Flightster

Destinations

Greetings from the World’s Northernmost Capital

Reykjavik Downtown

Hi folks—reporting live from Reykjavik, Iceland, the world’s northernmost capital city. As I learned from watching the movie D2: The Mighty Ducks so many years ago, Iceland is not that icy. Despite the seemingly severe and climatic name, it’s quite green here. Nearby Greenland, though, tends to be pretty icy. Imagine that.

Back in December, I wrote about a possible excursion to Iceland with my brother in March. We had hoped to spend his final college spring break romping around Icelandic volcanoes and waterfalls. While that trip fell through, I serendipitously find myself here a few months later, conducting a cost-of-living study for my company. Sorry, brother. No hard feelings.

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The 5 Ultimate Roadtripping Highways America has to Offer

Road tripping is one of the best ways to truly see a country. Sure it takes longer, can get a little grosser, and puts you in close quarters with other people for a long period of time, but it is well worth it.

As my 2 week road trip of America’s West Coast is coming to an end, I thought what better time to share some resources on some of the best road tripping destinations in the US.

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Mistaken Identity, Bus Schedules and the Pura Vida Spirit

One of the the interesting things about being an Indian guy who is living or traveling in Central or Latin America is that I’m constantly mistaken for a local.  Most gringos who see me start conversations with me in Spanish. A few days ago a girl in the water who has been living here in Costa Rica for 3 years turns to me and tells me in Spanish that the waves were closing out fast. I agreed in Spanish assuming she was a local. A few minutes later I heard her talking in an American accent and realized that she had mistaken for me a local because of my dark skin.  This wasn’t the first instance in which a gringo assumed I was a local. In fact anytime a gringo sees me they start the conversation in Spanish because they figure I must speak Spanish.  It’s always amusing to see the look on their face when I say “hey, what’s up?”  When I lived in Brazil for 6 months, even though I was hanging out with 5 other foreigners, the Brazilians all assumed I was Brazilian, which is funny considering anybody could pass for Brazilian given the melting pot that Brazil is. In fact I met somebody who told me the Brazilian passport is the world’s most sought after passport because you could put any picture on it, and it would pass.

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6 things that work for us on Disney vacations


As I mentioned last time, our family went on a 10 day Disney trip and we just returned a couple of days ago. This is our fourth trip to a Disney park in the last six years. For others planning their own Disney trips, here are 10 things that work for us on a Disney vacation.

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Inside my pre-trip Disney World planning

I’ve said a thousand times that planning is half the fun in traveling for me. Nowhere else do I get to exercise my planning muscle like when I plan trips to Disney World. There are so many details, so many options and so much creativity possible. As we prepare to leave on Friday for 10 days at Disney World, here are some of the things I’ve been working on for the last several months to prepare for our upcoming trip.

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The Draw of Nature’s Spectacle

Back in the Spring of ’08, my then-fiancée Jenny and I took a month-long European vacation. Many firsts happened on that trip: Neither of us had been to Europe before, and this was also the first test of our ability to be around each other 24/7 for any length of time. Over the month we hit a few cities and towns in Italy, Paris for a week, London, stayed with friends in Oxford, then wrapped it up with a couple of days in Ireland. By the last day, both of us were pretty tired and had planned to tool around along the boardwalk in a little suburb just outside of Dublin where we were staying.

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WHAT TO PACK AND WHAT TO TOSS: TO BE CHINA TRAVELERS ONLY

Packing for travel is not to be underestimated… pack too much and you’re that loser scooting around two huge black suitcases with a red ribbon tied to it… pack to little and you’re that weirdo who always goes commando because, well, they have to.

However, not each destination requires the same packing essentials as others. I’m not talking just seasonal stuff like a winter jacket vs. booty shorts. I’m talking culture. I’m talking stuff you just can’t find there. I’m talking truly essential.

And since I lived in Beijing, China for a year I’m pretty much an expert on what you should remember to bring and what you should leave at home. So, if you’re headed to the ‘Jing, here’s what you need:

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8 things I learned on my trip to the Pacific Northwest

Last week I returned from my first visit to the Pacific Northwest which included time spent in Seattle, islands north of Seattle and an overnight trip to British Columbia, Canada. I found the weather, people and culture to be very different than anywhere I’ve traveled. Here are eight things I learned from my trip to the Pacific Northwest.

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The Knowledge: Two Tours of one City

Recently I zipped up my boots and went back to my roots in dirty old London town. The pretext was to attend World Travel Market and various blogging pow wows, but having been exiled north for 9 years I thought it’d be interesting to see the city as an outsider again, so I signed up for two very different, equally enlightening tours.

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Latin America… You Had Me At Hello

I have a theory that countries, cultures, languages, and other such things work a lot like falling in love with a fellow human being. There’s just something about it that you can’t help but want to immerse yourself in every tiny little aspect of it. And it has to be that one country or that one language or that one culture because the other ones just don’t seem do it for you like that. They don’t create those butterflies when you imagine yourself with them.

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