Taking off Travel blog

This is part 2 of my Florida vacation roundup. You can find Part 1 here.

On the Friday, we took a one hour boat trip along the Florida waterways near Las Olas. Part of the enjoyment for some participants was the opportunity to gaze at the multimillion dollar homes and boats of stars and celebrities. There were so many of those that in some ways the tour was like an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, complete with the captain as omniscient narrator.

Las Olas Waterways

I’m less interested in celebs, but I still had a great time looking at the majestic waterways, spotting the water taxis and generally enjoying being out in the open. However, our next boat trip was to prove far more exciting. Read more »

I’m just back from a trip to Florida, in the Hollywood/Dania Beach area. (It seems the person who planned the area was originally from California, hence the name.) It was fun. Flying in and clearing security went smoothly, and we were through in less than half an hour. Just as I was thinking we’d be in the pool by 2, we hit a snag – the extremely lengthy Alamo car hire process. We had prebooked so it should have been smooth. Instead we had to wait for the rep to:

• double check our reservation
• try to con us into upgrading to a bigger vehicle (for more money)
• try to sell us insurance coverage which we already had
• get a GPS system

Finally, we had to be bussed to the Miami offsite airport parking lot to collect our car. Most of the time when I hire a car, the reps give me the car that’s available. With this Alamo rental, we had the novelty of walking to the appropriate parking lot section and picking anything we wanted – and all of them were quite big enough for our luggage, despite the rep’s dire warnings.  We plugged in the GPS (later to be christened the ‘gremlin’ but that’s another story) and away we went to our hotel, one of the Marriott chain.

Pool at Marriott Springhills Suites, FL

The room was spacious, though the bathrooms needed a refurb and we had a great view of the pool and a few palm trees. (Overall, we thought the hotel was a good choice, as it was close to places to eat, local attractions and Interstate 95 without being too noisy.) Free internet access and breakfast added to the value. By about 4.30 we were finally able to hit the pool, which was practically deserted. That’s what you get for traveling at the tail end of the season when most kids are back at school.

Read more »

Last month I asked whether business travelers dared to unplug when taking a trip. If your answer was no, then you’ve probably got a list of items that are essential whenever you travel. As a location independent writer, I like to think I’ve got managing my business on the road down to a fine art. Here’s how I do it.

In The Cloud

One of my main strategies is to be able to access as much stuff as possible from the cloud. That means having a good online backup system which also has editing facilities. My choice for that is Syncplicity. Anywhere I go I can get to the latest backup from my home computer and get the files I need. As a backup, I occasionally email things to myself (I use Gmail) so that I can open things in Google Documents. With word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, Google Documents is a pretty nifty MS Office replacement. Read more »

Facebook logo

Back in January I looked at some of the key Facebook applications for travelers. Since then, I’ve continued to explore Facebook in search of groups and pages related to travel. There are literally hundreds of each, so I’m not going to make any claims to be objective or comprehensive in my selection. However, here are some that caught my eye.

Soultravelers3

Soultravelers3 is among my favorite travel bloggers on Twitter, so it’s no surprise that the Facebook group is also a fun place to be. Run by Jeanne Dee, the group, like the blog and Twitter account, follows the adventures of a family of three on “an open ended, multi year trip around the world”.

I Wanna Travel The World

The I wanna travel the world group appeals for similar reasons. It’s worth browsing the forum, skating past the plugs from obvious spammers and looking for the gems, such as posts on eco tourism or finding a travel partner.

Open Travel

Moving on to some interesting Facebook travel pages, I was struck by the Open Travel fan page. It accompanies the site by the same name which features travel experiences from real travelers. The fan page is worth following for the excellent photos alone, though you could just subscribe to the blog. Read more »