5 Ways to Explore A New City Like a Pro

Travelling to a new location can be daunting. You are faced with a lot going on around you and chances are that you don’t know your way around the city. You pour hours after hours trying to avoid getting lost and as a result, you don’t get to truly appreciate the city you are visiting. If you want to take in your surroundings and explore a new city like a pro, here are a couple of tips that will help you achieve that.

Stay flexible with your plan

Too many travelers plan out every second of every day for their trip. While it is important to jot down the places you want to visit, you should keep some space in your plan for spontaneity.
Allow a friend to take you out, or hire tour guides to help you see what the city has to offer, like if you’re visiting Sydney, make sure you get blue mountains private tours. Put the map back in your bag for a while and just take a walk, stay open to what you might stumble upon. There’s always plenty to explore in any city, you’ll end up surprising yourself.

Enjoy public commute

Traveling is not just about the destination but everything you stumble upon along the way. Taking a bus or a metro will allow you to see more of the city and the hidden gems. It will help you get a better feeling of the city and it’s cheaper than a taxi.

Connect with other travelers

The beautiful thing about staying at hostels while travelling is that you get to connect with other travelers from around the world. They are also looking for sights to see and activities to do, so it’s best if you connect with them and get to know about their itineraries.
It’s an amazing way to make friends and explore cities together. Strike up a conversation with your roommates and gather tips about what they’ve explored. It’s bound to help you find something that isn’t on a blog or trip directory.

Get a bird’s eye view

What better way to explore a city than from top? Sure, you can get on top of the tallest building and soak in the view but why not get even higher?
You can get helicopter rides, hot air balloons tours and airplane rides around the city, in many cities. They even come bundled with activities like skydiving.

Try the local cuisines

The food might not look like your local cuisine, but if you take a chance you might end up surprising yourself. Rather than going to a big chain, try the street food and you’ll be able to explore cuisine like never before. Local handmade tacos from Mexico or the samosas from Pakistan are something you need to look forward to.

Traveling with a Tour Guide: Is it Really Helpful?

tour guide 2

When you are traveling with your family, have numbered days and want to make the most of it, or you want to explore the culture, history and the traditions of a new place in depth, traveling with a tour guide is your best option.

Gaining a New Perspective

If you really want to know the traditions and customs of your chosen destination, make sure a tour guide got you covered. With his unique insights and story-telling adeptness, you will have a narrative attached to every memory to cherish in your years to come. If you want to get an insight into new people, places and the way they live, nobody can tell you better than one of them.

Foreign Destinations

If you are vacationing at international destinations, or any place you are not familiar with, having a tour guide by your side would be a good idea. He would guide you to the best launceston tours to do at the best’s hours of the day, he may arrange an after-hours tour to a popular site to save you from the crowd or offer you special rates and access to a monument.

He could take you to places where the accessibility is otherwise impossible such as private mansions, architecture, and the art of local artists in the streets.

Save your Holiday cost

If you acquire the services of a tour guide, he would definitely be useful in saving you some money. Anywhere in the world, tourists, or any person who is unknown to the culture and customs of the place is easily targeted. When you are on vacations at a new place, bargaining with local transporters could be arduous. The hotel rates could be higher for you, or the simple day to day essentials can be expensive. A local tour guide would save you from the petty arguments and relieve your pocket.

Language Barrier

You won’t be able to arrange a vehicle for yourself if you can’t explain to them where to go. The language barrier can spoil your holidays. A tour guide would save you from the nuisance and be your interpreter on the way.

Potentiate your experience

When you are really keen to construe the history of a new place, touring with a guide would be more rewarding. For every monument, he would have an interesting story to tell.  His knowledge and experience would serve you much better than any inscribed metal reading.

When you are holidaying in a new country, tours guides act as road maps who exactly know what to do, when to do without getting lost in the way.  They would be responsible for your hotel booking, transportation, confirmations and damage control. They would save you from long queues for taking tickets and manage schedules for you. So,  don’t drain yourself by putting all your energy in maintaining your travel plan. Enjoy your holidays, leave the rest on the tour guide.

How to travel the world, spending as little as possible

Since there is internet to show photos and videos of incredible places, apparently close at hand, the desire to leave everything and leave has become even stronger. But then you have to deal with the budget and with the bills to pay and the suitcase is immediately placed in the closet. How, then, to travel the world spending as little as possible?

The first thing to do, of course, is to choose an economic destination . Instead of planning a holiday in the Norwegian fjords, you could buy a motorbike and travel around India. Asia is an extraordinary continent, rich in culture and beauty and the most exciting thing is that these wonders are accessible almost to everyone. Countries like Nepal, India, Vietnam, Sri Lanka or China allow you to spend whole months spending just over $ 15 a day.

The same is true for Central America : Guatemala, Nicaragua and Salvador are among the cheapest countries to spend time.

Another way to travel cheaply is to work in the places you visit . Of course, finding a temporary job is not easy but, for example, if you are a digital nomad and offer services via the internet, you can earn and travel simultaneously .

And then there is the Woofing , the program that allows you to work in the countryside in exchange for food and lodging . By subscribing to the WWOOF website and paying $ 40, you join the network that connects manpower and farmers all over the world, willing to work at a farm in exchange for food and lodging. This is a way to travel to countries like Canada, Australia, the United States or Europe, where the cost of living is certainly higher .

Even the Coachsurfing is a way to travel without breaking the bank. Through this program, people make available a bed or sofa in their own home for the other members of the site. This is also a way to get in touch with the locals and experience the culture of a foreign country from within.

Then there is the Housesitting : in practice, we take care of a person’s house while it is away. Also in this case, accommodation is free and the cost of the holiday becomes really low.

Another solution for traveling the world at low cost is to buy a camper , for adventure lovers, fun is guaranteed.

Then there are some simple rules to follow each time you travel: choose cheap entertainment , save money on food and take advantage of the many free attractions.

How to choose the right wine at the restaurant? Five tips to make a good impression

What is there to eat?
If you’re at the restaurant, it’s because you want to eat! This allows you to exclude at least 50 percent of the options. Did you order a red meat dish? It goes without saying that you can snub the white wines and head without delay on the reds, maybe a Sangiovese or a Bordeaux blend. White meats and fish go with white, but if they are seasoned with tomatoes or important sauces, they can also be perfectly combined with rosés. Do you love oriental cuisine? Focus on the Gewürztraminer or orange wines (wines made from white grapes, vinified with a long maceration on the skins), both able to withstand the spiciness and personality of ethnic dishes. It is good to know that acid wines balance well the fat dishes, while the soft wines are combined with savory and acid-rich dishes. Finally, the golden rule is to take into account the structure of the food and choose a wine with the same structure. marcolavoro@gmail.com

IN DEPTH
Decide on a budget
To drink well, it is not necessary to spend half a salary! So, set a budget and look for a convincing wine, which falls within the established price range. To do this, keep in mind a few simple fixed points. First of all, a paper made as it should certainly has good wines at affordable prices. Evaluate, then, that the prices in the restaurant undergo a charge of about three times the original cost. Finally, consider that between the price paid by the restaurant owner and the top-up that you find on paper, there is an inversely proportional relationship: the cheaper wine will have a higher top-up and vice-versa.

Glass or bottle?
The wines by the glass can be an opportunity to combine each dish in a different way and to discover new labels (without having to drain a bottle), but be careful! First of all because it could be bottles opened for more than a few days, with a consequent loss of pleasantness of the wine. Then, because the wine by the glass usually has a higher price mark than the bottle. If you are at least three people at the table, then you should take an entire bottle of wine, because, if you have followed our advice, surely you will want to drink more than a glass.

Bets on local wines
Pinot nero and Chardonnay like everyone! But, if you are on holiday or on a business trip, forget about the international vines, which you can drink anytime and anywhere, and be intrigued by local wines. Italy is the country in the world with the highest number of native vines, from which are produced excellent wines, able to best express the territory of origin. Some examples? Timorasso in Piedmont, Schioppettino in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Cesanese del Piglio in Lazio or, again, Grillo in Sicily and Schiava in Alto Adige, Falanghina in Campania and Montepulciano in Abruzzo.

Ask the expert for advice, but first clarify your ideas!
Do not be intimidated by the waiter or – when present – by the sommelier, his theatrical gestures and his technical language. After all, it’s there for you! So let me help you and guide you in your choice, but first clarify your ideas. Focus on the character of the wine you want to drink. Do you prefer something fruity and watered? Or better, a wine with a long aging in wood and structured palate? Are you more from silky and enveloping wines or from vertical and fresh wines? Think about the characteristics of the wines that you liked the most in the past and describe them to the sommelier, so that you can understand your tastes and advise you the best.

How to choose a restaurant? Here are the expert’s advice

In the era of Master Chef, when the chefs have become stars and everywhere we talk about cooking, restaurants and food, we need to stop for a moment and try to go back to the basics. For example, how do I choose a restaurant? Who do I trust, the reviews of Tripadvisor where a sandwich barini becomes the best place in Milan (it happened at the end of August), the historic restaurant guides, from Michelin to Touring, the word of mouth of friends? And how can I tell if a restaurant is not just about design but also about the latest fashion?

Many questions that Gianni Mura , a sports journalist from Repubblica, tried to answer, but also (and in this capacity, above all) for years writer (critic is too much, he says) of restaurants on the Friday of the Republic. He did it ” There is no taste, everything you should know before choosing a restaurant” , published by Minimum fax. Here is our interview.

In an era where everywhere we talk about cooking, chefs and restaurants, where did the idea for this book come from?
I thought about talking about the world of cooking differently just because I lived on my skin as a restaurant writer – critic is a bit ‘too – this moment of total confusion. There is talk of cooking everywhere, but nobody who drives with common sense and helps to make choices, all recommend dishes and addresses. So I thought about writing something that could give clues to judge the seriousness of the place before choosing it. Today we have too much information, all discordant and we lose sight of the basics. I tried to get back to the base.

For example?
We judge from the menu. If, for example, prices are not expressed this is not good, I consciously have to know how much a cheese and pepper costs me. If then the dishes are accompanied by too many adjectives of fashion, as crispy, lukewarm and tasty this is not good either. The omnipresence of rocket, which was a fashion now a few years ago, is not good. Today my enemy is the pineapple carpaccio. The pineapple is made to be cut into large, chewed slices. If you present it with this aspect of yellowish bresaola, drowned in its liquid then we are not there.

And besides the menu?
Some places today are too much design: there are knives standing alone and forks that do not allow you to roll up two spaghetti. And then this fashion of not putting the tablecloths, is a bit ‘too minimalist, where I support things, on the bare table? It is also a hygienic question.

Other things that can not stand?
The music too high that prevents two people sitting at the same table to talk. But also that the waiters when you enter first ask: did you book? First greetings, then ask. Education is the basis. Like the cleaning of the environment and that of the bathrooms. But unfortunately when you get to the baths, which are a sore spot in Italy, it’s often too late: you’ve already sat down.

How to be able to travel for free

For many travel enthusiasts the real dream would be to work traveling . indeed there are some jobs that allow you to travel without spending anything : in fact, sometimes the job forces you to travel to the most beautiful places in the world, gaining.

The myth of who can afford to work while traveling is not so contemporary, and it probably started several years ago. Many people have exploited for years the opportunity to work as a boy or an au pair , visiting so many places at almost zero cost. This experience consists in moving for a period to a foreign city, to work in the house for the host family. It’s about doing household chores, or keeping the kids in exchange for food and lodging.

Of course this kind of perspective does not allow you to travel all year round, and in any case you need the resources to stay weeks in a city far from home, even if food and accommodation are already paid. If you really want to work you can scrape up liquids by collecting the fruit . The trip must be paid from your own pocket, but the harvest in Australia or the orange harvest in California can yield enough money for food and lodging.

Fruit collector work is often very hard and often does not allow you to take advantage of the free days while having fun and visiting the host country. In recent years a new professional figure is spreading: the travel blogger . He travels the world telling his experiences on the blog he has had in the various countries visited. Clearly you need a good familiarity with the internet and writing and at least the first trips will be paid with other types of resources.

The photography enthusiasts can take advantage of the image of a beautiful journey to distant lands to sell and finance the next stages. Clearly you need to be good with the camera and have a good basic equipment. It could also be an idea to follow a photography course, in order to maximize the sold images.

Those with artistic skills can also hope to find work in distant theaters, in order to travel the world thanks to their skills. If you can not get an engagement you can always try to raise a few euros as a street artist , certainly it takes a good budget, however, as a sustenance in the event of failure.

How to travel the world, spending as little as possible

The dream of every self-respecting traveler is to travel around the world spending as little as possible .

Since there is internet to show photos and videos of incredible places, apparently close at hand, the desire to leave everything and leave has become even stronger. But then you have to deal with the budget and with the bills to pay and the suitcase is immediately placed in the closet. How, then, to travel the world spending as little as possible?

The first thing to do, of course, is to choose an economic destination . Instead of planning a holiday in the Norwegian fjords, you could buy a motorbike and travel around India. Asia is an extraordinary continent, rich in culture and beauty and the most exciting thing is that these wonders are accessible almost to everyone. Countries like Nepal, India, Vietnam, Sri Lanka or China allow you to spend whole months spending just over $ 15 a day.

The same is true for Central America : Guatemala, Nicaragua and Salvador are among the cheapest countries to spend time.

Another way to travel cheaply is to work in the places you visit . Of course, finding a temporary job is not easy but, for example, if you are a digital nomad and offer services via the internet, you can earn and travel simultaneously .

And then there is the Woofing , the program that allows you to work in the countryside in exchange for food and lodging . By subscribing to the WWOOF website and paying $ 40, you join the network that connects manpower and farmers all over the world, willing to work at a farm in exchange for food and lodging. This is a way to travel to countries like Canada, Australia, the United States or Europe, where the cost of living is certainly higher .

Even the Coachsurfing is a way to travel without breaking the bank. Through this program, people make available a bed or sofa in their own home for the other members of the site. This is also a way to get in touch with the locals and experience the culture of a foreign country from within.

Then there is the Housesitting : in practice, we take care of a person’s house while it is away. Also in this case, accommodation is free and the cost of the holiday becomes really low.

Another solution for traveling the world at low cost is to buy a camper , for adventure lovers, fun is guaranteed.

Then there are some simple rules to follow each time you travel: choose cheap entertainment , save money on food and take advantage of the many free attractions.