Carnival of Cities

Hey Travel Peeps!

I was featured on a cool Carnival of Cities blog. Basically it features a ton of different travel blog entries that are dedicated to specific cities around the world. One of my New York/New England posts is featured. I even found a few new travel blogs to follow. :-)

Check it out!
http://missus-emm.blogspot.com/2009/08/carnival-of-cities-blog-carnival.html

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

A Room With A View

I think one of the first things I do when I get to a hotel room is to check out the view. Sometimes I'm disappointed and sometimes I get views like this.....



The first one was my very first trip to New York City. Can you believe that view of Times Square?! We were sooooo excited! We stayed at the Marriott Marquis Hotel.






This next view is from my hotel in Paris. Hotel Eden Montmartre. How gorgeous is that!





Makes me feel very lucky that I've had the opportunity to check out these cities and had such great experiences.


Anyone else have any "rooms with a view"??


Bonne nuit, travel peeps! (Good night)

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??

San Diego Zoo

Working at a hotel has it's perks. Sometimes you get free stuff. In this case... tickets to the San Diego Zoo!

San Diego is about 1 1/2 hours south of Orange County. I loved this zoo. I haven't been in years so it was great to visit. There were lots of babies and most of the animals put on a show for us.

Things I Learned At The Zoo:

1. Hippopotamas' are ginormous!

2. Baby monkeys get in trouble by their mama's too.

3. Gorillas are amazingly human like. Especially when they interact with their babies.

4. Big cats like to sleep alot.

5. Baby Bears and Koalas are hilarious when they try to get comfortable in a tree.

6. Polar Bears like carrots.

7. The San Diego Zoo is very hilly.

***A GREEN TIP- The San Diego Zoo does it's part to Recycle. They have tons of recycle bins for cans and plastic containers. You can also recycle your old cell phones there.

Here are a few pics from the day.

This is the most action we saw out of all the big cats.

Look at the way he is sitting. So human like...it's scary!

You see a lot of reflection from the window but how cute is this little guy playing with his mom or dad. His face is priceless. You may need to click on this one to see his face up close. Adorable.

This guy is in charge.

These guys were swimming all over.

About to take a swim.

This is a cool pic.

This position didn't work too well. His paw is soooo cute! ha ha.

Maybe this position is better.

Now it's the Koala's turn to get comfy.

Focused.



Ciao Travel Peeps!

Hiking- Laguna Coast Wilderness

Laguna Coast Wilderness
http://www.ocparks.com/LagunaCoast/
Laguna Coast Wilderness Park
18751 Laguna Canyon Road
Laguna Beach, CA 92651
(949)923-2235

So, my friend and I decided to play tennis a few weekends ago. I met her at her apartment in Irvine, Ca at about 9:30am. We went to play tennis at some courts near-by and they were all full with people waiting. We then tried 2 other courts that we could find and all of them were full. She had remembered a co-worker mentioning hiking near the hotel that we work for. Since we were near our hotel, she called her to get directions. We ended up at Laguna Coast Wilderness.

Since we were only planning on going to play tennis, I only had 1 bottle of water. She had her water in a to-go coffee mug. We just thought we would be going for a little "walk". That was mistake #1. Armed with 1 bottle of water between the two of us (remember, she had the mug so she couldn't bring it on the walk), car keys and my camera, we headed out on the trail. We left our phones in the car because again, this was just supposed to be a little walk.

5 hours later-Dehydrated, dirty and hungry.....we got back to my car. I've never been so happy to see my beautiful air conditioned Nissan. We had been so excited that we found this jewel in Orange County. It was so beautiful. Lots of fun plants to look at, bugs, caves, etc. Also, it was an easy hike. Until we decided to go back in the direction of our car. It was all up hill from there. Literally. It was really steep. Plus, we were out of water. I started to see black spots and was dizzy. After resting for a few minutes, I felt much better and we went along. An older man and his daughter and grandson were hiking and asked us if we had anymore water. Which of course we didn't. He was decked out in a "camelback" full of water and bags full of food. He told us to take some of his water from his flask. We felt bad and politely declined. He insisted. God bless him because we needed that water soooo bad.

So clearly we were not prepared for this 5 hour hike. We were not very smart. We should have stopped somewhere to pick up some sort of food and more water. We didn't realize how long we'd be out there. The older man pretty much saved us. He told us if we didn't drink the water, we would become coyote bait. Ek! We must have looked dehydrated. ha ha.

Well, even though I almost died....it was an amazing place to go hiking and I can't wait to go back. Next time I will print out a map from their web-site, pack a back pack with snacks and extra water, maybe bring a cell phone and enjoy the view. I really loved the cave we found and I heard there are more of them! It was really overcast and drizzelly when we went (which was kind of nice actually), but I hear on a clear day you can see the ocean from some of the spots.

So if you are in Orange County and like to hike (or mountain bike), you should definitely check it out! Here are some pictures that we took. Yes...we brought a camera but not a cell phone. We're lame.

***A hint. There are paid parking areas which you will see on their web site. However there is an entrance in Newport Beach that is free! From Newport Coast Drive and Ridge Park Road. Take Ridge Park Road all the way up to the top. Park where it ends and there is an entrance right there. You can't miss it.

Amazing views.


Can you see the huge spider web??




Um not sure what this paw print belongs to. EK!




Our cave.


The entrance to our cave.


Wow.


These butterflies were everywhere. They're blue!





Don't look too close at this one. No make-up and very dehydrated!


This was funny. Had to take a pic.


A hawk!


Cactus!

Have a great summer Travel Peeps!!

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......

Wish I was Here....

Dear Travel Peeps,

Wish I was here!




Sincerely,
TravelGirl!

Lake Mission Viejo: South Orange County

A few pics from the lake by my house. Lake Mission Viejo. (located in South Orange County) This is a great place to take a walk. It's a little over 3 miles to walk around the whole thing. It is located on Alicia Parkway in between Marguerite and Olympiad. I usually park on Marguerite in a shopping center. Then walk towards Olympiad. Right on Olympiad. Right on Alicia and then Right back onto Marguerite. Basically it's like a big triangle. Nice views though!