DC Playlist

Here it is kids...... a shortened down version of my DC playlist. I would say it's a pretty mellow list. Nothing too crazy. I usually like music I can fall asleep to on a plane ride or music I can stare out of a train to. :-)


DC Playlist

Chasing Pavements- Adele (Love this song! Lot's of soul)
Never Say Never- The Fray (The Fray has great travel music.)
Droplets- Colbie Caillat feat. Jason Reeves (I first heard a live version of this. She just released this recorded version on her new album, Breakthrough.)
Trouble- Coldplay (love this song)
Already Gone- Kelly Clarkson (Her new album is amazing. However....live she is even better! She did a bluesy version of Patsy Cline's Walking After Midnight. Youtube it!)
Dirty Laundry- Bitter:Sweet (This group also did the Lipstick Jungle theme song)
Still- Matt Nathanson (love love)
Not Myself- John Mayer (gotta have some John Mayer!)
Stormy Weather- Etta James (I love the soul in this song. Her old stuff is amazing)
Who’s Loving You- Jackson 5 (I absolutely love this song. I love singing it in the car.)
Sleeping To Dream- Jason Mraz (This is such a sweet song. Love it.)
Haven’t Met You Yet- Michael Buble (the newest song from my boyfriend, Michael!)
Sooner Or Later- Michelle Branch (Michelle is going pop/countryfor her next album. Can't get this song out of my head. Can't wait to hear the rest of the album.)
Yellow- Coldplay
Every Time You Lie- Demi Lovato (Yes...this is the Disney girl. Don't judge! I love this song.)
Please Come Home- Dustin Kensrue (This is the lead singer from Thrice which is one of my roommate's favorite bands. This is from his solo album.)
Better Together- Jack Johnson (I love the islandy feel to his music.)
I’m Yours- Jason Mraz (Great sing a long song!)
City Love- John Mayer (Might be my favorite John Mayer song.)
Mexico- Jump, Little Children
Save You- Kelly Clarkson (This song gets to me. Love it! Kelly is my favorite.)
Where I Stood- Missy Higgins (I love this song!)
Sunrise- Norah Jones (just in case I see a Sunrise!)
Come Home- One Republic
Shy That Way- Tristan Prettyman feat. Jason Mraz (I love when my favorite artists collaborate.)


Now go download all of these songs!!! :-) (You can check out some clips of the songs if you scroll down on the right side of the blog. I have most of them on a playlist for you!)

**What would be on your playlist??








Farewell Travel peeps! I will post again when I get back from DC!!! Leaving in 3 days!

Weekends Ahead

As my good "friend" Kelly Clarkson would say..... "I'm Ready Now!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMMkIqfmW2s

Ready for what?? For my 2 upcoming weekend trips of course! This weekend I'll be celebrating 2 of my good friends' birthdays in Manhattan Beach and next weekend is my Labor Day DC trip! I'm so excited.

Currently I'm concentrating on Manhattan Beach as it's coming up this weekend. I have picked out a dinner place which I cannot disclose at this time for the off chance that my roommate (who is one of the birthday girls!) may read this post. I also have a nice bottle of champagne which I received as a 30th birthday present to me from said roommate. Roommate had a free 2 night stay for the Manhattan Beach Marriott Hotel which she won from a work raffle. My ex-roommate's ex boyfriend also works there and he is going to take care of our parking charges and possibly get us an upgrade. Which we totally did not ask for but are sooooo excited about!! I will let you know what we end up doing on our little weekend trip.

Then...next week I will concentrate on the DC trip coming up next Friday! We will be making a Target trip sometime next week for the last minute necessities. We also decided that a great way to save money will be to bring breakfast bars/snacks so we won't have to go out to breakfasts. This will save us 3 meals! Once we are there, I will pick up some sort of fruit from a market. Fruit is something I crave while on vacation. Maybe it's all the walking or maybe it's the lack of fruit in the meals eaten on vacation. All I know is I always want APPLES!!! haha. Oh and of course WATER! Always have to make sure you buy water before you head back to your hotel for the night. The worst thing is when you end up having to drink the bottle of water the hotel has provided and then seeing the $5 charge on your bill! Fail Whale!!

Ok kids.... enough of this random post. I just wanted to let you know that fun things are coming. In fact....I think I shall make a DC playlist for my Zune. I'll let you know how that goes. All of these pre-planning rituals make the wait a little more bearable. :-)

A bientôt Travel Peeps!!
translation: See you soon!

Travel Girl gets her last minute travel necessities from:
TARGET
www.target.com

Countdown begins!

1 Month until DC!!!!!

I'm getting excited!!!!!

It's about time I start researching where I want to go while there. I bought a book and have a list of suggestions from some friends.

Can not wait to be in the airport. Airports mean fun times are ahead.

Speaking of airports.....I'm driving my friend to LAX tomorrow in RUSH HOUR!! WTF! Bad planning on her end. haha. Actually, you don't have much choice when you are flying to Berlin. Not many flights to choose from. Her trip will consist of Berlin, Prague and Vienna! Can't wait to hear all about it and see the pictures. I will be living vicariously through her on this one.

Ok, Happy Sunday world travelers!

Official Trip!

So it's official! I finally have a trip planned! It's not a big one but I am soooo excited about it. Where am I going, you ask??

Washington, DC!!! I am so excited because I have never been. Neither has my roommate which is who I'm going with.

This is the same roommate that I went to Nashville with last year. Last year we went for Labor Day and that is what we are doing again this year. Since we work together, we are not usually allowed to take any time off together. However, since it is a holiday weekend, we are able to leave a little early on Friday and then fly out. Stay for 3 nights and back on Monday which is the holiday. So it works out perfect!

Here is the price breakdown:

Roundtrip Flight (Orange County to Washington)- $220.40 (taxes included!)
Baggage Fee- $30 ($15 per flight)

Hotel- $133.96 (That is total for all 3 nights plus taxes and will be divided by 2!)

TOTAL- $317.38 (my share)

AWESOME, right?!! FYI, hotel is so cheap because of my hotel discount. Can you see why I don't want to leave Marriott?? :-)

We won't have to rent a car since we will be so close to their metro system. This will save us rental car fee and a parking fee at the hotel. The hotel's website also states that a taxi from the airport to their hotel is only about $15. Or you can try to metro it for only $3! Either way, it's a deal.

***Here's a helpful travel tip. If anyone ever asks you what you would like for a gift (birthday, Christmas, etc), tell them a gift card for a specific hotel chain or airline you use. That's what I did for my birthday and now I won't have to pay for my hotel!

Well, I just wanted to share the exciting news with you! And what a perfect time to tell you about this trip. Almost 4th of July!

Happy Travels my little World Travelers and have a safe and wonderful holiday weekend.

btw....any suggestions on things I can't miss in DC??

Travel Dilema

Ok kids. I have a dilema and I need help!

So my friend and I have been going back and forth about a trip this summer. I'm not used to traveling with a real "traveler". Usually, I plan everything and one or more of my friends just tags along. But this friend is well traveled and has ideas of her own. Her original idea was to go to Croatia. I told her to send me an itinerary. Meaning, I wanted a detailed document of hotels, flights and all travel costs. So I can get a ballpark figure. That's how I work! I need to see exactly how much everything is. So she sent it to me. Well.....it all looked great but I just couldn't bear to spend the money. Especially since I've been working so hard to eliminate my dept. Then the flights went up drastically and that trip fizzled out for her too.

Then I came up with a very cost effective trip where we would both be seeing places we've never been. So she asked me for an itinerary. Paybacks' a bitch! ha ha.. So below is my plan:

LA to Atlanta
Rent a car
2 nights in Savannah, Georgia
2 nights in Wilmington, North Carolina
2 nights in NYC, New York
1 night in Washington, DC
1 night in Charlotte, North Carolina
1 night in Atlanta, Georgia
Fly home

**The reason for the round trip was because dropping off a rental car at a different place than where you picked it up from added about $400 to the cost of the rental!! Originally I had planned to continue up to Boston and fly home from there. I just couldn't justify spending the extra $400!

Here are the costs:
Flight: $314 (taxes included)
Hotels: $612.29 (taxes included)($306.15 each)
Rental Car for all days: $290 ($145 each)
Parking fees at hotels: $127 (63.50 each)(FYI: $110 of this is for the 2 nights in NYC! wtf!)
Total: $828.65 each

Not bad, huh?? Helps when you work for Marriott and can get some of the rooms for $39 per night! Holler!!

Well my friend was really excited about this trip too. She loves Savannah and has never been to NYC. But then she got bored and still had Europe on the mind so she kept searching flights. She then decided she would go to Europe no matter what. Even if it's by herself. (Boo for my trip!! I really like my itinerary!)

She came up with a pretty good trip and the cost is actually not bad for Europe. However, it was still a bit more than my trip would have costed and I just hate to rack up a credit card again. She bought her ticket yesterday. She will be going to Berlin, Prague and Vienna. She got a good deal on a flight. I believe it ended up to be about $630. She sent me an updated itinerary and I've been looking it over. Her Berlin hotel was kind of expensive so I looked it up again and found a cheaper Marriott to stay in for all 3 nights. This will be a savings of approximately $180!! I also found a cheaper flight! So here is her itinerary after my modifications:

LA to Berlin
3 nights in Berlin
3 nights in Prague
3 nights in Vienna
Vienna to LA

Flight: $567.90
Hotels: $380.85 ($190.43 each)
Trains: $197 (Berlin to Prague and Prague to Vienna)
Total: $955.33 each

Wow! Great prices right? So other than the fact that this one would cost me more money, the only other problem with this one is the dates of this trip will take me out of work for 2 weeks! (because of when the cheaper flights were) No bueno! I do have plenty of paid time off available so I will be getting full pay. But all of the catch up work would not be cute!

So there it is. My travel dilema. Do I spend the extra money and take the Europe trip? Or do I be more reasonable and take my East Coast trip with another friend?

I just can not decide. Hmmmmmm......