great takes on family travel in the U.S.

Last month, my family of four had the opportunity to travel to New Mexico to help my father-in-law celebrate a significant birthday (I won’t tell you which one, to protect his privacy ;-). Besides meeting up with aunts, uncles and cousins, we also managed to pack in a great weekend getaway on a trip I would recommend…

see more »

A friend of mine from Chicago viewed my photos of a recent trip online and asked me two questions:

1. Did you take all those photos?
2. Is this place in China?

My answers to both questions are “YES”. And not only you, but also Google has “told” me that this fairyland called “jiuzhaigou” is far less well known than Xi’an, Guilin or even Yangshuo. Besides, everyone with a most common camera is able to take pictures like ->>!

• Results 1 - 10 of about 587,000 for “jiuzhaigou”.
• Results 1 - 10 of about 1,100,000 for “yangshuo”.
• Results 1 - 10 of about 12,500,000 for “xian” .

Jiuzhaigou (九寨沟, means “valley of nine villages” in Chinese) Valley is located in Nanping County, 450 kilometers (about 280 miles) to the north of Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province, which is the home to spicy Chinese cuisine. I believe Sichuan is the “California” of China in terms of the variety of travel resources. Being one of 166 UNESCO World Natural Heritages in the world, and one of 45 in Asia Pacific since 1992 according to Wikipedia, Jiuzhaigou was first found accidentally by woodcutters in the 1900s then became a nation nature reserve in 1978. In 1982 it became one of the first scenic areas under special nation protection. An easy way to interpret the status of “special nation protection” is to consider it as a National Park.

The Jiuzhaigou Valley we talk about today consists of three valleys: Shuzheng Valley, Rize Valley, and Zechawa Valley. It combines blue/green lakes, waterfalls, verdant forests, snow-covered mountains, and the folk customs of Qiang peoples. The roads to visit these three valleys were developed as a “Y” shape. To protect the environment, normal gas-consuming vehicles are banned in the park except of those of the local Qiang peoples who live within the park. The green transportation system is very convenient and has basic access to all the view points. Buy a map in visitor center and follow the bus route, it is self explanatory.

Admission fee: 220 RMB/person (two-day pass), shuttle bus: 90RMB/person/day in peak season (April to November). Half price other time.

How to get there:

1. By bus: there are buses departed from Chengdu city or Dujiangyan city daily. It is about 450 km from Chengdu city. Buses journey along the winding roads and the trip takes around 10 hrs in normal road condition. Cost: 120RMB.

2. By private car with your own driver: you can hire a private car with a driver if you want to tour around Sichuan province. The private car won’t remove the boredom of a long drive, but will provide you more flexibility. Cost: 450 - 700 RBM/day, from sedan to 4W drive.

3. By air: Huanglong-Jiuzhaigou airport is 88km away from Jiuzhaigou Valley. There are flights from 3 cities：Chengdu, Chongqing and Xi’an. Flight time is 45 - 75 minutes, depending on departure location. Cost: 980RMB (before tax) for Chengdu departed flights (over 20 flights per day in peak season), shuttle bus to the Valley is 45RMB/person, private car is 200 RMB.

Where to book your hotel:

1. Hotel booking sites such as elong and ctrip, similar to Expedia or Quikbook in the U.S.

2. Local travel agents: there aren’t many options for hotels on elong or ctrip, but local travel agents have many more resources and you can get better rate with them. The only obstacle will be language.

3. Your private tour guide: if you travel with a local tour guide, let him/her handle all the logistics. They can also get good rate for you.

In theory, you don’t need to book in advance since there are nothing except hotels outside of the park.

When to visit:

Water is the highlight of the park. We have a saying: Once you come back from Jiuzhaigou, there is no other water worthy of your visit. I did some research by clicking through hundreds of images on Picasa online public albums and checked the image information (camera, resolution, day time). My research shows that everyday is a best time to visit, but Oct. 15- 30 is the best time to see foliage, however the chance for rain is also higher, since fall is rainy season.

How to find a private tour guide：

I started by posting my itinerary on a few forums (in Chinese language) seeking travel buddies to share private car costs. A few days later I received responses and chatted with them to sync our travel plans. In the end, I found two other women who had booked a private car with a driver and wanted to share rides for the first day. Here are some additional suggestions:

• Check with your friends who are already in China. Even though they don’t know a private tour guide, they can share with you about the real China and help you prepare for the trip.
• Check with your friends who have been to China recently. My college professor called me after seeing my online shared album for Jiuzhaigou and I ended up sharing the contact information for the driver.
• Visit or call your local tour operators who run China tours. They might have some connections with local Chinese travel agents who run inbound tours, but the private tour guides are very likely too expensive since they want to sell you a group tour package rather than encouraging you to travel independently.
• Spend half a day while you are in to visit local travel agents and ask for private guides. Know the market price and stick to it and you won’t be taken for a ride. Don’t agree to pay in advance.
• Check on-line travel forums and communities. Active community members or forum moderators are always there to help you. But you need to describe your situation and needs in detail and leave your contact information if you don’t plan to check the boards. I recently met a girl who is an expert on the Tripadvisor Shanghai forum and she told me she spends “lots of time helping people”. Places to start: Lonely Planet Thorn Tree, TravBuddy and TripAdvisor.
• Use on-line Question and Answer communities. Yahoo! Answers come to my mind first. Nothing to lose when asking a question.
• Utilize on-line search engines. You will need the city names to do the search, in order to receive useful results. There should be plenty of information, but sometimes it is difficult to tell the quality. Ask to chat with them online or even a phone interview.

See more Jiuzhaigou Valley photos here. And let me know if you need an English speaking tour guide in Jiuzhaigou area!

Hard to believe it has been a month since we have updated the travel blog search widget! Many great suggestions have been coming in and we have added these blogs to our search database. For the original story on this widget, please see this post. And if you would like to add your blog to the search widget, please comment and leave the URL and the three keywords you would use to describe your blog.

Bloggers that reached out to us to be included are: Radar, A Luxury Travel Blog, My Travel Backpack, Planet Eye, Europe A La Carte, Visit the Coqui, Vinography, Juan Sobejano, TravelPost.com Insider, New York Traveler, BOOT, Delicious Baby, Notes from the Road, Buenos Aires Through My Eyes, Travel News Deals, Exposed Planet, Nerds Eye View, Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet?, Rolf Pott’s Vagabonding, and New York Traveler.net.

The bloggers above recommended additional blogs to be added, including: Booking Blog, Sector Turismo y Marketing Hotelero, Receptivo Costa Brava, Albert Barra, Isaac Vidal, Buenos Tours, Oh Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires Daily, Descubre Madrid, Corrugated City, The Where Blog, and Yearn to Travel.

If your blog has been recommended for our search widget, we would like to know the keywords that you would assign to your blog, which will help us refine the search. And if you have any others that should be added, please let us know.

————

Great suggestions have been coming in for additions to the Kango travel blog search. We have updated the database with these travel blogs:

Happy Hotelier
Hoteles 2.0
Pangkor Island Blog
Bicycle Adventures Blog
Yangshuo Travel Guide Blog

If you like the widget, be sure to add it to your own blog. Keep sending your suggestions for travel blogs to add to the search engine!

Last week, I was asked to select my favorite submissions to the weekly Travel Blog Carnival, organized by Darren from Travel Rants. This week, he asked me again! A plethora of new content this week, and lots of interesting ones to boot, I had fun choosing!

Barbara over at Hole in the Donut writes about the dangers of Zimbabwe and her personal trip to this area in 2007. I don’t know if she was a fearless adventurer or just in the right place at the right time, but her experience sounds exciting and diverse. Now that Zimbabwe has been put on the list of dangerous places to visit, Barbara’s account might be the closest we all get to visiting!

Claude from Les Explorers showed us the pitfalls of the current hotel search system, and how he managed to find the lowest rate for his upcoming stay for ITB PhocusWright in Berlin. What a nightmare to go through, there is definitely an opportunity for innovation here.

Over at Yearn To Travel, Medelise talks about the Stowe Derby, the oldest and most unique ski race in North America. While not a skier myself, I was fascinated by her description of the terrain. Definitely sounds like a “crazy” race!

And finally, Brian over at International Listings put together a very detailed list of the top 25 castles in the world. The pictures are outstanding, and based on his descriptions, my favorites would have to be Kolossi Castle in Cyprus and Himeji Castle in Japan. Even our lovely Hearst Castle in California is included!

Wonderful submissions, thank you to all who took the time, I enjoyed reading and getting to know some new bloggers. If you would like to participate in a future carnival, please send your submissions to travelblog.carnival at gmail dot com.

If you’re not from Texas and you’re thinking about taking a little traveling vacation through West Texas, then I have a few tips for you. By the way, when I say travel I mean from one little town to another (or even city to town) but I’m predominantly talking about highway travel here.

For hard and fast state laws and regulations you can find a wealth of information at Findlaw or the Texas DPS website. But I’m going to tell you about a few things that aren’t official but will take the mystery out of your cross-country trip.

1. Friendliness: People really do drive friendly in Texas. If you are driving on a two-lane highway do not be surprised if as a car comes towards you and passes you the driver raises a finger (or even the whole hand) to wave at you. Please note that unless you are driving erratically or the gesture is accompanied by a honk and yell this is normally a very friendly gesture. Try it out for yourself (just make sure to use the correct finger – index versus middle) and you’ll be amazed at how many waves you get back!
2. Strange Passing Rituals: If you happen to be traveling along a two lane highway and find yourself quickly gaining on a car in front of you, please do not panic if you see that car suddenly veer off to the right and drive on the shoulder. Texans are very considerate for the most part and the person in front of you is giving you the opportunity to pass them so that your travel is not slowed and you are not inconvenienced. Granted this can be a bit disconcerting when you are driving at speeds in excess of 70. Your best bet is to get past them quickly before a curve appears or they veer just a tad bit too far and gravel begins flying up at your car. Is this legal? Who knows! But it is a fact of life on Texas two-lanes. Now you will also understand why that car that just flew up behind you is flashing their lights, tailgating, and honking. They are expecting you to pull over so that they can pass.
3. Do Not Run Out Of Gas: Pay very close attention to your map and know the distances your car can travel…even when sitting on empty. It is entirely possible to go hundreds of miles on country roads and not pass an open gas station. If you are driving late at night the odds double that the stores will be closed in the little towns that you are passing through.
4. Make Sure You Have In-Car Entertainment For The Kids: Do not count on the passing scenery to entice your little ones for very long. If you are in West Texas you will find miles and miles of flat country with little to no variety in the scenery. Texas has a wild and beautiful feel to it but it is also a wide and long state and it literally takes hours to get from one location to another.

Well those are all the tips I have for now, hopefully it will be enough to make you feel like a Texas native while you are traversing our rugged countryside. Have you ever driven across Texas on a trip? If so, do you have any additional tips you would like to see here? Or possibly something happened while driving that you did not understand at the time and still puzzles you? If so, just let me know and I will do my best to take the mystery out of driving across Texas!

Until next time . . .

Paige aka PJsTravelinTexas

Continued from Part I…..

The Bali Packing Guide:

Sitting on in your room (or just outside it) with a hot breakfast waiting for you, and some of the most amazing and fragrant scenery it’s possible to forget where you are from (and want to stay in Bali forever)

With all these amazing surroundings, at may be possible to imagine that you are in paradise. And that nothing could disturb you! until a mosquito lands on your leg.

There are a couple things you need to bring with you; they are ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL, if you don’t have them you will wish you did. see more »

I have been given 900 words to describe Bali. (1/2 of them I will write today)

I suppose this is because I recently took my wife to Bali for our honeymoon and as a result I have been asked to create a little Bali travel guide!

900 words max… wow! Where to start? Damn three more gone! Four more…

Here are the quick facts about traveling in Bali:

• Bali is one of the most amazing places on earth; it is both beautiful and fun and the local people are amazingly friendly.
• Bali is tropical and the weather is warm and perfect almost all year round, even in the rainy season.
• During the time that it is winter in North America, Bali is warm and the rain is like a warm shower.
• Bali is expensive go (flights cost over $1000 from LAX) but once you are there, it is amazingly inexpensive.
• You can get a great hotel room for $50USD/night or a private villa with a private pool for ~$250/night.
• You can rent a nice place to live for $400-$500 a month.
• You can “eat out” every meal for under $20 a day.
• Taxi rides cost $3-$5 depending on how far and you can find a private driver for a whole day for $20.
• The people of Bali are some of the friendliest and kind in the world, and many of them speak English.
• The people are mostly Hindu and they believe that smiling is very important.
• There are only a few different names in Bali and the names correspond to the order of birth, so you will meet a lot of people named Ketut or Putu.

250 words down…

Bali Trip FAQ:

Q: When should I go to Bali?

A: As soon as possible, seriously, it is amazing.

Q: Who should go to Bali?

A: Anyone who loves to travel. Again, seriously, it is amazing.

Q: What is the best time of year to go?

A: All times are great! If you like warm rain go in winter, if you want it dry and sunny go in the summer.

Q: Should I find a Travel Agent in Bali?

A: Yes!!! This will cost you nothing (the agent gets paid by the hotels, and actually your agent will save you money as the hotels want to stay in good graces with the agent) I know a really good one, you can email me for her name brian at kango dot <com>.

Q: Where should I stay in Bali?

A: Uma in Ubud is great, the Ulin is fantastic, and I also like the Honeymoon guest house.

Q: What is Bali “like”?

A: Bali is a developing nation; the infrastructure is not like America or Europe. Expect uneven roads, pollution on the main streets, different hygiene standards, etc. It is also fantastically beautiful with amazing works of art, rice paddy fields, great food, and extremely friendly people.

Thanks For Reading Part I
Stay tuned for Part II coming very soon.

Part II will cover the Bali packing guide and some of the best things to do while you are there!

From guest blogger, Craig Grimes, of AccessibleBarcelona.

At the Destination

The last part of planning the trip is transport at the chosen destination. Firstly there is the issue of getting from the airport to the hotel. Depending on your destination choice and your disability this can be either very hard or very easy!

Airport Transfers

Many European airports have accessible shuttle buses and trains from the airport to the city centre or to the main tourist resorts. The local tourist information board’s and airport web sites normally contain this type of information and they should also give information about access at the terminals. A good resource for finding official airport websites is the A – Z of World Airports. Remember that if public transport is used to travel there is also the issue of luggage and how it will be carried.

Accessible taxi information may be available from either the tourist information board or even your chosen hotel. Some of the companies that have been set up by disabled people may also be able to arrange accessible transfers.

Getting Around

If you have an idea of what you would like to see and do during your trip you can use the local transport and tourist information web sites to plan routes before you leave. In this way you don’t have to waste time trying to figure it out whilst you are on vacation and it also allows you to check which methods of transport are accessible.

Other Considerations

Whilst you now have the bulk of your trip planned, there are still some final considerations to take into account. If you use specialized mobility equipment at home, you may also require it for the duration of your trip, this may include an electric hoist, a wheelchair or a shower chair. You may decide to take your own with you or in some locations you may be able to hire suitable equipment.

If you decide to take your own mobility equipment you may also want to contact you local dealer to see if they can supply you with the contact details of a dealer at your destination should you have any problems.

In many major tourist locations companies now offer accessible tours for disabled travelers. These tours and excursions should be pre-booked in order to avoid disappointment as they can get full quickly or they may take several days to arrange.

Post Trip

As you may have noticed from this article one of the main resources available to disabled travelers is other disabled traveler’s experiences and opinions. We tend to complain about the negatives of traveling and although this is normal, it is also great to share our positive experiences and encourage other disabled people to travel. There are a whole host of information web sites and travel blogs including Kango that would be more than happy to post your travel experiences. So don’t just travel, share it with the rest of us too.

Additional Resources:

Part I: Plan Accessible Trips
Part II: Getting to the Destination
Rolling Rains Report on Inclusive Tourism: A New Strategic Alliance for the Disability Rights Movement
Rolling Rains Report on The Global Reach of Accessible Tourism: IATC 2005 Keynote Address
Access Travel