Find Your Freedom {& An Aruba Contest!}

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DON'T MISS OUR CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT---for a trip & travel voucher---BELOW!

As many of you probably know, I've been fortunate enough {read: I'm still in shock and awe} to partner with Expedia.com for the past few months. Along with nine other travel bloggers, my latest project is a co-leading a Twitter Photo Contest {details below}, a continuation of my solo Expedia video {highlighting a life-changing travel moment in Mexico} that recently kick-started one of Expedia's largest-ever campaigns: Find Yours.

About Find Yours Instead of focusing bikini-clad blonds sipping umbrella drinks on the beach and blue-eyed hunks carving figure eights on glaciers in Vail, my former advertising account exec self is o-v-e-r-j-o-y-e-d that Expedia is the first travel company to do away with the expected, and take the road less traveled {pun intended} speaking to the heart and soul of globetrotting. There's ALWAYS a reason we travel, find yours...

Expedia Find Yours Twitter Photo Contest ----> 2 Chances To Win WHAT YOU CAN WIN 1/ Four nights at the Bacati & Tara Beach Resort in Aruba. {This grand prize will be awarded to any tweet including the #expediafindyours hashtag and one of the participating bloggers' keyword hashtags, mine is #freedom} 2/ An $250 Expedia Voucher. {The Trip Styler prize awarded to a participating tweet with a photo and the #expediafindyours and #freedom hashtags}

HOW TO ENTER 1/ First things first; make sure you're following Expedia on Twitter 2/ Tweet a photo with the hashtags #freedom #expediafindyours from July 11 - 31, 2012. Note that your tweet MUST include a photo, as well as the #freedom and #expediafindyours hashtags to be automatically entered to win.  Full details here. Example Tweet: #Freedom on a ladder in Peru #expediafindyours @tripstyler - ow.ly/i/LfMh 3/ AND, please include @tripstyler in your tweet so I can retweet your travel photos!

Find Your Freedom Once you see the prizes and simplicity of entering my joint-venture Twitter photo contest with Expedia {above}, I know you may skip this paragraph in a moment of travel euphoria, but I'll pen it anyway. As one of 10 travel bloggers participating in Find Yours Twitter Photo Contest, we each had the choice of a word we'd use to associate with our tweets. I chose #freedom for two reasons. First---> for me, find your freedom is not just a word, it's a lifestyle. Second---> sometimes words can't describe the emotions associated with the freedom standing on a mountaintop in Nepal, watching a flock of flamingoes fly overhead in Bonaire, catching a wave in Oahu, or even eating a McOddity in who knows where. A picture's worth 1000 words, so from today until July 31st, tweet one or 1000 photos---whether it's your own photo or someone else's---that describe finding your freedom. Reminder, there are two prizes up for grabs.

Finding My Freedom About six years ago my husband and I took an inventory of our values knowing they are the foundation for every decision, action and reaction. We learned that one of our personal and shared values was freedom, and since then, we have been very purposeful about living this out, carefully weighing it and along with our other values every time we make a decision. Cue the violins: I would not be where I am today {which *I think* is a good place} if it weren't for freedom. This is why I chose it as the #expdiafindyours word for me and you.

Expedia's Find Yours Videos {I dare you NOT to get misty in the eyes} Expedia's Find Yours Anthem, crowdsourced from real stories online.

My Find Your Calling Story.

Dave & Deb's Find Your Harmony Story.

[photos by @tripstyler used for an expedia twitter program in which I'm participating]

Find Your Calling

[trip style = benevolent] {video is below}

Three weeks ago I did the opposite of what 99.9% of travelers do in Mexico {read: sip salt-rimmed margs on the beach}---I revisited a place that completely changed the course of my life.

When I was 15, I had the opportunity to visit San Felipe {a little town at the top of the Baja} on my spring break to help build a clinic. The project was significant because the fishing town is isolated and only reachable via a a three-hour, straight-as-an-arrow highway from Mexicali. Without a proper clinic in town, people were dying on the side of the road while trying to reach Mexicali for acute care.

Along with a team of teens from Vancouver, BC, I chiseled concrete, dug trenches and painted to help give the residents something everyone should have access to, but many in the world do not, basic medical care.

I went down with the idea that I'd help the 'poor people' in Mexico. After all, they lived differently than me: in houses constructed with plywood scraps, built on sand, and surrounded by fences constructed of barbed wire and prickly cactus. I could NOT have been more misinformed. I have the locals of San Felipe to thank for changing what I care about, how I spend my time and how I spend my money. To them, I am FOREVER grateful.

Expedia recently got wind of my story, so I went back to San Felipe with a camera team. It is my HIGHEST honor to have revisited the place that disrupted my worldview and changed my course. The just-launched two-minute video is part of Expedia's new campaign: Find Yours.

Eighteen years ago, I found my calling---something I do quietly behind the scenes, but is probably one of the most important parts of my life---find yours.

Can't view this video?

ps - stay tuned, behind-the-scenes photos of San Felipe to come on Friday! And, one other video has been made about Dave & Deb finding their harmony, check it out!

Vegas, Uncork'd

[trip style = sun + weekend getaway + wine tasting]

Last weekend I was in Vegas covering the Bon Appetit-sponsored Vegas Uncork’d, a food and wine festival with a mouthful of gourmet chefs strutting their stuff on the red carpet and the white plate. {See my 'full report' in Fodor’s}

My schedule was filled to the brim with wine tastings led by Master Sommeliers {there are only 160 in the world}, gala events with 2500 gastr-oeno-philes and a food truck noshdown showcasing Vegas’ local side. My camera was my weekend’s +1, and my notepad was my BFF.

Chatting with mixology mavens at a cocktail competition in the Bellagio {where guests got as tipsy as the fountains}, I learned people both traveled to Sin City for the event, or found out about it after booking their trip, and decided to attend. If you’re into food and wine, the four-day Uncork’d foodie fest is an ideal sun ‘n sip trip-style combo. Think of it like an “investigative report” on Vegas’ gourmet side---a side that’s beckoning a new type of Glitter Gulch'er who may not even gamble a penny, but go all-in for gourmet.

And one of the newest chefs on the block {<---double entendre} is Gordon Ramsay, who at the launch of his only steakhouse in North America, Gordon Ramsay Steak, called Vegas’s food competition “fierce”, noting that he wasn’t about to “Put {his} balls on the line with fine dining”...unless he was certain he could do it well. Judging from his past success, I’d say he’s got a #$*$@!-good chance {in his words}. His iPad menus will help too.

{above + below, the Grand Tasting}

The 411

• The event, in its sixth year, is expected to take place next year on Mother’s Day Weekend.
• Tickets for individual events start around $75, they can also be purchased as a VIP package.
• Here's a taste of this year's schedule.

PS - Bon Appetit is at it again in September for a three-day foodie fiesta in the farm-to-table-obsessed Portland, where mixology is akin to celebrity.

Tech Tuesday :: Informed Hotel Booking

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One of the biggest travel time wasters is fretting over what hotel to book, getting stuck in research mode comparing features, price, location, etc.

Have you been there? I have, and it results in hotel decision paralysis. The worst case scenario---like shopping at the dual-winged multi-floor Macy's NYC---is you get overwhelmed by the options and give up.

Over the past year, Kayak's been working on a series of solutions for "hotel research purgatory", with the latest of three launching last Thursday. Now, when you research a hotel on Kayak, there are three hotel recommendation check boxes in the left column for filtering results by Trip Advisor reviews, Frommer's or Budget Travel picks. Check one box, or all three for super filtered results. {Trip Styler Tip :: As of Friday, March 9th, Kayak added Jetsetter and Travel+Leisure recommendations to above list as well.}

It's like having a friend or hotel expert from Frommer's or Budget Travel help you decide which hotel is the right fit for your trip style = ........

How It Works

1. Go to kayak.com and enter a destination and date range.
2. Once the results appear, click one of the hotel recommendation filters on the left column.
3. Search results are then filtered based on recommendations from your selection{s}---Frommer's, Budget Travel or 60,000 million+ Trip Advisor ratings---rendering a massive list of possible results, manageable AND informed.
4. Further constrain results by filtering price, stars, location and hotel brands.

Hotel research crisis averted.

More Tech Tuesday STOP, Are You Using A Promo Code? Trading Airline Points The Six-Week Rule For Buying Airline Tix Dashboard To Wall Hotel Tonight

[img via kayak]

Tech Tuesday :: The Six-Week Rule

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{Editor’s Note: Enter to win a travel set from Shaffali Skincare, inspired by Ayurvedic herbs aromatherapeutic essences including French lavender, Croatian sage, Italian orange blossom, and Egyptian geranium! Contest ends TOMORROW. Enter today!}

Today's Tech Tuesday is not so much about new tech, but how to use existing travel tech to show airline tickets who's boss!

It's true, we've written about the best time to buy airline tickets before, but we thought we'd resurrect the topic in light of new data released by Airlines Reporting Corp., a US company that handles ticketing transactions between airlines and travel agents.

The findings are not mind-bending, but serve as a solid reminder of when to ask the flight you're eyeing out on a date.

After crunching almost 144-billion flight ticketing transactions over in 2011, the study found that passengers pay the lowest price, nearly 6% below the average fare, if they buy six weeks before their flight. Other findings include: ticket prices soaring a week before departure, and up to a 40% ticket price hike for day-of tickets.

Note to self, don't buy a same-day flight ticket to Rome like Omar did on Sunday's epidode of Pan Am! He's a Prince, he can handle 40% more.

Next time you're searching for the best flight and fare, consider the above findings, plus a few other commandments we've compiled: - Six Ways To Save On Airfare :: to help you score the lowest airfare for your next trip - How To Book The Best Flight :: without hours of research - The Airfare Dance :: key findings from Kayak.com's Chief Scientist

PS - After a 14-year stint, Priceline's Negotiator has been killed off. Here's the final hurrah: {If you're having trouble seeing video, click here}

[photo by @tristyler taken in Australia at the Gladstone airport]