30Traveler – Travel Podcast  

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Los Angeles Stopover Trip Report. What I did for one my 1 night, 2 day stopover in Los Angeles. Falling asleep on the beach, a farmers market and the most delicious Strawberries I ever ate. A fun couple of days in the summer California sun. Places mentioned: Vegan Glory (Inexpensive Thai Food and Vegan Fast Food, Beverly Hills) Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Wholefoods Market South Sepulveda Blvd, Manhattan Beach public library, Motel 6 LAX, Redondo Beach farmers market is Thursday mornings.

This is another one-take-wonder podcast episode – fun and tip-filled but lots of ums. Sorry! Travel Podcast, Budget Travel.

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Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoy!

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Hawaii Trip Report. My AWESOME beach holiday. Finally recorded another podcast episode after a long period of podcasting slackness. Had an amazing time! Have gorgeous beach pics and will put some on the blog at www.30traveler.com. (Pics to come soon. Promise!)

This is another one-take-wonder podcast episode – fun and tip-filled but lots of ums. Sorry! Hawaii Travel Podcast, Budget Travel.

Subscribe to get new episodes by searching 30traveler in itunes.

p.s. its a few months since I paid any attention to this site and I have 3000 spam comments and a similar number of spam emails, so if you left a non-spam comment or sent a non-spam email, big apologies that your message got lost. Please resend if you still want to contact. 30traveler (at) 30traveler .com

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I’m going to be spending the next few months in the US. I’ll be subletting an apartment in New York, but will be getting there via stopovers in L.A. and Boston.

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Please note: The smoothest way to get the video is to use the download button. Recommended players for playing the video are Apple Quicktime or VLC Media Player (both free). Video is a normal mp4 file (50mb).

Priceline is one of my favorite ways of saving A LOT of money on hotels.

I’ve used it for Europe and the US.

Its perfect for the budget traveler who doesn’t want to stay in hostels 100% of the time.

However Priceline can be intimidating the first time you use it so I’ve created a video tutorial.

My explanation of the famous free re-bid hack starts at about the 6:30 minute mark.

For two people traveling together: I have gotten 4* hotel rooms for similar to the cost of two hostel beds by using Priceline.

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First ever episode of 30Traveler Podcast

Covers 2 common beginner travel mistakes.

5 and 1/2 minutes.

Travel is expensive and vacation time is limited.

My general rule of thumb is that you should go exactly where you want to go on your trip rather than picking cheaper countries that aren’t at the very top of your list.

There are many ways to save money while you’re traveling.

Unless you’re planning a long, ultra low budget trip to a developing country, you’ll usually be able to find ways of traveling in more expensive countries for a similar budget as traveling in less expensive countries.

Make sure you consider the entire cost of the trip when making travel decisions.
I usually work out 2 numbers: total cost and cost per day.

Total cost

the cost of the total trip including the cost of all flights, visas etc

Cost per day

as above but divided by the number of days I’ll be away

Lost income

These days I now factor in lost income and take this into account when I’m considering things like whether a cheaper/slower transportation option is really saving me money.

My typical budget

Depending on the trip (factors like whether I’m traveling alone or with my pair) my budget for trips is usually between 100 and 200 NZD per day ($70-$140 US at time of writing), including all flights.

Lets say you live in Los Angeles and are planning a trip around the East Coast of Australia, starting in Brisbane and making your way to Melbourne.

Sale fares are available to Brisbane return and to Melbourne return.

Do you you need to backtrack?

Generally not.

You can usually book even sale fares as open jaw tickets.

e.g.
1. LAX to Brisbane
2. make you own way from Brisbane to Melbourne
3. Melbourne to LAX

Sometimes call centre agents might give you misinformation about whether this is allowed or not.

The cost should be
50% of the LAX-Brisbane return fare
plus
50% of the LAX_Melbourne return fare.

Extra tip: The Qantas website should give you the correct pricing for this if you click “multistop – international” on the homepage and on the next screen make sure the “form” tab rather than the “map” tab is selected.

The other option you should of course check is your stopover options e.g. LAX to Perth return with a stopover in Sydney.

In Europe, getting a taxi to the airport can cost 100 Euro.

This is especially the case for the airports used by budget airlines (Easyjet, Ryan Air etc) that tend to be a long distance from the city center.

Public transport is often a far better option, especially for solo travelers.

Before booking a flight, if you plan on using public transport to get to/from the airport make sure the public transportation will be running at the hour/day you need to get you to the airport on time.

Public transport options might not run as early/late as you need,
or might be more limited on weekends or public holidays compared to regular weekdays. Make sure you check this. Even taxis may be very limited and/or charging inflated prices on public holidays.

You’ll need to allow lots of extra time in case the transport is not running on time etc. I’ve had experiences of airport buses being full by the time they go to the stop I was waiting at, the driver informing us he wasn’t taking any more passengers, and needing to wait for the next bus.

If you’ll be carrying bags, also consider whether you’ll need to be walking up/down stairs etc if taking public transport.

Its sounds like there is a lot to think about but its worth it!

I’ve read a lot of blog posts that recommend traveling to places in “low season” as a way to save money.

Travel seasons are usually classed as

Low
Shoulder (in between low and high)
High
Peak (depends on the destination but times like Christmas/New Year, during special holidays or festivals, during US Spring break etc)

My view – avoid peak and low

My view of this is that avoiding traveling peak season is desirable (unless you specifically want to attend a particular festival or event) but…

… weather is incredibly important to me when traveling (freezing cold, gray skies, Paris in the middle of winter was not so fun).

Travel is expensive and I like to see places at their best so I generally don’t travel in low season, especially for beach destinations when water that is calm, clear, and turquoise during high season might be rough and churned up during low season.

Exceptions

I did very much enjoy traveling to Russia in winter since it seemed like the quintessential Russian experience, but I would love to go back in summer.

Sometimes travel seasons are based more on the weather where most of the travelers are coming from than the weather at the destination e.g. US winter is high season for Caribbean. Factor this in.

I don’t travel enough on airlines that have Frequent Flyer programs to have “status” on any airline and I’ve found it beneficial to have both American Airlines and Qantas FF memberships.

Two ways this has been helpful.

1. Sometimes radically different points needed for exact same award flights.

For example, American Airlines from any Australian or New Zealand destination to any US destination (e.g. Sydney to New York), one way is

37,500 American Airlines points

Using Qantas points Sydney to New York one way

64,000 Qantas points! That’s 170% of the points AA requires.

For these flights the actual flights taken are the exact same flights – as in the same aircraft.

2. Points earning opportunities differ.

I’ve found that certain flights operated by OneWorld alliance airlines don’t earn the usual 1 point per mile Qantas points but do earn the full one point per mile American Airlines points.

I mainly bother with Qantas points because I have a credit card that earns Qantas points and not being from the US I’m not able to get a credit card that earns American Airlines points.