By far the friendliest places we’ve been were anywhere in Austria, Switzerland and many places in Canada (such as Jasper, Banff and Victoria). Try and find someone who’s not nice to  you in these places. What a treat.

St. John’s, Newfoundland

Perth, Australia

Honolulu, Hawaii

Copenhagen, Denmark

Villach, Austria

Bangkok, Thailand

San Jose, Costa Rica

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (according to a British study)

Singapore

Auckland, New Zealand

What are the friendliest cities you’ve been to?

1. CouchSurfing.org This is a project set up for people to stay with others while they are traveling and to host other travelers while they are at home. It is mostly designed for the backpacker type of traveler, but we’ve seen all sorts of people on the site. It is an incredibly enriching experience to be able to surf or host.  For surfers, you get to stay with a local and experience the culture. We’ve found the hosts to be very nice and fascinating people. For hosts, you get to have guests from all over the world stay with you, you learn about them and their travel experiences, and get to have that travel feel even when living at home. Definitely one of the best travel websites and a great idea.

2. Bid on your hotel on priceline.com instead of paying the upfront cost. We really only have 3 or 4 experiences with booking hotels on priceline, but were blown away with the deals. We were staying at the hostel in Washington, D.C. and going to be heading to Annapolis, Maryland: a small town on the Chesapeake Bay about an hour away. We figured we would try priceline’s bid feature and put in what we thought was a ridiculously low amount… just to see. So we bid $35 for a hotel room and got it, in a pretty decent hotel (the Super 8 for 2 nights) with two beds and a bathroom, and we liked that so much we decided to try it again, not sure if it was a fluke. So after biding the same price we got a room at The Marriott (rated 2 stars, but  it should have been higher!), which was extremely nice and again had two beds, a bathroom and a fridge, a gym/swimming pool plus a pretty decent breakfast with eggs, waffles and fruit included. Kid you not, we got the deal a third time before we went to stay with the people who would be hosting us for the next week.

The one thing about priceline, is that you can’t change the reservation once you submit the bid, which we’d suspect has gotten a few people before when plans changed. Also, you can try and add extra nights at the end of your reservation once if there is availability. So for this option you do need to be able to be adaptable and flexible, but you can get amazing deals!

You can also bid on other things such as rental cars but we’re not as impressed with this service because often you have to pick the car up at the airport and can’t choose a different rental office.

3. Use itravel2000.com This site is really good for booking flights. We’ve used it to get a return trip from Edmonton to Cabos San Lucas, Mexico. It was a direct flight and it was only $350 Canadian including taxes. Haven’t booked too much else on there but we’ve seen some great deals while browsing.

4. AirTransat.com We’ve seen really cheap flights on here… especially from Calgary to Europe. Limited areas it visits but if it reaches your destination it might be worth checking out.

5. Vacationstogo.com This is the best travel website for finding cruises. You can book both last minute deals or ones more in advance. We’ve never actually booked through here, just done a lot of browsing. Most cruise prices are for two people booking with them.

These are the best travel website and frequent travelers or backpackers likely use these a lot!

The family wanted people to be able to enjoy the Christmas Lights as her legacy. It’s free and visitors are encouraged to bring a a donation for the food bank.

In 2011 it was sponsored by the Northland’s Home Hardware to help support the enormous power bill and costs of running the light show.

Maisie's Magical Christmas House, Light Show with Music

Christmas Display Ideas

Maisie's Magical Christmas House Lights Edmonton

This is a video of a Christmas song and light display in sync with the music. It takes a few moments to load.

Msn travel just released a list of the top 10 rudest cities in the world. Among them include Miami, New York and LA, USA, Manchester UK due to excessive swearing, Milan, Italy, Paris, France, Seoul Korea (apparently the drivers will run you over and the Koreans ask probing personal questions to srangers), Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and Mumbai.

The truth is often the bigger a city gets the ruder people get, especially if they have to rush around to get to work. We can say the rudest people we’ve met were in Milan and Dubrovnik Croatia by far. Every city can’t make the list. We never found the people in the UK overly rude though, we actually thought they were pretty polite in most places we visited.

Geeze being in a totally new place is challenging enough, be nice to us travelers!

Alas, a Canadian city made the list, Toronto. Ahh what can we  say.

View Article

Which cities have you gone to where you’ve fallen in love with the people? Read a list of the world’s friendliest cities.

Underwater Fish Cabos San Lucas, Mexico

Watching the amazing schools of fish lying beneath the surface of the ocean make me realize how bountiful this planet really is. It kind of made me think of manifestations or when you’re trying to keep the faith about something. In the sense that when we are above water, it didn’t seem like there was anything there, but once we were in the submarine looking underwater it was completely overwhelming how much beauty was there, lurking below the surface but invisible to the eye until we went below the surface. It was magnificent. Gotta love nature.

We also saw a snorkeler down there unexpectedly.

Underwater Snorkeler Cabos San Lucas Mexico

Here is a video of the fish.

I have so many amazing pictures from this tour and trip.

An older man was in his car, parked in front of a tough looking African American man in a beautiful, Brand New looking, red SUV. The older man started his car and began backing up to make space to pull out into traffic. He backed up into the red SUV and I could see the guy in the SUV wave his hand and say something along the lines of “What the heck, Man!”, although I’d imagine it was a smidgen worse than that as his red SUV got bumped by the car, and rocked back and forth.

The older gentleman in the car did not notice. I was expecting the black guy to get out and start yelling at the man who just dinged him… but apparently he either was REALLY LAID BACK or didn’t have time. The older gentleman pulled forward looking to see if there was a clearing in the traffic, completely oblivious to hitting the other guy’s vehicle.

He started backing up again as he didn’t have enough space to pull out. The black fellow turned his attention to the reversing navy car that had just bumped him, the car kept going and I thought “it’s going to run into him again!”

The guy in the SUV, learning rather quickly, started his engine, put the SUV in reverse and very quickly moved backward as the navy car was within an inch of bumping him again. The navy car then overshot where the front bumper of the RED SUV was before coming to an abrupt stop as if he needed to stop or he would run into the vehicle behind him. Then completely oblivious to ALL OF THIS he pulled into traffic and left. The black man shock his head and got back to whatever he was doing.

Which by the way, we I noticed the rate for a room at the Comfort Inn is about the same price. I’m tempted to check it out… I actually had dreams about the Comfort Inn. Is that odd or what? I don’t mind our room here, the beds are pretty comfy but it is a smidgen small for my liking.

I continue to love the fact that I can sleep anywhere, under any conditions on the road. Considering how loud it was in our room last night. There would be like eight cars with broken mufflers drive by and the neighbor would accidentally step on their cat. All of this while I’m laying down to sleep. Yet now, at 10am it’s super quiet and peaceful on my third floor lounge at the top: which I must say is absolutely blissful. There are plants throughout this hotel and I couldn’t love it more. There are cacti, flowers, vines & a grass hut cover over the area I’m lounging in which has a plush couch complete with soft pillows. There are white sheets overhanging the bed where the masseuse does her treatments and a cold pool beside the mural of sea lions at the ocean. It really is divine here.

It was so funny, as we were pondering what supplies we needed to get back at the airport in Edmonton, my friend asked me if I had brought tweasers, as she had not, and I had not. We paused for a second, “you can get some there” I said…. a few moments later with the boldest statement she states “The world has tweezers.”. It certainly does… the world has soap too, which is good cause I only brought a bit of that.

Our ride in from the airport was super fun. We were sitting right over-top of the suspension of the “private shuttle van” and A) the dude drove really fast B) the road had some bumps C) every time were hit any sort of bump with some speed the back of the van would bounce around like a trampoline, or an accordion spring. If the motto of shocks in Canada is “we’re going to give you a smooth ride”, the motto of these shocks was “we’re gonna bounce you around for the fun of it”.

I can’t say for sure how many times I said, “Look, a cactus!” along that ride from the airport, but they are just so cool here, and freaking huge. And the ocean is looking stellar… can’t wait to go to the beach today. Might go on the submarine too.