Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Travel Tips

Three of my favorite travel tricks.

VRBO.com

I love renting a condo or cabin instead of staying in a hotel. Whenever we're staying somewhere for more than a few days, and definitely if we're traveling with our dog Bailey, VRBO (Vacation Rent By Owner) helps us find the perfect accommodations.

We've used this website for rentals in the US and abroad and had nothing but good experiences.

For this trip, since we'll be in the Rockies for at least 4 nights, we found a small condo to stay in for about the same price as a hotel.


Handheld Scale


You know how each airline has strict luggage rules about how much each bag weighs.

We got this nifty little handheld scale from LL Bean (but any handheld scale is a good idea).


That way, when we were packing at home, and when we were packing to return home, we could easily weigh the luggage to make sure we weren't over the limit.

Much nicer than shuffling heavy items from one suitcase to the other at the airport to avoid paying extra fees.

Plus, I keep thinking I could use this scale on a yarn buying mission. Picture me, in the warehouse at WEBS weighing cones to find out how much a prospective bargain would cost.

Nuvi navigator

When Jim bought a GPS for our car, I really thought it was silly.

I was so wrong!!

For this trip, when I did the planning in June, I put our destinations into Nuvi (our GPS navigator).

As we booked hotels (or condos), I put those addresses in.

We landed at the airport, and all I had to do was press "Favorites" to find a list with our first night's hotel.

The next day, I had favorites for our condo and for Rocky Mountain National Park.

There might even have been a few yarn shops programmed in. Love it!!

3 comments:

Delighted Hands said...

Love the gadgets.........much easier to weigh something than trying to hold it while standing on a scale!!!

Jennifer said...

Thanks for the tips. I have not tried the VRBO before! We also have a nuvi that I purchased for my husband as a present. It's got a longer battery life, so it's for biking, boating, hiking besides in the car. That also means it has topographical maps for hiking and water maps for boating. We're planning on taking it to New Zealand, because we can download maps from Garmin for those. I wouldn't be surprised if you can add some of those features to yours.

Life Looms Large said...

Delighted Hands - I definitely want to try my new scale for weighing yarn....just looking for the right shopping opportunity!!

Jennifer - Your nuvi sounds great!! We actually have 3 different GPS units (although only two made this trip). We've got the car one. And then Jim has a hiking one with topo stuff....and I have a running one. Can you tell we're a dual engineer household???

When is this trip to New Zealand (roughly)? Some day I want to go there....but it's not on my short list yet. It sounds great!

Sue