With the weak dollar, you have to travel smart. That means doing a lot of research before you leave home and avoiding the places and things that suck up your money — within reason. After all, you are on vacation.

Ouch! Ai! Aie! Autsch!

That’s the sound you’ll be hearing all over Europe as U.S. travelers discover how very weak their dollars have become.

The last time my husband and I visited France, in 2002, the dollar and the euro were more or less equal. On our return trip five years later, the euro was about 40% stronger — and it made a big difference in where we stayed, what we ate and, to a lesser extent, what we did with our time.

You can still have a wonderful visit, but the following tips will help you stretch your money at a time when $6 coffees and $300 shoebox-sized hotel rooms are the norm:

Research like crazy — and be flexible. There’s no substitute for shopping around when it comes to finding great deals on airlines and hotels. No single source always has the best prices; I’ve booked cheap vacations from consolidators, travel agents and third-party travel Web sites as well as directly with airlines and hotels. Several of our friends also swear by the package deals offered off-season by airlines, including United and Virgin. Check them all out, and make sure to look at different departure and return dates. Traveling midweek generally cuts costs, and moving your visit by a few weeks can also save a bundle. Also, check your frequent-flier miles; although it’s harder to book reward flights in peak seasons, you may still be able to find seats on less-popular routes and flights.

Consider a non-euro destination. You can still travel cheap to certain European countries that don’t use the euro, but you have to pick your non-euro country wisely. Americans’ top European destination, the United Kingdom, still uses the pound but is no bargain; ditto for Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland. But Eastern European destinations such as Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania offer culture, dramatic architecture and a decent exchange rate.

Where we go

International destinations of U.S. travelers
Western Europe	40%
United Kingdom	14%
France	9%
Italy	7%
Germany	6%
Netherlands	3%
Spain	3%
Ireland	3%
Switzerland	2%
Austria	2%
Asia	19%
Caribbean	18%
South America	9%
Central America	7%
Eastern Europe	4%
Oceania	3%
Africa	2%

Rent an apartment. If you’re staying at least a week in one place, renting a flat is often more economical than staying in a hotel. We found a cozy little apartment on Ile St. Louis in Paris that worked out to about $150 a night, including all fees; the least expensive hotel we could find in the same neighborhood was more than $200 a night, not including taxes. The apartment had a kitchen, which saved us money on meals, and a washer/dryer combination, which allowed us to pack exceptionally light. Of course, it was on the fifth floor of a building that had no elevator, but we figured the exercise was good for us. You can find apartment rental agencies in every major city; locate them with an Internet search, or ask your well-traveled friends for recommendations.

Don’t overpack. Too much stuff means you’ll wind up taking taxis instead of the cheap public transit that connects most European airports and city centers. You also could pay extra if you have more luggage than airlines allow. I toured India with a single suitcase and managed a 10-day trip to France with one carry-on bag, so I’ve learned that packing light pays off. (You might want to stuff a collapsible duffle bag into your suitcase, however, to bring home any treasures you buy overseas.) Stick to one basic color scheme for clothing, like dark blue or black, and try to make sure each piece works with all the other pieces for maximum variety. Good leather walking shoes, preferably in black, are another must; nothing screams “U.S. tourist” like white sneakers.

Tip the right way. It’s not true that Europeans don’t expect tips, but it is true that the rules are different. Use a guidebook to brush up on the rules of each country before you land, and avoid the mistake I made of overtipping a Parisian taxi driver by $20 and failing to tip a wonderful Italian waiter who bent over backward to make our evening memorable.

How it happens, what you can do to help prevent it and why you may be tempted to give up your seat voluntarily.

Use the right credit cards — and call your issuer. A few years ago, using your MasterCard or Visa for most purchases was a great idea, since you got the best possible exchange rate (the one offered to major banks). Now, many major issuers — including Bank of America, Chase, Citibank and Wells Fargo — are tacking an extra 2% fee on top of the 1% fee charged by Visa and MasterCard. Only two cards, Capital One and Discover, waive the fee entirely, and Discover isn’t widely accepted outside North America. Check with your card issuers to see which issuer charges the least, and use that card for most of your purchases. Be sure to take at least one extra card and to let your issuers know in advance when you’ll be out of the country. On our honeymoon in Spain, our credit card issuer cut off access to our card, convinced that our overseas purchases were a sign of fraud. Fortunately, we had a spare card with us, averting what could have been a disaster.

Fees for international transactions

Issuer	Fee
Capital One	0%
Discover*	0%
Washington Mutual	1%
American Express	2%
Pulaski Bank	2%
Barclays/Juniper Bank	2% to 3%**
Bank of America	3%
Chase	3%
Citibank	3%
GE Money	3%
HSBC	1% to 3%**
U.S. Bank	3%
Wells Fargo	3%

Use your ATM card for cash. Banks are cashing in by charging higher fees for overseas transactions, but you’re still better off using ATMs than most currency-exchange kiosks. Just make sure you withdraw large amounts — $200 to $300 at a time — so that the $1.50-to-$3 fees your bank charges don’t add up. (Also, make sure you know your numeric PIN — European keypads usually don’t have letters on them — and try to make your withdrawals at a bank during business hours, in case your card gets eaten.) If you do use a currency-exchange service, pick one that posts the rates at which it buys as well as sells currency. The rip-off places are the ones that post only the selling price, or the ones that have more than a 5% gap between the two prices.

Keep your receipts. If you shop a lot, you can get a refund of the value-added tax (VAT) you pay in European countries. This is something you’ll need to do at the airport on your way out of the country, but the small hassle can be worth the savings — up to 25% of what you spent. Follow the instructions in your guidebook for claiming your refund.

Investigate to save. Speaking of guidebooks, get one that’s compatible with your budget and tastes. In my young, single days, I was a huge fan of the Lonely Planet guides and Rick Steves’ “Through the Back Door” books. They’re perfect for the budget-minded traveler, with excellent information on hostels, cheap eats and inexpensive amusements. I still check one of these out of the library when planning our trips. But now we tend to take more upscale books like Fodor’s that offer more midpriced options, as well as detailed guides to museums and cultural attractions. Read through a few guidebooks at the bookstore before you decide.

Get a museum pass. Most major cities allow you to buy one-, three- or five-day passes that get you into major museums. Not only do these passes tend to pay for themselves with just a few visits, but they also allow you to skip the hours-long lines at popular museums like the Louvre in Paris and the Uffizi in Florence. That alone would have been worth paying a premium.

Scope out transit options. Public transportation in Europe tends to be efficient, cheap and safe. The Tube will get you just about anywhere you need to go in London — including back and forth from Heathrow. Trains and the Metro do the same in Paris. Many other cities, such as Florence and Venice, are small enough that you’ll be able to walk just about everywhere you want to go, or you can rent a scooter. There’s really no reason to rent cars, which are expensive to park in cities; save that for trips to the countryside. Your guidebook will tell you where to buy transit passes. Another great option: renting bicycles. Despite narrow streets and cobblestones, most European cities are very bike-friendly, and you can cover a lot of ground with little effort. In Paris, a road that runs along the Seine River is off-limits to cars on Sundays and holidays, and fills instead with walkers, skaters and whole families out for a bike ride.

Eat like the natives. A popular piece of budget travel advice is to eat your largest meal at lunch, when prices are cheaper. But we’ve found dinner to be the main social event in most countries, and have had good luck getting overseas friends (or friends of friends) to give us recommendations for great places — some pricey, some not. In order to splurge, we typically have light breakfasts and picnic lunches in local parks. We also alternate less expensive dinners in university districts, which cater to starving students, with fancier dinners recommended by city natives.

How it happens, what you can do to help prevent it and why you may be tempted to give up your seat voluntarily.

Shop like a native. One way to really save money is not to shop at all, but few of us can resist the urge to bring back some booty. For the best deals, avoid the shops and stalls around tourist attractions; instead visit the department stores and even grocers that locals use. Which would you rather have: an Eiffel Tower refrigerator magnet or a jar of real French jam? A cheap plastic statue of the David, or a bottle of Italian olive oil? I’m also a big fan of real flea markets, not the overpriced tchotchke markets aimed at tourists that you find operating in city centers most days of the week. Typically, the real flea markets are held once or twice a month in slightly-off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods and attended mostly by locals. In Florence, for example, I found great deals on secondhand pottery, antique fabrics and old lithographs, along with headless Barbies and enormous vinyl record collections, at the flea market on Piazza dei Ciompi; it’s held on the last Sunday of each month. Prices are negotiable, so you’ll need to exercise your haggling skills.

Check out the countryside. This advice is purely “do as I say, not as I do,” because our love of museums keeps us pretty much nailed to big cities. If you can break away from urban areas, though, you’ll often find more reasonable rates for food and lodging in rural areas and smaller cities.

Next time, go in the shoulder season. Technically, winter is the cheapest time to visit Europe, but six years of living in Alaska made me allergic to cold weather as well as reluctant to cart the heavy coats, hats and gloves needed to survive a February day in London. Instead, we tend to visit Europe in the spring or fall, when hotel rates are still cheaper than the busy summer season and there are (relatively speaking) fewer tourists.

Some travelers seek heart-pounding destinations and activities to test their mettle. Here are 10 thrill-seeking, extreme vacations that will get any traveler’s adrenaline pumping.

Some travelers live on the edge. Never satisfied with lazing away their vacation days on the beach, these thrill seekers look for adventure on their days off. If orbiting the Earth, bungee-jumping from a tower on the Las Vegas Strip, or getting up-close-and-personal with a gorilla sounds like your idea of a good time, you’re in luck. We’ve found 10 extreme vacations to get your heart racing and, just in case you aren’t quite ready to swim with the sharks, we’ve also included a similar—albeit less-adrenaline-pulsing—alternative with each of our top adventure-filled trips.

Drag racing

If your adrenaline pumps just watching The Fast and the Furious, your heart will feel like it’s about to come out of your chest when you experience the real thing. Street racing is illegal, but law-abiding drag-racing schools abound. Doug Foley’s Drag Racing School (www.dougfoley.com) offers several dates in Atco, N.J. (plus a duo of options in Michigan and Pennsylvania); for the highest HBM (heart beats per minute), opt for the Super Comp Dragster package, a two-day program that includes safety instruction and step-by-step familiarization with your car. Then it’s time to hit the track, open the throttle, and make like Mario Andretti.

Low-adrenaline alternative: Not quite ready to get behind the wheel? Get behind Andretti himself and ride with him when you sign up for a Mario Andretti Fantasy Day (www.andrettiracing.com). Yes, autographs are included.

Gorilla Safari

For the chance to interact with the one of the world’s most-endangered species, follow in the footsteps of Dian Fossey, the anthropologist immortalized in the 1988 movie Gorillas in the Mist. No more than 700 mountain gorillas remain, but Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda is still the best place on the earth to spot—and maybe even touch—one of these gentle herbivores. Their distinctive personalities are endearing, while the ruins of the Karisoke Research station where Fossey was murdered and buried are themselves quite moving. JK Safaris (www.gorillasafaris.net) runs four-day safaris to the area that include ecolodge stays.

Low-adrenaline alternative: If you’re not up to the intense safari necessary to track the mountain gorillas, a visit to Monkey Mountain in France (www.montagnedessinges.com) provides primate interactions of a different kind: the 280 Barbary Macaques monkeys here roam free among visitors, but be careful, as these mischievous creatures are known to take food right out visitors’ hands!

Heli-Skiing

If you’re a top-notch skier with a penchant for adrenaline, get off the trails and take to the skies by boarding a chopper and going heli-skiing, a sport that makes the trek up the mountain as exciting as the run down. Lured by the promise of untouched slopes, wilderness solitude, and challenging terrain, those who dare to get airborne access otherwise inaccessible peaks. Valdez Heli-Camps (www.valdezhelicamps.com) operates tours to the Chugach mountain range in Alaska; serious extremists book the four-day Sound to Summit package that tackles Chugach’s 13,000-foot peak and offers accommodations on a ship (complete with heliport) anchored in the Prince William Sound.

Low-adrenaline alternative: Have a fear of flying? Consider backcountry skiing in the Colorado Rockies instead; Paragon Guides (paragonguides.com) offers great off-the-trail treks in Vail.

Mountain Climbing

As the holy grail of mountain climbing, the legend of Mount Everest looms large in travelers’ minds, and with good reason: risking passage through the “death zone” (which takes lives every year) and reaching the summit is the achievement of a lifetime. If you’re an accomplished climber, Adventure Consultants (www.adventureconsultants.co.nz) offers summit expeditions from Nepal that will set you back about $60,000 and come with no guarantees of summiting.

Low-adrenaline alternative:  If you’ve just got to see Everest but don’t want to risk your life (or spend your life savings to do it), entirely doable (and more affordable) trips to base camp—complete with spectacular views—are available from KE Adventure Travel (www.keadventure.com) for about $2,100.

Sandboarding

Whether you already consider snowboarding passe or simply can’t wait till winter to carve up the slopes, try strapping on your board and tackling a mountain of sand. Sandboarding is a four-season extreme sport that’s recently gained in popularity with snowboarders looking for a similar rush and surreal, desert landscapes. Sure, you could try surfing the dunes at your local beach, but for the real deal, head to Cerro Blanco near the Andes mountain range in Peru to find the world’s tallest sand dune. Peru Adventure Tours (www.peruadventurestours.com) runs eight-hour outings (leaving at 5 a.m.) that include board and lunch.

Low-adrenaline alternative: If carving up the sand isn’t your thing, explore via dune buggy in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area instead (www.fs.fed.us).

Planning Season Peaks with 71 Percent Booking Vacations Online

With less than two months before the kick-off of summer, vacation seekers are flooding online to research and book their summer getaways. According to a recent survey commissioned by The Weather Channel, more than 54 percent will go to an online travel website instead of a travel agent to book their accommodations this year and an overwhelming 71 percent prefer to book their Vacation Home Rentals online. Leading the way is VLBO.com, one of the fastest growing vacation rental sites on the Internet.

Rapid Growth in Online Rental Industry

VLBO.com launched last year and has quickly become one of the top vacation rental websites. The website has experienced significant growth with the number of visitors to VLBO.com increasing over 400% in the 1st quarter of 2007 vs. 4th quarter of 2006.

Top Vacation Destinations

Relaxing at the beach is the top priority for vacation planners this summer, with 70 percent of survey respondents picking a seaside destination as their top choice, while hiking in the mountains trailing at a distant second choice with only 23 percent of the respondents. VLBO.com features an extensive choice of listings in many of the top beach destinations Florida Vacation Rentals including Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach, the Outer Banks and the Florida Panhandle. For non-beach vacation seekers, forGetaway offers thousands of vacation rental properties in international and exotic locations as well as the mountains.

VLBO.com offers something for everyone with a comprehensive list of over 20,000 vacation homes worldwide, covering in varying regions, climates and price ranges. The vacation rental site has an easy search interface and provides detailed information on each vacation home, including a detailed description of the property, photographs, rates, features and amenities, nearby activities, availability calendar, unique rental policies and a local weather snapshot.

“We know that 69 percent of Americans plan to take a summer vacation this year,” said John RH, general manager of VLBO.com Hawaii Vacation Rentals businesses. “Our goal is to provide these consumers with top quality rental properties, not only at popular beach destinations but at thousands of vacation destinations around the world.”

Locate thousands of vacation rentals by owner. Vacation rental homes, condos, villas, cabins and more are available here. Locate vacation home rentals for the whole family. Locate your next vacation home rental using our vacation rental by owner database

Tags: vacation rentals, vacation rental, vacation home rentals, vacation rentals by owner, vacation rental homes, vacation home rental, vacation rental by owner

Vacation Rentals By Owner And Vacation Rental Homes

Vacation Home Rentals is an online Vacation Rental portal established with the aim of organizing USA Vacation Rental services and providing them at a single platform. Transparency in the services is our priority. We are dedicated to a plethora of Vacation Rental services including purchase, sale, rent and Vacation Rental market assistance and advisory services.

Inspired by travellers frustration with Vacation Rental Homes options, Vlbo.com resourcefully consolidates pertinent and useful property hunting resources for prospective travellersin the state of Austin, TX, Houston, TX, Orlando, FL, Atlanta, GA, San Diego, CA and Dallas, TX. In addition to presenting a host of valuable Vacation Rental Homes options in an easy-to-use and time-saving format, the site also reflects current news, trends, and a large pool of economic data affecting the market.

We have all had the experience of renting a residential unit from a landlord or property management company at one point in our life. All of your personal details placed under a microscope to determine if you are worthy, but what about the landlord or the management company? Are they fair? For a long time a prospective renter didn’t have an easy way of knowing the background of these companies and individuals. That has all changed with the launch of the service Vlbo.com.

Locate thousands of vacation rentals by owner. Vacation rental homes, condos, villas, cabins and more are available here. Locate vacation home rentals for the whole family.

The staff at Vlbo.com looks forward to helping you during your Vacation Rental search! Good luck!

Tags: vacation rentals, vacation rental, vacation home rentals, vacation rentals by owner, vacation rental homes, vacation home rental, vacation rental by owner

When planning for a cruise, you will have to combine a variety of travel tips (including cruise travel tips) to make sure you will completely enjoy your vacation. After all, you will generally have to take some sort of airplane to your cruising destination which will mean you will have to follow simple airline travel tips as well as your cruise travel tips. For both the airplane trip and the cruise, remember to pack as tightly as you can, as you will certainly save time if you are able to avoid the long lines and nearly endless wait time of the baggage checking process. Since most cruises go to tropical locations, your summer weight clothes should not take up too much space, making it much easier to pack for a Bahamas or European cruise than if you take an Alaskan cruise. Furthermore, before you leave on any vacation, always put a hold on your mail and newspaper and always set your home phone to two rings before your answering machine picks up.
One of the cruise travel tips which many people overlook is the storage of their valuable items. While many cruise ships offer small safes in the cabins, you should check your valuables into the ship’s main safe, as some insurance policies do not cover items which may be stolen out of your cabin’s safe. For those going on tropical cruises, remember cruise travel tips which point out that you should bring plenty of sunscreen and a good pair of sunglasses (preferably with polarized and UV blocking lenses) and a hat. Nothing is worse than ruining your vacation with a bad sunburn. If you find yourself to be a heavy sleeper, be sure to bring a small alarm clock on your cruise, as many cabins do not have an alarm. Finally, one of the most important cruise travel tips involves the storage of important belongings like credit cards, boarding passes and your identification card. You should always keep them on you in a nondescript holder like a small suede wallet or pouch. Always be aware of your wallet’s position on your body in large crowds, as you never know who could be a pickpocket. Be cautious and not paranoid just have fun on a cruise.

Professor James Trotta has launched a dark and grief tourism resource site for travelers who wish to explore attractions like Ground Zero, the Anne Frank Museum, and other places associated with tragedy.

Grief-tourism.com is not just another information blog. The site is the first to uncover the whole secret of every grief travel destination in the world some might find the information so exaggerating to be revealed.

Take for example Austria Grief destination. A stories about KZ Mauthausen-Gusen: museum & former concentration camp in Austria. From 1940 to 1945, a concentration camp located in Mauthausen, Austria was a place of torture and murder for hundreds of thousands of people during World War II. With this information, locating the great grief destination doesn’t have to be a grind. Thanks to the advanced technology of the Grief Tourism and 1000 grief tourism destination stories worldwide, finding great Grief Tourism destination is now as easy as 1-2-3. Travel to areas affected by natural disasters, places where people were murdered, etc.

Grief-tourism.com also features a group-friendly Types of Grief Tourism, some of them are Battlefield Tourism, Cemetery Tourism, Disaster Tourism, Holocaust Tourism, Prison Tourism, and a bus chartering service. Next time you’re seeking to book a group trip for your friends, family, civic or corporate group, utilize the free resources of Grief-tourism.com.

For more information on various travel Grief Tourism services visit the website www.Grief-tourism.com

Tag: Grief Tourism, grief, tour, tourism, grieftourism, grief-tourist, Battlefield Tourism, Cemetery Tourism, Disaster Tourism, Holocaust Tourism, Prison Tourism, Thanatourism

For many people traveling is apart of their lives. For Others it would be a dream to be able to travel often. Almost everyone one in today’s world either wants to travel because they never do or need to travel because they have to. Moreover, sell timeshare is in high demand in the world today.

R&R Rapid Resale - The Timeshare Specialists - Timeshare, or Vacation Ownership, is now the largest single component of the world’s largest industry. (Millions) worldwide have discovered the benefits of owning your vacation and it’s so easy. Simply purchase a week, two weeks, or more at your chosen resort. You can then use that week either at your home resort, or exchange into thousands of the world’s finest vacation destinations. Luxury accommodation has never been more affordable.

With more than 600 unique visitors per day after just a few weeks of promotion, this site offers a valuable, yet free platform for timeshare and hospitality companies to promote their businesses, timeshare resale and timeshare rental.

One Testimonial by John Travolta of www.travel.com explained ” They have made it easier for people like you and me to travel to places we’ve only dreamed of and for a lower than average prices, With great customer service and Wholesale prices this company has allowed me and my family to travel the way we’ve always dream for the price we never thought possible.”

For more information on the above services contact toll free 1-800-752-5714 or visit Timeshare Specialists website at www.rapidresale.ca

Tag: timeshare, timeshares, resale, buy, sell, exchange, pool, rent, trade, trading, renting vacation ownership, benefits, week, weeks, choose resort, exchange, vacation destinations, affordable, luxury accommodation, free membership, exchange pool, Canadian, Canada, Collingwood, Ontario

AMONG the activities, offered to guests at Wildflower hall, where once stood an English soldier’s summer villa in the lap of the Himalayas, are guided walking tours that invite a visitor to “savour the nostalgia of the Raj Era”. As if to drive home the point, horseback riding, lawn croquet and archery are also on offer - all without a trace of irony.

Wildflower Hall, in northern India, is among a new breed of luxury hotels sprouting across the country, each in its own manner peddling a fable of the country. Devi Garh, nestled in the Aravali hills in Rajasthan, markets the nostalgia of the medieval Indian countryside; the stylishly restored palace literally sits atop the village that its residents once ruled and where bullocks still pull wooden plows to till the land.

Ananda in the Himalayas, a spa near the Hindu pilgrimage town of Rishikesh, is a compound of such gorgeous austerity that it bears no resemblance to the rest of the country. Its most inventive lure is a kitchen that embraces country grains and greens, from sprouts to buckwheat to desserts mado from tho raw sugar known as jaggery. As in both the other properties, Ananda offers an ayurvedic doctor and a massage menu to wring out modern stress, plus an up to date gym in which to work off the buttery millet croissants offered at breakfast.

Only India, I suppose, can absorb foreign occupation, feudalism and a host of other anachronisms and turn it into a memory worth savouring - and splurging on.

Luxury travel is still a nascent industry in India. Wealthy Indians of another era would rather spend a luxury holiday in Europe or the United States. If there were luxury properties in India at all, they were once limited to the five star hotel in the major metropolis and filled mostly by foreigners.

No longer. Indians are travelling more than ever in their own country, including those who now have considerably more money to spend and much less anxiety about flaunting it. At Ananda, for instance, Indians now comprise about a third of all guests, and their share is soon expected to climb to half, increasingly including Indians who live abroad.

Fifteen years ago, when P.R.S. Oberoi, the chairman of the Oberoi Group of hotels, would travel to the royal city of Jaipur, one of India’s most legendary tourist destinations, there was no place, he recalled, that he could confidently call a fiveestar hotel. He would stay at the choicest property in town, but so lacking were its amenities that he remembered taking “my own cook, my own toilet paper, sometimes my own towel”.

From Indian hoteliers, including the Oberoi chain, have lately come a new menu of options for the pampered class, from resorts built from the crumbling palaces of erstwhile maharajas to plush detoxifying spas to sumptuous inns along the coast and in forests.

My husband suggested Wildflower for a weekend getaway last fall, when Delhi was so hot and parched that I had become one unbearable crank. From the website, he gleaned that Wildflower would offer outdoor activities to cure my restlessness and opulence to keep me from complaining. And yes, there was high-speed Internet in the rooms so I could remain chained to my employer in New York.

As always in a rush, we passed up the leisurely option of a train journey (at least eight hours). Instead, we flew midway to Chandigarh (45 minutes) from where a hotel car picked us up, snaking 128km uphill to the lodge. The drive took more than three hours, including a tea break.

Wildflower Hall is perched at around 2,490m, amid a forest of cedar and pine, roughly 13km outside Simla, which had become by the mid-19th century the official summer retreat for India’s British rulers. We arrived at dusk, and made a beeline for the spa, only to find a man holding court inside the swimming pool. He was resting on his elbows at the edge of the pool and gabbing at full throaty volume on his cell phone, apparently oblivious to a sign posted at the door: “Please maintain the serenity of the spa.”

We got out of the pool in less than five minutes, at which time our loud cohabitant offered to evacuate his friends from the hot tub outside in case we wanted privacy. “I’ve brought them all here,” he boasted. We thanked him and left. Upstairs, the Cavalry Bar was empty.
A fire roared in the fireplace. The morning began gloriously gray-blustery - perfect, we figured, for a guided trek through the forest. The forest floor was covered with star-moss fern and flowers that had clung on from summer.

The cedars, also known as Himalayan deodars, were the beauties of the forest. They held out their wide arms, and the wind, which howled so ferociously that we could hardly hear each other on the trail, made them dance a spectacular dance.

We climbed down into valleys, and up again into dark woods. The villages on our path were a sobering lesson in isolated living: two long houses here, four long houses there, their slate roofs still glistening from a recent rain. We passed several accommodating cows, groves of famous Simla apples and, nestled in a grove of tall cedars, a pointyyroofed Tibetan-style temple that our guide John said was once Buddhist and is now Hindu.

All morning, cloud and mist came and went as they pleased, revealing new faces of the Pir Panjal range. No sooner had we reached the hotel than the sky burst with rain.

And how lucky. we were for it. From our room, we had a spectacular view of the eastern Himalayas, with layer upon layer of gray mountain spreading before us, all the way to Tibet. The storm raged, and the cedars, arms outstretched, danced like dervishes in praise of rain. We watched the storm from the stillness of our room. A canl on the table instructed us not to open the windows, on account of the monkeys dawdling outside. Food at Wildflower is pricey and mostly good, although not particularly memorable. The European food was better than the Indian, although at times, as in the paneer tikka marinated with basil, the distinction seemed to melt. After a climb in the hills, the warm chocolate cookies that had been placed in our room were a tasty reward.

The best reward, on our last night at Wildflower, was an evening in the empty hot tub (the gentleman of the pool having . departed with his crew). We slipped into the water, our ears perfectly cold, our toes perfectly warm, as night fell on these ancient mountains.

If you would like to exchange links with us and add your site to our link pages simply fill the comment and send us details. Below you will find some copy/paste link suggestions to our websites. You may use anyone of them or create your own.

There are only a few simple requirements:

1 - Our link can’t be located on a link farm or FFA page.

2 - We try to keep our site family friendly so we will not link to sites that should only be viewed by adults. We will not link to hate sites.

Below are copy/paste link suggestions you can use.

Travel Blog
Transport of people on a trip involved in a person moving from one location to another
http://travel.prdeal.com/

Name and email are optional (they are needed only if you want a confirmation when your site is added). We do not send junk email or sell/transfer email addresses to any third party.

When suggesting a link please keep in mind this is a family friendly website.

Your First Name:—->< Optional

Your Contact Email:->< Optional

Your site’s Title:–>

Your site’s URL:>

URL to our link:>
( Page on your site where we will see the link back to our website.)

Description of your site. (20 words or less)

Please send above details by using below form/or add me at your IM

Sales representative:
Mas Dini Bin Muzammal
YM:Abg_hensem1 at yahoo.com
Gtalk: Adfunk
MSN: reckno6 at hotmail.com
Email: adfunk at gmail.com

1. Steamboat Springs, Colorado
2. Vail, Colorado
3. Aspen, Colorado
4. South Lake Tahoe, California
5. Salt Lake City, Utah
6. Bozeman, Montana
7. Spokane, Washington
8. Idaho Falls, Idaho
9. Anchorage, Alaska
10. Denver, Colorado

keep looking »

Recently Written

• 15 cheaper ways to tour Europe
• Top 10 Extreme VacationsTop 10 Extreme Vacations
• Summer Vacation Seekers Go To VLBO.com For Top Destinations
• VLBO Vacation Rentals your one stop Vacation Rental Homes
• Cruise Travel Tips
• A New Exciting Way To Travel - Grief Tourism
• New way and in confidence - your Timeshare Specialists Rapidresale.ca
• Luxury Travel Of India
• Travel Link Exchange
• Top Ten Ski Getaways

Categories

• Business Travel
• Cruise Travel
• Industry News
• Link Exchange
• Luxury Travel
• Snow Travel
• Sponsored Article
• Timeshare
• Travel Africa
• Travel Asia
• Travel Experience
• Travel Tips
• Uncategorized
• Vacation Rental

Archives

• May 2007
• April 2007
• March 2007
• February 2007

Blogroll

• Get Paid To Blog
• Travel Directory

Tech Blog
Tech Blog
Gadget Blog
Health Blog
Travel Blog
Gangstarz
Tech Blog
Forex
Real Estate
Online Degree
Taxi Blog
Insurance Blog
WTS Link
Evo Auto Blog
Photo Blog
Myspace Graphic
PR Deal
F1rezone Mobile
Tech 2 Blog
My Link Auto
Future

Admin

• Login
• Wordpress
• XHTML

Search

Blog Tags

travel, travel lodge, travel insurance, travel inn, travel channel, travel agents, travelex, travelzoo, travel deals

Tracking