Hey Chicago and New York: Get away to Mexico City this Memorial Day for cheap

by Grant Martin on

People often don’t think about traveling over the holidays before it’s too late and ticket prices have gone through the roof. Good thing you’ve got me around. Just be glad you don’t know me personally, I’m always pestering people to buy tickets and they hate me for it.

Anyway, we’ve been looking for good tickets to buy for my girlfriend and I over Memorial Day, and blogger Jeremy (aka, Yaro, aka SATIJ) stumbled on a great fare to Mexico City over that weekend. For a paltry 280$, you can get yourself into the cultural and economic center of our neighbors to the south from either Chicago or New York, leaving Friday or Saturday and returning on Tuesday, the day after the holiday.

Oh but it gets better. If you want to book today or tomorrow, there’s also a 50$ off rebate that you can use with Northwest. So your ticket price drops to 230$.

Use a month long search on the NWA website to find your tickets out of Chicago or New York. You’ll also find that the fare is good for multiple weekends in April and May as well.

Mexico City to big and dirty and scary for you? It’s actually not as bad as it used to be. Take a gander through their wikitravel page and I think you’ll be impressed at what you see. And if you need any personal advice, ask Yaro for some tips and he’ll hook you up. Ask him about his nicknames while you’re at it.

I’ll see you in Mexico City. Just don’t forget your passport.

No Wrong Turns: Live Rent Free in Mexico

by Kelsey Mulyk on

Baja California draws thousands of vacationers each year who fork out wads of cash to stay in cookie-cutter hotels. I prefer to stay in more low-key places for two reasons: number one, I usually don’t have the cash to live the lux life and number two, I’d rather experience more of the culture than see another typical hotel lobby. But, if the opportunity came up to stay in a nicer place and experience the culture all for a decent price I’d be up for it . And it might just be possible, in fact, it just might be free… which happens to be right in my price range.

How’d you like to visit Mexico and stay for free in your own place?
Seriously….for free.

If you have a couple of weeks on hand, the money to pay for a flight or the desire to drive yourself down you could have yourself an inexpensive and amazingly beautiful vacation. How you ask? Become a housesitter.

Since we arrived in Mexico, many of the folks we’ve met have managed to stay here for months on end just by taking care of homes and picking up odd jobs here and there.

Many homeowners in Mexico are Americans and Canadians who spend half the year chilling out in Mexico and the other half at home. Understandably, a major concern for them is leaving their homes empty for months at a time. They are looking for trustworthy and reliable people to take care of their homes, keep their plants alive, babysit pets and discourage theft. When all is said and done, it’s a pretty easy job, and somebody’s got to do it.

Ads for housesitters in the Baja run in many of the local publications like the Gringo Gazette (I know…the name really is awesome) and the El Calendario de Todos Santos. Being a green thumb, pet-lover, or fixer-upper type can help to secure a position and a solid reference will do wonders. Housesitting is a great way to check out Mexico and the most you have to worry about are utilities and food.

How great is that? You could live rent-free for months in Mexico (sweet!), possibly in a really swanky pad (even sweeter) How could it get any better?

HouseSitMexico.com connects housesitters with homeowners all over Mexico. Housesitters-to-be can register for $20US (only until March 31st and then it will go to $30) to place an ad about their availability and qualifications. Access to the database of homeowners looking for help is granted once registered.

I don’t know about you guys but I am signing up right now!

Has anyone house-sat in Mexico before? I’d love to hear how it went.

“No Wrong Turns” chronicles Kelsey and her husband’s road trip — in real time — from Canada to the southern tip of South America in their trusty red VW Golf named Marlin.

Paris on a budget: Museums with free admission

by Anna Brones on

In an attempt to make art accessible to everyone, in January, the French government embarked on a 6 month program which opens up several of Paris’ museums free to the public. That means that you have until June 30, 2008 to take advantage of free admission to some of the city’s best museums.

Here are the six museums that are participating:

Musée Guimet – National Museum of Asian Art
Musée Cluny – National Museum of the Middle Ages
Musée des Antiquités Nationales de Saint-Germain-en-Laye – National Museum of Archeology
Musée National de la Renaissance d’Ecouen – Everything from Renaissance sculpture and paintings to furniture
Musée des Arts et Metiers – Houses the collection of the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, which was founded to preserve scientific instruments and inventions
Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace – National Museum of Air and Space

If you are a student, you can also have a pretty complete weekend of Parisian art thanks to the French Ministry of Culture. Four well-known Paris museums are enticing the younger crowd, ages 18-25, with free admission one night a week. This means you can check out the Centre Pompidou (Wednesday nights), the Musée d’Orsay (Thursday nights), the Louvre (Friday nights) and the Musee du Quai Branly (Saturday nights) without spending a penny — except for your Metro ticket.

Take fifty bucks off any $250 Southwest flight with Paypal

by Grant Martin on

Paypal seems to be trying to get some clout in the financial market. Last week I found a deal where they were offering 50$ off NWA flights booked with their proprietary online money tool. Unbeknownst to this blogger, it looks like they also kicked off the same promo for Southwest Airlines passengers. You need to book before March 27th, and the logistics all work in the same way that the NW deal does.

Check out Southwest’s promo page for additional info.

What they don’t mention on the site is if there are any restrictions on date of travel, so for now you might be able to get away with booking tickets late in the year using the code. So if you need to book anything through the summer (say, for the Fourth of July) when ticket prices are higher, you can plan ahead and jump on this deal now.

If you decide to wait in hopes that the ticket prices will go down, you’re playing a risky game. Tourist and traveler season is over the summer and you’re going to have a hard time finding tickets at reasonable rates. Best book your tickets now.

See Paula? Not all WN news is bad.

An alternate route into Clear Security

by Grant Martin on

You may have heard about Clear, the new airport security lanes that have been popping up at airports all over the country. They offer an “enhanced” security screening, where they initially take your iris and finger prints then you can fly through their special security lanes without waiting in line for TSA and the other schlubs. Willy wrote about their rollout last year.

You may have also, like me, taken a quick look into the service, discovered the 128$ enrollment fee then abandoned your research right there. I don’t know you, but it’s worth 128$ for me to stand in line for the regular screening.

There may be an alternate route to Clear memberdom though. Apparently, members of Hyatt’s Platinum rewards program can enroll in a free year of Clear because of their exalted special status. But there’s also a promo going on right now where you can get Hyatt Platinum for free after one stay.

Just sign up on the special Hyatt page and next time you’re traveling for work, book a Hyatt room. After that, check out the special Clear page (which I also happen to have), and BANG. You’re all set.

You can weird out about all of the information that Clear collects from you later while you’re sending me a thank you card.

[Update, Marriott Rewards members are now eligible too!]