Plan Your Summer Vacation to Martha's Vineyard - All You Need to Know Before You Go

Spring is in the air and it's time to start planning your summer vacation and Martha's Vineyard is this season's hot spot for luxury travel goers. This quaint New England island has all of the essentials for couples and families to eat, drink, play and stay and offers some of the best options for both comfort and luxury on the East Coast (there's a reason celebrities and presidents come here!).  

Martha's Vineyard is also well known as the iconic set location for the filming of Jaws and hasn't changed much since it was released over 40 years ago - minus the man eating shark, so if all of your childhood terrors are suddenly coming over you like a hot flash, you can relax.  If you remember right, it's a destination packed with country charm, sprawling hillsides, local farms, pristine beaches and a clam bake kind of luxury.  

Check out my Full Guide to Martha's Vineyard, including a complete review of the amazing Winnetu Oceanside Resort, the island's premiere spot for oceanfront, all-inclusive, high-end accommodations.   It has all the details you need for how to get there, where to stay, and what to see and eat while you're on Martha's Vineyard. 

If you have any questions or need help planning your next trip

let me know, that's what I'm here for!

Being Type A Doesn't Make You Perfect

I absolutely pride myself on getting great deals on fabulous trips, it's kind of my thing. But I'm not perfect and I was recently so kindly reminded of that both by Air New Zealand and my husband. So here's what happened...

In August my husband and I will be traveling to Australia and New Zealand for almost 4 weeks. Exciting, I know. But what's not exciting is the cost of flights; they can be upwards of $2,000 each from Los Angeles. So I set my focus on finding a deal - diligently tracking flight costs on a weekly basis and constantly checking sites for any changes. In December I found an amazing deal that allowed for a stopover in either Fiji or Cook Islands for practically nothing. 

For $1,200 per ticket on Air New Zealand we were traveling from:

Los Angeles  to Sydney / Cairns to Auckland / Auckland to Rarotonga, Cook Islands / Rarotonga to Los Angeles

Woo hoo! Not only did I get a deal, but I've got us going to Rarotonga for 4 nights for some island relaxation. Here was my thought process: Rarotonga is a fairly unknown island compared to places like Fiji and Bora Bora and everything I was reading said that it was just as beautiful, less expensive and way less crowded. Score! 

Now here's where the problem occurred.  I started to really plan the trip a few weeks ago - creating a detailed budget, researching places to stay and what to do, etc. When it came to Rarotonga... my island dreams of laying on white sand beaches in front of my five star hotel for next to nothing was very quickly fading into the sunset. I discovered that while it's off season in New Zealand, it's high season for the Cook Islands because all of the cold Kiwis travel to the island to escape winter! On top of that, it is the island's centennial making it extra busy and there are only a handful of high-end, luxury accommodations available making them even more expensive. What did this mean? Let me break it down for you...

• 5 Star Hotel Average Cost Per Night: $600

• Cost of Food for 2 Per Day: $100

• Excursions Per Day: $75

• Rental Car cost: $200

• Total Cost for 4 Days = $3,300!!!!

Well, spending over three grand on four days was not what I was thinking when I booked a stopover in Rarotonga and I was devastated.  After all of my planning and research and convincing my husband that this was a good idea, I had screwed up. Feeling like an idiot and in a panic of losing a small fortune I needed to figure out a plan B. Here were my options...

A) Of course, I could always go with a cheaper, boring option for a hotel... but that wasn't so appealing (and to be honest, the accommodation options were pretty mediocre in general).  

B) We could just swallow the money and go (and risk for the next five years hearing from my husband that I spent more in a couple days than he paid for his last car).

C) We could pay the cost to change our plane tickets and stay a couple more days in New Zealand instead (literally take a handful of hundreds and throw them into oblivion).

Being a numbers gal, I busted open a new Excel sheet and a white board and started crunching numbers. I won't bore you with all of the dirty details (unless you like that sort of thing), but long story short I figured out that changing our tickets and painfully paying the penalty of $250 per ticket to stay extra days in New Zealand (taking into account the cost of food, activities and a super nice hotel) would still ultimately save us nearly $1,000 instead of going to Rarotonga.  We both agreed that this was the best option for us and the opportunity of spending more time in Hobbitville sounded pretty awesome. 

So in the end, I lost us more money than I saved, but sometimes that's the price you pay for traveling.  Type A or not, planning trips is hard and at times frustrating, but worth it in the end.  

Barcelona - Top 10 Type A Tips to Know Before You Go, Plus My Full Guide to Visiting Barcelona

Barcelona is one of my favorite cities in Spain; it's one of the best European travel destinations for everyone from foodies to beach bums and jet setters alike. I recently went back with my husband for a week and took detailed notes and did major research, including meeting with locals, to provide you with the best possible recommendations for planning your next trip. Check out my Full Guide to Barcelona for a list of my top Type A picks for what to do when you're not taking a siesta!

See My Full Guide to Barcelona - Click Here

Here's a summary of my top Type A tips to know before you go:

1. The airport is a good 25 minutes away from the city center and is a pricey taxi ride. Instead, consider taking the Aerobus which takes you to and from the airport for about 5 euro one way, stopping at a few major points around the city. We were able to walk or take a cheap taxi to our hotel from the convenient drop off points. Be sure to know which terminal you are going to because they are very far apart and if you get dropped off at the wrong one it could take you about 30 minutes to get to the correct one (something we learned the hard way!).  There are free buses that run between the terminals frequently, but if you are there early in the morning or late at night they will be hard to find. It costs a minimum of 20 euro to take a taxi between terminals and we only had 17 euro on us and a 10 dollar bill and we had to pay it to get a ride, otherwise we would have missed our flight. It was a nightmare! 
2. Tipping in Spain varies, but 10% is a reasonable tip at any restaurant.
3. Like most of Europe, you need to request the check when you're ready to go. Just say, "La Cuenta, Por Favor" or signal your server by writing into the air and you'll be on your way in no time.
4. In Barcelona, Catalan is the local language, not Spanish (a conversion of Spanish and French). So if you're using a translator app (which you should!), you will need to swap between Spanish and Catalan depending on what you're looking at. Even if you don't speak the language, you want to know how to say Thank You at the least. It's best to say it in Catalan instead of Spanish and although it is very similar, it's not the same. Thank you = Grathias NOT Gracias. Got it?
5. There is free wifi all over the city. Wifi hotspots are at every metro stop so you can always connect if you're lost, are in a bind or just need to check my blog for where to go next. 
6. There's so much to see spread across the city, so I definitely suggest buying a metro pass so that you're not limited to one area. The metro is very easy to navigate, comes often and there are convenient stops near all the major attractions. To make it easy, get a 10euro pass that covers 10 single uses, which can also be shared between multiple people.  The pass is also transferrable to the bus system and if you get off of metro, you can use that same pass on the bus within 2 hours without having to swipe again. 
7. Uber and other "taxi" like services are outlawed in Barcelona, but Taxis are pretty prevalent and safe - just keep in mind that most of them are cash only so stop by an ATM.
8. Each time you use an ATM you are usually charged a fee by your bank and by the ATM, so get a good amount out each time. Banks usually limit you to around $150-200 each transaction, but you can call them and request a higher cash withdrawal limit so that you can avoid all those unnecessary charges. 
9. Most places have stopped using swipe only credit cards, so it's better if you have one of the cards with a chip in it.  Also note that European credit cards often have pins and will ask you for one when you are charged. You can either add a pin to your card by calling your bank or just press the green button when asked for a pin and hope it doesn't stop you (we were fine doing that 90% of the time). 
10. Hostals (opposed to hostels) are smaller hotel accommodations, many similar to boutique hotels. They vary in price and in rating, just like anything else, but are worth checking out because I found them to be much more intimate than the larger hotels in the city.