game changer. sometimes the customs line is short and it doesn't matter. But it can save you an hour+ at other times
been in copenhagen for four hours and had one of the best meals of the last few years already starting well
The more expensive safari spots are insane but I just couldn't justify it. I'm currently not that fancy. Maybe some day
not to hipster GE but it's not as much of a gamechanger as it used to be they've streamlined the regular entry process so much that on Sunday my wife made it through less than 5 minutes after me despite the fact that customs was packed with people. The fact that it also gives you TSA precheck makes it worth it though
You can spend as much as you want to; I saw places that were $2-3K/night. But I'm not sure how much of a "better" experience it is. I'm sure it comes in the form of meals and lodging. I'm sure this was our guide just paying lip service, but she said the really expensive resorts are really private game reserves and not "part" of Kruger. They treat the animals well, and don't do anything morally wrong, but these animals don't really roam around the 7,500 square miles that is Kruger; they're confined to the private reserve areas to ensure the people paying big $$ get first-class viewing.
Right. Like the immaculate villas with a private pool in the middle of the bush look insane but I'm just trying to go on a safari not be a Kardashian
Global Entry protip: Canadian airports require you to have your physical GE card with you, even though your enrollment status with Customs and Border Patrol is tied to your passport number (and not needed at other re-entry points). With that said, kiosks and other improvements have sped up the regular line (& Canadian lines, in my experience have been short - we aren't talking about IAH or JFK type lines)
When you're doing the Colosseum/Forum stuff don't forget to hit the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli a few blocks north. I forgot to hit it when we were down there, and had to walk back from the Pantheon the next day through driving rain to see Michaelangelo's Moses statue. Nothing particularly enticing about the church itself, no real curb appeal, but the sculpture is absolutely breathtaking
Can’t get global entry but I found using the mobile passport app helped me save about 45 minutes coming back into jfk
Only got to spend roughly 16 hours total in Vietnam when the wife and I went to SK/Thailand last year. Those few hours were all I needed to know I want go back. Badly. We had a huge layover in Ho Chi Minh, so we left the airport and went down town for about 6 hours. Super cheap and the food was simply amazing. Had the best Pho of our lives and it was roughly $2 per large bowl. The beer was cheap as shit. Did you do Halong Bay? That's a dream spot of mine. An old friend just said fuck it and moved there. She is renting a 2 bedroom in Da Nang about a block off the beach not far from the Hyatt. She lived here in Inman Park for the past 5 years. Said her place is very nice and her rent is only 20% of what he rent was for a 1 bedroom in Inman Park. Roughly paying 300 a month. Has invited me and the wife to come visit. My wife is leary because of our old relationship. Feels bad man. Still going to go to Vietnam in the next 18 months, just won't be able to stay for free.
That apt complex that is right near Jack's Pizza. You can walk out the back and walk into Lady Bird as well.
That's in the same old location as P'Cheen used to be right? No idea. I know everything that's been in that location has struggled for some reason.
I did 3 days/2 nights in Halong Bay (with the 2nd night being on Cat Ba Island). It was really cool, but I wouldn't go back. Underwhelming is too harsh, but the amount of companies can be pretty overwhelming, lots of shysters. We got swindled a little bit, put on an old, shitty boat--really not what was advertised at all. We had a good group and were able to have a blast, just something to be aware of. When I return to Vietnam, I have to check out the South. Really want to take the Mekong Delta all the way into Cambodia. I only did the North over 2-3 weeks: Hoi An - Da Nang - Hanoi (then to Sapa and Halong Bay).
Headed to Dallas for Labor Day weekend to catch Auburn vs. Oregon football game. Going with 10 college buddies. We are looking for good public golf courses, a nice dinner option in downtown on Friday evening, and a great BBQ spot for Sunday. Any suggestions?
jvo25 I don't know much about Dallas public golf but Stevens Park seems to be getting a lot of love on the NLU forum. There's a Dallas course thread over there that might be helpful
This is tempting TO: Rarotonga (RAR) FROM: Calgary (YYC) - $797 CAD Las Vegas (LAS) - $619 Portland (PDX) - $622 Sacramento (SMF) - $677 San Francisco (SFO) - $643 San Jose (SJC) - $687 Seattle (SEA) - $634 Vancouver (YVR) - $785 CAD WHEN: Varies by origin. Generally August 2019 through April 2020, some including Thanksgiving, but all excluding Xmas/NYE NORMAL PRICE: $1,500+ AIRLINE(S): Air New Zealand BUY BY: We think these fares will last 1-2 days
Damn. Was thinking NZ/Fiji for my honeymoon but Rarotonga could be tempting in place of Fiji. Anyone been to both?
One of my sisters went to Aitutaki in Cook Islands a couple of years ago. They loved it. Was part of a 15 day trip that included Fiji and somewhere else. Apparently Aitutaki has bioluminescence bloom and they were there when it happened. Said at night, looking into the water was just like looking up. Stayed at Aitutaki Lagoon Private Resort. Pricey, but they loved it. Not them, but a pic online from the resort:
Shit man, I’m not sure. There are a ton of good spots, but nothing great comes to mind. Let me get back to you. When are you coming again? Your pledge bro Mason and his wife are coming out July 4th weekend.
Nice. I haven't seen Mason in forever. I'll be there Memorial Day with my girlfriend. I'll buy you a beer if you're around.
Cambodia/Viet Nam write up. I'll try to keep it brief but I could write pages on each spot we visited, so if anyone wants more info send me a note. One of our best vacations ever. I think we may go back soon as we fell in love with both countries, but of course there are still a million places we haven't been or want to go back to, so we'll see. A recurring theme in our trip was that we went during shoulder season between the winter high season and summer peak, so we had the benefit of smaller crowds pretty much everywhere, which was a big plus for us. Siem Reap: Fit this in because we regretted not working in a trip to Angkor Wat when we went to Thailand a few years ago and I'm glad we did. We only had 2 days but that's enough to know we'd love to see more of Cambodia. The people and food were fantastic and it's the cheapest country I've ever visited. For a tourist area, Siem Reap was very chill. It had more of a small town feel than I expected. We very much enjoyed Angkor Wat and the other temples, but for us a half day was enough. I know some people book multi-day tours but I had no desire to spend that much time there. Props to BamaNug for encouraging us to visit Angkor at sunrise. It was beautiful of course, but the real benefit was that we were done by noon on a day that ended up being 104 degrees F with choking humidity. Doing all of that in the afternoon would have been miserable. Among other cool things we did, the Phare Circus is a non-profit small scale Cirque du Soleil-esque experience that I'd highly recommend, and we also visited the APOPO center where they train rats to detect leftover landmines and unexploded ordnance, which is a big problem there. Khmer cuisine is great. Ha Noi: stayed in the Old Quarter and spent a good bit of time exploring the area on foot. Really cool city and as most know, the food is incredible. Coffee too. As a coffee addict, I was in heaven our entire time in Viet Nam. We did a seafood street food tour one evening that I'd highly recommend. If you have some time, the Museum of Ethnology is a cool way to spend a few hours learning about the 54 distinct ethnic groups that make up Viet Nam. One of our favorite experiences was at Ba Vi National Park outside of Ha Noi. We hiked to a few peaks (not hard hiking - it was straight up but the path is paved and well stepped) and at the temple to Ho Chi Minh at one of the peaks ran into a local family who wanted to take pics with us (another recurring theme - we had several Vietnamese women want selfies with my wife throughout the trip ) then invited us to share their picnic lunch, beer, and rice wine. Really cool experience and I guess one could get a bit dramatic about Vietnamese and American strangers sharing a nice lunch at a temple dedicated to Ho Chi Minh if one wanted... Phong Nha National Park: This area is gorgeous and home to the largest cave systems in the world. Son Trach Commune is a nice little village along the river that would be your base there. Plenty of day trips to see caves, which we did. We also did a two-day cave excursion that involved camping out in the jungle that I'd highly recommend to anyone so inclined. Awesome to see caves that are otherwise inaccessible, and the company we went with (Oxalis, the only company licensed to conduct tours of the entire cave system) is a great organization who does a lot for the community. Campsite was in a beautiful setting and had a perfect swimming hole right next to it. They have a max of 10 per tour but on our days we were the only two, so we had a staff of 5 cooking/guiding/serving us which was awesome. Da Lat: canyoning is one of our favorite vacation activities so the ability to do that (plus the prospect of temps in the 70's every day) drew us here. Lots to do here but the highlights for us were the two days we spent canyoning. We did the "normal" canyoning on Datanla Falls one day and the second day with a group that has access to falls on the Dasan River. We drove 45 minutes outside of Da Lat and switched to an open air jeep which then took us on a pretty treacherous muddy road up the mountain to the coffee farms of the K'ho people. The canyoning was great and culminated in rappelling down a 65m (approx 200 feet) waterfall. Awesome. Other notes: On this trip we didn't do any Airbnb's and booked all of our hotels on Booking.com. I found that to be a great decision as every place offered breakfast with the rate, and it was great to have people to ask about local tips, arrange transport, etc. Plus the dependence on reviews and TripAdvisor ratings has given all the power to the consumer, so the service everywhere we stayed was impeccable. Our B&B in Da Lat even washed our gross jungle clothes for free, plus gave us free coffee/beer/smoothies whenever we were around and treated us like family. Also the view was killer. We were very happy with our accommodations and the companies we used for tours and such so I'm happy share details with anyone who asks. No uber in Viet Nam but Grab is pretty much the same (I think it's a joint venture) and if you're by yourself even gives you the option of hopping on the back of a motorbike. My only beef was that it wouldn't let me add my credit card so I had to pay cash for every trip. You forget what a pain it is to deal with cash all the time until you spend a few weeks in a cash based economy...
Got word from my boss this week that we'll be having our annual team meeting in Warsaw Poland this fall. So my wife and I are going to take at least ten days afterwards to do a trip around central Europe. We know for sure we're going to visit Auschwitz since I'm not sure we'll ever be in Poland again and then also a little town in central Germany called Hoxter that my grandparents immigrated from. Besides that we're pretty open and considering all the other major cities: Berlin, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich etc. Leaning towards spending most of our time in Austria as we both love mountain towns but really we're open to anything based on recommendations.
Sounds like an awesome trip. Matterhorn is out of the way, but on my list. Also, tell me where I sign up for your employer.
I'd recommend Hallstatt. Gruner Baum is right on the water and the town square. there's a new hotel on the other side of the Schiffstation parking lot called the Heritage, but I've never been inside - looks expensive. We've stayed at Zauner and Simony in the past, but Simony's offseason staff isn't as good as the summer group
They're incredible. I'm in Minneapolis with my senior manager this week and she told me to just let her know when I'm ready to move to Singapore or Hong Kong as we've got so much business building in Southeast Asia right now we're turning away clients. We just bought a new house and my wife had a bout of cancer two years ago so I told her to give me a couple years and I'll be taking her up on the offer.
Pretty large Paris sale TO: Paris (CDG) FROM: Atlanta (ATL) - $490 Boston (BOS) - $451* Fort Lauderdale (FLL) - $389 Los Angeles (LAX) - $498 Miami (MIA) - $341* Minneapolis (MSP) - $493 Montreal (YUL) - $661 CAD* New York City (JFK) - $313* New York City (LGA) - $284 Newark (EWR) - $293* Oakland (OAK) - $491 Philadelphia (PHL) - $444* San Francisco (SFO) - $444* San Jose (SJC) - $484 Toronto (YYZ) - $655 CAD Washington DC (IAD) - $487 West Palm Beach (PBI) - $446 * - nonstop / direct WHEN: Varies greatly by origin. Generally August 2019 through early April 2020, including some Thanksgiving, but excluding NYE. A limited number of routes include Xmas with trips of 14+ days
Salzburg, Vienna, Munich are really great cities, especially with your wife. Very convenient to travel between those 3 as well.
Grab wise we were told to always use the cash option as theres some scams involved with the CC option so you probably went the right way.