visiting a wonderful place and seeing its great cultural heritage. The view of how great is nature and the human struggle against odds to build a wonderful place to live.

We were now on our way back to LA saying good-bye to SanFrancisco trip....

Day 4: Return to LA

2009-01-03T11:17:00.000-08:00

This was our return journey from vegas to la and it was basically the same route I described in the Day 2. On our way we stopped for food and Tanger Outlets. The food was actually a Brunch at All you can Eat buffet Chinese Restaurant.
As a part of trip itenary we also stopped at Ethel-M Chocolate Factory and Botanical Cactus Garden. Where we had a small tour of chocolate making process and were able to taste few samplers. The cactus garden had a collection of various species of Cactus.
We returned late in the evening to LA at Chinatown location, We had booked the same hotel we booked on Day 1 the reason being we had another trip to San Fransico-Yosemite next day onwards and the pick up location was walkable distance from this hotel.
Any ways we checked into the hotel and decided to roam around the china town area and also have our dinner. The Chinatown in LA is much different than the US environment. The shops lay out vegetable and fruits outside the shop in boxes. The market place looked familiar to what I seen in India...Yeah China is our neighbour and we share several things culturally.
It was getting late so we went to a Chinese Restaurant and had some light dinner. and returned to our hotel.

I have created above collage for with my different picture taked during Grand Canyon visit.

As mentioned earlier this trip has some pros and cons, that I am going to mention below.
Pros:

Focused tour...knew what to do when.
Nice hotel.
No need to drive...just relax and enjoy the journey...

Cons:

Though this was a dual speaking tour (English and Chinese) but this was mosty chinese bus tour with English as secondary. The guide was speaking so many things in chinese without stopping and translating them to English...That become irritating when he continously spoke for 3-4 hours in chinese we not understanding a single word.
The bus usually stopped at place where chinese cusine was available...though we like chinese cusine but this entire trip we had too much of chinese food and we wanted some varity. Though it also stopped at a place where other fastfood restaurents were there but mostly this tour was focused for chinese tourist.
Cash only optional tours...for each additional optional tours (Las Vegas shows, night tours, grand canyon entry) they asked for cash money. I usually like to carry my credit card and little cash this was a problem...and hotel ATM machines generally charge higher transaction rates.
We would have prefered to skip the botanical cactus garden, chocolate factory tour and shopping at tanger outlets while returning and preferably used that time to explore vegas. But when you go using a Bus trip like this one you usually have to follow a common itenary...Thats when you would like to go by car.

The overall tour was great and we got what we wanted...it was full of fun and exiting. We enjoyed it a lot.

Day 3- The Great Grand Canyon

2008-12-20T09:32:00.000-08:00

After a great night at Las Vegas we were very tired next morning. But then there was a exitement of visiting one of the Greatest Natural Seven Wonders of the World. As we got ready for the next trip we went to hotel lobby and ordered sandwitch and coffee for us and were waiting for the Tour Guide along with the other co-tourists. As we finished our breakfast the tour guide also came and gave few instructions regarding the tour before we boarded to our Bus.

As we started moving from our hotel we passed through the beautiful city of Las Vegas and then we entered the desert area we could see what I will call is Jungle of CACTUS, I have never seen such big cactus that looked like some small tree in my life. The entire area was covered with such cactus.

On our way to Grand Canyon we also passed through the Lake Mead that is one of the largest Man Made lake in the world and we also passed by Hoover Dam one of the largest Dam. We didnt stop to these place as our Guide told us we will get late and we have to catch another Bus at the Grand Canyon.

As mentioned in my first blog about California trip, we were going towards West Rim of Grand Canyon. This part of Grand Canyon is a Indian Reservation Area and this area is not a part of US Government (Thats what I could interpret what my Guide said). They charge $52 to enter this area. And our original tour bus will stop at one point and we have to catch another bus operated by the Grand Canyon West Rim Indians.

The second bus took us to Tourist Center of Grand Canyon, where we can buy the Tickets to GrandCanyon and book Helicopter rides and also buy food coupons. There they offered food couple of traditional Indian meal and Chinese meals.

The guide took care of our ticketing needs and few people also opted for a Helicopter ride, the ride offered was will take you down to the Grand Canyon and then you could walk through the Canyon and take a Boat ride and if you are interested you can take optionals Water Rafting and then Return trip to the tourist center. We didn't take Helicopter ride partially because it was a big sum and partially our tour guide wanted cash money for every such activity and we didnt had that much cash money at hand that time.

So we went for the bus ride which took us to three different points of Canyon.

Eagle pointe and Skywalk.
Guano pointe
Hualapai Ranch.

The Grand Canyon Skywalk is an Engineering Marvel that is architected so that you can view the Grand Canyon By just standing above the Canyon, The glass floor may also frighten some chicken hearted who are scared of height, but you are definately going to enjoy have a walk over it...there is a entry fee there and you are not allowed to take your camera there...though there are photographers who will take your picture from different angles and stunts ;-) and you can buy them from the lobby if you like your picture otherwise you are not obliged to buy them.

Again I am including my photographs below for my Grand Canyon Trip...This was a wonderful trip and sure it was one of the wonderful moment of life...

We returned in the evening around 7:00 PM ... Got Refreshed at Hotel and back to action for exploring the Casino City...Vegas is truly an entertainment capitol of US. We enjoyed the LCD show at Fremont Street. The beautiful Musical Fountain at Bellagio hotel and casino, this was a beautiful show where the water fountains were rolling on the tunes of music being played...this is a beautiful show open for public. There was a Show near Treasure Island casino we missed that show because of the weather the show was cancelled. There are numerous other shows in casino some are paid one and some are free...this was the part which we didnt do our homework earlier so will didnt schedule our shows properly and I wish we could have given one more day to this city...

Also we went to Ceaser Palace...Its a Shopping Mall, a Hotel and a Casino...First when we enter this magnificant building it was as we have entered some Roman Palace...As we explored this we first thought that this is just a big Shopping Mall, but as we entered more we entered an area where a artificial sky was build...walking further we entered casino....This was truly a wonderful place.

We also tried to play some games there...it was supposed to make my bank-balance better but it happened otherwise...we attended a game of bingo and found a guy winning around $3000 part of it was my contribution by not winning any thing....some wise guy had already given me a good tip to do fairly well at Las Vegas, Which I would like to share with you(Remember this is trade secret do not share with other like I promise the other guy I wont share this with you):

'Do not Gamble'

Even after this I think I can enjoy this city every time I come and explore different things each time...

Day 2 Trip to Las Vegas

2008-12-18T09:09:00.002-08:00

We started early, The pickup location of the bus trip we booked was around 10 mins walking distance from our hotel.The bus picked few more people from 2 more pickup locations and all these took another hour or so and finally our trip to vegas started.

We passed through the beautiful pacific highway over seeing the pacific ocean. Here in California you will find a beautiful terrain of Land, Sea and Hill. Also the blue waters of pacific ocean and the sky form gives a splendid combination of color.

While enjoying the ride we also came across the hill where sign of HOLLYWOOD shining was visible from far distance. This was a symbol that I saw only on movies or TV shows before.

I think anyone who watches hollywood movies knows this symbol and this would be one of the dream location for many aspiring actors. But truly speaking Hollywood is representation of one of the most exotic location of world. The State of California uniquely displays the nature's portrait that can be captured by the movie Star studded entertainment warehouse of the world.

If you are in California while the coastal region displays plethoric view of the grand Pacific ocean on one side and hilly area on the otherside and a place where you also find a large number of state parks covering wide range of forest area. I was also surprised to see a desert while we were on our way to Las Vegas.

We were passing through Mojave Desert, this desert covers significant area of California, Nevada and Arizona. And Las Vegas is one of the largest city in this desert.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Desert

We stopped at one place n the middle of our journey for a lunch break. And we also stopped for shopping at Tanger Factory Outlets as a part of our trip.
Since we have a Tanger Outlet at iowa and its not far from Des Moines, we didn't have much to explore other than an accomplishment of visiting 3 different Tanger Outlets(Iowa, Wisconcins and California) in past 5 months for me and my wife, Also a personal count of total visit of 4 Tanger outlets including one in San Marcos in Texas that I visited in my previous trip to US.

We then started our journey towards Las Vegas...passing through the Mojave Desert. When we reached Las Vegas around 4:30 p.m. in the evening...I could not believe such an wonderful city can be build in a area which is supposed to be a desert. I think this is how we can describe how we Human being struggle amidst all the adversities and try to make this world a wonderful place to live.

Our bus first stopped near MGM casino and hotels, This is a Newly developed Casino Strip and other casinos near by were New york Casino which was themed as City of New york, The Excalibur casino themed like Disneyland....This was a beautiful place with so many magnificant buildings.

We stayed there for 1 hour then our bus took us to our hotel where we were boarding. Our hotel Plaza Hotels and Casino was a big hotel located in the Old casino strip. It was a nice hotel and it was also located near Fremont Street...another wonderful street where they have created roof which is actually a LCD screen and they organize shows in that LCD after each scheduled time.

You can see this Fremont Street in one of the movie Next starring Nicolas Cage while he is trying to Flee from the Casino Guards. When I saw this street I wished I could win the way the character played by Nicholas Cage win in one of the Casino Game.

Well lets come back to our hotel, our bus tour operator also provided an optional night tour that day and those not taking tour were free at their wish. We decided to explore the place on our own. So we went to our hotel room stay there for a hour to get fresh and relax little bit after such a long journey.

It was getting dark and from our Hotel room window we had a nice view of the Las Vegas city and we saw the beautiful view of the lightened city.

We came out of our hotel around 6:30 so that we can explore the city on our own. As mentioned above our hotel enterance was just infront of the Fremont Street....and we walked through that beautifully lighted street...The Frement street led us to Las Vegas Blvd. and from maps we knew that the LasVegas Blvd will lead us to the new Casino area where all the magnificant casinos exists.

On this street runs Double Decker buses (The Deuce) which gives you all day ride pass for 5$ and $3 for one way ride. We purchased all day ride that way we could stop at any casino on that street and after visiting that casino we can ride another bus on that route for the next casino.
More Details at http://rtcsnv.com/transit/route/deuce/Deuce(6-1-08).pdf

Above photos are taken by us while in Las Vegas. We returned late in the night to our hotel and we had to get ready for the next trip to Grand Canyon next day.

Day 1 - Flight to California

2008-12-18T09:09:00.001-08:00

Our trip started on Nov 1,2008,
We had a flight at early morning from Desmoines International Airport. One of my friend Shishir agreed to give us a ride to Airport, It was a saturday morning and I can understand how hard it was to wake up early for Shishir that day. But without any grief he gave us a ride to airport. I sincerely appreciate his help provided to us.
We booked our flight on Continental and the total duration of our flight was around 6 hours and had a stop at Houston Airport for a connecting flight(by Continental) to Los Angles.That way we were to reach at LA by 12 noon.
The flight on Continental was good and they also offered delicious Cheese Pizza during flight from Houston to LA. The flight from Desmoines to Houston was on a smaller aircraft of 2 by 1 seating arrangement, but Houston onwards the Aircraft was comfortable and spacious...

Wreached LA right on the time. My sister picked us from the LA Airport, We first wanted to have lunch and to decide what should we do for rest of the day. We went to a small Indian Restaurant and enjoyed our favorite spicy meal.
It was a cloudy day and it rained occationally, We decided to drive through LA and Pacific Coast Highway along with the Coastal region and then go to Hollywood Blvd and finally go to our hotel.

Posing with Bush Sr. at Houston Airport

We just drove through some scenic drive and then entered Pacific Ocean Highway, We went to Zuma Beach. This beach is not crowded and it is clean. We watched the big waves hitting the shore. There were some enthuastic people trying to do water surfing and playing with the waves.

After that we went to Santa Monica Beach, This places looked like some happening place. There were lots of people there and there was a pier build at this beach, which is a small entertainment place and one can enjoy some of the exiting rides here.

We then went to Hollywood Blvd, this place looked like one of the most happening place in LA. We reached there in evening and it was already dark. It is one of the most fashionable street I have ever seen. Also there were lots of people depicting hollywood movie characters...I have seen three Jack Sparrow The famous pirate of the Carrebian...Then there was Superman and various other charectors....There is famous Kodak Theatre in this place...the place where the famous movie personalities gather to participate in the world famous event of Oscar awards each year.

We were really tired and then we returned to our Hotel...Our hotel Royal Pagoda is a small but nice Oriental Themed hotel in ChinaTown part of Los Angeles.

Its time for ZzzZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz........

Trip to California, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon

2008-12-17T05:49:00.000-08:00

One of my recent trips was to the California and Nevada in USA.
This visit was a wonderful experience for me and my wife Rakhi. I have been traveling to US for last 3-4 years. All the time I tried to explore as many place in US but never got a chance to go to California and Las Vegas.
I was always dreaming to visit California to see beautiful beaches and to the wonderful Disneyland of which I have been hearing from my childhood stories. Besides this earlier I was single and I got married in 2007 and this was my first time I was with my wife in US and it was her first time outside India. All these and various other reasons we wanted to have a trip to California.
We planned our trip on first week of November 2008; the decision to select this time was because my project in US got completed on end of October 2008. And it was time to pack up and return to India. Who knows...This could be our last opportunity to visit any place in US.

We decided to go for a 10 day trip and planned to visit following places:

Los Angeles
Las Vegas
Grand Canyon
San Francisco
Disneyland
Universal Studio

Also as a Bonus We also visited following places:

Hearst Castle
Yosemite
Solvang Valley

Indeed this was a hectic trip but we enjoyed the every moment of this visit.

The title picture in my blog is one of the road view taken by me while riding the car. The small embedded picture belongs to other places I visited.
The Travel plan
It was important for us to plan the travel and right from booking the air tickets to hotel reservation to schedule where to go when. While in US we were staying in the city Des-Moines which is largest city of Iowa and the Capitol city of Iowa State.
So we booked our ticket from Desmoines to Los Angeles, with starting date on Nov 1, 2008 and return date on Nov 10, 2008.

While searching internet we came across few options on how we can visit all the places mentioned above, we came across many options like:

Rent a Car for 10 days and book hotels to different places we want to visit.
There is a travel site www.gotobus.com that offered bus trips to various places that started from LA and this includes Hotel Accommodation.
There is another travel site called www.starlinetours.com, this tour included railroad (courtesy Amtrak) and taxi services instead of bus, so if you are not comfortable with bus service then this could be one option.

I just wanted to relax and enjoy traveling rather than driving a car, so I opted for a combination of 1 and 2...In that all the trips that took us out of LA we booked the bus trip and while we stayed in LA we used rental car. Also we planned our stay in LA for weekends only, so that we can also spend time with my sister who stays there in LA. And lucky for me she has a driving license so I could avoid driving again...
There are few pros and cons that I realized after having the bus trip that I will mention later in some of my blog...but I don’t have any regrets having bus trips and we enjoyed it.

So we booked two bus trips as mentioned below:

Two Nights Three days trip to Las Vegas, Grand Canyon.
Two Nights Three day trip to San Francisco, Yosemite including Solvang Valley and Hearst Castle.

Both the trips included Bus Transportation to an back to LA, Two nights Hotel stay.
Beside this we scheduled our visit to LA in following way:

First day we were supposed to reach LA around 12 Noon and we spend rest of the day just driving around the Beaches and Hollywood Blvd.
Bus Tour Mentioned above from 2nd day to 7th day
The 8th and 9th day we planned to visit Disneyland and Universal Studio.
10th day back to Des Moines.

Now there were few flaws in our plans, but for me I planned any thing in such detail for the first time and it worked out pretty good and overall experience was very exhilarating for us. And we expected nothing more than that.
Now all that remains now is to pack our bags and pursue our adventure.

In the following blogs I will describe this entire trip and will also try to put photographs taken by me during the trip.

My Traveling Experience

2008-12-16T09:47:00.000-08:00

I love to see various places, The world we live is such a beautiful experience. There are so many natural and man-made wonders to explore. I am not claiming that I am a frequent traveler or a travel hobbiest. I do desire to become a avid traveler, my only contraint are time and money.

However whenever I get a opportunity I try to exploit that opportunity.

I have been lucky in the sense I got many such opportunities in last few years. I got opportunity to visit some exotic locations in my country India where I reside and also got a chance to visit USA couple of times because I got software related assignments there.

I consider these opportunities as some of the most interesting moments of my life and wanted to document my memories somewhere.

I am not a writer and this will be my first experience to write any article. I will try to write my traveling experience over here and try to put some fun facts about important places from other sources that I dont remember. The experience I will be sharing will not be in the order I travelled but basically it will as and how I recall my experience and find time to write these articles.