First one is bt-store.com , they are consolidators themselves and quite often have very good prices for International travel, especially to Europe, I’ve been constantly finding better deals on it than on kayak.com  and they let you search +/- 3 days and also one-way prices are actually normally, unlike in most other places, where they charge you twice the round-trip ticket price.

The other site is cfares.com, but do not got their membership, I head it’s worthless… but the search is great, I’ve been finding prices about $100 cheaper than on kayak.com, but similar prices as at bt-store.com… the strangest thing is that they mostly search the same places, as kayak.com (I’ve seen good prices at orbitz.com and vayama.com from cfares.com), but somehow they get better deals - maybe they know what they are doing and find better (cheaper) routes …

The last thing I wanted to try is OAG Flights, which is a paid service, but they claim they search the most routes … but they never got back to me on free trial, so I never got to try them… and couldn’t find any reviews, though they do look professional

Here are the details at Strabucks.com

Well, long story short, I looked around a lot for a good rental. Similarities between different rental agencies:

• Large deposit (like $2,000)
• High prices
• Many offer with limited mileage
• Many did not have insurance for all the countries that I wanted to visit.
• Most rent out BMWs (that’s not an issue, but I still would love different bikes, like Honda CBR1100XX! : )) )

What I needed:

• Rent for a long time (about a month)
• Large mileage
• Comfortable for two
• Bike with decent power (more than 600cc)
• Nice looking bike
• Many countries to visit, including such as Croatia and even maybe Poland, Belarus

There are a lot of places that rent out bikes, many BMW dealerships do it, here are few places to look:

AdMo-Tours

• One of the largest agencies, that is composed out of many small rental places.
• Prices are decent, but usually higher, than if you go local
• But it’s better than local, since easier to deal with

Here is very big list from BMW Club of Amerca

You can do a search on Google and find few more places, like I found these guys:

Bianco Blue from Italy

Guzzi Rent also from Italy

• One of very few places that rent out Guzzis

And when you rent out bikes, do research on neighbor countries, since like in Sweden bikes are way too expensive, but you can drive or even take a ferry with one from Germany, Belgium, Denmark which have much cheaper prices.

After going thru a lot of sites, contacting with a lot of people (by e-mail only, with phone maybe I would have more success, but many of them don’t even speak English in e-mail, so I didn’t try my luck with phone), I’ve narrowed my list to:

Cenmoto of Belgium

Karl Maier BMW Dealership in Munich

Allround Vermietung of Frankfurt

Adriatic Moto Tours of Ljubljana, Slovenia

• I liked these guys, especially that they had more variety of bikes than everybody else

IMT Bike of Spain (few locations)

Also I was recommended Moto Espana, but he did not work out for me.

After all research and doubts I decided to go with IMT Bike since they were most professional and had the best options for me (unlimited mileage, insurance that covers many countries - does not cover Morocco though!). The prices are not the cheapest ones, but when you add up all the fees of other rentals, it comes out to about the same price. The location is also not the best one - I reserved it in Barcelona, but actually it worked out for me very good, since the plans have changed a little bit.

I split my trip in two parts and for second part I got BMW F800ST , first part I did not reserve yet, but hope to get F800ST also. I would love to get R1200RT, but it’s a little bit too expensive for me.

I’ll report on my trip when I get back : )

The major players in Baltic sea are:

Scandlines

Route map

Prices

Times

Polferries

The routes that they operate on are:

Gdańsk-Nynäshamn

Świnoujście - Ystad

Świnoujście - Kopenhaga

Świnoujście - Rønne

Tallink / Silja Line

Major routes:

Stokholm-Helsinki

Stokholm-Turku

Stokholm-Tallinn

Stokholm-Riga

Rostock-Helsinki

Helsinki-Tallinn

Stena Line

Baltic routes:

Frederikshavn - Gothenburg
Gothenburg - Frederikshavn
Kiel - Gothenburg
Gothenburg - Kiel
Frederikshavn - Oslo
Oslo - Frederikshavn

Grenaa - Varberg
Varberg - Grenaa
Karlskrona - Gdynia
Gdynia - Karlskrona

Mols-Linien

Timetables and routes

Prices

Finnlines

Travemunde-Helsinki

Naantali-Kapellskar

Malmo-Travemunde

Reservation center

Color Line

Hirtshals - Kristiansand
Hirtshals - Larvik
Strömstad - Sandefjord
Kiel - Oslo

Timetables

Prices

Lisco

Routes and Prices

KLAIPEDA – KIEL
KLAIPEDA – SASSNITZ
KLAIPEDA – KARLSHAMN
SASSNITZ – BALTIYSK
RIGA – LÜBECK

Nordic Jet Line

Tallinn - Helsinki

Good site to book and check ferries is at A Ferry though not all ferries are present there

Digital Photo Camera

• What I would do without it … I love to look thru my old pictures and live the whole trip again. Taking pictures is what I like to do the best, though I do a poor job at that, but it is good enough for me.
• I just carry along my big DSLR Pentax K100D with 18-125mm lens - nothing too professional, but pictures are much better than even from top end Canon point and shoot - can not even compare
• Also I carry my small Casio point and shoot - sometimes it is useful just get out something that nobody will see. Also it is good to take videos with it.
• For my camera bag I use Tamrac Express 5 bag - it fits my camera + casio camera perfectly, does not stand out as a camera bag too much, also I carry spare batteries (Pentax takes AA!), SD cards and wallet and keys would fit there as well… and also, my moleskines and a pen fit there perfectly…

Moleskines

• Before I would go  to trips and everything would get mixed up and I would feel very bad, that I don’t have a solid memory about such a perfect time
• So my aunt said if I would write something down, it would help me remember stuff
• But I can not just write in plain notebooks, since I hate writing, I need something that would inspire me. I found it! It’s small Moleskine Cahier notebooks.
• They are perfect in size, not too small, not too big, just enough for 2 week trip… now I have a little collection of them : )
• If it is a big trip with a big group, then I use one Moleskines as an accounting journal - so easy, so good, everybody happy that I take care of all finances.

Phone

• I love people and love keeping in touch, so I always carry a phone with me and SMS to my friends and parents my status reports ; )
• I like Nokia, but never actually used good one, since I somehow kept using Sony Ericsson, which I love also. After I lost my K750 in the deep snow, I’m using W580i  - pretty nice and very small phone (hate carrying bulky stuff).
• It’s GSM and supports all 4 frequencies, so I can use it almost anywhere
• Sometime, when I have money, I want to try Nokia N95 or something along those lines - need to get a nice 3G phone soon

Sim Cards

• Since I travel a lot, it becomes way too expensive to use Cingular roaming, but sometimes I do not have time or just don’t want to get local SIM card, so I’ve bought the Telestial card, which I love.
• It has free incoming calls everywhere in Europe and even Russia
• Outgoing calls and SMS are not that expensive, especially that I do not call, just send SMS
• The only problem, that it gives you some strange Estonian number, that not  even all american calling cards support. I’ve set-up a call forwarding this way: My Cell phone->Skype-In->Telestial Phone - works perfectly, so I still pay for all incoming calls (because of Skype), but that’s ok. Too bad Skype can not forward SMS.

Documents

• Well, that’s basic, but sometimes it creates the most problem for people
• US Passport
• Russian Passport
• US driving license + international driving permit
• One Credit Card
• One ATM Card
• A lot of Cash -  I hate travel checks and did not get used to using ATM cards yet
• All the papers with reservations and e-tickets
• Have all important information backed-up somewhere on Internet, so you can access it anywhere
• Print out of all phone numbers

Misc Electronics

• EU Electrical adaptors (I bought them for 10 rubles (50 cents) in Russia ; ) )
• Little surge protector - very useful, especially if there is just one outlet
• Good, but little flashlight - you never know
• MP3 Player (use Gmini 402, but need to get something with more battery life, like iPod Classic maybe or Cowen iAudio 7) + headphones

Misc Stuff

• Knife - I need to get Leatherman skeleton, but for now I just use old, but very solid and nice Swedish made knife
• Medicine stuff
• Bathroom stuff
• Microfiber Towel - small, light and dries fast
• Cocoon Silk Mummy Lines  - Sometimes beds are so bad, that you feel very uncomfortable sleeping there - and this little and light "sleeping bag" helps a lot

That’s about it, of course do not forget all the clothes, good attitude and brains : )

Times have changed and now there are more and more travel agents on the Internet and airlines themselves release cheapest ticket to the Net. From each day it gets easier and easier to get a good price on the ticket, but research still can lead to even sweeter deal.

For domestic flights (I fly very few of them, so might be wrong in something):

1. Search kayak.com for best deals and do +/- 3 days (unless you have strict schedule)
2. Check out if there are some deals at TravelZoo
3. Check nearby airports (like in Cleveland we have Akron which has Frontier)
4. You can try your luck at Priceline, but for me it never worked out

For international flights it’s a little bit more complicated (I mostly fly to Europe and Russia):

1. Search kayak.com +/- 3 days to get rough estimate of the prices
2. Of course, check out TravelZoo, maybe the have some deals - though, I’ve never found any that would suit me
3. Check if you can incorporate some budget airline into your flight, so like I am going to do in July:
1. Fly to London on a non-stop flight from Cleveland
2. Then fly some budget airline to Barcelona - comes out to about $200 or so cheaper than the cheapest ticket.
3. For me it is also an advantage, because I’ll buy expensive trans-atlantic ticket now and then buy cheap EU one later (because I might decide to change my itinerary and fly to Russia first for few days)
4. You can check for budget airlines at whichbudget.com or skyscanner.net (latter one I prefer more)
4. See if you can fly to even far away city and then take cheap train/car/bus…
1. I usually fly to Helsinki, because it is much cheaper, then take a $30 bus to Saint Petersburg for 4 hours : )
2. Or when fly to Minsk (Belarus), it is better to fly on a budget airline to Vilnius and then take a bus or train to Minsk
5. Search airline web-sites by themselves. Even though meta-searches search them, but sometimes(rarely, but happened) I get absolutely different price at airline web-site. To make the process faster one might use BookingBuddy
6. When doing complicated multi-leg flights, play with each leg separately and then try to assemble them into one ticket, e.g. Orbitz lets you do it.
1. When recently we flew first to Madrid for a week, then to India for a month and then to Russia for 2 weeks,  I made a single ticket for a total of ~$1500 - that’s really nice price for such complicated flight  : )
2. Sometimes you have to set the preferred airlines, otherwise Orbitz might not find flights that you need. Like for India trip I set US Airways and Aeroflot - worked great.
7. To research flights, times and approximate price use ITA Software tool - the same software that is used by Orbitz and Cheaptickets. It can also search tickets in the period of month - very useful. Multi-City search works good as well.

That’s all I can think of top of my head right now. Don’t forget to search for local airlines, when fly inside different countries.

Have a pleasant flight! 

Right now I will be looking for lodging first at Denali State Park for one or two nights. Since we arrive late (like 1am), I’ll just get something official, like a hotel, since we will be just sleeping there for one night.

Usually I would just go to sites like kayak.com and look for a hotel, but since there are no towns near Byers Lake and if there are, such big sites would only find few big chain hotels, I have  to do it manually.

I start by going to Google maps and search for hotels near Byers Lake, AK. I get quite few of results - and I can also see their placement on the map, which is very useful. Though you have to recheck Google sometimes, because it might place them in wrong location (happens always).

Then I start going thru the list of hotels in location which is good for me and if they have a site, I’ll go there and see prices, e-mails and etc. It would be better to call each one of them, but I do not like calling, so unless none will suit me, that answer my e-mails, I am not calling.

Good thing about Google is that they incorporate reviews into results, which is very useful, do not want to get some shitty hotel. Independent reviews come from very nice site called Trip Advisor.

I’ve opened up about 12 of the sites, let’s filter them now.

The following hotels/lodges/inns that I will be considering:

Talkeetna Travel

Freedom Hills B&B

Talkeetna Hideaway

Talkeetna Cottages

Denali Fireside

Talkeetna Suites

Alpaca Cabins

Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge

Talkeetna Roadhouse

Eye of Denali Inn

Swiss-Alaska Inn

Some of them do not work out for us with combination of rooms, for the rest I’ll e-mail and ask the total price and availability for our dates, we’ll see if it works out.

Next have to work with Denali National Park. For Kenai I think I already found a very nice house at vrbo.com and I’ll work with Valdez the last.

Denali National Park (http://www.nps.gov/dena)

Of course Denali can not be missed just because of the McKinley alone, but it is not good enough just to see it from the shuttle bus.

There are lodges and hotels just before the entrance and seems like few wild lodges in the Denali, I’ll cover that later, when start looking for a place to crash.

You can not drive in the park, just take a bus, which should be reserved and seats fill in fast. The best way to reserve it to call:

• Nationwide: 800-622-7275
• Outside the U.S.: 907-272-7275
• In Anchorage: 272-7275

Or online: http://www.reservedenali.com/

More information at Denali web-site

There is a schedule of the buses at official Denali site

There is also a lottery which lets lucky 1600 drivers drive their cars in September during four days.

If you do not get a seat on the bus, you can still hike in the Denali NP right from the entrance.

This site lists some of the many trails at the entrance, though they all seem kind of small, we need to find something more challenging: Alaska.org

The following site has few more trails of Denali park: Trimble Outdoors

And just few more trails from GORP

But other than that - get a nice topographic map and follow your own trail : ) I’m sure they have some nice maps for sale there, but to plan on computer I have Garmin US Topo (the new 3D version) and DeLorme US Topo maps - both of which are really nice and show a lot of details. Also a paper map, like DeLorme topo atlas is good, but the scale and details is not enough to hike safely.

I’ve just read, that you can take bikes with you on the bus. So it will be a great idea to ride the bus in the morning somewhere far away and then bike back … if you get tired, then get on the bus again - the views should be awesome!

Denali State Park (http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/parks/units/denali1.htm)

Denali State Park is located a little bit downwards on the highway and is much easier accessible than National Park. The views of Mt. McKinley are actually as good, if not better, than from Denali NP. The good thing is that there are more marked hiking trails.

This web-site lists just few of the trails.

More information about hiking trails can be found on the official site.

We will probably a day here, just hiking around on some nice trail.

We are planning a trip to Alaska this August (yeah, I know, it’s not the best time of the year for Alaska, but we don’t have much of a choice), so I would write up some information about traveling in this wild state.

There are several options to travel:

1. By foot ; )
   1. Well, we will hike, but with our company, it is hard to get anywhere far, so it is going to be just day hikes
2. By car
   1. Very few roads, so options are limited
   2. There are some 4-wheel roads only, which may lead to great places, but I wouldn’t take rental car there
3. By boat
   1. Widely spread mode of transportation, but too slow for us usually
4. By plane
   1. The best and fastest way to travel to remote (or any) areas, but way too expensive.

First we will arrive in Anchorage, take a car and go to Denali National Park and then return to Kenai area, so this should not be too hard (still looking for lodging and passes, which I will cover later). However, since we have like 12 days in Alaska, it is too much for just 2 parks (though I would not care, but we have like 12 people total, out of which 6 are from Russia and other 5 are working all the time and have little vacations), so we were searching where to spend extra time and to cover more of the Alaska.

There few choices right now for us (but much more choices as it is in Alaska itself ):

• Wrangell - St. Elias National Park
  • Looks like a nice park, but very big and only 4-wheel drive roads (as the book says)
• Katmai National Park
  • One of the nicest parks, especially the valley of 10,000 smokes
  • But by boat it takes too long to get there
  • By plane it is too expensive
  • And I think all of lodging is already reserved (though, did not search thoroughly yet)
• Lake Clark National Park
  • The same as Katmai as getting to and lodging part
• Chugach State Park
  • Looks like nice park
  • Very close to Anchorage - so good for last few days in Alaska
  • Easy to get to
  • Maybe not as interesting, as other places
• Juneau - Sitka area
  • It is basically on our way home (well, ticket from there cost the same as from Anchorage, so we do not really save any money)
  • Should be a nice looking area
  • On average, much more rainy then Anchorage area of Alaska

Out of all the options above, we are now looking at Juneau - Sitka area. Chugach State Park is our last resort.

In the next few posts I will cover the following issues:

• Lodging
• Transportation
  • Cars
  • RVs
  • Boats
  • Planes
• Parks
• Maybe some other useful info

Though, many of the things are going to be more specific for our large groups (like lodging especially).