TRAVEL ADVISORY | Ever dream of staying at a luxury hotel on a backpacker’s budget? Then Off and Away could be for you. This new hotel room bidding site features only the very best properties with all the luxuries and amenities you could ever dream of. What the site doesn’t have is a price tag. Read more
TRAVEL ADVISORY | Quick. What hotel comes to mind when you think of Victoria, B.C.? If you didn’t say the Fairmont Empress Hotel I’d be shocked. With its historical blend of architectural styles, grand public spaces and elegant afternoon tea, the Empress easily maintains its number one position as the most British of places to stay in Victoria.
Yet there’s another hotel that looks and feels infinitely more British than the Empress and happens to be located directly across the street from it. Read more
TRAVEL ADVISORY | If you read Frugalbits routinely, you already know that when we travel we prefer hotels with big personalities, either in appearance or the overall experience. Of course we wish no less for our friends when they come to visit us in Vancouver. If you are expecting Christmas guests this week like we are, and you’re already tapped out room-wise chez vous, consider putting up your visitors in one of the following three stylish boutique hotels that are offering super deals for great quality.
TRAVEL ADVISORY | Forget Seattle, Vancou- verites. For a getaway where the food is the hottest (just Google “Portland Food Scene” and you’ll see), the hotels are the coolest and the shopping is sales tax free, spend an extended weekend in Portland, Oregon, especially this time of year.
Why now? Because Portland hoteliers are heading into what they call the low season, when their already reasonable rates drop even more dramatically—and the chicest hotels are seriously budget priced. (These rates are even more attractive with the Canadian dollar currently at par.)
TRAVEL ADVISORY | The next time I visit Paris (in my dreams!), I’m going to ride a bicycle just like the one Ross Bonetti is sitting on in this picture. Ross, who owns LivingSpace Interiors in Vancouver and travels to Paris twice a year to attend the Maison et Objet trade show, has always crisscrossed the city by taxi or metro—until a year ago September when he started renting bicycles. Now he can’t imagine getting around the city on anything but a two-wheeler. Read more
SAVE ON CHIC | Stuff like this never happens to me, so when it finally did I was gobsmacked—though I shouldn’t have been, because my former sister-in-law Ruth, a Portland attorney with a sharp mind and a gimlet eye for bargains, had been telling me for years that Portland’s Goodwill thrift stores were awesome places to find top brand apparel. Read more
TALK IS CHEAP | Roaming. It’s such a romantic word— conjuring up carefree rambles in fields of flowers or unhindered journeys on the highways and byways with only the open road ahead. Well, that’s what I imagined until I opened up my Rogers Wireless bill after a short trip to the States to find a staggering $358 in “roaming” charges! That seems more like highway robbery than footloose footwork. Read more
TRAVEL ADVISORY | Are you friendly, flexible and fluent in English? Then for the price of a plane ticket to Madrid, you can spend eight days but zero money at a four-star resort in rural Spain. Pueblo Ingles, meaning English Village, is an organization in Spain that allows Spanish speakers to interact with English speakers. Instead of cash, you exchange your life experience, stories and patience with learners for luxurious accommodation, exquisite meals and a lounge chair by a pool. The Spanish speakers get to practise speaking real or “raw” English, as the program likes to call it, in a totally English environment; not even a “hola” allowed. Read more
STAY HERE | Whether it’s on a futon in a friend’s living room or on a king-size bed in a luxury villa, what you need when you travel is a place to lay your head at the end of the day. Finding one to suit myriad travel tastes and budgets has become easier with the online service Airbnb.com.
The website was started in 2008 as Airbed and Breakfast by three San Francisco guys who rented out inflatable beds during a hotel room shortage. Now Airbnb connects travellers with people who have space to rent in over 4,300 cities worldwide. You can search by city or country, plus by price, room type and date, and read reviews by previous guests. You then contact a host through the website and book online using a credit card or PayPal account. Read more
STAY HERE There are two schools of thought on travel accom-modation. There is the group who say: a bed is a bed and all I need is somewhere clean to lay my head because I don’t plan to spend time in my room anyway; and there is the other group who feel that where they stay should be memorable in the way it looks or contributes to the place’s overall experience.
I understand both these points of view and have fallen into one or the other of these groups depending on the occasion. But I do love design—and the idea of regionality where hotels are concerned—so I’m always on the lookout for accommodation with what I call original spin, hotels that “have a look” and feel local. Oh yes, and I want them to give great service AND be reasonably priced. Read more