Trips with early bird discounts expiring before 9/30/06

Kilimanjaro Climb and Safari (8/15)

Adventures in Patagonia (9/15)

Costa Rica's Mountains and Jungles (9/16)

Like some of you, a year ago I knew Bulgaria was somewhere in eastern Europe and a former Soviet satellite, and that was it. Now I want to learn more about it, just went to the library to get one of the books our guides suggested, and eagerly search the Internet for current news. And that to me is the primary reason to travel- to open my eyes, to expand my world view, and to welcome new people and places into my heart. I can't wait to go back.

With the increasing number of international trips where we are working with other companies with their own deposit and cancellation policies, we have changed our deposit and cancellation policies. These changes are only for international trips other than Canada and Mexico and can be found here.

We are offering a new (no cost) service in 2007 for women who have to arrive someplace the night before their trip starts. At your request, we will make the hotel reservation; if you want to share the room, we will also match you with someone else arriving early who wants the same.

Our trips certainly are expensive compared to your cost if you did it on your own or went with a huge company that sends big groups and has pricing power. If you have the skills, equipment, and companions to do one of the trips we offer on your own, you should- and please feel free to download our packing lists, follow our itineraries, enjoy our recipes etc without guilt.

However, many of our trips cost the same or less than those of comparable companies. This reflects our commitment to keeping our trips financially accessible to as many women as possible, both by offering some shorter, lower cost trips; and by keeping our overhead down as much as we can, consistent with keeping the business alive and growing. It also reflects the way the other guides and I like to travel- we want accommodations that are clean, comfortable, and safe, but we would rather be able to afford more trips than stay in a really upscale hotel or eat at 5 star restaurants. And occasionally we like to splurge- like staying at the Gideon Putnam Spa and Resort on the last night of our Autumn in the Adirondacks trip. But we don't want to economize in the ways that affect quality. For example, if there are more than 6 women on a trip, there will almost always be 2 guides so that there is flexibility in what people do.

In summary, our aim is to provide value. We don't offer budget travel and we aren't after the luxury travel market. What we want at the end of the trip is for you to think that you got more than you paid for.

In a recent e-newsletter I talked about the different ways to get money when you're on an international trip. I concluded that as long as you are in a country with ATMs, they were the best for getting a good exchange rate and being able to withdraw just what you needed. That certainly worked well for me in Bulgaria but that advice does come with a caveat, as explained by Lin who was also on the trip.

"Debit card dependance - I don't know if we told you that in Bulgaria we were able to access our joint account (the one that was blocked in Scotland) but were NOT able to access T's account with another financial institution (the one we COULD access in Scotland). Go figure.  When we got home I asked our credit union how we could access our money in the UK next time and was told they have completely blocked certain countries and that we would not be able to access our money from there, period!  I'm taking this to a higher level and we'll move our money if we have to, but please warn trip participants to check with their bank ahead of time.  That could have been a disaster for us."

In addition, notify your credit card company. With all the emphasis on fraud prevention, they may block your card if they start seeing charges from strange places.

Skyscanner.net: this is a travel search engine that specializes in discount airlines that serve Europe and the UK. I didn't find the interface intuitive (for examply, in choosing dates I could only pick Saturday and Sunday dates although the search results gave me fares and schedules for a day before and after the date I picked) but I did find a great fare on Easyjet that was born out once I was on the Easyjet website: 68 Pounds (about $125).

Travelsupermarket.com: This site compares fares on about 36 airline and travel sites (including both EasyJet, a discounter, and Travelocity). It is limited to flights originating in the UK and does not appear to be compatible with a Macintosh computer so I couldn't evaluate it.

Gooflight.com: This site searches for the cheapest flight between two points among 19 low cost airlines in 33 countries. It is supposed to be able to combine flights from two different discount airlines. However, it kept telling me there were no available seats on one of the legs no matter what dates I plugged in.Then when I tried finding a flight between Geneva and Paris, it gave me truly bizarre routes (like I had to fly to England on the way) and it gave me the same no available seats message. It also only has a "Light" version available for the general public. At this point, don't bother with it.

Whichbudget.com: This site lists 113 airlines in 107 countries and is a great site for keeping up on which discount airline flies where. Here's how it works-You pick the airport you want to fly from and it then lists all the places you can get to on a discount airline from that airport. I'm out of luck trying to get a cheap flight from Heathrow to Rome (Naples would work) but find that Easyjet flies there from Gatwick. When you click the click here button, it takes you directly to the airline's website where you put in dates and get prices. This web site has great promise and I would have found the same fare as on Skyscanner. In the US, all it lists is domestic Jet Blue flights.

Skylow.com: This site is supposed to find the cheapest fares among 64 low cost carriers in 84 countries and will look for flight combinations were necessary. I couldn't get it to work on any of the three browsers I tried. Maybe another Mac problem?

Dohop.com: Similar to the above, it searches 650 low cost and network carriers worldwide and actually seems to work. You are responsible for booking each leg and there may be a taxi ride between airports, but the site is pretty clear about that. Also it allows you to easily narrow the search by time. I found the same flights on this site with the added advantage that I saw the price and schedule right off, and it also showed me some other options (not as attractive in this case).

Summary: I think the two to use are Whichbudget.com and Dohop.com, with Skyscanner.net another potential choice. The website I really want, one that shows me the quickest way to get from the US to someplace where I can get a discount airline and then all the discount airline possibilities, and then allows me to ticket it all on one site, doesn't appear to exist yet. But I'm sure it's just a matter of time...

Incidentally, if you have a PC and can get some of these web sites to work that I couldn't, please email me with what you think and I'll pass it on in the next newsletter.

On our last night in Bulgaria, we went to the house of Baba Losa (Baba means grandmother and Losa was her name). She fed us an incredible homecooked meal along with Rakia (the lethal local liqueur, similar to ouzo) and homemade wine. Afterwards she recruited 3 of us (we had no choice), made us don the local garb, and taught us to dance.

For several weeks I avoided seeing "An Inconvenient Truth", the new film about global warming that features Al Gore. I avoided it because I consider myself pretty well-informed about the issue and, to be honest, I didn't want to feel overwhelmed, depressed, and helpless. But it was hot on Sunday so it felt like time to make myself go see it.

I'm glad I did. Gore does an excellent job of weaving together many strands and painting a picture of what we are facing if we don't acknowledge the realities and change our behavior. However, he also makes clear that it is a solvable problem, right now, with what we already know. And so I walked out thinking about what I can do, not numbed into inaction. If you haven't seen the movie, please do. I think we all owe it to the younger people in our lives that we care about.

We often have day packs on our suggested packing lists and often get questions about them. As someone who has gone through several daypacks in the effort to find just the right one, I have the following advice to offer.

1. Buy a pack with a waist belt, unless you are only using it for very light weights for fairly short distances. Otherwise a waist belt will take lots of the weight off your shoulders, which are usually weaker, and put it on your hips, which are stronger.

2. If you always need a pack for the same thing, then buy a pack that has the capacity for that. For example, if you are always a hiker who needs to carry water, snacks, and rain gear, your pack can be smaller than if you need to sometimes carry clothing, food or climbing gear. I had one of the latter and it made me miserable when I just wanted to day hike. There are also packs that are expandable, and those are perfect for the multisport woman- they can be shrunk down for a day hike but have ample capacity for the other days.

3. Consider weight and in general get it as light as you can. This means 2 things- look for packs constructed of lighter materials and that do not have lots of frills that you will never use. Leave climbing packs for climbers- when is the next time you'll need an ice axe loop for your ice axe?

4. Make sure you can get to your water easily. I guarantee that if you have to stop and take your pack off to get to your water, you will not be as well hydrated as someone who doesn't. I have a strong preference for hydration systems and many packs now come with an internal pocket, which will keep the weight in the right place and easy to get to (unlike a full backpack, where I don't find them as useful because it is hard to tell how much water you have left and refilling them requires you to take all your clothing out).

5. You need someplace to out those small items that you need easy access to, such as sunscreen and snacks. It doesn't have to be a top pocket, just some place that works.

I recently bought a Vapor Trail from Granite Gear that I'm very happy with. It took me a while to get used to the no frills aspect, but the longer I've used it, the more I like it.