Gypsy Mom Ready to roll – NOW

I was reading a blog post from the World Nomads about their Galapagos cruise and I was totally mesmerized by the pictures and experiences they had on the Galapagos Cruise Ship last April. While I was shivering my bum off in Boston, they were snapping the most beautiful pictures of iguanas, turtles, herons and other creatures on the beautiful Galapagos islands. The cool thing about Galapagos Cruises is that it’s really pretty much the only way to see the Island. It’s a sanctuary, so there are no resorts or hotels there. You can camp there if you’re like a researcher or something, and you’re held to very strict “leave no trace” standards, but the average traveler isn’t allowed to stay overnight, it’s just not an option. The islands are famous because that’s where Charles Darwin made his revelations about evolution. If I remember correctly, there were fish in a pond deep inside a cave and they had evolved to have no eyes or something because there’s nothing to see in that kind of darkness. It’s really quite amazing and there are life forms on the islands that don’t exist anywhere else on earth. It’s on my list of worldwide things I’d like to see, but I can’t imagine being able to go anytime soon. What about you, are you in the market for a cruise of the Galapagos Islands? What would you want to see? What time of year would you like to go?

Making holiday life more relaxing, it’s always a matter of reducing travel expenses. Luckily there are so many different ways to go about this.  Here are some of my favorite ideas for making travel less expensive, for families, couples and single travelers:

Couchsurfing: Instead of booking a hotel or a hostel, look into couchsurfing.  it’s a close-knit group of people who vouch for one another as they are able and leave detailed personal feedback on each other’s profile, so that you know who you’re dealing with.  It’s a network of people who allow others to stay in their homes. Having a visitor from out of town is an adventure and visiting other people’s homes is a great way to immerse yourself in  another environment and tour the city like a local.

The Internet: websites for travel (like the one I linked to above) provide travelers with the opportunity to search based on multiple criteria and plan vacations without having to commit to a certain date and time ahead of time, they have the ability to look at price schedules for several different dates and times and choose the one that fits your budget the best. SO the old paradigm of calling the airline directly or calling a travel agent is GONE. We never pay more than $300 for airfare and in the old days a flight could cost several hundred dollars or even more. Shopping online is just smarter.

A traveler’s dream is always to explore the unexplored, right? I was talking to a friend recently about visiting Costa Rica and we were mostly excited by how much of the landscape is basically unexplored, or maybe unexploited would be a better word. Plus, since it’s mountains and beaches and everything in between, there’s such a diverse range of activities. In the city, there’s shopping and dining, then there’s also little villages and I just want to scour the marketplace eating fresh mangoes and buying beaded jewelry from village ladies. I want to see grubby children giggling as they play, I want to zipline through the jungle, I want to explore every inch of the world and just relish every moment, connecting with people everywhere and sharing smiles and laughter. To me, that’s what life is about.  I think maybe to feed the future-lottery-winner inside, I will check into the price of what it would cost to charter a private jet to Costa Rica, with my friend. Right now, nothing sounds like more fun than strolling the beach with our kids or hiking through the tropical mountains together.

So what’s your dream destination? Where would you go if you could go anywhere?  I need to remind myself that I CAN go anywhere, and that I have made awesome things happen in my life just because I wanted them, so I need to stop dreaming and turn those dreams into reality. This road trip was a dream and now it is a reality. Sure, nothing went as planned, but we did have the time of our lives and now we’re ready to settle down again. Next stop is a house in Seattle, then well-planned vacations, including Costa Rica. The charter plane is not confirmed, but it is an option…

Have you heard of the 4 p’s? “Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance” It’s an acronym I used to use with my servers to help them remember the importance of thinking ahead and predicting the guest’s needs. Messy food; bring napkins… drinks need straws… kids might not like spicy things… guest that asks for no cheese might NOT want the sauce that has cheese baked into it… pay attention, plan ahead and everything will be just fine, right?

But the 5th P is one that we’re just learning on this trip and it stands for PHONE CARDS. Yeah, you can learn a lot being stranded without cell phone service. Apparently there are places NO cell provider can reach, unless you’re using one of those satellite phones (we’re not) We have 4 different cell phone providers in our house and we did it because we figured that wherever we roam, someone will have service but that’s not always the case and another thing we didn’t predict was that sometimes it would be difficult to get everyone’s phones charged up.

So we live and learn, right? Then, we invest in a few calling cards because there’s almost always a pay phone around. Maybe not in big cities where everyone has a cell phone, but in some of these podunk little towns there are more pay phones than cell phones and without a calling card, you’re scrambling for change at a time when you probably have other things on your mind, right?

Honestly I know nothing about french cuisine, except rumors of snail eating (although if they’re smothered in butter and garlic then what’s the big deal?) and chocolate croissants. A friend of mine spent like 6 months in Paris and said that you can make something similar at home, with pop crescent roll dough. All you do is drop a few chocolate chips in before you roll them up and the chocolate chips melt into the buttery dough and it’s delicious. Well, I tried it and they were tasty but before you try it at hoe, make sure you only use a teeny bit of chocolate chips because otherwise they all melt out and make a BIG MESS.

Her last bit of advice was to pick up a Paris city pass, because it’s a great way to save money visiting the attractions you’re probably going to see anyway. But the cool thing is that you can customize it for anywhere form two to six days and you can also customize some of the attractions and even add a bus pass if you want. it looks like a great option for group travel.  I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago about starting a tour company for moms and Paris would definitely be a place moms want to go, right? What about you, have you used a city pass before?  Have you visited Paris? What’s stopping you? Pick up a Paris pass and then you’ll HAVE to buy airfare, right?

I have a friend who will be traveling to Australia for a conference in October. After the conference she’s going to stay in the area and explore for a week or two. She’s so smart, instead of booking a hotel room, she searched for short stay apartments instead. She was able to book accommodation in Melbourne for much lower than the hotel price because she’s just smart like that. And since apartments generally have private kitchens, she’ll still be able to enjoy the nutritious home foods she’s used to. This is major for me, but I know for some people it doesn’t matter.  I prefer eating nothing but whole and natural, raw foods. I do like some lean meat once in a while, especially if it’s grass-fed beef or hormone-free, free-range chickens. So dining out at restaurants isn’t really something I enjoy very often. It’s definitely not on my list of “favorite things to do while traveling” because I prefer to scour local fruit markets and eat the living foods that are for sale, whether they’re fruits, nuts, vegetables or greens. So if I went to Australia I am much more likely to enjoy finding a deal on melbourne apartments rather than getting a hotel and eating out all the time. What about you, are you a hotel type, or a rent-an-apt type?  it takes all kinds to make the world go ’round.

I’ve spoken with so many mos lately who want to go to Burning Man. A few of us have decided that next year we are all going to make the trek, alone. I mean we’ll be together when we’re there but we’re planning to go with or without our families. I think I like this idea a lot better. I’ve been talking with my husband about traveling alone and I’m torn between a trip to Africa and maybe some of the awesome Chile Patagonia tours that are available. That part of South America is so terribly beautiful, it’s like a magical land. I’ve always wanted to go and I love the idea of visiting independently.

So where would you go if you were able to go alone? It’s kind of tricky because I always think of Paris, Rome or even NYC but those are destinations I’d like to explore with my husband. He is definitely not interested in Africa and I’m not sure about Patagonia. We haven’t even discussed Chile yet. Boston was fun alone, totally fun. I had a total of six days there last spring. I guess fun happens where you make it, right? it’s just the pictures that look different

Ever since my Dad first introduced me to the Patagonia company in Ventura, I’ve wondered what on earth the land of Patagonia must be like. Apparently at the company, the owner makes it a really fun work environment. Staff are encouraged to wear relaxing clothes and even to avoid wearing shoes. It reminds me a lot of what I’ve heard about the Google offices, come to think of it. Anyway, I recently looked it up and decided that I would LOVE to visit Patagonia. Have you ever heard of it? If you haven’t, then by all means please do yourself a favor because simply reading about it is a breath of fresh air. Just check out this description of the geography of Patagonia from Wikipedia;

Argentine Patagonia is for the most part a region of steppelike plains, rising in a succession of 13 abrupt terraces about 100 metres (330 ft) at a time, and covered with an enormous bed of shingle almost bare of vegetation. In the hollows of the plains are ponds or lakes of fresh and brackish water. Towards the Andes the shingle gives place to porphyry, granite, and basalt lavas, animal life becomes more abundant and vegetation more luxuriant, acquiring the characteristics of the flora of the western coast, and consisting principally of southern beech and conifers. The high rainfall against the western Andes (Wet Andes) and the low sea surface temperatures offshore give rise to cold and humid air masses, contributing to the ice-fields and glaciers, the largest ice-fields in the Southern hemisphere outside of Antarctica.

It seems like such a magical place. I can just picture the plains / steppe thing. can’t you? Just reading about it makes me want to smell it. I wonder what they eat if their land is void of vegetation, or are they farming? Are the indigenous people nomadic? Do they travel to follow the foods they can gather? It just seems so magical and beautiful. I think it would be awesome to take a cruise that goes through the area, I can’t wait to do an image search to see if these plains are as beautiful in my imagination. What about you? Have you ever read the description for a place that took you away into your own world? Maybe it’s nothing like I picture, but it does sound beautiful.