Bucket List # 2 - Sailing the Caribbean

Call it echoes of Captain Ron, or just the simple predilection of a beach bum, being able to spend some serious time aboard a sailboat has long been a desire of mine.  Actually, restricting it to sail boating is probably a little too much - just spending time on the ocean is great by me, but the added benefit of being able to sail around and dock wherever you like has more appeal.  I'm not picky though - I'd be happy to be aboard a power yacht, if that is what it took to make it happen.

The crazy thing is, as expensive as this sounds, this is actually well within reach.  The Moorings (www.moorings.com) offers a variety of yachting experiences, ranging from "learning to sail" trips to the fully staffed yacht charters.  While I haven't exactly figured out what the appropriate level of charter would be for me and my family, my initial take was that I could get a week long powerboat yacht charter with staff for only around $5,000.  That's total, mind you, so significantly less than my first pick (the Orient Express) which ran around $4,000 per person.

Yeah, this is pretty close to what I'm imagining.

While I probably still have to do a little research on this one, it does seem surprisingly affordable, especially for a family of four, although destination and craft type may create some different pricing points.  That said, I might have to look into this as an option in the nearer future than I had originally thought.

What I would like to know is other people's experience with this sort of thing.  If anyone out there has chartered a boat or spent any time sailing (or learning to sail), I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.

Bucket List # 1 - A Ride on the Orient Express

Some time ago, I had a game that involved pretending that you traveled on the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul.  While other details of the game have long since faded, the game left me with a lasting impression of the luxury of the Orient Express, and a lingering desire to experience it for myself.

The Paris - Istanbul route of the Orient Express is one of the longer ones - in the game, it ran from Paris to Milan, Venice, and finally Istanbul.  I'm not sure how realistic the route was, or if the Orient Express ever actually made that route.  I did a little research and found that I can replicate the majority of the route via the existing Paris-Istanbul route.  That train runs from Paris to Bucharest, Budapest, and ends at Istanbul.

I'm not entirely certain why the Orient Express has this appeal. It's certainly one of the world's iconic trains, and has an air of luxury and pampering.  I think perhaps the more appealing aspects are the promise of the nostalgia for a bygone era when travel was more than just getting to where you were going, and a sense of Old World Europe. 

The Orient Express

The Paris - Istanbul trip takes 6 days and 5 nights, and runs $9,000 per person as of this writing.  That's a pretty hefty sum.  I'd probably be willing to do shorter trips, but would want to at least experience a couple of nights on board the train.  Another option is Venice to Brussels, which is 5 days and 4 nights.  It also allows you to choose whether you want to go to Brussels via Budapest or Vienna, with only minor pricing differences, and a total cost of (at most) $3,560 per person - so a substantial discount to the Paris - Istanbul itinerary.  Venice to London and Venice to Paris are similar itineraries and similar costs, so overall, for more than an overnight trip, it's anywhere from around $3,200 to $4,000 for the 5 day/4 night itinerary.  While that's a bit of a splurge for me, I'm putting it down on my list anyway.

If you're interested in doing your own research into the Orient Express, you can find their website here:
http://www.vsoe.com/web/vsoe/venice_simplon_orient_express.jsp

The Bucket List

Recently, IrishFrog and I were having a discussion, and she brought up the fact that she had seen a bucket list somewhere.  I don't remember all the points that we discussed, but the basic requirements for the list were that it had to be 100 things.  The next question that came up was whether I could come up with a list of 100 things.

I felt reasonably assured that I could.  While bucket lists typically contain everything from spending time with family to unique experiences, I thought I would simply try to come up with a travel bucket list.  Some of these things are the things that I originally had in mind when I started this blog, and since, of late, I've felt that my posts needed a little more "umph", I think this will be a good diversion.

While the travel bucket list is, in and of itself, probably not that unusual, I also want to take the opportunity to explore and figure out exactly how much it will take to complete the list - in some cases, it's probably not that hard - in others, it's probably a significant layout of funds.  At least this way, as I complete the list, I will also be able to assess which ones I can afford to do, and when.

The next thing is that the list is not necessarily in any sort of order, other than the order that I happened to think about these things.  While that does mean that some things are probably higher on the list than others (i.e., they are the ones that I thought about first), I imagine that as I go through, I will find that many things are probably approximately equally appealing from my perspective.  I'm just going to number them in order of posting, and maybe at some later date, I'll organize.  Maybe.

So, next post - Bucket List item #1.

21 Fun Things to Do in Paris

There seems to be a growing fondness for lists - 10 hotels with the best pools, 10 best bars in New York City, 10 rooms with views to die for.  If you're any sort of regular travel reader, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.  So it wasn't particularly surprising when Lonely Planet Traveller published an article last month entitled 21 Fun Things to do in Paris.

The main difference between this list and many of the others is that it actually happens to be things that interest me.  I've been to Paris before, and I've done the typical tourist route - there will be more on this later, as we proceed through my travel history.  But, and this is something that most regular travellers know, but need to be reminded of from time to time, many times, the best moments come from unexpected and out of the way pleasures.

That makes this list a nice departure from the typical travel list.  This, at least on first read, is a good collection of possible adventures and activities that would take you off the typical tourist trail for a little while, and open your eyes to a broader Paris than that of the tour guides.  Usually, the writing you get in most magazines that goes off the beaten path is focused on food, or high-end spas, or some other type of specific activity.  This article provides a wide variety of activities across an array of interests.

I'd love to cover the article in more detail, but unfortunately, this is where all those copyright laws come in, so I'm not entirely sure what I can say.  Lonely Planet Traveller can be bought in the App Store, if you have an iPad, iPhone, or similar device.  Alternatively, they have subscriptions online.  If visiting Paris sometime soon, I encourage you to check it out.

That's a long way around to saying that although I've been before, I'm putting Paris on the 'round the world' (RTW) itinerary, and maybe I'll do a few of these things when I go. 

Online photography storage

Usually, upon returning from a trip, you will have hundreds of photos that you need to save.  You can simply store them on your computer (risking a computer crash), or you can store them, and then back them up to somewhere else.  If you want to share your pictures, an online photo storage site is definitely worth considering.  This particular post looks at a couple of the top places for photo storage, and provides a little compare and contrast.

For my purposes, I'm mainly concerned with storage capability, file size limitations, and ability to download the originals when I'm done.  Although many of the sites offer other abilities (such as the ability to edit photos, or to share with friends, etc.), I have photo editing software, and am not particularly interested in the social aspects of the sites.  That said, your preferences may differ - but I am mainly interested in whether I can store all of my photos, whether I can store the full photo (full resolution photos can easily top 5MB nowadays), and whether the site stores the original file, and if I can get it back without too much effort.

Flickr (www.flickr.com) is one of top photo sites, and with good reason - a free terabyte of storage, no limit on file sizes for uploads, and you can download your original photos at any time.  You can set your account to only be accessible to you, your friends, or everyone, and there are further privacy options available if you only want to share select photos, for example.  Flickr has mobile apps as well, so you can upload from your phone or email, and you have the ability to tag or otherwise categorize photos.  The one downside that I can see is that you can only download one photo at a time, although there may be user created programs which have a way around this.

Shutterfly (www.shutterfly.com) is another popular option.  I don't like it as much as Flickr, for reasons that will become clear shortly.  It wins on the storage front, as they offer unlimited storage.  They also do not restrict file size, so that's easy, and they also offer multiple ways for uploading.  The point which concerns me most is that you can't download your original photos, you have to pay Shutterfly to burn a disc and send them to you.  You can share for free, and you have the ability to put photos into albums, but the fact that I have to pay to get my own photos back is a bit of a deal-killer, especially when compared to Flickr.  As full disclosure, they do allow you to download compressed versions which should still be suitable for printing in sizes up to 8 x 10, but at this juncture, I'm simply more concerned with the ability to restore.  You may consider it worthwhile, as the rest of the options are free.

Picasa is the Google entrant to the field, and it may very well be worth a spin.  I was initially put off by the insistence that Picasa be part of the Google+ experience, and in the end, surprisingly, it may be the lack of clarity in the interface and how exactly the whole thing works that ends up being the biggest negative. I say surprisingly, because Google, of all companies, ought to know better, but seems determined to make your photo storage a social experience.  From what I can tell, Google allows you to upload the original file at full size and download at full size, but only provides 15 GB of free storage, after which you have to pay.  In this day and age, that's peanuts.

For the time being, I'm voting for Flickr. 

Travel photography

My intention is to post here every other day, but I missed yesterday.  That's partly because I've gotten a little behind in my blog drafts, but a lot of it has to do with the chaos that was created late yesterday when we discovered that some of the pictures that we have saved on CDs were irretrievable.  So, while this post isn't exactly about travel, it is travel related.

I shouldn't say completely irretrievable, because in the end, we were able to get most of them back.  We did have a few casualties, though.  Fortunately, these were relatively limited.  However, it made me a little nervous about the rest of our photos.

Back in the day, you went around with film and camera, and took whatever shots you took, hoping desperately that your pictures would come out okay, and at the end of a trip, you took your film in to the store, paid an exorbitantly high price to get them developed, and then you could finally look through and see what you got.  That often led to interesting discoveries - reference prior Jamaica posts for an example.  Since pictures were limited based on the cost of film development, you chose your shots more carefully - our first trip to Ireland, I think we took slightly over 100 pictures in about a week. The more recent trips we've taken, we've probably taken 100 to 150 pictures a day.  (To be clear, it's IrishFrog who is the shutterbug, not me.)

With the advent of the digital camera, things changed immensely.  At first, you bought multiple storage cards to handle the increased volume of pictures that you were taking.  Now, even that isn't a necessity.  I do think that we brought two storage cards on our last visit to Europe, but that was partly because we knew we wouldn't be removing pictures from them until we got home.  So, originally you just transferred your pictures to the computer, and that was it.

Enter the failure of computer drives, and the need to find another, more reliable place to store digital photos.  I've had one computer crash on me, and although I was able to recover some files, much of what was on there was lost.  Since that time, IrishFrog has been fairly diligent in backing up the photos to CD.  We now have over a decade worth of pictures stored on CD - and as computers have come and go through our house, we've backed up, checked to make sure they work on other computers, and filed them away in a giant CD holder.

Until now.  As I mentioned, yesterday, we tried to open a couple of the disks only to find that not all of the photos were accessible.  We already have an external hard drive which I'll be using to transfer the photos to a safer place, but I'm also looking at online storage as another option.  I'll let you know what I find out next time.

Sanibel & Captiva Islands

A part of me hesitates to continue on the stories of my travels, because there are some places that I would love (selfishly) to keep to myself.  The islands of Sanibel and Captiva fall into that category.  I'm honestly not sure if they were "undiscovered" in 1996, when I first went there, but since then, Lonely Planet published a small visitors guide, and the islands have been featured in the Wall Street Journal within the last month.  The islands have even made it into 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.  And yet, the last time I visited, the years really hadn't changed the islands all that much.

There are plenty of things that appeal about the islands, enough that I've been back multiple times, although there are certainly closer beaches.  That said, I'm not certain that I can capture specific places we visited on each trip at the date of this writing, some 18 years after our first visit to the islands.  There's a few places that were there that aren't around anymore.  The main one that comes to mind is McT's Shrimp House & Tavern.  I've done a little digging around, and apparently it had taken a turn for the worse before closing, but back in 1996, it was a good choice for a meal.  I do recall eating at the Jacaranda on this trip as well, but I can't say that I recall too much about it.

The two main things that I find to be so appealing, though, are the shells, and the secluded feeling.  I'll start with the second part first.  I grew up going to the beach, and while the beach has never been deserted, beaches today are a far cry from the beaches I remember.  This is the whole point of the Wall Street Journal write-up on Sanibel and Captiva - they've maintained the "Old Florida" feel.  The islands aren't overrun with condos and high-rise hotels, and while there is shopping to be had, you won't find huge discount outlets there either.  So, if that's your idea of a week at the beach, you will be sorely disappointed by what you find.  There are several good dining options, but the islands also aren't overrun with restaurants and fast food joints.  What you will find is clean beaches, with unbelievable amounts of shells, and a small beach community feel.  Even today, there's simply not that much "to do" on the islands, which, in my eyes, makes them all the more tempting.

If you haven't been there, it is almost impossible to explain the shells you can find.  When you hear the waves crash on the shore, there is a musical tinkling sound, like someone diddling around on the high piano keys very lightly.  That diddling happens to be the sound of thousands upon thousands of shells being pushed back and forth by the waves.  Simply strolling along the beach you will find hundreds upon hundreds of perfectly shaped shells.  Stay for a week, and even if you didn't think of yourself as a "sheller", you will have caught the fever, and you will have spent at least one day stooped over, digging through the sand for your next piece of treasure.  We ended up bringing back a bucket full of shells the first time we went - after getting rid of another couple of buckets.  It seems like every time we go back, we come back home with another bucket.

I'll do some searching for photos to see if I can add a few - I'm not sure I'll be able to do the place justice.