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Where to Stay in Vancouver: A Complete Neighborhood Guide

Hippie in Heels — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 00:12:57 +0000

Planning a trip to Vancouver and figuring out the best place to stay? Local Nathalie is here to give you a complete guide!

The multicultural identity and access to numerous outdoor activities make Vancouver, BC a joy to visit. Whether you plan to enjoy local Asian-influenced cuisine, people watch in a café, or head out into the mountains or onto the ocean, I have a list of recommendations for where to stay in Vancouver.

My parents immigrated to Vancouver as children and have lived here ever since. Some of my earliest memories are going nature walks, museum visits, and hikes in this beautiful city. Being of Taiwanese descent, finding the best places for Asian food has been a lifelong adventure that I continue to take part in (with enthusiasm, might I add). As a lover of music and dance, the city provides amazing opportunities for both free festivals and paid concerts regardless of the time of year you visit.

Vancouver is split up into multiple neighborhoods, each with their distinct charm and flavor. I’ll provide a simple explanation of each neighborhood’s personality prior to listing accommodation.

Note that Richmond, while not part of Vancouver, provides proximity to our main airport (YVR) and thus has been included in this post.

Where to Stay in Richmond

Richmond provides easy access to Vancouver International Airport, in addition to some of the best Asian cuisine in the region. Whether you have an early morning flight to catch and don’t feel like venturing far, or are a huge foodie and want to make meals the focal point of your trip, Richmond offers the best of both worlds.

One can easily access beautiful walks along the ocean and fuel up afterwards with dim sum, dumplings, noodles, and bubble tea abound.

Sights of interest include the historic fishing village of Steveston, the Olympic Oval, and Aberdeen Centre – a mall fusing Eastern and Western shops with an outstanding food court full of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Hong Kong cuisine.

Check here for our guide to Richmond

Hotels in Richmond:

via There She Goes Again

Where to Stay in Vancouver

Mount Pleasant

A chic, trendy haven for lovers of vintage fashion, independent coffee shops, and brunch spots. 33 Acres Brewing and Brassneck Brewery are two local craft beer companies where you can pop in for a pint or taster flight.

The annual Vancouver Mural Festival has resulted in a plethora of beautiful street art on the sides of several buildings in Mount Pleasant, providing plenty of opportunities for Instagram photos!

Check out our full guide to Mount Pleasant here

Hotels in Mount Pleasant

West Side – Kitsilano and Point Grey/UBC

Kitsilano and Point Grey are the western-most part of Vancouver (not downtown Vancouver). Kitsilano is a hipster’s paradise with independent boutiques and cafes, many of which are found along West 4th Avenue. Vanier Park, Kits Beach, and Spanish Banks as popular enjoyable hangout spots year-round (Bonus: lots of dogs).

The University of British Columbia (UBC) Vancouver Campus is situated in Point Grey and makes for a great day trip to explore the university buildings, gardens, Wreck Beach, Beatty Biodiversity Museum and the Museum of Anthropology.

Hotels in the West Side

Granville Island

Once housing factories, warehouses, and mills, many of these old buildings have been converted into restaurants, artisan studios, and performance venues. Located just outside the downtown core, Granville Island offers a beautiful waterfront walk along False Creek with views of the Vancouver cityscape.

Hotels on Granville

Granville Island Hotel

via There She Goes Again

Where to Stay in Vancouver Downtown

The 4 official districts of the downtown core are Yaletown, Gastown, Vancouver Downtown, and the West End; but I will break the area down further along with some personally recommendations. While there are no accommodation spaces in Gastown, one can find tourist shops, cobblestone streets, and the famous steam clock. Gastown is easily walkable from Coal Harbour.

Coal Harbour/Waterfront

As you probably guessed by its name, this once-former shipyard is where you can see docking cruise ships alongside a gorgeous waterfront promenade. The sight of the Olympic Flame and the Convention Centre, a walk through this district is a surprisingly calm break from the hustle and bustle of the middle of downtown. Local tip: Stop by Soirette Pastry Boutique for freshly baked goodies and macarons.

Hotels near the Waterfront

Yaletown

Yaletown is dominated by waterfront parks and restaurant patios. The Roundhouse Community Centre is the sight of the first engine used in a transcontinental passenger train (Yaletown was once the end of the line for the Canadian Pacific Railway). Old warehouses have been converted into cozy restaurants where flocks of people descend for post-work happy hour drinks. Local tip: Minami is a splurge-worthy sushi restaurant that specializes in aburi (flame-seared pressed sushi). For brunch lovers OEB is a must-visit.

Hotels in Yaletown

West End

The West End is the location of choice for easy access to beaches, restaurants, and Stanley Park (our version of Central Park). English bay is one of our most popular beaches, and also where you can watch the Celebration of Light Fireworks competition in July and August. Stanley Park provides opportunities to visit the Vancouver Aquarium, bike the seawall, and enjoy time in nature while still being close to the city.

Hotels in West End

via There She Goes Again

Where to Stay in Downtown Core

Note that these are not official neighborhoods; I have split up downtown a bit further for ease of location-based planning

Davie Village

LGBTQ+ Friendly neighborhood; very close to the West End

Hotels in Davie Village

Robson Street

Extends from BC Place down to the West End, passing the Vancouver Public Library, the shopping district, and lots of places for eats and bubble tea. Local tip: stop by Robson Square in the summer for free outdoor events, or in the winter for ice skating!

Hotels on Robson Street

Others

Around the middle of the downtown core

Photo by Iain Cameron via Flickr

Where to Stay in North Vancouver

Lonsdale

Technically part of North Vancouver, Lonsdale is separated from the Vancouver downtown by a ride on the SeaBus. Once a shipyard, Lonsdale boasts a number of trendy restaurants and pubs, in addition to waterfront views. The Quay itself is host to many independent businesses. North Vancouver is where you want to stay for convenient access to recreational activities such as hiking and mountain-biking in the summer, and skiing and snowboarding in the winter.

Hotels in Lonsdale

While Vancouver downtown remains the focal point of a lot of vacations, I highly recommend exploring outside the downtown core to really experience the city in all its glory. Brunch in Mount Pleasant, a walk in Pacific Spirit Park in Point Grey, finished off with dinner and bubble tea in Richmond; the possibilities are endless!

Any tips on where to stay in Vancouver from your visits? Comment below!

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20 Fun Things to Do in Buffalo, NY

Hippie in Heels — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 09:57:55 +0000

Buffalo, NY has plenty of surprises for day trippers and weekenders alike. A short drive from the Greater Toronto Area, it’s a popular south-of-the-border escape, with intriguing food, shopping and activities, and a chill college-town vibe. I visit throughout the year – here are some of my favorite things to do in Buffalo, NY.

Tours in Buffalo, NY

Buffalo Historical Bike Tour

From Canalside district through Michigan Street Baptist Church, learn more bout Buffalo’s history. Check rates and availability here

Classic Chicken Wings Experience by Bike

Don’t feel bad about indulging in the food Buffalo is known for on this tour! Bike around to main famous spots for Buffalo chicken wings while learning more about the city. Check rates and availability here

East Meets West Foodie Bike Tour

For a more unique tour of Buffalo, try this foodie experience that takes you from Buffalo’s East to West Side as you explore the city’s immigrant and culinary traditions. Check rates and availability here

Waterfront Harbor Bike Tour

This bike tour takes you all along Buffalo’s waterfront from the Outer Harbor to the city’s grain silos, network of canals, and more. Check rates and availability here

20 Unique Things to Do in Buffalo, NY

1. Try the wings at Anchor Bar

Birthplace of the original Buffalo Wings, this modest bar and restaurant has won accolades ranging from a James Beard Foundation Award for “America’s Classic Restaurant,” to “Best of Show” at the National Chicken Wing Festival. Try Tuesday nights for the killer combo of live jazz + pizza + a couple dozen hot wings.

2. Grab some Mexican at Cantina Loco

If you love Mexican spirits, this Elmwood Village hangout is the place to take a flight, with nearly four dozen tequilas and mezcals to choose from. It’s also the place for stick-to-your-ribs tacos. The deep-fried California Fish Tacos rock, with zesty pickled slaw and spicy sauce.

3. Grab a coffee at Grindhaus

Need to re-caffeinate? This boho Allentown coffee shop has a cozy, pre-Instagram aesthetic and cheap eats (many vegan). It’s the perfect place to hunker down with a book… or kill time if you’re waiting for a table at Cantina Loco or Allentown Burger Project.

4. Find your next read at Talking Leaves Books

Buffalo’s oldest indie bookshop is one of Elmwood Village’s anchor shops, and a must for those with a passion for literary fiction, poetry and/or social justice. While small, the shop has a well-curated selection – I never leave without an armload of books, including my fave genres – travel, essays and creative nonfiction about running.

5. Eat your way through Elmwood Village Farmers Market

May through November, Bidwell Parkway is the place to on Saturday mornings, especially if you’re hungry! This 20-year-old alfresco market is only open to producers, meaning, all the vendors make what they sell. That sourdough loaf, cold-pressed juice or artisanal kimchee? All made locally, by the person selling it to you!

6. Try out Wasabi Japanese Restaurant

It’s not slick, but Wasabi is an Elmwood staple where you can enjoy satisfying sushi and teriyaki in a cozy little hideaway – perfect for a date night.

7. Or try the Japanese at SATO

For a hipper, more casual-upscale take on Japanese cuisine, consider SATO, a homegrown success that has grown now includes the modern Japanese restaurant in Elmwood Village;

SATO Ramen in University Heights; and SATO Brewpub, a downtown izakaya with a small-plates menu, including yakitori (grilled meat skewers) and bentos.

8. Check out Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Exploring the Albright-Knox Art Gallery is one of my fave things to do in Buffalo, NY. Unfortunately, the main campus of this leading modern-art institution is freshly closed for renovations, but you can catch engaging exhibits through 2020/2021 at its temporary Albright-Knox Northland location.

9. Go mural spotting

Make sure your phone battery is fully charged before hitting the town in search of the larger-than-life wall murals that are transforming communities into art hubs. From quirky-cute to thought-provoking and historically centered, many of these murals are part of the Albright-Knox Public Art Initiative.

10. Shop at Target

If you’re American, you’re probably scratching your head wondering “What’s the big deal?” but Target’s ill-fated mission to Canada a few years ago left many fans starved for the capsule collections our American friends take for granted. So yeah: Target.

11. Get some food souvenirs at Lexington Coop Market

Drop by to stock your fridge if you’re staying overnight. You’re not? It’s still worth a stop for foodie souvenirs from local hot sauces (I always pick up some, whether I’m traveling locally or internationally) to regionally crafted dog treats (for those of us with pampered pups).

12. Try the beer, bourbon, and burgers at Allen Burger Venture

Splurge on a grass-fed angus burger, washed down with a craft beer and a whiskey-bourbon-Scotch flight, if you dare. Allen Burger Venture says its beef is sourced from verified humane and sustainable ranches, but a full list of “alternative burgers” ensures non-beef eaters are covered, too.

PRO TIP: Order the wings. ABV never claimed to invent Buffalo wings, but I’m pretty sure they’ve perfected them.

13. Shop at Walden Galleria Mall

Sure, Canada has a lot of the chains we used to have to travel south of the border for, but… not all in one place. While many Canadians associate Buffalo with outlet shopping, Walden Galleria is the mall to hit if you want fresh finds, not cheap-and-cheerful steals. Everything you could possibly need is here – with a Cheesecake Factory, too. Perfect for a rainy day in Buffalo.

14. Hang out in Canalside

A four-seasons destination and part of Buffalo’s waterfront revitalization, Canalside is the place to go right now for ice skating, curling, ice bowling and – hello! – ice bumper cars. During the warmer months, the inner harbor the perfect spot to walk, picnic, or catch an outdoor concert or festival.

15. Explore Outer Harbor

The “wilder”part of the waterfront, this 200-acre green space is a must if your idea of things to do in Buffalo, NY includes enjoying the great outdoors. Hike or snowshoe the trails in winter, or catch a concert in summer. Bike or run the trails (bike rentals are available in season), or join a free summer fitness class.

16. Run the Buffalo Marathon

Looking for a flat, fast course to hit a new PB (personal best)? The Buffalo Marathon is a runner favorite (93% of past runners recommend the event), and uber-inclusive, too. Race weekend includes the full marathon, a half marathon, 5K, and the 1K Ruffalo Stampede dog run, and a kids’ mini marathon.

17. Visit the Buffalo & Erie Country Botanical Gardens

Organized around a stunning 67’-tall palm dome filled with lush palms and tropical fruit trees (including a lemon tree and cacao tree), the greenhouses also host geographically themed areas. My favorite: the koi pond in the Asian Rainforest. Millennial alert: House 4 is home to cacti and succulents!

18. Relax at Tipico

Sip a pour-over from this café/roaster located in the Front Park area. Bring a laptop and work away in the airy space for a taste of the digital nomad lifestyle, or just swing by for a bag of their single-origin beans.

19. Shop at the West Side Bazaar

Head to Buffalo’s West Side for all things global: this small-biz incubator features vendors selling treats and treasures from around the world. You’ll find cool merch such as cult-fave black soap from Ghana, handcrafted jewellery from South Sudan, and locally made macramé plant hangers (naturally!), plus tasty eats like Burmese street food and traditional dishes from Puebla, Mexico.

20. Check out the architecture at Market Arcade

Shop, eat or just feast your eyes on the Beaux-Arts/Neo-Classical architecture of the Market Arcade, a beautifully restored circa-1892 shopping arcade. Hot picks: handmade souvenirs from local artists at Buffalo Arcade and artisan snacks for foodie dogs and cats at Buffalo Bakery.

What do you think are the best things to do in Buffalo, NY?

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How to Spend a Weekend in Buffalo, NY

Hippie in Heels — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 12:00:07 +0000

It may be surprising, but there are actually a lot of wonderful ways to spend a weekend in Buffalo!

When I moved to here for my (now ex) partner’s work, I received a lot of snide comments from Americans and Canadians. (People from outside North America didn’t tend to know where it was, so didn’t have any opinions to share!) The rust belt city used to be one of the wealthiest in the USA, but that was a long time ago and it had gone through several decades of economic decline, urban decay, flight to the suburbs, and even depopulation.

But, what I found was completely different from what I’d been led to expect. And honestly, most people who spoke negatively about Buffalo had never been there. Although the city definitely has its problems and inequalities (where doesn’t!?), in reality it’s a vibrant and creative city with amazing architecture, good food and drink, beautiful nature not far away, thriving arts and music scenes, and urban rejuvenation projects breathing new life into previously abandoned and derelict spaces.

One rumor that was true, however? The winters! The winters are next-level cold and snowy, and especially shocking for someone coming from New Zealand, as I was. But there are few things more exciting than a Buffalo summer. Buffalonians really earn their summers!

Here are some insider tips for enjoying a weekend in Buffalo.

Tips for a Weekend in Buffalo, NY

Getting There

Buffalo Niagara International Airport is in a suburb of Buffalo, and connects to other US and some Canadian cities. Buffalo is right on the border with Canada, and only about two hours’ drive from Toronto (although the border crossing can slow things down).

If you’re coming from an international destination, it often makes more sense to fly to Toronto and then drive or take the bus across the border to Buffalo. I did this a few times as it was cheaper than getting domestic US connections to Buffalo. The city is also really close to Niagara Falls, about a half-hour drive away, so it makes sense to combine visits to Niagara Falls and Buffalo.

Getting Around:

Buffalo has a small subway network, and an extensive bus network. Although many visitors have their own cars, this isn’t strictly necessary, although obviously it’s more convenient.

Where to Stay

Elmwood Village is one of the most interesting neighborhoods, with lots of shops and attractions, so it makes sense to stay there. There are also a handful of lovely hotels downtown.

Recommended hotels that ooze with historic charm are:

InnBuffalo, in a restored 1898 mansion in Elmwood Village

Hotel Henry Urban Resort, in a refurbished psychiatric asylum on the edge of Elmwood Village

Hotel at the Lafayette, in a French Renaissance-style building dating from 1904, and the best option downtown

The Mansion on Delaware Avenue, between Allentown and downtown and another charming 19th-century mansion option

Curtiss Hotel, another great downtown option in a restored historic landmark building

Check for more hotels in Buffalo here

How to Spend a Weekend in Buffalo, NY

Friday Evening Arrival

Try to arrive in Buffalo for Friday evening, so you can enjoy the city’s nightlife. Art lovers should kick things off by joining an Allentown First Fridays Gallery Walk. The Allentown neighborhood has a large concentration of independent art galleries, which open late on the first Friday of every month for guided walks (as well as drop-in visitors).

You’ll be in a good location to enjoy some food, drinks, and live music afterwards. I really love Allen Burger Venture, a burger bar that sells local and regional craft brews, or Cantina Loco, for tasty Mexican and strong margaritas to kick the night off.

If you want to stay out later, Allentown has some fun grungy dive bars that get loud with live music on the weekends, much of it local. Buffalo’s most famous music exports are Annie di Franco and The Goo Goo Dolls, and while you probably won’t run into them, you might find Buffalo’s next big thing.

by Pete716 via Wikimedia

Saturday

Morning

If your weekend in Buffalo is between May and October, head to the Elmwood Village Farmers’ Market on Bidwell Parkway for breakfast and some gentle morning entertainment. I especially love the local peaches and nectarines in summer. If you had a big Friday night and need a sit down, grab an outdoor table and a strong coffee at Caffe Aroma, just across the road from the market.

After breakfast, take a short walk up Elmwood Avenue to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, Buffalo was one of the wealthiest cities in the US, thanks to its location on the Great Lakes trading route.

Rich locals (the same who lived in Buffalo’s amazing mansions) collected some of the finest art of the time, much of which is now displayed in the Albright-Knox. Art aficionados will be happy to see Warhol, Pollock Frankenthaler, and Lichtenstein in the permanent collection, and art novices will still enjoy browsing the manageable-sized gallery.

Afterwards, don’t miss the impressive outdoor sculptures that face the park. My favorite is the mirror mosaic tree stump with tentacles! Take a walk in Delaware Park, designed by the same guy who designed New York City’s Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, Frederick Law Olmsted. It’s much smaller than those other parks, though.

Afternoon

After a refreshing walk in the park, walk the short distance back to Elmwood Village and grab some lunch there. There are lots of places to eat to suit your tastes, but great spots for a light Japanese lunch are Sato and Wasabi, both on Elmwood Avenue. Sato is a bit more modern, whereas at Wasabi I always felt like I was back in Japan.

In the afternoon, spend some time browsing the shops of Elmwood Village. Gift stores here focus on local Buffalo-made crafts, and there are fun second-hand clothing stores. I really love the local stained glass lamps, reminiscent of Tiffany glass. If you keep going south on Elmwood Avenue to Allentown (an easy walk if you’re active), there are a number of shops selling antiques, too.

Evening

After a late afternoon rest at your hotel, check out the Colored Musicians Club in the evening (check the program on their website), on Broadway, east of downtown. The area of Broadway around where the Colored Musicians Club still stands was home to a vibrant African American jazz scene in the 1920s and 1930s. While the Colored Musicians Club is all that remains, visitors can enjoy listening to some first-rate live jazz music here, for free or a very small entrance fee.

The drinks are cheap, and you can grab a bar snack here for dinner. Even if you don’t know much (or anything!) about jazz, like me, you can still enjoy an evening of entertainment. There’s also a fun and interactive museum downstairs, which tells all about Buffalo’s place in US jazz history, but you’ll have to return in the daytime for that.

Sunday

Morning

After a quick breakfast at your hotel or a local coffee shop (Spot Coffee is a popular local mini-chain), begin the day with a fun walking tour. Explore Buffalo runs a huge range of walking tours, which are a great way to see parts of the city you might miss otherwise, and to learn about some of its history.

These focus on all kinds of places and themes, including areas of the city (downtown, East Side, etc.) and architectural types (churches, Frank Lloyd Wright, and so on), and even the Buffalo mob. Whatever your interests, you’ll likely find a walking tour to interest you. I’m particularly interested in Buffalo’s old architecture, and there’s so much of that downtown.

Afternoon

To refuel after your tour, visit the West Side Bazaar for a delicious and affordable lunch. Buffalo has become home to many refugees as well as other immigrants over the past few decades, and many of these have settled in the West Side of town.

The West Side Bazaar is a very simple food court that serves very tasty food from Ethiopia, Laos, Myanmar, Puerto Rico, and other places. Plus, the place operates as a small business incubator, to help these new arrivals develop business skills. My favorite meals here are the Ethiopian platters, with injera bread and curries.

Spend time at the Buffalo Waterfront for the rest of the afternoon. The recent development over the last few years has breathed new life into a part of the city that wasn’t previously very appealing, and there are activities there for all kinds of travelers.

Park up for an afternoon of beer and sport, if that’s your thing (unlike me!), at (716). If you’re feeling a bit more active, you can go kayaking in the Buffalo Harbor, or ride a cycleboat. For a happy medium, go on a harbour cruise on the Miss Buffalo, or visit the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park, complete with the decommissioned USS Little Rock battle ship.

by David Wilson via Wikimedia

Evening

If you’re well organized and can book tickets ahead of time, spend an evening at one of downtown Buffalo’s most iconic and attractive buildings, Shea’s Buffalo Theatre. The building dates back to 1926, and shows local as well as touring performances. If you can’t see a show, at least take a quick photo of the lit-up sign outside.

Alternatively, catch a movie at the North Park Theatre on Hertel Avenue. Opened by Michael Shea of Shea’s Theatre fame, the movie theater has a beautifully ornate exterior and interior. It shows independent and art-house films, classics, and some more mainstream ones.

For dinner, either before or after a show or movie, you won’t want to miss out on trying some authentic Buffalo wings in the city that created them. In Buffalo, though, they’re just called wings! Anchor Bar, on Main Street, is credited as being the inventor of the spicy fried chicken drumstick served with blue cheese sauce, and while it’s not the only place in town to get them by a long shot, it’s definitely the most iconic.

So there you go, after following this Buffalo weekend itinerary you’ll have no reason to believe any lies or rumors you hear! You’ll now have experienced some of the city’s best eating, entertainment, shopping, and sightseeing activities! Whether or not you’re en route to/from Niagara Falls, there are many good reasons to spend a weekend in Buffalo.

Have you spent a weekend in Buffalo, NY? What did you get up to? Let us know below!

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What it’s Like Living in Merida, Mexico

Rachel Jones — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 12:44:11 +0000

Wow, time flies! I feel like it was just a month ago I wrote my one month in Merida update and started it with “time flies!”. But it does, and we’ve really been loving it here living in Merida, Mexico. We moved here on May 22, 2018, after years in Goa, India (5 for me, but 8 for Ben). We’ve now been here almost a year!

A lot of people ask which we prefer more between India and Mexico and how they are different, so I wrote a blog post comparing the two which you can read here. I am just updating you on life here in case you’ve been following along and wonder what it would be like to move to Merida and just in general what it’s like living in Merida, Mexico!

Living in Merida Mexico

We love living Merida, Mexico! I have so many blog posts about how to move here from buying a car, getting car insurance to getting a license to getting a place to rent, health care, and so much more like the best restaurants and such! You can read them all here.

We are still in our beautiful rental house which we originally took for 3 months and extended to six months… and now have extended quite indefinitely. I love it here and am so glad we found this place. The landlord of our rental house is an architect and he’s actually designing a new home for us. We are planning on building a house in Cholul, a village outside of Merida to the Northeast. They’ve agreed to let us stay here until our house is done which is such a relief.

As for the house, we have found land but are still having it checked out with a notario before purchasing. We have some backup land in mind in case it falls through but we hope it will happen and be finalized before Christmas so that after that, we can start building. Ben was the project manager of building giant reefs in the sea, so I think he can manage managing building our house with the contractor – even though he doesn’t speak Mayan or Spanish. It will be an adventure and I will definitely share updates about it. I’m actually going to do monthly updates on my website Omni Curated so that I don’t overwhelm Hippie in Heels, since after all, it is a travel blog, not a house-building blog!

San Crisanto

less happy cat, dreaming of how he can next escape

we celebrated Halloween this year…

In the time I’ve been here in Merida, we’ve traveled to the USA in July to see my family, I’ve been in New Orleans, New York, and Florida for work. I’ve spent two weeks in Panama as well. Ben’s been to Austria to see family, and Toronto a couple of times for work. I’m actually back to the USA now in Ohio for Thanksgiving. I’ll be back again in a week to go to an awards show in NYC. We don’t sit still much! Luckily, we have found an incredible dog-sitter who loves Shanti, Omni, and Kitkat.

Merida airport is an international airport but a big connection was dropped – the Aeromexico flight from Merida to Atlanta. This flight was amazing because it connected us really well. But since it dropped, places we need to go involved long flights like 12+ hours to go a short distance. Merida just doesn’t have enough international connections. Most often, you have to fly to Mexico City then out. Other than that, we’ve been taking ADO buses to Cancun (4 hours) then flying out of there because it’s actually been faster. That’s been a bummer – but really the only downside.

downtown Merida

Other than that, we have no complaints here. The pets have been settling in perfectly fine, too. The dogs love it here because we can walk them more, wander around parks and the beach, and not worry about dog fights with strays. Kitkat likes to escape when he can, but he always comes back. It does worry us since we live on a busy road but he’s a cat and they are sneaky – what can you do!?

I’ve gotten a lot done since moving here. I completed my Mexican residency and am now a resident which is pretty cool. I bought a used car, registered it legally, got car insurance, passed my driving exam (on the second try – damn parallel parking), and got a driver’s license. We got health insurance that covers us for accidents abroad and opened a bank account, which I transferred money into from the USA. We are 10x more legit here than we ever were in India in just six months. Okay, I am more legit… Ben has done 10% of that, but does that surprise you? Kidding, kidding ;) He can’t do it because you really have to do the residency first to then do the rest of it and he needs to go to England to get his bank papers notarized.

so many cute cafes and bakeries & so many nice people

With so much travel and so many “to do’s”, it was a busy time. I love checking stuff off a list, so now that it’s literally all checked off (minus building a house), it feels incredible! I actually have a post written, which I’ll post soon, about how to move to Merida and the exact steps I took and how to do them yourself.

Since we moved here in May, we got here at the hottest time here in the summer in the Yucatan with full humidity. May in India is hot but it was that same heat here for three months straight. I won’t lie, it wasn’t great! I begged my architect for central A/C in our new house (split levels just aren’t the same, I want to come home to a house that is already cooled off) but after running through the pro’s and con’s it’s just absolutely crazy to do central A/C here. Damn!

As for the rain, summertime rain here is nothing compared to India’s monsoon. It was nothing compared to Spring in Ohio, really!

The funniest thing is that Christmas-time here is the “peak” season and it’s still really hot and beautiful weather – but if you go into Costco or the mall, they’ve put away all the summer stuff like coolers, beach chairs, and umbrellas, and put out all winter clothes and flannel PJ’s! It’s so funny. It’s still like 90 degrees here and in the evenings, old ladies are in like winter coats. It’s SO Indian! They do the same thing. Our friend Leena used to come to our house in a winter coat with a scarf at 2 PM and it was like 85 degrees.

downtown Merida

Anyway, through all the busy-ness, we still did a lot of fun things around here. We had a couple of friends from Goa visit. We explored the yellow town of Izamal and did a day trip to Uxmal (Mayan Ruins). We’ve found cenotes and haciendas, tried local food, hung out in cantinas, explored different beaches, and tried as many restaurants as we can! We try to get out and make friends but it’s not that easy since we live in the Norte area and the bars and such are all in Centro 20 minutes away, we kind of talk our selves out of going. My goal next is to get out more and meet more people.

We’ve also been loving that we can get items at the grocery store that we couldn’t in India so we’ve been cooking a lot. The funny thing is, Ben had to cart Indian curry paste from Canada (the good stuff) so we could make curries here. We definitely miss Indian food!

tacos4life but missing us some curry!

Other things I’m loving here: being able to go to fancy movie theatres, my pilates class, going shopping with friends at actual malls with stores like Sephora (I have two friends now, lol), and being able to eat local Yucatan food but also Texas Roadhouse because lets be honest, I missed that kind of thing like crazy in India! I love the spas here (as good as Snips in Goa!) and the fact every single person is friendly – my Uber drivers wait until I get in the door before they drive away. I love Uber Eats! Food delivery is the bomb.com. It’s just been pretty wild coming back into the “real world”.

there is always something going on here, you are embedded in the Mayan culture

It’s always a hoot to see what expats from the USA complain about here because Ben and I are still in the mindset of “it has everything, it’s so easy!” because compared to five years in the jungle in India, I might as well be in the USA right now. I mean, there’s the Walmart – several. I can get Velveeta cheese here and coffee creamer. Life is good.

I’ve gotten to see my family more this year than I have in the past 7 years and it’s really nice; a feeling I can’t really describe. India was SO far from home and just being closer is a nice change. I’m on the same time zone and can message friends and family throughout the day. My mom came with me to Florida and when the trip was over and she went back to Ohio, and me to Mexico, I didn’t have that pit in my stomach because I knew I’d see her again in a month (which is right now because I’m home for Thanksgiving)

In December, my parents and Ben’s mom and her boyfriend and his little brother are coming to stay with us over Christmas. My mom said, “by then, we’ll probably be sick of you!” After so many years seeing each other only July every year, it’s quite a change to be able to laugh about seeing each other too much.

After Christmas, we plan on visiting India in January. My friend had a baby, Zyon, and I’m (one of) his godmother(s). We’ll hang in Goa, and then I’m off to explore around India somewhere new! From there, I don’t know what travels await really. I know I want to see more of Mexico, Central America, and South America but we’ll also be building a house and I have a feeling that’s going to be more work than I’m imagining.

It’s been a crazy change this year but Ben and I both know we made the right choice moving from Goa when we did. We’re really happy here in Merida and looking forward to settling in even more! I hope you liked this look into what it’s like living in Merida, Mexico.

The post What it’s Like Living in Merida, Mexico appeared first on Hippie In Heels.

How to Fly with Pets

Rachel Jones — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 12:58:56 +0000

While I already talked how Ben and I took Kit Kat, Shanti, and Omni from India to Mexico, I wanted to write a general guide on how to fly with pets. There’s a LOT that goes into it from buying the right crates to making sure your pet isn’t freaking out, so here are all my tips here.

How to Fly with pets

Managing the paperwork & preparing your pets

This is key! You need to have the flights, paperwork, and all the legal aspects ready to go. I wrote about the paperwork necessary for my pets in this article. It has resources and links you can use to see what you’ll need for your pets. You’ll have to show this to the airline and customs.

Try to get this sorted and the crates ready months in advance so you can crate train your pet. You might even want to put them in the crate, move them to the car, and drive around so they won’t panic when the first time that happens is to go to the airport.

What You Need to Buy to Fly With Pets:

IATA cages for each pet

Make sure they’re correct sizes and they must be from IATA verified. We bought ours on Amazon and there were no issues. The crates are really easy to put together but make sure you don’t lose any of the screws especially if you need to take the crate apart for transport and then put it back together. Mine came with a little plastic water bowl, but we switched that out for a metal bowl as the plastic ones were targets for my pets – they wanted to chew them! Many airlines won’t allow the crates unless they are IATA verified. As for sizing, we went up a size for both of our pets who were borderline so they would have more space. You need to check the requirements for the airline (hence, already have the flight booked) and make sure you aren’t going over their weight and size requirements.

Cat carrier to carry on

Our cat came with us as a carry-on. We chose a carrier multiple carry-ons from Amazon and they really are mostly the same, however, some have a cool zippered side that can come down and make more room for your pet once you are on the flight or during the layover. My cat really loved that. I recommend getting a few and trialing them to see which is the best size (make sure it’s a product that can be returned). If your cat cannot turn around and stand up without their head touching the top, then it’s too small.

Pee pads

You need these for the carry-on and some airlines will allow you to put this in the checked crates. We did with Air Canada. Some airlines won’t allow it and some websites will say not to as your pet could get nervous and try to eat them (causing injury or death). It depends on your pet’s temperament. Ours wouldn’t eat them so we felt confident it was okay. The cat wouldn’t go in his carrier – and he was in it for 24 hours!

Water bottles

You can get a crate that has water bottles or buy one that you think is better suited. You can also then get a funnel which you can cable tie to the crate and easily fill their bowl up without opening the crate.

Proper Harnesses for each pet

You DO have to take your pet out of the checked crates AND the carry-on crates to go through security. I recommend a harness because then it’s pretty fail-proof for them not being able to get out of it and run off (which was my worst fear). Just note that for the checked pets, you have to take all of the collars, harnesses, and leashes off of them before you hand them over to board the plane.

Quality leashes and collars

Don’t cheap out on the collars and leashes. You should get ones that are hardcore and won’t break. If you pet was ever going to try to get out of a collar, this would be the time! We also made them quite tight so that there were no “oops” moments of the pet backing up and pulling their head out of the collar.

Tags with pet names + phone numbers

I get them made on Etsy sometimes but you can also get them made at any pet store or buy them online. This is really important. If you are flying internationally (we moved from India to Mexico) and your old number won’t work, make sure the number on the pet tag is one that is actually reachable.

Laminated photos and signs for the cages

We laminated copies of the pet paperwork and photos of the pets (a close-up and a side view) which we put on top. All the water bowls and funnels were held on with cables ties. Also, you must secure the door of the crate with cable ties when you hand your pet over so no one accidentally opens their crate! We also duct taped water bottles on the sides of the crate so that people had no excuse to not give our pets water during the layover.

Medicines + products to help east the trip

This is really a personal decision. We bought MANY types of products from calming drops to chewable melatonin treats and tried them out ahead of time. They seemed to work but the day of the journey we panicked worried that it could slow their heart rate. Every website has a different view on whether or not to give meds. Most vets say it’s okay while PETA says no way. It’s up to you! Airlines WILL NOT accept your pet if it looks sedated. Linked below are the ones we tried. The pets didn’t love the treats so we had to put peanut butter on them.

[easyazon_image align=”none” height=”110″ identifier=”B074QNJ8B4″ locale=”US” src=”https://hippie-inheels.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/31qveyCMCsL.SL110.jpg” tag=”Hipinhee-20″ width=”72″]

[easyazon_link identifier=”B074QNJ8B4″ locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]SynergyLabs Richard’s Organics Pet Calm; 4 fl.oz.[/easyazon_link]

[easyazon_image align=”none” height=”160″ identifier=”B01MXVLZJK” locale=”US” src=”https://hippie-inheels.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/51C6i1AW3zL.SL160.jpg” tag=”Hipinhee-20″ width=”98″]

[easyazon_link identifier=”B01MXVLZJK” locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]NaturVet Quiet Moments Calming Aid Plus Melatonin 180 Soft Chews 13.9OZ[/easyazon_link]

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Ask Me Anything: How Do You Deal with Taking Long Flight Journeys (Like USA to India) Multiple Times a Year?

Rachel Jones — Mon, 18 Jun 2018 18:14:24 +0000

I have a series on my blog called Ask Me Anything and I keep track of reader questions that I get over and over and slowly answer them with a full blog post. So, many of you email saying something like, “How to fly so much? How do you deal with taking so many exhausting long-haul flights? Do you want to quit traveling sometimes?” I’ll answer that and give some tips for long flights.

Tips for Long Flights:

“How do you deal with taking so many long flights every year? Don’t you ever get tired and want to stop traveling?”

I get exhausted from them just like anyone else and I haven’t become immune to that. It doesn’t get so bad that I want to stop traveling but I have taken breaks from travel for a month or two at a time because the idea of going back to an airport is too unappealing.

I hate flying… I hate getting ready, going to the airport, the whole experience. I’m not chilled out until I’m at a cafe near my gate and can see the name of the city I’m headed to – so I know I’m in the right place. On flights with 5 layovers, this is really tiring. Having anxiety while traveling and being a travel blogger seem like it doesn’t make sense, but it’s actually not that unusual as many people feel this way.

My mom and I recently went from Ohio to Florida and back and that required a layover. This is such a simple journey. So imagine, a restless night afraid my alarm won’t go off, waking up at 6 am, an hour drive to the airport, getting through security and chilling for two hours, the flight, layover chill out, another flight, then getting a rental car and driving to the hotel in Florida… it’s kind of tiring and we didn’t reach until nearly 4 pm. That is a long day to go just from Ohio to Florida – 10 hours – and that is probably the shortest flight route I did all year.

On the way back to India this year I flew: Myrtle Beach to Charlotte to Toronto to Amsterdam to Mumbai to Goa. That’s five flights over nearly two days.

I do these types of journeys a LOT maybe every 2-3 months I do a really big flight. Sometimes I stay in a hotel at the airport to break it up and sometimes there isn’t enough time to even try to nap.

Flying in India always involves flying to Mumbai or Delhi first and because of flight times it usually means taking the latest flight out of Goa at 10 or 11 pm, and waiting at the Mumbai airport for international flights that go out at 5 or 6 am. Not quite long enough for a hotel sleep! So, I start most of my journeys tired before I even leave India.

A lot of people who fly mostly domestically still find it stressful, boring, and tiresome and I do too – so these long ones require a few days to deal with jet lag on a new time zone.

So people do ask me how I manage to take so many a year when they suck so bad, how I still feel energized for more trips when they take a month to recover from their tiring beach vacation.

I get it! Travel is so hard sometimes. It can be draining bopping around all over and it means when you get home you’re likely behind on work and chores.

I do still feel up for more travel usually, although like to take at least 3 weeks between big trips. Last year, after I went to Israel, England, Latvia, and Morocco in one go, I realized that I would never have made it as a “digital nomad”. I mean, how would I ever get work done!? I was so tired that I took two months off and stayed in India before my very long trip to Finland.

But, although I don’t mind the flights too much, there is a limit and once I reach it there’s not much that can get me on a trip. I was invited to a beautiful overwater villa on an island in the Caribbean last year for a THREE-night stay (and would have been paid). That would take like 20 hours to reach each way – I was too tired to extend the trip and travel around that area, so I turned it down. I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it at all and would be jetlagged the whole first day there.

Because I was based in India, I realized I was turning down a lot of offers for press trips due to distance and time traveling. That is part of why I hired writers to go in my place.

How to make the flights more bearable

I’ll share a few tips on what I do to make the most of these long journeys. Some people say that you should try to match your sleep up to the right time zone, but I go by the philosophy of “more sleep is always better” so I will never try to stay awake so I can sleep on a plane. I sleep as much as possible before a flight and on it (I am lucky to be able to sleep on a plane). Then if I arrive somewhere and it’s night time, I go to sleep! haha – the more the better. If I can’t sleep on a plane then at least I had a good sleep before boarding and I remind myself that I can sleep when I reach and just make the best of the plane ride by watching movies.

I pretend there is no food and drink service on all the flights I take – and come prepared. I bring water and try to get a sandwich in the airport. That way, I don’t have to have a tray sitting in front of me for an hour while I want to go back to sleep but am waiting for them to collect, and waste time that could be spent sleeping for a crappy airplane meal.

I only have coffee before a flight if it’s a morning flight for a short trip where I stay in the same time zone (or close to it).

I also make sure I have done all the work I need to do before boarding, pack everything I need in my personal bag (toiletries and fully charged electronics: a good book, movie, and TV shows on my tab), and make sure I’m nice and clean and freshly showered so I feel good! It doesn’t hurt to also wear an outfit that you feel comfy and fab in.

I try to book international flights at night time so I can pretend like I am just going to bed, but even for international day flights I try to “go to bed”. It’s the only way to make time pass faster. I do wear an eye mask, earplugs if they are on the plane, socks, and my TRTL pillow to get fully comfortable. I’m often already wearing all that, ready to go to sleep, before the plane takes off.

How I sleep on the plane…

In this case, above, I’ve let my legs a bit free because it’s just Ben sitting next to me, haha but normally I keep them under me and much more tucked up so I’m not in anyone else’s space.

I sleep a little weird, but it doesn’t invade anyone’s space. Promise! And I only do this on long-haul flights where the lights are out and everyone is sleeping.

Basically, I stand backward facing the back of the plane in front of my seat then sit on my knees, then scooch my butt to the side, and turn my head to the other side and wrap in a blanket so I’m kind of like a swaddled baby. No little bumps will wake me and I’m not even touching the armrests on either side or bothering anyone. I’m actually not that flexible and it still seems to work out. Being curled up on a ball just helps me sleep so much better and I don’t get swollen feet/ankles.

My neighbors even get extra leg space out of it since my legs are tucked up. I can stay like this for like 10 hours (I know, it’s mental). When I wake up my neck and knees hurt, but I’ll probably do this until my body rejects it or I gain weight. If you’re smallish like I am, give it a try! I also love my TRTL pillow for when I face forward (when my legs fall asleep, ha ha, and I have to put them down like a normal person). I wrote a review of it here.

How To Take Pets Out of India to Mexico (Or Anywhere)

Rachel Jones — Tue, 29 May 2018 13:00:20 +0000

Many travelers come to India and fall in love with a stray dog or two. They might dream of taking that pet home with them but think it’s impossible – it’s not. You can take pets out of India, mostly dogs and cats. I did just that after five years living here. My boyfriend and I took our two dogs and one cat out of India and we had to go from Goa to Merida, Mexico. This article will tell you how to take pets out of India. We went to Mexico but I’ll talk about taking them out of India to anywhere.

I’m going to share you with our journey, what we learned, the mistakes we made, how we were scammed initially, and try to help you not make our same mistakes. It will be different for everyone depending on where you are in India and where your destination is, as each country has different import requirements. This is not going to be a total guide as there is no ONE way to take pets out of India. But in case you are taking pets from India, I hope that knowing what we went through will help you.

This is a long-ass post but if you are taking pets out of India, it’s best to know the whole story.

How to Take Your Pets Out of India

I’ll try to organize this by steps. Please do keep in mind, it’s not really the same for every destination and this is based on us being in Goa, not near a huge international airport. I’ll start at the beginning!

1. Set a Date

The first thing you need to do is have a leaving date in mind. It doesn’t have to be set in stone but you should know when you want to leave by. This is important because there are so many regulations and some destinations like Europe (anywhere where you need a rabies titer) will need at LEAST four months of planning ahead of time. In some cases, less planning is necessary and you could get your pets out in less than a month or even a couple of weeks.

You also cannot fly in the hottest months because airlines have temperature regulations. You also just wouldn’t want to check your pet in when it’s very hot. For us, we flew at night time and landed early morning so it was okay even though we flew in May, a hot month in both our departure city and destination.

2. See What the Requirements Are in Your Destination

This is the most important part. You need to look up the government requirements for the place you are going and see what you need to have for your pets when you get there. These are the requirements from the Mexican government. PetTravel also has this handy list that sums up what you need and showed us we did not need a microchip (but get one anyway as we were asked about it at the quarantine office leaving India and they scanned it), we did not need a rabies titer, it showed the vaccination records we needed to prove, tick and worm treatment we needed to prove, and a TYPED, signed, and stamped health certificate.

The following is for MEXICO but you can use PetTravel to look up any country and I highly recommend them as a resource.

Vaccination Records:

Proof of current vaccination against rabies at least 15 days prior to entering Mexico must be provided. Mexico will accept the 3 year vaccine from dogs and cats entering the country from the United States or Canada. All details about the vaccine must be on the health certificate. If your dog or cat is originally from Mexico (rather than the US/Canada), and your pet has been vaccinated in Mexico with a 1-year vaccine (which is standard here), you are required to show the Mexican booklet you received from your Mexican vet indicating the original vaccine date. In all cases, the vaccination must not have expired.

Tick and Tapeworm Treatment:

Within 6 months of entering Mexico, your dog or cat must have be treated against internal and external parasites by a licensed veterinarian and the products used must be reflected on the health certificate. Cats and dogs must have treatments for ticks shortly prior to entering the country. Tick-borne infections such as ehrlichiosis are not unusual in the country, so it is wise to protect your pet.

Health Certificate:

Option A: If your pet is traveling from the United States, then a USDA-accredited vet can issue the APHIS form 7001. If your pet is traveling from Canada, the Canada Export Tri-Lingual Veterinary certificate can be used. If your veterinarian chooses to use either of these certificates, then it must then be endorsed by the USDA or the CFIA respectively. The form is valid for 30 days.

Option B: If your pet is traveling from either country, your veterinarian can use a template which is then printed on their letterhead. No changes should be made to the wording in this document. If the pet is traveling from the US, the certificate must be signed by a USDA-accredited veterinarian. If your pet is traveling from Canada, the form must be signed by a licensed veterinarian in Canada. This form does NOT need to be certified by either the USDA or the CFIA and should be completed within 10 days of entering Mexico.

If your pet is traveling to Mexico from another country other than the US or Canada, then option B with a current health certificate is what your pet will need.

It was NOT listed but you do need to say your pet does not have screw worm. This needs to be written very clearly on the health certificate. It is a new rule in Mexico.

Importing pets to Mexico is free of charge unless you are brining in more than four pets. This is another helpful article about Mexico, but they have information on importing to other countries.

For the UK and Europe, you need to have a rabies titer. This makes things EXPONENTIALLY more annoying if you are coming from India. If you are going to Canada, USA, or Mexico, you do not need one. You need to look up your destination country and see what they require. Some places won’t accept pets from India, like Australia.

What is a rabies titer? You have vaccinated your pet for rabies but the government wants proof of that – and not just seeing a sticker on their paperwork. They want you to send blood to lab to be tested to double check that you have given them the rabies vaccine and they aren’t carrying rabies. The issue in India is that the European governments DO NOT accept Indian lab results. That means, you need to mule the blood (illegally) in someone’s hand luggage to a lab in Europe. Most vets use a lab in Brussels. This is expensive and the tests can sometimes have fail results so you might have to do it twice. In this case, you will need to emply a third party in India to help who specialize in exporting pets.

We were lucky that Mexico did not require the rabies titer. I’ll also put photos of our paperwork so you can see some real-life examples toward the end of this post.

3. Find Flights and Reserve Your Pet’s Spot

Finding flights was the hardest part for us. As we started to look up which airlines allow pets and which route we could take, we also started to see conflicting reports online about what shots we needed for the dogs and which paperwork was necessary. At this point, we decided to hire a local vet to help us.

We first hired Dr. Kiran from Panjim’s Tailwaggers. At the end of this article, I’m going to explain what happened with him and why you should never ever work with him.

We then hired Vinayak and his wife from Furry Flyers in Mumbai who were lifesavers. I’m going to share more about how they helped us further down. But for now, back to finding out the right flight.

Furry Fliers usually send pets with KLM and Lufthansa who are great with pets. They have “pet zones” so during the layover you don’t have to pick up your pets and they are taken care of by airline staff. When you fly with a layover, you need to make sure your pet is CHECKED THROUGH because if not, you need to pick up your pet and re-check them. If you do this, you have to clear customs. That means you have to import your pet to that country and then re-check them and pay again. This is impossible as you wouldn’t have export paperwork from that layover country. This means you cannot fly code-share flights, you need to fly ONE airline the whole way for all legs of your flight. We couldn’t fly these airlines due to the fact that KLM didn’t fly past May from India that route and Lufthansa flew to the USA then had a codeshare flight to Cancun. You cannot even do a code-share on a budget version, for example, Air Swiss flies from Mumbai to Zurich, but the Zurich to Cancun route was Air Swiss’s budget airline, Edelweiss. You then would have to re-check your pet.

We booked an Air France flight which went Mumbai > Paris > Cancun and asked them “do we have to pick up our pet?” They said no. We were in Mumbai for an unrelated reason a month later and went to the Air France desk thinking “let’s just chat with them about the pets”. Immediately they said they only check pets to Paris and you have to collect them and your bags, clear customs and immigration, and re-check in as they cannot check live animals through. That would mean we needed EU paperwork, including a rabies titer.

We had to cancel that flight which was thankfully fully refundable. Air France is a strange one, as they do make you collect in Paris while other major hubs in Europe like Amsterdam and Frankfurt do not (and you can fly through without the rabies titer).

We thought about flying to the USA direct to NYC and renting a car to my parent’s house in Ohio. We could then import them to the USA (no rabies titer), wait the required two weeks to re-export them with an Ohio vet and fly to Cancun. But, this is when United wasn’t taking pets and the other airlines don’t fly in the hot months so it was impossible.

FINALLY, we found a new Air Canada flight that went Mumbai > Toronto > Cancun. Mumbai to Toronto has only been around 6 months with Air Canada. We booked that as they said we DO NOT pick up our pets (they are checked through). Even if we did have to pick them up, a rabies titer isn’t required for Canada. This is the flight we took: AC47 and AC1810.

When you book pets with Air Canada they RESERVE the pet’s spot. You do not pay for this now, you pay at the counter. You must reserve your pet. Only one dog is allowed per flight when the flight is over 12 hours. This was a15-hourr flight. They only fly three days a week. I took one dog on the 22nd of May and Ben took the other dog on the 24th of May. You can bring animals under 8 kg on the plane as a carry-on so Ben brought the cat as a carry-on. We bought the carrier in the USA and brought it to India as in India we couldn’t find one that was the right size for our tall cat (the cat must be able to stand up and turn around inside). The pets checked cost about $500 in total.

Yes, this means we had to DRIVE to Mumbai to take this flight. Furry Flyers is based in Mumbai so that worked out as they did all our export and quarentine paperwork as I’ll explain later. We had to take two cars to fit the crates and our luggage.

Typically, finding flights should not be a hassle however our journey from India to Mexico was a long, strange route and it was hard to find an airline that did that journey. Other destinations would be much easier like Canada, USA, Europe (basically anywhere).

4. Make Sure Your Pet’s Local Vaccination Books Are Up to Par

You local vet book that you probably have had since you got your pet needs to be up to par when you start this process. You should have all the vaccines listed, dated, a date of when it’s next due, a sticker from the vaccination bottle, and a signature and STAMP (important) from your local vet.

The front cover also need to be filled out correctly. The information you put here should match all the other recods: pet name, color, breed, age, sex, microchip sticker, and your personal information.

Making sure your pets are up to date on all vaccinations is obviously important so start with this and work with your local vet. We got Shanti in Kerala and she went to multiple two different vets but that is okay.

4. Order the Supplies You Need for Traveling With Pets from IPATA

Use IPATA as a resource to see what crates and carriers you need but also check the requirements of your airline and make sure it won’t be oversize or overweight. We ordered ours from Amazon India. They are easy to put together.

Train your pet to get used to the crates the best you can.

You also need accesories like water and food bowls, pee pads, leashes, collars, and cable ties. Furry Flyers supplied us with all of this.

5. Find Someone to Help You Navigate the Export and Import Paperwork

This is key. We were scammed in Goa which I’ll explain later. We needed help as the vets in Goa only fly out of Goa and FYI it’s not a legal airport to export pets from (although people do it all the time, usually with Qatar cargo). There are only 7 airports in India you can export pets from and Mumbai is one.

On the IPATA site, you can type in any destination and see who is a good agent to help you import or export your pets. For importing to Mexico, we were told we don’t need an agent and can do it ourselves which turned out to be true. For exporting from India, Furry Flyers one of 5 accrediated companies in India and is the ONLY recommended company in Mumbai to export pets. They have exported 8,000 pets from India and never had any issues.

The fee is around 12,000 INR per pet and they take care of everything for you from finding flights, doing the paperwork (all you need if your local vet certificate), and getting your crates all set up. They have a local vet to do the health certificate, someone to go to the quarintine office with you, and will even deliver the paperwork to you once it’s ready. They also redid our pet photos and put it all in a nice book so that we had everything. To say they were anal about paperwork would be and understatement and that’s exactly what you need traveling with pets. They looked up and knew all the requirements for Mexico. We basically could breathe a sigh of relief and let them just tell us what to do.

Furry Flyers: Of all the reviews I’ve done on this blog, I have never been so impressed with a company. The thing is, you can tell Vinayak’s team love animals and that is key. They were there for me when I had an issue at the airport and they were there to follow up after the trip. They honestly care so much and you can know your pet is in good hands.

Below is an image from the quarentine office.

The items in the book are as follows and you will also want copies of these.

Vaccination Records of Shanti [original]
Health certificate issued by Dr.Ravindra [original]
AQCS – Government Export Health certificate [original]
Health certificate for export to Mexico [original]
Photograph of Shanti, with details of the pet on back side with AQCS stamp

You can right click these images and open them in a new tab to see them larger. The first image is the book which was perfectly put together by Furry Flyers. The second is the quarentine certificate, and the third is the Authority letter.

I am still confused what all we needed to be honest and could not have gotten my pets out on my own without the help of Furry Flyers. We had to do quite a lot of paperwork and it all needed stamped and embossed. If you are considering not using an agent, I would urge you to reconsider. It’s worth the money to know your pet has all their paperwork as if something is missing they will either be sent back to where you came from or could even be quarentined. I paid for my service with Furry Flyers and was not compensated to write this review – I just highly recommend using them and flying out of Mumbai. Like I said before, people do fly out of Goa with their pets as cargo with Qatar but it’s not legal.

Furry Flyers also prepared out pet’s crates and helped ease our concerns with the whole process. The top of our crate pictured below.

Final Steps

You need to get to the airport a minimum of 3.5 hours before your flight. The airline will ask for your paperwork and maybe make a copy. They will have your fill out some paperwork and attach it to your crate. You will check-in and sit with your dog at the check-in counter until the last minute, about an hour before your flight leaves. At that time, you will take your pet to the scanner. You will remove your pet while they scan the crate so hold on tight! Then, your pet goes back inside and they take the pet and crate away to be boarded on the plane.

When you get on the plane, you will tell the air stewardess that there is a pet withe the luggage. They need to tell the pilot and make sure the A/C is turned on. Air Canda showed me a photo of my pet on the plane, strapped in, per my request but this is not standard. I was crying, lol.

At your layover, check on your pet by asking the staff at the gate to call down and make sure the pet is okay, has water, and is being boarded.

When I landed in Cancun, my pet came out on the baggage carousel (omg!) and you need to go to a customs office. My paperwork was sufficient and withint 20 minutes I was on my way out! You’ll need to have a pick up arranged. We hired a company to pick us up with a big van that allowed pets.

Out pets were totally fine. Only Omni went to the toilet inside his cage but other than that, all went well. That was a 24 hour journey for them. They were cable tied in their crates and NOT let out in Toronto (not per our request, but it is just the way it’s done).

What Went Wrong

Air Canada’s water policy

Any tips you read online will say to make sure your pets water bowl is full when you hand them over so that they can drink throughout the flight. Some even say to put ice in there. My export agent has flown 8,000 dogs out of India and they always are allowed water. When I showed up in Mumbai with Shanti, before even checking in, while I was giving her water (through a funnel to her bowl), the staff told me I needed to empty her bowl before giving her over and she could not have water in her bowl during the flight.

I didn’t believe them as that is insane to not allow water for 15 hours. they showed me this on their computer screen and I took a photo:

I called Furry Flyers, who had not flied Air Canada before (they are a new airline in Mumbai). They said that it was crazy and that they had never heard of this – all other airlines not only allow water, but mandate it to save their asses from being sued. I fought with Air Canada staff for over an hour. We almost didn’t take the flight. I called Ben and we were unsure what to do. It felt the situation where the lady on the United flight put her dog in the overhead bin. I thought the staff were confused or the policy was wrong.

In the end, I begged – I mean, pleaded – with them to allow water. They finally agreed on the basis I would get away from them and leave them alone. After they scanned Shanti’s crates, I poured more water in and cable tied her in so they could not empty the bowl behind my back.

After getting to Cancun, I looked up the policy and it is real: “be sure the dish is empty at check-in, otherwise spillage during the flight will give your pet a wet and uncomfortable ride”. Hmm, I’d rather that then them die of heat stroke. When Ben came two days later, I had already told staff he was coming and to allow water. They didn’t hassle him at all.

Our experience with Dr. Kiran at Tailwaggerz in Panjim, Goa.

Okay, I’m going to end the post on a bad note. Everything went fine for us in the end, thanks to Furry Flyers but in Goa, we had a horrible experience with Dr. Kiran. If you’ve read this blog for a while, then you know I have never talked bad about a company or individual in the 5 years I’ve blogged (except for some angry tweets to United Airlines) – but in this case, I have to, because you need to know to stay away from this vet for exporting dogs.

We hired him initally to export our dogs. The day we met him with just for a consultation and microchipping. He said he charged a set fee to do “everything”, all the paperwork, sourcing crates, measurements, microchip, shots, finding flights, checking import requriements, and getting them 100% set up for their trip. That day he was just going to microchip them and was coy about what it would cost, making it seem like we would pay now for this basic vet visit and later hire him for the whole export process. This was 7 months before our trip and we were not ready to say 100% we were going to hire him as we didn’t know for sure we were even moving. We just wanted to get them microchipped.

After he microchipped our two dogs (not our cat, we didn’t bring our cat to the office) he said we owed him 60,000 INR ($889), 20,000 INR per pet. He wanted us to pay it via card there in the office, however, his card machine wasn’t working. Nothing had been done and I didn’t feel comfortable pre-paying. Secondly, he hadn’t even seen the cat and wanted the money. We left saying we would wire the money as he demanded we did so.

We actually didn’t even need microchips to move our pets to Mexico. We also knew we didn’t need a rabies titer for Mexico, yet he told us he had someone flying to Europe tomorrow and we should send the blood just in case – just a casual 14k rupees per pet for an unnecessary rabies titers. We declined.

When we got home, we messaged him to say could we please just pay the microchipping for the two pets as we didn’t’ know if we wanted to hire him for the export – we hadn’t even been shown flight options or found out if it was possible to take the pets to Mexico. We would pay for just the two dogs because he hadn’t even seen the cat. He called us and I spoke to him. He got aggressive raising his voice to me and told me I had until MIDNIGHT to send 60,000 INR because of his “invoicing system” and hung up the phone on me. Ben sent him a message saying that hang up better have been an accident, told him he seemed to care only about money and we would pay half now and half when we actually began the process. He said fine. We wired him 30,000 INR.

We never heard from him after that unless we reached out. For months, he never found flight options. When we went back to the office, upset nothing had been done, and asked if he would help with flights he said: “no, you need to find them”. We asked about Mexico requirements and he said we needed to find out what we needed. He was entirely useless. He was arrogant, condescending, would only direct his speech toward Ben, and did not help us at all. In fact, much of the information he gave us was wrong about airlines and layovers. Whenever I spoke, he spoke over me or would a not answer my question, instead just redirect it. When he would say incorrect information in his office and I would correct him, he would spin it to pretend he had said the same thing as me – his ego not allowing him to admit when he was ever wrong.

He ignored messages and calls for months replying only to tell us things would be fine but never offering any help. We couldn’t fly Qatar from Goa, the only route he seemed to know anything about, and since he was clueless about other options he should have been upfront and not taken our money. The second I hired Furry Flyers, they found our flight options, as they actually know the process. I’m not saying Kiran is a bad vet or doesn’t care about animals. I know someone else who went Qatar with him to Europe without issues. I am saying in our case, he aggressively demanded money upfront then fell off the face of the earth. Dr. Kiran, if you’re reading this, I hope the 30,000 INR was worth it.

Update: After writing this and Ben writing a review on Facebook, suddenly Ben’s phone was blowing up and Kiran had time to chat – shocker. He was just as rude and horrible in his text messages. Stay clear.

The post How To Take Pets Out of India to Mexico (Or Anywhere) appeared first on Hippie In Heels.

Air Canada Business Class Review: Mumbai to Toronto

Rachel Jones — Mon, 28 May 2018 15:16:44 +0000

As you know, I left India for the last time as an expat last week and from here on out will be going back to India as a tourist. Ben and I took our pets and preparing to leave India with pets (think quarantine, paperwork, and government export offices) is about as stressful as you can imagine. Here’s an article on how to take pets out of India. If there is ANY time to upgrade a flight from economy to business class, traveling with pets is the time, ha! Plus the route we took included a 15-hour flight from Mumbai directly to Toronto, another great reason to upgrade.

In a future post, I’ll be sharing about how to take pets out of India, but now I want to tell you about the plane journey. This route from Air Canada is new. It’s only been around for about 8 months and does not fly every day; just three times a week. You will want to book well ahead. I will always choose a long direct flight like this out of India rather than stopping in Europe because for me, it’s the layovers that stress me out and make my trip seem so much longer. The majority of flights from the USA and Canada involve stopovers in Europe, so this new flight is golden. We looked up multiple options and it was cheaper than all the competing airlines. Ben and I booked this about 1 month before our trip. I was upgraded complimentary by the airline at the gate! I am a member of the Aeroplan (miles program) and suggest you sign up as well. I’m only just now starting to get into points.

This is not the first time I’ve chosen to go through Canada to go to India. Last year, I flew from Ohio to Toronto on a separate ticket just to go to India from Toronto. In the USA, the only direct flight available is usually United, who I actually try to avoid on long-haul flights due to some serious flight mishaps with them in the past. If you are coming from the USA to India, it’s well worth flying a code-share airline to Toronto and catching their direct flights either to Mumbai like my journey or Delhi which is also direct.

The B787 Dreamliner & Business Class Heaven

That moment when the airline flight attendant crosses out your seat and writes in “1A”… bliss. If you’ve ever boarded a plane in India then you know that lines are a mess – and Indians push in line to board as if we aren’t all going to be able to get on the plane. I’ve written about this dilemma before in my “This is India” series. Getting priority boarding for business class is enough of a perk to booking it, haha! You also get more luggage allowance.

I had just dropped Shanti, my dog, off with the staff and was feeling quite emotional (not just for the dog but leaving India after 5 years here). I immediately made my seat into a bed with the mattress cover, pillow, and duvet, and got settled in. I don’t waste any time getting comfortable!

The seats are a 1-2-1 configuration. I had a window seat, so didn’t have anyone sitting next to me. One thing I loved right away is that there was a little cubby you could put all your belongings in during take-off and landing.

When you get on board, they will come and offer you drinks, magazines, and newspapers. They also were kind to tell me that the pilot was a dog-lover and knew my dog was on board the plane. Below, you can see the amenities that are given to the business class passengers. The headphones were noise-canceling which was fantastic. They gave slippers, socks, earplugs, an eye mask, face and hand cream, and a toothbrush and toothpaste. It is a pretty standard kit compared to other business class airlines although I think the creams were a bit nicer than I have been given before.

The seats do fully recline back into a bed and the pillows and duvet are totally comfortable and full-size. They gave me an extra pillow when I asked. Business class was not full and it was very quiet up there but I still wore my earplugs when I slept.

Right after take-off, which was around 11 pm, dinner was served. I usually eat before a flight because I don’t like plane food but because I was traveling with Shanti I had not eaten. That ended up being okay because look at the dinner they served!

I ate dinner while watching First Wives Club. They had all the new releases, in fact, I was really impressed with how new of movies they had as options but I had seen them all. Luckily, they had a ton of older classics. The spinach and cheese-filled chicken breast, roll, cheese plate, and salad were all tasty. They also offer cheesecake or ice cream for dessert. You get Baskin Robbins in India but it’s usually a little melty and re-frozen making it not very tasty… unfortunately, this ice cream was like that and I didn’t enjoy it much. They have other snacks throughout the flight you can get as you like, so I also had a bag of Vicky’s chips and a Lindt dark chocolate bar.

While dinner was really tasty, for breakfast I chose the french toast and didn’t love it. The omelette looked a lot better so I recommend going for that instead. They give you some pastries anyway on the side, so you’ll get some good bread with the omelette meal.

This was an overnight flight so for the most part, it was quite dark and “bed time”. I woke up about an hour outside Toronto and read peacefully until we landed, feeling totally refreshed.

Maple Leaf Lounge Access

With a business class ticket, you get access to the Maple Leaf Lounge. When you de-plane, and are going from one international flight to another (just passing through Canada) you go to the “international to international” security line which is right there near the gate. There was no one in line and I scammed my USA passport to go onward to security. The lounge is right there on the other side of security.

If you are not from the USA, you might need to do an ETA, which is a quick form you fill out online and they will email you a confirmation. You will need to this to board the plane. Ben is from the UK and forgot to do this so did it at checkin and go the confirmation within 5 minutes. This isn’t recommended though as sometimes they want additional paperwork and the airline cannot let you board without the right immigration papers (no airline will).

I used the lounge to freshen up then hit up the breakfast bar. Thank you Canada for sausages and bacon! During a long trip, the below is basically heaven.

The lounge is just upstairs from all the onward international flights with Air Canada so you can stay there right up to the minute of boarding. There is not a lot of space for seating down at the gate, so I recommend staying in the lounge as long as you can. It has tons of seating, was not very full at all, had great food, booze if you want it, good WiFI, and loads of magazines and newspapers to read.

My Onward Flight: Toronto to Cancun

I was also bumped up for my ongoing flight to Cancun and the breakfast on that flight was SMASHING. I have never had red pepper relish before, but now I want it on everything I eat for the rest of my life, lol. The fruit was so fresh and it was just a really tasty meal. They gave out headphones and iPads with the same movies and TV shows as the long-haul flight from Mumbai. I watched Black Panther and Tribes of Palos Verdes. The flight was on-time and a breeze.

When I got to Cancun, all my luggage was there having been checked all the way through from India. Actually, you used to have to pick luggage up and re-check it in Toronto and you do have to in the USA with most airlines so it’s a huge benefit that they now to the international to international line, letting your luggage go all the way through.

Overall, I highly recommend this flight and if you have the budget to upgrade it’s well worth it. The older I get, the more I put into the quality of things rather than just booking the cheapest ticket I see. These are long flights to India and being in economy showing up jetlagged will start your trip off a bit tired – so especially if you are visiting India for just a couple of weeks, look into the business class prices, compare dates to see which dates have the lowest price and make your trip a breeze by going business class!

Even if you are not going to fly business class, consider flying out of Toronto with Air Canada to India direct rather than the US airlines that stop in Europe. Doing one flight without a layover makes things so much less stressful and it’s usually much cheaper than the other options out of the US.

Disclaimer: I paid for my Air Canada flight, my excess baggage, and my pet’s ticket. In exchange for a complimentary upgrade (if there were open seats), I offered to write this honest review.

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I’m Moving: It’s Bittersweet, But We Are Leaving India on Tuesday

Rachel Jones — Sat, 19 May 2018 11:49:06 +0000

I’ve been putting off this blog post for a month now, and even now staring at the screen from my Airbnb in Juhu, Mumbai, I don’t really know how to start telling you all about this. But, since my flight out of India is Tuesday and I really am moving, I can’t put it off any longer.

I have been in India since 2012 and now we are moving out of India. We being Ben and I and OF COURSE our pets: Shanti, Omni, and KitKat. Ben has been here for a couple years more than I have, having lived in Kerala before he moved to Goa (where I met him).

While we are moving, we will still be in India a lot, at least four times a year! Ben has work here still and my blog as you know is a lot of India content, and that will not change.

We spent our last night with friends at Thalassa, which is basically where we met in 2012.

Okay, I’ll try to start from the beginning. First off, why we decided to move.

I wrote about this a little bit in this Ask Me Anything article where I talked about why we had been in India so long and if we would ever move – plus, where we might move if we did. We love Goa. I am not exaggerating when I say that last 6 years have been a vacation with basically no responsibilities. The thing is, we could stay like this forever – just working from home, going to the beach, hanging with friends, partying, and living the Goa life. Our friends here are amazing and the local people who “help us” with things here like our housekeeper, driver, security, and more have become like family. We all cried when we said goodbye! I really cannot even write what I’m going to miss because I’ve already cried enough! Basically, I’m going to miss everyone there and my whole Goa life which has just been like being in the best dream ever. The people, the food, the vibe, our house, the monkeys and jungle, and beach – it’s all perfect. But like an Instagram photo, there is always more behind that.

Sonu, Leena, Sunni, Ben, Me, Kala, Nitesh, Ryance – some of our friends we will miss so much! This was right before we hopped in the car and left.

and of course Azad!

There are some small things about Goa that we don’t love but overall, it’s paradise and that is why we stayed so long. Goa isn’t like the rest of India. Goa might as well be an island!

Living in Goa is almost like not living a real life. We are so far removed from the Western world; the news, the politics, the fashion, the trends back home… We really are in a bubble in Goa. And, this bubble stays the same every single year. Most foreigners stay in Goa just six months then leave before the heat comes and the monsoon, but we lived here year-round. Monsoons can get quite boring as basically every nice restaurant is closed and most of our friends would go off traveling. Then season would start back up, the same parties, the same dinners, the same beach days. They are amazing days, don’t get me wrong – but it got to a point where we were like, should we try something else?

In a bigger picture, as foreigners, there are some things that are more difficult for us. For example, we cannot buy land or a house. We don’t have businesses here so we don’t even have bank cards and even paying our bills is a pain in the butt. We don’t speak the local language or Hindi which isn’t usually a problem, but would have been helpful when you’ve got a long-term rental house and need work done, and have business to do. In the long run, we do want to buy or build a home, have kids, and all that jazz. In Goa, if you have kids here they go to a foreigner school and then once they are 9 or so, you send them to a boarding school for like 9 months of the year. It works for some people and who knows what the future brings, but to me, it is a very foreign idea.

Then there’s family. Ben is lucky to be able to take a direct 8-hour flight from Mumbai to his family in London or Vienna but for me, it usually took 35 hours or more to go from Goa > Mumbai > London > NYC > Ohio. It was also expensive to take that journey and I only visited home once a year. Each year, it got harder as I realized I had less in common with my friends who all had kids I barely know and still see each other all the time. We talked less and less online and I didn’t even know where some of my closest friends were working. My brother and his wife had a baby and I really want to be around to see him grow up. It’s also little things like as a silly example when I went to Vegas and all the girls are singing along in the club I didn’t know a single song – and hadn’t been in a club in 3 years. I’ve changed a lot (and I mean, maybe a bad example because I have no desire to go clubbing anymore or know all the words of a rap song, but basically just feel out of the loop when I go home). I’m from such a small town and have had the same best friends since I was 3. Their parents are all like second parents to me. I haven’t had Christmas in the USA in 6 years and have missed some of my closest friends wedding, and even funerals of family.

I have met Ben’s friends loads of times in London, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and India and know them and their kids so well. They are such cool, funny people and it makes me kind of sad that Ben doesn’t know my friends in that way and some of my best friends haven’t even met him. He’s been to Ohio just twice. Plus, I have really cool funny friends, too (haha), that I think Ben would love to get to know. This is just because it’s so far away and expensive to go. I also have been lucky enough to spend a lot of time with Ben’s family while he’s not gotten to know mine very well. I think he’s met my brother just once for a 4-day vacation in Nashville. So, of course being closer to home is a bonus for me.

Obviously, there are also small things in Goa that are annoying as well, but not enough to move: the long 4-5 month monsoons with nothing to do an rain and clouds all day, getting pulled over and having to pay fake fines to police (which weirdly this year started to give me anxiety), the power outages (before we left, while Ben was in LA we had one for 3 days/nights – it was so hot I had to sleep in a hammock outside with the mosquitos). We lost our vaccinated dog, Huck, to rabies and there are so many strays where we live we cannot walk our dogs. We aren’t crazy about the trance music scene, and it does get boring eating at the same 15 restaurants all the time. I don’t write this to complain, because Goa will always be my second home but these are just some tiny reasons added on to the fact we are we kind of felt ready to move.

Even getting our animals out of India, was so typical India, we got scammed completely and lost a lot of money. We later found a great company in Mumbai, hence why we are here now. I’ll be writing all about taking our animals out of India in a later article because wow – it’s a HUGE undertaking.

India can be a hard place to be. When we travel to Mumbai or Chennai or wherever, outside of Goa, we are reminded that WOW India can be a ball-ache. I mean, I love India as you know but if you’ve come here as a traveler and encountered the hard things about India then you know what it must be like to stay here 6 years. Some things that are charming become not so much… I won’t go into the issues that we have in Goa but the little things can add up to make your day too annoying where you have to ask “why are we going through this?” when we realize that our friends at home in the USA and UK are not.

Overall, living in India can be hard at first, but once you’ve been here a while, know the right people, have local friends and know the prices of things you really can sort of live like a local and not get scammed and such. Plus, in Goa, most people speak English and are very laid-back.

I guess the main reason we are leaving is just to try something new – because we are actually going to start over in a new country (where guess what, we don’t speak the language and they don’t speak English). I know that the grass is always greener but we figure, Goa will always be there and we can always go back.

The steps we started taking to move and deciding where to go

We started to think about moving more seriously about a year ago. Truthfully, I was ready to move somewhere new about two years ago but Ben wasn’t. This last year, he did a lot of work in India outside of Goa and finally said “okay, I’m done – I want to go somewhere else”. Once we were both on the same page it started to become “where can we actually move without being married?”

Not being married is one issue but the second is that I work for myself so can’t even get sponsorship from a company for a work visa. Ben’s job is based in California but in the USA it’s hard to get a work visa.

We both wanted a new country and neither of us really wanted the USA (unless we were richer and could afford California) and Ben thinks England is too cold. Either way, we can only stay in each other’s home countries for 3 months. And it turns out, getting married to come to America is a HUGE hassle. Just look what my friend Anna had to go through – to get her green card they took her passport for a YEAR and she was stuck in the USA.

We thought about Europe but with Brexit, we wondered, can we both stay, unmarried with Ben being British? Visas would be hard nearly anywhere in the EU but they do allow some kind of domestic partnership we would qualify for possibly. But, after Brexit, would we be able to build a house or buy a house without issue? It was all kind of an unknown.

Ben had worked with a Mexican company on a project in India, and the people he was in contact with, Enrique and Monica, were living in Merida, in the state of Yucatan. They said it’s awesome you’ve got to come see it. It’s the most cultural city in Mexico and the safest, plus just 30 minutes from the city center to the Gulf coast and 3 hours to places like Tulum and Cancun on the Caribbean coast. Plus, the food.

That is why we went to Merida last fall just after my trip to Rajasthan. You might have noticed I didn’t post much from that trip or “do” much. That is because we were house-hunting every day and I didn’t want to tell anyone in case it didn’t happen (we didn’t end up finding a house). It was a BUSY trip but we loved the place. We dreamed of buying a house 15 minutes north of the city between the city and the beach. It is a “real” city with places like McDonalds and Walmart which to us was like “holy shit we can buy lightbulbs and cheese in the same shop!”

There are also cheap quick flights from Merida and Cancun (even cheaper) to USA and Europe. When I looked from Cincinnati to Cancun it was $300 round-trip. I was paying around $1400 from India each time.

In Mexico, you can come for 6 months at a time, back to back, as a tourist. You can buy land as a tourist. You can pay for things online without a Mexican bank card (like bills). Plus, you can buy a brand new 3 BR house there with a pool for $80,000. It’s beautiful, the people are awesome, it’s safe, it’s clean, it has stores, you can walk the dogs here without issues, and there is so much around Merida to travel and see.

Merida has some downsides for us like we speak no Spanish and literally couldn’t even order Pizza Hut on the phone without them using Google Translate on the other side of the phone. We HAVE to learn Spanish ASAP. I speak some elementary but we need to be fluent. Scams are real in Merida, too. They are sadly mostly done by expat “realtors” who rip people off and we’ve heard some horror stories.

In the rural areas, it might not be Goa jungle but they do have jaguars, pythons, crocodiles, and more all across the state of Yucatan.

We don’t know Mexico at all. Ben had some work in Chalacatepec on the west coast (real cowboy country) 5 years ago and I went with him. We went to Sayulita and Puerto Vallarta too, which were pretty touristy. Merida is not a tourist town at all, that’s for sure! It’s also not totally Mexican – it’s got all Mayan culture, Mayan people, and some people still speak Mayan. You don’t get normal Mexican food, you get Mayan food. The Mayan ruins are all around the state, along with awesome cenotes (underground lagoons), pink lakes, and lakes filled with flamingos!

So, we are moving to Merida, Mexico!

We came back from Merida in November I think and both of us thought we should try not to travel too much and really enjoy Goa since it was going to be our last season. Other than working with Telunas Resort in Indonesia, and a quick trip to Malaysia, we didn’t travel much at all. I was kind of worried about the blog taking a hit since I was being a little boring but I posted a lot of images and articles about Goa and people seemed to not mind!

I did have to go to the USA in February to get my visa renewed and see my newborn nephew – and just before I left, we went ahead and booked our flights to Mexico for May 22. We booked with Air France for us and the dogs and last month that all fell through and we had to re-book with Air Canada. I cannot stress how much insanity comes with taking 3 pets from India to Mexico. Like I said, I’ll write about it more but wow, the paperwork and bureaucracy is pretty wild. Ben and I cannot even fly together. He has to come two days after me.

The thing we had to do for the move was pretty easy, but somehow took ages!

Find out if we needed visas – we didn’t
Buy a house – we went and didn’t find one
Rent somewhere – I did this via Airbnb and we took a 3-month rental in town for around $1,000 a month which in Merida gets you a really nice place with a pool and a walled-in garden for the dogs. It was not available until June 1st so we are renting another place for a week until we can move in which also looks amazing. I’ll share it all once I reach!
Find a flight that is NOT a codeshare (meaning it’s one airline only the whole way) from India to Cancun – this was the hardest part which I’ll explain in the upcoming article on the dogs after we reach Mexico
Find someone to pick us up with our dogs at the airport since our stuff and the crates won’t fit in a rental car – we hired a girl I found in an expat Facebook group to drive us in a big van from Cancun to Merida 3 hours.
Pack – I took some things like all those amazing rugs I got in Jaipur and a lot of clothes home when I visited the USA in Feb and the rest we fit in 4 pieces of luggage to take to Merida. I have 3 and Ben has one. The includes a huge king size duvet and two pillows. Ben literally packed like we are going on vacation because that’s all he owns.
Figure out a car in Merida – we can’t buy one as foreigners on a tourist visa we don’t think, so instead, I booked a rental car for the first month. There are all these car rentals for $1/day which according to my friend Hannah’s blog is real if you can turn down all the insurance. For this, I applied for the Chase Sapphire Reserve card which gives you $75,000 in car insurance and added Ben as a registered user of my account so he has a credit card in his name, too, so no fees for an “added driver”. It was $17 for a month. Let’s see if it’s real when I get there! They sent the credit cards to India. They came with the Priority Pass which means free lounge access for us both in airports around the world, too!
Be legit – we want to be “legit” in Mexico and get our residency visas and proper paperwork which we will start doing once we arrive.
Clean up our house in Goa (aka hire someone to clean it up)
Cars for the drive to Mumbai – the dog crates are huge so needed to have two cars, we had Babu our friend and driver (and his friend who we know well) take one car with me, Shanti, and KitKat, then Ben and Azad (our good friend from Kerala who has worked for Ben for years) and Omni went in the Bolero, which is Ben’s work car.

When it’s all in bullet points like this, it seems like it was an easy breezy thing to do but actually, it’s a lot of work and it was pretty stressful at times planning this move.

All of our luggage for the move! 4 large pieces of luggage and 2 carry-ons

Where I am now and the plan

The two weeks before we left is when it all started to come together – getting the packing done, cleaning out 5 years of junk from the house, and finalized our pets shots with our local vet.

We also had a puppy we were caring for (who has an owner but we just loved him so much) and took him to be neutered. He is staying with his owner but is an outside dog. It was hard to leave him, but he is being taken care of.

Ben was in LA for work so I admit, I was a little stressed putting it all together. When he came back we had just 2 full days to see friends and say bye, and for Ben to go through my piles of his stuff to see what he wanted to take and throw out or give away.

The ONLY flight we could do was an Air Canada from Mumbai to Toronto (a long flight for dogs, 15 hours) then a layover there and onward to Cancun. So, we said our goodbyes on Thursday and drove 12 hours to Mumbai getting in here at 5 AM. We have a great Airbnb in Juhu that is pet-friendly and under 6,000 INR per night.

Shanti was freaking out and laying only right on top of me – and kitkat was down at my feet in a carrier. I took him out to clean up his pee pads and they were totally non-absorbent and it got all over me… Comfy smelly ride to Mumbai lol

Roadside stops along the highway to Mumbai… I had to pee behind a bridge but at least I had this view

Friday, we were running around ALL day with the dogs doing their quarantine inspections and getting all their export paperwork and health certificates from government vets finished. That was on no sleep, and we were exhausted.

They only let one dog on the plane at a time on such a long flight and don’t do that route daily, so I go with Shanti (checked in the back of the plane) on Tuesday and Ben will come on Thursday with Omni (checked) and the cat as a carry-on.

Our Airbnb in Juhu – great if you have dogs (here is the link) it has this huge balcony and is walkable to a lot of restaurants and such

Can you guess which bag is Ben’s?

That’s where I am now – looking out over the balcony, enjoying Mumbai this weekend and just trying to believe that I’m really moving from India after all this time. Mumbai is an amazing city as well so we’ll be out and about until we leave.

What it means for the blog

Honestly, things aren’t going to change that much. I plan to come back to Goa in November to visit and check out new places that have opened (and update my Ebook). I’ll go on a trip somewhere new in India as well (thinking Calcutta, Sikkim, Darjeeling) and write new blog posts.

I’ve never written just about India and usually do just one big India trip each year, spending most of my time in Goa. I don’t think you’ll even notice much of a change on the blog.

One thing that will change is my This is India stories will stop. I had considered doing a This is Mexico series, but honestly it’s so normal life in Merida that I don’t think it would be interesting enough – not crazy stories like India! We’ll see.

After I get settled in Merida, I’m sure I’ll want to travel more in Mexico and around Central and South America, so expect new content from there! I haven’t explored at all in these areas, so I’m really excited about that after spending so much time writing about Asia.

I am a little worried that some of you only like my India content and might not want to stay along as a reader with me in Mexico, but I really hope that you do! Plus, I’ll be back in India in just 6 months :) Thank you for taking the time to read this WAY TOO LONG of a post. 3,500 words later, I should end it!

I’ve been off social media this week since I was moving and hadn’t shared the news yet, but if you check my Instagram stories now you’ll see live what we’re up to in Bombay! I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments about the move – tell me what you think!

Leaving India is really hard and a little more emotional than we thought it’d be plus traveling with the pets is really stressful so I’ll do my best to keep you updated on social media next week.

The post I’m Moving: It’s Bittersweet, But We Are Leaving India on Tuesday appeared first on Hippie In Heels.

What’s New in Hippie in Heel’s World

Rachel Jones — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 12:59:53 +0000

I just thought I’d check in and share what I’ve been up to this summer AND ask you to leave me a comment on this post telling me what you’ve been up to. I love to hear summer plans, especially vacation ones!

Florida

So, I went to Florida with my mom which was so much fun. I shared about our hot air balloon ride, a helicopter ride over Disney in Kissimmee, and our fun times in Miami as well what we did in the Keys. It was a busy 10 days and it was in partnership with Visit Florida. My mom got to see what a press trip is like and she took some really good pictures of me for Instagram. Thanks, mom!

Ohio

I come back to the USA and stay in Ohio every summer for a month. That photo is from my front porch, drinking some red Moscato, mmm! Why is good wine in America so cheap but so expensive in India!? While back in Ohio I rested up from the long Florida trip (and got some work done), went to see my brother’s new house in Delaware, hung out with friends, went to Lake Erie for a weekend, had a family reunion (which hasn’t happened in 10 years), and went out of my dad’s new fishing boat.

My BFF, Arielle, who I’ll be seeing again in a month!

my besties & their babies

What I stocked up on this year for the next year of travels

Part of being home in Ohio is buying what I need for the next year since in India I don’t shop and I try not to buy clothes throughout the year from malls in Europe or Asia because it’s all so much more expensive than the USA. So, I basically buy stuff I need for a year every summer and spend a ton of money, whoops.

Aveda: [easyazon_link identifier=”B002UBKMS2″ locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]Sun Care Protective spray[/easyazon_link]+ [easyazon_link identifier=”B0091R6REQ” locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]Sun Care After Sun Mask[/easyazon_link]
The green dress on the porch photo in two colors from Kersh. Oh and it’s the one my mom stole from me and is wearing above! lol. It’s on sale for $38 and I’ve been wearing them every other day.
Patricia Nash map print sandals and tote bag because the travelers in me couldn’t resist.
Luggage essentials: new eBags packing cubes, the Mother Lode 25 inch luggage which I love and wrote a review on, then the eBags Slim Profesh backpack which I’m taking back to India and am obsessed with – also reviewed it.
A million bikinis… I have a post coming soon about my favorite ones. I can’t include them all – I have like 50, so, it’s just the best of the best.
My new orange UGG sandals that I cannot live without
Reef gear. Every year, I get the exact same pair of flip flops from Reef because I’m boring like that. They are tan leather and I wear them pretty much daily.
So much food…. I can’t even tell you. I take a full 50 pounds bag of snacks back to India every year, and now that Ben likes American food, half of it is for him.

Another [easyazon_link identifier=”B01ICRW7W6″ locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]Sun Bum Face Stick[/easyazon_link]. One of these usually lasts me more than a year, but better to have extra!
I got a new camera lens which came in handy in Florida when I saw the fireworks! It’s a 35-100 and I can’t wait to use it more.
I got a detangler brush from [easyazon_link identifier=”B06ZZS8WB5″ locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]KareCo[/easyazon_link] to try out. I cannot handle how messy my hair gets when I surf or do watersports – it’s impossible to brush now that it’s getting so long.
Sol Sana sent me some Finge Mules that I’m obsessed with. They have a super chunky heel.

New Monthly Newsletter

I started a monthly newsletter! I made it a goal years ago and it just sat on my to do list for that whole time. I just never got around to learning how to set it up. When I did a collaboration with Skillshare this summer, they gave me access to all their classes and one of them was how to make a Newsletter. So, I did it – finally!

If you want to sign up please do so on the side bar of my blog (look to your right) or at the bottom of this post there is an option to sign up. The newsletter isn’t just my blog posts but it’s just live updates about what I’m up to and travel products I love. If brands want me to do giveaways now, I can run them through the newsletter which is pretty cool.

I use Mailerlite, after switching to them from Mailchimp (which they help you do easily) to save money. It’s also easier to use. You can sign up for them with my link and get $20 off.

Speaking of giveaways, I do have two months free subscription to Skillshare to give away if you are interested. It’s classes on everything from language to cooking.

eBook

I WROTE ONE. It’s about Goa and it’s being edited now because if you read my blog you KNOW it needs some heavy editing. My spelling and grammar are not my strongest attribute. But, I’m happy to say that it’s finally done and it has all my favorite places in Goa and is a full guide (bye, Lonely Planet!) So stoked to share this and will do soon! It was actually Skillshare that got me to finally do this as well.

You can buy it here and use the code “GOALOVE” for $10 off (which expires on the 23rd). I probably won’t ever put it on sale that low again, so if you’re thinking of coming to Goa you might wanna grab it up now.

Detox Time in Myrtle Beach

On the way back to India, I went to Myrtle Beach for four days for a little wellness retreat. I was working in partnership with Myrtle Beach who are going to be offering some amazing wellness opportunities this Fall at really budget-friendly prices. I tested out some cool activities like kayaking, wake-boarding, healthy food options, spa time, and some cool gardens.

PS swimsuit above is 437 Swimwear.

Westin Airport Hotel, Toronto

Flying back to India, I actually left from Myrtle Beach. So, I had to fly Myrtle Beach Toronto where I was taking my Jet Airways flight to India. I was so afraid I’d get delayed and miss my flight that I gave myself a 20-hour layover in Toronto and stayed at the Westin. I used to NEVER stay at airport hotels (because I just want to get the journey over with) but when I did recently at the Hilton in Amsterdam I realized how it’s actually really nice to take a break in between.

I flew Myrtle Beach to Charlotte to Toronto, rested up here, then onward to Amsterdam, Mumbai and finally Goa. It was the longest journey I’ve done to date.

The hotel was just renovated and has a free shuttle from the airport (just two minutes away) and they just added a new “vertical” garden in the lobby which helps to “clean the toxins from the air, reduce CO2 levels, and improve energy levels”. They have a Starbucks inside, the breakfast buffet was delicious (acai smoothies!), and I had lunch at their restaurant, Atmosphere, and recommend the chicken panini.

Flying with Jet Airways – OMG, I got an upgrade, heaven!

I flew Jet Airways to Toronto and I got an upgrade and it was the best news I think I’ve ever been given as a traveler! I was SO tired and it just came at the best time ever. They let you get meals anytime so I slept first then ate when I felt like it (living the high life, lol). They are giving you readers a discount on your flights with them (10% off the base fare) with the discount code “RACHEL”.

Details on the Jet Airways coupon code “RACHEL”: has to be used only on their site, can be Economy or Première, and is for India to Toronto, Amsterdam, Paris & London either one way or round-trip. Cannot be used using multi0city option or combined with other offers.

I’m sure you’re familiar with Jet Airways already from my blog, but they are the nicest Indian Airline by a long shot (confirmed by TripAdvisor this year who ranked them #1) and I travel them when I can. They do Goa to Toronto so I did that journey, then connected with Air Canada onward to Ohio. Although Première class was killer, Economy isn’t bad either; I had some serious leg room. I sat behind the emergency exit row which doesn’t have a seat in front of it by the window so had a lot of leg space. You can pick your seat ahead of time for free so DEFO go for that!

Jet Airways flies Bombay/Delhi to Amsterdam, Paris, and London then code-shares onward to 35 places in Europe and 34 in North America. They are starting Bangalore to Amsterdam, and Chennai to Paris in October – making them the ONLY airline to Europe from from these two cities. When you fly to India you eat Indian food and when you fly to Europe, you get European food. Try their SkyChai! HolidayIQ listed them as India’s favorite airline.

What is next… upcoming travels!

Well, you’d think I’d be ready for an adventure since I was in Ohio for a whole month, but truthfully I feel like in the last 12 months I’ve traveled too much. I’m tired and I was missing hanging around Goa just lounging with Ben and the dogs (preferably while Ben is cooking some beef stew with dumplings, my favorite when it’s raining and miserable out). But, after a couple weeks I always feel ready to go again.

Late August we are going to England which is always relaxing. We hang out with Ben’s family and friends who are a riot and be between Cornwall and Tonbridge. Toward the end of the trip, my friend Arielle is coming abroad for the first time ever to TONBRIDGE of all places for a couple days and I think it’ll be really cool for her to meet Ben because she’s been my best friend since we were five yet hasn’t met him yet. Plus, I think his friends will be quite entertaining to her. So, Ben will fly back to Goa and Arielle and I are going to go to her chosen location: Dublin, Ireland just for 3 days. After that, it’s back to Goa.

I have some more travels in the pipeline but nothing I want to share yet in case they don’t happen.

It’s been a nice long summer and beyond getting to see friends and family, I’d done a lot of work, hired a couple of assistants, and starting a corporation for my business finally, and trying to get sorted (business-wise) for 2018. Blogging is a busy job, so with travel being pretty much non-stop it can get a little overwhelming to do it alone. It feels good to finally delegate some work and take my stress down a little bit!

But, for now – no work! Just chilling out, Goa style!

The post What’s New in Hippie in Heel’s World appeared first on Hippie In Heels.

Mexico City Neighborhood Guide: Where to Stay For Your Travel Style

Susan Ripley — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 13:18:47 +0000

If you haven’t heard, Mexico City has moved past the stereotype of being dirty and dangerous. It’s a giant dynamic city with heaps of culture, pretty historic buildings, and some of the best food in the world.

Mexico City Neighborhood Guide

It’s also an easy flight from the US and Canada and has a low cost of living in comparison to those countries. Check Kiwi for your flights!

I visited this city twice last year and loved it so much I came back this year to live for two and half months. I’ve spent time in many of the prettiest, hippest, and most attractive neighborhoods – they’re all great in their own way. But if you only have a few days or a week for your vacation, you’ll want to stay in the neighborhood that best matches your travel style.

Don’t let misconceptions about this city intimidate you. Do your research about Mexico City travel, use common sense, and enjoy all the things this awesome city has to offer!

Read on to find out which neighborhood you should stay in on your trip to Mexico City!

Roma/Condesa

Roma and Condesa are the two hippest neighborhoods in the city. If you like to be among the young, artistic movers and shakers in a city, than this is the place to be.

Both neighborhoods are full of cute cafes, trendy boutiques, vibey mezcal bars, and pretty parks.

These neighborhoods border each other and have a lot of similarities, but there are a few subtle differences. Condesa is a bit more upscale and developed, while Roma still has new places popping up all the time, and a slightly younger/artier crowd

A street corner in pretty Condesa.

A fun and colorful mural in Roma.

The flipside is that these neighborhoods can be a bit “touristy” – having a higher concentration of travelers and expats. Restaurants and stores also tend to be a bit pricier than other neighborhoods.

Coyoacan

If you’re looking for a more “authentic” Mexican neighborhood as well gorgeous colorful buildings, Coyoacan is your best bet. This is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Mexico City. It has a very artsy feel – it’s the home to the excellent Frida Kahlo museum.

Yes this church is crooked! But also colorful.

You could wander around every day and take pictures of vibrant houses, historic churches, cobblestone alleys, and other pretty things. The two central parks are very picturesque and popular gathering places.

Coyoacan is also very lively. You can walk the streets in the center any night, and you’ll find lots of people out, enjoying some street food, watching performers in the central parks, or having a mezcal on a terrace.

While this neighborhood does receive its fair share of tourists, not many of them actually stay here (often just visiting the Frida museum) so it has an authentic Mexican feel, while being very safe and beautiful.

The main thing to keep in mind is that Coyoacan is a bit south of the Centro, and most of the main tourist attractions. It’s well connected by the Metro, and there are plenty of Ubers, but you’ll have to plan your time and travel to reach the Centro, Roma/Condesa, Chapultepec Park, etc.

Centro

The Centro is jam packed with great attractions, awesome street food, and tons of action. This might be a good choice for you if you have a very short stay. You’ll be able to fit in visiting important landmarks like the Zocalo, the Palacio Nacional, Bellas Artes, The Museo Mural Diego Rivera, the Torre Latinoamericana, the Templo Mayor, etc.

The cons of staying in the Centro are that it becomes very quiet at night, and can be an unsafe place to wander around after dark. If you’re not looking to party at night, this shouldn’t be a problem, or you can also take an Uber back to your door from wherever you head out to in the evening.

Polanco

Polanco is the most upscale neighborhood in Mexico City. If you’re a fan of quiet, well maintained and beautiful streets – this is a good choice for you. Some of the most well-renowned upscale restaurants are here, like critically acclaimed Pujol. The famous Soumaya museum is also here, which you’ll definitely want to visit for some great photo ops of the unique architecture.

Polanco is bordered by the giant and pretty Chapultepec Park. You can easy walk to the park, enjoy the greenery, go for a run, and visit some of the great museums here like the Anthropology Museum and the Chapultepec Castle (yes it really is a castle!).

Keep in mind that Polanco is upscale, so prices here will be higher than anywhere else in the city. It is also a little bit west of the action, so you will most likely need to take transportation to get to neighborhoods or sites outside of Polanco and Chapultepec park.

There is something for everyone in this giant city of over 20 million people. These are only 5 of the neighborhoods, but they are the prettiest, safest, and most equipped for tourists. You can’t go wrong with any of them, but if you pick the one that best fits your personality and travel style, you’ll enjoy your trip to the fullest!

Pin this Mexico City neighborhood guide for Later!

The post Mexico City Neighborhood Guide: Where to Stay For Your Travel Style appeared first on Hippie In Heels.

Exactly How to Start Teaching English in Seoul, South Korea

Rachel Jones — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 12:34:20 +0000

I’ve asked a fellow travel blogger, Ashley fromWanderdolls, who has been teaching english in Seoul, to share her experience with you guys. She is sharing it in a 3 article series, starting with how to start teaching English in Seoul. Feature image from Carmine.shot.

How to Start Teaching English in Seoul

Upon finishing university all I knew for sure is that I wanted to travel. A speaker came into my lecture one day and had mentioned teaching abroad as something she did upon finishing school.

I did some digging and found it was a pretty popular choice for those fresh out of school and looking for ways to travel – and of course among those who went into the education field.

I took a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course that was hosted at my school but turned out I didn’t really need one. Sure, some places required them, it looks good on your resume, and I felt more comfortable teaching because of it. Buuuutttt… unless it’s a true college course, part of your major or you’re a licensed teacher, most schools don’t care if it was thousands of dollars in class or a fifty dollar online course.

Side note: Although there are different acronyms – TEFL/TESL/TESOL there is virtually no difference in them.

Once I completed my course, I scoured the internet for ESL teaching jobs.

My TEFL instructor suggested Asia for first-time teachers, as the demand is quite high. Google took me to a few forums and job boards but the best results were found through Dave’s ESL Café.

The majority of the postings were from China and Korea but you could find jobs for anywhere – from Costa Rica to Poland.

With a little research, I determined that I wanted somewhere that I could make enough money to live on comfortably and send some home for student debt payments. This ruled out a lot of South America and Southeast Asia.

The salary would be comfortable to live on whilst there, but with exchange rates, it wasn’t nearly enough to send home.

I began a more focused search into South Korea, Japan, China, and Hong Kong.

After a few applications and back and forths between companies, I was beginning to get some job offers.

Some were offering me contracts without an interview – a big red flag – and this was primarily from Chinese schools. Others had very long drawn out applications that included essays on what I liked about their culture and why I wanted to teach there – this came primarily from Japanese companies.

I received an offer from a school in Hong Kong, and it looked pretty good, but the cost of living was just so high that without provided accommodation I just couldn’t do it.

Most companies from South Korea on the other hand, provide round trip airfare, accommodation, and even meals! This was great to hear as a broke recent graduate.

I received some job offers and had a phone interview and that was that. All was left was logistics and I’d be set for my first job in Korea at Seoul English Village.

Job hunting in Asia: they favor white North Americans with a ‘neutral’ accent. Adding a photo to your resume is all but mandatory (but you do send your passport in). This can be shocking to some when hunting for jobs and seeing titles like “Caucasian female teacher – US/Canada only – send resume and photo.” Also to qualify to teach in most countries in Asia you must be from a ‘Native English Speaking Country’ – Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom, Ireland, the USA, or Canada.

Seoul English Village – Suyu Campus

I was sent the contract the following day and thankfully already had most of my paperwork prepared. Most companies wanted assurances that you had all your documentation upon applying.

Documents include:

Valid Passport
Multiple Passport photos
Criminal Background Check
Original University Degree
Sealed university transcript

Your documents are required to be notarized and apostilled – check with your Korean embassy for exact details regarding an E2 Visa.

Off I went with my documents and signed contract to my Korean Embassy.

The whole process was completely underwhelming. Went in, took a number, gave them my papers and my passport, received a receipt like paper that said when I could pick it up, and left.

It took about half an hour. Luckily I was in driving distance from my embassy as I hate the idea of my passport being in the mail, but if that’s not the case for you, you’ll need to mail everything in and wait.

A few days later I picked up my passport to see it complete with a full page visa sticker! This is the first one I’ve ever gotten, so I was pretty excited. I emailed my future employer and they booked me a plane ticket!

Everything happened really quickly. I was set to leave in only a few days!

I was so excited though, I got in as much family and friends time as possible, packed my bags and off I went.

Thankfully I had a direct flight from Toronto to Seoul but it was still painfully long. Fifteen hours of flight time. But then, I finally arrived.

Drowsy and confused I found my bags and went through immigration. Everything was in order. The Incheon Airport is fantastic and has multiple English speaking help desks.

Regardless of if you’re getting picked up or not (unfortunately I wasn’t), they’ll point you in the right direction. If you’re headed into Seoul, DON’T take a cab. It’ll be a long and expensive journey. You can take a bus or the train and end up central enough and then if need be take a cab.

Your first couple weeks at work will be BUSY. Not only will you have orientation with your school and learning how things work, but…

You’ll be moving into your new apartment (expect it to be small compared to North American standards)
You’ll have to do a medical test (and pass it, otherwise lose your visa)
You’ll register yourself with immigration to receive your Alien Card. Yes, you’ll be an alien – a foreigner, or waygook as the Koreans call it.

All of this while being super jetlagged.

You’ll get the hang of it though, meeting other teachers really helps the transition and spending time exploring is really exciting. Although you’ll be tired and things are new just put yourself out there. Accept that invitation for BBQ, or the lunch or coffee. Introduce yourself to the Korean staff so you don’t stay in a little foreigner bubble. You’ll thank yourself later.

Now that you know how to start teaching English in Seoul, check out post #2: what teaching and living in Korea is really like.

Pin it for later:

The post Exactly How to Start Teaching English in Seoul, South Korea appeared first on Hippie In Heels.

How to Get the Best Instagram Shots in London

Rachel Jones — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 12:38:00 +0000

London has some of the most picturesque spots in the world and in this day and age of social media, it’s not just bloggers who want to get the best Instagram shots in London, but lots of travelers and even locals. A photograph from you travels is sometimes the best souvenir.

How to get the best Instagram shots in London

I teamed up with Pictrip to try out their services in London while I was there last month. They partner you up with a local photographer and you go off to explore. Before your photoshoot day, you are given the options of where you can shoot. There were a lot in London but I narrowed it down to Shoreditch (graffiti and urban vibes), Westminster (this whole area, the typical London vibe), and Notting Hill (antiques, colorful houses).

Here’s some samples of the photos that I got sent to me in a gallery just days after the shoot. There were 75 sent all together for a 3 hour shoot in 3 locations. I did the “City Trekker” package which is 420 GBP. If that’s not in your budget or you don’t need 75 photos, you can do the smallest package of 15 images for 150 pounds. You do take the tube from spot to spot so bring an Oyster card or buy a day pass. You can get some cool shots inside the stations.

People who use Pictrip are often travelers looking for that great souvenir, couples on a special trip like an anniversary or honeymoon, and even families who want a unique look on their vacation instead of the normal studio shots.

Pictrip isn’t just in London though. Elsewhere in Europe, you can find them in Paris, Venice, Dublin, Milan, Nice, Barcelona, Lake Como, Monaca, and Rome. In North America, you can do shoots in NYC, Disney (LA), LA, San Fransisco, Toronto, Boston, and Vancouver. They also are in Dubai, Sydney, and Melbourne.

Outfit Ideas

Pin how to get the best Instagram shots in London:

The post How to Get the Best Instagram Shots in London appeared first on Hippie In Heels.

Luxury Guide to Toronto Financial District

Rachel Jones — Sun, 28 Aug 2016 13:03:52 +0000

Welcome to Backpacker’s Boutique. Every Sunday, this spot will feature a new travel blogger. Some weeks it will be a really fun interview about packing, fashion, and fitness so you can snoop inside their bags & lives a little bit and other weeks it’ll be a detailed luxury guide to a city the featured blogger/expat knows very well. E-mail me if you’d like to be featured.

A Luxury Guide to Toronto Financial District

Tell us a little about yourself and tell us why you’re an expert on luxury travel in the Financial district of Toronto.

Born and raised in Toronto, Canada the city is full of an array of different offering for all travellers. Financial district, is in the heart of Toronto with a number of great restaurants, sports centers, shopping and of course, spas.

Working in finance for nearly 10 years, I have provided recommendations for clients, colleagues and travellers to cater to their preferences and time. Financial district, quiet on the weekend, is hustling and bustling during the week and easily accessible through the internal PATH system or outdoors.

What makes the Financial district a perfect destination for travelers seeking a glamorous trip?

Being in the heart of downtown Toronto, there are a number of fabulous restaurants that will tantalize taste buds to each corner of the world. We have prided ourselves on our cultural diversity and our authentic array of cuisines that will inspire any visitor to keep on coming back.

Additionally, like all big cities, we have great wine bars, lounges, spas and shopping to solicit to any visitors taste.

What 5 star hotel is the best in the Financial District?

The newly renovated Four Seasons in Yorkville or the Shangri-la in downtown Toronto for an exception 5 star hotel experience.

What about boutique hotels in the Financial district, of them all, which would you send your friends or family to stay at?

Honestly, in Toronto you have some cute boutique hotels but truthfully, I would recommend friends or family to either stay at my place or to rent a guest suite in my building; a cheaper alternative than a hotel room.

The Hazelton Hotel in Yorkville, is a swanky boutique hotel where it is known for housing celebrities like the Jolie-Pitts, J-Lo, J-Biebs, Blake Lively and Ben Affleck. Perfect time to celeb spot? Definitely during TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival).

Are there any fun activities for the adventurous traveler?

CN Tower’s Edgewalk, which holds the title of the world’s highest full-circle, hands free walk on a 5 foot ledge that circles the main pod of the tower, 1,168 feet or 114 storeys above ground.

Where are the best hang outs during the day?

Maman in First Canadian Place is a great place for a “non-corporate” café environment as it transports you to a sweet European café where you can order pressed coffee, loaves and even a cocktail should you feel like it

Take a walk around the downtown area and you will find spots that you will enjoy, the green spaces can be rare but when you find a patch take advantage of it.

If you have a big date night, what are the most delicious restaurants in the financial district and what are their best dishes?

Special occasions, I would recommend The Chase. These are two of my favourite restaurants for special occasions. The Chase offers incredible food, and an extensive but pricey wine list. The menu switches up, but is never disappointing with a great little patio with a better view than post places.

Big date night? Mercatto on Toronto Street is a sweet spot with great Italian food and ambience. Feel like ramping it up a bit more? Check out George Restaurant which providing patrons with a great tasting menu. You don’t know what you’re doing to get but it is always exceptional!

Let’s talk desserts- what place makes the best?

Oooh, that’s a tough call. If you feel like a creative twist on ice cream..there’s a great spot for it called Sweet Jesus. They serve up killer lattes and churros!

If you’re looking for sophistication, and something more bougie take a quick walk to Butter Avenue and check out their gorgeously presented tarts, mini cakes, macarons and dessert options.

Tell us all the hot shopping spots; who’s carrying the trendy local designers? Are there designers we should make sure to meet?

You can never go wrong with shopping in downtown Toronto. Whether you’re looking for designer handbags, couture dresses or well-made pair of jeans. Eaton Centre should be able to satisfy most people, but if you want the Chanel, Givenchy, Tiffany’s, Gucci and Prada; Yorkville is where you need to be.

What are a couple of the best salons and spas in the financial district?

Elmwood Spa is perfection in the city, one of my favourite “spoil me” spas where you are pampered from beginning to end.

Time for a great sunset view… where would you go?

Rooftop of the Thompson hotel!

If you end the night at a fancy club, which one do you head towards?

What tickles your fancy? Tequila lovers, go to Reposado which has a fantastic array of tequila that doesn’t make you feel like you are 19. Pravda is a well-known vodka bar that plays the Russian national anthem at midnight, then you get the samba group up on the bar and if you’re still standing, maybe you will get to do a vodka tasting in their chilly vodka room.

New to Toronto, CC Lounge is a whiskey bar but turns into a club on the weekends. It’s more chilled out during the weekdays but if you are looking to party.. these would be some places near financial district.

Alexandra Lam is a lover of food, wine, travel and surfing living in Toronto, Canada. She is the founder of non-profit initiative, project #showumslove, that looks to inspire other travellers to give back to places they are travelling to and through. Connect on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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My New and Exciting travel plans for the rest of 2016

Rachel Jones — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 11:09:07 +0000

Wow I can’t believe it’s already June! And tomorrow is my birthday!

This year is going by so quickly. I would say that one thing I don’t like about travel is how fast time goes (time flies when you’re havin’ fun!).

I actually enjoy being a homebody sometimes and always try to make sure I balance my time going places and being home. It’s so easy and affordable in India to jump on a train and go check out a new town but after 3+ years here places are starting to blend and I find myself feeling tired when I do this.

I wrote a post at the beginning of the year about what I thought I’d be up to in 2016 and I wasn’t too far off. So far this year, I went to 5 countries, only 2 of which were new to me:

India Goa which doesn’t really count since I live here
Turkey Istanbul for the World Tourism Forum & to explore
Sri Lanka for a visa run with Ben where we did lots of underwater adventures
Jordan which was an amazing last-minute adventure with Ben
Singapore for a friends’ wedding with Ben

Goa

Goa, Nilaya pool

Unawatuna, Sri Lanka

Istanbul, Turkey

Wadi Rum, Jordan

Friends’ Wedding, Singapore

I had more listed which I’ll be doing still and a few new opportunities have come my way! So here’s what the rest of my year looks like so far, most of which is in the US.

The rest of 2016 travel plans

NYC

Sadly I’ll only be here for a night. I saw a flight option which was way cheaper but had a 17 hour layover in NYC. My friend Ann lives there and said I could crash at hers and I haven’t seen her since I moved to India! It will be so good to meet up and see where she lives.

Florida

I was invited to a trip around Florida for 9 days by their tourism board along with 3 other bloggers. I have only been twice; to Disney as a kid and to Daytona beach for my 22 birthday actually with Ann the girl I’ll be seeing in NYC! I’m excited to explore more in the US as I haven’t done that since I started blogging. I don’t have my itinerary yet for this trip but know I”ll get a little beach time and “nature” time.

Ohio

I am going to be in Ohio most of July and the first half of August. I’m from Ohio and will be so happy to see all my family and friends (and friends’ new babies!) while I’m home. Last year, I wrote about post about what I ate in Ohio while I was home and I”m going to do the same this year because I am in love with pub food (basically what we eat in Ohio) and every meal there makes me happy!

My friend Rachel here had a baby while I was gone!

Vegas

I have a bachelorette party in Vegas one weekend, and the way flights worked out it’s much cheaper to fly there on a Tuesday so I’m going a lot earlier and working with some brands out there. The bride, my BFF, is coming early as well so we can explore the “non party” side of Vegas a little bit.

Nashville

Family trip! Last year we went to Toronto which as a lot of fun and wanted to try somewhere else that was a little unique for us and ended up on Nashville. It is my mom/dad, brother/his wife, Bre, and me and Ben. We’re going for just 3 days and will be eating lots of BBQ! My brother has been before which is cool because he can show up around a little bit. I think Ben will be surprised by Nashville since he hasn’t really traveled in the US much and is a stranger to country music. His favorite food is BBQ ribs so this is a dream for him.

India

Back to India from end of August through mid September! I will have lots of work to catch up on I’m sure and it will be raining in Goa all month so it’s a good time to just relax.

blogging in Goa

Israel

WHAT!! I know! It’s crazy exciting. I was invited on a boutique tour of Israel with Vibe Israel for a week starting September 15th. I cannot wait to explore this country and really feel a pull to this part of the world after my time in Jordan so this is just perfect for me and the blog! The tour is completely up my alley focuses on trendy boutique experiences, food, shops, and hotels. I’ll be showing you the trendy young side of Israel.

London

Ben’s sister is getting married at the end of September so we will be going there for the wedding and I’ll be going straight from Israel over. It’s so nice to see all his friends and family and I wish he got more time off work to see them ever longer. We’ll probably try to stay 10 days or more if we can push it.

Latvia

I am randomly going to Latvia! I’d been talking with the tourism board about coming to visit the next time I was in Europe and it worked out well that at the two weeks in London I can head over for a week and explore a few cities in this beautiful country. I’ll be checking out a spa town, a coastal getaway, a castle, and the capital city of Riga.

Morocco

I am so excited to say I’m going to Morocco. I was thinking to myself I really want to go somewhere different that I don’t know much about.. I’m always in Asia! My friend whatsapp’d me saying hey we’re in Europe at the same time and flight to Morocco from London are sooo cheap… let’s go shopping!” I said yes right away. I’ll go back to London from Latvia, meet my friend Tia, who owns a shop in Goa, and we will go to a few towns in Morocco. It was a lot of fun to plan. We’ll have 10 days then come back to Goa via London.

Did you enjoy this post? Let me know in the comments or by sharing it with the social media links! I’d love to keep giving you travel tricks & tips so feel free to subscribe by e-mail in the big box below. Don’t forget you can follow me on facebook, twitter, instagram & bloglovin‘.

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My 2016 Travel Plans (well… sort of!)

Rachel Jones — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 08:20:03 +0000

This post is in partnership with TripAdvisor and their #BookToWin campaign.

My travel plans never end up going exactly how I think they will. I had no idea I would spend the end of 2015 hanging out with the Apatani tribe of Ziro Valley, or that I would have headed off to Langkawi with Ben on a last-minute trip. I have always had my own travel plans lined up, but thanks to having this blog, new plans get added in throughout the year that I would have never seen coming.

I’ll give you a preview of the plans I know I have coming up this year… and then maybe next year I can see if any of them happened (lol) and what ones got added in! I know I’ll at least be in 5 countries for the year of 2016. Hopefully more!

Hippie in Heels Travel Plans 2016

Goa, India

Obviously! Haha, I have spent the start of the year here at home and stayed put in January. I hit up South Goa for a getaway but that was it. For now, Goa is still set as my base for the year.

the swimsuit is from Onepeace Swimwear and it is the most comfortable thing ever!! So soft AND reversible!

Istanbul, Turkey

A last-minute trip, I just got back from Istanbul and was there February 2-13. It is one of my top cities now in the world and I have so much to share about my time there. I really want to travel in Europe more. Last year, we were lucky to go to London, Tunbridge Wells Hastings, and Rye in the UK as well as Vienna and Achau Austria to visit Ben’s family. I love being in Europe!

Galle, Sri Lanka

Although I’ve done my visa run to Turkey, Ben hasn’t left India in 5 months which means he’s got to go! We have 6 month maximums here. It is his 30th birthday so we are combining our mandatory visa run with a surfing celebration somewhere in Galle. About a year ago, we went to Colombo and Unawatuna for a quick 4 day visa run and really loved it there.

We are leaving in a week (from the time I am writing this post) and I have nothing planned, so I”m going to take you through my planning process and how to plan a trip quickly when you don’t have a lot of time to search.

In this case, I’ve already narrowed it down to the Southern coast of Sri Lanka because we’ve been there before and the surf is good. TripAdvisor is a good place to start a search.

I found the best hotels in Galle which is an area in the South. I did a quick search of the best spots to surf in Sri Lanka and was glad to see a few places in Galle in the top slots, as I know the East coast is popular too. I mapped out how far apart the best surf places were to see if I picked a place that sucked, I could get to another beach easily enough by rickshaw. Considering how small Sri Lanka is, I figure it won’t make much of a difference which one I choose… I’ll let you know if I was wrong lol!

I see Cantaloupe Levels at #5 and I’m not surprised since I’ve been there before and loved it. I scroll more and see they have a sister hotel Cantaloupe Aqua at #22. I scroll through the top rest of the top hotels in Galle and am terrible by looking first at the main profile pic and judging the book by it’s cover so to speak (I know, I know…) and see Jetwing Lighthouse as well. A friend has mentioned this place in the past so I bookmark it for later. It’s come up #13 in Galle. I narrow the search to “beach” options and see all 3 I looked at in the top 10.

I know the surf is good near Unawatuna because we stayed there before, and their sister hotel is there, so I narrow the results to best hotels in Unawatuna and see Aqua at #12. It’s newer and only has 87 reviews while the others have hundreds so I take that into account as well, knowing they will soon move up that list. Photos show stunning rooms looking at the beach and a pool! I’m sold. You can compare prices there and book straight through as well.

So, you can tell this isn’t the most in-depth search, but sometimes you don’t have the time. If I did, I would add to my TripAdvisor search by reading reviews on travel blogs, i-escape, and just by googling the area for articles about it.

Now it just comes down to checking the TripAdvisor reviews to see what other travelers say. TA has 320 million reviews on their website across 6.2 million accommodations. The reviews and availability will help you narrow down your search. You can look at traveler photos to see the “real images” rather than the best chosen ones that would be on a website.

Because I travel often, I don’t really look too much past this but if you’ve got less vacation time you would want to check out more places. Now that you can book directly on TripAdvisor, it’s easy to just do it all in one place. They use a compare search engine to check 200 websites for the best price. I’ve actually found a couple activities on TA and will share about this this week while I’m in Sri Lanka!

Himalayas, India

I’m in talks with a really exciting young company about joining them on a trip to the mountains in May. Nothing is confirmed but I’m hoping it will happen. I haven’t been to the Western side of the Himalayas for 3.5 years and remember really loving traveling up there. I hit up Manali which is kind of the “cold Goa” and Rishikesh “the Beatles’ yoga place” as well as other cute towns. I spent about a month there but was new to India so think it’ll be really interesting to go back. I also went in the winter, so May there will be totally different.

Ohio, USA

Sometime in the monsoon I”ll be heading back to Ohio as I do each year for at least a month. I always coincide these trips with friends weddings and my best friend from college Alex, is getting married August 13. I’m a bridesmaid in the wedding and am so excited to see my college friends that I rarely get to see, or even Skype with. If you’ve read my blog a bit, you know that I live in the middle of nowhere and spend my time at home laying out in the backyard, eating all my mom’s good food, and going shopping with her… I don’t have an American phone, health insurance, car, or car insurance so I’m basically 15 again and my friends call the house asking if I can come out and play and I have to beg my mom to take me over their houses… fun stuff!

Las Vegas, USA

Alex’s bachelorette party is July 8-11th so I’m really trying to plan to get home in time for that before the wedding. I’d go home to Ohio first, then fly out to Vegas for her party. I’m not totally sure on this yet and also have to weigh out the costs as I have a lot of flying to do around this time!

New York City, USA

My family takes a summer vacation each year which used to be to Gulf Shores, Alabama or Myrtle Beach. Last year, I planned a trip to Toronto with my mom and dad and we had so much fun. My mom suggested NYC this year and my brother and his wife could come to, as well as Ben since he will be coming out to the US too and has only seen NYC while changing airports during a layover.

London, UK

Ben’s sister gets married September 24th, so we’ll be heading up there sometime in September. I imagine we will go back to India first but really don’t have a clue!

As an update, I ended up going a lot more places than I thought I would, including a few new countries. Here’s the updated travel plans.

Where will you go in 2016?

So, there we go… some of my upcoming travel plans. I am excited to see what trips come up this year. Istanbul was totally unexpected and I didn’t know about it until a couple of weeks before I went. With some luck, more trips like that will come up this year! I’d love to know what your travel plans are.

We are trying to save up some money this year, and for that reason I don’t have as many trips planned as usual. Although we live in India, we travel a lot and eat out at restaurants, etc so haven’t saved as much as I think more responsible people would have. I’d love to go to Bali this year, but it’s on my “not responsible” list, a list which I may end up burning. We’ll see.

TripAdvisor #BookToWin Trip-A-Day Giveaway

To celebrate the new booking feature, TripAdvisor is giving away 60,000 worth of trip money. If you book any day in March on TripAdvisor, you are automatically entered to win one of the prizes: 31 winners will get 1,500 (one each day) and 1 lucky winner will get 15,000 towards a getaway anywhere in the world.

Even if you want to book from another site, just click-through from the hotel of your choice on TripAdvisor to book somewhere else then fill out the contest entry form to still be able to enter. Make sure to tell this to your friends planning a trip, because who knows maybe if they win they will invite you along!

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Carry-on Packing List | It’s Easier Than You Think

Rachel Jones — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 10:06:05 +0000

I LOVE going carry-on only when I travel and recently did so on my trip to Bangkok for a week. I wrote down everything I packed so I could share it here and give some carry-on packing tips and what to have on your carry-on packing list.

Easy Carry-on Packing List

Rolling 19 Inch Luggage, Carry-on Luggage Review

It’s so important to get the right luggage for this! I use my 19 inch [easyazon_link identifier=”B00BXDPF8U” locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]international standard hard cover Delsey bag[/easyazon_link] which I have in silver. I have the matching big one as well and I really love them. You can get larger carry-ons which I’ve had before, but to be safe I always use this one now.

Carry On Luggage Review | Perks of Delsey:

Four-wheel spinners instead of two make it easier to walk with.

The front part zips to open forward to slide in magazines, laptop, and makes getting organized on the plane and getting things out for security a lot easier than having to unzip your whole carry-on.

The inside has a zippered off section on half to keep things firmly in place.

There are a couple small sneaky pockets.

It expands and can actually become huge and hold a lot of weight, which would mean being checked on the way home- but it’s nice to have that option.

Huge Ass Purse

You get a personal item, and your purse can be pretty big I’ve come to realize. Men can actually take a carry-on rolley bag and a laptop bag, so you can definitely take a laptop size purse. I usually go for Fossil when I carry normal size purses.

Things to put in your giant purse:

[easyazon_link identifier=”B00VW7U8X4″ locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]Sound Cancelling Headphones[/easyazon_link]

Little bag with all your charging cords

[easyazon_link identifier=”B00I15SB16″ locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]Kindle[/easyazon_link] (if you want books to inspire wanderlust just follow this link!)

[easyazon_link identifier=”B004UB056E” locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]Pillow[/easyazon_link] & eye mask if a long flight

Scarf & socks because flights are absurdly cold and I’m still not sure why.

[easyazon_link identifier=”B002LITT3S” locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]Camera[/easyazon_link], extra SD card, [easyazon_link identifier=”B00JSFYWFW” locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]portable battery charger[/easyazon_link],

[easyazon_link identifier=”B005MNGQ6C” locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]backup hard-drive[/easyazon_link]

Smallish Purse

I keep a clutch or smaller purse inside my big purse for when I get to my destination. It’ll have all the good things: wallet with ID, money, cards, passport, small jewelry bag, phone, trip itinerary probably saved to PDF on your phone, lip gloss, chapstick, and a pen!

What to Put IN the suitcase

Alright so far so good, right? You have a lot of stuff and it’s all in your personal bag, so now we have got to fill up your big suitcase. The key is to actually pick out your outfits and only take the exact number you know you have to wear.

If you’re going somewhere hot:

The absolute easiest way to pack is to take dresses. If you have a 7 day trip, take 5 dresses, one pair of shorts, 3 tank tops, some work out clothes, a kimono, and call it a day! You can add in cute sandals and a pair of heels.

You have got to be sure to pack at least two bikinis, although I tend to take three because I’m an addict. Right now, my favorites are by Cenote Swimwear, a company out of Australia that I found on Instagram. I seriously follow about 50 swimsuit brands’ Instagrams… I told you, I am an addict. It was started by a couple girls who got inspired traveling in Central and South America and loved the Brazilian cut swimsuits. I love supporting other girls who were inspired by travel to create a new business!

From their website: “A road trip surfing our way down the PanAm highway in Central America saw long lazy days swinging in hammocks, hours laying out at sea on our surf boards, drinking coconuts, watching sunsets, dancing salsa until early hours, people watching in Rio de Janeiro, and absorbing the vibrant and colourful Latin culture. With such amazing and diverse inspiration around us we drew on this amazing energy and the ideas grew.”

If you’re going somewhere cold:

Take your favorite 2 pairs of skinny jeans, 7 tops to wear with them, some black ankle boots and brown knee-high boots OR cute shoes like [easyazon_link identifier=”B00120WEMY” locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]burlap Toms[/easyazon_link], a sweater, work out clothes, a leather jacket, and a thick scarf. You could throw in one dress and leggings as well. Your big scarf should be the scarf you put in your “personal” item bag.

Toiletries

I’m sure you know by now your favorite brands and I know I’ve shared mine over time so I won’t list them all again (you can see a list here of some of my favorite beauty products).

Other than taking small bottles of your favorite things, be sure to remember trial size perfumes, mini OPI polish (I love the [easyazon_link identifier=”B00R2X2ZCY” locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]Hawaii ones[/easyazon_link]!), and solid shampoos like [easyazon_link identifier=”B00V4IQ3TY” locale=”US” tag=”Hipinhee-20″]LUSH[/easyazon_link].

OPI Instagram

*Check out this post on beauty products that defeat looking like you’ve got jet lag and tips on preventing jet lag in the first place.

Carry-on Packing Tips for you soon to be pro-packers

Packing carry-on only is NOT the time to pack something you haven’t worn yet but really want to wear and think ____ might be the perfect place for it plus it’ll look good in photos…nope, leave it at home.

Do not forget to pack your travel insurance copy or have it saved as a PDF on your phone or in your emails at least. Passport, Kindle, and travel insurance… three of the most important things!

Don’t forget hair ties, a clip, and some bobby pins.

You could do a carry-on duffel bag if you want and if you have weird shaped things going inside. Just make sure that it can fit inside the carry-on restrictions for your airline.

Pack snacks! You ALWAYS need snacks. I don’t even go to the grocery store without packing snacks… ;)

This post was brought to you by Cenote Swim. All opinions are my own!

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How to Stop at Niagara Falls from Toronto to Ohio

Rachel Jones — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 11:56:24 +0000

We took a family vacation from Ohio to Toronto and on the way home wanted to see Niagara Falls. It’s easy to make a stop and only takes an hour if you need to make it quick. We did, as we had to pick our dog up from the kennel (poor Brandi!).

If you want to stop at Niagara Falls on your way home from Toronto to Ohio, it’s easy to do just before crossing Rainbow Bridge. From Toronto you get on Queen Elizabeth way to 420E which takes you right to the falls. There are signs everywhere saying to get off at the falls, just follow the arrows. Then after seeing the falls, you can follow signs to “USA” or “Rainbow bridge” easy peasy!

Parking at Niagara is easy as well and there were places all over. You can take a boat ride out or you can just take pictures from the sidewalk. There are places to eat and it’s actually a cute little town withe Planet Hollywood, Hard Rock Cafe, and Hershey store.

Niagara falls was amazing and totally worth a stop! You’d be crazy not to. In case you’re unfamiliar with the falls, they are 3 waterfalls between NY (USA) and Ontario (Canada) called Horseshoe, American, and Bridal Veil Falls. The Horseshoe falls are the most famous. They are not only a tourist attraction, but they create power!

In 1901 a school teacher went over in a barrel. She lived to tell the tale and the daredevil trend has stuck around with more people wanting to try. If you have time to share check out more stories of people who jumped into the falls.

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5 Things I Always Pack When I Travel

Rachel Jones — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 03:37:23 +0000

This post is written by me and brought to you by Lyst.

When I am traveling, I always try to dress how I would when I’m “home”, not that I know where home even is! But, I try to dress normal and not like a backpacker, traveler, or tourist. I find that there are 5 simple things that I wore on all my recent trips: Ohio, Toronto, London, Vienna, Goa, and even NE India.

5 things I always pack when I travel

1. Black Leather Jacket.

I have the most amazing leather jacket I bought from a Victorias Secret catalogue about 5 or 6 years ago. It was about $150 bucks and has lasted so long. I take it on every trip. Goa gets cold at night and it’s perfect here and looks very put together but hip when in Europe or anywhere! Leather is actually really warm and I was happy to have it in College walking to class in the snow.

2. Black Leather Ankle Boots.

These looks cute with basically everything from dresses, to jeans shorts! I wear them with skinny jeans in the cold and on my last trip wore them every single day. Mine are from Lucky Brand but there are lots of cute ones. When I was at Macy’s I had a hard time choosing. I love the ones that have a more thin, destroyed looking leather.

3. Flowy, Loose Dress.

I take a flowy dress on every trip. I love the fit of a loose dress; it’s so perfect for when you’re having a “fat day” but lots of them now are still short and sexy! They go well with the ankle boots and leather jacket at night, or with just flip flops to dress it down.

4. Black Skinny Jeans.

These ones from Top Shop are a godsend. They fit perfectly and I love the high-waist. I wear these constantly and they are so thin like leggings I can wear them even in kind of warm weather. They’re also super affordable.

5. High-Waisted Jean Shorts

I wear jeans shorts most days in Goa and pair it with a crop top. I love tying a long-sleeve shirt around my waist because you know, the 90’s are in, and it covers your stomach when you don’t want to show it. I got mine for $5, no joke! It was the Urban Outfitters sale rack in Oahu on the Waikiki strip. I have a few pairs and most are from Urban. They do good recycled Levi’s but they don’t last a really long time so if you see them that cheap, buy two.

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What I did (and ATE) while home in Ohio

Rachel Jones — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 20:21:00 +0000

I love going home from India. It works out that I can go home a month each summer (in Ohio), which is monsoon in Goa. There are about a million reasons why I love going home. We love Goa, but home is where my family and lots of my friends are.

There’s a third “F” though.. Friends, Family, and FOOD! I don’t need to do anything but sit on the couch with my mom watching TV, eat dinner with my family, hang out with friends, and just chill (and snack).

Even though I didn’t make plans, they sort of came to me. I had told the Ohio Tourism board I’d be in town for a month. They ended up reaching out to me and I came up with a couple of fun things to do with my mom (so she can see my job is real, lol).

We also had thought about going on a vacation, but I pitched to my parents like I do a tourism board, a trip to Toronto! I told them how it’ll be so international, cultural, and we’ll have the best time eating the best food and doing to fancy museums. It worked.

I bet you’re wondering why Ben didn’t come to the US with me. For one, it’s quite expensive and we were just in Hawaii, he’d just seen my parents in India, and he hadn’t been to England to see his own family since the last time he was in the US….. THEN there was the big reason, the one that made it impossible anyways…. Shanti ate his passport.

Some of my favorites things I did while home:

Trip to Hocking Hills with my mom

Hocking Hills is this gorgeous area of Ohio. If you’re from Ohio, you’ve surely heard of it! It’s a big vacation spot especially in the autumn months.

Family Vacation in Toronto.

Toronto is only 6 hours away from Lexington, Ohio by drive, it was an easy trip that I think we will make again. We seriously had SO much fun in Toronto and even though I was working with the tourism board, it didn’t feel like work. it was also cool to show my parents my new “job”.

The Bonfire @ Home

The most memorable thing was a cook out with all our friends just before I left at my house. It was so good to see Whitney’s twin babes, hear Erin talk about her new house, and have Arielle back at her second home. My college friend Colleen came up from Columbus with her boyfriends, and Rochelle my best friend growing up brought her husband over. Of course they ALL brought their parents, who are also my parents’ best friends. There were lots of other people as well, like the Cramers who are like second parents. It was such a good night!

Just chilling with my dog Brandi!

So, I had written this a couple weeks ago & now have to edit it because Brandi passed away. So, going through this post is hard since I have pictures of her throughout. I’m glad I was home as long as I was and pretty much spent the whole time with her. She was 12 and had skin cancer. She was the best dog ever. So, I guess her, Huck, and Piso are all running around in dog heaven!

Lake with my mom

We went up to Lake Erie which is less than two hours away for the weekend. It was pretty much the only sunny weekend we had. It was fun to just relax and sit on the beach. I read The Goldfinch which was pretty good but really long. We also stopped by my friend Jenna’s house and saw her cute baby Hudson!

July 4th @ Cincinnati

I went to Cinci to my BFF Rachel and her husband Ian’s house for fireworks on the 4th… partied with her parents, husband, and Melissa and Brad (Mel is my BFF from HS) & went to a couple breweries. That’s the thing to do back home now, drinking “craft beers” but I just get the lightest beer possible.

More fun things:

I also got to see my Grandma and Aunts and Uncles which was cool. I took yoga class with my mom, started working out (my friend Mel played basketball in college and came to teach me ones I can do at home)… and really we just hung out at home. I also got to meet my cousin, Des’s, baby. It was the perfect 6 weeks away from India! Also look how cool the present I got my dad was!!

Breaking Bad gifts from etsy

Amazing food I ate in the USA and Canada

(obviously the most important thing)

parmesan wings and breakfast tacos

ice cream cake
broccoli salad is my FAVE

dad’s famous ribs

pot roast

pizza hoagie & loaded fries

I made this chicken haha, my mom made literally everything else we ate at home

PANERA
mexican food… yum

steak, wedge salad, home fries

favorite meal ever, stuffed peppers

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