November 29, 2009
How many of us have tourist attractions right near where we live that we almost never go to? I live in between Disney World and Daytona Beach and rarely get to either. When I lived in Chicago, I stayed in suburbia and seldom ventured down to State Street or Michigan Avenue. Granted, I am only home one to two weekends per month, so I usually do not want to venture anywhere away from my beloved home. But it is really nice to spend the day as a tourist in one's own hometown once in awhile.
St. Augustine was my touristy experience this weekend. It's about a 90-mile drive from my home, and it was a sunny, beautiful day to drive north on I-95. My daughter, Jenn, was in town from Chicago and her girlfriend Rachel joined us.
St. Augustine is the oldest U.S. city, first sighted by Spanish explorer nter Don Juan Ponce de Leon on Easter, March 27, 1513. He claimed the land for Spain and named it La Florida, meaning "Land of Flowers". The oldest wooden schoolhouse in the U.S. is here, built over 200 years ago.
The schoolhouse is on St. George Street, which is also the main shopping avenue of St. Augustine. Our goal was to get our Christmas shopping started and we found some great things in the unique shops along St. George Street and the surrounding area. Music was playing from various restaurant decks, and there was a festive feeling in the air.
Lunch was a special event at Columbia Restaurant. A pitcher of Sangria and fantastic 1905 salads were enjoyed at this Florida tradition (their restaurant in Ybor City near Tampa was founded in 1905).
All in all, it was a great day in Florida. Tourist attractions, great lunch, wonderful Sangria, shopping and time with my daughter … what more could I ask for?
Rachel, Jenn and I
Posted by Carol Margolis under Favorite Cities and Towns, Pearls of Travel Fun, Places to See; Things to Do, Shopping! |
November 25, 2009
I am not usually excited about airport restaurants, but there is a new restaurant in the Houston airport that definitely has been getting my business. Le Grand Comptoir Wine and Food Bar is in Houston’s Intercontinental (IAH) airport in Continental’s Terminal C. It opened several
months ago and it has become my go-to restaurant for dinner before my typical Thursday evening flight back to Orlando. 
Not only does Le Grand Comptoir have a fabulous menu of wines and beers, but their food offers healthy choices that I love. I always order their Provencale Salad, which loads on Greek olives, cucumbers, green beans and tomatoes onto fresh greens, topped with a broiled chicken breast. If I am running late to my flight, the restaurant prepares this salad to go within about 10 minutes and I eat it while in-flight, to the envy of my seatmates. Otherwise, I prefer to sit down and enjoy my salad, while either watching one of their televisions, working on my laptop (yes, they have outlets along the wall!), or just people-watching. In the evenings, Le Grand Comptoir is packed. But wait for a few minutes and a table usually opens up, or a stool at their bar.
It’s a fun place with great atmosphere, food and wine… so check it out the next time you’re in Terminal C at IAH.
Posted by Carol Margolis under Food and Drink |
November 24, 2009
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. It is a 
perfect day for saying thanks for all of the great people in my life, for feeling gratitude for all the good things I have, and for an extra-special day with my family. No hubbub of Christmas yet . . . that will wait for the days after Thanksgiving. I have a 22 pound turkey and all the fixings on hand, and I will be watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while I prepare dinner on a perfect autumn day.
I am very happy that I will not be flying anywhere during this extremely busy holiday travel week. I hope your travels are easy if you are heading out this week to be with family and friends.
When it comes to travel, which is such a big part of my life, I am so thankful for:
- Pilots and flight attendants who get me safely to my destinations each week. I board your planes with total trust, so thank you.
- The ability to meet men and women from around the world, to learn of their cultures and their lives … and to know that underneath the exterior differences, we are all the same.
- To feel excitement each time I begin a new journey because I know that new people, new places and new experiences are mine to find and discover.
- To have friends all around the planet.
- To have the ability to share my love of travel with my children, so that they, too, can experience the great world we live in.
- To have you as part of the Smart Women Travelers community. It is so fun to get to know so many of you and learn about you and your travels.
I am very grateful for all of these things each and every day.
To those of you who celebrate the U.S. holiday this week, I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving Day. And to our friends outside of the U.S, I wish you a day of family, gratitude and happiness this week, and always!
Posted by Carol Margolis under Giving Back, Random Thoughts |
November 15, 2009
Catharine Hamm of The Los Angeles Times fields a question about car rental drop-off fees. Do rental companies really charge fees? They sure do, catching unaware travelers all the time.
We will have a future article dealing with car rental agency fees but for more now — including some tips to avoid these drop-off charges — click here…
Posted by Carol Margolis under Current Affairs |
November 9, 2009
What started out as a nice short flight from Atlanta to Houston turned into a comedy of issues this morning. All issues were unavoidable had I implemented my own tried-and-true travel tips.
When I checked into the kiosk to get my boarding pass and check my bag (yes, even I have to check a bag now and then for longer journeys), I grabbed the paper that the kiosk spit out and went up to the desk to check my bag. There was an earlier flight to Houston, but I declined it in order to have breakfast with my husband before he flew back to Orlando. He was in Terminal A, I was in Terminal C. The desk agent slapped on the luggage tag and gave me my boarding pass. I looked at it and now saw that I was in Terminal A also – yeah! But I looked again and saw that my boarding pass had me going to Minneapolis! Turns out that the paper I took from the kiosk was not my boarding pass, but the ticket receipt of the person who used the machine before me. Had I not noticed the terminal right away, my bag would have been on its way to MSP within minutes.
Lesson 1: Always, always, always look at your boarding pass and luggage tag to ensure that they are taking you and your bags to the desired location.
My husband and I had breakfast and I headed to my gate. I wanted one more cup of coffee for the plane, but the line at Starbuck’s was really long. Instead, I figured that I would wait until beverages were served on the plane and I’d get a coffee then. (No, I am definitely not comparing airplane coffee to Starbucks! It was easier not to have to carry a cup of coffee around the terminal with my already full hands). Here comes issue #2: both coffee pots on our plane were out of commission, so no hot drinks on the flight. Bummer…I really was looking forward to the warmth of a cup of coffee.
Lesson 2: Get your food and drink ahead of boarding the flight, as there may not be what you expect on the plane. This is also great advice for those long tarmac delays, as your patience will last longer when your stomach is happy.
Our flight arrived in Atlanta 30 minutes early. I was happy that I’d be getting to my client’s office earlier than I thought. I just needed to pick up my checked bag. I waited … and waited … and waited for my bag to come around the carousel. Everyone else’s bags were getting picked up. Where was mine? Then it dawned on me… remember the earlier flight that I was offered? I did not take it, but Delta probably sent my bag on ahead. I traipsed over to the baggage office and immediately spotted my green ‘Smart Women Travelers’ luggage handles. I could have been out of the airport half an hour earlier had I just thought to check the baggage office first.
Lesson 3: If there was any chance that your luggage came in on an earlier flight, or may not have made your flight due to tight connections, just check as the baggage office. They should be able to tell you what flight your luggage was on.
I finally got out of the airport with my luggage (without coffee), rented my car and was finally on my way. 
I usually make phone calls on my long drive, so I put my Bluetooth headset on my ear and pressed the ‘on’ button … no sound. Uh oh! It’s charge was gone and it was dead. My rule is to never talk on a cell phone when I am driving without a headset. One car ride with making any phone calls wasn’t that bad. It’s the ‘I told you so’ that I am going to get from my husband when he reads this that I’m not looking forward to. At breakfast I was questioning him on why he had to charge up his phone when we had just left our hotel an hour earlier with a full charge. He said that even though the battery was only down a little, you never knew when you would need the phone and having a full charge was important. I pooh-poohed this, saying that a nearly full charge was good enough. Since I had not used my Bluetooth all weekend, I figured it still had a good enough charge to it. The joke was on me. There was no charge at all – and I had an hour at the airport when I could have been charging it! And I laughed at him for being an excessive charger!
Lesson #4 is (compliments of my wise husband): Always have a full charge on all electronics before boarding a plane.
So even though I fly every week and am a trusted source of travel advice, I obviously did not heed my own advice nor listen to the advice of others. I relearned valuable lessons today …. I hope you learn them the first time and do not need the refresher course like I did!
And dear husband …. I do not want to hear the words “I told you so!”
Posted by Carol Margolis under Hotel Living, New Travelers, Travel |
November 7, 2009
For all the many years I have traveled (40+ weeks each year), I have relied on CNN to keep me up-to-date with the happenings of the world. No matter where I travel, CNN is like an old friend…always there for me and always reliable (sounds like my dog, also!). But seriously, most travelers I talk with say that they tune into CNN while on the road as their primary news source. While the city, state or country may change, the news show stays the same. For many of us, we like this reliability. Watching local news shows is great for traffic and weather reports, but it can be difficult to relate to the local news. Headline News (now HLN) is great for quick updates on the news that we can get before leaving our hotel rooms in the morning, and CNN International is there for us as we travel the globe.
Since I have been watching CNN for so many years, I was excited to take the tour of the CNN Headquarters in Atlanta today.
While I did not run into the real Larry King or Wolf Blitzer (just their cardboard look-alikes), 
it was great to see the studios where so many of their shows are broadcast from. And when CNN comes calling and has me, the Smart Woman Traveler, on their show, I am already familiar with their studios!
What was very interesting during the CNN tour was seeing several producers at their desks busy with Twitter and Facebook. Not once in our walk-through did we see any of them pick up their telephones. The system for discovering and reporting on the news has certainly changed with the influx of social media.
You can follow @CNN and @CNNBrk for breaking news on Twitter and the CNN Fan Page on Facebook.
And CNN, contact me at @smartwomentrav to schedule road warrior stories from the female perspective!
Posted by Carol Margolis under Television & Movies, Web/Tech |
November 2, 2009
I’m curious as to how many people partake of the goodies in a hotel mini-bar. For those that do, is it out of desperation for food or drink after arriving into a hotel room late at night with a growling stomach, or is it an easy and quick snack or beverage that you routinely indulge in? Enough people must obviously grab food and drinks from the mini-bars as the hotels would most likely not have them if they were not profitable.
I was traveling to a conference with a brand new consultant who was not familiar with the institution of a 
hotel mini-bar. Many of the food items were laid out on a beautiful cabinet (similar to this photo) with a price tag discretely to the side. He thought the goodies were all free. He snacked away both nights of the conference, thinking that the hotel was really great for supplying him with all of these neat food items. He was really surprised when he checked out and had over $60 on his bill for these munchies. Luckily he did not partake in any of the adult beverages or his bill could have been triple the amount!
With more and more hotels charging for these items based on the weight of the refrigerator, I rarely even open the refrigerators. Some travelers have the items removed immediately upon check-in so that they cannot be billed for items that could not have used. Others, upon receiving a key to the refrigerator upon check-in, say no to the key. I just ignore the items and monitor my bill at checkout… and in all my years of traveling, I have only been charged for 1 bottle of water that I did not drink.
I have not eaten any food item from a hotel mini-bar in years. I cannot bear the prices that are charged for a bottle of water, a candy bar or a soda. I could buy 3 full bottles of wine for what the hotels want to charge for a ½ bottle. Room service looks cheap compared to the menu shown! I am definitely not contributing to a hotel’s bottom line with my lack of mini-bar indulgences.
How about you? Chocolate covered peanuts, a cold beer, a Snickers bar, a mini intimacy kit … what’s your pleasure?
Posted by Carol Margolis under Hotel Living |
