The New Travel Thread: Now with write ups in the OP

i've been to mexico, shes been to london

for budget, we're going to spend a decent amount, and the cheaper the flight, the more we can spend on sightseeing, food etc

basically, we dont want our majority of our budget to be on airfare

 

yea, these were 3 we were thinking of; maybe spain

 

If you go to Italy, check the price difference flying to Rome versus Venice. Sometimes it is cheaper to fly to Venice and catch a train. Spain was just OK for me. I had a good time, but there are so many better options in my opinion.

 

Departing airport?

Also, how about weather preference?

 

warm weather, definately not cold

 

Follow the flight deal on facebook or use google flights to put in the dates you want to go, set your max price and you can see all the places you can fly for under that. There's some amazing deals to Asia right now on flights, like $500 RT from the west coast amazing. Best food I've ever had was in asia, plenty of sightseeing, just have to be willing to be a bit adventurous. Western Europe is certainly honeymoon material as well- Paris, London, Amsterdam, Spain. Can't go wrong with any of those. If I were you though my #1 would probably be Argentina. Buenos Aires is amazing for food and drink, is insanely cheap, and you could go to western Argentina/Chile for wine country and eco tourism. Seems like a good mix of fun/romantic for a honeymoon.

 

I use this when traveling abroad to drink tap water.

http://www.rei.com/product/890900/s...tQFcaN4ovifMSm5GeZ9QwWWOrjdKj7DaxORoCReHw_wcB

 

We did Venice, Florence, Rome and Paris for our honeymoon. Couldn't imagine a much better honeymoon. Florence/Rome was our favorite by far and we didn't care for Paris too much. If we had dropped Paris it would have been a decently affordable trip, it is even more affordable now with much cheaper flights. At the time we paid close to $1200 a ticket. I have seen deals recently to Milan out of JFK in the $600 range. You can get around Italy for very cheap and fast on their train system.

 

I drank out of this thing both Europe trips fucking constantly

Spoiler

NC Wolfpack can attest to this. Literally all day, probably took in 15 liters of water a day and didn't have any stomach issues. Actually commented to my friend this year how great my bowel movements were in Hvar.

My stomach did get sorta jacked towards the ends of my trips, but I always chalked it up to eating doner constantly and drinking constantly.

 

He isn't lying and I did the same as well. I would fill it up at any sink possible, even bathrooms along the dock in Split. Tap water was also my jam while living in Prague.

 

I flew JFK-Milan on emirates for $400 roundtrip in March, flying JFK-Nairobi in February for $525 roundtrip on Etihad. Just gotta troll for the deals and not hesitate when they pop up bros. Service/amenities/food on the middle eastern carriers is fucking legit too

 

Bump.

 

Anyone have experience with passport expedition services? Bout a month out from my trip and just got a letter back from dept of state saying I was eligible to renew by mail and had to apply at a passport office. Wondering if any of these 24 hrs sites that come up in a Google search are legit ...

 

I miss living in NYC because there were some insane flight deals to europe. Never got to fly any of the middle east carriers though. Being in California has its perks though, we have cheap Singapore, Cathay, and ANA flights to asia and I've heard they're just about on the same level as the mid east airlines.

 

When does your passport expire? Check the state department website for the country you're going to. Usually they require it to be valid until 6 months after your trip. If thats the case just wait till you get back. If not, I'm sure the expedited service is fine through a website. Ive used websites like that to get Visas before and had no problems. Can't you just do expedited service through the US passport site though and drop it off at your nearest post office? It wouldn't be 24 hours but it should be in plenty of time for your trip. I think expedited is like an extra $70.

 

Yes - I found out I had to travel for the UK for work a few years ago on a Wednesday leaving on a Sunday. Passport was expired and we contacted an expedition service immediately and I had a new one by Friday afternoon I believe. The service's name is on a sticker on my passport, which is at home, so I can look at it tonight if you're interested.

My understanding is passport expedition is a big scheme whereby they charge you a fee just to get you at the front of the passport line. It works, though.

 

2013 expiration. Already sent it off via mail and got the letter back saying fill out a new form. Had to order a new birth certificate too. I've got an appointment this Saturday so just gonna head over and we what they say. They've already processed my payment, so hopefully that means we're not restarting get the 2-3 week time frame on expidted service
...

 

If you wouldnt mind that'd be appreciated. If I'm gonna pay for an Internet scam may as well be a TMB endorsed one

 

Don't do this.

I accidentally tossed my passport out with some papers while I was moving cross country a year ago. I was scheduled to leave for the Dominican Republic the next day and went to the nearest passport office (Dallas) first thing in the morning and got my passport by noon. It cost ~$200. There are numerous passport offices around the country, but not all do same day passports. Make sure you call and confirm that they do and ask what documents you need. I needed my trip itinerary, my drivers license, and an original copy of my social security card as well as my birth certificate I believe

 

Good to know. Seems like I'll have enough time to get it done via post office. Nearest passport office is in ATL and if I had to take a day to travel there wouldn't be the worst thing ...

 

Delta and United both now give you miles based on what you spend, not miles flown, so it eliminates how people used to take long cheap flights to build up miles. American still does miles flown which is why I fly them domestically instead of the others but I'm sure its only a matter of time before they change too. I assume most people in this thread live in the south so aren't you guys kinda stuck with Delta for the most part?

 

It's not, a lot of the airlines are doing a good job of killing the value of frequent flier programs, and they wonder why this along with their quest to cram as many seats into a cabin and cutting as many amenities as possible is turning people away from them. I was looking at booking a friend to come with me to Japan from San Diego, and United was the cheapest. They don't even have fucking TV's on the plane meanwhile every asian carrier has on demand personal tvs. Same thing happend to me on American to south america last year. Old as shit plane, no tvs and the ticket was over $2K.

 

flew to Paris on American. it was an old pos plane that didn't have TVs. don't fly American internationally.

flew from Frankfurt to Paris on Lufthansa. I'd like to fly them more, very nice.

 

I was surprised how much I liked Norwegian considering how dirt cheap it is. TVs with music and movies, usb chargers

 

MQMs haven't changed. Still earned based on miles flown. Only thing that changed was RDMs

 

The new Delta FF program is completely geared towards corporate travel. They are rewarding the flyer who books last second $500 flight from ATL-NYC and screwing the flyer who books a $300 ATL-LAX flight.

 

book me a flight tomorrow for dc

 

:(

 

yeah corporate codes at hotels are clutch

 

Paid to have mine expedited at the passport office (post office) near my house. After a couple weeks of hearing nothing from them, I called. They told me a needed more info or something so I overnighted it to them and they overnighted my passport to me 2 days before my trip to Oktoberfest with Gin Buckets ... I've never tried and agency that wasn't government ran

 

CIBT was the service I used. Worked perfectly for me.

http://cibtvisas.com/

 

This interests me.

 

Yacht week cheat sheet just posted in one of my Yacht Week groups for future partakers. It would be a group of MBAs that make something like this, type A as shit.

 

That's a very good list though

 

Thanks. I actually got my birth certificate in the mail pretty quickly, so should have everything I need to get it handled at the post office tomorrow. Will look in to this of it comes down to the wire ...

 

Agree with almost all of it... 1015% is a ridiculous tip, however

 

I wish I had a sharpie and better floaties

 

I can't think of any time where we need a sharpie. I suppose big floaties could have been good for having lots of people on. The water was incredibly buoyant and floating was super easy so I never got on a floatie

 

Bitches kept stealing my drink

 

I want to bring a shitload of xmas lights and straight Christmas Vacation my catamaran.