Ruth Pennebaker of Geezersisters.com fame

They say that virtual friends aren’t real friends, that people we meet online are a poor excuse for face-to-face social interaction. “They” are wrong. I met Ruth Pennebaker online perhaps a year and a half ago. I don’t even remember how I discovered her blog but I vividly recall being enamored with her self-deprecating, sugary-sarcastic writing style from the moment I read her first post. Her first adult novel, What Did I Do to Deserve This?, will be published in January 2011; the novel is about three generations of women living under one roof – so you could call it a horror story.

Ruth normally lives in Austin, where she blogs at Geezersisters.com and pens the Urban Cowgirl column for the Texas Observer, does yoga and frets. However, nearly a year ago she and her husband seized an opportunity to live in New York City for a year, which may have just whetted her appetite for travel writing. Although Ruth loves to travel, our styles are completely different. While I’m intrepid, she’s meek: “I always, always expect to die, even when I’m just going down the block. Miraculously, I’ve so far managed to make it in New York for almost a year, but am keeping my fingers crossed.” Since she has such a different viewpoint on travel, we thought it might be fun to publish her travel piece about little-visited Albania here on Hole In The Donut Travels. If you’d like to read more from Ruth, visit her blog, Geezersisters.com. So without further ado, here is “Albania and Me,” by Ruth Pennebaker.

My heart sank a couple of years ago when I saw the TV footage of one of George W. Bush’s recent trips. There he was – being cheered and embraced by a worshipful throng in the capital city of Tirana, Albania.

Oh, great, I thought. Just what I needed: Albania in the international spotlight. Next thing you know, the Bushes will be taking vacations there, basking in the sunlight and adulation, and Albania will be teeming with American tourists.

It wasn’t fair. Albania had been our country – my husband’s, son’s and mine.

No, I hadn’t been to China or Bali or Morocco. I wasn’t a big-time explorer. I didn’t like to rough it or take extreme trips. I was more the cringing, neurotic type.

But hold on, cowboy. I’ve been to Albania. Have you? No, I didn’t think so.

“You can’t go to Albania.”

“Albania? Are you crazy?”

It was the summer of 1998. My husband, son and I had spent three weeks in southern Italy, where my husband had been a visiting professor. Now, we needed to make our way to Greece for a conference.

Albania was east of Italy, across the Adriatic, and just north of Greece. As the crow flies, it made sense. My husband hated birds, but he’d found his guide for this trip.

The only problem was, every psychologist in Italy seemed intent on talking him out of it.

“Nobody goes to Albania.”

The more they objected, the more determined my husband became to go. He’s like that.

“Have you ever been to Albania?” my husband asked his detractors. Read the rest of this entry »

A while back I wrote about HotelPal, the great iPhone app that lets you find last minute accommodations based on your current location and budget. Now a similar iPhone app, Superbreak, is available for Europe.

The application allows users to search for a hotel by date, location, or specific hotel name, and searches can also be conducted using geo-code technology, allowing customers to find hotels near their current location. All 7,000 of Superbreak’s UK and European hotels can be booked through the app and it can handle the whole booking process from start to finish.

Search settings on the iPhone app

Property Information

Although I have not personally tested the app (I haven’t been in Europe recently), the screen shots of the app are so similar to those in HotelPal that I have little doubt it functions in quite the same manner, Read the rest of this entry »

Remember playing tag when you were a kid? Slapping someone on the back and yelling, “Tag, you’re it!” Well, I’ve just been been ‘virtually tagged.’ My friend and fellow travel blogger, Shannon Lane, was ‘tagged’ to participate in the meme known as My Three Best Travel Secrets (a meme, which rhymes with cream, is a catchphrase or concept that spreads rapidly from person to person via the Internet). From what I understand, the game was started by Katie of Tripbase.com, the lovely folks who awarded me second place in the category of best North/South American blog of 2009 in their annual Travel Blog Awards.

After sharing three great secrets about her home state of Louisiana, Shannon ‘tagged’ me to be next in line to divulge my best travel secrets. My first reaction was, “Only three?” How could I possibly narrow it down to only three. Should I talk about little known secrets in Sarasota, Florida, such as the $40 annual membership to GWiz Science Museum that provides FREE admission to over 300 other science centers throughout the U.S. as well as other attractions around the State of Florida? Or about my list of little-known coffee shops around the country that let me work on my laptop all day for the price of a cup of coffee, like Sippin’ Internet Cafe in Key West, Pastry Art in Sarasota, or Rev Coffee in the Atlanta area?

In the end, I decided to reveal my secrets for booking last minute accommodations and transportation around the world without breaking the bank. Frankly, I detest being locked into definite travel plans. My preference is to book the first night at a destination (two nights at most), and then wing it from there. Fellow travelers are always eager to share secrets about spectacular, little-known towns or sites they have visited and not being locked into reservations allows me to take advantage of these tips, but it also means I am often looking for last minute bookings, which can be frustrating as well as expensive. However I do have a few tricks to help with this process, which I’ve detailed below: Read the rest of this entry »

The family farm in St. Vincent. Photo courtesy of HelpX.com

“On mountaintop. Great view. On a small Caribbean island. Pineapple and wax apple farm. Building in construction. I live with my 3 kids. 3 German Shepherds 1 Dobermann, in the unfinished building. This is a child friendly environment. St.Vincent is a lovely island, non touristic. I can offer food and lodging for your help. I appreciate your assistance. Please come and help out with farming, construction, creating greenhouse, landscaping, plumbing, carpentry, organic planting, house stay, restoring antiques, handyman, domestic work, kids homework, kids activities, decoration, home reorganization….We speak Flemish, English, French, Dutch, but all nationalities are welcome to apply.”

The family in St. Vincent. Photo courtesy of HelpX.com

The above is just one of hundreds of listings found on HelpX.net (short for HelpExchange), a website that connects host organic farms, non-organic farms, farmstays, homestays, ranches, lodges, B&Bs, backpackers hostels and even sailing boats with volunteers who exchange short-term work for food and accommodations. This particular listing is for a property located on the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean, and the family has already hosted numerous volunteers, some of whom have posted reviews of their experience. Kurt wrote:

“I loved the saltfish and bread fruit. Accommodation is very nice, your own room and bathroom. There is plenty of work, maintenance of the pineapple fields and landscaping around the house and odd jobs. Trips to town are often and you will get to mingle with the locals. When taking the local bus…hold on it is a ride.” Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I was having lunch with a couple of friends when the conversation turned to repositioning cruises. Not being familiar with the term, I asked them to tell me more.

“They’re the absolute best cruise deals available!” my one friend insisted. And she proceeded to educate me.

Some ships sail the same itinerary – or at least stay in the same region – year round. Others switch routes with the seasons, requiring them to reposition the ship from one home port to another, which is by necessity a one-way trip. Rather than sail without passengers the cruise lines sell these repositioning trips at a significant discount. Although these cruises require travelers to arrange for more expensive one-way airfare, they also visit more ports of call because they are not limited by the round-trip requirement. Further research turned up some intriguing examples:

Cruise West's Spirit of Oceanus, a small luxury ship that accommodates only 120 passengers

• Cruise West’s Spirit of Oceanus is a small, luxury ship that departs from Anchorage, Alaska on September 10, 2009 for an 18-night Bering Sea crossing dubbed the Ring Of Fire. On its way to Kobe, Japan, the ship visits the Alaskan, Russian, and Japanese ports of Seward, Kodiak, Shumagin Islands, Dutch Harbor, Kiska Island, Attu Island, Petropavlovsk, Atlasova Island, Kuril Islands, Kushiro, Matushima, and Ise. The Read the rest of this entry »

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not particularly a fan of cruises. The idea of being trapped on a ship for days, with nothing to see but endless expanses of water much of the time – well, that seems like a fate worse than death to me. But the other day I happened across the website of Viking River Cruises and I was instantly intrigued.

I have often thought about seeing the great cities of Europe from aboard a riverboat plying the placid waters of the Rhine or the Danube. Viking does indeed offer a variety of European cruises, but it was when I investigated further that my interest was really piqued. Their Russian cruises sail the Volga, visiting the great cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, as well as ancient villages like Yaroslavl, Uglich and Goritzy. Russia is definitely on my list of places that I “must see before I die,” and I was giving this serious consideration until I spotted their China cruises. Read the rest of this entry »