Last week, Seth Kugel from the New York Times interviewed a handful of AYCJers for the Frugal Traveler; myself included. My name was mentioned alongside several others, including Megan Kearney from Chicago, whom I had the pleasure of meeting during a layover in Long Beach on day 30. Megan seems like an interesting enough girl, definitely well-traveled with a great blog to prove it.
2. In the Pacific Northwest, it’s believed that Portland has the most strip clubs per capita over any US city. The city has just over a half million residents, and more than 50 strip clubs throughout the city. I’ve read online that Springfield, Oregon passed Portland as the most clubs per capita in 2009, but either way, Portland is still up there. More than Vegas. Apparently these strip clubs also serve up some excellent food.
3. I love eating Handi Snacks Breadsticks ‘n Cheez, but I hate eating them in public. See, I’m kind of a “no cheese left behind” kinda gal, and I fully support licking the plate (or plastic container) clean. It’s pretty embarrassing to do while sitting on an airplane or in an airport. But with a little creativity, it can be done discreetly.
4. The Travel Channel may have played a part in making Voodoo Doughnuts famous, but their end of day deal should be a must for any doughnut lover on a budget in Portland (if you’re willing to gain a few pounds). They sell 5 gallon buckets of day old doughnuts for $5. That’s fresher than packaged doughnuts from the grocery store; and more unique flavors too!
5. The iPhone 4 doesn’t just suck in New York. It sucks all over America. I don’t know if it’s AT&T or the iPhone itself, but mine didn’t work in about 60% of the places I visited- big and small cities alike. Mostly dropped calls, and no internet/data service (even though it had full bars and a 3G signal). Oh, and the “extremely tough gorilla glass” on the LCD screen is not so durable either. The prong side of my power cord hit the screen from 2ft in the air and shattered it. Of course, AppleCare doesn’t cover cosmetic damage. They actually told me to call my renters insurance and file a claim, or go in to Apple and pay $200 to have the screen fixed (on a phone I paid $300 for). I’ve had this phone just under 3 months and it has already cracked twice. Pretty bad considering I had my 3G for two years and it never saw a single scratch.
6. I will no longer take New York tap water for granted. Of the 12 cities I visited, none of their tap water comes close to New York’s. I think it tastes better than most bottled water. San Diego was probably the worst I tasted over the 37 days. I heard Chicago’s is great, but I didn’t try it.
8. Los Angeles has a subway system. Who knew? I’ve always heard about how bad their traffic is, but I’ve never once heard anything about a subway system. It doesn’t look like it connects much of LA, but when I took it four stops it was much quicker than driving or taking a bus. Their public buses are a joke. Yes they have televisions on board for maximum [looping] entertainment, but you’d better leave four hours early. Or plan on being late.
10. This one may seem like a no brainer, but if you plan on visiting another country, check out the conversion rate BEFORE you get there. I figured since Jamaica accepts US dollars and I was staying in a prepaid all-inclusive hotel, I’d be okay with a $20 bill and my ATM card. Well the cab to the hotel was $30, so I immediately had to stop at a Jamaican ATM. I didn’t have cell phone service to check the conversion rate, so I had to trust what the cab driver told me to withdrawal (which was a pretty scary feeling, especially since I didn’t have more than a few hundred dollars in the bank to begin with). The Jamaican conversion rate is 86.855 Jamaican dollars for every 1 USD. $30 USD ended up being something like 2600 Jamaican dollars. I’ve never in my life felt more uncomfortable than when I stepped into the private locked ATM machine, and typed in a $2600 withdrawal with a line of people standing behind me.
11. Never make a phone call from a foreign country without a calling card. And make sure you’re using a designated hotel phone that will not charge you a connection fee, or a per minute fee on top of the calling card fee. Even though the credit card rate advertised may only be 50 cents a minute, they have all kinds of hidden connection fees. You’re better off just not making any phone calls. This isn’t the first time I was wrongly informed of how much a phone call to the US would cost.
12.Cool Runnings fans (there’s still some out there, right?) should check out the Jamaican Bobsled Cafe on the Hip Strip in Montego Bay. I didn’t get to see it, thanks to Tropical Storm Nicole, but they have the original Jamaican bobsled from the 1988 Calgary Olympics.
13. Despite how clean the city looked, I’m pretty sure one of the most disease-infested alleys in America is in Seattle. The saliva-filled “bubblegum alley” in Seattle’s Pike Place Market is fairly similar to the Bubblegum Alley in San Luis Obispo, California. Is it weird that I had a strong urge to lick the walls?
14. Sunset is a great time to go up in the Seattle Space Needle. You can see the city in the daylight, sunset, and dark all within about an hour.
15. The 60th floor Sky Lobby at the JP Morgan Chase building in Houston provides a panoramic view of the city for free. It is the tallest building in Houston, and the 50th tallest in the world at 1002ft high. It is also the tallest 5-sided building in the entire world.
16. I-90 ends in Seattle. I’ve taken I-90 from my hometown in Toledo, West to Chicago and East to New York more times than I can count. I had no idea that had I missed the Chicago exit, I would have ended up in Seattle a few days later.
17. A man named Carl Fisher invented the car headlight, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Miami Beach in the early 1900s. He also began developing Montauk in Long Island New York as a “Miami of the north” tourist attraction before being cut short by the Great Depression.
18. The San Diego Zoo is expensive, and definitely not on a budget traveler’s agenda. It’s supposed to be worth every penny, but at $37 for the cheapest 1 day pass, I couldn’t afford to see for myself.
19. If your car breaks down on the Pacific Coast Highway, don’t count on your cell phone to call someone. Well over half of the drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco I was without service.
20. If you’re riding shotgun and hoping to take pictures along the Pacific Coast Highway, drive south. It’s easier to be on the outside than trying to take pictures past the driver’s head. And if you can, make time for a few stops along the way. Just make sure you take better pictures than I do.
21. Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport is the 2nd busiest airport in the world.
22. The show Most Extreme Airports on the History Channel ranks San Diego’s airport as the 10th most dangerous airport in the world due to its proximity to the mountains and downtown. In order to keep the noise down in the surrounding area, planes are allowed to take off between 630a and 1130p, or else face a fine. Arrivals are allowed 24 hours a day.
23. Apparently it does get hot in San Francisco. And there’s no air conditioning so you just have to suffer.
24. I stayed on Grant street, which was the first constructed street in San Francisco. It was originally named Calle De La Fundacion.
25.Sprinkles Cupcakes in Beverly Hills trumps any cupcake I’ve ever had in NYC (yes, even the dry, overrated cupcakes at Magnolia). And they’re opening their first NYC store in Feb 2011, on Lexington between 60th & 61st.
26. Willamette Valley in Oregon produces some of the best and most inexpensive Pinot Noir in the world. I chose one based on the cool label, called The Four Graces, and it was by far the best low price wine I’ve ever had. Willamette Valley also appears as the end destination in The Oregon Trail.
27. Recycling bins on the streets of New York make me happy. But an abundance of compost bins out on the west coast? Incredible.
28. Nineteen of the world’s 25 largest hotels (by room count) are on the Las Vegas Strip.
29. Hostels are a perfectly cheap place to sleep in a new city. I stayed at my first hostel in Seattle, and although it was a huge difference from the hotel rooms I’m used to, a girl on a budget can’t complain. It was only $35, and since I only needed a place to rest from 9p-5a, I couldn’t justify spending much more for a hotel.
30. Traveling is a lot more fun when you don’t have to go back to work afterwards.
30 days. $499. Unlimited flights. Drumroll please- the numbers are in:
24,654 milesflown on the jetBlue AYCJ pass (25,154 including a flight on Spirit Airlines, from DTW to LGA on day 37).
913 miles in a caror by bus (between cities- not including transportation within cities).
60 hours 15 minutes on airplanes.
35 hours in airports.
20.5 hours on buses.
16 hours 15 mins on trains.
15 hours 15 minutes travelingin cars between cities.
13 cities. 12 airports.
2019 photos and videos taken.
Not to mention, brief encounters with 3 tornadoes, 2 tropical storms, and 1 Tommy Lee. I stayed in 10 houses/apartments, 2 hotels, and 1 hostel, and only encountered 1 canceled flight, and 3 flight delays.
I woke up at 7am to one of the most intense thunderstorms I have ever witnessed in my life. The thunder was loud, the lightning was bright, the rain horizontal, and the wind was blowing chairs across the sidewalk right into the pool.
Before long, the beach had completely disappeared as the waves rushed in and the water slammed up against the walls of the resort.
Since the resort was open-air, the inside of the resort was starting to flood and most of the areas were closed down.
As if totally oblivious to the weather, I grabbed my bags and went to check out to go to the airport. That’s when I saw the sign at front desk that read “ALL JET BLUE FLIGHTS FOR TODAY HAVE BEEN CANCELED.” I may have freaked out for a minute. Being stuck in a foreign country with no money for a hotel room during a tropical storm is not exactly an ideal situation. I spent the next four hours trying to figure out my situation, when Betsy and her daughter came down into the lobby. Since I was freaking out, Betsy offered up her room for me to crash in for the evening free of charge. Seriously, nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. If not for her, I may have ended up staying in the lobby all night. I kept my all inclusive bracelet on and enjoyed the resort all day long. There were some kids scouring the beach for seashells in-between the downpours, and they were finding some pretty amazing shells and crabs. I searched and searched for one of my own but no luck.
The beach was a mess. All kinds of things were washed up on shore.
The umbrella huts were knocked over from the wind and waves.
The Margaritaville booth was destroyed.
When the rain started again, we went back inside and enjoyed more indoor entertainment as we continued to get soaked.
We went up to the room to pray for the weather to clear up so that we could get out of Jamaica on Thursday. Jenice introduced me to her teddy bear, and she seemed pretty bummed that the weather had been so crappy, because her bear didn’t get to wear all of her outfits that she’d packed for her. So I said “let’s see ’em!” and with that we had an impromptu fashion show while watching “He’s Just Not That Into You.” Of course, since the teddy bear was the model, Jenice the stylist, I was the photographer.
The people from jetBlue interviewed me during the AYCJ launch party at JFK on Tuesday, and included part of it in this video clip. Check it out above at 54 seconds!
The rain held off for my second day in Houston. As much of a random stop it turned out to be, I’m glad I was in Houston and not some of the other parts of Texas. According to The Weather Channel, Houston got about 3.6″ of rain on Tuesday (which only delayed our flight about 20 minutes as we circled in the air waiting for the storm to move through). Other cities in Texas saw up to 12 inches of rain with severe flooding, wiping out and damaging houses and cars. Dallas even saw a few tornadoes pass through the area.
I checked out of the Days Inn on Fountain View Drive and had a 30 minute conversation with the manager Nuhron Raniga. If you’re ever looking for a basic, affordable place to stay in the Houston area, I’d stay here just to have another chat with this guy. He was born in South Africa, and has spent time living in cities and countries all over the world. Yet another great aspect of travel: meeting people from all over the world and realizing how truly diverse we all are in our daily lives.
Sam picked me up and we had lunch at Wings and Things, which I’m pretty sure was a chain restaurant. It wasn’t anything spectacular inside, just what you’d imagine from a small chain named Wings and Things. Good wings though. We ordered 10 wings, a water, and a coke for $12 and some odd cents, so I didn’t break the bank treating Sam to lunch for all of his generosity. And for the record, I could really get used to these prices outside of New York.
Since jetBlue doesn’t fly from Houston to Portland, I took a flight back to JFK before heading to the Pacific Northwest. I met some more awesome people in Houston, unfortunately a little too late since I was minutes away from leaving the city, probably never to return. Two jetBlue guys, Timothy and Ozzie, were jealous of my All You Can Jet jacket at the gate. They hooked it up with some contacts and tips on how to look for hotel deals in some of the cities I’ll be visiting. They also told me about Terminal Man from last year who slept in airports along his journey, and in each city the jetBlue employees would try to outdo the last one with accommodations.
Bottom line, I haven’t met a rude jetBlue employee yet- unlike so many other airlines whose employees have an attitude every time you ask a question. Another jetBlue guy, Bill, snapped that photo above of me, Timothy, and Ozzie before boarding the plane.
Bill ended up getting on the plane in the seat behind me— which I didn’t realize until he tapped me on the shoulder as we were pulling away from the gate and said “smile for the camera! That guy, Timothy that you took a picture with is taking a picture of the plane. Wave!” I couldn’t see him because the wing was in the way, but sure enough, by the time I landed in New York, I had these pictures in my inbox, along with a new Facebook friend.
I landed around 730p, and made it home by 9p. I had a lot more stuff to do than I thought- finish packing, pay bills, print more business cards, and of course watch the latest episode of Mad Men, so I didn’t make it to bed until close to 230a. Now it’s on to Portland! Stay tuned for much more interesting updates and pictures from the Pacific Northwest.
