Airplane Travel

It's been over a month since my last post. I promise to bring everybody up on the details as fast I as I can.  I will sharing my adventures of traveling by plane and hopefully you can learn from my mistakes...



How to Dress for Traveling: Dress comfortably. It's that simple. For me this was a comfortable pair slacks a t-shirt and sweater. The idea is that traveling is uncomfortable (unless you are in first class, but even then it's not comfortable) because you are confined to a seat for a long time and there's not much space. Nobody really cares what you look like and most people are dressed in sweatpants and sweaters anyway. I don't recommend wearing flip-flops though because you will be doing a lot of walking at the airport and sometimes airports and planes can get cold. That brings up another point, dress in layers if possible. Planes are notorious for changing the temperatures from uncomfortably sweaty heat to freezing cold and wishing they gave you a bigger blanket.


Essential Items for Sleeping on  Plane: So it's a long plane ride and you will want to force yourself to sleep because it sucks being tired first day at your destination. You will need Ear Plugs because the baby and airplane engine combination is enough to keep the heaviest sleepers wide awake. Eyemask is definitely essential. Airplanes dim the lights, yes, but they also turn them on randomly too. Also, on my plane they had a giant tv right in font of the plane that was brighter than day all night. Lastly, those crazy looking Neck Pillows you see in the airport are Amazing! They are of course cheaper at walmart and they are worth their weight in gold if you don't want to wake up with the worst soar neck. Lastly, make sure to stay hydrated! You will be surprised how dehydrated you will become. I always order 2 glasses of water in addition to my soda and orange juice on the plane when they ask for drinks.  Also, if you are looking to save money. You are allowed to bring a water bottle and fill it up inside the airport at the drinking fountains. I'm told New York has the best public water in the country.


Airport Craziness: 
Just expect problems to happen and roll with them. Hopefully you are lucky and well prepared that only little problems happen.

Arriving: It is very important that you arrive at min 2 hours before your scheduled departure. I arrived 4 hours, but for other reasons. You must first check your baggage and receive retrieve your boarding pass. There will be huge signs saying "Baggage Check" and hopefully small lines. Or maybe you have an E-ticket and can find a computer-teller.

Security:  Bring your passport and another picture ID. Fortunately, my parents hammered this into me so I didn't forget. Security rules are always changing, but still try not to wear a lot of medal while traveling or at least put them in your carry on while waiting in line for security checkpoint. Keep track of your boarding pass! Find a pocket somewhere and put it the same place every time.

Gate: Unless you studied the blueprints of the airport before you arrived, you will likely be lost, but there should be plenty of signs, maps and airport officials that can help you. First thing I always do is find the t.v monitors that show you all the gates and plane schedules. Then I always go directly to my gate because there is a chance the t.v. monitor and boarding pass could be wrong or schedules have changed. It would be awful if you ate lunch then realized your gate changed to the other side of the airport and you have 5 minutes before you plane boards and leaves. In my case I was told the wrong gate by an airport official on a connecting flight, luckily I doubled check on the monitor schedules. I double check again at the front desk  when I got to the gate because my flight wasn't posted yet and then I got something to eat.

Boarding: Find your boarding pass and get ready for a long long sit... if you weren't already sitting at the gate.


Baggage Claim:  Usually the easiest is to just follow the crowd that was on your plane or you could check the monitors again for your baggage claim location. It's been my experience that baggage claim takes forever, my baggage is always at the bottom of the unloading pile.


Lastly, enjoy your new destination!

Hostels in Budapest!

Well, after a lot of research on reviews, ratings, descriptions and pictures, I think I've finally found the perfect hostel in Budapest for me. If you do go to Budapest, this may not be the hostel for you because it basically comes down to your personal preferences. Here is how I decided.

Cost: I'm booking a 6 night stay at $13 for 2 nights and $16 dollars for 4 nights (US Currency). Total is $90, which is like $360/month if you were renting it, not bad. I saw prices ranging from from $8-$50 a night in a dorm style bed. You can generally find a suitable hostel for under $25 though.

Booking: I booked a hostel ahead of time. The advantage of this is that it guarantees you a place to stay and will take away the stress of finding a place right after you get off the plane. Also, if your in high season, it's cheaper to book a head of time. The cost may double if you plan on buying a room when you get there. The disadvantage is that there is a booking cost of $2, which is worth it to me.

Location: I chose a place in the heart of the city. This would normally be more expensive, but my hostel still seemed to give a good price, most other hostels near by were about $10 more per night. Pros: everything is nearby, so you don't have to pay for transportation. Budapest isn't particularly safe outside the city. Cons: it's noisier and generally more expensive.

Room Size: I saw rooms ranging form 1 bed to 20 bed per room. Obviously it's more expensive the more exclusive you get. I chose the 4 bed per room. Pros of more beds: You meet more people. Cons of more beds: more noisy, more of a security risk.

Cleanliness: This is the most important to me. Nothing worse than dirty sheets and bathrooms. Usually you can get a pretty good idea by reading reviews on the hostels (Also know that reviews are generally negative). My place is known to be clean but occasionally runs out of hot water.

Staff: How friendly are the staff and hostel environment? Again you can get a pretty good idea of this by reading the reviews. My hostel does have a friendly staff, planned events like wine tours, bar on the first floor, dance studio on the top floor and is a rather large hostel catered to students.

My place is called the Casa De La Musica. I haven't stayed there yet, but I'll write an thorough review once I get there.

p.s. I'm a little worried because I've recently seen the movie Hostel....

Step 2:Plane ticket-DONE!

Got my plane ticket, thanks to my parents!

I think this makes it officially official and I'm glad this huge hurdle is over. For me, I spent hours looking for the cheapest tickets using Kayak, Bing, Mobissimo, studentuniverse and many others. I poured over articles on what day of the week and what time is the very best to purchase and book a ticket. Here's what I've gathered; Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday's are generally the best days to buy tickets and between 9pm-6am are the best times to buy tickets. Pick days of the month that do not coincide with pay days. Also,  afternoon on weekends are the worst times to buy tickets. If possible always purchase your ticket far in advance because they are much cheaper. Also, watch out for some ticket search engines because they'll show a cheap price of $750 and then they charge $600 in taxes and processing fees.

My personal dilemma for buying an overseas ticket was that  I'm spending a year abroad. Most airlines don't book that far in advance and if they do it's generally expensive. My naive idea (but at the moment, genius!) was to buy a ticket that would return in 6months and then extend the return another 6 months once prices dropped. The mistake was that airlines new this and they would charge you the difference on the original price, so you'd end up paying the same plus $100 for changing the ticket dates. Fortunately my parents came in for the rescue and bought a 1 year ticket from Delta using Skymiles.

Here's an amazing thing about sky miles. The US dollar amount for my overseas ticket was around $2,400. The exchange rate for sky miles to dollar is about 100skymiles/$1. My parents had 99,000 skymiles which is about US $990 worth of purchasing power. I'm not sure if Delta didn't update their system or if this is a skymile perk but my parents were able to purchase the $2,400 ticket for $990 worth of skymiles which is over 50% savings of $1410. Also in respect to Delta, they did offer the cheapest prices for plane tickets compared to anyone else.

So this stressful but needed hurdle is over and I'm excited to board that plane for a 13hr trip across the world.

Some good hints/advice about Study Abroads

I wish I'd known this or at least wish someone told me about this before I started planning on doing a Study Abroad.

 If you have interest in going abroad, you will want to at least plan a year in advance, especially if you want to get scholarships.

Why a year? you ask. Well, you will find out that the most and best study abroad scholarships run parallel with your application and you don't want to rush your scholarships. This means that when you apply for a study abroad program, you will also want immediately apply for scholarships (if not before you apply for a study abroad). Unfortunately the best scholarships are due months before you will even get your university acceptance letter.

Example: I sent in my university application in early February 2010 to study abroad for the Fall 2010. I didn't get my university acceptance letter until late April 2010. Meanwhile study abroad scholarships for Fall/Spring 2010/2011 are were due on March 1st 2010. Hopefully you're more organized than I am.

A little counter intuitive, but you will want to apply for as many scholarships even if you don't know where you are going, if you've been accepted or even if you are going.

Additionally most of the good scholarships require some work (resume, recommendation, project proposals etc..) that may take a couple months to prepare.

For these reasons, it's always best to plan ahead 1 year in advance and don't be afraid to apply for Study Abroad scholarships, even if you haven't been accepted or know where you are going?