Photo of the Week: Scotland

St. Andrews Cathedral, St. Andrews, Scotland

EBook Review: The Visa Book

I recently had an opportunity to review The Visa Book by Christine at Almost Fearless.  This is a super handy Ebook for Americans who do a lot of traveling.  The book has information for Americans on Visa and visitation rules for pretty much every country in the world.  Going to Spain - no Visa required since it's part of the Schengen Agreement.  If you're visiting 1 country you don't need this book, everything in the book is available online.  But, if you're frequently visiting several countries a year, or planning a long extensive trip, this book will save you a lot of time and energy, which may be worth more then $10.

Quick facts:  

• 253 pages
• pdf instant download
• covers over 200 countries and territories  
• Only for US citizens (although there may be Australian and European versions in the future)  
• New editions will be produced every year
• Does not cover long term residency visas, work visas or education visas (in other words, this is for tourist visas only)
• Cost is $10

60% of the countries of world do not require a visa for American passport holders.  But which ones?  Online information about visa rules are often incorrect and outdated -- and almost never cite their source.  The Visa Book gives you all the rules in one place, perfect for planning your round-the-world trip or brainstorming about your next vacation.  The best part?  We directly quote and link to the Department of State and Embassy website (when available) so you can double-check our data!  The Visa Book

Photo of the Week: Rhode Island

From the coast in Newport, Rhode Island

Trips and Changes

Well I'm very excited to announce that I have booked my cruise.  I will be sailing on NCL's Epic through the Western Mediterranean!  I will be flying to and from Barcelona on Delta and will have 1 day before the cruise and 2 days after the cruise to enjoy Barcelona.

But I will be making a change to the blog for the next few months.  I will be taking an exam at work in the fall and need to spend the next few months studying.  That means I need to spend a little less time on the blog.  So, I will continue with my Monday photo of the week and then do 1 other post during the week.  I could even miss a week, but I will return!

No good plan goes unpunished

I planned to go to Ireland in May, I was going to visit with one of my tourmates from my Egypt tour.  After talking about it, my Mom decided she wanted to come with me too.  Not so bad, except that she now needs a hip replacement and is having it done 2 weeks before I was planning on going.  I think you can see the problem here.

So I was on to plan B, picking a plan B.  Hmmmm, Paris in Spring sounds lovely.  I could go to Disneyland Paris, the D-Day sites.  What could be better???  Somewhere with cheaper airfare.  I know airfare is up these days and I was bordering on the Summer season, but $1500 seems obscene.

So what the heck could Plan C be???  A lot of the other places I've been thinking about are more like 2 full weeks plus types of trips.  Then I had a thought, what is the Norwegian Epic doing?  With those solo cabin rooms it could be perfect.  It might just be perfect.  The week I was looking at the ship is sailing out of Barcelona on a 7 day cruise through Italy and some little island off of Spain.  And the airfare is well under $1000.  I think we have a winner.  But stay tuned, things are changing quickly!

Photo of the Week: Washington DC

From Washington DC, Cherry Blossoms!  Ahhh, Spring...

The Pencil Museum

On Contiki's UK tours there is a stop in the English Lake District.  During this stop they offer some activities - kayaking and doing rope courses.  Normally I might be interested in doing something like this, but since my leg was still a little sore from surgery over the summer I didn't think I would be able to do this.  It rained anyway so I was better off.  Instead our driver drove us into the town of Kesik, where we visited the Pencil Museum. 

My bus buddy, Stephanie, mentioned this when she saw it in her Rick Steves book and it became a bit of a joke so we had to go.  I'm not going to tell you that this was the best museum I have ever been to, it was not.  But we had fun there as a group.  We saw a video on pencils, and saw the worlds largest pencil!  What more could you want?  It was actually a pretty good museum for something that had become a joke to us.  We were even given free pencils with our tour.  My only complaint?  The museum shop was expensive, it offered a lot of fancy pencil sets.  I wanted a little something for my nephews, they ended up with pencil sharpeners...

Worth mentioning is that the people who did do the kayaking and rope courses did have a good time, even in the rain.

Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall is a famous Roman Fortification in Northern England and I got to visit it on my Contiki tour.  Most of it is in ruins, there is the outline of the walls of the fort, but few actual walls.  So, you can see how it was laid out. 

One thing that was not in the brochure was that Hadrian's Wall is at the top of a hill, it makes sense, but isn't necessarily expected.  It's a big hill too, and I got some great pictures of sheep walking up the hill (I was walking they were grazing).  Once at the top of the hill you have to purchase tickets for 4.50 pound, which considering we only had about 20 minutes to explore the actual fort I thought was a bit pricey.  Once I went in and started to explore the winds really picked up.  I was reminded of one of the things I hate about skiing - the cold wind makes my ears hurt.  I explored the grounds a bit but didn't stay too long as my ears simply hurt too much.

The fort is much larger then I thought it would be and it's a fort.  Hearing it called Hadrian's Wall I expected it to be more of just a wall then a fort.  Perhaps I should have researched it a bit before I went.  But the site was well cared for and had many postings telling you which area of the fort you were looking at.  While you can see the wall from where the road is, you will only see the wall, you will not see the remains of what the fort looked like and how it was set up.  They do seem to offer tours, or at least someone does, if you're really into roman history I think that would be better then just walking around the fort, which I think is fine for the casual visitor.

Hadrian's Wall is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is the type of attraction that might be on peoples bucket lists.  While it was not one my favorite things I've seen (I have been to the pyramids, my standards are high), I'm glad that I went.  Even when I saw people from my tour relaxing and having hot chocolates at the bottom of the hill I felt like they had missed something, not that I had wasted my time.

Just a reminder that you can find me on Twitter @Travelingiraffe (note there is only 1 "G")

Photo of the Week: Egypt

From Luxor Egypt, a gas station for donkeys????

Bath and Bristol - so close, yet so far away

Bath and Bristol, two very different cities that are not so far apart geographically.

Bath - a quitessential English city

Bristol - a modern city with just an occasional flash of charm.

I was only in Bristol for a few hours, but I was not impressed.  I was sorry we left Bath so early to get to this city.  It was modern with a river going through it and there was the occasional church or pub that had that old world charm that one looks for in a British city - at least that's what I think people look for.  It was disappointing, especially with so many lovely cities in England like Bath and York. 

Bath on the other hand was an awsome little city.  You stepped into this city and felt transported to England.  The Bath Museum wasn't so great, but the architecture was lovely.  I stopped in a tea shop and had tea with a scone, what could be more British then that?  And the shops all felt and looked local, it was a warm city that I would love to go back and visit again. 

For the rest of you, skip Bristol and spend a few days in Bath, you wont regret it.

Touring Plan Follow Up - Disneyland

In Disneyland I used my touring plans to tour the parks and I have to say it worked out pretty well.  I did have a couple waits that were longer then I expected, but I got well more then the average person gets done in a day too.

Here's how day in at Disneyland went (as well as my memory serves me):
Fast Pass for Space Mountain
Matterhorn Bobsled
Peter Pans Flight
Buzz Light Year
Space Mountain
Big Thunder
Jungle Cruise
Indiana Jones
Haunted Mansion
Pirates of the Caribbean
Ice Cream lunch at Golden Horseshoe while watching the show (had an early dinner)
Columbia Sailing Ship
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
Monorail
Captain EO
Autopia
Late Lunch/Early Dinner at Blue Bayou
Sleeping Beauty Walk Through
Snow White's Scary Adventure
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
Small World
Mickey's Toontown Fair, including a picture with Mickey
The Railroad
Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln
Wait for Wishes and Fantasmic
That's 22 - 25 attractions (depending on how you count) and I also did some shopping!

Day 2 - there were extra morning hours at Disneyland and I was up so I went there first, then went to DCA for the day.

Space Mountain
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
Alice in Wonderland
Pinochio's Daring Adventure
Breakfast in Disneyland

At DCA:
Soarin
Fast passes for Soarin and World of Color
Toy Story Midway Mania
California Screamin
Mickey's Fun Wheel
Aladdin show
Tower of Terror
Soarin
Lunch at the bar at Ariels Grotto
Walt Disney Imagineering at Blue Sky
Tough to be a Bug
Bakery Tour
Tortilla Factory tour
Left the park for shopping at Downtown Disney
Monsters Inc Ride
Waited for World of Color
Tower of Terror

The problem at DCA is that by mid day all of the headliners had long lines and I had already ridden them anyway.  I wasted a lot of time trying to ride Monsters Inc, it was closed most of the day so I went by it a couple times to see if it was open. 

Also worth mentioning is that in those 2 days I noticed a lot of rides having issues.  In addition to Monsters Inc being closed, Indiana Jones was closed the day before when I went to ride that.  Toy Story kept stopping while I was riding it, I also had a long stop when I was on Buzz Lightyear, and also Haunted Mansion stopped briefly.  Rumor around DCA was that Soarin also had issues that day.  I can honestly say that in a week at Disney World I never noticed that many attractions down. 

I got a lot done on both days.  Incase you're wondering about a couple attractions - Muppet Vision 3D and Spalsh Mountain were closed and Grizzley River Run involves water, it wasn't that warm and I was wearing jeans and sneakers - I wasn't risking getting wet.  While I was able to move around the parks pretty quickly since I was by myself I also didn't know the parks so couldn't move quite as quickly as I would have liked, but the touring plans really helped to get me started with the big attractions in the morning.  I also used the Lines application from Touring plans, which helped to keep me from trying to ride an attraction that had a long wait.  I also got myself some badges for reporting posted wait times.

Photo of the Week: London

The Changing of the Guard at St. James Palace