How to pick out an Antartic Expedition
How to evaluate an Antarctica cruise. I’m not going to get into what is nicest or the most luxurious. Most of the Antarctica ships are pretty nice, but we aren’t going to antarctica for luxury are we? The mediterranean and Caribbean aren’t going anywhere, save luxury, entertainment, etc for cruises like this. You are going to Antarctica to see, and understand, antarctica.
First, only 100 people are allowed from any one ship onto Antarctic soil at any given time, ergo, the more over 100 people on the ship you have, the less you are going to be able to get on. Look for itineraries that get you deep into the Antarctic and for that you need a specific kind of ship.
The Design, to get deep into Antarctica, you are only allowed to go if you are on a ship that has at least some icebreaking capability. You are likely looking for an Ulstein X-bow, like the Lindblad Endurance, Aurora Expeditions or an Icebreaker like Ponant’s Le Commandant Charcot. I think those ships set the standard.
The staff… An Antarctic expedition is a foray into the natural world and in this day and age, one on conservation as our polar regions melt. You need highly trained and capable staff. Ones that can read the weather conditions and make the most of your limited time on the Antarctic. You also want people that can not only keep you safe, but also educate you on this fascinating place.
I think that Lindblad, with its National Geographic partnership and its new ship, the Endurance. Is my first choice. I think that for the price, Aurora Expeditions really delivers incredibly well, they may not quite be the best, but for the price. WOW. Then Ponant, if you just need the fancy and are on the Commandant Charcot which is a full-fledged icebreaker.
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I’d like to invite you to learn more about Antarctica. This is a sales thing for sure, but they will give you the benchmark that you should judge any trip by there. Lindblad has a webinar and tell them I sent you. My rep says they will be picking agents for their next fam partially based on their turnout and I would freaking love to add a 6th continent to my personal list.
My Travel Marketing Dilemma
I love the travel industry, I truly do, and like any beloved relationship this means an acceptance of its shortcomings. One of the parts of the business I find most unpalatable is the marketing and this is why I send out so little of it myself.
This has a downside because while I almost never verbalize such things, often, when people call or email I have thoughts like like:
“You want a river cruise? Why didn’t you let me know last month when one of the best lines was doing it’s 50th anniversary sale and had the best deals I’ve ever seen?”
“Safari? Why didn’t you call me last week when my favorite line of Safari lodges was offering an every fourth night free which could’ve saved you $15k over the three spots in Africa you just asked about.
Or,”you want to fly business class to Europe? Why didn’t you call me yesterday when booking 90 days out would’ve saved you $600?
And then I start thinking I should be blasting out every travel deal that comes across my desk, but only briefly. It’s the whole world and if I did that, my clients would have to spend hours every day looking through the needle in the haystack of that particular deal they actually want. Travel companies definitely want me to do that and if they could, they’d take me out of it and just blast you with information that all amounts to “buy this” and while there would be some things in there you would want, most of it, you wouldn’t. Not that it isn’t mostly all pretty good, it’s just so much of it.
This is why I take pains to isolate my client information away from traditional databases. Most of the most popular travel agent based CRMS have built into them powerful data harvesting tools. Those tools meant to go back to airlines, cruiselines, hotels and tour operators so they can be blasted with marketing materials in all forms.
I’ve never taken part in this, frankly, when I went to a seminar about the amount of information that can be learned about a person from just the information required for your average international travel I was horrified. Your income, your expenditures and how to really dial in marketing pinpointed right at you, personally. In the information age, this has found a bold frontier often making us wonder if our computers and cellphones are telepathically eavesdropping on us.
So, not only do I keep my client database off in a heavily encrypted format that wasn’t ever met for the travel industry (I do have a tool that securely translates into flight booking info) I also never share client info except as necessary to make bookings or if a client asks me too. I do hope that a new CRM/booking engine will come out that is actually useful and doesn’t have these data backdoors. It would make mylife a lot easier. I often think I should get some investors and develop one. I think that the internal databases at companies like Expedia have solved these problems and that bringing that down to the level of an individual agent is coming.
All of this is to say. How do I bring my clients what they want, when it will be at the highest value? I don’t know. I’m fantastic at ‘client qualification” but somebody has to reach out to me first for that and a good portion of the time, they are late.
I may put out a survey looking at how you are inspired to travel. How the nontravel professional gets dialed into different destinations is kind of a mystery to me. I sign up for trainings, get inundated with marketing and the basics of my job means researching these things continually. I feel like if I knew what was making people want to travel, I could maybe, just maybe actually send them some selected offers on things they actually want when they are at the greatest value.
If you read this, thanks, this is just me complaining about a situation I often find myself at odds with. I hope the next time you reach out to me with something you want to do, it will be just as an amazing deal, that is just perfect, comes out.
The Return of Last Minute Travel?
When I first started in the travel business in the 90’s there were still a fair amount of ‘last-minute’ deals people could find. I remember looking at a ticket for a weekend trip for months, finding it too expensive and then having the fare drop to a quarter of what it had been a few days before prior. I made the trip. It was fun. That was a tactic for years. If a trip was optional and the airfare was too dang high, check again at 22, 15 and 8 days prior to see if it dipped. Often it would go up, but sometimes down and sometimes down a lot. Then, that tactic stopped working and for many years after that, last minute became synonymous with expensive. at least with airlines. While there have always been exceptions and the occasional last minute deal, by and large, up until the Covid 19 pandemic, this was the case.
During the Pandemic I saw a trend of AMAZING deals followed by mounting prices to the point that they seemed like extortion. Now… it seems like the reverse is often true. Where we start with extortionate pricing and then, sometimes, it winnows down to some decent pricing. I wrote about this in terms of Spring break awhile back and if we take Cabo for Spring break as an example. Back that Saturday to Saturday was a whopping $1400+ in economy during the THICK of spring break and… it still is. However, midweek departures have dropped considerably and if we look out to the last weekend of February we are down to $420! Which is close to a traditionally ‘normal’ price for a nonstop flight to Los Cabos in the Spring. For it being close to Spring break, that’s actually on the cheap side (historically).
That’s just one example where I had notes to refer back to. Now, I’ve made more, because I’m curious to see how this pans out over this year.
It’s going to be interesting to pay attention to the summertime transcon flights (especially this summer to Europe) and then at some point to Asia and Oceania (where prices are REALLY inflated for flights especially). We’ve had a lot of really, really high fares and now I’m seeing in the Spring, some dips. Same with Hotels. I saw some of the highest prices in Mexico I’ve ever seen last fall and I just looked a bit this week and found some deals. I priced one of the best All Inclusives in Los Cabos (Le Blanc) for a good $2500 less for a week than it was back in November. My wife has friends and family back in the Midwest who want a visit and a few weeks ago, prices through March were a steady $250-$300 a ticket at least to not only Milwaukee, but even Chicago, and yesterday at 22 days prior, I ticketed O’hare for $150.
I think that the reason may be because of the recovery continuing from the Pandemic. You see, the Trend I noticed with Air NZ is a trend I noticed a lot as travel started to take off, but was still shaky. Ticket prices started high and then rather than cutting ticket prices, the airlines cut flights. I think that the reason the airlines were able to do this was because they also weren’t carrying much cargo and this played a part in all of the ‘supply chain’ issues we are still climbing out of. I think that now that airlines are starting to take cargo obligations on again they are starting to be forced to drop ticket prices sometimes. I don’t know when, I don’t have the cargo manifests, I sure wish I did.
Similar with the hotels. Staffing was (and is) such a problem that many resorts and hotels were not going up to capacity quite purposefully. Many took on more than they should have and their reputations suffered for it (especially in the luxury market) then their sales pick up where they could and had to hire. Now that their staff have started to grow, they’ve also started becoming more aggressive in pricing to fill room nights. Not predictably, not yet.
I think if you have very set and rigid dates, you may be stuck because if you are stuck flying at prime time for something you have your heart stuck on, it will have to be in advance. Grand Velas, the best family All-inclusive in Los Cabos, has been largely sold out for spring break for weeks now.
But… if you are flexible about where you want to go within say.. Half a dozen places and when… start checking some dates that work for you at least twice a month and you may get very happily surprised.
And, also a really good time to keep your options refundable and flexible, don’t get locked in, especially if something seems high. Then, make a point of rechecking things every few weeks before you go. You could be surprised.
Is a private tour guide worth the price?
Is that private guide worth the price? Probably.
I’m having this come up for a client who asked me the question “is a private tour guide worth it,” And more specifically, in this case, “Is it worth paying top dollar for, what should be, a top quality tour guide?”
Travel is an interesting thing to purchase and has a component that is akin to gambling. This is first true with flights, hotels and even many train tickets, where given availability, moment to moment governs price. (as well as other things, but that’s another blog) We have all seen this. You book a plane ticket for $1000 on year, the next year you come back and it’s$2000. You book a swanky hotel for $800 a night and six months later it’s $400 a night, and so on.
Guiding is largely not like this. Prices tend to move much more slowly and guides tend to have set rates, raising them only as they have to. However, there is still a gambling aspect to this, and this is what I want to unpack.
First, how can it work out? A friendly and knowledgeable local can bring a travel experience up in value perhaps more than anything else. I mean that, whether it's for a few hours or even a few weeks. Insider tips and privileged access are a thing.
Knowledge can bring so much to an experience. That can be historical knowledge such as why this statue is important, or what this mark is (bullet, really?) or whatever. It can be practical such as “We can see the whole museum in the least amount of time if we go this way,” or “This is the best place for coffee when you get off the boat.” Or “Don’t bother with those guys, they just want to sell you some cheap made in China knockoffs, I can take you to the real thing if you are interested. “ At the very least, even a halfway decent guide will make you feel at ease and will make the most of your time.
Sometimes, it goes way beyond that!
Maybe you go into the Sydney Opera house and maybe, just maybe, you get out onto the stage with somebody that belts out a few notes and lets you call out to the back row with the place empty. Maybe your food tour in the Amalfi ends with some chilled limoncello and maybe it ends with some Lemoncello somebody’s grandmother made last year with the sfusato lemons she grows in her backyard and painstakingly peels with no pith at all. Maybe you do a trip down the Philosopher’s path in Gion, Japan and maybe you do it and get to see it from that one temple that largely doesn’t allow tourists, but has one local they let do it because his uncle is the “Shike” of the temple. These things can never be adverstised. Sometimes, they are rehearsing on the stage in Sydney. Sometimes Grandma isn’t giving up any more of her ‘special” limoncello and sometimes the temple has folks meditating and you can’t go in. However, all of these are real examples.
But how can it go bad?
First, every once in a while, you get a guide that just isn’t good. People like me sniff these kind out soon. I will show up to most places already pretty well-informed and I probably studied up before I got to the destination anyway. Maybe I read a novel, maybe I looked at website, maybe I watched a youtube video. Regardless, I’m going to most places already knowing a fair amount and doing my best to know more. I’m the guy that stands at the front of the line or in the front of the van/car and peppers the guide with question after question. Good guides love this and I love it more. Bad guides hate it and I hate it more. Usually, (but not always) you can control this by going through a quality outfit and with a licensed guide (if that country has them).
Sometimes flights go badly even when you are flying on the most expensive tickets. I will take that in stride. Sometimes even the most expensive hotels fall behind in quality and I am much less lenient on this but a bad guide is perhaps the worst thing. I once heard about a guide who got lost in the Medina of Marrakech. I understand where that is, but you are a GUIDE I was livid. I’ve blackballed (personally) that company ever since.
The other thing is that sometimes the guide can be good, but the personal aspect is off. Most guides are knowledgeable and personable. They do a good job and tailoring your experience to you, but even the best have bad days and chemistry is chemistry. Outside of a few African Safari Guides (which is some HIGH LEVEL guiding) the finest guide I ever had was in the Azorean Islands. He knew everything and seemed to KNOW EVERYBODY on Sao Miguel. Everywhere we went, there was a secret something just for us. I loved him, he was the epitome of a Latin Gentleman. He was the best guide on the island and when a certain famous foodie did a special on the Azores. The chemistry wasn’t there, they didn’t get along and that famous guy (when he was alive) wouldn't give the glowing review that I do. Chemistry is chemistry.
I’d say, that at least 9 times out of 10, if you pay more for the better guidance, that will prove to be a high value item. That the guide will take a good experience and change it into something you will remember for the rest of your life. Being who I am, with a voracious appetite for knowledge and travel related knowledge, I’m a soft target for this. I’m also the guy that will read every plaque in a museum and studies for my vacations. However, even if you are just looking for a better, smoother, more efficient experience. Still worth it most of the time. Time abroad is precious and making the most of it, only makes sense.
However for almost everything in Travel, there is a gamble to it. There are bad experiences even with the best guides. I will say this. At a guess, for every time I’ve gotten a complaint about a guide, I’ve had probably 5 stories much to the reverse. Like, a person going back and getting the same guide, or sending a friend to that destination and saying you’ve got to get HIM to show you the markets of Barcelona and teach you to cook real paella. Sometimes, people become friends and book the same guides year after year…. Well, that last one is mostly just Africa, but still. The point is that usually, a high-priced and valued guide IS worth the money.
Exploiting the strength of USD for the American Traveler
This started when I noticed how expensive some things were, especially over spring break. I also was noticing a number of great prices, here and there and I started looking as how to lay them out. The answer here is EXCHANGE rates.
Frankly, I have been floored at some prices I’ve seen and exchange rate seems to be playing pretty hard here.
I’d like to share here.
Here are some numbers I priced now and October of 2020, this is the amount that $1000.00 USD works out to in Local Currency. I give some examples of why, I think, this leads to great deals.
The first column is the currency.
The Second column how much of that local currency $1000.00 USD is equal to (or was on 20th of October)
The Third column is how much of that currency $1000.00 USD would have purchased 2 years ago.
The last column expressed this change as a discount. This is something from 2 years ago, but frankly the dollar was still fairly strong 2 years ago. What is a 29% savings in Japan now is 46% savings compared to Japan at the worst exchange rate (for American tourists). The South African rand may only be 9% less now, but it’s 50% less when it’s exchange rate was most extreme. Argentina… is nearly 60% less than it was 10 years ago (when I was there, btw)
Mexico and Brazil are two countries that actually gained strength against the dollar and below the image. I have more below the image and at the bottom, some quick examples of what led me to do this. It’s good, because in places like Thailand and Vietnam, the exchange rate was already amazing and while it’s better now, there is still better value in South East Asia than nearly anywhere else.
I also checked what the amount would have been at the worst time (for the traveler) in the past 10 years, but I had to do the math myself there, so those figures are less reliable. Which is why I didn’t post those. I do mention those below.
Some standouts and examples… With the two most startling ones at the top of the list and they are two of my favorite countries.
Argentina
October 2020 USD$1000.00 was ARG$82,500
Today USD$1000.00 is ARG$159,000 This is at least part of the reason that the Four Seasons New York is running $1200USD for the beginning of winter and the Four Seasons in Buenos aires is running $816USD per night for the beginning of summer. Both dates are of course, in November, but Southern Hemisphere y’all! I had a look at my favorite boutique in the Palermo district. $209 a night!!! That is officially the lowest price I’ve ever seen. With the exchange rate being nearly half of what it was and more than half of what it was when I went there on my honeymoon. It’s not surprising!
Japan
October 2020 USD$1000.00 would’ve brought in JPY ¥105500
Today USD 10000 = JPY ¥148800! Folks that is 29% lower rate and that is 46% lower than the exchange rate in October of 2012! This means that the Green Japan rail pass (that’s the good one) is only $472 for two weeks.
I can tell you that I have seemnthat pass be nearly twice that price in the past! Tokyo is still Tokyo the Four Seasons is just $662, which is a bargain (also that’s the older one at Otemachi, the new Marunochi is more) For Bargain hunters (like me last time I was there and couldn’t get an agent rate) The Hotel Sunroute Plaza near Shinjuku with super easy airport access. $92 a night for a single! WOW! For what they are, both of those are sensational rates!
Here are some things I researched that led me to look at the currencies on a bigger scale.
First of all, One of the reasons Mexico is higher because it is one of the few countries that has a better (for Mexico, bad for tourists) exchange rate now than 2 year ago when $1000 bought you 21177 pesos compared to now when it buys you 19992 Peso. So, that’s part of the mystery on why Mexico is pricing higher now. I also noticed this higher pricing with Luxury hotels all over which have to pay more for good service and in certain destinations aimed at leisure travelers.
What really triggered me to notice that some places are very well priced, was looking in Asia and in Argentina. (some examples at the bottom)
The Euro is 16% lower October 2020 and is nearly 30% lower than it was in May of 2014.
The Pound is 12% lower than 2 years ago and 32% lower than it was at its highest (To USD)
Australian Dollar 11%now and 40% to its highest exchange rate about 10 years ago and NZD! 15% lower than 2 years ago and 37% lower than its worst exchange rate (at about the same time the dollar was doing poorly for Australian exchanges).
The South African (Safari?) is about 8% lower than 2 years ago, but fully 51% lower than it’s highest point.
Since I did South Africa. Kenya is 8% lower than 2 years ago and 38% lower than it got in 2013.
Botswana is 14% lower than 2 years ago and 42% lower than it was at it’s highest 10 years ago.
Also in South America, while the Chilean Peso is 16% lower than it was 2 years ago (and nearly half what it was at it’s lowest point) the Brazilian Real is like Mexico and actually has improved against the dollar to the tune of 6%. I also forgot to look at Peru and Ecuador… shoot. Oh well, next time.
Asia was really good and the exchange rate has always been awesome for Westerners.
The Thai baht is 18% lower, the Vietnamese Dong is 5% lower, the Indian rupee is 10% lower, the Nepalese rupee is 11% lower, the Indonesia Rupiah is 5 % lower and not much movement on Malaysian Ringitts. To give some reference there, one of my favorite hotels is Vietnam is the Anantara Quy Nohn is running $500 a night for an OceanFront Villa the Anantara Dhighu in the Maldives (not much movement there also) is running $1325 s night for one of their villas. And where I stayed on my last trip (again, no agent rates) the decent Au Lac Charner was $65 a night and that included the afternoon tea on the roof. Bangkok, remember the rate at the Four Seasons in New York and Buenos Aires? $448 a night y’all! And frankly, that may be the best FS of the ones I’ve mentioned here and that’s the truth. There are number of places in Bangkok that are around $100 a night that I would’t mind at all. The Six Senses in Samui, $347 a night. Compare that to the Six Senses in Ibiza $763 a night. And guys, it is WAY nicer in late November in the Gulf of Thailand than it is in the Mediterranean!
A plan thwarted
As I said, I’ve been noticing higher prices all over, but with some real deals also. I got the really egregious pricing looking at Spring break trips and that started an investigation that ultimately led to nothing thanks to the airlines pulling back flight availability.
I was going to note that Mexico was pricing high itself and on key days. Airfare was really high. Key spring dates of 18-25 of March was nearly $900 a person in Economy to Cancun on Southwest. United was about $1200 a person, the following weekend was worse and Cancun had the best prices of any nonstop from denver.
I was going to offer some alternatives, most notably the Canary Islands was less expensive to fly to. And while All-inclusive resorts are available there (most notably on Tenerife) Spanish Canary Islands are very safe, so a very nice vacation to somewhere beautiful and warm was easily possible. For beaches, I had Thailand all laid out with $800 airfare (!!!) and a longer trip could be done at better beaches for much less.
Before that happened, I got as far as pricing this strictly “meh” all-inclusive package in Cancun with this slightly better one in Tenerife and an option with just an apartment hotel and a rental car for a real bargain because I don’t think a full-fledged resort is really necessary in the Canary islands.
I was pricing out Thailand (which is much harder) and Then the airlines put a stop to both of those, the excellent schedule (Tenerife) and prices (Thailand) and I also realized that almost none of my clients book economy anyway and premium airfares are a totally different thing. As a parent myself, I feel the whoa of somebody trying to take a family vacation when ALL the families are trying to take a vacation. Thinking outside of the box can be helpful.
However, I did think of a much better way to look for bargains based on Exchange rates.
Why travelers don’t like to answer what their “budget is”.
There is a question that most people hate to be asked about travel.
“What is your budget?”
The question causes anxiety, because costs in Travel vary wildly. There is a gambling aspect to booking travel, especially airfare, but really all kinds of travel. With most things we buy, we have some idea of what we should pay, travel is often surprising (both surprisingly expensive and surprisingly inexpensive in turn)
People look for simple strategies posing questions like.
“Should I book this now, or wait?”
“Is it better to book on this particular day of the week?”
“Is $(insert almost any $ figure here) amount, a reasonable amount of $ for this plane ticket, hotel room, tour, transfer, cruise or whatever.”
There are no simple answers to any of these questions. I look at travel prices all the time, literally hours of my week, every week, are involved in this. Shoot! I Have to guess and I’m really good at it and know what to look for and do this every damn day nearly The only real barometer for pricing on any given travel item is how it is pricing against its competitors. Sometimes booking early screws you, sometimes waiting does. Sometimes what may look expensive to you is actually a great price and sometimes what looks cheap, is actually quite expensive.
So, if I ask you this question. I understand why you don’t want to answer it. No matter how good a deal you get, you are going to want a better one if possible. If you have a big budget, that’s no reason to get taken advantage of. If you have a small one, that doesn’t mean your trip is impossible.
When I ask the question “what is your budget.” I look at it as how can I squeeze the most value out of this budget? . However, if you are worried that some travel people are looking for you to answer so they know how much money they can squeeze out of YOU. Well. Honestly, like any business, there are some people that do want to know how much money they can get out of you.
So while it does make me happy when I get a budget to make the most of, I get why people don’t like answering that question.
For most destinations I have some idea of what things should cost, but I’m often surprised. The world changes and the world travel market is a reflection of that. I was surprised by a number of prices in the standard “Spring Break” markets, which is what prompted this set of blogs.
The rising price of travel
One of the most strange things about the last few years in Travel have been the prices.
In the past few years, I have literally seen the LOWEST and the HIGHEST prices in travel I’ve EVER seen. Covid really made things jump all over the place..
Now prices are mostly rising, but not universally. I have found some amazing deals here and there. Especially in some destinations and I dug into the deals in another blog, this blog is on why I think prices are going up.
Here are some things driving it.
A lot of hotels, airlines, and other companies barely survived the pandemic. Many are in debt and they are bent on making some money back.
We’ve all noted that for, whatever reason, there are less people available to work, particularly in service positions.
Between “revenge travel” and less available places to travel to, Many destinations have been inundated with travelers, overwhelmed in fact.
Fuel.
Prices have been highest in the luxury arena. Right now I’m looking at a city in Europe where 3 luxury hotels have reigned supreme for some years now. I’m also looking at a small boutique hotel that I very much like. Historically, this hotel is about half of what those elite properties are. Right now, it’s closer to a third to a quarter of them and all four are more expensive than I’ve ever seen.
This WSJ article about Disneyworld/Disneyland, really crystallized this for me. When it comes to high service items. This is the trend. Places are charging more money, to bring more, to fewer people. Disney is a really interesting thing to look at, because it effectively has no competition. Others have tried, but Disney is Disney, other amusement parks just do not compare. Some are better than Disney in some ways, but Disney is unique. Love it or hate it (or love it AND hate it, as I do). What is very easy to see with Disney, is fairly prevalent everywhere. I also will point out that this, for Disney, only really goes to the hotel side. The Parks were BOOMING a veritable army of staff and the hotels don’t even have room service! BOO! Disney, if there isn’t room service is it even really a hotel? I say no! I just got back from Disneyland and the hotel was nice, but no room service and even housekeeping was behind the ball a bit. But with that said, I have one happy little girl, as you can see, if you look at the video on instagram I posted.
Also, I am NOT a Disney Expert.
The only thing I see kind of unifying the better pricing are current exchange rates which are GREAT for the American traveler. I have some research on that in another blog.
Air New Zealand… the jig is up
Will Air NZ be able to obtain the high cost it’s demanding for Holiday Flights? Maybe not this year.
This is excerpted from a client that planned a trip to New Zealand and the Cook Islands (Raratonga) just a few weeks prior to the “Pandy” hitting. He rebooked and has Air NZ credit he wants to Use, but the Realities of New Zealand travel along with the pricing and available routes of Air New Zealand have made that very hard indeed. I dug into this hard enough to want to share it with whomever may be interested.
Well, I'm afraid after digging in and finally getting somebody at Air NZ. I don't have good news. Air NZ has finally completely thrown in the towel on the Raratonga-LAX nonstop. What is worse is that, the flights from Raratonga to Auckland have also been cancelled. Worse still, is that Air NZ seems to be bent on revenue Recovery and offering very high prices for the holidays.
The below may be more than you want to know, but I said I'd dig into this thoroughly and I have.
The only possible ray of light that I may have to offer is that I think it's possible that Air NZ is overplaying their hand and demanding too high a price on a destination that people still feel unsure of. It's possible, that Air NZ will be forced to lower their prices as travel dates get closer, here is why.
While travel is finally now allowed in NZ, it's one of the few countries left that is still testing vaccinated travelers on arrival. A positive test means a 7 day quarantine and there are many, many places with far lighter restrictions. Below are seat maps of an LAX Auckland flight on the 18th of December which should be one of the busiest travel days of winter. Normally, that aircraft would be sold out, but we can see by the seat map it isn't. Beyond that, that aircraft is even more empty than it appears to be. Rows 37-48, never come up as available because those are Air NZ "Skycouch" seats that have some extra hoops (and cost) to book. LAX-Auckland-LAX is going for $3246.00 on the normally very busy days. That price seems, to me, artificially inflated, banking on the hopes of what was one of the most popular destinations in the world coming back to world prominence. There is a definite possibility we could see fares drop and drop dramatically as dates get closer. In October November, those LAX-AKL flights are in some cases about $1346, a good $2k less! than what they are in December. The top two screenshots are screenshots of December 18th ($3246 round trip) and November 7th ($1343 round trip) Note how different they are not.
With all of that said, Air NZ also has an ace card up it's sleeve to avoiding having to lower airfares to fill aircraft. These 777 are their largest seats with 342 passengers. They are currently operating on a reduced enough schedule that it's possible they could swap in their 787-900's, which max out at 275 passengers.
Air NZ flight 5, Saturday, December 18th, front and back halves of economy cabin. Remember that much of the forward section of economy seats are Air NZ “Sky Couch” seats that will not come available (though this GDS system) until a ticket is issued. So while some of them may be booked, they are just as likely not booked.
This seat map of an Air NZ 777-300 ER will show what I mean. It should be noted that it’s not uncommon for Sky couches to be booked with one Aisle seat in the center section. I can tell you that I’d book the Sky Couch for my wife and daughter and likely end up in the Aisle seat for the duration.
Economy tickets Round trip with 18 December as an outbound can go as high as $3246 (and aren’t getting too fare below $3k as far as I can tell)
Economy Tickets Round trip with 07 November as an outbound are going as low as $1335.00
Normally the Holiday season is EXTREMELY popular for New Zealand and Air NZ seems to be gambling that it will be again. I’m sure it will, but I’m not sure about this year.
November 7th.
Musings on Holiday and Spring Break Travel
The next Holiday travel that you could be early on is Spring Break. I have enough winter/Christmas travel to tell you that booking the Holidays is looking rough for Europe. I have a Switzerland for new years that contacted me a month ago and we were lucky enough to find a home rental because every nice hotel in Zermatt was taken. Flights are looking very, very rough for Europe. Folks, If you need help with Europe between December 17th 2022 and January 8th, 2023 I’m going to be charging extra for it. It’s that rough.
But ntt everywhere. Most notably where it normally is the worst.
Australia and New Zealand are actually looking better for availability than one might expect. Post-pandemic Oz is pretty much open and New Zealand is opening. The airlines on these routes seem to be bent on revenue recovery as the fares are very high(which may have a lot to do with the nice availability!!!). I am seeing airfares on peak days for economy class at least 50% above what I have in the past. However, interestingly, I also found a lot of availability in top spots over new years such as by Darling Harbor, Queenstown, Sunshine Coast and Bay of Islands. I even found the Farm at Cape Kidnappers with some availability!!!!! (not on NYE itself) with only a 2 night minimum stay and in the past, that amazing spot has always had 3 night minimum stay for the holidays. I don’t know what to say about the flight prices, the seat maps don’t seem sold out enough to justify the prices which seem inflated, but normally, by this time of year, the holidays down under are a nonstarter. Right now it seems pretty doable, except for a brutal airfare price and… rough air ratings. This is winter down under and not peak season, but Air NZ, Qantas, Jetstar has some of the worst on time/cancellation ratings in July. I’d go to those spots, but I’d try hard to look at travel solutions that didn’t involve flying. I’m actually seeing some sales over the holidays in addition to just availability. There are some exceptions, some of the real powerhouses such as Lizard Island and Capella Lodge seem to be just as sold out as they normally are for the holidays by the previous August, but generally. If one were able to take a very long holiday to Australia and at least several days longer down to New Zealand. I’d say go for it and I’d be jealous too. The Key would be to add enough time to be able to make your way over land, and in Australia, that’s a long, damn time. Still… Knowing what the holidays are usually like down there, I find this proposition attractive. I love my daughter, but if she weren’t in elementary school I’d be looking at finding an angle to work from the Southern Hemisphere this year!
Speaking of seatmaps. Looking forward to spring break. Mexico demand seems down (again going by seat maps) but Costa Rica and Hawaii seem up, I'm wondering how much of Hawaii is the beginning of Asian tourists starting to return. I had some Hawaii this year, but TONS last year and I’ve heard from some hotelier contacts in Hawaii that foreign tourism is pretty huge this year to Hawaii. I’m also seeing some key Caribbean flights on top days start to go.
I almost didn’t look at flight prices. I can get a better idea of how flights are really selling by looking at seat maps and I’m glad I did because WOW! Price GOUGE Alert. $1400 for a nonstop to Los Cabos? That’s for a flight with less than 3% of its seats assigned. Liberia-Costa Rica $2640?!?! These are economy prices!! I simply loathe San Jose and especially Santa Maria Airport. But you could take your whole family with Copa Airlines to San Jose for less than one ticket on that very peak time! Heck you could also add the stop overs for free and check out some stuff in Panama. OMG. Somebody is going to call me and the conversation is going to start like this “I already booked my hotel for spring break and…” And I’m going to stop him right there. Folks. I just looked and the airfare isn’t egregious everywhere for spring break, but CHECK THE FLIGHTS FIRST. OMG. Some places it’s actually quite affordable, but for the ill-planned, there are going to be some ugly surprises.
An Update on Aviation overall
As you know, I consider my primary expertise to be in travel advising. I take that seriously.
In June and July, I had more clients affected by airline delays and cancellations than I didn’t. This included for my own travel for a family scuba trip to Aruba in late June, where I witnessed horrifyingly long lines at both Charlotte and Miami. When I got home, I started reaching out to Airline representatives and poring over data. I want to know if there is an end in sight for delays, cancellations and other “schedule irregularities” that are above and beyond normal amounts that come from weather and maintenance related issues.
Here are some things that I found out.
This is currently worse in Europe. I am in no way anti-union, but in the USA these issues are seemingly being handled in a free market way. After reaching out to the big legacy carriers of American, Delta and United. I have some interesting updates. The European carriers are facing delays from strikes as well as the other issues of staffing and delayed maintenance on aircraft and airlines that is affecting everyone.
I am still advocating for conservative flight schedules. This means, but is not limited to.
Keep an eye out for strikes for European Carriers and a look at airline stats after. For example, once August is past and OTP (On time Performance) data is available, i will be very curious to see if Air France’s statistics improve. Likewise, Lufthansa has just settled a strike.
Early departures where possible
Longer connection times
Avoidance of partner carriers in Europe where possible with a greater look towards alternatives such as rail
While I have been looking forward to Australian and New Zealand travel, I am disturbed by their ontime statistics given that their high season is still months off.
The Middle Eastern Carriers seem to remain safe bets.
The Asian Carriers that have been up and near to full operations for most of 2022 seem to be doing well such as Singapore and the Japanese Carriers. However the Chinese and Taiwanese carriers, that are still far from full capacity, are currently a wild card. Additionally, There remains drastically less airline capacity in Asia as there was 3 years ago, as a result, prices are largely still very high compared to pre pandemic figures.
In the United States, I fully expect to see these issues resolve by next summer and possibly even by the holidays. Worldwide, remains to be seen.
With all of that said, despite this, this appears to be a golden time to travel as countries welcome back tourists. People are happy to see us and despite the difficulties in aviation, I’ve never gotten so many glowing reviews of travel experiences as I have this summer.
Until things improve, still travel, but with some modifications. I’ve detailed all of this, but just to put it all down. Build in extra time in transit both in hours in connections and in days when it comes to big events. Pack light, consider shipping and get some air tags for your bags when you must check. If you can reach a destination in less than 6 hours without flight (via car, train, boat, etc.) do that. Look for the earliest flights of the day and if you can avoid the last connection of the day to a destination, take an an earlier one. Download the airline app(s) of the airlines you are going to fly, they could save you a terrible wait time to get rebooked. Be mindful of weather patterns, avoid the southern Airports if possible August, September and even October, Avoid the Northern Airports where possible November through March…or so and be nice to airline staff. Keep Calm and Travel on. If that’s too much, just call me when you want to travel and I got you.
I’ve done some deeper dives with the American Legacy Carriers in other blogs. Check em out.
United is looking to the future
So United’s performance, this summer, really hasn’t been too bad at all.
EXCEPT, where it’s international codeshare partners are involved as Air Canada is just reeling and Lufthansa is hunkering down (it appears) to fight out a strike into October. That was resolved recently with groundstaff, but it remains to be seen how the flight operations for this huge carrier go. Swiss Air, SN Brussels and Austrian are closely connected to their German partner. Asian Partners Air China and EVA are still anemic and recovering. Asiana and All Nippon appear to be doing well.
United seems to be looking to the far future in the most innovative ways possible (and the least human, directly)
So the first one is extremely cool, meet Boom Supersonic. Their “Overture” Aircraft is bent not only at travel at Mach 1.7 but also, doing it at a Zero Carbon cost. That mach 1.7 is a cruising speed!. The sweet and new 787-900s cruise at 560mph. The Overture won’t be 3 times as fast, but it will be at least twice as fast. People fundamentally understand that time in transit is lost time. This aircraft will have a small capacity and be very expensive no doubt, but it certainly is cool and will game change the routes UA uses it for.
The second option is cool in a much more meaningful way: Meet Dimensional Energy . To be fair, United has looked deeply into Hydrogen and Electrical aircraft a great deal, any cheaper way to propel an aircraft and they are into that. However, that company is looking to capture carbon directly from the atmosphere and turn it into fuel. Apparently, United feels strongly enough about this it’s also looking heavily at how to use the carbon credits that would flow heavily from such technology to help out its business partners. United has always been the airline focused the most on the business traveler.
UA’s focuses all seem pretty long range. I’d be nervous about them in the near future as their partners are in a furor right now. However, if their long range investments pay off, they may dominate the future. The prospect of an airline that can limit or even negate its own carbon footprint with carbon capturing its own fuel will be a game changer if it’s realistic. I sure hope it does.
American Airlines is looking to dominate Travel in the USA in the near future…
If I were looking to book serious travel in the next year. I’d have an extra preference on AA. Below is what my rep said to me and below that, I have some more things to consider. AA is responding to the crisis with money and lot’s of it! They are looking to hire away as many aviation employees as possible it seems. They are also concluding the largest aircraft order in history. AA seemed to have been hit hardest by aviation woes, they seem most bent on turning that over with cash being king.
Hi there Jacob. Hope all is well with you.
Ill share what I can with you. Hopefully this helps. Not just operational, but airline wide. These are talking points from HDQ.
Capacity plan
Our fleet harmonization project is now nearly complete. Our last A321 is going into the shop this quarter, is a full year ahead of our original schedule.
Since 2013 we’ve invested $24 billion to create the youngest mainline fleet of aircraft among U.S. network carriers. Our modern fleet has allowed us to improve our fuel efficiency by 8.5% since 2013 — the equivalent of taking 3 million cars off the road for a year.
Our new narrowbody aircraft are up to 44% more efficient per seat we fly when compared to our retired aircrafts that flew the same standard distance
More people are traveling for blended business leisure purposes, and willing to go by themselves into a premium fare product when a cheaper one is available.
We see a blurring of lines where the trip patterns are changing.
Thursday, which is still our biggest business day of the week, is also becoming one of our biggest leisure days of the week.
We're having more people who buy business style fare products, travel as if it's a business trip, but they're going to places like Fort Walton Beach.
And we can trace the things where people work Fridays remotely or can spend a week or two at a time, working from some place that is not where they live.
Our premium cabin sales have been the most robust in places like the Caribbean and leisure destinations in the U.S.
We still expect business travel to come back in full, but it will come back in a different way.
The overall mix of business customers, how they travel and how we serve them.
Small and medium-sized business travel remains the strongest segment.
We're optimistic that as corporate travel returns in a significant way this year and as companies come back more fully into the office and get back on the road, we're going to be back on track.
Staffing - We’re optimistic about attracting top talent. American pays well and is a great place to work. We’re hiring 20,000 people at American this year, and we always have more applicants than we have positions to fill because it’s such a great company to work for
As far as I can tell, in the below above email from my rep, especially with Pilots, She is understating that American is “Paying well”.
Here is an episode of the “Pilot to Pilot” Podcast where this issue is talked about by folks in that industry. These guys are just blown away by how American is hiring and how they are paying.
There is some more in the news here too: Like this Article and this one also. While all of the big airlines are employing big training strategies and other measures for more pilots and staff. AA is the only one putting their “money where their mouth is”. Cash is King people. The guys in the podcast are wondering how AA can afford to pay pilots as they appear to be and I’d say it’s those new planes (the largest aircraft order in history ) is part of why perhaps.
I’m staying on top of this, but for now, even though AA has never been a personal favorite of mine, I will be looking more to AA where possible for my clients in the next year so long as their OTP (On Time Performance) continues to improve. American partner, British Airways is struggling, but Finnair and Iberian seem to be doing well (so far)! Asian Partners Cathay Pacific remains anemic, but Japan Airlines seems to be doing well. Outlook for Australian Partner Qantas is yet to have its test when summer (our winter) down under hits in 2022/23. So far Qantas’s performance for this summer (their winter) does not bode well for this.
In the end, as far the operations that AA conducts itself, if money can fix it, then they are going to!
Delta is hitting it Grass Roots to restore their service in the skies
So, I love Delta airlines. I really do. More than any other major US airline they seem to be most invested in the social impact of what they do and have been doing for some time. They have their new “Propel” program to help out with college educations, but the “dream flight” program, that’s coming back after the pandemic.
https://propel.delta.com/content/propel/en_US/collegepath.html
https://news.delta.com/building-deltas-future-creating-youth-pipeline-aviation-pros
Delta seems most involved on a grass roots level. I hope it pans out and AA doesn’t just hire them away.
This kind of testimonial isn’t unusual from Delta. I’ve done hub tours with Delta, United and AA and I can tell you my experience is that Delta staff seemed the most dialed in and enthusiastic about their jobs. Each carrier seems to be placing it’s emphasis in different places. Delta seems to be focusing more on grassroots growing of staff and while less of an emphasis on new equipment than AA in the short term, still considerable.
“It’s rare to find a culture and company with this much history and this much care for its own employees, while also operating with such an urgency for innovation and improvement. It’s motivating to be a part of it every day.” - Vijay Murali
Additionally, Air France has resolved a strike as of July and it seems their performance is improving. KLM continues to be a difficulty and ITA is still, just getting off of its feet. Down Under, Virgin Australia seems to still be depending entirely on Delta for North American Traffic, but seems to be handling flights within Oz fairly well, with a caveat that peak travel is far from resumed. Korean Air is one of the strongest Asian Carriers right now. China Eastern is still anemic and struggling.
I hope the best for Delta. I will also note that Delta’s On Time Performance actually improved in June and July. The American Carriers maintain such huge fleets, that it’s rare to see them break into the top 50 best performing carriers in a given Month, Delta did this in July at number 41.
Travel this summer
Oh man… I’ve been working in Travel a long time and I have never seen a summer like this summer. An industry term that any Travel Pro with a strong air background fears is “IROPS” which is short for “Irregular Operations”. This is the realm of delays and cancellations within 24 hours of departure . When it happens to me or my clients, I refer to it as “Airport Hell”. Because even though it’s more like limbo, it sure feels like hell to me.
I just got back from a big multi-generational trip for my family to Aruba. You can see the blog here. Family Members flew in from California, Colorado, Michigan and Wisconsin. We only all made it for two reasons as nearly every flight, for everyone, was delayed. The first reason is I took my own advice and scheduled an overnight on the East Coast in the connection city for those of us coming from the Western United States. West of Chicago, flight times to/from the Caribbean tend to suck and without that “safety” stop, we would’ve missed the flight to Aruba and lost at least one day. The other reason is that we got lucky in that every connecting flight was also delayed. So, we all made it home too. I’m so glad, because the help lines at MIA and CLT for accommodation for missed flights were INCREDIBLE! I even made this cute little video on Instagram and Facebook showing a few moments of my own trial of getting to Aruba.
If you’ve been reading the news this isn’t new, but this part doesn’t get into the news.
People are having a great time. I have never gotten so many great stories of how fantastic a trip was. If you read the Aruba Blog, you’ll see a bit of how mine went. It was amazing.
Every travel agent reposted this. I did above on Facebook and Instagram but had to whittle it down for character count, here is the whole thing.
I saw this posted by one of my travel agency co-workers, wanted to share:
For any of my friends that are planning on traveling by air this summer this is a really good read, it’s a long post but definitely worth reading. 
Reposted from a flight attendant on another page. Good advice for those who have to fly.
Just some good advice for those who plan to travel this summer:
Flying this summer is ROUGH!!! I feel like as a Flight Attendant I should attempt to share some tips to get you through airline travel for the foreseeable future.
1. Things are not good..... if its less than 7 hours - DRIVE! I'm not kidding. There is nothing enjoyable about flying right now. On any airline. If you must fly, keep reading.
2. Download and use the app of the airline you are flying. You can do everything on it - get your boarding pass, track your bags, see your incoming plane, and change a flight. It sure beats waiting in the long line to talk to an agent! Trust me - Usually these apps will tell you a flight is cancelled before the crew even knows!
3. Fly MUCH earlier than you need to - a whole day early if its important!! This week I saw many people miss important things like weddings, funerals, cruises, international connections, and graduations. The tears were very real, for very real reasons, and there was nothing I could do! If you have to be somewhere, spend the extra money, go a day early. Have a glass of wine and stay in a hotel, enjoy your night not being stressed while everyone else misses their events.
4. ALWAYS fly the first flight in the morning so you have all day to be rebooked if the shit hits the fan. Yes, that means it might be a 3:00 alarm, but morning flights don't cancel nearly as often.
5. This is not unique to this year, but keep in mind summer is thunderstorm season. A single storm can shut down a whole airport. We can't fly through them. Storms usually build as the day gets later. Book early flights!
6. Schedule long layovers - Your 1 hour layover is NOT enough anymore. 30 minutes, not a chance. 3 hours minimum.
7. What you see on the news is an understatement. We are short staffed and overworked. Not just pilots and flight attendants, but also ground crews. Without ground crews there is no one to park the planes, drive jetways, get your bags on/off planes, or scan boarding passes. This causes many delays that snowball throughout the day. Sometimes HOURS.(Another reason morning flights are best!)
8. When flight crews get delayed we time out. We can NOT fly longer than 16 hours. Its illegal. So it doesn't matter if you have a wedding to get to, when we are done we are done. The way things are now, there are no back up crews, so when this happens your flight cancels. (Now you are starting to see why those morning flights are best!)
9. Avoid connecting in Newark. It is literal hell. You have a 50/50 chance your flight will cancel or missing your connection. They have been cancelling flights at their starting points just to keep the planes out of Newark because there just aren't enough people to manage the planes, so the gates stay full. Also the restaurants are expensive, it is not a great place to be stuck.
10. Be nice. As stated above, we are overworked and tired. We will not help you if you are mean. No one cares that you are going to miss your cruise if you are an asshole. So even if we can help, we will save our help for someone nice. Tensions are high. Our patience is gone. If you make us mad - you will not be flying on our planes. We will leave you behind without a second thought, and laugh about you later.
11. Being drunk on an airplane is a federal offense, so don't overdo it. If you drink too much at the bar waiting for your delayed flight you risk not being allowed to fly at all. We are too tired to deal with your drunk ass when we have legitimate issues to deal with.
12. Get trip insurance if you have a lot of money invested. I hate the whole idea of this, but I also hate the idea of losing money. Example: I was working a flight yesterday that waited over an hour for a gate. A family of 8 missed their flight to Rome. The only flight of the day. They were going to a cruise which they would now miss. They were all crying, there was nothing I could do. (Also a reason to fly a day early!)
13. Flights are FULL. If you buy the cheap seats you will not be able to sit with your family. It says so when you purchase your ticket!! Flight Attendants aren't there to rearrange the whole plane just so you can sit with your family because you tried to save $100 on a third party website.
14. Speaking of third party websites and saving money..... Like I said flights are FULL. If a flight is oversold, and no one volunteers to give up their seats, who do you think is the first to be bumped? You guessed it, the family that saved a few $$ by using sites like Expedia, Kayak, Hotwire etc.
15. Pack smart. Don't be "That guy" Don't hold up boarding because you have your extenders open till they are busting and you can't figure out how to make it fit in the overhead. (Passengers are stressed too, they can be aggressive when boarding a delayed flight)
16. Take showers, brush your teeth, leave the perfume off, don't eat stinky food (caesar salad and tuna fish I'm talking to you!), and bring headphones. Trust me. These things sound basic, but add to stress on crowded planes. If you are stuck on the tarmac for 3 hours after a 4 hour flight, you will thank me for this.
17. Bring a sweater if you tend to be cold. So tired of half naked girls asking me to turn the heat up. NO. Wear clothes!! Side note: If you dress like this and ask for heat, there's a chance I will turn the AC up.
18. Thats not water on the bathroom floor. For the love of God wear shoes to the bathroom!!!
19. Don't tell a Flight Attendant they look tired. We are and we know. You may cause us to ugly cry right there in galley.
20. Happy Travels!
Aurora Expeditions
I got so excited about extreme Aurora Expeditions when I found out about them a couple of months. I met the representative at a big event a while back and they just blew me away. I could say why, but it’s in the Videos.
For Expedition Ships, “X-bows” have been becoming common. I first noticed it with Linblad and a client who had done the drake passage once already on her own did it again with her grandkids and raved about how it made that rough water better. Aurora Expeditions pioneered the use of these ships.
Video 1 Xbows.
Video 2 What matters most with expedition cruises (Especially to the arctic and Antarctic.
Video 3 A Company you can feel good about booking.
Every once in a while I find a travel.. “Something”… that I don’t know about that I should. It could be a destination, a tour company, a cruise option, a train..or whatever. It doesn’t happen that much and I realize that sounds arrogant. Maybe it is, but the fact of the matter is that I not only love Travel, but I spend almost all of my time ‘in it’ and I’ve got a freakish recall for it. So much so that a colleague from my host company, the Travel Society, said to me “Oh my god, you really do know everything!” when we met a couple of months ago. I was flattered, but even among other pros, I stand out with what I know, I know a lot.
However, after spending some time with Aurora Expeditions that agent walked by I yelled “I didn’t know about these guys at all!” She totally did, so just goes to show you, even though it can seem like I know everything, I don’t. Also, in the Travel Business, things you know can be dangerous because really, it’s things you knew, the world changes all the time. That’s why the only really valuable thing I ever know is where to look to verify how things are currently.
A note on Video Production.
Video production is not my job.
Video production is not my job. This is a hobby for me and frankly, it’s not even advertising. I don’t really need advertising. I’ve got a good book of clients and a lot of those clients make good referrals. So, these are things I do for fun and because I’ve always wanted to and my old company never let me do it for them. Actually, when my old company had to make some hard choices, this was one of the reasons I wanted to go. I loved that company and it was pretty good (great for corporate travel) but when I was hired from travel blogging I as supposed to do Social Media. It never worked out. Frankly, because they focus on business travel, having me do social media for them wouldn’t have made sense. Still, I always wanted to and thought I could, now I can and I do.
These videos start out on Instagram just because Instagram makes captions really easy, that’s also why they are formatted the exact opposite way they should be for Youtube. Another Downside of Instagram captions is that, though easy, they also tend to misspell things and while you can correct them, they have this annoying habit of going back to their original misspellings. It’s annoying.
I’ve been finding video production on social media more fun than blog writing lately. Social media videos are new and shiny to me and I love new and shiny. I was a social media blogger way back in 2008-2011 for the now mostly defunct Brillianttrips.com. That website was formed by a friend of mine from the heyday of STA travel. That gentleman, by the way, is now the marketing and technology director for one of the top five asset management companies in the world. I won’t say which one, but it’s ranked higher than Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan to narrow it down a bit.
If you like them, great, if you don’t. That’s fine, I love constructive criticism, but this is a side hobby. I have a low threshold for boredom and making these videos has gotten quick and easy. I imagine someday, I may even get good at them.
Aruba!
So I just got back from my third Caribbean Island in six months to Hurricane-free Aruba.
One of the reasons I changed my business model is so I wouldn’t have to do what a lot of travel agents do. A lot of agents either bad mouth AirBNB, VRBO and the like or… pretend they do not exist.
Do I love fine Hotels? YES! I really do for a list of reasons and it’s how I prefer to travel for the most part. However, there are circumstances where a Vacation rental is a better option and here are some.
A large family traveling that wants to spend time together. The larger the family the harder it is to find hotel options where the entire family can spend downtime together privately. A big house, with a big dinner table and a big living room is much easier to do with a vacation home.
When it comes to fine hotels, some places don’t have them or just don’t have very many of them. In Travel (as in all real estate) Location is KING. Taking the lovely port town of Rijeka, if you want a really nice place to stay in the old Korzo, it’s apartment, otherwise there is a very nice resort 15 minutes outside of town. Iceland? Outside of Reyjavik, nearly every really nice place is a vacation rental.. The list goes on and on. Some destinations skew so heavily the other way around that the hotels compete heavy and the value is insanely good and that makes sense. Aruba Isn’t one of those places. I love the Ritz, Hyatt Regency and the Bucuti, but none of those hotels are hotels I’d travel to just to stay at, they are just the best places on Aruba.
Sometimes you don’t want to be with the other tourists and want to be around locals. So, you obviously can’t do this anywhere. There are places in the world that if you forget your privileged status as an international tourist, you’ll likely get robbed and that’s a best case scenario. However, some places, staying with the locals is nice and refreshing and Aruba is one.
So my Mother In Law came to me about this trip and we wanted to do a Dive trip. I originally wanted to push in Indonesia, but my Brother in Law had a week maximum and with just a week in North America, we have to stay close. Some family members had budgets to hit and the primary focus of this trip, for her, was scuba diving. My first job in Travel was in a company that did a TON of Caribbean and I didn’t go back to the Caribbean in over 20 years and now, Aruba is my third island in 6 months. I also hadn’t been diving in a long time and so. I decided to get recertified. The Scuba diving went pretty darn well.
Weather-wise, for a weather snob like me. June is starting to push it for the Caribbean and Mexico. By July, we have a mounting hurricane risk that doesn’t go away until November (we used to say August-September, thanks global warming) However, even aside from that, it just starts getting hotter and wetter than I’d like.
BUT, as many of you probably know, Aruba is out of the Hurricane belt and even tropical storms are rare. It’s a desert island and this is part of why it’s only forests consist of cacti, this is also why it and the other ABC island (with Bonaire and Curacao) have a longer tourist season than most of the Caribbean. Also, rivers, streams and the like are terrible for diving visibility, so while there are better places for diving than the ABC’s, it’s pretty darn good.
We ended up staying down in Savaneta so close to one of the best reefs on the island that I could’ve thrown a ball from our front yard into the water. Friends, it doesn’t matter how much money you spend on Eagle Beach, you can’t get that close to the water despite how popular it is. We also found where the locals ate.
One of the most amazing things that happened is that my daughter fell in love with a SWEET stray cat and her nana (my wife’s mother) decided to adopt her. My MIL asked me if it was “crazy?” and my first thought was “Yes, probably.” Because in my experience, bringing in an animal from overseas, especially without a lot of preparation…. Usually doesn’t work… at best. However, like I’m always saying, “In travel, never assume anything.” I checked it out, due diligence and I am always ready to be surprised.
And I was!
It turns out bringing a pet back from rabies-free Aruba with US customs being cleared right there at the airport is much easier than I thought and now Mittens has a home in Wisconsin.
I likely will be posting about Aruba for some time, but mostly via Instagram and some via Facebook. Some more things may find their way to a blog or a newsletter. A lot of the content there is more personalized and will even cover nights out locally and family camping trips.
Singita How I love thee~
There is a travel company in Africa I love so much. I can’t lend words to it. We could call it a chain of “African Game Lodges” or a “Safari Company”. That wouldn’t be accurate, it’s a Conservation Company that operates some of the very best Game Lodges in the world and gives some of the best safari experiences known. I'm talking about Singita.
I was originally going to do 4 videos. However the last, would’ve been on my amazing experience where my Guide and Tracker got me within literal spitting distance male lions taking down a Cape Buffalo on a sunny, Sunday morning. This not only was perhaps the most thrilling travel experience of my life (and I’ve been blessed) it also dispelled 3 myths about lions that 1. Male Lions do not hunt. 2 Lions do not hunt during the day and 3 Lions do not hunt Cape Buffalo. Yes, of course I have lots of video and photos of this, but it’s too graphic for wide audiences so I decided not to. If there is a huge outcry I will.
AIRBNB for Ukraine
One of the reasons I changed my model to one that allows me, for some, to only advise is because of Airbnb and VRBO. These platforms don’t want middle men (cough) like me involved. However, sometimes, in some places for some people, the are truly the best option and if the right thing to do is to book an AirBNB. I’m going to say. I can’t help with the booking process, but I do help people find the right ones from time to time.
We are seeing in articles like this one, this one, and this one about helping Ukrainian individuals by booking their airbnb.
Advising fees are waived for anybody wanting to book an Airbnb in the Uktraine. I can’t book it for you, but if you let me know how much you’d like to spend, I’ll find you an option and send it to you.