Photo Wednesday – Beaches of Oludeniz, Turkey
Now that winter is here, I’d so wish I were back there, in mid September, enjoying the sea, the breeze and the warmth.
CN Tower – On the top of the world
I am not a big fan of Toronto. Been there, seen some of it, wasn’t really impressed. It was cold, although it was late spring, it all seemed a bit gray and the food…Well, I only had Chinese and sandwiches over there, enough said!
But the CN Tower / La Tour CN left me breathless, together with the beautiful area surrounding it. Modern buildings displaying a beautiful reflection of the sun as it glided just before setting, a private slice of beauty, just for us.
Photo Wednesday: Missing Manhattan
It’s been over a year since my trip to New York City. And looking through the photos I took (yes, quite a few hundreds), I started missing Manhattan. Especially Central Park. So today’s photo post is a way to track my steps on the streets of this wonderful, wonderful heart of NYC.
On the last day of our stay in NYC, we went on the Top of the Rock. Or the top of the Rockefeller Center. It was a trick our tour bus guide told us about. Cheaper than the Empire State Building, less time spent queuing, and you get the Empire State Building in your photos! Smart guy 
My Dream Vacation – Oludeniz, Turkey
What is a Dream Vacation? It’s a masterpiece of Travel Wizards, the kind of vacation that you enjoy so much, you speak about it years and years after coming back. You enjoy every second of every minute of every hour of every day. You take lots of photos, dance like a dervish on the streets and charge yourself with enough energy to last you for a year or two.
How to come up with such a vacation? That’s a mix of knowledge, advanced hotel search skills, planning, great advice from friends passionate about traveling and a whole lot of luck. I’ve had such a vacation last year, when I spent 10 days in the Netherlands. So I did my best to organize an at least similar one for this year. I thought it would be nice to share my plans with you now and then report back every day and tell you what the real deal is like.
Location: Fethiye, Oludeniz, Turkey!
Oludeniz is said to be the best place for paragliding. It’s home to a paradise-like lagoon and beach on the Mediterranean and the nearby mountains are the perfect place for those looking for extreme sensations. Placed in between Kusadasi and Antalyia, it is less popular among travel agencies, 
but hard core tourists know is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The location of choice, Fethiye, is a few miles away from Oludeniz.
I started planning early. I made the reservations at the Blue Pearl hotel back in February. And I advise you to plan early as well if at least part of your trip is in peak season (July-August). I made reservations for an apartment from August 23rd to September 12th and there were only 2-3 apartments left at each hotel in the area. I also advise you to go there in early summer or late summer/early autumn to make sure you’re not affected by extreme heat.
As you can tell, I had quite a lot of time to find out what to do while staying in Oludeniz. You’d think 3 weeks are hard to fill with loads of fun activities, but in these parts of Turkey, it’s actually quite easy! Read more…
Who’s Better At Coming up with the Perfect Trip: You or an Agency?
There are three possibilities when it comes to travel planning: (1) do it all yourself, (2) have an agency arrange lodging and transportation and worry about what to do yourself and (3) leave it all to the agency and just show up and follow their lead. Each of these approaches comes with ups and downs and it also depends on the traveler’s personality, available or inexistent planning time and other such circumstances.
As I want to make it easier for you to choose how to have your trip planned, I’ll explore all these possibilities and focus on what’s good and bad about them. Relax, stay tuned and decide after reading this.
I Am the Master of Disaster
DIY trips come with all the freedom you’ve always dreamed of. Everything is exactly how you wanted it and you have control over every detail. You’re also responsible for every detail of your trip. But if you think you know best what you like, if you don’t want a standardized trip and want to just put your inventiveness to work, you should really go for it.
With all readily available online, finding a hotel, discovering all the major attractions and estimating costs and time can be quite easy. You’ll have to keep a close eye on travel blogs, forums and online booking site reviews.
Thumbs up:
* Everything is your choice, from how you get there, to the hotel and what you visit
* You can change everything as you go if you have a better idea
* You will not be forced to travel with people you don’t know and might not share interests with
Thumbs down:
* It takes a very long time to organize everything
* You might not find out about all the cool places to see and fun stuff to do; also might overlook important details and find everything closed (museums and other attractions)
* You might not estimate everything correctly: time, prices, fun factor
With a Little Help from my Friends…
Partly relying on an agency when planning your trip might spare you quite an effort. You can just email them their request and have everything booked for you, at a certain price. You can have them book your stay, arrange for transportation and go.
Thumbs up:
* Easier to organize and less of a hassle for you
* More time to research what to do on the trip instead of worrying on how to get there
* You still have enough freedom to do what you like and change plans each day
Thumbs down:
* It might not be the best deal you could get. Don’t only think money, also think location and other such details
* As the booking decision is based on just a few objective request, it might not be exactly what you dreamed of
* You’re still left with the largest time consumer and hard part of it all: planning everything you’ll do while you’re there.
Someone Else Has to Worry about EVERYTHING!
There’s a wide range of ready made vacations you can choose from. Everything is already scheduled – from your meals to your activities, and you’ll also have a couple of hours of time to do things on yourself.
Thumbs up:
* Everything is ready for you, you just need to show up
* Groups get discounts when visiting, so when it comes to expensive museums, you can have a big smile on your face
* They agency know everything tourists like and it will all be there for you. If anything is closed, they have 3 other objectives to replace it
Thumbs down:
*Most of the times, you travel with groups of people who can get on your toes quite often
*Your own plans don’t really matter
*The agency might want you to see so much that everything will be in a hurry, no time to really enjoy.
As you can see, there’s something for everyone of us, from the individual travel that wants to do it all on their own, to the lazier ones of us who just want to enjoy their time off work with no real worries on their minds. You should decide what you want and then mix the ingredients to your spell accordingly. But choose wisely, all trips are meant to be enjoyed.
Test Your Travel Mojo with Stay.com’s Guess the City
If travels are you passion, then you might like to think you’d recognize places from the photos you see of them. Even if you haven’t visited all major cities around the world yet, you definitely have plans to, so you’ve done your research and list of places to see.
If you think you’ve got that travel mojo and would like to put it’s sharpness and quickness to a test, what better way than Stay.com’s “Guess the City” contest? You have to guess 10 cities in a limited amount of time after seeing a collage of distinctive tourist attractions.
Besides being extremely addictive, the game comes with prizes aimed to please the travel addicts. Free one week hotel stays in major cities around the world. Stay.com states the contest is open to players from all over the world, but they haven’t yet disclosed the list of cities they came up with. Nor did they mention if you get to choose or they pick the city for you. It will all be a big surprise for everybody.
One more thing, don’t fear the competition. Yes, you give your friends a chance to win by telling them all about the game, but you get points for doing it, so the threat and the karma boost are leveraged.
The contest ends on July 15. So come out and play until then and let me know what you think of the game. I for one have played it dozens of times and I can barely make myself stop playing Hope you have as much fun as I’ve had.
Must Do in Washington: Cruise on the Potomac
Cruises down the river! You have to love them, unless you tend to get sea sick. But on a slow moving boat cruise with nice food and music, with the right company, it can be awesome for everyone. And if you think Potomac, Washington DC, sunset, you have the perfect setting for a beautiful evening adventure.
From what I could see, there are quite a few boats to choose from. From water taxis that you can use to also hope on and off and visit some of the monuments to luxurious boat cruises to offer you an unforgettable high class experience.
Whatever you choose, keep your eyes open, your camera ready and at the same time try not to miss any interesting conversation. It’s not that difficult, as a cruise can last about 2 hours, so there’s plenty of time for everything.
Relax, on the deck I recommend, keep the camera close by and wait for the sunset twilight. Then start taking photos of what you see. If it’s not cloudy, you’ll get a spectacular view!
While the darkness takes over, you’ll see the lights reflected in the water and sparkling on the river side. You’re also probably close to getting back and I know you’ll have a certain feeling, the “it’s over much too soon” feeling. If you get the chance, just take the cruise again on your next trip. I doubt you’ll easily get bored of it
