TravelDuties

Yes, they do call it the “Sunshine” state for a reason. From Panama City down to South Beach in Miami, Florida boasts some of the world’s best beaches and for very good reasons. Florida’s beaches have two different types of sand. The rough sand includes broken up shells and other sand that is as comfortable and soft as baking flour. Surprisingly, both of these types of beaches are seen as equals as they have some of the most spectacular views of the sunset and have some amazing wildlife and flora.

Depending on the location and the city the beach is associated with, you can either choose a private beach like St. Georges Island in northern Florida or South Beach in Miami which hosts millions of tourists each and every year. Only a few of the very populated beaches have lifeguards so swimming is considered at your own risk in mostly all of the Florida beaches. Some of the most popular tourist pastimes besides beachside fishing is the collection of shells and sea stars. People use the native Florida shells to use as decorations or simply have as a souvenir and take back to the school and show their friends.

If you’re a discount traveler or simply looking for the best travel bargains, you should try to plan your vacation on the off-peak travel times for the destination of your choice. Weather is mostly the main reason for certain off-peak and peak travel price increases and decreases. As the snowbirds flock to the south in the winter and head back home in the summer, many tourism destinations along the Atlantic coast are affected by this switch in population and season.

Hotels try to lure guests in during the off-peak seasons for various reasons, revenue and occupancy numbers. Hotels in Florida, Texas, and Louisiana are discounted in the summer months and you can spot great deals on hotels, attractions, or airfare. If you call the hotel directly, they can point you towards some activities that are no available in the peak season that are available in the off-peak season for the dates you are traveling. Package deals are generally offered through the main travel websites for the off-peak season and often include a free car rental or dinner gift certificate at a nice restaurant.

Interest in airline careers are on the rise as people are showing more and more desire to get involved with the travel industry. Fresho.com offers an online classified directory of jobs in the airline industry. Their listings are free and cover all of the states in America (as well as D.C.). You can also submit your resume to the site for free as well.

The site has a lot of great tools for people looking for a new job. Their search is fast and simple and lets you look through the entire site by job keyword, city and/or zip code. The site also comes with interactive maps, email notification services for new job postings as well. Included with the job listings are information articles and career profiles for those of you who want to get involved with the airline industry but don’t know exactly where to start.

If the free listings aren’t good enough for you, Fresho.com also offers another form of listing (called a Featured, or Premium listing) that highlights your listing above others on the site. This is entirely optional and the rest of the features on the site are totally free to use for all visitors.

Are you a thrill seeker or looking for a winter vacation filled with ski slopes and warm hot chocolate? Visit Keystone. Located in the Rockies of Colorado, Keystone is world renowned for its warm welcoming atmosphere, helpful locals, and awesomely smooth slopes. Keystone is situated around other skiing villages with the likes of Breckenridge and Copper Mountain. The village of Keystone has all types of activities such as skiing, snowboarding, bar hopping, fine dining, snowmobiling, and lots more.

A typical vacationer will either stay in one of the various villas or lodges that border the mountain. There aren’t very main brand name hotel chains such as Marriott, yet the villages can be anything from a warm lodge atmosphere to a 4 bedroom vacation villa that has its own fireplace and full luxury of amenities. Most of the restaurants, bars, and local hangout spots are in the center of Keystone as they are all at the base of Keystone’s main mountain slope. You can have a guide give lessons on either skiing or snowboarding for various amounts of time.

As someone who worked in the hotel industry for a few years, I gave out some of the best deals to people calling our hotel directly. The major websites such as Orbitz and Expedia charged 15% more on average than the general hotel rack rates. Rack rates at the rock bottom profit price that hotels charge. The allotments given by a certain hotel to the online travel websites are the rooms they plan to sell outside of the general hotel reservations system and are given to theses websites at a rack rate, then the websites up the price for these rooms.

To negotiate the prices, simply call the hotel. Ask for a reservations agent or possibly the reservations manager and simply tell them you have the rates of the major websites and would like to see if they have a lower price available. Explain to the hotel agent that you have been looking at the less expensive prices of some hotels in their area and some of their main competitors. You can expect to see some discounts of over 30-50% if you ask enough times about certain special VIP or Repeat Guest discounts.

Shimmering brightly from the vast desert of central Nevada, Las Vegas is the most dynamic, spectacular, and easily the most entertaining city on planet Earth. Since the start of the 20th century, it didn’t even exist; at the start of the twenty-first, it then became home to home to a population of over one million people, with enough new residents arriving to need a new school every single month. Las Vegas is not like other cities. No other city in history has so explicitly valued the needs and requests of visitors above those of its own population, the city of Las Vegas. All of Vegas’ growth has been credited by the immense growth of the tourism industry, but the tourists haven’t spoiled the actual city since there is no real city, only the outlying city of Henderson that does boast some popular attractions itself.

The entertainment capital, Las Vegas doesn’t have fascinating small town like neighborhoods, and it’s not a place where visitors can go off the beaten track to have more authentic experiences. There are places where you can venture outside of the city such as the beautiful Mount Charleston and the Valley of Fire Canyon. Also, the whole tourism industry is completely self-referential; the reason Las Vegas hosts most of the vast majority of the world’s largest hotels and resorts and that is estimated to be around thirty-seven million tourists each year come to see the hotels themselves.

Photo by: Steve Woods

There’s a booming accommodation industry in Amsterdam growing around the concept of short stay apartments. A short stay apartment is essentially a low cost, but high value, living situation available to travelers seeking an alternative to a hotel. While the costs of a short stay apartment are lower than those of a hotel, the spaces are usually larger and more comfortable by comparison.

Short Stay Amsterdam is one of the better online resources for short stay apartments. The site lists a large collection of rental apartments in Amsterdam for expected visitors to check out and reserve. Most of the short stay apartments listed on the site are located in the heart of Amsterdam and will put you very close to wonderful views of the city and give you almost direct access to local attractions and restaurants. The close proximity to tourist activities and the home-like atmosphere are the biggest draws to renting a short stay apartment.

Anyone seeking an alternative experience to the standard hotel accommodations while visiting or traveling through Amsterdam should strongly consider renting a short stay apartment. The number of benefits far outweigh what you typically receive at a traditional hotel and thanks to sites like Short Stay Amsterdam, finding a rental is easier than ever before.

The Orlando Dolphin Resort is just A+. Bordering its fellow sister Starwood resort, the Swan, both of these two hotels tower over the Orlando skyline and have massive sculptures fixated in top of their hotel. The hotel has a grand lobby with a grand waterfall in the middle and is quite relaxing. Around the lobby are shops, restaurants, and elevators. Todd English hosts his famous restaurant, Bluezoo that features some of the state’s best surf and turf. The Shops have something for everyone. They offer items from Candy to Rolex Watches.

The Restaurants are some of the finest. Shulas Steakhouse has a very nice dining room. The Corral Cafe’ has a cool breakfast buffet with the Characters. The Dolphin Fountain offers quick snacks as well as nice dinner meals. Ice cream is also server at the Dolphin Fountain. Their transportation from the Swan and Dolphin to MGM Studios and EPCOT is great. They offer boat transportation. The rooms are huge. You can see the swan resort, as well at Epcot center, and many Disney MGM Studios attractions from your room view.

Lisbon, the biggest city in Portugal and also the nation’s capital, is a hot tourist destination offering a multitude of attractions and high-class resort accommodations for travelers. With a population of over 500,000 people, Lisbon is a melting pot of different cultures that brings together a variety of interesting points of view. This cultural mix means that there’s something for everyone looking to spend a vacation in Lisbon.

I’m going to focus this post on three of the more popular “districts” in Lisbon: the Baix, Bairro Alto and Chiado. These areas of the city are easily reachable from any of the fine hotels in Lisbon. On that note, if you’re looking for a nice place to stay there are plenty of agencies offering worldwide hotel bookings that can help you find the right hotel for your stay.

The first district, the Baixa, is better known as Lisbon’s downtown area. If you’re a history buff, this is the place to go and see some of Lisbon’s finest historical monuments such as Commerce Square and Rossio Square. There are also several lovely churches in the Baixa such as the Church of São Domingos of the Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição Velha.

Bairro Alto, located in central Lisbon, is the center for shopping and entertainment in the city. If you’re interested in the youth culture of the city or its nightlife than this is the area of Lisbon you’ll want to find yourself in. The bar and club scene here in Bairro Alto offers a nice mixture of cultures as well as a collection of tourists and locals alike.

Chiado is where you’ll find Lisbon’s best cafes and art galleries. For anyone interested in ancient architecture, Chiado has fine examples of Portuguese buildings. The local art galleries in Chiado also contain some fine examples of Portuguese art. The best place to find that would be at the Museu do Chiado.

As you can tell, Lisbon offers lots of opportunities for vacationers and travelers interested in visiting Portugal. With it’s close proximity to Spain, anyone thinking of visiting the Iberian peninsula might want to consider a two-country travel itinerary. You can easily start your vacation in Spain by staying in one of the fine hotels Madrid Norte has to offer.

What is a Fastpass? The Fastpass was created by Disney so that its park guests do not have to wait forever in line for a specific ride. Not all rides have the Fastpass available but the more popular thrill rides accommodate. The only way you can get a Fastpass is when you go to a Fastpass Station by the ride entrance and use your park entrance ticket. You enter your ticket and you get a small pass and it will times on it like – “Enter Between 3:00 and 5:00pm”- Then you come back to the ride during those times and go to the Fastpass Return Entrance. You show the Cast Member the Fastpass and you walk to the front of the time with little or no wait.

If you don’t feel like waiting for the Fastpass, Universal Orlando offers something exactly like the Fastpass named the Universal Express Pass. The only difference of these two passes is that instead of standing in line like usual for both, you can purchase the Express pass booklet for $50 which includes all of the rides for the park and two tickets for each ride.

Photo by: A Syed