☆ 跪婦前言：
不知是玩的太瘋還是體力大不如前，其實我想，總歸一句話就是 ～ 懶啦！
跪婦的 科羅拉多州遊記 是越寫越無力！
從 聖誕節 拖到 元旦後 ，仍然不見完結篇！
只好將老爺的文章拿來墊檔一下囉！
這篇文章可是老爺在好幾天前就早已非常用心的把它完成了！
只是跪婦遲遲未將它 po 出來！
裡面完全是老爺這幾個月來，每次精心規劃跪婦家的行程所累積下來的心得！
文章闡述了 ～ ～ 在美國如何計畫一個完美的旅遊假期！
內容包含了如何標飯店、訂車、訂機票、及科羅拉多州滑雪之旅的規劃 等等！
希望對剛來美國的格友們有所幫助！
亦或是你們有更棒的資訊也別忘了告訴跪婦家唷！
It’s more than 4 months we’ve been in the U.S., not as long as you can imagine,
yet long enough for my family to take several trips.
The trips we’ve been to are as followings*:
1) San Antonio, TX (twice, around 200 miles from Houston)
2) Waco, TX (once, around 180 miles from Houston)
3) New Orleand, Louisiana (once, around 360 miles from Houston)
4) Galveston, TX (twice, around 60 miles from Houston)
5) Kemah, TX (once, around 40 miles from Houston)
6) Denver, Colorado (once, around 1150 miles from Houston)
*Please refer to the 跪婦遊德州 for details.
Because all the trips were “novel” to my whole family and basically we are all
“first-timers” to those places, it’s not surprising that we were quite unfamiliar to all the things before, during and after the trips. Thank God and thank to the good development of internet business, we can achieve a great trip all via online processes. Herein I would like to share with you all about the tricks to a great trip step by step. The purpose of this article is to learn how to save time and money through a guide which shows how to use the Internet to locate the best travel bargains and save money.
A. In-house studies before a trip
Following are two websites where I started my studies:
1. 54 Online Travel Sites to Bookmark Now (English)
2. 賺取線上訂購旅館、機票、租車的現金回饋 (Chinese)
To be summarized, I went deep to the subsequent websites after reading.
3. About TripAdvisor® : This site provides advice and recommendations from fellow travelers -- more than 5 million reviews at last count -- and uses those reviews to rank hotels and attractions by popularity. Rankings, based on consumer reviews, help you find the most popular hotels for a destination. While some reviews are suspect, the sheer volume of reviews generally makes it possible to trace trends.
4. 任我行之美國旅遊篇: This site provides lots of Chinese information concerning traveling in the US. Although some of the posts are out-dated,
yet you can always catch the essence of your destination city and search other terms on google.
B. Online Booking
I did not intend to join or attend a “package tour” or a “group-tour” from the very beginning, so I’ve ignored all those messages on the Google results. You can do it by just calling an agent (even an agent capable of speaking mandarin Chinese in Houston) if you like that kind of travel.
I did not use the frequently suggested
flight + hotel
flight + hotel + car
choices after thorough and comprehensive calculation. Believe it or not, you can save a lot if you spend more time by booking each separately.
1. Book a flight
I registered “Rapid Reward Membership” of Southwest Airline online first.
Be aware, Southwest flight tickets are not subjected to all other travel or online booking website system. You cannot get any information about the price, availability and choices if you don’t go there directly.
The reasons I pick Southwest up are two folds:
a) Southwest does not charge for your first or second checked bag.
That means we can check 8 bags with no bag fee.
b) You can book round trip tickets with your favorite price and schedule separately. By doing that you can choose a best deal all the time.
The price of our round trip flight is 283.7 each.
2. Book a rental car
This is a real trick. For me and other foreigners living in the US,
you can earn a great deal on a rental car and save a lot.
The trick is to book online via a website in Europe, Hong Kong or even Taiwan rather than ones in the US. These sites are:
http://www.traveljigsaw.com.tw/
The benefits of booking via those sites are several folds:
a) The entire price are cheaper than US sites, even compare to priceline etc.
b) The price you pay is all-inclusive. This means you pay for the rent fee, sale tax plus insurance (lost, damage and liability all included) in an even cheaper price. Sometimes you can earn a great deal by return the car with an empty tank, a more than $40 saving.
Importantly, before you try this trick, you should acknowledge that:
a) You should bring your passport, your driver’s license (original from your home country), and international driver’s license with English translation with you. Because this process and price are special and strictly for foreign tourists.
b) Do not present your US driver’s license or you will show the cloven foot.
c) You have to pay by card at the moment of your online booking of the rental car.
The price to rent a “full sized car” for 5 days (rent fee, taxes, insurance,
first tank) is: $150 (5x30) + $48 (first tank).*
*You can easily see the great difference: it took me another $250 onsite charge for only one-day extension and upgrade to a four-wheel drive, mountain-friendly Subaru. That’s my mistake and what a big miss!
3. Book for Hotels
“Always try Priceline” is the only word.
I decided to pick a hotel by convenience for our “white Christmas” and “ski” trip. So the first 2 nights we stayed in a hotel in Silverthorne, Colorado. That location is so great that no more than a 30 minutes’ drive to all the nearby scenic spots or resorts. You may refer to the map below for details. The other 2 nights we stayed in downtown of Denver. I earn a great deal via priceline and bided “Courtyard Downtown Denver, Marriot” which is located in the most popular “16 street mall”. Please see the map for reference. For hotel (2 star) in Silverthorne, we spent $80 x 2 (plus some tax) nights. For hotel (3.5 star) in Denver downtown, we spent $40x2 (plus some tax) nights. 4. Book for Ski Rental For ski rental, you should always try to get a good deal by “package”. Simply go to the website of your intended ski resort, you will find one suitable for you and your companies. I decided to go to “Copper Mountain Ski Resort” because we are all “first-time skier” and Copper mountain offers the most great “turtle hill” for us. Link can be found here for “Copper Mountain Ski Resort”. For adults, I got $ 148 x 2 for one day package (whole day ski lessen for beginner, lift ticket, resort fee and full equipment rental including boots, ski and poles). For children, I got $151 x 2 for one day package (whole day ski lessen for beginner, lift ticket, resort fee, lunch, GPS tracking and full equipment rental including boots, ski and helmet). To see what happened during our great trip to Colorado, please refer to related pages. ☆ 閱讀延伸： 前進科羅拉多州！ ☆ 閱讀延伸： Copper Mountain 滑雪趣！ ☆ 閱讀延伸： 科州 Dillon Lake ！
- 留言者: Leo Huang
- Email: huangfangliang@yahoo.com.tw
- 網址:
- 日期: 2010-01-03 14:02:29
- 留言者: 不敗老婆
- Email: yihau0714@yahoo.com.tw
- 網址:
- 日期: 2010-01-03 15:02:16
<p>我老爺佩服萬分 </p>
<p>這趟下來花費不少ㄋㄟ 你們的滑雪費用將近是我們的兩倍</p>
<p>這個滑雪場是不是很高級 </p>
<p> </p>
- 留言者: H
- Email: yhuang777@hotmail.com
- 網址:
- 日期: 2010-01-04 16:15:01
<p>把這篇打包珍藏起來了 !</p>
<p> 等愛姐妹長大後也來玩一趟 </p>
[版主回覆01/06/2010 12:51:33]<p>來美國後我們家老爺工作內容單純多了，時間上相對也比較多一些，</p>
<p>所以這種勞心又勞力的情資工作當然是交給他囉！</p>
<p>愛媽咪家真的不用急，等孩子更大些會更適合呢！</p>
- 留言者: 四哈家族
- Email: peiyin0323@yahoo.com.tw
- 網址:
- 日期: 2010-01-04 22:01:58
<p>加油!用力去玩!</p>
[版主回覆01/06/2010 12:48:35]<p>跪婦家在美國只有短短一年時間，所以更顯的寶貴啊！</p>
<p>看看，轉眼間竟也已經過了四個月了呢！所以只好卯起來拼下去囉！</p>
- 留言者: 凱莉公主
- Email: iskelly08@hotmail.com
- 網址:
- 日期: 2010-01-13 12:14:07
[版主回覆01/14/2010 09:33:19]外國英文網站看了傷眼睛嘛！<img src="http://l.yimg.com/f/i/tw/blog/smiley/4.gif"/> 所以這種小事跪婦家老爺出馬即可！
- 留言者: 可愛ㄇㄚ
- Email: florencesuen@hotmail.com
- 網址:
- 日期: 2010-01-14 21:38:21
[版主回覆01/17/2010 01:51:29]<p>哈哈，看了可愛ㄇㄚ的回應跪婦真是開心極了呢！</p>
<p>因為在美國停留時間不常，所以只好卯起來拼命玩囉！</p>
<p>只不過有時真覺得 網路 的影響力真是難以想像啊！</p>
<p>而 跪婦是一位好醫師的賢內助 這句話咱們家的老爺居然不是很認同ㄟ！</p>
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