Condo Camping - My favorite way to travel. Since we own a timeshare it is fairly easy for us to exchange into other peoples timeshares when we want to go somewhere where we don't have a condo. This week we are in Fort Myers Beach in south Florida. When we first arrived in Florida we did not have a condo, so we were eating out 3 times a day. Pretty spendy. But we have a condo now and I spent about $75 at the grocery store on Monday and we have not eaten out since, it is Wednesday and we still have groceries. On this trip I discovered that the dollar store has grocery items, so instead of paying $5 or more for oil and salad dressing, I got them both for $2. For me, vacationing is all about saving money, because the more I save the more I can travel.

Wow, long travel days, no internet service and too many rettarita's makes it impossible to add post's to your blogs! But we ended up our second night in St.Petes beach at a little motel right on the beach. Yep, the motel we got for free with our Delta miles. Nothing fancy, but it was ok, and the beach made up for the so so motel. I love the powder sand at St. Pete's Beach. Today we went on a segway tour. We have gone on one before in New Orleans, that was a city tour, this one was a nature tour on a segway out at Ft De Soto, it was WAY cool! And the price was really great too, as we only paid $45, and my husband and I were the only ones on the tour. It was great. We stopped to rest and got to watch dolphins playing in the bay. If you are ever in St. Petes Beach, I can personally recommend Remy's segway tours, you won't be disappointed.

Mexico Half-Off!!!!

In my in box today an offer from bookit.com for half to 65% off of Mexico vacations at all inclusive resorts. When I checked they were running about $100 a night, which I don't think is really 65% off, but its not a bad price either. Now is when some people like to head to Mexico, as it is kind of their off season, but then again, you are in Mexico, how "off" can it be?

My second find of the day is that there is now a rental company in Hawaii that rents mini coopers. Their website was down, so I couldn't get too much information, but I will be checking back with them. I would much rather rent a convertible mini cooper than a convertible mustang.

I won't be checking in tomorrow as I will be in route to Florida, so my next post will be written from the pool area. Ciao!

OK, I have been kind of busy today and so I have not really found any smokin deals. How about just a general vacation type of statement for today.
Ever been on a cruise? I haven't.......yet. It is definitely on my list of things to do. I had one booked a few years ago. We had a Caribbean cruise booked going out of New Orleans. We were going to cruise for a week, going to Belize and Roatan Honduras, a super sweet balcony cabin overlooking the front of the ship, and then back to spend a few days at Mardi Gras. Care to guess why my trip got canceled? Ever heard of a little storm named Katrina? Yep, I was glued to the tv for that storm coverage, and just when I thought New Orleans was going to make it through........it didn't. My missing a cruise paled in comparison to what they went through, but I have not been able to find the perfect cruise since then. But I will. I am just waiting for the same ship (Norwegian Sun) to have an itinerary I can fall in love with.

Do you own a timeshare? If you do you already know about the value of one. You already know how owning a timeshare can save you a lot of money on your vacations every year. But the one thing I have learned about timeshare owners is that most of them do not know how to use their timeshares to the fullest advantages.

I have had lots of people tell me that they were sorry they ever bought their timeshares, it was nothing but a wast of money. When I start asking them questions about how they use their timeshare, I can quickly understand why they think that way! They are not using it the fullest potential. If you are only going to use it as a one week vacation spot, like most people think they bought for, you are right, it is most likely a waste of money. Have you ever heard the phrase "Drive it like you stole it"? That is the attitude you need to have towards your timeshare. There is more than the bland way to use it, and smart timeshare owners take advantage of all the rules at their disposal.

Do you use the trading power your resort has? Is there opportunities for short stay inventory that you can take advantage of? Do you have more than one resort in your group that you can stay at? Do you have to stay a week at a time or can you break it up? Usually when I start asking unhappy timeshare owners these questions, they don't know the answers, and therein lies the problem. You probably spent a lot of money on your timeshare and not learning how to use it is akin to owning a vette and driving it like a volkswagon.

Wow, there are just so many great deals out there these days. The problem is the economy is so far in the tank that everyone is either unemployed and can't take advantage of the deals, or afraid they will be unemployed and won't take advantage of the deals.

If you are still employed and you can manage to take advantage of some of these deals, now is the best time to go on vacation. If you have ever wanted to go to Hawaii, but have always said you couldn't afford it, NOW is the time! Flights are at super low prices and so are hotels. These are only available for the short term, you can't take advantage of this deal if you are planning a vacation for this fall, but if you are wanting a spring fling, the climate is right.

Flights to Hawaii from the west coast are running under $300, a couple or three years ago they were running closer to $600. If you like to stay in the higher end types of motels, now is the right time to grab some of those too. The price of these motels are sometimes running at what you would normally pay for a mid class motel.

Get out there and vacation!

So yesterday I told you about using miles for motel rooms. Just in case anyone is confused, I do not advocate using your miles for motel rooms on an everyday basis. I only pointed out this option because I am sure there are people out there like me that have miles accounts that do not get a lot of traffic on them and so the miles do not accumulate very fast. Rather than lose those miles, I will use them on motel rooms or other products that I like. I have a couple of thousand miles in my United account because I shop at Safeway and when you use your Safeway Club Card when making purchases, if you have signed up, you get 1/2 mile for every dollar spent. Since I am shopping there anyway, I might as well get some miles. I will probably use those miles for some dining certificates while in Florida.

If you are not a frequent flyer, and like me only travel for vacations and fun stuff, you will do better if you have only one major miles account. That is how I ended up with some left over Delta miles. I had an account with them, but they did not have good routes for me from my airport and so I switched. After using everything I could on flights, I still had some left over.

I surf a lot, and while I am surfing I find a lot a deals. My passion in life is traveling, so what do you think I find deals on? You got it! I love finding them and most of the time I can't use everything I find, so I thought I would create this blog where I can pass along to you what I found.

So what did the Travel Guru find today? This may not come as a surprise to everyone out there, but I found it surprising. I had some Delta skymiles that were about to expire, only aobut 14000 of them, so not even close to a ticket. I got a notice that I could use them for magazines, so I thought why not? Let's see what I can find. While I was looking for mags, I found out you can also use them to book motel rooms. Now it just so happens that in another week I am headed to Florida, where I don't have any room reservations. We have a certain area in mind, but for the most part want to be mobile. Well, to make a long story short, my measly little miles that were about to expire got me 3 nights motel in Florida. Who Knew? And for those of you that are like me and get United Miles at Safeway, just because, you can use those for motel rooms too.
Enjoy the day!