Hope. Fear. Excitement. Traveling for the first time provided me with wave of conflicting emotions. When I left to travel the world, I didn’t know what to expect. I wasn’t well traveled and was as green as they come. No one I knew had ever done this before. To compensate for my lack of preparedness, I followed my guidebooks and wet my feet with tours. I was young, inexperienced, and made a lot of rookie travel mistakes. A big sign […]
The post 12 Things I’d Tell Any New Traveler appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.
Reader Rob asked the following question on the "Ask Lucky" page yesterday:
"Despite your best efforts, multiple articles, and excellent advice, I am still a bit undecided on which credit card to go for to best meet my travel goals. In the end, I could probably just go with one and not try to be perfect and not worry about it, but thought I would ask for your help anyway.
To give you perspective, I am already heavy in Delta and Marriott points, so definitely would like to diversify away from those and currently use Amex for just about all spending, so a Visa/MC would be helpful. (I think that rules out Starwood and similar)
Travel goals would be first class on long routes (business class if I have to) – to Europe, Eastern Europe/Russia, Australia, and after that, maybe Far East."
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Rahm Emanuel now denies it. The topic came up as the mayor fielded a question on why he quickly proposed, then abandoned efforts to name a new North Side high school after Obama and the South Side’s Stony Island Parkway after the late Arthur Brazier, a revered African-American civic leader who founded the Woodlawn Organization […]
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"If there is another siege, I would rather die than eat ICAR."
Traces and memorials of the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo can still be seen throughout the city. The ICAR Canned Beef Monument is, however, somewhat different with its ironic touch.
The Serbian siege of Sarajevo led to what would become the longest running humanitarian airlift in history. Running between July 3rd, 1993 and January 9th, 1996 it even surpassed the two years of the 1948-49 Berlin airlift. 12,000 flights brought 160,000 tons of food and medicine to the people of Sarajevo but it was not always appreciated.
The ICAR canned beef soon became a symbol for the shortcomings of the humanitarian help. According to eyewitness reports collected by writer David Charles, sometimes the food was leftovers from the Vietnam war that expired 20 years earlier, and sometimes it was pork, an egregious oversight when half of the population receiving the aid were Muslims. Even cats and dogs were said not to eat it. After the war the "Grateful Citizens of Sarajevo" thanked the international community through this golden, meter tall can of ICAR beef.
Something other than food and medicine Sarajevo was in dire need of during the fighting was weapons. But because of the international weapon's embargo put on the belligerents, they had to turn to Colombian drug cartels and smuggle the weapons into the city illegally. Because of this, some people say that they did more to save Sarajevo than the UN and that they should get a monument on their own.
Hong Kong is my favorite city in the world, and over the years I've visited it dozens of times. There's something about the vibe of the city that energizes me, unlike anywhere else I've traveled to.
In Hong Kong I tend to have a few hotels I go back to every time. Over the years I've reviewed quite a few, including the following:
Ironically enough I've actually not really checked out the Hyatt and Starwood options thoroughly, despite those being my two primary hotel loyalty programs.
This time around I decided to stay at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, which is objectively the best Hyatt property in Hong Kong. While Grand Hyatts are of varying quality, this is considered to be one of the flagship international Grand Hyatt properties, and the prices reflect that -- rates are consistently ~$400+ per night.
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