A New Cure for the Fear of Flying?

To overcome his fear of flying, Mark Malkoff is living on a plane for the month of June! He is also doing a great job of documenting his journey with frequent videos and tweets on twitter. It sounds like he must be cured. Are we witnessing the birth of a new, effective (and extremely expensive and time-consuming) form of therapy?

The Markets of Provence

The middle of June marks the beginning of lavender season in Provence. Not the harvesting season, but rather, the peak of lush purple fields that are a feast for both the eye and the nose. Acres and acres of rolling hils, ochre colored cliffs, green vineyards and thousand-year old villages nestled between rows of brightly colored purple lavender.

Over the next month, thousands will flock to the South of France to witness nature's show, and to take advantage of the great weather and bounty of fruit. No visit to Provence is complete without experiencing its markets. You can get everything from farm fresh produce, cheeses, sausages, and Provencal herbs to clothes, shoes, fabrics and antiques, usually in the setting of a charming and ancient hill-top village.

Below, is a list of the markets of Provence listed by the day of the week:

DAILY
Aix-en-Provence - food market - place Richelme
Aix-en-Provence - flowers - place de l'Hôtel (Tue, Thur, Sat) and place des Prêcheurs (other days)
Avignon - food market - Les Halles (covered market - closed Mon)
Grasse - food market
Marseille - food market - cours Pierre Puget, place Jean-Jaurès, place du Marché-des-Capucins and avenue du Prado (all closed Sun)
Marseille - fish market - quai des Belges
Sanary-sur-Mer - food market
Toulon - food market - cours Lafayette (except Mon)

SUNDAY
Aix-en-Provence - antique book market - place Mairie (first Sun of each month)
Avignon - flea market - place des Carmes
Carpentras - flea market
Chateaurenard - food market
Le Coustellet - food market
Isle sur la Sorgue - food market
Isle sur la Sorgue - antiques - held throughout the town
La Ciotat - food market - Vieux Port
Marseille - flea market - avenue du Cap-Pinède
Ramatuelle - food market
St-Maxime - food market

MONDAY
Bédoin - food market
Cadenet - food market
Cavaillon - food market

TUESDAY
Aix-en-Provence - flea market - place Verdun
Apt - flea market - place St. Pierre
Gordes - food and arts & crafts market
La Ciotat - food market - place Evariste-Gras
La Tour D'Aigues - food market
Lorgues - food and arts & crafts market
Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer - flea market
St-Tropez - flea market - place des Lices
Tarascon - food market
Vaison-la-Romaine - food market

WEDNESDAY
Arles - food market - boulevard Emilie-Combes
Arles - antique market (first Wed of every month)
Draguignan - food and arts & crafts market
Draguignan - flea market
Fréjus
Grasse - flea market - place aux Herbes
Salon-de-Provence - food and arts & crafts market - Place Morgan
Sault - food and arts & crafts market
St-Rémy-de-Provence - food market - place de la République and place Pélissier

THURSDAY
Aix-en-Provence - flea market - place Verdun
Ansouis - food market
Isle sur la Sorgue - food market
Le Lavandou
Orange - food market
Orange - flea market - cour A. Brians
Ramatuelle - food market
Roussillon - food market
Salon-de-Provence - food and arts & crafts market - Place Morgan
Vacqueyras - food market

FRIDAY
Bonnieux
Carpentras - food and arts & crafts market - in the old town
Châteauneuf-du-Pape
Lourmarin - food market
Pertuis - food market
Tarascon - organic market - place du Marché

SATURDAY
Aix-en-Provence - flea market - place Verdun
Apt - food and arts & crafts market - throughout entire town
Arles - food market - boulevard des Lices and boulevard Clemenceau
Avignon - flower market - place des Carmes
Barjols
Draguignan - food and arts & crafts market
Fréjus
Isle sur la Sorgue - antiques - held throughout the town
Isle sur la Sorgue - food market
Manosque - food market
Marseille - book market - cours Julien (every second Sat of each month)
St-Rémy-de-Provence
St-Tropez - flea market - place des Lices

Photo of the Week: Lavender in Provence

The middle of June marks the beginning of lavender season in Provence. Not the harvesting season, but rather, the peak of lush purple fields that are a feast for both the eye and the nose. Acres and acres of rolling hils, ochre colored cliffs, green vineyards and thousand-year old villages nestled between rows of brightly colored purple lavender.

Sometimes it Pays to Be a Slacker

Anyone planning a trip to Europe that will include a visit to any of the major museums, has probably gotten all sorts of advice about arriving super early so as to get a good spot in the queue. Same for major local attractions such as Pearl Harbor, the Empire State Building, etc. The length of these queues is the stuff of legends: 3-hour waits to see the Sistine Chapel, or the view from the top of the Empire State Building are not unheard of.

Consummate late-risers that we are, we never arrive anywhere before 10am, especially while travelling, unless it's for a flight (for some reason, all our flights seem to depart before sunrise!) But it seems to work out to our advantage and I think I've stumbled on a rarely discussed travel secret. There's no need to get to the Louvre or the Uffizi Gallery at 7:00 am to get a good place in line. Rather, show up shortly before noon (or even later), as is our habit, and you will find all the conscientious and very self-disciplined visitors have already cleared the line!

This straggler approach has rewarded us with an almost solo visit with David at the Accademia Gallery in Florence, a closeup one-on-one with the Mona Lisa, and a mere 10 minute wait at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, when naysayers told us not to bother trying to go there after 10 am. In addition to missing the line, in European locations, our timing usually means everyone else has run off for lunch so we get the double bonus of experiencing almost empty halls.

So for those who have the resolve to obey the 6 am alarm while on vacation, and are willing to spend half the day lining up for a single attraction, more power to you, but we prefer to stay up all night watching funny foreign language tv, trying to figure out what they're saying, while we share a bottle of local wine and review the day's adventures, and we know we can count on you to have the queue cleared for our noon-time arrival after our luxuriously late breakfast.

Photo of the Week: New Mexico

New Mexico is a mix of desert and forest, volcanoes and ice caves, hot and cold, old and new. History buffs can visit the oldest church (San Miguel) and the longest continuously inhabited homes in the country (Taos Pueblo). Those seeking physical pursuits have their choice of skiing, hiking, camping, horseback-riding, white water rafting and more. Nature enthusiasts can visit one of several extinct volcanoes, lava fields, and even a 10,000 year-old ice cave, which stays a cool 31 degrees even when the outside temperature is in the 90s. Conspiracy theorists and UFO buffs can make their way to Roswell and meet up with like-minded travelers. And for a trip back in time, rent a convertible and top off a drive down vintage Route 66 with lunch at a drive-in burger joint. From trendy Santa Fe with its highbrow and historic hotels, shops and dining, to the woodsy and natural charm of Ojo Caliente with its rustic chic adobe cottages with private hot mineral springs, and all the varied terrain in between, New Mexico is a hidden gem with something for everyone.

A review is only as good as the reviewer

Yay! Trip Advisor has recently added an invaluable feature to its reviews: a history of the reviewer right next to their screen name. We use Trip Advisor a lot; in fact, we never book a hotel without checking it out first. Trip Advisor is a free travel guide and research website that hosts reviews from its users and other information designed to help plan your vacation. The review database is sizable, with reviews of over 400,000 hotels and over 90,000 attractions around the world. Most reviews are helpful and really go above and beyond what you might find on a hotel-booking site but occasionally there are extreme reviews; either extremely favorable, or extremely poor. When I see those, I always look up the history of the reviewer to see if it’s just a troll or a one-time reviewer venting over a single bad experience which completely skews their review. Well now, you don’t even have to leave the page to find that out; you can roll your mouse over their names and see immediately how many posts they’ve put up and if you actually want to see some of the past reviews, that information is one click away. Now this already great resource is even better!

The Expedia 24-hour Sale... hotel deals in a hurry

If you haven't already, consider making the Expedia 24-hour Sale site a part of your travel planning repertoire. This site is truly an undiscovered gem. We know that there are a ton of hotel booking resources available online, but, if you are flexible on your choice of hotel and/or looking to save a few dollars, the Expedia 24-hour Sale site can reveal some remarkable discounts. There is one catch... these hotel deals are available for one day only (from midnight to 11:59 PM, Pacific Standard Time). To be clear, you can book your stay in advance, however, you have to actually make the reservation the day that you see the deal.

This isn't an empty recommendation. We have used this site several times to book hotels and each of these were instances when we were not expecting to find a deal anywhere, for example, a decent hotel with availability in Waikiki for under $100 per night in the week between Christmas and New Years. That was quite a find. We don't always find a great deal here, but we do often enough to keep this site very much on the radar.

One note of caution when purchasing through Expedia, check the refund policy before you hit the final submit button. We find that some reservations are refundable, while others are not or sometimes incur a change penalty.

Which airmiles and rewards programs should I join?

It should come as no surprise that not all airmiles programs are created equally. What are the differences? And which ones should you join? These are important questions. We can't answer them all in one post, but we can help get you on the right path.

How you collect points in these programs varies. Most programs award you miles based on how many miles you pay for and fly, and they also provide numerous ways to earn additional miles through non-flight-related activity. A handful of programs reward you with points for each segment that you fly, e.g. a non-stop flight is 1 point, but a flight with 1 layover is 2 segments and thus 2 points. Some programs even provide both types of rewards system. We lean toward programs that offer miles rather than points.

Every major airline has a travel reward program. We believe that it is a good idea to belong to several of them. At the moment, we recommend Continental OnePass, Northwest WorldPerks, and Delta Skymiles, because these programs provide the best opportunities to both earn and redeem miles. Many other programs out there tease you with great opportunities to earn miles, but then make it very difficult to find available seats when you try to redeem those miles. The three programs that we recommend don't always provide you with the perfect seats on the perfect dates, but they do so more often than other programs. We also really like that they are a part of the SkyTeam alliance and have reciprocity with each other (as well as other airlines) which gives us more options. They also offer very competitive prices for their airfares which makes earning miles on paid flights a bit easier on our wallets, which is a farily important part of our strategy in collecting miles.

There are some major changes on the horizon however. In December of 2009, Northwest WorldPerks will collapse into Delta Skymiles. Also, in October of 2009, Continental OnePass will no longer be affiliated with the SkyTeam program. This, of course, means that we may need to change our strategies for collecting airmiles... more about that in a future post.

So, when should you join these reward programs? Often, the programs will give you additional miles when you sign-up. Ordinarily, you may want to monitor for a while to see when they have one of these promotions as it can sometimes net you a great deal of bonus miles. Of course, the longer you sit out, the longer you are NOT accumulating airmiles. We recommend that you just jump in and get that airmile wheel running as soon as possible, esp. since there are changes to these programs on the horizon. It is in your interest to collect as many airmiles as possible, before some of these opportunities go away for good!

Delta SkyMiles

Delta SkyMiles is the rewards program for Delta airlines, and is a part of the SkyTeam Alliance which currently has 14 member airlines. We find that Delta offers some of the most competitive airfares among the SkyTeam Alliance members and as a result is a great airline in which to earn airmiles for actual flight miles flown (as opposed to earning airmiles for non-flight related activities).

Due to the Delta and Northwest merger, the Delta SkyMiles program will become the rewards program for both Delta and Northwest in December of 2009, and the Northwest WorldPerks program will no longer exist at this time.

Northwest WorldPerks

Northwest WorldPerks is the rewards program for Northwest airlines, and is a part of the SkyTeam Alliance which currently has 14 member airlines. We find that Northwest WorldPerks offers some of the best opportunities for earning miles through non-flight related activities. The WorldPerks Mall has the widest selection of online partner stores and is often the first place we check when we want to collect airmiles when making an online purchase. Northwest WorldPerks also has some of the best reward flight options when you want to redeem your airmiles for international travel.

Unfortunately, this program will be coming to an end in December of 2009. Northwest and Delta have merged and the end result is that there will be that only the Delta SkyMiles program will survive. However, all of the airmiles that you earn in Northwest WorldPerks can be transferred to Delta SkyMiles, so it is in your interest to take advantage of this and collect as many miles as you can in Northwest WorldPerks before December!

Continental OnePass

Continental OnePass is where we currently aim to collect the most airmiles. It is the rewards program for Continental airlines, and a part of the SkyTeam Alliance which currently has 14 member airlines. We find that Continental OnePass offers the most reward flight options when you want to redeem your airmiles. At the moment, it also offers some of the best incentives for earning airmiles. Unfortunately, Continental will be leaving the SkyTeam Alliance in October 2009, but we still think it is the best value at the moment.