I very rarely offer travel advice here because despite the fact that this is a travel blog, I just don’t consider myself an expert. Yes, I may travel more than the average person, but my 9 to 5 job keeps me grounded most of the year, literally. Even so, in my real life I am regularly asked my opinion on where to find the best deals and ideas for travel.

My advice tends to flow in the following order…

Read travel blogs

There are so many fantastic bloggers uncovering the greatest tips, deals and general travel advice for you, like Nomadic Matt, FoXnoMad, Camels and Chocolate, the Everwhereist, Chris Around the World and I could go on forever. Blogs are the perfect place for inspiration and once I’ve decided where I want to go, they are the first place I look for ideas.

The ultimate example of this is the time that The Travel Experta got me and Mike to Costa Rica. I recommend Marina to anyone heading to Latin America because she’s smart, responsive, thoughtful and has some amazing connections to get you really great deals.

The plane ticket

I tend to begin my search for flights with Bing Travel and Kayak, but my general rule of thumb is to scour every single one I can get my mouse on to do my own comparisons and make sure I’m getting the absolute best deal. Then, I buy the tickets straight from the airline. Despite the fact that many airlines have a reputation for bad customer service, especially when your itinerary goes awry, I like having the security of dealing directly with a vendor.

I do have one exception though, and that’s when I go to Vayama Travel. I absolutely love them. They’ve found some of my best travel deals, which brought me to Tunisia and Spain for my honeymoon. And when you book your flight you get a pretty comprehensive itinerary that somehow seems personal. They’ve also perfected customer service. For my honeymoon, our flight from France to Tunis had been delayed due to a strike and I received an email notification and a phone call to update me of the change in the itinerary.

There was a flight change and a human contacted me. Can you imagine?

What’s in my inbox?

Recently my girls weekend crew and I were planning our next trip. We all have alerts set up and receive emails on cheap flights, but until recently we could only think of options that encourage us to select specific cities. Our problem is that we’re willing to go anywhere as long as the price is right.

This is where I bring it all back to blogging.

Annelise of Quarterlife Lifestyle - queen of finding the best deals about travel, lifestyle and the like – came along and reminded me of Airfare Watchdog.com in a recent post. These guys are great because they allow you to select your home base airport and then they update you on flights to wherever it is cheap to fly in the near future.

Gate 1 Travel is also in my inbox for one reason alone. It helped bring My Beautiful Adventures to India. Andi is not only a blogger I admire, she’s a blogger I trust, so when she helped me discover a way to uncover information on travel deals I jumped at it. While I’m not quite as seasoned a traveler as Andi, like her, I tend to shy away from tours, but when I saw that oftentimes you can opt to not participate in a paid tour, but rather, explore a city on your own once you get there – I was hooked.

Note, I’ve never actually used Gate 1 Travel so I can’t speak to the experience, but I can say they seem to offer some great trips at reasonable prices. Also, their emails spark conversations with Mike and I that begin with questions like, “want to go to China?” right as we walk in the door from a long day of work. I know, I need to settle down.

I also like Smarter Travel and I’m of course a Travelzoo VIP.

So that’s what I do when I start plotting my adventures. What’s your plan of attack?

Then Darin Rogers came along and proved that one shouldn’t feel restricted by their device to take a great photo. Darin is a freelance travel and cultural photographer and he recently offered me the opportunity to read his first ebook, an introduction to travel photography called Capturing the Journey – A Beginner’s Guide to the Basics of Travel Photography.

I loved the book for many reasons, but mostly because it spoke directly to the kind of photographer I am. I’m someone who simply wants to capture my travel adventures in a truly vivid way. I’m not out to become a professional travel photographer, but I always want to walk away from a trip with more than a slew of one dimensional shots of landmarks. I want my experiences captured.

Darin’s book was direct, simple and it was eloquently written. He coupled brief explanations with beautiful shots to demonstrate the recommendations. I learned a lot from Darin’s book. Like, taking a good photo is so much more than clicking a button to snap an image, it’s about how you compose the image- take your surroundings into consideration.

I have been lacking something. Creativity, adventurousness, I’m not sure what. I think I’ve been letting things that tend to be daunting beat me, instead of stomping them out with an aggressiveness that I know is innate in me.

Helping me to climb out of this fog is the anticipation of some exciting events. Next weekend, my little sister gets married and words can’t describe my excitement. Also, today I requested time off for a trip to Nova Scotia with Mike, my mom and dad. The trip isn’t planned, but the time is plotted out.

It’s a step in the right direction.

I have also been leaning back for inspiration too. Tonight, I reminisced past travels through photos and I came across one that made me think out loud, even though I was alone – man, my husband is brilliant.

He took this…

It’s from our honeymoon when we were in Mijas, Spain while wine tasting. This photo doesn’t even capture the wine we drank or the food we ate, just the rinds. But somehow, it’s still beautiful.

And if something like that can’t motivate me to get up and go – learn something, experience something new, I don’t know what will.

Last week I shared some of my photography struggles with you and I asked for some of your tips. They were wonderful. So I wanted to share them today not only because they were great, but because they were from people who always keep me inspired – through their comments, their blogs, their adventures, and of course, their photos…

Kristin of Camels and Chocolate: Always carry a tripod (even if it’s a mini) with you for night shots or shooting in low light. If you can’t haul one with you around the city, find something to balance your camera on so you can take a longer exposure shot (i.e. let more light in) and not worry about blur.

Andi of My Beautiful Adventures: Always look for a unique way to capture something, especially if it’s something that has been photographed a million times!

Dominique of Midwest Guest: The beauty of digital is that you can take a -lot- of images I’m always looking for a different angle, or zooming in on details in an attempt to get a more unique photo. I did one entire post where I zoomed in on details or crazy angles when I covered a public art show.

Erin of And Her Heart is in Ireland: i just take a ton of the same shot – and some of my favorite pictures are of sunset or sunrise.

Sues of We Are Not Martha: I’m the same way… super impatient when it comes to photography. I want to be better but I just don’t “get” it. So, I basically take 50 of the same photo and hope one comes out Thank goodness for digital cameras! And thank goodness for the spring/summer when it stays light out later

Liz of Two Weeks to Travel: Good tips! Like someone mentioned above, I always try to take pictures from different angles or views, it can make some of the shots of ‘standard tourist’ places seem a bit more exciting. I also have started to prefer to take pictures when it isn’t as sunny out, I love dusk, but also like rainy days now, I find light that isn’t so bright makes for some good shots.

Thank you guys for always inspiring me.

What keeps you inspired?

In this post, Alexis shares a fantastic tip about traveling light, and traveling green – two things I know I’d like to get better at. Enjoy….

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Packing light, leaving the laptop behind, and braving the world sans eye shadow have given me a sense of independence and freedom I hadn’t known before I’d heard of the concept of minimalist packing. 

There’s a confession here, though: the last phase of my travel habits to go minimalistic was hygiene.  It got to the point that my toiletry bag took up more space in my backpack than did my clothing and shoes, which I’d narrowed down to 3 shirts, 1 pair of pants, and flip flops.  Most of my friends were getting away with a single bar of soap in Vietnam, and since half of them were girls, I couldn’t use the “Hey, I’m a girl” excuse.

I’m proud to announce, however, that I’ve finally overcome my obsession with being clean.  (No, this doesn’t mean that I’m “that girl” on the airplane that makes the whole row smell like B.O..  Shivers.)  Instead, my answer to packing light on toiletries coincided with new insights made in being eco-friendly.

Dr. Bronner’s, I love you.

A friend of mine who travels to India annually suggested Dr. Bronner’s liquid castile soap to me last year, citing its vegetable-based, fair-trade, organic, and biodegradable properties as perks.  To boot, the bottles are 100% post-consumer recycled (the paper, too!), and you won’t find any funky foaming agents or preservatives in a single one.  The basic ingredients are as follows:

• Water
• Saponified organic coconut, organic palm, and organic olive oils (with retained glycerin)
• Organic hemp oil
• Organic jojoba oil
• Essential oils
• Citric acid
• Vitamin E

After learning about the potential ill effects of parabens, PEGs, sodium lauryl sulfate, and other ingredients commonly found in cosmetics, I began making my own shampoo and body wash using Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap as a base.  The soap is multi-purpose, and because it comes infused with beneficial oils (as well as essential oils like lavender, almond, rose oil, and more), it doesn’t strip my skin or scalp of protective moisture.

Generally, I like to have at least two types of Dr. Bronner’s soaps with me when traveling.  I buy a big bottle of the stuff and pour it into one or two travel-sized bottles, depending on my schedule.  To use, I dilute it with one part water for each part soap and use for anything between the shower and the washing machine (well, the sink).

The tea tree oil soap does good things for my face and body, which can break out due to travel stress (I absolutely detest flying).  Meanwhile, the eucalyptus variety clears my sinuses when I use it as body wash or shampoo.  If you’re not too crazy about essential oils, you can try the baby mild version, which has no fragrance.

A few weeks ago, my friend Susie introduced me to NabeWise, and because of scenarios like the above – and of course, because Susie is always one step ahead of the next big thing – I knew NabeWise was going to be great.

So I signed up, got to reviewing and also checked out some of the neighborhoods that I don’t always spend a lot of time in even though they’re just a T ride away. NabeWise is primarily a tool for people looking to move to a particular neighborhood, but need an insider view before taking the leap. But it is also a great resource for travelers who want a more specific and personalized view of where to stay – whether it be for a quick weekend or for a longer trip.

Nabewise is great because for the many neighborhoods that make up a city, you can find reviews and ratings based on a number of characteristics. NabeWise also features the best blogs in each neighborhood, which is probably my favorite part because ahead of guidebooks, I always look at blogs for travel advice.

Today, NabeWise is already in Boston, New York Tri-State, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle and Austin. My fellow Bostonians can also keep up with NabeWise Boston on Twitter.

Are you on NabeWise? Let’s be friends…

Maria often combines her love of travel and blogging into helpful posts, from exploring beautiful Italy to sharing tips for great travel photography. For transient travels, Maria kindly offered to write a post that would speak to the more sporadic traveler – like me.

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Unless you can throw down like Bill Gates, you’re probably not able to hop on a plane anytime you feel like it, and your time – and money – are at a premium. If you’re like most of us, you have about two weeks of vacation every year (maybe three), and you have to find a way to make each of those days count.

With a little planning, you can make the most of your vacation time, whether you’re planning a quick weekend getaway, or you have a few weeks to spend abroad.

Manipulating Your Time

If you plan your departure just right, you can manage to add a few more days, or hours, to your vacation. Don’t wait until the day your vacation begins to leave: Schedule your flight for the afternoon before you are meant to begin your vacation. You can still work that day, and you don’t have to take an extra day of vacation for travel. If you can manage to sleep well on a plane, “redeye,” or overnight, flights work well for longer trips, especially those headed overseas.

With international flights, you should note the difference in time zone when planning your time. You may end up gaining time on the way there, but you’ll lose time on the way back. Decide whether a morning or an evening departure or landing will be better for your planning purposes. Don’t forget: With a significant time zone difference, you’re likely to feel tired and jet lagged. Even if you do manage to arrive on the morning of your first day, if you’re too tired to do anything, you’ll end up losing even more time.

Route Your Activities

If you’re looking forward to lounging on a beach for the next several days, you can probably skip this step. But if you’re trying to see as much of your destination as you can in the time allotted, it is best to make a list of all the things you would like to do and see while you are there. If the list is especially long, you can rank it according to your highest priorities. Then you can make a plan for the order in which to see things – putting activities and sights that are closer to one another geographically closet together in time. If you don’t take a little time to plan this, you could end up backtracking and taking long bus trips or walking several blocks to return to an area that you already saw, wasting valuable time.

Rent a Car

Waiting on public transportation can deduct hours from your vacation, and taking a taxi everywhere can eat a hole in your budget. Rent a car, and you’ll spend a little extra on overall transportation costs (compared to public options), but you’ll save on time and reap dividends on the autonomy it will give you. My husband and I managed to cover 10 cities in Ireland in one week because we abandoned the unreliable bus system and rented a car. We even ended up having enough time on our hands that we decided to let someone else do the driving one day and hopped on a tour bus around the Ring of Kerry. (A note to remember about tour buses: Only take them if the itinerary suits your needs. Otherwise, you’ll spend a lot of time in gift shops and touring areas in which you have little to no interest.)

Plan Around Festivals and Other Events

Most major cities have a significant festival or other event that happens each year. If you plan to attend during this time – such as the Lunar New Year in China, the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan or D.C., New Year’s Even in New York – you are sure to have dozens of built-in activities ready for your vacation, eliminating much of the planning work. The best news? Most of these activities will be free.

While traveling you experience tremendous differences in culture, but you also come across the smaller ones. The ones you’d never even guess would happen and almost seem insignificant, but in reality, can make a big impact on the way you communicate and interact with locals.

To prepare for our honeymoon, Mike and I hit up Barnes & Noble for good guidebooks. For Tunisia, I grabbed one of the Culture Smart! guidebooks – not because I thought it would supply me with “things to do” per se (we’ll be relying on Mike’s homemade Google Map for that), but because it looked like it would give me the kind of background I normally lack when going to a country I don’t know a whole lot about.

So far, it has. The book provides history, like the founding of Carthage, and it also gives you an overview of politics, religion and social norms.

While you can’t escape those little learning experiences like my incident in Cork, and to be honest I think those experiences are what help you grow to become a good traveler, it will be nice to feel somewhat, culturally equipped.

What’s the strangest cultural mishap you’ve experienced?

I think for most people, music is a good medium for learning. And as I look for new, convenient ways to practice Spanish, I’ve recently stumbled upon a new addiction.

While we were in Costa Rica, I saw the video for “Lo Hecho Esta Hecho” (I did It Again) by Shakira on TV in one of our hotel rooms. I had always liked the song in English but for some reason hearing it in Spanish made me like it even more – it’s been on my gym playlist ever since.

I also had no idea what she was saying so I looked up the lyrics, which I frequently read while listening to the song when Mike’s not home. Yeah I try to sing it too. It’s kind of like my revenge on my downstairs neighbors who constantly rock the same four R&B songs on repeat at a volume that makes my floor shake.

Do you ever listen to music in another language to help you learn?

But if I haven’t convinced you that it is worth a plane ticket to go to that wonderful country yet, I thought you should know that in conjunction with Gap Adventures, Nomadic Matt is giving away a free 2 week trip, airfare included!

I have never worked with Gap Adventures before so I can’t speak from personal experience, but I can say they have a pretty honest and trusted advocate.

If you don’t win, I still think you should go to Costa Rica. And if you do decide to make the trip, from my personal experience, I can highly recommend contacting the wonderful Travel Expert(a).

To learn how to enter, just scroll down below this last bit of evidence that Costa Rica is one amazing trip.  We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming soon…

To start, go here.

What do you win? Gap Adventures Costa Rica Explorer plus airfare. Yes, that’s right, not only do you get a two week vacation, but you also get the plane ticket there too. This trip is only for one person.

How do you win? To win this great prize, you need to write a 550 word blog post (to put on your blog) or create a 1 ½ minute video (to put on a video hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo) answering the following question: “Why do you want this trip, and what do you hope to get out of it?” Pretty easy! Just tell us why deserve this lovely prize.

Your blog entry must include a link back to this announcement page as well as mention that Nomadic Matt and Gap Adventures are giving this trip away and that it is our contest you are entering.

Then submit your entry by doing the following:

• Become a fan of Gap Adventures and Nomadic Matt on Facebook.
• Submit the url of your blog post or video to this email address: thenomadicmatt @ gmail dot com with the title “Costa Rica Giveaway”
• Tweet the following if you are on Twitter: “I just entered to win a free trip to Costa Rica from @nomadicmatt and @gapadventures (insert the shortened url of your entry so people can read it)
• Tell all your friends to vote in the public voting.  The public will help select the best entries so tell the world and get them involved.
• Hope you win.

Additional information can be found here.

Thank you guys for your comments, suggestions and for stopping by my little corner of the internet!

andhari agrees with me on Almost Famous. She said that she… always get mixed feelings whenever I watch it. To travel, discover, and achieve your dream. Even when we don’t discover only good things, they’re still really valuable lessons so many great quotes in the movie too!

Pam said… In other Danny Boyle movies, the first half of The Beach made me want to go to Thailand, and on my last visit to Scotland, we went to one pub specifically because it had been in Trainspotting.

Shannon OD loves… “Love Actually!” It’s one of my top favorite holiday movies and makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside And now you have me hankering to see Almost Famous again – it’s been YEARS since the last time I watched it Great list!

Andi said… I love the old South of the earlier scenes of The Notebook. I love the New England weekend home of Dan in Real Life. I love Paris in too many movie to recount – what a great question.

Anil said… It’s a bit cliche but I really love The Motorcycle Diaries.

Emily @ Maiden Voyage said… I adore Love Actually! One movie that really makes me want to travel (this is so lame) is The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It has some absolutely incredible scenes in Greece (I think shot in Oia) — Mamma Mia did, too. Those both made me really want to go to Greece, and I’m so glad I finally did this summer. Under the Tuscan Sun also makes me crave a trip to Italy!

Sues said… I totally agree with Love Actually! This is really random, but I was watching The Proposal this weekend and it made me reallyyy want to go to Alaska!

Flippin’ Yank is a movie junkie and she shared her (very extensive) travel movie list, which is awesome:

In Bruges-Belgium; Lost in Translation-Tokyo,;Dear Frankie and Sweet Sixteen-Glasgow, Scotland; Once and Intermission-Dublin; The Matchmaker-Galway; Under the Tuscan Sun and Cabiria-Italy;Bread and Tulips-Venice;Into The Wild-U.S. road trip; Amelie and French Kiss-France;Vicky Cristina and Barcelona-Barcelona;Vengo-Andalucia;Lovers of the Arctic Circle-The Laplands;any Jane Austen movie-Bath, England;Love and Other Disasters and Notting Hill-London;Wings of Desire-Germany;Fanny and Alexander-Sweden;Latcho Drom-journey of the Romany people told through musicians and dancers of India, Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, France, and Spain;Motorcycle Diaries-South America;Buena Vista Social Club-Cuba;Sicko-makes me want to move to another country with nationalized healthcare;Long Way Round-motorcycle around the world;Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations-not a movie but makes me want to eat my way around the world!

annelise said… This is lame, but Made of Honor made me want to go to Scotland desperately. And to bounce of Andi, The Family Stone screamed “New England” at me. It reminds me of Hanover.

James Clark said… I thought Love Actually was better than what most reviewers thought of it, but perhaps it because I am something of an Anglophile that makes me like that movie as well. Waking Ned Devine makes me want to live in a little Irish village. Slumdog Millionaire actually made me want to go back to Mumbai.

bettina said… “Love Actually” is one of my favorite movies.

johnny said… I LOVE Love Actually! It is my favourite, such a feel good movie and Hugh Grant is awesome in it. I have never seen Chocolat, whats it about?

Andi said…. I love The English Patient, Frida, & Motorcycle Diaries. All are so heartwrenchingly inspiring and make me want to jump on the next plane ANYWHERE! I adore Love Actually too.

E.P. said… It’s funny that these movies make you want to travel because they make me feel the same way. Another one is ‘Under the Tuscan Sun,’ mostly because I lived in that town and miss it so.

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The reason for all the Love Actually love is that I included the movie in my original post… thanks Julie