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RV Camping in Mexico

I have written about the need for extra protection when traveling/driving in Mexico and the importance of having all you ducks in a row when crossing the border in your car. Or when renting a car in Mexico, since they will NOT accept US insurance policies there as states do here in the continental U.S.

But I had never thought about renting or driving an RV into Mexico and lo and behold here is a great article from Suite 101 about RVing in Mexico. The article, titled appropriately "How to Plan an RV Camping Trip in Mexico" has great information about insurance, documents needed and what to expect from military checkpoints among other topics.

For anyone who isn't familiar with the aspects of driving in Mexico, it is a must read.

Travel Info for One and All

I write about travel and various destinations myself but I am not above passing along a good resource when I come across one. I am doing just that now, as I came across a Travel Guide from the L A Times that I think many people may enjoy.

Titled Travel Guide 2010, it is not only a site with information about places like San Francisco, Hollywood, Brazil, Thailand and Europe but there are numerous articles about cruising, contact information for hotel,s airline, car rentals, etc AND guide books for Mexico, Las Vegas, Hawaii and California to persue through.

You can find the site above and I would bookmark it for future use, since you never know if you will need a weekend getaway idea down the road.

Using a GPS When Driving/Traveling

This is a public service post but it relates to travel as well as for everyday driving, so I thought it a good subject for a post. It involves how using a GPS tracking device in strange environments can backfire sometimes - something I know well since many guests of ours driving to our hotel tend to be turned in the wrong direction because of the omission of a simple notation (S or So. for south). I usually tell guests to listen to MY directions instead of relying on a GPS - but what about when you cannot call someone?

Most of us are aware of the Oregon couple a few years ago that got lost WITHOUT a GPS device - now it appears more people are getting lost BECAUSE of the device. Recently, a Nevada couple got waylaid into the desert area using a GPS unit. The article I am referring to here concerns people getting lost in mountain terrain in winter simply because the GPS setting (for the shortest route?) turned them onto forest roads that were snowed in. They might be a great alternative in summer to shave time off your trip but not in winter.

Which leads to the point of the article. Don't leave your common sense in the trunk just because you have a fancy new gadget to try out. (In fact, I think all people should think twice about using GPS devices even when NOT in the mountains. I've seen too many instances where options showed up that outlined a shorter route but took you so off the beaten path that if you needed gas or a bathroom, you were out of luck.) Almost weekly we have overseas guests staying with us that swear by GPS devices. But they are in a foreign country and may not know details like we might know. Such as taking the shorter '"Old County Road" into Yosemite instead of the roundabout, S-curves main road. It is a great timesaver as far as mileage goes but is not meant for people towing trailers or medium to large RV's. Or cars with marginal brake pads! GPS units don't warn you about that.

So common sense and the old adage (When in doubt, ASK someone) come into play. You can't ASK a GPS unit "Where are we" once you get stranded!

Car Rental Insurance Questions

"Would you like to purchase the vehicle waiver insurance?" Anyone who has rented a car in the last 20 years has heard this spiel from the car rental counter-person. For most, since you have personal auto insurance, the answer is a no-brainer. Others always buy it and wonder if they wasted money when nothing happens.

It may not ALWAYS be smart to decline the insurance, since your particular policy may not cover you if the rental car is stolen because you may not have comprehensive insurance covering an older vehicle or one with a salvage title (like mine).

The article I found is a good starting place to determine for yourself how to answer the above question if you are planning to rent a car in the future. It is an article about CDW (Collision Damage Waivers) and it just may open your eyes as to the risks you are exposed to when you rent a car. Remember, with any kind of standard deductible (say up to $500), if the car you rent gets broken into and they break a window or a rock cracks the windshield, your insurance MAY only kick in AFTER you pay $500! So you may just want to spend the extra $17.99 for CDW in that case!

Super Bowl Hotel Info

All Right! You just were handed a pair of tickets to the 2010 Super Bowl in Miami. That's the good news. The bad news is how much it will cost you to use these tickets, especially given that the game is only days away.

It may be too late to find a great airfare ()my advice would be to fly into Jacksonville or Orlando and rent a car if Miami airfares are through the roof) but you CAN still find affordable hotels. An article I located on Peter Greenberg's blog/web site mentions hotels under $100 still available. Of course they are out of the immediate area and some hotels are 25 miles away (that's the beauty of flying into another city - you have a rental car!) but if you want luxury, you also have your pick of $300 plus per night resorts and hotels.

Check out the article here.

Car Rental Tips

A recent AP story ran that caught my attention. As one who rarely rents a car, I was unaware that bargains in the travel arena were not flowing into the car rental business. I DID have a warning earlier this year when a local car rental executive told my owner/boss that car rates were headed HIGHER and not lower because it was too expensive to hold onto unused cars when times were slow. So most car rental companies were cutting back on capacity and just like the airline industry, that usually means higher prices.

The AP article titled Tips for Getting the Best Car Deal mentions that prices are up about 50% compared to a year ago and the article confirms what the exec told my owner - car companies were quick to downsize their fleets. Of course when the economy picks back up, if it does so suddenly and rental companies don't have enough cars to meet demand, will go even higher. (Supply and demand).

So in the year ahead, you may want to bookmark these tips if you think you might need to rent a car on a trip.

Alaska - Everything You Want to Know

My brother has an idea for me next summer - fly to Oregon, where he lives, and then we embark on a quick trip to Alaska in June in order to see almost 24 hours of daylight just once in our lives. Sounds like a great idea and I may do it too. Just to get ready though and start planning properly, I went through the resources I had used about Alaska to write my honeymoon budget book. One of the sites is worth seeing just for basic (and more involved) information about what is available in Alaska.

Including yacht charters, tons of cruises, Denali tours, air and water taxis, bus tours, railroad trips - the list is almost endless. It is called AlaskaOne and is a fantastic website/resource. For instance, here you find informatuion about flying to Anchorage or SouthCentral Alaska and then rent an RV. They have lodging information about every area of Alaska - Prince William Sound, Valdez, Copper River Valley, the Kenai Peninsula just to name a few. There are salmon (boat/excursion) rentals, glacier tours and cruises, wilderness lodges and much more.

If you have never thought about vacationing in Alaska, this site just may spark your interest.

Overseas Discount Tickets

As some of you know, my specialty is supposed to be reserving hotels at the cheapest rates offered. Since the inception of my blog however, I have branched off to where I am pretty well versed on the airline industry as well. However, I reserve the right to admit that airfare experts (particularly ex travel agents or airline employees) know a heck of a lot more about discount airfares than I do at this point.

For that reason, I have found a great resource that pertains to international travel booking. This guide book is packed with relevant information and valuable tips for saving on international airfares by using airline consolidators. What exactly are consolidators?

True consolidators are those agents who purchase a block of discount tickets for future sale before the airlines close off the fare sale window. They then can sell tickets at a discount when you cannot get that rate by going direct to the airlines. For instance, Aeromexico recently announced a fare sale to many cities in Mexico at very good prices. But you had to buy within 7 days. What if you are not sure exactly when you wanted to go to Cabo however and couldn't risk making a reservation and finding you needed to change it, thus incurring a change fee?

This is where consolidators can help. SInce they bought a block of these type tickets before the fare sale window closed, they can sell you a last minute ticket at a substantial discount to the airfare shown by Aeromexico on their site!. Sometimes, the later you book, the more discount the consolidator gives, since any unused tickets are simply swallowed by the concolidator at a total loss.

Check out this TravelSecretsGuide and see if you think it would make for a sensible purchase. I have personally read it and vouch for it - the information is extensive and extremely money saving and the research that went into the book is top notch. Like my books, there is a complete money back guarantee so you have nothing to lose if you don't find it as helpful as I have found it to be.

Another Great Idea Goes Out of Business

We all know that the advent of jet planes was a death knell for train travel in the U.S. but pockets of sanity occasionally arose and brought back the nostalgic life of traveling by rail car. Trains are still popular in Canada, the Wine Train in Napa County still runs (though I suspect it loses money) and a few years ago, someone brought back luxury trains in Colorado, called the Grand Luxe Railways.

Traveling on 4-12 day journeys to the West, South and Mexico (in 2009), Grand Luxe brought back what was to some (like my grandfather) a way of life long gone. (I still remember my Grandpa coming in from Utah on a train and one of my very first trips was a train trip to LA on the Starlight Coast.) But now, kiss it goodbye, as Grand Luxe announced a few weeks ago that it was ceasing operations.

Travel Tip - Credit/Debit Card Hazards

                      When you check in to a hotel or motel and present a credit card, the hotel will obtain  an authorization for the estimated amount due upon departure and your bank 'holds' this amount awaiting a matching charge. This prevents you from overspending your limit (if you are too close to it) which can be very costly because banks can change your interest rate on the whole balance due to your exceeding your credit limit. The reason hotels get authorization estimates and that cards are not just pre-charged is that the guest may leave earlier or later or have other charges accrued, rendering the first estimate inaccurate.

Occasionally, a guest decides to pay by cash or another credit card and when they check their credit or debit balances days later, are shocked when they see what appears to be a 'charge' for the hotel stay also. This is not in fact a charge, it is YOUR bank reserving the amount obtained in the authorization process and 'reserving' it for the hotel. This 'charge' will disappear within 10 days, usually no more than 14 and your credit limit increases by the amount being 'held'. You will probably not be able to use that card until the bank removes the hold on that amount if you are close to your credit line limit. If you are not close to your limit, it will not matter.