The Traveling Vegetarian 1.8.11

While I’m not a vegetarian, I am friends with many of them and learn a lot of useful things about food substitutes and using vegetarian and vegan ingredients when cooking and baking. Also, I don’t always want to eat meat for every meal, but that doesn’t mean I want to have a boring salad. There are so many meat-free options now and it’s probably one of the easiest times ever to travel and get your dietary needs met, even if you don’t speak the language. You can go out to eat and explain your dining choice everywhere you go and not be forced to find lodging with a kitchen and make your own meals every day. That’s not so much of a vacation as just a change of scenery, since you’d have to go back to your room every time you wanted to eat. There are vegans and vegetarians the world over, so why should you have to miss on some amazing travel opportunities just because you can’t speak the language (or can and just aren’t totally fluent)? The same is true for those with food allergies. If you’re too afraid you might accidentally ingest a peanut or a shrimp, taking a trip won’t be that much fun for you.

So, how do you even find a vegetarian or vegan option when you travel? My favorite word: research. Of course, since I’m writing this blog for you, I’ve done that part for you, too, so you just have to go look at the list and then pick conveniently located options for you. Here is a list of some wonderful websites that offer you listings that suit your needs:

• My favorite website to find health food stores and veggie-centric restaurants and dining options is HappyCow. They list worldwide options for dining, shopping and sleeping. Yes, they even give you listings of vegetarian-friendly accommodations. If you plan to travel a lot or just like to keep your options open, download the HappyCow app for your smart phone and look up places wherever you happen to be.
• Vegetarian Travel Guides has a nice state-by-state or city listing for veggie dining, lodging, shopping and more for U.S. travel. Like HappyCow, the information is totally free and the site is easy to use.  
• VegetarianGuides are great if you’d like a book of information for certain regions that you can take around with you. They have Vegetarian London, Vegetarian Britain, Vegetarian France and in the process of Vegetarian Europe. Purchase online and check out their site.
• Another website that offers articles and travel books for sale is Vegetarian World Guides. Their most intriguing book is a Vegetarian guide to Disney.
• VegNews is pretty cool to me and I’m not a vegetarian. It is a magazine and a website that offers different aspects of life to those who’ve chosen to not eat meat. There are plenty of recipes and articles on a lot of different things. In their store you can order vegan candy bars that taste just like a Snickers, Three Musketeers, and other bars which I currently don’t eat for animal testing reasons, but now I can eat these versions (almost) guilt-free. They still have candy bar calories. Up for sale are also vegan marshmallows, peanut butter cups and several other yummy things. VegNews has an awesome travel section that tells you about different destinations and where you should eat and what you should do.

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Sometimes you travel with meat-eaters and need to find a common ground. That works well if you compromise and also if you go to a country where you can convey your eating habits to others who take your order or make your food. It’s not always so easy when you are in a foreign country with a foreign language that you don’t speak all that well or not at all. There are many translating apps for your smart phone, or even better, use an app specifically for your needs:

• Veggie Passport is a great app that costs $.99 on iTunes. It allows you to convey your food needs via your phone. Choose the message you want to show to your waiter, host or chef, choose the language it needs to be in and you can show them the translation right on your phone screen. The translations have been done by native-language speakers in each language, so you won’t get some weird message that makes no sense when converted. (iTunes also has an app called Allergy Passport that does the same thing for those folks with food allergies.)
• On The Menu app. Also available through iTunes, for $1.99, this app features over 1,400 commonly used words on menus around the world, so you should never be surprised by an ingredient listed again! Don’t be like my husband and I who went to France, ordered a pizza based on what we could decipher and had this conversation: “Ham sounds good, and artichoke, and cheese. Yeah, we’ll order this one. (the pizza shows up) WTH? Why is there a raw egg in the middle of it?!” I suppose it could have been worse, but this is probably one of our food moments we laugh about most. Who does that? We would definitely have benefited from this app!

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Need some provisions before you start your Vegetarian Vacation Planning? Try baking some of these delicious cookies (picture and recipe from VegNews.com). They also make fun snacks to take with you on your travels:

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Makes 5 to 7 dozen

What You Need:
1-1/2 cups non-hydrogenated margarine
1 cup unbleached cane sugar
10 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon vanilla
4-1/2 cups unbleached flour
3/4 cup tapioca flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder

What You Do:
1. In a large bowl, beat together the margarine, sugar, water, and vanilla until light and creamy. Add the remaining ingredients and stir well to form a smooth dough. Cover and chill for 1 hour or until firm. Divide the dough in half, work with one half at a time, and keep the remaining dough covered.

2. On a floured work surface, roll the dough out to desired thickness (1/8-inch for crispy cookies or 1/4-inch for soft), cut into shapes with a knife or cookie cutters, and carefully transfer the cookies with a spatula to ungreased cookie sheets.

3. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Allow cookies to cool slightly before transferring to a rack to cool completely. Store in an air-tight container.

*For an extra-festive twist, cover the tops of the cookies with melted chocolate and crushed candy canes!

 

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So, now you know where to eat when you get to wherever you’re going, so maybe you’d like help finding a destination. Here are some of the best deals I found over the course of the week. (Now, I'm off to Seattle to see some sights and check out that Harry Potter Exhibition!)

• If destinations in Europe are on your must-visit list then American Airlines wants to help you check them off your list with their Europe airfare sale. Purchase tickets by the end of Tuesday, January 11 and book travel between April 3 and June 3 for as little as $199 each way. This is a great deal and one of the best I've seen in a while for flights to Europe. (Speaking of AA, due to commercial disputes, pricing and flights on American have been removed from both Orbitz and Expedia search engines. You can still find them on other booking sites and on the AA website.)
• Reserve your hotel room on CheapTickets by January 23 and get up to 50% off participating hotels worldwide.
• Daytona Beach. Have you been to this sprawl of white sandy beaches? Take advantage of these great deals on BookIt, starting at just $36/night for Winter travel, and get freebies like daily breakfast, waterpark passes, room upgrades and more. Save even bigger by adding airfare and making it a package deal. Choose from a long list of flights in all price ranges.

Why not check out some of these other budget travel articles I've written for the following websites. Please also take a look around once you get there and finish reading, because they are truly helpful and pretty awesome. I hope there will be more added to the list soon, too.

My Itchy Travel Feet

When You Hate Work…Leave! 1.5.11

So, the holidays are over and that probably means one of two things: You are still stressed out from the holidays and having to make everyone happy or you’re back at work and are stressed out about all the work that piled up over the break. Do you hate it as much as I do? Think you should get some more time off to relax? Well, then take it. If you have vacation time available, now is the PERFECT time to plan a trip! I have several short ones planned: two nights in Seattle and one at the coast. If I could get away for longer, I certainly would, but I save my big trips for later in the year. With five more months until you get another 3-day weekend (don’t cry, you might get MLK’s birthday and/or Presidents’ Day off), you gotta break it up somehow, right? Lucky for all of us, airfare and hotels are clamoring for our business right now and offering big discounts. So, you can plan a weekend away or a real vacation of a week or more and save a lot. Let’s look at what’s out there!

  

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Didn’t get a good gift for your sweetie for Christmas? Oops! Well, you can always make up for it now. Valentine’s Day is coming up and you can prove you’re extra romantic by booking a trip for the two of you. With it being on a Monday this year, it’s the perfect excuse to book a long weekend or a weeklong trip somewhere inexpensive, but breathtaking. If you’re husband’s on the naughty list for his gift selections, maybe leave a suggestion he check out my blog this week, so he’ll get the hint. Or just gather up all your single friends and have a “To Heck with V-Day” vacation! Margaritas are always cheaper when you only have to buy one round.

Ring in 2011 with rates from $20.11! That’s right, there are a good number of Caribbean all-inclusives that are offering you rates of $20.11 per person per night. That’s cheaper than staying at a plain old regular hotel AND all your meals and entertainment are included!  This deal is good for bookings through Jan 11. Stay in beautiful locations like Nassau, Curacao, Cancun, Dominican Republic and Aruba.

Want to give them to Wow Factor? Well, I’ve got it for you: A villa in Marrakech, Morocco for under $100/night. That’s right. There are two options for a villa (1-bedroom and 1-bedroom with mezzanine) for under $100 or a single/double room for as little as $59/night. SniqueAway describes it perfectly with this sentence: An exotic spot so fantastical, it's where genies go to grant their own wishes. Adama by Residhotel is right on the outskirts of the city, making it a quiet place to relax and escape to after a long day in the markets and sightseeing. They also offer a free shuttle into town, so it’s very convenient to get around. All rooms offer kitchen facilities, flat-screen TVs, complimentary internet air conditioning and private bathrooms. 1- and 2-bedroom villas offer two bathrooms, because they can accommodate 5 or more people, so a family or group is not a problem! TripAdvisor travelers gave the Adama no less than a 4-star rating out of 5, claiming it was superb, fantastic, spacious, grand, beautiful and other equally complimentary words. You must have a SniqueAway membership to book through their site. If you don’t have one, it’s by invitation only, which you can get here or click on the link on the top right of the page.

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So, you are looking for a weekend getaway? Here are some of my top tips for booking one:

• Compare costs. Sometimes a weekend away close to where you live can be great, but almost just as much as getting on a plane and flying somewhere. Compare your costs. Southwest and other discount airlines have some rockin’ deals right now and may be able to save you enough that if you just pay a little less for a hotel, you’ll end up spending the same.
• Look for package deals. Really. I can go to the coast for 2-3 nights and easily spend $150 per night for a hotel. Plus, I have to pay for gas to drive there and I’ve pretty much already seen everything there is to see there. Without food, that can be about $500 round-trip. I’ve often gone on to the booking engines and searched for package deals and found airfare, hotel and car rental all for that same price for three nights. Why not go somewhere new, or further from home, if you’re going to spend the same amount on the trip? Just because it doesn’t require a passport doesn’t make it less fun!
• Bypass the 5-star prices. Just because you want to be treated, doesn’t mean you have to pay hundreds of dollars a night for a room. Hotels.com and other websites (BookIt, LastMinute, etc.) have some really low rates on fancy hotels. Just think, the less you spend now, the more you can spend on a long vacation later. That doesn’t mean you have to stay in a dump. Find a deal, check out the reviews on the booking website and/or TripAdvisor and then book your good room.
• Pack even less. 2-3 day trips are awesome and can really make packing a breeze. Take an extra pair of pants or a skirt, 2 tops and you’re done! If you need some fancy shoes, throw them in and you still have room for that quick shopping trip you’ll probably do before you come home. Spend that checked bag fee on something for yourself.

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It’s a new year, so why not try going somewhere new, too? Doing new things, trying new food and experiencing new places are my top 3 reasons to travel. I know there are people out there who like to go the same places every year, but I like to break out of that and change it up. I love Disneyland, but going there every year makes it lose its luster a bit. The same happens with other places I travel to a lot. Throw in a new place every now and then (or most of the time) and make those places you love to travel to more special and more exciting when you get to go back to them.

If those 2 options under Valentine’s Day don’t strike your fancy, how does Rome sound? Pretty nice, huh? Well, stay in a new-old hotel while you’re there for less than $100/night. Yeah, you read that right. The luxurious Eurostars Roma Aeterna opened in October of 2010, making it new, but it is part of a historical building, also making it old. Just steps from Roma Terminal and 15 minutes from the Centre of Rome. If you want to have a quiet night in, make reservations for the onsite Adriano Restaurant for a taste of genuine Italian cuisine. The modern and elegant rooms feature satellite TV, free WiFi, en-suite bathrooms with Jacuzzi tubs, air conditioning and some have a walk-out veranda.

Many people have a wish to visit the Emerald Isle. I’m talking, of course, of Ireland. If you’re one of them and haven’t quite made it, now’s your chance. From $600 per person, you can fly round-trip and stay in a beautiful Dublin hotel for 4 nights. Best deals are for travel in March. Make your own itinerary! This is a great time to ask all your travel friends what they did and recommend, check out activities on TripAdvisor or just start researching to build your own unique trip! And if you go, have a shot of Jamieson for me.

The best time to go anywhere is to travel during off-peak season. You can save over 50% by doing this, as show in these two articles from CheapTickets and Orbitz which show when the best times to travel are to select locations and how much you can save by traveling then in comparison to other months of the year.

Do you have vacation pictures that you still need to have printed? Purchase through Snapfish and use promo code HAPPYNEWYEAR to get 99 (4x6) prints for just 99 cents by midnight on January 9. Don’t need prints, but want something with one of your travel photos on it? Favorite items are on sale for 40% off at Snapfish, too, if you use promo code 2011SALE40. Happy printing!

Why not check out some of these other budget travel articles I've written for the following websites. Please also take a look around once you get there and finish reading, because they are truly helpful and pretty awesome. I hope there will be more added to the list soon, too.

My Itchy Travel Feet



Do You Sea What I Sea? 1.1.11

Do you get all jealous of your friends that come back from vacation who have tans and say they just came back from an amazing cruise? Laying out in the sun all day, dancing the night away, unlimited food and getting to visit all those different ports. Well, you could be one of them and experience all that and more and make others jealous.

Many people don't look into cruising, because it seems too expensive and luxurious, but there are many ways to save on a cruise. Sometimes, a travel agent that specializes in cruising can save you big bucks and also get you a better cabin and a refund if the price goes down. If you don't want to go through an agent, then there are plenty of things you can do to get a decent deal.

First, why don't you take a moment to join Shereen Travels Cheap on Facebook? We're very close to giving away some lovely Travelon Bags to two lucky fans. Aside from that, you can get more travel deals, budget tips and website/product suggestions. And if you have a comment or a question, you can get a quick answer from me by posting on the group wall.

Perhaps Twitter is more your speed, because you like your information short and sweet? You can follow @shereentrvlschp and get the same tips, deals and suggestions as on Facebook. We don't currently have a giveaway going on Twitter right now.

Okay, so let's look at some of the ways to save on a cruise and what your cruise costs entail...

When you find a great deal on a cruise, don't forget that the price you see is not the price you pay. You still need to pay taxes and port fees. Depending on where you are going, how long your cruise is and how many ports you dock at, your final price could be up to double the cost you see. Each port has it's own fee and the government of the country sets the fee, so they aren't the same each time you dock. These fees are charged per traveler, not per cabin, so this is something to look into before you see a good price and purchase it.

Inclusives: 

• Most food. Almost all your food is included in your cruise rate. All buffet and main dining room food is included in this. If you dine at one of the other restaurants that you have to make reservations for, you will use your "sign and sale card" and the cost of that meal will be added to your account to be paid at the end of the cruise. The same counts for the coffee shops where you can purchase pastries.
• Some beverages. Unless otherwise specified, alcoholic beverages, sodas and some other specialty beverages are not included, while water, coffee and tea are. You can buy a soda card, which will give you unlimited soda, but it is extra from your cruise rate and you must buy it at the beginning of your cruise. You will usually also be charged at any of the coffee shops.
• Entertainment. Almost all entertainment is free once on board. Unless you want to do something where you will win money, like bingo. All shows, trivia, lectures and movies are generally included in your price.
• Gym. The exercise facilities are free of charge for everyone, as are the locker/shower rooms. Many exercise classes are also free, but some are not. If you have to sign up for a class, make sure you look to see if it requires payment.
• Pools and hot tubs. 

Non-Inclusives:

• Alcoholic beverages and soda. This is how the cruise ship gets you. By charging you up to $4 for a soda and $10 or more on booze, your account can quickly add up to hundreds of dollars on just drinks alone. Not only do they charge you an arm and a leg on drinks, but they even add an average 18% "gratuity fee" to each drink you buy. 
• Some entertainment. Things like bingo, rock wall climbing and miniature golf can be extra charges to your account.
• Spa use. The spa sounds awesome and relaxing, but prices can be much more than those on land, unless you reserve a time on port day, where they discount services.
• Some exercise classes. Some exercise classes are free, while others incur a fee. These are generally what they consider the most popular classes, like pilates or spinning.
• Shopping. Anything you purchase on the boat will be charged to your account.
• Internet. Internet fees can be horrendously high, but if you want to be connected, buy a package deal, as it'll be much cheaper than paying a la cart.
• Land Excursions. The crew on your ship will do everything they can to get you to buy an excursion package once on board. Book through an independent company before you leave home and save up to 65% (and in some cases, even more).

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So, what can you do to minimize costs on your cruise? 

• Cruise in the off-season. Different cruise destinations have different peak seasons. Choose a destination that has an off-season that coincides with your vacation time. 
• You are allowed a case of soda or bottled water (on most cruises) per passenger. Bring your own and store them in your cabin fridge. 
• As I said above, book your shore excursions before you leave home, through a reputable independent company and save a mint on them. More money for souvenirs and other sightseeing at your port city.
• Avoid buying art and/or jewelry onboard, unless it's deeply discounted on one of the last days. Chances are, you can find the same thing on land for much cheaper. I'm talking about real jewelry, like gold and diamonds.
• Find an internet cafe on land and pay a fraction of the cost as you will on the ship.
• Get an inside cabin. If you're active, like we are, you will be so busy NOT being in your stateroom that you'll barely have time to enjoy the room anyway. Don't spend up to twice as much on a room with a view if you won't be in it longer than to change clothes and sleep.
• Spend time going to free activities, instead of hanging out by the pool all day. Honestly, you are paying to have the crew entertain you, so go to karaoke, towel-folding classes, trivia and all those other fun sounding activities. Each day you'll get a schedule for the next day. Plan out what you want to do and maximize your time on the ship.
• Shop at "non-approved" stores in port. For the most part, these shops get a commission for each cruise passenger that buys from them. If you go just a few blocks away and shop "off the map", you can get much better deals. Of course, if you plan to shop for jewelry or other pricey items, make sure you get a certificate of authenticity and that your jewelry is stamped. 

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Don't know how to pick a cabin or a ship or want to know more about the activities or read reviews? Check out Cruise Critic. I found that they have more information and are easier to navigate than the cruise websites.

I hope you found these tips useful. Of course there are many more things you can do to save money on a cruise, which I hope you will be able to read soon in my book. Once I find an agent or a publisher (or decide to self-publish), you will all be the first to know! In the meantime, why not check out some of these other budget travel articles I've written for the following websites. And please also take a look around once you get there and finish reading, because they are truly helpful and pretty awesome. I hope there will be more added to the list soon, too.

New!

My Itchy Travel Feet