Category Archives: Family Travel
PDF Travel Tip: In Hawai’i, Save Big by Renting a House Instead of a Hotel Room
Most folks traveling to Hawai’i plan on staying at one of those posh beach-front resorts. But not us. For one thing: snorathon! For another, with eight adults and a toddler traveling, our hotel costs would add up super-fast.
That’s why I decided to research renting houses instead of multiple squishy hotel rooms. I’d first looked into this when trying to find a place on the beach for us this summer in San Diego, checking out sites like TripAdvisor.com and VRBO.com. Alas, everything was booked up then because we ended up traveling during Comic Con (but not actually going to the crazy event). But with a good six months lead time on our Hawai’i adventure, I figured it might just work out for us there. And it did.
The rationale was simple.
-First, this is supposed to be a family trip. If everyone traipses off to his or her respective hotel room after our daily outings, it really takes the family time out of the whole experience. Renting a house offers you that shared common space, a living room or maybe a lanai (that’s Hawaiian for deck or terrace), a place that everyone can chill out together.
-Secondly, a house or multiple rooms in a home rental mean a cheaper deal over all, especially when you divide it eight ways! Plus, people owning these homes are frequently paying a mortgage, so they need the rental income — and will make it worth your while.
-Thirdly, renting a house or apartment means you get access to a kitchen. With a big, fussy bunch like ours, that will no doubt be a life saver. We can cut costs by making some meals at home — breakfast at the least, but likely some lunches and dinners here and there, too — and everyone can eat what they like when they like. It just makes mealtimes easier all around.
So keeping these things in mind, I set about house-hunting in Hawai’i. (And anyone who knows me knows just how much I LOVE house-hunting.) While we’re staying in a two-bedroom suite at the Wyndham resort in Waikiki (which comes complete with a kitchen), I found a fabulous house with a huge terrace (with peekaboo ocean views!) in a little town called Pai’a, off the beaten path in Maui. And I found an equally fabulous house with fireplace and back-deck jacuzzi in Volcano on the Big Island.
It remains to be seen how the Charaipotra-Dhillon clan reacts to my master plan, but for now, I’m really excited to hit the hay in our second home(s) in Hawai’i.
Photo Courtesy Ohia Plantation House
Travelogue Hawaii: Deciding to Go (Sona)
Hawaii was never at the top of travel list. In fact, I don’t think it even made the top ten. Or the top twenty. I think the same holds true for Navdeep. So why are we headed there for two weeks of our hard-earned winter break?
Here’s the thing: every break, we pretty much plan to go to California. Since Kavya was born, and even before then, really, we wanted to make sure we got to spend some quality time with Navdeep’s parents and sister in California — especially as the family expanded to include little Seerit and Joshvir. But this curtails our ability to travel elsewhere. So we had the brilliant idea that we should go somewhere else — and that Navdeep’s parents should simply meet us there.
At first we thought Alaska. But given the Winter scheduling of the trip, it didn’t seem like it would be all that fun to go there right now. So then we said, let’s pick somewhere warm and exotic and closer to California, somewhere that would allow us to explore and enjoy each other’s company without over-stressing or renewing our (missing or expired) passports even. Somewhere where Kavya could have quality time with her grandparents in a leisurely fashion. Somewhere, after all of those requirements, that wouldn’t be boring.
And none of us had ever been to Hawaii, so that became an option. It was big, it was warm, it was technically American soil, it had beaches and culture and even active volcanos. Initially, we booked just four days in Waikiki Beach via a time share. THen my mom decided she’d join us. And paying $1100 a ticket for four days on the beach didn’t make sense, so we decided to add an island or two. This is a BIG family trip. Over the course of six months of planning, we added ten days, two more islands, four additional family members and a whole lot of adventure. In the end, it was 14 days on three islands with eight adults and one toddler.
Essentially, it’s a big bonding experience for us all. Not a single one of us have ever been to Hawaii. None of us have ever seen an active volcano, either, so that should be a big highlight of the trip, too. There’s plenty of adventure on the agenda: the windy and beautiful Road to Hana, underwater helmet-diving in Waikiki, a five a.m. lava boat tour. But another big highlight should be just chilling on the beach and enjoying each other’s company. Because we need that family time. My family of five — my parents, my brother, my sister and I — haven’t been on a trip all together since we went to Mexico a decade ago when I was in college. Navdeep’s parents and mine have never traveled together — Kavya’s going to be overwhelmed with grandparental love and hugs, not to mention kisses and cuddles from Tarun Mamu and Meena Masi.
All in all, Hawaii is a family adventure I’m really looking forward to — as much as it surprises me to say it. This time around, though, it’s not so much the place as it is the people I’ll be traveling with that make the trip worthwhile.
Travel Tips: Five Travel Tips To Get The Best Prices on Airline Tickets
One of the most annoying things about travel is exactly that: traveling. I’ll admit that taking rickshaws in India, or riding on sleeper buses in China is bloody good fun. Flying, however, is the most boring form of transportation, but in most cases it has to be done before the fun travel begins. Even more boring than flying is looking up plane tickets to so you can fly to your destination. Flying is an efficient form of travel, but it’s also the most boring, and the most expensive part of the trip. And waiting at the airport is just plane boring. No, that wasn’t a typo. It was a deliberate attempt at being clever.
Before we had Kavya, the initial flights were the only things we would book. Everything else, we winged. We didn’t pre-book hotel rooms, or train tickets. We just showed up and hoped for the best. In most cases everything worked out. The one place we had a spot of trouble was in the city of Bhubaneshwar, where every room had been booked because of some conference. So, we picked up our Lonely Planet and headed off to the coastal town of Puri, a few miles down the road, and got a lovely room right on the beach.
Flights really are the one thing we labor over though because the money we save simply by booking a day or two ahead or behind is pretty significant, particularly when you go to a country where street food costs under $1.
Our upcoming trip to Hawaii this winter is going to be an interesting one because we’re in charge of planning a family trip involving my parents, Sona’s parents and sister, and of course our 1 year old, Kavya. Winter in Hawaii is the high season, a period we usually go out of our way to avoid because it involves much more planning. And in a place like Hawaii, not only do hotels get booked up, so do rental cars. Even inter-island flights. And unfortunately, while me and Sona are down with vagabonding in Hawaii, everyone else has responsibilities, so a lot of it has to be pre-booked.
Anyway, here some travel tips we’ve learned over the years for getting good deals on air fare. Some of it is common sense, while some of it is just knowing how to play the game!
Tip #1:
Musings: Independent Travel . . . With Children?
I finally got my computer in good enough shape to edit this video and the last bit made me smile. Watch it and you’ll see what I mean. We were staying at this coffee plantation in Madikeri, Karnataka, and took a side trip to see the Dubare Elephant Camp. On the ride there, we met Paul and Kirsten Thompson, a couple from New Zealand, who we instantly took a liking to because we thought they were absolutely bonkers in the best way possible.
They were on a 10 week holiday in India with not one kid, not two, but three. And the names of the children were just brilliant: Merlin, Felix, and Rumi. Merlin, the youngest, was 2, and looked like I’d imagine Merlin the magician to look like at that age, complete with long, wavy blonde hair. Rumi, the eldest was 7, with Felix smack in the middle at about 4! And I remember thinking that this is really encouraging. The spirit of independent travel need not be crushed just because you have children.
Rumi and Navdeep
I got on famously with the eldest kid, Rumi, who we got on camera hosting this video. He did a bang up job too in his cape! What I was really impressed by was how adaptable these kids were, and as cliched as it sounds, how worldly and intelligent Rumi and Felix were. Felix had this really funny way of asking questions. His mum and dad had told him to stop interrupting people and to say “Excuse me,” before speaking. So, armed with “excuse me,” he would interrupt every conversation by repeatedly saying, “Excuse me, ” followed by, “I have a question.” Some of the questions were really interesting, some were entertaining, but most went absolutely nowhere. Rumi was much more reserved and poignant in his observations, and asked really incisive questions. Merlin enjoyed just traipsing about in shoes much too big for him.
Sona was particularly fascinated with what the kids ate and we were both duly impressed that they ate plenty of Indian food, from dosas to dhokla, but stayed away from the usuals: street food using potentially unsanitary water. Although eating unsanitary street food is the most delicious part of India (or any country really), I can’t imagine traveling for a limited amount of time, with three kids who have dodgy tummies or worse! The reason Sona found it so interesting is a) unbeknownst to me, she was thinking about this baby business in “at least a year.” Notice my nervous laughter at the end of the video and the abrupt blank look on my face when Paul mentioned the word, “quantity.” That expression should be right next to a visual dictionary definition for the word “gobsmacked.” And b) Sona’s travels to India never involved street food. This rule about no street food, inflicted by her parents, extended from infancy all the way till past her twenties! Sona’s mother used to pack food like Macaroni and Cheese and cereal for Sona’s brother because he refused to eat Indian food in India. He was nine years old!
I, on the other hand, didn’t know any better. I didn’t know there was another option. I was 2 weeks old when we left England to go to Tanzania, and from there Nigeria, the U.A.E., and of course America. Having been raised in several different countries from such a young age, I thrive in being put into a situation I might not be familliar with. This made traveling in China and communicating with people for things like toilet paper, or cold water using dodgy sign language, not such a big deal. I am very adapatable to different food and customs. My sister, who was much more cognizant of how different the places were from “home,” likes to use the word “adventurous.”
Before travelling with Sona, it was something I’d taken for granted. I don’t get cravings for comfort food and I don’t get nostalgic for that sense of home.But these days, a sense of home is much easier to come by than it was even a few years ago. You’re constantly connected to some version of the familliar. There are bars in Tibet, discos in Nepal, Pizza Hut in China, upscale dining in India, and internet cafes (not to mention wireless cards) all over the world.
Sona and Navdeep Have a Baby!
As a father to a one-year-old, I often think of Paul and Kirsten, and about our next big adventure. Our six month backpacking adventure was a lot of fun, but it was much different to my solo travels. My solo travels were a lot more dangerous, although we did take a really sketchy 15 hour local bus ride in the middle of the night to Srinagar. Travelling with Sona, constantly being together day in and day out, really deepened our understanding of India, of each other, and much later we realized, of ourselves.
I always thought of getting married and having kids as an end to independent travel, exchanging that backpack for a nice carry-on, and being one of those geeky tourists that think they’ve travelled to a country because they booked a ten day tour to the “best” sites. But getting married certainly didn’t have that effect, and thanks to Paul and Kirsten and their trio of swashbucklers, neither will having kids. So, as to the question of quantity? Three sounds like a nice number.
Musings: The Six Oddest Places We Slept in India
Imagine waking up to this view everyday!
Traveling in India for six months, we had our fair share of odd experiences — but the most interesting seemed to be when it was time to rest our weary heads. From bumpy buses and crowded trains to a thatched hut on the beach, here’s a round-up of the six oddest places we slept in India.
The Beach Hut In Goa
Honestly, it was as awesome as it sounds. A thatched-roof hut with poles sunk into the warm beach sand. It contained just a bed and a chair and a functioning, American-style bathroom (very necessary). As soon as we stepped outside, we could see, smell, and even taste the ocean! It was perfect for lounging, swimming or having a casual, Goan Feni-soaked afternoon. Dinnertime was a candlelit meal of fresh seafood and locally grown veggies, a picnic right there on the sand. It was the first time we discovered, even dinner could be haggled for! (And breakfast was chocolate corn flakes for Navdeep. But only once. Turns out, it was regular old corn flakes with chocolate syrup on them! Ew!) Can’t wait to come back.
The Tree House In Periyar
We may have missed the elephants and tigers and bears on our safari in Periyar, but the three nights we spent camping out in the treehouse at Carmelia Haven made the trek worth it. It was amazing — an actual tiny little one-room house in a tree, with little windows overlooking the garden, and a giant bed taking up most of the space. Sure, we didn’t have our own bathroom and it wasn’t nestled in the middle of the forest, as some within the grounds of the conservation area were, but it was a unique and amazing experience just the same.
The Barracks at the Golden Temple
We have family in Amritsar, so we didn’t really need other accommodations there. But once we learned that you could actually stay at the Golden Temple, we had to experience it for ourselves. So, we showed up in our Indian attire at the reservations booth and Navdeep asked for a room in Punjabi. We were given one, sure, but it was not quite what I was expecting. It was dormitory style without lockers, and squat toilets. Shared squat toilets. I saw a rat scurrying about and looked pleadingly at Navdeep. Did I mention that we were there for my birthday? Navdeep took pity on me (not that he had much choice), and we gave it another go. This time, we dressed as backpackers, him in jeans and T-shirt, me in a long flowy skirt and we both wore bandanas. We were immediately given another room, this time a large, airy suite with a private bath and balcony. All for 50 rupees a night! And right at the foot of the Golden Temple. It was an absolutely magical experience.
The Beach-Front Cottage In Puri
We were only in Puri for one day — we stayed there overnight when was stopped to see the amazing Sun Temple in Konark Bhubaneshwar, which is intricately carved with poses straight out of the Kama Sutra. Once we arrived at the lovely, airy, immaculately-kept Z hotel, a old, rambling palace, we wished we’d given ourselves more time in the area. We wandered the storied beach at the Bay of Bengal before settling into our, which was huge and breezy, with a four-poster bed and a view of the sea. One point to note, though: this is a tourist hotel, which means when we called to reserve a room and spoke in Hindi, there was no availability. However, when I called five minutes later and spoke in English, with a clear American accent, suddenly a room was available. Go figure.
The Bumpy, Stinky, Squishy Bus to Jamu-Kashmir
If you think sleeping on a plane is rough, you’ve clearly never tried 0vernighting it on a non-deluxe bus in India. We spent 15 hours stuffed into a 15-inch two-seater on a shock absorber-less clunker that sputtered more than 1000 miles from Pathankot into Kashmir. The bus — on which I was the only female — made an unexplained late-night stop for several hours in the middle of a bridge, with water on either side of us. And there was no bathroom, so, I awoke from one fitless stretch of sleep to several men, lined up in a row outside my window, peeing on the bus. That’s right, on the bus. Fun times. Later, of course, we learned that the equivalent flight would have cost a mere $50 and run 90-minutes. So obviously, we winged it back to New Delhi.
The Houseboat in Kashmir
The houseboat experience in Srinagar, Kashmir, was amazing — though very different from the one we had in Kerala. This was more like a literal home on a boat, one that was docked at one edge of Dal Lake. It had a real bedroom, dining room (complete with china cabinet), terrace, the works. We stayed for four nights and enjoyed traditional Kashmiri curries and biryanis, lounged on the terrace as salesmen on shikaras floated by with their wares, and watched locals row by in their shikaras, going about their business, selling veggies, shawls, or heading off to school.
Travelogue California: The World’s Largest Gingerbread House in San Francisco?
We had all of two days to spend in San Francisco with my parents-in-law, and for some reason, I was stuck on seeing this two-story gingerbread house — made of real gingerbread, of course — at the Fairmont Hotel. So everyone decided to indulge me. (This isn’t so surprising, by the way.)
To capture the essence of San Francisco, our mission — and we all chose to accept it — was to abandon our car and navigate the hills and curves of the city by the bay completely on foot. Surprisingly, we more than managed (despite the stroller!) and we didn’t get lost. Not even once.
It turns out that getting to the aforementioned gingerbread house, though, was quite a hike. We started out from our hotel — the lovely Tuscan Inn, which hosts an evening wine reception and offers freshly brewed a.m. coffee — at the Fisherman’s Wharf, and headed west. Which turned out to be straight upward for more than a mile. Great exercise, yes, but not super-fun when you’re pushing a ten-month-old in a rickety stroller.
In any case, the trek itself was fun. Along the way, we stopped in North Beach for croissants and cappuccinos on Columbus Avenue. Then we paused for a break — which we certainly needed by then — at the Cable Car Museum (free!). The museum itself was fascinating — it showed the working gears of all three cable car lines, along with restored cars from the 19th century. There was a short documentary film, and photographs of the city before and after the great earthquake and fire of 1906.
The museum, it turned out, was only a few blocks from the Fairmont, but we didn’t realize that because of the giant hill in front of us. We huffed and puffed our way to the stately old building, which has been standing between California and Sacramento streets since 1907 — a year after the fire.
Neither of us are strangers to travel, but we are very different travelers. Navdeep can brush aside a cockroach from his food and continue eating. Sona flies into hysterics at any creepy-crawlies (real or imagined) within a ten mile radius. 
Facebook
Twitter
Youtube