Speaking of adios, you’ll have to take good notes and report back to me about the event because I’ll be filling my belly with tapas and bull’s blood. Travel Boyfriend is speaking at a an engineering conference in Madrid next week and guess who’s tagging along? I’m bummed to be missing Beth’s insightful talk, but now I’ll have fresh new travel tips to pass along from the European continent just in time for summer.

Workshop Schedule:

June 3, 2008 6-8:30 pm - REI Marina - Bay Area, California
Wandering the World: Essential Tips for Travelers

June 4, 2008 6-8:30 pm - REI Berkeley - Bay Area, California
Wandering the World: Essential Tips for Travelers

June 5, 2008 6-8:30 pm - REI Saratoga - Bay Area, California
Wandering the World: Essential Tips for Travelers

Pre-register through her website and get $3 off the twenty dollar admission charge. 

You can also choose to carry around an entire roll of toilet paper, but that’s like wearing a fanny pack around your forehead.

I learned this the hard way flying from San Francisco to Bali. All my seats were on the right side of the plane and the first two (the longest) were aisle. In order to courteously give my seatmate a little bit of armrest time, I spent a great portion of the trip twisted to the left. Luckily, with my 30 days of spa treatments ahead of me, I knew I could undo the damage. But you can be sure that on the return flight this coming Sunday, I’m going to take my own advice.

Here’s a recent lesson I lived and learned so you don’t have to make the same mistake.

My grand plan back when I first conceived of the Bali trip was to buy a coach ticket on Singapore Airlines (a Delta partner) and then use my Skymiles to upgrade to business class. A looooong-ass flight. Alone. Recovering aviatophobe. Sounded like a good plan.

But when I called to book, the SA agent told me that I’d have to buy a full-fare coach ticket in order to use miles and that would cost over $4,000. Um, no thanks. I decided to stick to steerage.

Now I’m not sure why I went through Singapore Airlines directly to book instead of contacting Delta. I guess I thought it would be better to cut out any middlemen.

By the way, that is what’s called foreshadowing.

Cut to a few weeks ago when I mentioned to you about getting married in Bali. Now cut to two days ago when I finally realized that somehow I’d have to transport a fluffy wedding dress, my laptop, a digital SLR camera, 3 lenses, reading material, my comfort bag, a change of undies and myself all as carry-on. Well, I guess my own body doesn’t count, but the point is, it’s a lot of shite.

Only slightly concerned, I naively assumed international travelers get allowance for two carry-ons. Especially on an airline touted as the world’s best airline. But a nagging little mite whispered in my ear that I should at least check SA’s website to make sure.

Thank you, mite.

Singapore Airline’s policy is one carry-on and one small barely imperceptible personal item. A garment bag full of taffeta counts as a real live, life-sized carry-on. And so does a roller bag full of technology and books.

Dilemma.

I decided that since the flight was only a few days away, maybe chances were good that I could now get a business class upgrade.

I figured first I’d try the batting-of-the-solo-flying-bride’s-eyelashes approach to getting upgraded for free. Then, if that didn’t work, I’d offer up my miles. If they have seats available at this late date, why wouldn’t they jump at the chance to strip them from me? Even if I hadn’t paid full fare.

So I call Singapore Airlines and get a male phone rep (chances for wedding dress sympathy greatly diminished). I explain the two carry-on bag necessity and hope for the best. He, very kindly, thinks about it for a while and then informs me that I’ll need to check the dress.

$#%^! Plan B.

I ask if I can upgrade with miles and he transfers me to their mileage program department. I explain the scenario again. She hears me out and says that I’d need to talk to Delta since that’s whose miles I have.

“Even though I bought the ticket through you,” I ask?

“Yes, even so,” she assures me.

Then I call Delta. I get an extremely kind agent who listens to my story, but doesn’t know the details of the Singapore/Delta relationship. Then she transfers me to someone who does. I explain my story for the fourth time, resigned that there’s no free upgrade in sight. Pretty sure there’s not even a mileage upgrade in sight.

The very sweet woman on the other line let’s me know that there’s no way to access my reservation and that because I bought my ticket through Singapore Airlines from the get-go, there’d be no way to use my Delta miles. And since I’m not a member of the SA mileage program, I’m basically SOL.

To be honest, I’m actually kind of shocked by my own lack of thinking things through from the get-go. I don’t begrudge either airline for not offering an upgrade (or even a solution past “check the dress”). Instead, I have now rejiggered my entire bag strategy. Travel Boyfriend was able to loan me a bag smaller than a roller, but bigger than anything I have to carry my necessities. And I have tried to lovingly shove my dress into a garment bag whose proportions I still worry will cause distress at the boarding gate. So now, I must rely on faith.

The moral: If you even care to entertain the thought of an upgrade, don’t rely on partner relationships. Always have miles for the airline you’re flying (or buying) through. Otherwise, I’ll be seeing you in coach!

Anyway, it’s been going well, I think. I’m learing a lot, although the technical mumbo jumbo of running a blog is less than interesting to me. My readership is steadily increasing and I’ve been enjoying meeting new people and sharing tips from all the research I’ve done over the years. So, today I got an email from Blog Mastermind’s mastermind, Yaro Starak, touting a newfangled “increase traffic” deale-o-mabober called BlogRush. He explains thusly:

BlogRush is like a traffic exchange. You put the
widget on your blog and get a credit each time
it's displayed. For each credit you generate,
your blog articles are syndicated across other
blogs that use the widget.

Simple enough right? 

Better still, there is a ten-level referral
system, so if you refer other people into
BlogRush, you also get credits for credit they
generate. You also get credit for people they
refer and so on, up to ten levels below you. 

Since BlogRush syndicates the content by interest, only feeds about other travel blogs will appear in the widget I placed on my blog. My hope is that will mean my readers will have a quick and easy way to find other quality travel blogs without doing much work. And maybe more people will find their way to this site. We’ll see how it goes.

If you’re interested in creating your own BlogRush widget, you’ll be pleased to know it only takes about 5 minutes to get it up and running.

If you’re interested in learning more about Blog Mastermind, you can first download the pretty chunky and comprehensive (and free!) Blog Profits Blueprint to see if it can help you to become an even more successful blogger. Then maybe we can all retire early and travel the world together!

Anyone else have good alternatives for forgotten items?

When we arrived at the airport, it was a complete zoo. We were flying United, which neither of us has done in a while and I don’t know if it’s their usual M.O. to cram the terminal with live bodies all scrambling to get to Peoria by noon or what. Either way, the line to check in was wound all around, up and down and backwards three times before people were even reaching the official queue. We decided to step back out to the curbside check-in and pay the $2 per bag. As annoying as it is to have to pay up for a service they provide for free 10 feet away, an hour of my life is worth more than $2.

It turned out to be a serendipitous decision. While we were in line, the guy in front of us made a comment to the check-in guy about it being so crowded. The check-in guy then proceeded to let us all in on a salacious secret. He said that in the United terminal, there is a security checkpoint to the far left and that it is usually much less crowded than the one in the middle (the one most people just automatically gravitate to). Imagine my surprise and utter confusion when we followed his advice and walked up to find not even ONE person in line! I thought it was closed, but the guards were all standing there looking eager to please. And when we engaged them, they were courteous and jovial. MUCH different than the usual attitudes from TSA. From bag drop off to security clearance, we were through in about 10 minutes. While all the other little lambies shuffled an inch per hour in their long check-in and security lines. Ooh, I felt devilish!

So that’s the tip. Far left security gate in United’s terminal at SFO. And if you’re at any other airport in the nation or world and the security line is longer than you could ever dream possible, remember to ask around if there’s a less crowded security gate. Chances are you’ll save yourself an hour or two of misery. And feel quite clever in the process. Then you can relax and enjoy your flight!

Siderant

Who the hell wants to eat chicken tenders from Burger King shaped to look like crowns, for Christ’s sake? First of all, they don’t look like crowns. They look like the little petrified alligator claw backscratchers I bought down in the Everglades as a joke after an airboat ride with Travel Boyfriend two Christmases ago. Only the tenders don’t come on a stick.

And second, don’t shape my food to resemble non-edible items. It just reminds me how freakin’ processed your food is. Of course, that didn’t stop me from buying three cheeseburgers to nourish myself and Travel Boyfriend while airborne from San Francisco to Denver to New Orleans. But then again, those were shaped like circles. And circles can be found in nature.

P.S. Travel Boyfriend says, “Tell them the same goes for escalators!”

Avoid

For the love of God and all that is holy, avoid giving money to or even looking at or near all metallic-painted people. Humanity thanks you. If you’d like some world class entertainment of the street performer variety while strolling around the Wharf, then you need only learn two words: Bush Man.

For those who need an extra boost of conditioning power, be warned that Philosophy no longer touts its product as a combo body wash, shampoo and conditioner. I wrote them to inquire about the reason and they replied that it just wasn’t living up to the conditioning claim. So now it’s marketed as a body wash, shampoo and bubble bath. Clever. It’s still better than say, Prell (or dirt), but just know you need to bring a separate creamy rinse.

They’ve got a ton of other delicious, yet sadly inedible flavors as well. Feel free to travel around the world so you can try them all.