Free Hotels

Free Hotels

Sounds like a scary title, huh? They are not really free, but nearly, as you will only pay taxes! I'm more than happy to announce that the Free Hotels blog have just opened to the public.

There you will be able to find absolutely free information on how to get any of the following options:

• 3 Days, 2 Nights, for 2 persons, 3 and 4 star hotels, choose between 19 cities: 26$/person - Savings: 86% discount
• 3 Days, 2 Nights, for up to 4 persons, 4 star hotels, choose between 28 cities: 16$/person - Savings: 88% discount
  
• 3 Days, 2 Nights Bahamas Cruise, for 2 persons: 71$/person - Savings: 73% discount
  
• 8 Days, 7 Nights, Condo Getaway 4 stars, up to 4 persons, 600 locations worldwide: 140$/person - Savings: 68% discount

To take a closer look to all this offers and discover the free way in which you can get them, you can go to FREE HOTELS

FREE HOTELS

Travel to Europe - The Best Airline linking US & Canada to Europe

Travel to Europe - The best Airline linking US & Canada to Europe

There are many options you can take, and of course it will depend on the place where you are based either in the US, Canada, or Europe. To reduce complexity, and due to the Low Cost Airlines in Europe, that can allow all round trips for nearly 20 euros with taxes and everything included, we will understand Europe as a single country.

Zoom Airlines is linking nowadays New York with London for only 343 Euros (497 US dollars) At same time, the major links between Europe and Canada can be done for a bit more of this price, reaching the maximum in the flight from London to Vancouver, that we can find for 468 Euros (679 US dollars). The savings are tremendous as you can see, probably a 50% or more cheaper than carriers that offer the same route.

You can find many other bargains and recommendations like this if you go to Travel to Europe

Travel to Europe - The Best Airline linkin US & Canada to Europe

Travel to Europe - Hong Kong to London for less than 450 euros

Travel to Europe - Hong Kong to London for less than 450 Euros

As you can read on the line above, this is a very interesting notice I received early this morning. For all the Europeans looking to explore Hong Kong or any Asian country you can explore from there, that is very good news. For all Asian countries that can make a stop in Hong Kong, reaching Europe will be for the price of 420 Euros. This prices are for the round trip with all taxes and fees included for traveling between January and March and you can find more details at the News section at Travel to Europe.

Also, if you do not come from the UK in Europe, or if you are from Asia and you plan to visit another European country, remember that with Ryanair you can move from London to nearly the whole Europe for about 20 Euros round trip taxes included on the timing of this offer if you book in advance and avoiding main holiday periods.

Travel to Europe - Hong Kong to Londo for less than 450 Euros

Need some help with the planning of your trip?
Do not hesitate to contact us at Travel to Europe

Travel to Europe

Travel to Europe

After all, in our business we spend all the time trying to locate the best options to constantly beat travel agencies prices. The question is, how do we make that?

Well, first of all, travel agencies have one big disadvantage: they need to get money from commissions. This places them into a game where the most expensive is the option they get for you, the higher commission they can get in return.

The idea, far from criticize this usual practice, is to let the reader understand that letting a travel agency to find the cheapest price will NEVER WORK. And this is a rule that happens with everything in life: the most intermediates you put in a process the most expensive the result will be.

In some way, you could tell me that saying this I am discouraging you to pay for my services, as long as doing it by yourself will be always cheaper. And you are completely right, and if you think you can do it by yourself I strongly recommend you to do so.

In other case, as the amount of information to deal with is enormous and very confusing, we have put in place an offer that tries to be realistic placing a fix amount for the whole organization of your trip, in a way that, as we don't have any business relations with the travel industry, the total amount that you pay for your trip will be exactly the one needed and none will go to pay us.

The prices we have put in place have been set in a way that summing up the travel costs plus the cost of our services, you can go on your trip cheaper than with any travel agency.

For more information, you can visit us at Travel to Europe

Travel to Europe

Interactive Language Courses

Interactive Language Courses

Visiting a different country must be a real cultural experience, and not a simple take some pics and take the plane back home. The language is one of the main barriers we find when traveling to a foreign country, specially if English is not widely spoken.

Some of the countries that can cause more trouble if you travel to Europe are Spain, France, Germany and Italy. For Spanish, French, German, and even Japanese, you can check the interactive courses that Rocket Languages offers in order to be prepared for your trip to the old continent or Japan, or simply if you fancy to learn one of those languages.

They offer a software that includes in a highly interactive method, from conversational skills that you can practice with a microphone and headsets with the computer, to hundreds of pages dealing with grammatic topics, games, videos, links to get free downloadable related materials, etc.

You can take a look directly at:

Spanish
French
German
Japanese

If you are planning a trip to or within Europe and need some help, do not hesitate to take a look at:

http://www.the-dream.ws

Interactive Language Courses

Real Low Cost?

Real Low Cost?

Today's question can be pretty obvious but you could not imagine the amount of people that does not pay attention to this detail.

Low cost airlines are playing hard in Europe, and in the research for the best airport taxes makes them find some locations that do not benefit at all the whole cost of the trip.

Placing bases in airports that are pretty distanct from the big cities can involve a cost that sometimes is bigger than thought. Remote places have two problems. The first one is of course the price for itself to reach a distanct location, but the second one and the one tht nobody thinks about is that this places often happen to have only one way to be reached. This means a single transportation company has the monopoly over this route and charges as much as they want provided that after all, you NEED to reach the airport to take your flight.

This is something that has happened recently in Skavsta airport, near Stockholm, were price has been raisen 5 euros from night to morning. Of course, the Flygbussarna monopoly will not change until competence enters the route and I do expect this price to keep growing in the near future if this situation does not change.

After all, then, do not simply rely on the price the airline is showing you in their web-page. Check also how far this airport is from the city you want to go and how much it is the cost implied to get there.

For more information on traveling within Europe, you can visit:

Travel to Europe

Real Low Cost?

Travel to Europe

Travel to Europe

After several weeks of hard work, I am very happy to announce that our new web-page promoting the services of European Trip Planning that we offer has opened today to the public, with a very simple and clear design.

I specially want to thank my old friend and excellent web-page programmer Pau, from Spain, for all his work those recent days (and specially long nights until 2:00 am) in bringing this little baby alive. Without his help it would have been impossible to finalize this plan.

Travel to Europe is offering trip planning services either to the European traveler that is looking to explore his own continent, and of course to all the travelers from the rest of the world that are interested in doing a route within Europe. The offer will include from selecting the best flights, planning of the route, transport and connections, accommodation, and even selection of activities at every determined place, presenting a final complete document with all the details requested, through personal discussion with the customer during the process.

The aim of Travel to Europe is to be fully personalized, in a way that never two trips will be the same. We have enormous databases but we do the work with our hands, and this is and will be a priority for us. We strongly believe that no search engine can improve the work done in this way. Another of the objectives is to fit in the gap left by travel agencies, where their action as intermediates getting comissions from all their clients makes it easy to guess that their options are not the best for you, but usually the best for the money they will get in return.

So, in the end, the idea is to be able to provide a very neutral point of view to the travel market and be able to deliver real valuable information, down to the detail that the client asks us for.

If you want to discover more on how we operate in order to reach this goals, do not hesitate to go to:

http://www.the-dream.ws

At the same time, for more information on our services, please contact:

info@the-dream.ws

We will be more than happy to introduce you to this new way of travel planning, where every customer counts as a person and no longer as a number.

Travel to Europe

Europe by Train

Europe by Train

Of course, we have spent all days speaking about air travel, air travel and air travel. In the end, it gives the feeling that we've lost the ground!! Of course, we can't underestimate the road and rail travel, and today I will briefly speak about rail.

Europe rail system was an expensive one. But, as many things in life, when competition arises, you are forced to drop the prices and offer something that gives a clear competitive advantage. That was what happened when low cost arrived to Europe and began being a reality, not just a cool expression.

Right now, different possibilities have opened to the consumer, either if you are European or not. Of course, internally, things always work better for us, as we have access to the inter-rail, a pass that was modified recently, from a simple and easy to understand approach that made real fanatics of this way of traveling, to a new "sophisticated" appearance that made all us spend some hours trying to understand the basics.

Yes, inter-rail has changed, freedom has supposedly been given, but at same time prices have gone up with the new rules, and some limitations have been placed that no longer allow unlimited travel.

Remember, this option is only for Europeans, and you will find all the details in the INTERRAIL official page

But hey! You are not European, and of course it also exists somthing for you. Eurail is a good way to travel within Europe and you can find options for almost everything. There are global passes that will allow you a determined number of trips within a certain time. Also you can find one country passes, 2 country and even 3 country passes. They also can be organized by region, such as the Nordics, Benelux, Eastern Europe, etc. To see detailed information on that one, you can take a look at the EURAIL official page

When looking at those options, either for interrail and eurail, please keep in mind that they normally offer big discounts in local transport, buses, and specially discounted or even free ferry connections. Take a look at what includes the price you are paying, and you will get the most out of it.

That's all for today, of course we will go in further detail on this topic in posts to come. For now, have a happy train traveling!

Europe by Train

South Pacific - The forgotten region

South Pacific - The Forgotten Region

Well, the title can sound a bit drastic, but of course we are talking about airlines and costs involved when traveling on the region. Whats is wrong there then?

Let's begin with a clear example: Barcelona - Stockholm, a typical 3 hours trip, can be purchased in Europe in low season for 25 euros (33 dollars) round trip taxes included. Comparing with a typical 3 hour trip as a Sydney - Auckland could be in the south Pacific area, after hours of research we are not able to find anything for less than 300 euros. And often this is the price for just one way!!!

I am not an expert, and possibly it exists a reason why low cost haven't developed still there, but the impact is terrifying. With another example: I want to travel from Europe to Australia or New Zealand. Good, Oasis Hong Kong gives me the chance to ge there for 400 euros. That was 2 thirds of the trip, great! Now the connection with Australia... Nothing for less than 1.000 euros, and if you want to reach New Zealand you will probably add a couple of hundred more.

In any case, there are some good news for the aussies, as it is within the expansion plans of Oasis Hong Kong to develop routes from Hong Kong to the capital and to Sydney, for probably 300-400 euros, but this is still just a plan.

Looking at other "hot deals", we also can find Qantas as one of the best options, specially at low season, with an average of 1300 euros for the Europe - South Pacific trip. Not bad compared to other options, but still a long way to go.

Now we take the opposite. Let's think we are or we want to go to ones of this western european countries. A very good option would be the so much called Zoom Airlines, which can give you a London - New York for about 350 euros (465 dollars). Then we need to cross America, which is not cheap but can be affordable. And then... again, the Pacific rules will place a 1000 euros fee at least to cross to the islands territory, which destroys your whole strategy.

After all, I just want to say thank you to this airlines that are trying to organize the long haul low fares, and I 100% support their expansion plans, as probably in the end we will see the light on South Pacific low fees. Meanwhile, we should keep focusing on saving!


South Pacific - The Forgotten Region

Oasis Hong Kong

Oasis Hong Kong

Today a special mention for this incredible airline, that has set the costs of travelling to Asia from Europe and viceversa to the minimum. If you book with time enough, you can fly from London to Hong Kong and come back, all taxes and charges included, for just 400 Euros (550 dollars). At same time, they connect Hong Kong with Vancouver for more or less the same amount.

Considering that a flight from Hong Kong to Australia for example costs about 1.000 dollars, being the distance 3 times less than Hong Kong-London, I think this airline deserves to be mentioned here, as it can be terribly useful as a gateway to Asia and Pacific countries.

Oasis Hong Kong

Flight Connections

Flight Connections

Today a very quick one!! Imagine you are going to travel to somewhere in Europe and you realize that none of the low cost carriers make this route that you want. You decide that maybe a combination of two flights can make a good deal but the question is... In which airport will usually be more economic to make the transfer?

Don't hesitate on that. The first you need to look for is the connections at Frankfurt airports, they have some of the lower taxes and are used by most of the low cost carriers as a center of operations.


Flight Connections

Holidays in Sweden

Holidays In Sweden - Part 3

And finally, this nice collection of summer pics in Stockholm. Who said in Sweden it is always cold???

Lost in an island... Somewhere... Who really cares??

Maybe it seems just a normal picture... But not when I tell you that it was taken at 2:30 AM!!

A relaxing walk around the city. The historic center with the castle is at the background.

Isn't this an inviting path? Wouldn't you follow it to the very end?

That's Drottningholms Palace. Nice place for the royalty to spend the summer!

In any case, these ones are the real kings of Stockholm, they are almost everywhere!!

And this picture, to finish with the Stockholm Special. Catch ya later, Stockholm!!


Holidays In Sweden - Part 3

Holidays in Sweden

Holidays in Sweden - Part 2

As Promised, here I come with some more pictures of the amazing landscape that Stockholm has to offer to the nature-loving visitor:

Yes, sure you can call it water, simply it feels a bit harder...

The Storm was coming... Ok, you caught me, in Sweden it never rains hard!

Simply, it looks good, even if it was -18 C when I was taking the pic

Ready for a bath? That's one of the "largest" beaches that we've got...

Sunset on the ice... you could walk from one island to another;)

Look at the swan crossing through this golden waters!

Behind the Scenes: we managed to have an interview with the actor from the last pic!

That's what the winter in Sweden is like. To finalize with the Sweden Special, tomorrow it will be time to show you how it looks like in the summer.

Holidays in Sweden - Part 2

Holidays in Sweden

Holidays In Sweden

Today a special for Stockholm, a city which impressed me so much that changed from a 5-day holiday trip to almost 1 year that I have been already living here. Thanks STOCKHOLM!!

Slussen at first time in the morning

The Cathedral, at Gamla Stan (the historic center)

That was just in front of the front door of my building, at Västra Skogen

The Stairs to Heaven (if you ever reach the end...)

Swedish Art - And a Beautiful Sunset I Must Say

Nordiska Museet - From my point of view, the most interesting building in the whole Stockholm

That was all for Today!! Tomorrow about Stockholm again, but for the landscape, lakes, nature, and everything that has something to do with green and blue;)


Holidays In Sweden

The Big Airbus A380

The Big Airbus A380

I need very few words to describe what an Airbus A380 is about, as I think the image is clear enough. Today the post is short but clear, the big giant is coming and will place a very strong competence with the old friend Jumbo 747 from Boeing.

Feel free to take a look around the web-page, as many changes have been introduced today, specially on the bar at the right side, with some new links, a countdown for my Barcelona trip and, on the final bottom of the page, you will locate some links to blogs that have some relevant materials in travel experiences or pics. Also, you can use it to link your blog to mine.

The poll of the day is for ways of travelling: Do you like it in organized trips but alone, in group organized trips, or you like to plan it all on your own??

The Big Airbus A380

Low Cost Airlines

LOW COST AIRLINES

Today's topic is going to be about the finding of the best low cost airlines for your trips. First of all, I would like to say a few words on what can you expect from a LC Airline. And the biggest thing people is scared about when flying with an LC is SECURITY. It's impressive the amount of people that think that low cost is related to NO SAFETY, and I think this is a complete misunderstanding.

LC equals less services, probably less comfortable sits or less space where you sit. Don't expect a super-hot air hostess to bring you a 3 course dinner because you won't get that, even if you pay for it. LC will use alternative airports where the taxes they have to pay to have their planes there is lower, so they can offer cheaper tickets.

And, specially, don't misunderstand something: the price that you pay to get your flight is not the same as all the others that will get the flight after you. Sincerely, I am very happy that this is not published anywhere, because I would feel certainly very embarrassed if the people on the plane realized I was the one who paid most for the same trip.

When it comes to booking with them, there are three strategies that always work:
1. Book very very very early.
2. If this is not possible, be aware that airlines usually place special discounted offers or even free tickets to encourage people to get on board on certain days. If you realize the price is very high and it is still some time left before the day you want to make the trip, be patient and check a couple of times everyday. Probably you'll get a surprise.
3. Never book on Friday or Sunday, all trips have to be done within the other weekdays or Saturday if possible.

In any case, as always, it is good some advice from another point of view, so you can take a look at this article to also get another point of view.

I also would like to direct you to a web-page that has done a good job selecting all the low-cost airlines existing in the world, even the long distance ones. You can check this list HERE

If you are planning to travel within Europe, I think the best resource you can use is the Low Cost Airlines Guide, an amazing website where you can select from where and to where you want to fly, and it will automatically tell you which low cost airlines make this route, together with a link of their web page to check the prices.

Finally, I have inclued a special box on the right side, where everyday will appear a featured low cost Airline related normally to the country that we are exploring. I will also write about some of the most important ones in future posts, as I consider that finding a good flight is normally the most important part in savings in a trip.

LOW COST AIRLINES

China Curiosities

China Curiosities

I could try to summarize a blog about chinese curiosities that I found this morning, but I think the best is to directly send you there.

Regarding the last post... Yes, you all succeeded, Mozart was from Austria and Hitler... from Austria too!!! (personally, I always thought the guy was german. Never mind...)

Whatever, I hope you enjoy this great blog and, in any case, as I am planning to make a post about china for every chinese standing on the world... it seems China will come back to Travel Addicts soon!!

China Curiosities