Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

Share Your Vacation

There are too many general social networking sites. The next generation of social networking sites are very much niche sites. I have heard about sites that are like social networking for your pets. I just finished looking at a site that has a social networking component for planning and documenting family vacations. I think that is kind of cool. WeNeedAVacation.com also has listings for vacation destinations like these Panama City vacation rentals. Panama City is in Coastal Florida. It’s supposed to be sunny and mild for the next two days in Panama City.

The website had a photo contest last vacation season and this video shows a montage of some of the best entries…

Drive South with the One You Love

I read about some really nasty weather in the USA today. I hope all of my readers are safe and warm.

If you have retirement income or maybe you have figured out a way to make money online, you may think a little harder about heading south when the snow starts piling up. Grab an extra blanket and spend some time perusing these Panama Real Estate Listings. Panama is negotiating a free trade agreement with the USA. The real estate market is booming, so homes can potentially be a lucrative investment. Oh, and it’s warm there. Chicago does not have a style of short pants named after it. Oh wait, that’s Bermuda. Panama has a hat.

Check Out Orlando

The opportunity for low cost air travel has been spurring a resurgence in tourism throughout much of the World. Imagine being a family in England and being able to book a cheap flight to Orlando.

You could take your little tykes on this horrifying ride at the MGM amusement park…

If vertigo and other forms of nausea aren’t their cup of tea, you can take them to see Shamu, the killer whale/orca…

Orlando is not a beach town, but it’s only a short trip to New Smyrna Beach.

Using a service like DialAFlight.com can take a lot of the hassle and expense out of your family holiday.

Is Cher the Anti-Celine ?

I don’t want any of the Celine Dion fans to get their panties in a bunch. I respect both Cher and Celine as being consummate performers. My point is that, other than being female and singing, these two ladies have very little in common. Their taste in men is certainly different. Celine likes her old fossil of a longtime husband and Cher likes… well… MEN.

The fact that Cher is going to be filling the slot that is being left vacant at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas by Celine Dion is interesting and welcomed news for me. Celine’s presence was one of the things that had been scaring me away from sin city. Cher tickets at Caesar’s Palace Las Vegas are going on sale soon for dates that are expected to start in May. There are a few Cher songs that I remember singing to myself quite often when I was a kid back in the days of AM radio.

I was researching Cher’s career just now, which is a gargantuan task to say the least. I found out that I had been living for the last thirty odd years under a terrible misconception. I always thought it was Cher singing The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia. As it turns out, the song was written with her in mind, but her former husband Sonny turned it down. Actress Vicki Lawrence had her only #1 hit with the song.

Anyway, as an adult I was relentlessly song-tagged with If I Could Turn Back Time. Actually, I have to backtrack and admit that Celine Dion and Cher have something else in common. They are offered songs by some of the best songwriters. I generally prefer the originals of the songs that Celine covers while Cher tends to make songs her own to the point where we forget that they are not her own words.

If you are planning a big vacation this year, you should consider going to Vegas and catching a Cher performance. Really, what do you have to lose? Oh yeah, your shirt. Don’t worry, Cher will probably be shirtless for a few numbers , too.

TravelStoreUSA.com

I was just reading some information about the growth of the cruise ship industry in recent years. It seems that the events of 2001 have made many people less confident with regard to flying. Demand for cruise holidays has lead to companies sailing out of more ports and also building new ships. If you are shopping for an Alaska luxury cruise or one to any other destination, don’t overlook TravelStoreUSA.com. The site can actually put you in touch with people who are experts with regard to a specific destination.

I was surprised at how affordable the cruises departing from Florida for the Caribbean were. I’m not actually interested in going to Alaska right now. I would love to take a cruise in the North Pacific in the summer. I have never seen an orca in its natural setting before. If you are dreaming about a cruise or you are ready to book, TravelStoreUSA.com has great tools and information for you.

International Calling Cards

PinShark.com is a website that markets hundreds of different international calling cards. I can speak from experience when I say that these calling cards can be a major convenience if you happen to be traveling somewhere that provides a wealth of inconvenience. Purchasing PINs online before you travel to an exotic local might be a very wise move. Typical tourist locations will have shops that sell actual calling cards, but you can expect to pay a premium for them. I did just that a few years ago when we had come to a place expecting to stay for a month and the phone that we had expected to have in our rented accommodation was not activated for over a week. I am glad that PinShark.com has a page with helpful hints on choosing a card, considering the fact that they sell 850 different cards. Typical savings are as much as 80%.

Park and Stay at an Airport Hotel

I have traveled a fair bit during the last few years and there have been times when I had to do some relatively complicated math to figure out whether it made more sense for me to drive to the airport and pay for parking or to pay for a taxi cab. At some point I may also have to consider the idea of paying for a night in an airport hotel that includes a term of free parking. In some cases, this can work out to be just as cheap, if not cheaper than driving to the airport on the day of your flight and paying for parking.

And it’s not just the money. Facing the gauntlet known as airport security queues after a pleasant night’s sleep at one of the heathrow airport hotels is immeasurably preferable to arriving there right after fighting your way through traffic and searching for a paid parking spot. The Marriott has stay and park packages that include either 8 or 15 days of parking.

A Vacation From Weight Loss

Dieting and vacationing are not always a perfect fit. This is especially true when you are a tourist and you want to experience a foreign culture as much as possible. Many cultures are defined by their foods to some degree. My suggestion for vacations is to loosen up the restrictions on our diet and make a point of increasing your activity by doing more walking and less riding in cabs, or whatever conveyance they might have in the exotic locale that you have chosen. You may also find that restaurants that cater to tourists will have a platter that features a selection of local specialties. Consider splitting one platter between two or three people.

If you are counting pennies as well as calories, another tip is to keep your eye out for local housewives with shopping baskets, follow them to find the real sources of affordable food. Local markets selling bulk foods allow for better portion control than restaurants and they will save you money.

Where would we be without Maps?

I was lost recently in an unfamiliar town and I had a woefully inadequate map. I was with my spouse and we were both getting quite frustrated. It was early evening and being December it was already quite dark. We ended up walking into a drinking establishment and having a drink to soothe our jangled nerves. The second part of the plan was that I was going to ask for directions.

As luck would have it, the bartender had a small stack of placemat-sized maps that showed a larger area and greater detail than the sightseeing one in our little travel guide. I told him the name of our hotel and he grabbed a highlighter and outlined our best route. I accidentally left my hat at the bar, so we had to go back the next evening. I really didn’t mind the return trip and we had no problem finding his business with the map.

If you have a bricks and mortar business, especially one that is off the beaten path, you would do well to check out the map printing services offered by LocationMaps.com. They provide an ad free, web based map service to subscribers. You can even get a two or three map layout to embed on your site which you could use to show customers and suppliers both how to get into your part of town and also a closer look at the street layout in your neighborhood. These are very clear and purposeful maps.

Florida Vacation Home

Renting a Florida Vacation Home has several advantages over hotel stays and many of them are in the kitchen. I have stayed in a vacation home before and one of the most memorable moments involved going out for a drive and discovering a local fish market. If we had been staying at a hotel, we would have had to content ourselves with window shopping. Instead, we took a feed of crabs back to our fully equipped vacation home along with supplies to make all the side dishes and a nice bottle of wine. My wife is an accomplished cook and I would compare our meal to one from of a five star restaurant, at a fraction of the cost.