Unfortunately, only the thought of going to a place where most of the time I would go to a beach bores me to tears. Not even the fact that I could use hotel points makes it better. So I have made a decision to learn something during my vacation even if it might cost more. I have been doing some research (nice term for using Google) and there seems to be a plethora of sites for activity holidays (I would have been very surprised not to).

Some of these sites that I have come across:

www.travel-quest.co.uk
“Travel-quest is a human edited specialist travel directory, each entry is checked and reviewed by an experienced editor. We list adventure and activity holidays, vacations, trips, tours, residential courses and weekends away in the UK, throughout Europe, in the USA, North America and world-wide – try us for sports, action, culture, crafts, relaxation …”

Cricket, cliff jumping, archery, beer, ballet, embroidery, astronomy, ghost, etc. there seems to be something for everyone. 

www.facilitutors.com
“… I had the idea of Facilitutors - the education destination, which offers very reasonably priced advertising to venue owners, tutors and course providers and is a one stop shop for anyone looking for a course or a venue in France.  If you can’t find what you’re looking for, I will do my best to find it for you, for free.”

One of the activities ‘pig keeping’ is not for me but ‘Savons-Fabrication’(soap making) could come in handy if the economy goes into recession or my job is off-shored. 

www.my-language-travel.com
You can learn a language and not only, and here is the beauty of it, combine it with an activity. For example I saw a course Spanish + Yoga in Ecuador, and not expensive but Yo puedo hablar espanol so I would like to learn French + Fitness/Bodybuilding. I would take a 2/3 weeks intensive course just to help me to get by in French and look like Jason Statham at the end :). Double – win. 

However, I could not find this combination so I might settle for French + Golf (I have never played golf before so this would be an opportunity to kill 2 birds with one stone = learn 2 things during the short vacation we usually have in North-America in comparison with Europe, but better to have a job and a short vacation rather than no job at all.

I have not used any of them but I have compiled a list in alphabetical order to check them out later. Also, perhaps some readers will share their experience with these travel sites in the comments section.

Jetsetter

SniqueAway

Spire

Tablet Hotels

TripAlertz

Vacationist 

Voyage Privé

I am sure out there in the vast internet world there are more than 7 private sale travel websites not to mention the existing private sale sites that offer travel deals, but how many can one register for ?
Also, others more knowledgeable than me created this list in fact: Top 6 Private Sale Sites for the Best Travel Deals and Private sale sites tout high-end hotels for less.

I find it very interesting the conclusion of the second article, let’s see after I register how many of the impulse deals I will do.

One of the pitches to hotels and resorts is that the big discounts they give through private sale sites result in new impulse-purchase business that they’d never otherwise be able to attract. The few industry analyses I’ve seen tend to confirm this point. For that reason, private sale sites are virtually useless if you’re looking for a good deal in an area you’ve already decided to visit at a time you’ve already planned. But if you’d like sudden inspiration for something different, give them a try—there’s nothing to lose for just looking.

UPDATE

Luxury Link

Thank you HikerT!

I knew about Technorati so last week on Saturday I was curious to see the top travel blogs. Three blogs from BoardingArea made the top 10 list and I felt privileged that my blog is here too.

However, a blog about insurance drew my attention. It was on the position 8 and I thought why not ‘Insurance is related to travel and it is an important aspect of travelling, very important I might add, but better to have insurance and never to be put in a position to find out how important it was.’

But big surprise when I navigated to the site, articles with titles like: ‘Cordless Roman Shades has been tip choices for homeowners’, ‘More Good Collection Of Yoga Mat Bags’, etc. And the English the articles are written in does not make sense.

There is no one month is not heard of some young children strangle themselves blind wired. It is a shame because it’s a solution so simple. For most blind-technology has been a time for Roman shades, this is the first year the option is available.
Roman Shades are safe for young children to play. What relief to know that their children and grandchildren will not be tempted by a rope hanging there for them to torture.

These guys are very good at Search engine optimization (SEO) if they could make the site be among the top 10 travel blogs. Perhaps Technorati should update their algorithm.

Today Feb. 13 the site went to position 20 but still.

All the other blogs seem to be bona-fide travel blogs, I wonder how this one made it among top 100, let alone top 20, but it seems that the SEO techniques do really work.

Everyone tries to come up with something clever for this date; it seems there are even 2 separate movies with this title: 11-11-11 and 11/11/11

And this site to be launched came with their own 11/11/11 . 

I suppose they meant 111 quality submissions as I have already sent them 3 stories (guys, please send an acknowledgement e-mail when someone submits a story, the site seem to be very well designed but this is basic: ‘a thank you e-mail’).

Of course, it had to be 11 more days and now I understand why the counter on the site showed 10 more days instead of 00:00:00 as I would have expected.

So please whoever cares to read this post, send them some stories and be done with it. I don’t want them to add 111 hours, or even worse, 111 days.

The link is wegetthere.com/travelmeansfreedom

I have missed most of this decade but I will have to come with something clever for 12/12/12 12:12 GMT. I will have to think about it, though if the world comes to an end on 21 Dec. 2012 there will not be much time to reap the fruits of whatever I come up with.

Please again, your travel story !

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any way with the respective site.