Tag Archives: honeymoon
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.
Video: Ice Mountain Climbing in the Catskills, New York!
Neither of us have ever claimed to be coordinated, and as the video above will prove to you (beyond a doubt), we are not liars. What possessed us to go Ice Mountain Climbing in the catskills of New York, we have no idea. The actual ice-climbing was a lot of fun. Slushing up the mountain, however. . . not so much.
Our Gear: India 2007
HARDCORE BACKPACKS
I’m carrying a One Polar 80 backpack I bought in China for $10. It’s been loyal to me so I’ll be loyal to it. Until it falls apart. Then I’ll get a new one. We got a great deal from Rei Outlet store on a pretty robust Victorinox backpack with removable daypack made by Swiss Army. Hopefully Sona doesn’t topple over with this one on!
It seemed like a good idea at the time. We ordered the Kelty Corona Double Capacity Sleeping Bag to keep us clean and warm in dodgy hotel rooms. As you can see, if we brought this along, there’d be nothing else for us to carry. We’re still keeping it though. We’ll bring it along next time we go on a camping trip, even if it is in the backgarden! We randomly stopped at a Big 5 in Fresno after doing a grocery run at Foodmaxx and found our replacement sleeping bags. While not as spacious and cushiony as our Kelty, these are also not as humongous. Two of these fleece Texsport sleeping bags can be zipped together and voila: double sleeping bag.
CANON 20D
I’ve had my Canon 20D for a couple years now and am thrilled with it. After our India trip, I upgraded to the full-frame Canon 5D which I am also thrilled with. As a professional wedding photographer (www.nsdphotography.com) the lenses I own are a reflection of my shooting style. I don’t do heavy lenses because that means I have to lug those mofos around. I have two flashes –the Canon 580EX and the 420EX along with the following lenses:
10-22 f/4 – Wide Angle (only works with the 20D)
50/f4 – Portrait Lens
35-135 f/4 Normal Lens
70-200 f/4 Telephoto
CANON ELPH
Sona’s nerdo brother and sister, both have the Canon ELPH. And now we do too! It’s reliable, looks sleek and takes crisp images. We have the 7.1 megapixel version and a 2GB memory card. The main draw is we can take self-portraits of the two of us without risking my fancy pants camera crashing to the ground.
SONY HDV-A1U KIT
While on the road, we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves with a bulky video camera but we did want the image quality that a bulky video camera brings. So after lots and lots of research and deliberation, we decided to go with the super-tiny Sony HDV-A1U kit from B&H online (save the sales tax by shipping it outside of NYC). It’s perfect because its small size lets us pretend to be tourists or professionals when we feel like it. It has the gumption to mimic film by shooting HDV in 24p. The best bit is that you don’t need really expensive or hard to find tapes to shoot it on. It uses standard MiniDV! We’re using several standard ones and two Sony MiniDV tapes “designed for HDV.” We won’t get into everything brilliant about our kit here, but the lavalier mic is pretty spiffy and will come in handy for any interviews we wind up doing.
OLYMPUS DS-2300 DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER
Even though this stupidass device records in DSS format, it’s still a really handy gadget. It fits into Sona’s pocket and records pretty clearly. We use this for on the fly interviews when we don’t feel like hauling our lavalier mic with us.
MANFROTTO
For the most part, I like to run around with a camera in my hands, but every so often I’ll need a tripod for steady shots in low light or when I do family and bridal portraits. Manfrotto is the shiznit and it is for this reason we have so many of their products. The 3021 tripod and ball head are fantastic for steady shots. Sona bought a video head and monopod to attach her video-camera to so our footage doesn’t look like a crisp and professional shaky home video!
STORAGE
COMPUTER GEAR
We have two camera specific backpacks. Sona has the LowePro CompuTrekker and I have the Tamrac Cyberpack 8. Both of them can fit
our laptops too which works out well. We had to upgrade to a bigger sized bag to handle Navdeep’s super-sized 17-inch Dell, but Sona’s petite 12-inch PowerBook is very portable. Both computers are equipped with photo and video editing software, along with Final Draft in case Sona gets the urge to write. We also lug along a 500 GB hard drive for photo and video storage.
SECURITY
MONEYBELT/PASSPORT HOLDER
This is what we’re using to carry our valuables. No fannypacks or expensive leather made products for us. The orange one I bought in Nepal and the yellow one from Tibet.
MAGNA CART
Instead of paying $200 some bucks for a rolling backpack, we decided to just get a set of wheels. This can allegedly hold 150 lbs so this should do the trick to carry our camera bags at least.
LOCKS
We did look at one of those mesh net things offered by PacSafe but while it does look intimidating to the average crook, it also looks very enticing. A pair of pliers or a strong set of teeth and someone has an all access pass to our goods. Instead, we opted for a more subtle approach and are using a simple lock that came with the backpack.
INSURANCE
Initially we wanted to just add our equipment to my parents’ existing homeowners insurance but that didn’t give us a very secure feeling. They would cover it, but there were a lot of limitations. We felt like if anything did go wrong, there would be that fine print telling us that we weren’t covered. After scouring the internet, Sona and I finally decided on Safeware to insure our laptops and camera equipment. They cover everything from power surges to plain ole clumsiness, and you can decide if you want short term insurance or long term. We opted to get it for the year.
SOFTWARE
After briefly considering using template based content management systems like WordPress and Joomla, we decided to make our lives a lot more complicated by creating Ishqinabackpack.com from scratch, using Dreamweaver.
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