Austin's Travel Blog

My sister and I are looking for an all-inclusive beach vacation that includes golf lessons. Has anyone ever heard of this or tried it out?

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Myrtle Beach or Florida would be the choices to look at, but most intensive golf schools where you go for four or five days don’t allow for much beach time. You usually take instruction in the morning and then play 18 holes in the afternoon. Then hit balls at the range after your round, have dinner and get up and do it again the next day.

This Christmas my wife and I would like to go somewhere alone, without families and dinner parties
What are good and cheap getaways you can recommend for Christmas for 2 nights or so?
Should either be 4/5 hrs driving distance from the CA Bay Area or a cheap flight.

THANKS!

I would recommend a few, I’m not sure how much you want to spend:

Mendocino is a 2-3 hour drive north. It’s plenty romantic if that’s what you’re looking for, and there are a lot of Bed and Breakfasts. If you want a hotel, I suggest the Little River Inn, especially if they have room in the old building. There are also several other places near Mendocino that wouldn’t be quite as high end, and only a few miles down the highway.

There’s always Tahoe. People with cabins at Northstar often rent them out during the holidays. This can get quite expensive, but it’s worth looking around for a smaller one. They are usually close to the village for a hot chocolate, and you can go hiking or skiing if you want also. Near civilization (South Lake) if you forgot a present. 4 hour drive from SF.

Yosemite has a few really cool hotels, if you could find a deal. It snows, they have fireplaces and nice dinners and stuff. Probably 5 hours.

Carmel or the surrounding area has some fairly cheap hotels, and has a good Christmas-y atmosphere. There’s a lot to do in surrounding Monterey and Santa Cruz, including the aquarium, lots of restaurants and bars, the boardwalk, etc. But I would recommend Carmel if you’re going to do something romantic in this area. 2 hours at most.

Sacramento is cheap relative to these places, but I live here so it doesn’t seem all that special to me Old town is interesting, including the train museum. Also, the downtown mall would be all decked out. Not much in the way of romantic tourism in Sac though. San Francisco sounds a lot better, minus $40 parking in the holiday season.

Everyone I know gets good deals when traveling but I always over pay on flights, hotels, and even rental cars. How and Where can I find a good deal online for travelling to any tropical destination? Thanks!

I would say expedia.com or priceline.com

I am traveling with my family to Italy from May 24th to May 29th. We plan to cover Rome, Florence and Venice. Hence our travel will include Tram/Metro travel within these cities as well as intercity train travel between Rome – Florence and Florence – Venice. Are there any travel/discount passes available that I should buy, which can make my travel cheaper? Or should I just buy tickets individually everytime I travel.

There is no pass that’s good for local public transportation in all the cities. In Rome, you can get a Roma Pass: http://www.romapass.it/english/ which includes discounts to the attractions as well as transportation. You can also get day passes or multiple day passes just for the transportation. It’s also possible to walk to the tourist attractions, but some of them are quite a distance.

In Florence, you won’t need a pass for transportation. The historic area is quite compact and easily walked. Some of the area is pedestrian only anyway.

Venice doesn’t have trams or a metro, but they do have the water buses (vaporettos). You can get a giornoliero (day ticket) or passes of multiple days. However, Venice is another city where walking is possible unless you want to go to one of the other islands like Burano or Murano. http://www.actv.it/english/navigazione.php?pagina=tariffe_vaporetto. There’s also a Venice Card: http://www.hellovenezia.com/jsp/en/venicecard/index.jsp

On the trains, you will not qualify for some the discount fares unless you’re a resident of Italy. You can get the Amica fare on trains where it’s available (Eurostar, intercity trains). However, there are limited seats at this fare on any given train.

For travel between cities, you should also look at the trenitalia promotions to see what’s available: http://www.trenitalia.com/en/promozioni_offerte/promozioni/offerta_familia.html, http://www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html

You would have to do a lot of travel within Italy to make something like the Eurail passes a bargain compared to point-to-point tickets. You need to be aware that even with the Eurail pass there will be an additional supplement for some trains – particularly the Eurostars, night trains, and many intercity trains.

I’ve lived in Italy for several years and travel by train frequently.

Recently my mom got worse in her illness, so I am traveling to Mexico very often. How or where I can find cheap tickets to fly back and forth?

Hey, don’t know if this will help… Sun Country airlines does non stops to variou parts of mexico for really good rates. The don’t make a lot of flights till fall but it may be worth checking out. I will keep you madre in our thoughts.

http://www.suncountry.com/suncountry/FlightSched?thisPage=0&thisAction=0