How to Create an Itinerary - Part 2

Google Earth's widely recognized purple glowing earth ball.

After you've created your itinerary in Google Map's "MyMaps", you'll probably want to print it out to take it with you on your trip. Here's how:

1. Install Google Earth if you don't have it already.
   
2. Click on the logo located to the right, above the map.
3. Google Earth should open your itinerary automatically.
   
4. In Google Earth, in the left menu, your itinerary locations are listed under the folder "Temporary Places".
5. Two lines under the folder, you'll see this iconwith no words next to it. Click once on it.
6. Go the to menu File > Print...
   
7. Select "Selected Folder in My Places" and then click the "Print" button

In the print out, you'll get an overview map of all locations. Below that is the details you've written for each location and their map locations. This is a handy reference for your trip itinerary!

A little warning regarding the individual location maps. Google Earth zooms in on each location. If the satellite map looks fuzzy on Google Maps because they haven't deemed it special enough to get more accurate pictures, then they'll be fuzzy in Google Earth as well.

How to Create an Itinerary - Part 1

My road trip on Vancover Island using Google maps.

A great way to plan a road trip is to use Google Maps. It has a feature called "My Maps" where you can mark multiple locations and type in comments such as a description, phone number, address, website url, etc. You essentially create a mini-guidebook for your trip!

In the map above for my Vancouver Island road trip, I had chosen icons to reflect what each location was for. The bed icons were B&B's we booked. The hiking, boat and some others were day-time activities planned. We didn't do all of them and I had put in too many on purpose so that we had choices depending on our mood or the weather which leads me to the following advice...

• Plan too many activities! You're not bound to do all of them but a vacation is more enjoyable when you're flexible.


• Find things to do indoors and outdoors - If it starts raining in July, you'll have something touristy to do indoors and not feel like your vacation was spoiled by rain.


• Google "[city/place] tourism" - you'll get plenty of websites that give you things to do at your destination.

Back to Google Maps. You'll need a Google account to use "My Maps" but if you already have a gmail account, that will work. Here is how you use it:

1. Create and name your new map.



2. Add locations. You can do that in two ways.





1. Search for the location. For example, I search for "YVR", Vancouver's airport code. When it's found, you can click on "Save to My Maps".
   
   



2. Drop one where ever you'd like. To do this, first make sure your map is showing where you want to mark. Then click on the upside-down drop located on the top left hand corner of the map which looks like this: Then with your mouse, click where you want to mark. A bubble pops up for you to fill in the place name and any details you want, which leads me to the next step....



3. Put in details of each location. I usually like to put in the phone number, address, place description, admission charge, days/hours of operation, etc



4. Repeat steps 1-3 for more locations.
   

Unfortunately, Google has not made "My Maps" to be printer friendly and you can only access your points and info online. In "How to Create an Itinerary - Part 2", I'll detail out how to use Google Earth as the printing solution.

Jenny's Tip: I like to use the online version of MyMaps for storing for short weekend day trips. You know, you're bored on Saturday afternoon, you want to go out, but can't think of a nice place off the top of your head. I love hiking, so I found many local conservations and regional parks and put them in. Now I just pull it up quickly and pick a place to go to!

Why not plot out your favorite places to eat, drink, and whatever else you like to do in multiple locations ;).

Why Not to Fly on Air Transat

I flew on Air Transat for the first time last week to Germany and will probably be the last. On my 5 star scale, I give it 3 stars. There's a reason why their fares are so low.

It's a Canadian based "holiday" airline which goes to Europe during the summer and the Caribbean during the winter. Schedules are limited so you have to be flexible with your travel dates. They usually fly between each of their destinations 3 days a week.

You won't find them on Travelocity.ca so that means you have to search for their tickets on their own site. Just looking at the fares for August to go to Germany, their tickets are around $650 while the lowest on Travelocity is $1000. And FYI: They don't have frequent flyer miles either.

Pre-boarding:

If you want to choose your seat before the flight, you have to pay an extra fee, which we didn't do. My boyfriend and I almost couldn't sit together but maybe it's because we had booked our tickets separately. When we got to the check-in counter (they don't offer online or kiosk check-in), there was only 1 pair next to each other remaining. Maybe it's also because we were one of the last people to check-in...

During the flight:

Three movies were shown and you had to pay for the crappy headsets, so it's a good thing I had my own on board. I have noise canceling earphones which I totally recommend for flights. However, their audio had a lot of background noise--my headphones only canceled out the background noise from the plane, just so I could hear the movie's background noise better!

They have the old style 15" TVs that are placed every 5-6 rows in the middle isle and if you need to read the German subtitles because you can't understand the English or French audio, good luck! They had a big projector screen on the front wall of the economy section, so I would recommend arriving at the airport early to get this front seats.

I was surprised to see that even their "Club Class" had one main projection screen to look at and didn't have individual screens. Their seats weren't fancy like any other first or business class on other airlines.

Be prepared to feel cramped no matter how small you are. I'm 5'4" and 120lbs and I even felt cramped...not necessarily my seat because my butt fit just fine, but just the whole plane in general. They configured the seating so that 9 seats fit across the plane when most other airlines fit 8 in the same type of aircraft. That means their seats were narrower than normal and also less leg room. My legs are short so that's not a problem for me, but my boyfriend who's about 6'4", his knees were snug against the seat in front of him.

Although relatively small, all the seats are leather, which I think you're supposed to find luxurious. I don't know if the leather actually is more comfortable or your mind tricks you into believing that because we've been trained to believe leather is "better". You can't pull the trays out like most other planes. That means when you're eating and the person in front has their seat reclined, your head bangs up against the seat. That's when you use the Chinese rice bowl technique to eat: you hold up the food container right in front of your mouth and eat from there.

The food was ok so really no complaints there. They don't offer free alcohol like any other North American based airline. Their staff could be better trained though, or maybe we were on the training plane. On one flight, our row was missed on two food/drink services. And then at one point, I saw the head attendant give a tray and pot to another attendant and told her to say to people "Would you like some coffee." Talk about learning on the job!

Well, if all that just sounds finicky and you still want to go with them for their lowest price, make sure you bring books, magazines, video games, headphones, whatever, to help you get through the flight!

You can read other people's reviews of Air Transat here:
http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/transat.htm

Why you need GPS

Ever thought about getting a GPS system with your car rental? Did you think $10/day was too much? Let me tell 'ya, once you've tried it, you're hooked.

I first rented a GPS device with a car rental when my boyfriend and I visited Europe two weeks ago. WOW! I want my own! The one we had was called TomTom but I know Garmin is another popular brand.

In case you've never seen or used one before: You type in the address of your destination (like the hotel), it calculates the best route in 5 seconds, and then the computers talks out loud with the directions. ("In 50 meters, turn left...turn left now...) The directions start from exactly where you are at that point.

Now, I used to think that having the convenience of a GPS system was too luxurious and that you can survive without one. Now that I've experienced using it for 1 1/2 weeks of driving on vacation from city to city, I've changed my mind!

I HIGHLY recommend using a GPS device when traveling through towns you are not very familiar with, and especially driving as a couple. There are so many reasons why I recommend having a GPS device.

1. No more getting lost! No more excessive U-turns! - With a map, it's so easy to miss turns and once you do, sometimes it's hard to get back on track, especially when you're in a city with one way streets. The GPS device automatically creates a new route as soon as it detects that you didn't take the turn it had suggested.
2. Alternative routes in case of traffic jam or accident - if you find yourself in a jam, you can ask the computer to find another route.
3. Plan a day ahead - it's almost like having mapquest with you. You can choose a special function where you specify a starting point and an ending point, and then it'll give you the route, distance, and time to drive. (The normal function starts the directions from your current position.)
4. Less stress in the car and makes the vacation more relaxing - this could even save a relationship. I'm usually the navigator and my boyfriend is the driver. Arguing was always inevitable when driving through an unknown area, like trying to find our hotel.
5. No maps to buy - get free ones from the tourist office that gives you an overall view of the town or state, but leave the details up to the GPS device. And you'll look less like a tourist when driving by the locals.
6. Safety - the driver can pay more attention to driving, rather than getting distracted by fighting with the navigator, or fussing with a map when driving alone.

In addition to typing in a specific address, you can have it look for the closest hotels, restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, parks, and on and on. I was even amazed that if your journey required a ferry, the directions took you to the ferry station.

Like everything else, it's not perfect. One time we ended up driving down a road which really wasn't a road, but the GPS thought we were on the road right next to us which was a real road. You most likely won't have this problem in Canada or US and rarely in Europe, but more likely Europe because of some of their crazy roads.

Another issue would be streets being newly created and your GPS device doesn't have the latest. It'll be rare that you do run into this but when you do, don't worry because if the GPS loses your location because you're on new roads, just keep driving and you'll eventually get back on old road again :). It's quite entertaining on the screen though, it looks like you're flying. :)

So is the GPS device worth $10/day that the car rental agencies will charge you? If you're going through unfamiliar territory, YES!!! Go back to those 6 points and see how much those are worth to you.

You can watch a demonstration of TomTom here (requires high speed internet).
http://www.tomtom.com/lib/flash/valencia/index.php?language=us

Overview of Trip Planning

Planning a vacation trip can be quite a daunting task, especially when you're arranging all the booking and activities yourself. With my site, I'll give you many websites, resources, tips, and whatever else I've used when planning trips.

First, let me tell you about my travel background. I've always loved to travel since I was a young teen and I'm very fortunate that my parents have given me opportunities to do so. Then three years ago, I quit my job and moved to Germany to be with my boyfriend and travel. Our home base was a small town southeast of Munich which was a fairly central location of Europe.

Since I didn't have a full time job and had a lot of time to spare, it became an obsession for me to plan every aspect of our weekend or week-long trips. I scoured the internet for travel booking sites and read numerous websites on travel deals and tricks. At first it took me almost a month to plan a trip but as I planned more and more trips (about 1-2 every month), I became familiar with where to find the best information and I got faster and faster. Now I can plan a decent vacation in a few days.

While in Europe, I kept a travel blog of our trips. You can read it here: http://jennykung.blogspot.com
Please excuse some of the obviously missing pictures in the blog. The photo host site is not the best and they have deleted some of the pictures (seems to be randomly). 

If you have any questions about trip planning, please feel free to post them here, and I'll try my best to answer them (most likely as a new post!).

Happy Trails!