2010 July - UKHotelMap Blog

Archive for July, 2010

30
July

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If you’ve ever travelled anywhere in Europe during the summer (including the lovely U.K.), you know what type of crowds you will experience on the streets. Especially near famous sights and big shopping areas, sometimes the crowds get so thick as to be completely unmanageable, and for some, this can be a complete turn-off to going anywhere in Europe during the summertime at all.

So, here are a few tips for getting through Europe unscathed during the summer, and even enjoying yourself in the process!

Stay on the outskirts.
Choosing a hotel located further from the city centre will give you a bit of wiggle room in terms of noise, crowds and pollution. If you are driving, this will also give you better chances of finding parking at or near your hotel. Sure, staying farther from the city centre means either walking or taking public transport a little further in to see the sights, but you will be rewarded with cheaper rooms and more peace and quiet.

Sightsee at odd times.
I don’t care where in Europe you are, if you are standing at a major sightseeing destination (or even a not-so-major one) at 10:30 am during July or August, the crowds are going to be so thick you might not even get close enough for a quick view. Instead, try sightseeing at odd times, such as mid-afternoon (when it will be hotter, driving the masses indoors) and evening, when everyone else is eating dinner. Sightseeing at night gives the added chance to view Europe’s beautiful scenes under a magical blanket of stars.

Eat at odd times in odd places.
Again, if it is 12 noon sharp on any day of the week in a major European city, the restaurants are going to be packed. You’ll inevitably have to wait for 30-60 minutes just to be seated! Restaurants in these areas also tend to have poor service and food because they are most concerned with getting people in and out quickly. Your best bet is to pick up a local expat restaurant guide and choose a place that is farther from the city centre or located on a small back street.

Use the weekdays.
Weekends are the worst as far as European crowds go, so your best bet for avoiding the masses is to do your travelling during a weekday. Now, of course this is not going to grant you free and clear access to everything because others will have the same idea, but it will at least limit the crowds down to a more reasonable number.

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Tags: crowds, Europe, Sightseeing, summertime
Posted in Sightseeing, Travel tips | No Comments »

29
July

Airbnb: A New Way to Sleep

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If you are anything like me, you hate hotels. I mean, really. They are cramped. Most of the time they are stale and uniteresting. Often, they are overpriced. Rapidly heading toward the big 3-0, I find myself feeling a bit too old to bunk up in a hostel, while most hotels are just, in a word, boring.

An answer has finally come for those of us that always wished they could pack up their cute city flat or lovely country home and bring it along on holidays, and that answer is Airbnb. This new concept in accommodation is the latest rage in the travel community and has received write-ups by the New York Times, CNN, USA Today and a huge handful of other media, as well as of course, me!

The basic premise of Airbnb is simple: “Travel like a human” by renting space in an actual apartment, house or cottage. Time cutely called the website “the Ebay of space”, for it is essentially a place where you can search for any variety of accommodations – large or small – most offered at an incredibly affordable rate.

With Airbnb, you can easily find an apartment in Paris that sleeps four and comes with a modern kitchen and adorable modern design for less than the price you would pay for one hotel room, and for many travelers, the price and the option of having an entire home away from home is incredibly attractive.

Unlike the days of yore, when holiday rentals were overly-luxurious, stuffy and unaffordable for the vast majority of travellers, most of the properties on Airbnb are privately owned by regular people and rented out to holiday-goers. A lot of people are also lauding Airbnb for providing an answer to eco-friendly travel, where many hotels are still missing the bar in terms of earth happy practices.

As an example, there are some 960 properties in Paris currently listed on Airbnb, ranging from a private room near the Champs Elysées for £23 a night, to a luxury 2-bedroom flat in Marais for £298 per night, with plenty of reasonable options for under £80 for an entire flat.

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Tags: accommodation, Airbnb, holiday apartment, holiday flats, holiday rentals, Hotels, vacation home
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28
July

987 Prague Hotel: Luxury Boutique

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Sitting on a quiet corner in an quaint Baroque building that is, by Prague standards, simple, the 987 Prague Hotel (Map | Book) is a refreshing clean space in an increasingly crowded city. Especially if you visit Prague during the summer, you will find the city near filled to capacity with admiring visitors all clamouring to get a good look at just what makes the Golden City so golden.

Run by 987 Hotels, the 4-star Prague 987 has a sister hotel in Barcelona, and there is another in Prague, confusingly called the 987 Soho. It’s not surprising that we’ve been hearing a lot of Spanish around the breakfast area each morning, and the clean design seems to have attracted plenty of Scandinavian guests, as well.

The theme here is an incredibly modern, almost-space age atmosphere, complete with white bubble furniture and an orange, plastic, see-through lift, but all is done in autumnal hues of orange, brown, red and grey, lifting the warmth of the place over its incredibly stylised aesthetic.

A double room here is spacious enough by European standards and comes as a fully remodelled space within an older room, so you still benefit from the tall Central European windows and lofty ceiling. An outer sink is situated between the shower and toilet, which are very conveniently located in their own separate water closets.

Downtstairs, the lobby is punctuated by a long breakfast nook-slash-bar, where you can take in your free morning fare (which is quite an impressive spread of cold cuts, cheeses, fruits, breads, pastries, muesli and beverages) or eat a later meal or have a drink. The 987 Prague also offers room service.

Being that this is Prague, it is difficult to escape the familiar rumble of the street trams that constantly chug through the city, and indeed there is a tram line that runs adjacent to the hotel. The sweet sounds of trams running into the night is not enough to bother but the most sensitive sleepers, though, and has not even remotely been a problem for us.

The 987 Prague Hotel’s location is also quite convenient, as it is not entirely in the middle of the city, but on a less congested corner a few streets away. It takes about 5 minutes to walk to the gaping Wenceslas Square, and perhaps another 10 to make it to Old Town Square and the Charles Bridge. All things considered, they could not have picked a better locale if they tried.

The hotel’s free wifi service (in-room and lobby) has been an incredible convenience, as well, and the room has perhaps the largest number of outlet plugs of any hotel room I’ve ever stayed in.

To find a fault in the 987 Prague Hotel, for the first 24-hours we were staying here, our keys had to be re-coded at least four times, which was only a slight inconvenience, and the staff has been more than helpful with the process each time.

A night’s stay in the most basic of rooms at the 987 Prague Hotel (which still comes with wifi, flatscreen TV and minibar) runs an astonishingly cheap £71, while the Junior Suite, which has its own living room, is only £129 per night.

987 Prague Hotel
Senovážné náměstí 15, 110 00
Praha 1
+420-255-737-200-4
www.987hotels.com

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Tags: 987 Hotels, 987 Prague Hotel, Barcelona, Czech Republic, Prague, Soho
Posted in Cities, Hotels, Photos, Travel tips | 1 Comment »

14
July

How to Hire a Car in the USA

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At one time or another, almost everyone has dreamed of hitting the open road in a gorgeous red American sports car. With the wind in your hair, you breeze past the Statue of Liberty and into the Heartland where rows upon rows of cornfields greet you. And while this is an amazing image, not everyone can afford the four weeks’ holidays it would take to achieve this ultimate American road trip dream.

The fact remains, though, that if you plan to take holidays in the USA, you will probably have to hire a car. Boston, New York and San Francisco aside, most American cities are not equipped with good public transportation systems and driving is about the only option in that case.

But fear not, renting a car in the United States is quite simple.

First, you must choose your rental agency. Most American airports are outfitted with a firm selection of international and local car hire companies. If you are not bothered about which brand, you can simply choose the online booking site that offers you the best rate.

Be careful about bundling your flights and car rental together, as this is often not the cheapest way to go, although it can add an element of convenience to the booking process. If you want to save money, book your flights and car hire separately.

Be aware that many American car rental agencies offer discounts for week-long bookings, so you can save some money if you plan to book for more than just a few days. Weekdays are cheaper than weekends, as well.

When you book, be aware of the check-in and return times, as returning your car after noon, for instance, can sometimes result in being charged for another day’s rental. You can save some money by returning your car early in the morning, or even the night before.

Make sure to carry copies of your auto insurance from home, if you have it, as this can help alleviate fees from American car hire companies. Check with your insurance company beforehand to see if your coverage extends to international car hire, or if there might be an additional option you can add on. Your travel insurance policy might also include car hire coverage.

If you don’t already have auto insurance, you might consider purchasing the insurance offered to you by your car hire company in the States. This will cover you in case of accident or damage to the car, and if you don’t have insurance for this, you could face heavy fines for damages.

Be sure to carry your UK Driving License with you at all times. You will need it when you pick up your car and you will also need to carry it by law anytime you are driving in the United States.

Here are a few more tips:

Most car hire companies have offices on site at the airport, as well as offsite within the city. Sometimes there are airport fees, so compare both to see which is cheaper.
Always be sure to fill up the petrol tank with gas before returning the car. If you don’t, the car rental company will fill it up using their in-house petrol tanks for exorbitant rates and charge you for it.
When you pick the car up, make sure to note in writing any dings or damages already on the car so that you are not inadvertently charged for damages that you did not incur.

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Tags: car hire, rental car, United States
Posted in Featured, Transportation | No Comments »

11
July

Silk Road Cities: Tashkent

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I probably don’t need to tell you that Uzbekistan is not a popular tourist country. Having seen its share of suicide bombings in the past, most Western governments are still reluctant to advise tourists that travel to Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, is safe.

The question of whether or not Tashkent is safe aside, the fact is that the city has recovered well from its former Soviet plague, during which it lost many of its most remarkable historic sites. But a few do still remain, mostly mosques and mausoleums, as well as Tashkent’s quaint old town, which is quite well preserved. Interestingly, Tashkent has a solid public transit system comprised of buses, trams and a metro, and it has all of the infrastructure – hotels, shops, restaurants – needed for a booming tourist centre. It’s just that the tourists haven’t arrived… yet.

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Tags: mausoleum, mosque, old town, silk road, silk road cities, tashkent, uzbekistan
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10
July

How to Find Cheap Flights – Even Last-Minute!

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Okay, everyone wants to find cheap flights, right? It is like the holy grail of travel: plane tickets to a faraway land that don’t drain your bank account. Well, the fact is that flying is not cheap (unless of course you are taking a death-defying flight with a certain Irish airline that shall remain nameless *ahem*Ryanair*ahem) but it doesn’t have to bankrupt you, either.

Many people are surprised to find that plane tickets can be a lot less than they expect if they use certain techniques for booking. Here are a few insider hints about booking cheap airfare.

Have flexible travel dates. This one is key, because airlines sometimes do silent sales on certain days to fill up seats on their flights. Most booking sites allow you to do “flexible date” searches that check flights within 1-3 days on either side of your date of travel. Be sure to check these dates to compare prices. You might be pleasantly surprised. For instance, I recently booked a flight on Aer Lingus from Dallas to Prague that was less than half the price on one particular day than others I searched.

Try multiple booking sites. There are about a million different online travel sites that have flight booking engines nowadays. One I particularly like is Kayak, which allows you to compare with a number of different sites like Travelocity, Expedia and Priceline for the lowest price.

Try different airports. Usually, it is cheaper to fly to a large market city, such as Frankfurt, London, New York or Beijing, than to fly directly to the small city you might be headed to. Sometimes it isn’t. The best bet is to try as many different options until you come up with the one that is cheapest. If you can find a cheaper flight between two major cities, then you will probably be able to book a flight on a budget airline to your destination to save a few quid.

Factor in luggage costs. Since most airlines are charging exorbitant fees for checked baggage these days, make sure you factor in the costs of luggage on different airlines. Some airlines charge less than others or have less stringent baggage allowances, and this might affect the overall cost of your flight, so don’t overlook this cost when you’re booking!

Fly off-season. If you have some flexibility in your holiday plans, choose a date that is off-season. Generally speaking, winter is a better time to fly than summer (bear in mind that Australia, New Zealand, much of Africa and South America have opposite winters), and you might be pleasantly surprised to find that your flight is half the price in winter versus summer. Likewise, avoid bank holidays and national holidays, as these are times when everyone else in the country is flying and prices are likely to be higher. Finally, if possible, try to fly mid-week, such as on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, as these are the least busy travel days and tend to offer the best rates (but not always, so check twice!).

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Tags: Aer Lingus, airfare, airlines, Airports, booking sites, cheap travel, destination, Expedia, flights, Kayak, luggage fees, plane tickets, Priceline, Travelocity
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5
July

Silk Road Cities: Kashgar

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This ancient Chinese city stands at the intersection between the northern and southern branches of the Silk Road, a last outpost before reaching Kyrgystan and Tajikistan. It was a hub of activity during the golden age of the Silk Road, when silk and spice traders used it as a trading post and a refuelling station on the long road between Central Asia and the Chinese capital.

Today, it is more Central Asian than Chinese and boasts a Sunday Market that is busy with farmers selling produce, and its livestock market is also always busy. There are a number of Central Asian style bazaars dotted around Kashgar where you can find stores of brightly coloured Persian carpets, silks and other exotics, and the city’s old centre, which is slowly being torn down by the Chinese government, is one of the most well-preserved Muslim old towns in the world, with a number of gorgeous mosques.

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Tags: bazaar, carpets, Central Asia, china, Kashgar, Kyrgystan, mosque, Muslim, Photos, silk, silk road, silk road cities, Sunday Market, Tajikistan
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4
July

BuiltNY: Such Sweet Travel Accessories

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I have found the perfect travel accessory. BuiltNY, a Manhattan-based company, has come up with a range of cool totes, bags and cases that are made of neoprene, which is the same stuff out of which they make wetsuits. Their products range from cute camera cases that range in size from tiny point-and-shoot cases with flip tops to large SLR camera bags, as well as grocery tote bags, wine bottle carriers, backpacks and slimline sleeves for your lappie, sized for Mac or PC.

All of BuiltNY’s products are made of durable, waterproof neoprene. This stuff is tough to tear up – it doesn’t rip very easily and won’t let water through. It’s cushy enough to keep your delicate products safe and many of the gadget bags and totes are enhanced with a rigid back to prevent breakage. The zips are also very solid.

Perhaps their best travel accessory product is the Cargo Travel Organiser. This small zip pack has four compartments where you can store just about anything, from cords to small cameras, an iPod or a mouse. The pack folds in half and then zips, so you can just stow it in your carry-on or your luggage. Your cords and earphones will never get tangled up, which is fantastic.

The thing I like most about the BuiltNY products is that they come in all sorts of great colours, from the more feminine pink, purple and blue polka dots to a business-like plain black, to red and other patterns. It’s hard to find a travel tote or accessory bag that is both durable and fashionable, but I do believe BuiltNY has done it!

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Tags: bags, BuiltNY, camera bag, laptop bag, laptop sleeve, travel tote
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2
July

Great Tips for Travelling with Kids

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If you’re an adventurous parent, you should consider travelling with your children. Kids are sponges of new information and they can learn so much about the world by travelling at a young age. In turn, they will learn to be more tolerant of others and grow up to be better human beings.

The problem for many is that travelling with kids can seem so overwhelming. If you plan the right way with the right equipment, though, and use travel as a time to teach your kids about good manners, travelling with children really does not have to be a chore.

Get them excited.

Spend the week or two leading up to your travels getting the kids jazzed up about the trip. Spend some time learning about your destination and teach your children about the culture that they’re going to encounter. Excite them through photos or children’s travel books related to their destination. If you’re travelling abroad, you might even consider helping them learn a few words in the local language to get them going.

If you’ll be travelling around, let your kids help you design the itinerary or choose a place (within reason) that they would like to see to help motivate them beforehand.

Keep them occupied.

Depending on what type of trip you’re taking, you’ll want to bring along more or less toys. Avoid things that make annoying noises or move around on their own – anything that requires a battery may not be a good idea, as it provides the potential to get lost or annoy other passengers. Stick to plush toys, books and figurines, video games with an appropriate pair of head phones, an mp3 player or iPod.

Games are a great time killer and a way to keep your child quiet, and you could consider getting them some stories or books to listen to, as well.

Be sure to bring along the books and maps you invested in about your destination so that your child can continue to learn about the local culture before you arrive. Make a game of remembering words in the local language or pinpointing cities that you’ll be visiting.

Make them mini-travellers.

If your children are old enough to walk and talk, let them carry a backpack of their choice with their own snacks, books and toys inside. This will help alleviate the burden off of you and make them feel involved. If they are old enough, consider investing in a children’s disposable camera to let them shoot their own photos, or help them to keep a travel diary about their experiences on the trip.

Prepare them for oddities.

At some point during your trip, you are going to encounter a person or situation that your child has never seen before. Beat them to the punch by explaining beforehand any type of unusual situations they might come across, such as the strange noises on the airplane and what it feels like to fly, the security line at the airport, police or guard dogs at your destination, different weather and strange languages. Encourage them to try the local food (if they are of the age) in your destination and make a game of who can learn the most about the new place.

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Tags: children, kids travel, travelling with children
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1
July

Silk Road Cities: Jiayuguan

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Jiayuguan

Welcome to our second installment of Silk Road Cities. Today, we are venturing up the road from Xi’an to the town of Jiayuguan, the ancient end of the Chinese empire. Jiayuguan’s name means “joyful valley pass”, for it sits between two mountain ranges along the Hexi Corridor in Gansu Province in northwestern China. This unique location made it one of the last outposts of Chinese rule and here, the Chinese built the last remnants of the Great Wall and erected a fort at the pass to control whatever came in or went out of China. Today, the town is a dusty, unremarkable outpost of Han Chinese culture. The only interesting draw in Jiayuguan is the fort and the Wall, which has been partially restored, and the very remote desert landscape.