Costa Rica 2007 - Pura Vida!

Vanessa and I went to Costa Rica for Thanksgiving this year - great place to visit! We really enjoyed the Tico attitude to life - Pura Vida or "take it easy" - make sure you raft the Pacuare when you go down there!

The Orbitz user experience sucks

My prior experiences with Orbitz have mostly been frustrating because they can't seem to get their availability right - it has happened to me dozens of times that they show a fare, I click on it and it's gone...to be replaced by a fare three-times higher.

Last night I tried to book a flight to Germany for Christmas. I started on my favorite travel site Kayak and was referred to Orbitz for a good fare on a LH code share. I tried booking it three times and got the great error message "there was an error, please hit the back button" three times after submitting my payment information. Great start. So I picked up the phone to speak to a friendly service representative. Long story short, after several promises he'd get me the flight and after 30 minutes (!) on the phone - nothing! No flight, no booking, nothing. Tip for Orbitz: fix your engine; tip for travellers - use Kayak and then go directly to the airline.

Munich the beautiful

Yes, I'm proud to be from Munich - enjoy this neat video about my home town:

Business travel sites roundup

Good listing from Business2 in the Jan/Feb 2007 issue:
- Expertflyer.com for those out there who really want to optimize their fares (paid service)
- Hopstop for the ecologically conscious public transport user
- Athletic Minded Traveler for those who want to actually exercise while traveling.

I'd only add Kayak to this because it has the best search functionality out there - and afterwards you can always buy from the airline website...