Category Archives: Travel Plans

My United States To-Visit List

I’ve been all over the United States. When I was young, we took roadtrips acorss the entire Western half of the United States. One year, a drive from Washington to Nebraska, with stops in Yellowstone and the Black Hills. One year to Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and New Mexico — with the Golden Arches being the big attraction. Christmas in the Florida Keyes about 7 years ago. Vegas for New Years. New York & Boston multiple times. San Francisco and Southern California more times than I can count. At Zillow, I traveled throughout the country during the height of the REBar Camp movement. A road trip to Texas in 2010. Portland numerous times.

You get the picture.

But it’s a big freaking country, and I haven’t been everywhere yet.

Where is the one spot I desperately need to get to?

That’s simple.

New Orleans — for Mardi Gras and/or JazzFest.

mardi_gras_street

Photo via http://www.1000lonelyplaces.com/

What other locations & events are on my short list?

  1. Coachella — I’ve heard so many amazing things about it from many of my friends who have attended.
  2. SantaCon in NYC — running around the streets of NYC with thousands of fellow Santas? How can that NOT be fun?
  3. Maine – I’ve heard the country side in Maine is beyond gorgeous.
  4. The South – aside from Miami & the Florida Keyes, I’ve never set foot anywhere in the South. Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina etc. That needs to change.
  5. The Appalachians in North Carolina – I’ve heard they are gorgeous and well worth seeing.
  6. Alaska – need I even explain?

Of course, I knocked Burning Man off the list this year (& it was awesome) — that one had been at the top for several years.

What are you must visit places in your home country?

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Headed to New York City, and A Bit of History

I’m headed to the Big Apple this coming Sunday night on a redeye to spend a week. I specifically chose a redeye so that I didn’t miss the Seahawks play-off game this coming Sunday in the event they beat the Redskins. Turns out I made a wise choice, as they did indeed beat the Redskins and on Sunday thus are playing the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.

Why am I going to New York?

Aside from the fact that I still want to move there, I’m going to see some old real estate friends (& a few new ones) in town for the Real Estate Connect conference, attend RE BarCamp NY, meet a few travel bloggers & an up-and-coming consultant/blogger, and talk to a several potential investors for Oh Hey World. I’ll be in town until at least the 22nd, so let me know if you’ll be passing through the city that week!

For those interested parties, here’s a bit of a history lesson about New York with video footage from 1949. Enjoy!

YouTube Preview Image

[Video H/T to Nicole Beauchamp on Facebook]

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Figuring Out Life’s Next Step

Matt and Christine got me thinking hard about where my next stop is. Living a nomadic life, the question of where to visit next inevitably arises every few days, weeks, or months. It’s that time again.

With limitless choices, decisions become harder.

That’s the challenge with figuring out where to settle down after my time in Spain and a trip to Bali in August for Startup Abroad. When I can literally go anywhere in the world, where do I settle down to build this travel startup?

Go live in the Big Apple? That’s been on the list for awhile. I have to admit, TechStars spring 2013 in NYC is pretty damn appealing.

Trek around South America for the entire fall?

South Africa?

San Francisco?

Or maybe go back and live in Asia again and eat freaking amazing food at prices unheard of elsewhere in the world. Can you believe I paid 15 euro yesterday for a big dish of cashew chicken? Don’t get me wrong, it was good. But not 15 Euro good. Man, what I’d do to be transported back to the streets of chiang mai for some unreal street food for 35 baht.

Decisions, decisions, decisions. I’ll keep you posted.

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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An Update to My Travel Plans

After arriving in Stockholm on June 24th and spending 2 days taking shots at the Ice Bar and taking a high speed boat tour, I’ve more or less been in Amsterdam ever since my 30th birthday on June 27. The last two weeks have included a two day trip to Nijmegen to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers (best concert I’ve ever seen), Pearl Jam at the Ziggo Dome, Startup Weekend, a day trip to the Hague and Leiden, and a number of days accommodation in Noordwijk at the Flying Pig Beach Hostel (about an hour from Amsterdam).

But I’m about ready to move on. What’s next travel wise?

On Saturday, I’m meeting up with Anna Zalazar and we are heading down to Ghent in Belgium. We’ll spend a few days there before hitting Brussels and Bruges for a day each mid next week. On the 19th of the month, we fly to Barcelona where we’ll spend a few weeks soaking in the rays, eating paella, drinking Sangria, and taking siesta. Then, I fly out to Bali for Startup Abroad in mid August — which should be an awesome awesome trip.

Onward…

PS: Yes, Europe is expensive and yes my pocketbook is hurting right now.

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Visa Run from Chiang Mai to Vientiane, Laos by Bus – What You Need to Know

Those of you who have been to Thailand likely already know the obvious about time durations for Thai Visas. If you fly in, you have 30 days in the country on a tourist visa. If you come in over land, you only get 15 days.

Therefore, to stay in Thailand – Visa “runs” are required. If you want more than 30 days in the country, you have to go to a Thai embassy outside of the country and obtain a tourist visa — this will allow you to stay 60 days in Thailand, and you can add another 30 on top of that by renewing at the Thai immigration office.

I embarked on my first Visa “run” from Chiang Mai a couple weeks ago to Vientiane, Laos (March 9th to be exact since I flew into Thailand from Cambodia on February 10th). Below is my personal experience — no guarantees yours will be exactly the same, but it’ll be pretty dang close if you choose to take the bus (cheapest option).

Booking

You can really book your visa run anywhere in Chiang Mai. Just look for the tourist booking agencies on every other corner. They will all sell you a bus ticket to Vientiane. I paid 1000 baht for a mini bus — it might be slightly different depending on which booking agency you use. You can likely get the ticket cheaper if you go straight to the bus station and buy a ticket there. But I chose to just book it in town and not worry about saving the extra money.

Chiang Mai to Vientiane

The bus will pick you up at your hotel around 6:00, so no need to worry about finding the bus station. The 14 hour mini bus trip began about 7:00 pm, with little leg room to stretch in all but one of the seats in a full mini van (a seat which I did not have). We stopped twice for bathroom breaks at two different 7 Eleven’s (one longer stop of about 20 minutes and a fill up). After arriving about 5 am for coffee at a small restaurant a few minutes from the border, we transferred into a larger bus for the final border crossing. That took about 45 minutes end to end to get through the border. To enter into Laos, the fee was $36 in US Dollars. On the Vientiane side of the border, we had to wait for another 45 minutes for a different bus to come pick us up and take us into town (15 minute drive). The bus dropped those of us visiting Vientiane about 2 blocks from the river in the center of town, while those going to Vang Vieng stayed on the bus for the rest of the journey.

In Vientiane

You’ll need to stay at least one night in Vientiane since you have to leave your passport at the embassy overnight, so find yourself a decent hotel. I stayed at Riverside Hotel for about $20 per night.

At the Thai Embassy In Vientiane

If you take a tuk tuk or songthaew (which I’d recommended) to the Thai Embassy, there is a really good chance they will drop you off right across the street — smack in front of a little table where someone offers to help you get your Visa paperwork correct. The man at the table offered to help me with all my paperwork and drop off my Visa at my hotel for 3,000 Baht. He told me the paperwork I had was wrong, because the back of my application form (which contains the terms) was not photocopied and that I did not have a photocopy of my Laos entry stamp. I told him no and kept asking him why I can’t just walk inside and get it done for 1,000 baht. I have to admit, he almost had me (they are really good about making it appear this is the best option) — but then I got wise and realized they were just trying to scam my money. I believe the process would have worked, provided you are willing to trade an hour or two of waiting time and not have to return to the embassy the next day to pick up your Visa for 2,000 baht (about $60), then try it. Time was on my side, so there was no need to pay $60 so I could be ultra lazy.

What you DO need:

  • Your passport
  • 1000 baht (2000 baht for a double entry)
  • A photocopy of your passport
  • Photocopy of your Laos entry stamp from your passport (I didn’t realize this, but there is a photocopier upstairs at the embassy for 5 baht per copy)
  • Completed Visa application

The actual process:

  1. Get a number — you need to either walk up to the office door (to the left of the service windwos) and knock to get them to give you one, or just cut to the front of the line of people submitting their paperwork and ask for a number.
  2. Wait for them to call your number. If you wait forever and don’t hear your number, just walk up and stand in line. Their numbering system doesn’t work so well for some (like me) — I sat there an hour before I realized that people who arrived after me had got called and I hadn’t.
  3. Submit all your required paperwork
  4. Go to the next building and pay your fee
  5. Return the next day between 1 and 3 in the afternoon to pick up your Passport/Visa

Note that the embassy is closed on the weekends, so you do not want to drop your passport off on Friday unless you are okay sticking around Vientiane all weekend and picking your passport up Monday. Related to this, realize you are going to be stuck with a few extra days of hotel costs if you leave Chiang Mai on a Friday (like I did) since that means you arrive Saturday morning and can’t drop off the passport until Monday.

The Journey Back to Chiang Mai

For a “VIP” bus trip back to Chaing Mai, the cost was 1200 Thai baht from the tourist shop I booked at. My “VIP” bus trip to Chiang Mai begun at 3:00 with a small songtheaw picking me up from my hotel. It proceeded to drop me off at the Vientiane bus station, where I waited for 40 minutes for the next international bus to take us across the border into Thailand. Note that you’re going to have to pay a 9000 Lao Kip as an exit fee.

That international bus took a mixed group of us all the way to the Thai city of Udon Thani, where we were to transfer to buses to take us to our final destination. When we arrived at that station there, they told me to “sit down” and someone would help me find the bus to Chiang Mai. “Someone helping me” turned out to be a tuk tuk driver who drove me across the entire city (15 minute ride) to the bus station on the far side of town to catch my double decker VIP bus to Chiang Mai.

The VIP bus was great — free snacks, water, AC, a seat at the very front with tons of legroom. But then it stopped being great when it broke down at about 3:00 in the morning. We were stuck on the side of the room for 2 hours until two replacement mini buses got there to pick us up and finish the journey to Chiang Mai.

So I paid an extra 300 baht for a VIP bus — for all of about 3 hours of actual bus time. That’s Thailand for you I guess.

I think that about covers it. Good luck with your visa run!

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Last Minute Travel Decisions are Awesome

Via Twenty-SomethingTravel.com

Have you ever made a really impulsive travel decision?

Yup. Just last week actually.

A few days ago, two friends and I were smoking shisha wondering where to go next after 5 nights in the gorgeous paradise called Koh Phi Phi. One of them has to fly back to Zanzibar on January 25th, so we had about 10 days to work with. Do we fly straight to Laos and go tubing? Do we  fly to Cambodia to Angkor Wat (I had already been there in 2008)? Do we randomly fly to Bali and hang out for a week?

We ruled Laos out because the flights from Phuket were too expensive.

That left us with Bali and Cambodia. How did we decide between those two? We literally flipped a coin. And Bali won.

However, a few minutes later I spoke on gchat with my designer at ESM Exec Designs who lives in Indonesia. She mentioned that she had lived in Bali for a year, and that this time of year, the weather in Bali would be really bad (read: lots of rain). So we reverted plans and went with our 2nd choice — Cambodia (which was actually last on my list since I’d already been there in 2008). And we proceeded to book a flight from Phuket to Bangkok the next morning for about $70 per person. We weren’t quite sure whether we’d stay in Bangkok a night or two, take a bus to Cambodia immediately, or fly straight to Siem Reap. Upon arrival in Bangkok, we went to Bangkok Air sales, found a decent deal on a round trip from Bangkok straight to Siem Reap (and returning out of Phnom Penh) and booked that flight to Siem Reap departing in 2 hours.

We started our discussion over shisha on Kob Phi Phi. 24 hours later, we were sitting in Siem Reap drinking beers on Pub Street.

Travel plans are always in flux when you are doing long term travel with no real timetable, and sometime you end up waiting. Last minute travel plans are always quite an adventure. And that’s the fun of it.

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Snail Mail is the Devil

One of the items on my to-do list before I take off for my next round the world adventure was going through my snail mail. Like you, I HATE snail mail. It is the devil. A week or so ago, I went though 6 months of snail mail and sorted into piles of recycle, shred, or to-file. This is the end result.

What are the most hated tasks you tackle before your travels?

Drew Meyers

Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.

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Want to Move to Chile to Bootstrap Your Business? Top 10 Reasons Why It’s Awesome

Have the itch to travel and just don’t know where to go? Do you want to sit side-by-side with smart entrepreneurs from all over the world, in a gorgeous sunlit office with free coffee and pastries, while receiving $40K in equity-free funding and all sorts of great connections from the Chilean government?

Yeah, it sounds too good to be true.

But this is what I’m doing right now. My name is Leslie Forman, and I moved to Santiago, Chile in July as part of Start-Up Chile, a program of the Chilean government to attract world-class early-stage entrepreneurs to start their businesses in Chile. I work for a solar energy start-up, and the program is awesome.

Here are the top 10 reasons why moving to Chile is a great idea:

1. Start-Up ChileMovistar, and Urban Station have worked together to create a gorgeous office for us! Here is a whole series of fabulous photos, taken by Alar from Estonia.

2. So many smart people in the same room! This physical proximity leads to new ideas and opportunities.

Read the rest of the list on my personal blog, Beyond Chile’s Single Story or on the Start-Up Chile blog!

 

Come find out why Pamukkale is Turkey’s greatest hidden treasure

Pamukkale is a stunning wonder to behold and a very surreal experience for anyone visiting this amazing place. Etched into the Turkish hillside in Aegean, amongst the searing heat and sweltering sunshine lies the perfectly white mountains of Pamukkale. At first glance you may believe you’re staring out at the famous Rockies or the French Alps, as Pamukkale’s white, snow-like, appearance really gives it that chilling impression. This is what makes the Pamukkale Mountains such a surreal experience when you’re trekking along its trails, as you feel you should be cold being surrounded by so much white but you are most definitely not!

The Turkish summers are well renowned for being long, dry, and very very hot! Luckily Pamukkale has many beautiful pools of mountain springs you can cool down in whilst exploring this epic natural phenomena. Watch out though, some of the springs are hot so maybe not the best thing if your wanting to cool down. However, the hot springs are perfect if you are on a romantic, midnight stroll and fancy a dip with a bottle of champagne or two!

Now for all you geologist geeks out there let’s go in to how the amazing white mountains of Pamukkale were created and the hardcore facts. Pamukkale gains its white appearance from being made up of the rock calcium carbonate, which is deposited by the hot water springs that travel over 320 meters from the River Menderes, which is located deeper in the Aegean valley. When the calcium carbonate is despoiled on the surface, carbon dioxide is released and continues to do this until it is at a equilibrium with the water in the air. The chemical reaction between the calcium carbonate is intensified by the heat and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Although it is hard for geologist to pin point exactly, they estimate that up to 4.9 square kilometres of the Pamukkale landscape is covered by the white calcium carbonate with a 1mm of thickness due to this constant chemical reaction between the rock and atmosphere.

Pamukkale meaning ‘cotton castle’ in Turkish, has been a protected World Heritage Site since 1988 and was first discovered by the ancient Greco-Romans in the 5th century. The Greco-Romans were as mesmerised with Pamukkale as people still are today, as they built their famous city of Hierapolis very close to it. The Hierapolis ruins are still a major attraction as you can still explore the ruins of this wonderful city and swim over its huge ancient remnants in the Cleopatra pools located here.

The former Roman Baths of the city of Hierapolis are still in use today and have been converted into a Archaeology Museum since 1984. The museum holds many stunning artefacts and is definitely worth a peek whilst visiting this magical place.

So, if you’re in the mood for something different and wish to explore a place truly out of this world (and maybe even stay in villas in turkey), Pamukkale is definitely for you!