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In: hotels, lodging, points & miles, wanderguides
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Partly because I’m based in California, Las Vegas is one of my favorite places for a short getaway. It’s a unique place, in that for all its international reputation for partying and crazy times on the Las Vegas Strip, the rest of Vegas is more of an affordable town  (caveat – I live in one of the most expensive areas in the United States) with a relatively close-knit community. This overview focuses primarily on the Las Vegas Strip. I assume most everyone has an idea of what the Strip is – if not, this is why we have Google. Google away! People who vacation in Vegas seem to fallRead More →

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In: airbnb, hotels, points & miles, wanderdiaries
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Back in 2016, I realized that the next year would feature an optimal set of travel circumstances. 2017 would be the year in which I’d have Gold status* with Starwood Hotels, Silver status with United Airlines, and a huge (to me, anyway) stockpile of points/miles in both loyalty programs. On noticing this, I set out to find the perfect new vacation spot that had a beach and a cool town to explore.** This perfect place needed to have a Starwood property, and had to be reachable by United (or one of United’s Star Alliance partners). As it turned out, Bali represented the convergence of a solidRead More →

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In: #StaySwanky, budget, lodging, planning
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The Perfect Accommodations There are many things in life to which I sometimes arrive very late (dinners, nearly all TV shows, most entries on Urban Dictionary…), but a hotel reservation is not one of those things – a late hotel reservation can mean spending hundreds of dollars that I could otherwise be using to eat delicious foods, or it could mean compromising on what I want out of my hotel stay. Neither is an acceptable outcome when both can be prevented. The two biggest expenses of most trips are flights and lodging. If you can control these costs, then the overall cost of your tripRead More →