International Travel Adventure

You could just wake up one morning in a completely different world than the one in which you fell asleep. Such seems to be what happened here in Arkansas, U.S.A. We had not lived here long enough, apparently, to know what could happen. But neighbors across the street who have lived there 20 years didn’t know either. And people in town who have lived in the area 38 years also didn’t know to expect what happened here. Even old-timers who have lived here all their lives - 78 years - have not seen anything like it before. As near as we could discover, it was unprecedented in these parts.

(continued below…)

First, there was the ice falling from the sky. It fell much like rain, “soft” ice until it landed on something - like a roof, a sidewalk, a driveway, a street, a car window, a telephone wire, electric lines, etc. But what really changed the landscape, to which any ice storm veterans can attest, is the trees and bushes and shrubs and grass all covered in ice. The ice takes the shape of whatever it coats. Trees and tree limbs, already standing naked in the cold, suddenly had coats of ice through which you could still see the trees and branches and limbs and twigs. It’s quite beautiful to behold when it first happens - especially if there is bright sun to “light up” the ice.

But things didn’t stop there. The ice storm was relentless for two days, making the ice coatings on everything thicker and thicker. Tree limbs were sagging under the weight. Still the ice fell. Still the ice accumulated. The limbs started breaking off, and the larger branches started to sag. Trees started bending over - not all “at the waist”, but many “from the ankles”. The branches started to break. And still the ice fell. And still the ice accumulated. Going out to take pictures became dangerous, because the trees started breaking. I was shooting a close-up of an evergreen’s pine needles coated in ice, looking so beautiful, when I heard the cracking sound above me. Quickly turning my back and running proved to be a useful strategy, allowing the tree plenty of space to crash safely to the ground without the need to flatten my body first. As it was a good 8-inch (20.32 cm) diameter top half of a 35-foot (10.67 m) tall tree that had broken off and fallen, it seemed best that I didn’t get in the way of the downward momentum. No, I did not get the shot of the needles; they just didn’t look the same after that.

So the branches and trees falling took out the power. That night, from inside the candlelit house, we could see nothing of what was happening outside. But we could hear the continuous tinkling showers of ice “chandeliers” falling, followed by the crack-”schploomph” impact of falling branches and trees as they broke through the ice sheets of whatever was unfortunate enough to be helplessly in the wrong spots at the right times. That first dark night, it was about every minute or two that these sounds filled the otherwise total silence. Some were closer, some farther away. We listened to all the close ones, to gauge distance and direction; will this one smash one of the cars? Will it collapse a part of the house? Or will it obliterate this room in which I’m trying to sleep? And so it went, until falling ice and trees were blended with the restless dreams born of exhaustion.

What we saw the next morning was unbelievable! I’ve lived through many ice storms, in different parts of the U.S.A. Never, ever, have I seen anything like what greeted us. Photos will be included in Part 2. Give us a couple of days, as we’re recovering from a week-and-a-half without electricity or Internet, not to mention cold temperatures (outside and inside), rare showers, stacks of laundry, etc. Even now, at two weeks, the electricity is off and on here, while many others still are without.

As we’re sure happened to you, we were completely blindsided by our sudden disappearance from the World Wide Web! In a nutshell, here is what happened.

Our domain vendor invoiced us on December 27, we paid on December 28, and - oops! - our domain expired on December 31! Well, they explained to us that it was an automatic system, and that somehow a “glitch” occurred, so that the domain was not renewed with the domain registrar. Of course, we couldn’t even reach anyone until January 2, and then things didn’t go well until today, January 7. (Yeah, the whole holiday weekend thing - SIGH…)

Yes, about a week offline was killing us, literally!!! If you’re reading this, thank you for returning - you’ve got us smiling again! Articles to follow. In fact, one of the next two articles will feature a guest author we think you’ll really like! By the way, fellow bloggers and webmasters, look for some Cool > new < (free) Tools to be added shortly that will help your visibility on the web, both to people and to search engines. You didn't think we stopped working while we were invisible, did you?

Just look below to find Issue 3 of our Blogroll Express, with more photos, adventure chronicles, and ideas just in time to start planning how to make your 2009 travel more adventurous! Comments are welcome, as always. We again included more of the popular “Travel Troubleshooter”, great photo pieces from National Geographic Adventure magazine, and even video this time.

Again, if you might find yourself searching for any Blogroll Express treasures from previous issues, the articles and photos didn’t go away. Just click “Read more…” at the bottom right corner to visit “Dan’s shared items” on the Google Reader page; the shared items are what appear in Blogroll Express. Enjoy!

You’ve heard it said that any two people sitting next to each other on any flight - even in “coach” - paid entirely different prices for their tickets. It’s TRUE! They get the exact same service (or lack thereof), their seating assignments were handled the exact same way, but one may have paid $100 US while his seat mate may have paid $1,100 US. Without going into all the “whys and wherefores” of this inequality, our goal here is to get you closer to the $100 US seat whenever possible. It’s not that hard with the tools available today. And it’s well worth spending a few minutes to let computers and programs and algorithms do their jobs for you.

Because, in our humble opinion, adventure travel should not be expensive - or at least not any more expensive than any other travel, we’re happy that we were able to find some of the ‘best quality’, as well as some of the ‘best price’ travel providers. We actively sought out our hotel provider (a future article, if needed), and our airfare provider, as our current first choices. We like providers who deal equally fairly with their suppliers (hotels and airlines) and their customers (all of us). So we will use our airfare provider’s search tool as the starting place for an example. You’ll see why later.

[As an aside, almost all airfare search sites also provide rental car and/or hotel rate searches, which can be helpful if you want the convenience of a "package deal" at a reasonable rate. Likewise, hotel sites usually provide airfare and/or car rental search for the same reason. Don't overlook these options, as "package deals" can sometimes be preferable - based on the idea that multiple purchases from a single provider allow greater probability of a larger discount.]

By the way, this article does not negate the necessity of using the “Save On Airfare Secrets” book found on this site; those secrets are amazing, and beyond the scope of this article (that’s what the book is for). What we’ll cover here are the basics that are important regardless of whether you might want bigger and better discounts. Today, you must know how to shop for airfares and other travel arrangements online - unless you’re independently wealthy. With few exceptions, your best basic discount rates will be found online. Calling a travel agent or an airline will usually result in a higher fare, similarly to how calling a telephone operator to place a long distance call is more expensive than dialing the number yourself. In addition, online searches will show available flights versus full flights, particulars about extra fees or surcharges, any restrictions, and, depending on the sites used, hints on how to get lower fares.

A recent trend  - actually already a couple of years old - in airfare search engines is to create a “master” search that searches ‘all the most competitive discount sites you already know’. Back when we could first visit airline sites on the Internet, the end result was not much different than calling a travel agent, except calling a travel agent was easier! Then came the big search/booking providers like Travelocity and others, which really simplified searching. But it wasn’t long before the rates were found to be lacking the discounts travelers desired. This left a wide open market for discount search/booking providers like Hotwire, Cheap Flights, and others.

The next generation (recent trend mentioned above) of search and/or booking providers resulted because there are now so many of these discount providers - yet none of which regularly has the lowest fares. So we now have SideStep and others who search the discount search/booking providers. You can now reduce the number of bookmarks/favorites in your web browsers by just using a service like Booking Buddy, for example. Or - our preference - one that even includes Booking Buddy results, SideStep results, etc. - a “master master search” tool! True to their claim, our use shows this search tool delivers the lowest rate well in excess of 90% of the time. [This is conservative, based on our usage.]

The rare exception seems to happen when a discount provider has locked in a special rate for particular flights that can’t be re-published elsewhere. Think of it as giving your real estate broker exclusive rights to sell or lease your home - without utilizing the Multiple Listing Service; perhaps you have some reason for not granting other brokers, and their agents, access to sell or lease your home. This is also the type of arrangement many airfare consolidators have, in order to control a block of seats at a special rate - so they can offer an even lower fare than the discount sites, especially on international travel.

Part 2 of this two-part series will take us, via example, through the adventure of searching the lowest airfare, starting from a “master master search” tool to locate our preferred rate. Simplify your life, and save money!

If you’re still unsure of anything about your next international travel - and you want it to be cheaper, safer, and more adventurous, get my free “Smart Tips Handbook” available exclusively to Registered Readers! Click the link below.

International Travel Adventure

Yesterday, this site and thousands of others hosted at our host’s server farm, as well as all other clients of our host’s Internet backbone provider, were offline for at least half a day. Thanks for bearing with us!

It is the second major such problem we’ve lived through in the last 6 months. As we understand it, this second incident affected more of the provider’s clients, but - thankfully - it didn’t last as long as the first one, which happened a few months ago.