Sta Travel

On STA Travel you can select the continents your interested in traveling to and create a RSS feed of cheap flights that fly to those continents. This site is geared towards student travelers who don't have rigid schedules to adhere too and is a great opportunity to find good deals. You may not know you wanted to visited Paris, but for $490 round trip, how could you not?

Art of Travel

"How To See The World... On $25 A Day On Less!" This website, written by a veteran traveler, is a great resource for how to save money, how to pack, what not to take, where not to go and how to get by on the cheap, you must see this website.

AirNinja.com

Air Ninja is a great flight finder, the way the engine works is you can input your city, and destination and Air Ninja shows you only discount Airline Carriers who fly to and from these locations. Air Ninja only shows discount carriers, so if you can't find a discount carrier going to where you want, you may be forced to book through Travelocity or other brokers.

OneBag

To quote the website "The art and science of traveling light" This website is a great resource for anyone traveling, no matter where your going or for how long. And not just tips on packing but what to bring, what to wear and how to get around. Even the veteran traveler can learn why not to bring cotton towels and the many uses of a clothesline.

Hostels.com

The ultimate database of hostels worldwide. You can book through their website and read reviews. Nothing beats staying in Tokyo for $13 a night.

Couch Surfing Project

Listings of free places to stay all over the world. FREE. Yes FREE. This is great for travelers looking to cut cost. Don't worry about ending up in a undesirable situation, you can do your research of the places you'll be staying. This is also a great way to see the real hot spots of a country and not just the touristy locales.

Fare Compare

Fare Compare allows you to search numerous air ticket sales websites at once and compare them easier than going to each site and imputing your search in over and over.

Hostels are key. Get a hosteling card. HiUsa.com has great resources for international and domestic hostels. Most hostels I stayed in were very accommodating, you may have to sleep in a 28 person room, but if you like to travel, this isn't a problem, your never there but to get some shut eye. Hostels are also flexible about dates and some are flexible with prices!

Many nights I slept in train stations and bus garages. I'm not advocating this for everyone but I traveled with a friend and Japan is a very safe country. The best way to do this is to pack light and put your backpack behind you, lock it with a zip tie or combo lock and put a strap around your wrist so no one can pull anything out while you sleep.

When traveling around the country, save money by taking buses instead of trains. A great method if your only traveling a few hundred miles is to take an overnight bus, while saving money on a hostel for that night and awaking at your destination. I went from Osaka to Tokyo on an overnight bus costing $50, and saving an extra $15 by not spending it on a hostel.

Remember when staying in a hostel to bring a small combination lock for your locker. Make sure you lock things up when your not in your room, even if you are using the showers.

While you lodge, instead of spending money on washers and dryers bring a small clothesline and hand wash your clothes in a sink and let them dry on a clothesline in a bathroom or outside, depending on hostel and time of year.

My friend only brought 2 pair of boxer briefs with him, he would take a shower with one pair on, then let them dry while wearing the other pair during the day, and repeat this every day. Might sound weird but he always had clean boxers and saved room on packing!

View the rest of this series on my $2000 trip to Japan, with tips of lodging, travel packing, and eating.

Safe Travels.

When it comes to finding the cheapest ticket, check all the travel websites first, like Kayak, Travelocity, Orbitz, StudentAirfare, Hotwire and so on. Begin to do some more research now that you have a base price and range.

Check airline websites directly, bypassing the bulk sellers of tickets, sometimes you can save a couple hundred dollars by going directly to United Airlines website for example. Ultimately I found the cheapest airfare through a travel agent, booking the flight for $630 round trip, total.

I flew Chicago to San Francisco to Osaka, previously I've flown direct O'Hare to Tokyo for around the same price.

To make some extra cash while traveling, when you get to the airport, go to the gate and ask the attendant how well sold the plane is. Airlines typically overbook 5% or so depending on flight. Put yourself on a list for overbooking, so if the flight is overbooked you give up your seat for someone else, get a couple hundred dollars in cash, a night in a nearby hotel and usually fly out the next morning. You can't beat this, if you do it on the way there and back you can pocket some extra cash, sometimes up to $200 each way.

One last tip, when searching for a flight avoid the summertime, it's always busier, pricier, and slower. Fly in downtimes and check for flights with crazy layovers. I saw flights to Tokyo that had a 20 hour layover in Rome. This may not be for everyone but you get a cheaper flight and enough time to run around Rome for a day.

View the rest of this series on my $2000 trip to Japan, with tips of lodging, travel packing and eating.

Safe Travels.

When my boyfriend had suggested going to Hong Kong a month before, I was a little dubious. After all, it was an extremely expensive flight and I felt slightly alarmed at traveling further than I'd ever been before from my home in Dublin. He, the lucky beggar, had been in Australia for six weeks on a sabbatical and was busy sunning himself on Bondi beach while I was left to make my decision. Eventually, I decided to throw caution and credit card to the wind and I booked my ticket. I spent four excited weeks buying guide books and figuring out what attractions we could go and see. Then, the day arrived and I flew into London, feeling mildly annoyed that there are no Hong Kong flights from Ireland.

I have often wondered what it must be like to be American; to live in a country of such vast expanses. Ireland is such a tiny country (I think we would fit into Texas about thirty times) that we Irish are used to getting where we want to go quickly by car or train. It only takes three hours to drive from one side of the country to the other. As you can imagine, I'm not a frequent long haul flier and the prospect of fourteen hours from London was making me distinctly nervous.

It turned out my fears were justified: I was stuck in a window seat beside an enormous British soldier who kept his elbow in my face for much of the flight. Luckily, the wine kept me hazy enough to ignore the agonizing cramps in my legs. I'm not very materialistic but I do envy rich people their ability to fly business class! I spent an uncomfortable night thinking jealously of those smug business men sitting in the front of the plane in their super luxurious faux leather arm chairs!

When I finally reached Causeway Bay, the district where my hostel was located, all I could do was sink onto the bed and rip of my grubby clothes. That would have been fine, apart from the fact that the bed had the consistency of frozen concrete or possibly titanium. I resolved then and there to never throw myself onto a bed again without first checking the feel of it with my hand. My spine is still wonky.

Our hostel was about ten stories high and our room had a small window which looked onto a dingy alley of the kind where rumbles take place in Hong Kong cop movies. I could hear families chatting and dishes clinking as I drifted to sleep. The most unexpected surprise of my sojourn was the temperature. I had expected humidity of the tropical kind which makes it difficult to breathe and muggy heat drifting up from the pavements. To my annoyance, I found it was colder than Ireland! When I woke up the next morning, (C had arrived from Sydney by that stage), I struggled into my big woolly jumper, usually reserved for winter.

Apart from the disappointment of the weather, I was monumentally impressed with Hong Kong. The street scape of neon lights, skyscrapers and tropical trees was an overpowering vista. None of what I had read about it in my guide book prepared me for it. My favorite aspect of the Island is how even though modern buildings cover the shore line; it still feels wild and verdant. Although obviously touched by human hand, the close vicinity of the sea, the peak and the forests reminiscent of jungles means it retains its air of mystery. It's not just "another city". One of the problems of urbanization is that so many cities are uniform. However, this city has retained its individual character.

I loved riding on the ferry to Kowloon and Lantau. The journey to Kowloon only took about two minutes but the close up view of the harbor is impressive enough, particularly at night. The return journey from Lantau is spectacular: zooming in on ricocheting waves with the view of the Excelsior Hotel and other imposing buildings quickly approaching. My eyes were glued to the ferry windows, trying to drink in everything. C was looking distinctly green at this point as he doesn't sail too well and the motion of the waves was rocking our seats!

However, my favorite ferry ride of the trip was undoubtedly the evening cruise to watch the light show. The ferry sails out to the middle of the harbor about twenty to eight in the evening. It gently stays there rocking while tourists cluster around the edge of the boat. The light show occurs on both sides of the harbor and a start at eight pm. Music was piped out of the boat and the buildings lit up in time to the music.

One building would light up in fluorescent pink and then others would follow suit, changing color every few minutes, lighting up the dark sky. The irony is that the buildings are mundane by day; a bank, an electricity company, but by night, they perform in a world class show. Blue, red, gold, green followed each other to the beat of the music. By the time it ended, the cluster of tourists was left in an awestruck hush at what they had seen. The show is certainly not environmentally friendly because it uses up vast amounts of electricity every night but it is one of the few cases of a worthwhile use of energy.

Food was lavish. Generally, we ate noodles from a nearby café for breakfast, or dim sum, which was drowned in soy sauce. Afternoon tea at the peninsula hotel is a must though. The Peninsula hotel is the most elegant and expensive hotel in Kowloon. The lobby is plush and covered in gilt and the visitor can watch the front door where illustrious guests glide through fresh from Mercedes and Bentleys. Eating cucumber sandwiches in Hong Kong reminds one of its colonial past. The sandwiches were served with crisp breakfast tea and dainty cakes. Chinese food is delicious and extremely healthy but I have to confess to craving a bacon sandwich with brown sauce by the end of the ten days!

The Ten thousand Buddha monastery lies in the northern part of Kowloon. It took us five metro stops to get to the general area. We were then flummoxed as on the map it looks very close to the metro but we couldn't find it. We went into Chinese real estate agents where we asked some helpful realtors. They wrote the Chinese symbols for the monastery on a piece of paper so we could show it to a taxi driver.

To our amusement, it turned out that the monastery was very far away indeed from the metro station contrary to what the guidebook said. Once we arrived, we found ourselves in a small forest at the base of a hill. We could see macaque monkeys bounding through the trees. It was a family group. A baby macaque swung from a branch by his tail and peered at us. My good friend Rupali told me that a monkey once bit her in India, so I was a trifle nervous of them even though they looked like cuddly monkey toys.

I decided to make a wide berth between the monkeys and hurried up the steps to the monastery. My fears were justified as I soon saw a sign that said "Do not tease or feed the monkeys". My imagination created all kinds of scenarios where innocent day-trippers were attacked by rabid monkeys. I hurried up the steps faster.

The stairs to the monastery were ancient cracked stone and on each side of them stood numerous large gold Buddha statues. Each Buddha had his own personality and facial expression. There was the jolly Buddha, the sad Buddha, the Buddha with a beard, the naughty Buddha, etc… Each one held an offering of a white biscuit in his hand with a red marking on it. The sheer number of the Buddhas is impressive. They follow one all the way up the steps. At the top, there is a selection of little temples and one large courtyard which has a view of the surrounding forests and apartment buildings. At either side of the courtyard are a giant elephant statue and a dog. In the middle is an ornate tower. The visitor can go inside and climb up to the top.

Inside the tower and indeed everywhere around the courtyard were fragrant offerings of incense, oranges and biscuits. The main temple has a beautiful curvaceous roof. Inside, it is dark except for the fact that it is lit up by the thousands of tiny Buddha statues that line its walls in small compartments. They are arranged from the floor to the ceiling. They dazzle the eyes. The color scheme of the walls is dominated by rich red with a velvet texture.

In the middle of the temple is a statue of Tin Hau, the Hong Kong God of the sea, with a treasure trove of offerings in front of him ranging from chocolate to every imaginable kind of fruit. The color and vibrancy of Buddhist temples reminds the visitor of a jewelery box filled with treasures. The peace and tranquility of the buildings lulls one into calm. I liked watching worshipers rhythmically swaying their incense in front of the Buddha. The scent of the incense is heady and soporific.

We spent a long time just sitting in the courtyard looking out over the valley and listening to monks chanting in the sunlight. It was the first sunny day of the trip and the Buddhas and I were basking in the heat. We took many photos of the monastery but none seem to do it justice.

It's a place I keep returning to in my mind, so enchanted was I by the simplicity and peace and as I reluctantly wedged myself into my seat for the fourteen hour flight home, I still considered myself glad that I had the opportunity to explore a part of the world which was both foreign and familiar to me.