Be Your Own Tour Guide 9.29.12

One of the best ways to see a city is by walking around it, but walking tours can be spendy. You can still take a guided tour without having to book a tour or go with a bunch of strangers. With Stray Boots, you can take tours in the US or UK at your own pace and when you can fit it into your schedule. You don’t need to be on someone else’s time. Not only do you learn interesting things about the city you’re visiting, but it combines education and history with a cool scavenger hunt feel. You play your tour by cell phone text messages. You don’t need a fancy smartphone either.

Right now, you can play in Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C., with more destinations to come. Through clues and fun facts, you can see the city from a unique perspective. This is the perfect way to go on a tour without all the structure and it’s great for kids and adults alike. Each tour can last two to three hours, even more if you choose to spend more time at any of the stops along the way.

This photo of Old Town Trolley Tours of Boston is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Want your children to get a fun educational experience while you’re on vacation? Then you’ll definitely all think Stray Boots’ treasure hunt walking tours are awesome. Put your heads together to come up with answers to questions texted to you and earn points that you can redeem for more fun facts! It doesn’t matter if there are two or ten of you, you can all work on one phone and even switch phones to make someone else “captain”. Each tour is just $12 per person and $6 for kids, though I’m not sure how they regulate how many are in your team.

This photo of Portland Walking Tours is courtesy of TripAdvisor

You have a year to use your voucher, so if something comes up, you can do it some other time. It’s all up to you! Check out Stray Boots now to get started!

Win a Wardrobe Makeover from Century 21 in NYC

This post brought to you by CENTURY 21. All opinions are 100% mine.

As if there weren’t already enough reasons to visit New York City, now you have one more. We all know that New York isn’t exactly a budget destination and once you’ve paid for your hotel, entertainment and flights, there isn’t really all that much leftover for shopping, especially if you want to sightsee too! Why not visit the famous Century 21 stores and save on designer clothing? I know, I know. “Designer” doesn’t really scream budget-friendly, but you can actually find top brands at C21 for up to 62% off retail!

Do I have your attention now? Yes, generally I don’t talk about shopping destinations, but I know you are always up for a great deal and you want to look good, right? Of course you do! Plus, what’s a better souvenir from a trip than a carry-on full of new clothes? Choose from two convenient locations: Lincoln Square at 1972 Broadway and Downtown at 22 Corlandt Street. The downtown store in Manhattan has 150,000 square feet and FIVE floors packed with incredible deals for everyone in your family.

If you’re like me, you would love to rock some designer fashions, but can’t really afford to purchase everything I want at retail prices. With Century 21, you can afford to look great anytime. I would love to visit the C21 stores to score deals on some of my favorites: Guess, Tahari, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs and Columbia. Join the C21 Club for free online and shop exclusive sales when you aren’t physically in New York. I immediately found several items I wanted to buy, from wool navy pants to a lovely cream colored sweater. All were very competitively priced and well below retail for the designer names being offered.

And before you start to wonder why the prices are so good, Century 21 works directly with designers to get you a good deal on the latest fashions, so you won’t be saving big on last year’s trends either. Look great with clothing and accessories that are in style NOW. There is so much great stuff at the Century 21 stores, don’t be surprised if you see some celebrities browsing the racks next to you. Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan, Olivia Palermo and Stacy Kiebler have all been spotted shopping at C21. Just because their famous and rich doesn’t mean they don’t also like a great sale price. How do you think they stock their closets so full of amazing clothes?

Not in the market for clothes? You can find housewares, décor and more at Century 21, too! Redo rooms in your home with the newest fabrics and patterns for less. Think of what a difference it makes to add just a few new pieces here and there. Purchase some high-quality linens or even an accent piece for a room to bring everything together and make it look the best it can. You don’t have to spend a fortune to take a room from drab to fab, especially when you find those finishing touches at C21.

Now, let’s talk about that wardrobe makeover! Hop over to Century 21’s Facebook page and “like” them, then enter the Step Into Empire Attire Empire Hotel sweepstakes to win a $500 C21 wardrobe makeover and a 2-night stay at the posh Empire Hotel in NYC. Think of how many amazing new pieces you can get for $500! Choose classic items that will last you throughout the years or trendy pieces that will create bold fashion statements for you and also transition into new seasons. You can’t go wrong! So, go enter right now.

Have you shopped at Century 21 before? What were your favorite fashion finds? And if you haven’t, do you plan to add a stop at C21 on your next NYC trip?

Super Useful Travel Links 9.28.12

Happy Friday! I hope you all have fun plans for the weekend or have a great vacation coming up to look forward to. In this week’s edition of Super Useful Travel Posts, I’ve found some interesting posts for you. From riding the rails to a very sleepy plane traveler, I tried to find something useful and interesting for everyone. As always, I hope you enjoy and also share anything, interesting, useful or fun that you found related to travel (in some way) in the comments.

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Ever heard of a travel trust fund? No? Well, then maybe you’d like to learn about them. The new thing in wills is giving the gift of travel when you pass on. If you’d like to ensure your children or other beneficiaries get to follow their dreams of traveling the globe, then this is the perfect way to do it.

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Our favorite budget travel spokesperson is back! That’s right, William Shatner has returned as the Priceline Negotiator. Due to popular demand from fans, Priceline decided to rehire Shatner after 7 months and bringing him back from the (supposed) dead. Admit it. You missed him. And if you haven’t seen his comeback commercial, you can view it on this link.

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If you’ve been thinking about going to Europe and debating how to get around between countries, then this post that gives you 7 tips for touring Europe by train may give you some help in how to do it and do it better than you expected.

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While I don’t think this would ever happen again, make sure if you’re truly tired that you set your alarm to wake you up…or maybe avoid taking any kind of sleeping pill. I have no idea how this woman slept for a straight 18 hours, but I bet she’s really relaxed now. After completing a roundtrip flight from Pakistan to Paris and never getting off, the airline has some explaining to do when it comes to why nobody noticed this sleeping woman on the plane when she was the only one still on it.

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United has been getting a lot of grief lately, and they didn’t even “accidentally” miss a sleeping lady on their plane. On top of all the incoming complaints for various other things, the airline seems to have misplaced a child traveling alone. This does tend to happen every now and again, but this is just more bad news heaped onto this not-so-loved airline that simply didn’t seem to care that they didn’t know where someone’s 10 year old daughter was. The worst part? The family had to find out from their daughter’s camp that she never showed up. I feel like this story has two morals: 1.) Don’t fly United. 2.) Don’t let your children fly alone if they don’t have to. It’s worth the extra money to know they are safe.

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Travelers are getting fed up with more airlines than just United though. They are finding more and more hassles associated with flying and are looking for alternative transportation. The winner in all this is Amtrak. With similarly priced or cheaper tickets, on-time trains, faster security, new electronic ticketing and readily available WiFi, passengers just find it more travel-friendly all around.

Often I’ve gone to a foreign country only to come back and realize I have a bunch of random coins or “dollars” in my pocket or the bottom of my purse. If this has happened to you and then you don’t know what to do with it, since exchanging it for your home currency is going to gain you practically zero, many airlines are now participating in a UNICEF program called Change For Good that takes your spare change and uses it towards useful projects around the world like tsunami and earthquake repair. 

What are your thoughts on this week's travel postings?