Travel Tips: Saving Money with Coupons

(There are some updates below.)

When we travel, normally shopping is expensive. Especially, people want to travel long, money is very important. If you think your money very much, here are some ways to save.

1. Credit Card
   Once you get your credit card, you can take advantage of a lot of the benefits. In some stores, only you show it, you can get the free gifts and discounts. Also, if the card companies have the offices in your destinations, you may get some coupon books.
2. Coupons in the Newspapers
   You may get some coupons with newspapers. Especially, in the weekend editions, there are some glossary coupons with flyers. You may not use these coupons at small glossary marts, but you can use them at big supermarkets at least.
3. Visitor Center
   Local Visitor Centers also have some coupons. They are normally for local destinations such as museums, restaurants, and shopping malls, and transportation.

The days of the coupons in newspapers are different from countries and areas. Also, usually, before holidays, many stores have some discounts without coupons. Then you can buy some local and cultural food and stuff too.

"Coupons? It's a local way." Maybe, you think so. However, if you stay long, please check and get some destinations' atmospheres with them. It's time to get the influence!

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Update: July 15, 2013

Here are some additional information:

Credit card companies have a lot of international services. For example, some cards are originally with travel insurance. They support when you start traveling to be back home(you may need to buy the ticket with the card.) You may not buy an expensive insurance. Also, with something reasons, you are not able to have credit cards, you may use the international debit cards. Some international debit cards are also issued by major international issuers. They have similar services for your travel.

Here are some major companies for credit/debit cards:

• American Express
• Diners Club
• MasterCard WorldWide
• Visa International

These international companies tie with the domestic issuers, and may provide the international functions. There are some more international issuers such as Discover Card and JCB. For the services, please check your issuers' websites.

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Update: July 17, 2013

Coupon Apps & Sites

Is Saving Money not easy? "No!" It's easy with your smartphone too. Recently, some online coupon companies comes up. They are normally for the local people, but you can use them also with registrations.

Here are some sites:

1. Groupon ( http://www.groupon.com/ )
2. Living Social ( http://www.livingsocial.com/ )
3. Amazon Local ( http://local.amazon.com/ )

You can download their apps on your smartphone and tablets, and also use on your computers. They normally have some special discounts. Many of them are similar with travelers interests.

These are also for the international cities. If they have the information in your destinations, it's worth checking.

After you spend a massage with 50% discount, you may use the rest of money for delicious dinner:-)

Fourth of July

The Independence Day is tomorrow. I'm wondering how people spend time. Personally, today, I bought Budweiser with the Stars and Stripes. I've also got some food made in USA.

By the way, recently, many wildfires have occurred in the West Coast and Mountain areas of the United States. Naturally, people believe these wildfires spontaneously happens. However, some of them might be with cigarettes, fireworks, and campfires. When you'll get fun places, please treat fire carefully.

Also, this weekend, people go out and enjoy with the attractions such as parades, music lives, and fireworks. When you go out for these attractions, you feel thirsty in the Sun. Don't be patient, and drink water for your body conditions.

If you travel in the United States, here are some ideas for American foods.

• Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches, Milk and Apples(Breakfast)
• Hotdogs, or Hamburgers with French Fries + Coke(Lunch)
• BBQ with spareribs, and garden salads + Budweiser(Dinner)  

You also can try some American food near your traveling areas. Some restaurants serve their favorite dishes and beers with special discounts. Also if you are not in the United States, you can try these this summer. You can check how to cook online!

"Listen To The Music" (1972)

by The Doobie Brothers

Originally, Fourth of July is the independent day. It's not only a fun day, but also the day of thank for the nation and veterans. Don't forget the meaning, and enjoy the holiday!

If you want to know more about Fourth of July, you can check on History Channel.

• History of Fourth of July

Travel Tips: Culture & Thoughts

When people travel around the world, they meet a lot of travelers and local people. In many cases, they have big culture gaps among them. When they become familiar, it's time to talk about their culture.

Culture things are very difficult to explain. 10 years ago, people worried, "What do I indicate these complicated thing?" Now you have your smartphone on your hand with public WiFi called "Hotspot". Only you search and show the images, you can be familiar with your next guys.

However, you may not talk all the your interests.

1. Religions
   Recently, this is especially important if you walk around the conflict areas such as middle east, South Asia, and Africa. One of the famous conflict in the world is between Jewish and Islam in Israel. Without this, there are a lot of similar condition in the world. In China, for the governmental reasons, the government and Tibet people(Buddhism) have strong conflicts.
2. Races
   All people belong to races. Frankly to say, people call them "White," "Black," and "Yellow." For a long years in the history, white people have been superior than others. Now their rights becomes little by little equalized. However, the feuds and the memories are still on their mind. They are closely related to their lives.
3. Political Thoughts
   If you live in a peaceful country, you may not care about this. However, in some countries, political groups are with religions such as Christian and Islam. These groups are strongly against each other. When travelers tell about their thoughts, these affect to the treatments of the travelers.

These three are on the common senses of travelers. In common of these things are: 1) they are with thoughts, 2) closely related to their lives, and 3) permanent situations. Especially, if you plan to encounter with local people, please mind these and be a beautiful stranger:-)

"Beautiful Stranger"(1999)

By Madonna

A few years ago, especially, airline companies prohibited to use digital equipments such as smartphone, music players, digital cameras on board. However, now many of them turn to permit them. Also you can use in some buses and trains. You've got a chance to talk with people. Make friends, and enjoy your summer vacation!

RSS Reader

RSS Reader is useful for everything. If you use your smartphone, I think you have one. I'm also using a RSS Reader for my life. It's called "Google Reader." However, Google announced they will shut down it, and we can't use it anymore after July 1, 2013. What do we do for this?

Here are some alternatives:

1. Feedly ( http://www.feedly.com/ )
   Feedly is very popular. We can use it with smartphones and with Firefox(You need to install the add-on). This is also with Google ID.
2. NetNewsWire ( http://netnewswireapp.com/)
   This is desktop application for Mac. After you download the subscriptions via Google Takeout, you can import the file to NetNewsWire. When you adjust the setting, you can use like Google Reader.
3. Feed Demon ( http://www.feeddemon.com/ )
   This is also the desktop application for PC. As the same as NetNewsWire, after you download the subscriptions via Google Takeout, you can import the file to Feed Demon.
4. Flipboard ( http://flipboard.com/ )
   Flipboard is similar with Feedly. It's for the smartphones and tablets. When you register for your account, you can store your information and the subscriptions. Also you can make your magazines on it.

In fact, you can subscribe this blog on these apps. I have the subscription address on the right column. When you click the subscription, you can get the address of this blog.

Reading "lifehacker," Newsblur and Netvibes are also good and stylish alternatives.

When you register your favorite information, these will be your magazine. Using these tools are a good way to rearrange your daily needs and the information. Also you can register for your next travel and the destinations.

Enjoy yourself with your favorite information!

"Enjoy Yourself" by A+ (1999)

Sochi A-Go-Go

Last year, London Olympics was open in July. The games were impressive, and many Olympians showed their artistic body moving in front of the audiences.

Well, what is the next? Some people like the Olympic Games. They can't wait for next, and prepare for the next destinations.

Here is a summery of 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi (Russia). Sochi is a leisure city on the shore of the Black Sea. This game happens from February 7 to 23 in 2014. The motto is "Hot. Cool. Yours." The tickets are already on sale on their website ( http://www.sochi2014.com/ ).

When Soviet Union was alive, Moscow Olympics was occurred in 1980. Then many Western countries such as the United States, Canada, Sweden, West Germany and Japan boycotted the games. Ironically, this was the symbolic games of the Cold War. After 34 years later, the Olympic Games comes back to Russia. In Sochi, athletes plays for 15 sports. There is no physical border on the map like the western and eastern countries, and only the athletes have the mental and financial borders for the games now.

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Personally, I checked the Internet to find about Sochi, Russia, but there are only some websites related to travel and sightseeing. I think Lonely Planet is the best one to check about Sochi.

Sochi, Russia (Lonely Planet)
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/russia/russian-caucasus/sochi

In Sochi, the games happen near the leisure city. However, the scale of the city is not big like London. If you want to visit there, carefully you need to decide the accommodations and transportation you use.

Travel Tips: Languages

Languages are very important when people travel. If you can speak English language, you are lucky. English language is the world language, and mostly in every country, many people are learning it and can speak. However, thinking about the situations in the world, other language is useful in some area.

Here is 3 popular languages people speak in the world:

English

English is the most popular language in the world. In many countries, this is the public language, and used for signs and guides. If people can use English, they take advantage of them. In addition, some International broadcasting are always provided in English language. When travelers faces problems, they will be one of the solutions

Spanish
Spanish is one of the biggest language in the world. If you travel Spain, Mexico, and South American countries, it's very effective. Spanish language belongs to Latin language. If people can use Spanish, they can also read and understand some parts of Portuguese.

Chinese
Some decades ago, Chinese language was not important in the world. However, this country is developing, and now it becomes one of the most important languages in the world. In fact, the area of the Chinese language is not always large, but it's including the mainland China, South-East Asian countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore. Also Chinese are spoken at Chinatown in the world.

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Recent days, in Canada, people tend to dislike Chinese immigrants using Chinese language. The reason of the dislike is that they don't respect of Canadian culture, and always depend on own culture they imported. In Sweden, some riots happened in May 20, 2013. The country has around 15% of immigrants from Middle East, Africa and other countries. They have fully treatments from the government for a term, but they are difficult to find jobs and solve the culture gaps. In fact, in many countries, they face the similar problems.

Understanding culture and the context is more and more important in the world. You can find yourself for the problems.

By the way, pronunciations are sometimes interesting. When people in other language speak something, by chance, the pronunciation is like one of own language words or sentence.

"Get Lucky" (2013)
by Daft Punk 

When I listen to the song, for me, a phrase "We're up all night to get lucky" is like "We're up all Mexican Lucky."

When you travel and face like this kind of interesting sounds, ask the native speaker, "what does it say?" Provably, you find some words and phrases having similar sounds but different meaning with your native languages.

Travel Tips: Travel Ads

If you are a beginner of the travel, possibly it's difficult to find your destinations. If you don't have any information of your destination, you can find some information just once you click one of them. The simplest way is to check the advertisement banners and links on the homepage.

Recent days, these ads are clever. If you open a homepage related to travel, the banners automatically show some information about travel.

However, what you need to be careful is you can believe the travel agent when you purchase from the company or not.

There are some things you need to do:

1. Compare
   If you have some specific travel agents for your travel, you can show the ads and ask about the destination to the salesperson. The Internet gives a lot of good ideas, but they are not always right for you. You can talk from the destination, transportation, hotels, and currencies with your ideas. In most cases, these kind of talks are free in the office.
2. Get your neighbor library... no, use the InternetLibraries have a lot of books, but their travel guide books are not always new. For your destinations, you always need the newest and right information. There are some ideas for it.
   

   Lonely Planet ( http://www.lonelyplanet.com/ ) is one of the best websites that always update about the world travel destinations. You can find the attractions, all attractions, landmarks, accommodation, and so on. It also has some travel apps and mobile websites.

   Hostels.com ( http://www.hostels.com/ ) is NOT for luxury travels, but for cheap travels. Mainly, backpackers and students use this kind of sites. Basically, many hostels don't have private rooms, but directly you can ask to the hostel. People who stay at these hostels usually have similar purposes for their travel. If you have a good friend, you may have a lot of travel information.

   Hostelling International ( http://www.hihostels.com/ ) This is the international association of the Youth Hostel. They have some kinds of memberships. When you get it, you can use the hostels. In some attractions in the world, they provide a kind of discount with the memberships.

   Hotels: For hotels, there are a lot of the Internet sites in the world. Without some specific chains, there are no websites for the reservations. Also, the treatments are different from countries. Please check for yourself.

   Local Travel Commissions: If you have a specific travel destination, you can figure out about the destination on the local travel commission websites. Normally, they provide new and very specific information. However, if your destination is small towns, or rural areas, frequently, they may not update. If you use, be careful. 

3. Decision
   When you did all researches and are done for compare, you can back for the first ad that you click. Then you need a decision that you pick either ads, or travel agencies around you.

In fact, these ads on homepages and blogs shows specific things. If you want to try a volunteer in Africa, it's difficult to figure out the information on the Internet. However, these advertisement show some keys for your ideas. If you have a plan, it possibly a good point to start for your dream.

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Now in my cities, students are done for th spring semester in the United States. If you are one of the lucky students, from now, you can use your precious time for your favorite things. You can work, travel, learn, love and be crazy!

"Don't Stop the Party" (2012)

By Pitbull Featuring Tjr

Now the summer party starts. Especially students who have a gap year, you have one year break for your next life. If you have a plan, it's a clue for your dream. Just a try, and be a nice man!