Recently, the manufacturer of Paperwallet, a new lightweight wallet made from a thin, tear-resistant, elastic fabric called Tyvek, asked me to try out their product. Although I don’t write a lot of product reviews, I agreed in this instance because I have been searching for a solution to the “wallet issue” for years. When I am not traveling I carry a large wallet that has room for money, coins, ID, photos, and a myriad of credit, debit, and membership cards. But when I hit the road, I leave behind all the extraneous stuff and pare down to a small wallet. Over the years I’ve tried many different styles, but I have never been able to find one that suits me. For example, the man’s style tri-fold that I am currently using is a has a slot for paper money that is not long enough for many foreign currencies; I end up crumpling and double folding bills to get them to fit, which often makes the wallet too thick to close.

Solid color Paperwallet, made of tear-resistant Tyvek

While the Paperwallet is not a product I would not consider for everyday use, its design was perfect for traveling. It has two credit card slots, two contact card flaps, two easy access pockets, and a cash pocket that handles U.S. bills with room to spare. And because it’s made of Tyvek, Paperwallet is recyclable; you can send your old wallet back to the company for recycling and the company provides a 15% discount on the purchase of your next wallet. Read the rest of this entry »

You'll want to bookmark/favorite this site. Image courtesy of BestTravelDeals.net

If you are always on the lookout for tips and bargains, love to travel, and love to tweet even more, you should definitely check out the Ultimate List of Twitter Travel Accounts just published at BestTravelDeals.net. This very comprehensive list shows the twitter user name for airlines, airports, trains, subways, rental cars, hotels, cruises, pet travel, booking sites, travel guides and reviews, travel tips, and travel blogs.

Almost everyone who travels has had a disappointing hotel experience at one time or another. I can’t count the times I’ve made reservations based on glitzy photos of pure white sand beaches, luxurious spas, or highly rated restaurants, only to discover upon arrival that the sand on the beach is crushed shells, the spa employs novice masseuses, or the restaurant is actually located off-site.

Although the Internet has made booking accommodations much easier, search engines like Hotels.com, Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity are in the business of selling hotel rooms, thus the bulk of the information and images shown on their sites have been provided by the hotels. Trip Advisor, which provides a platform for guest reviews, is a sightly better option, but they make no attempt to verify the truth of these anonymous ratings (I know of one instance where a guest wrote a vindictive, negative review because his credit card was charged for a night’s stay when he didn’t show up or even try to cancel his reservation).

Oyster Hotel Reviews reporters. Photo courtesy of Oyster.com

Recognizing that this was a niche waiting to be filled, three Internet entrepreneurs launched Oyster Hotel Reviews in the spring of 2008. Working quietly in the background they acquired investors and hired full-time reporters, who began staying at hotels around the country. Unlike some well-known travel guide books, hotel management is never told when an Oyster representative is coming to review the property. Reporters use a consistent set of criteria to ensure they apply the same standards to each hotel. Their in-depth evaluation includes guest interviews and taking hundreds of photos of the rooms, common areas, and facilities. Both the good and the bad are depicted and the level of detail is impressive; photos show moldy shower tiles, grunge on bathroom fixtures, and in one case, a cockroach found in a tub. The reporter’s comprehensive written review of the hotel, along with these Read the rest of this entry »

Moon Fiji by David Stanley

Most people who travel a lot – especially budget travelers – have at one time or another invested in a guide book. Lonely Planet and Rough Guides are well known names in the genre; less well known are the Moon guide books. In fact, I had never before read a Moon guide until a copy of Moon Fiji came my way, courtesy of author David Stanley.

I have never actually read a travel guide. It usually gets stuck it in my backpack and pulled out for reference when I’m looking for an affordable place to stay, a decent meal, or to figure out which sights are must sees. Moon Fiji, however, is a different kind of guide book. That may be partly due to its author, who has crossed six continents overland and visited 193 of the planet’s 245 countries. For his first trip across the Pacific in 1978, Stanley bought the longest ticket ever issued in Canada by Pan American Airways. Though Stanley has traveled widely and become a specialist on many parts of the world, he keeps returning to his favorite area, the South Pacific.

I read this guide book from cover to cover and I highly recommend purchasing Moon Fiji if you are South Pacific bound. This compact guidebook does everything right. Take, for example, the following examples of what I found within: Read the rest of this entry »

In the beginning, if you wanted to book airfare online you visited each airline’s individual website, entered your search criteria, and compared the prices, routes, and travel times from the multiple sites prior to booking. Ditto for hotels. It worked, but the process ate up a lot of time and was extremely frustrating.

Sensing an opportunity, sites like Expedia and Travelocity sprung up. These search engines gathered all the information on airfares and hotels and made it available on a single site. That was better, but some things were still missing. In order to read customer reviews about hotels travelers could visit TripAdvisor, but once again that meant visiting multiple sites prior to making travel decisions.

Enter metasearch engines. These relatively new sites incorporate everything into one place, making travel research and booking a breeze. If you’d like to know more, check out the recent post about travel metasearch at UpTake.com. UpTake just happens to be one of the top metasearch sites on the Internet, if not the best. And in the interest of full disclosure, I must say that I am a contracted travel writer for UpTake.com, but then I wouldn’t be working for them unless they were the best.

Follow Laura Lee Carter through a midlife crisis with a happy ending!

A while back, my friend Laura Lee Carter over at MidlifeCrisisQueen.com asked me to review the manuscript for a book she had just finished writing. Aptly titled, “Midlife Magic: Becoming the Person You Are Inside,” Laura Lee’s book treats us to the roller coaster ride that was her life, beginning at age 46 when she left a loveless, destructive marriage of many years; through the sudden and unexpected loss of her job two years later; and then follows her as she remakes her career and life, in the process discovering who she really is.

Laura Lee had asked me for a quote that she could use, if I was so inclined. I wrote:

“Hang on, it all changes!” Laura Lee’s mantra provides hope to all who are struggling with midlife crises. By reading her story, I realized that I am not alone, and it is OK to ask for help. Thanks, Laura Lee.”

I was absolutely delighted when she wrote back, telling me she had chosen my quote for the back cover. Over the holidays, Laura Lee told me her book would soon be out in print and asked if I would review it on my blog. I happily agreed, although I decided to read it one more time, since it had been Read the rest of this entry »

Since I’m leaving real estate and no longer need a large SUV to carry clients I sold my GMC Yukon to one of the agents in my RE/MAX office two days ago, then flew down to Sarasota to pick up my new Toyota Rav4. Yesterday morning I left Sarasota and drove to Illinois to visit my family over the Christmas holiday. Twelve hundred miles later I can honestly say that I love my Rav4! It’s much smaller than the Yukon but still roomy inside; the rear cargo area is even large enough for me to stretch out and sleep in when I camp. This vehicle is so solidly built that I have to keep checking to make sure the doors are securely shut because they close so noiselessly. The controls are in different locations than they were on the Yukon and that took some getting used to, but it wasn’t long before I adapted to the changes; nothing like a long road trip the first day you own a new vehicle. Much of the trip was spent Read the rest of this entry »