Tips - Finding Cheap Flights - Part II

Okay, so now that I’ve shown you Google flights in my previous post, let’s talk about some of the other tools out there to find cheap flights.  There are many out there, but I’m going to focus on those that have some pretty cool features and are pretty powerful.  For this post, I’ll focus on three tools: The Flight Deal, Hopper, and GTFO.

The Flight Deal:

The Flight Deal is one of my favorite sites.  It’s one of the best sources out there for finding great deals that come up.  To be really diligent, you should probably check about once a day (it only takes 30 seconds) or just subscribe to them on Facebook.

Basically, when you go to the site, just scroll down a little and you will see specific deals on certain routes. 

Clicking on one will show the specific details (such as dates, airlines, etc.), and after that, all you have to do is visit the airline website to book.  Looks like my next vacation might to Brazil!

Info on the Particular Flight Deal

Hopper:

Hopper is a great resource to check the timing on your flight purchases.  As of now, it's only available as a mobile app, so you'll have to use it from your phone or tablet. 

If there’s a specific route you’re looking at and you want to see if the price is about to drop in the future (or if it’s the cheapest now), Hopper is your resource.  Apparently Google Flight Tracker does something similar, but I haven’t had the chance to try it out yet.

With Hopper, you simply select your origin and destination and then go.  Its interface will show you a price calendar so you can see the cheapest dates.  In the example below, I show a trip from San Francisco to San Jose Del Cabo.  I've filtered the results to show non-stop flights only.

If you select specific dates, then you can see how the price may fluctuate over time, as you get close to the departure date.  In the case below, note how the app recommends that I wait, as the price might get lower.

Here, it recommends I should purchase the ticket before May 15th, if I'm looking at a June 4 departure date.

GTFO

GTFO (Get the Flight Out!) is for the special occasion when you want to leave (literally) at the last minute.  It's available as a website, but I usually use the mobile app.

Select an airport:

Then, it will show you available flights that leave within the next 24 hours.

Imagine like looking at the flight board at an airport and wondering how much it will cost to fly to each of those cool destinations at that moment.  GTFO will tell you.

Conclusion:

So that’s it for my list of top flight tools.  In summary:

Finding great deals -> the flight deal

Should you wait or buy your ticket now -> Hopper

Prices at the last minute for many destinations -> GTFO

Tips - Finding Cheap Flights - Part I

So you want to go on a trip?  You travel a decent amount and know a thing or two about it, but you don't necessarily have a million frequency flyer miles to use, and you don't have the time to keep track of 30 different airline credit cards with all of their points.  You're not broke, but you want a decent deal - and you don't want to spend hours and hours finding the best flights and deals.  Welcome to the majority of recreational travelers! 

There are plenty of tools out there for finding great flight and hotel offers, but they're spread in many different places, and some of their most beneficial features can sometimes be hidden.  In this post, and in the next few posts, I'm going to go over some key features of different flight and hotel search tools to help you find the best bang for your buck.  With a little practice and diligence, you'll find some amazing deals out there.

In this post, I'm going to focus on Google Flights.  It's probably one of the most well known, versatile, and easy to use flight finding tools, but some of its features are a bit 'under the surface'.  Instead of going through the features one by one.  I'll discuss them by going through some different flight purchase scenarios, so you can see what features work best for each situation.  For this post, I'll use the following four examples, one with a flexible destination and others with flexible dates:

1. You want to go to NYC on a specific weekend and simply want to find the lowest price option.
2. You have a three-day weekend coming up and want to know where the cheapest destination from your home airport.
3. You want to visit Chicago but need to find the cheapest weekend to visit.
4. You want to take a few days off in early May to visit Boston and want to easily see all your flight options in one place.

Before I begin, I'd like to point out one quick thing:  In my personal experience, the best days to search for flight deals is Tuesday - Thursday (the day to search, not the days to actually fly).  Although this is not set in stone, in my past experience, this has been the most common theme.  Now, let's get searching!

Scenario 1: Finding the cheapest flight for a specific destination and date.

I want to go to NYC the last weekend of next month and would like to find the cheapest price.  This is the simplest of Google Flights features (and is common on many other travel sites as well).  For when you have a set destination and a set date, just simply put in your origin and destination airport.

This gives you some choices, but what are some good ways to filter and explore your options?

If you noticed, I put 'NYC' for the destination, instead of a specific airport.  If you'd like to narrow it down or add airports, simply click the '+' sign in the box for a drop down:

To narrow down your list of airlines (since no one wants to fly United right now), simply click on the 'Airline' drop down and select your choice.  As you can see, there are other filters as well, such as price and number of stops, which are pretty self-explanatory.

And if you have some money to blow, you can always check Business or First class as well.

And before moving on to the next section, if you click back on the calendar dates, you can begin to see how flight prices change, with the cheapest dates showing up in green.

OK, so what are some of the more unknown features of Google flights?  Let's dive in.

Scenario 2: Finding the cheapest flight destination for a given date.

If you remember when you first went to the Google Flights website, there were some pretty pictures of destinations if you scrolled down a little bit.

Whenever you go to the site, it usually fills in your home airport and picks some dates, giving you a list of prices for top destinations on these dates.  This leads us to our second scenario: You have a three-day weekend coming up and want to know where the cheapest destination from your home airport.  What are your options?

Once you've selected the dates, you can scroll down to see some of the different options and highlights for each destination, and if you remember the top of the menu, you can even filter by interests.  Clicking on these filters will display more of the image tiles that show specific destinations and prices.  That said, the 'interests' section is fairly broad in my opinion, and I'm honestly not sure how they choose what goes into each category (AKA: I don't use this option). 

I'm going to show you the map, and that's my favorite part!  Go ahead and click on the map that says 'Explore destinations.'

Now let's say for these dates (in this case April 29 departure and May 3 return), we want to find nonstop flights from San Jose, CA that are $350 and under round trip, and we want to see all destinations at once.  In the top left, select the 'nonstop' filter and click on the 'Price' filter and move to '$350'.

And voila!  You now have all of your options in front of you.  You could go to LA, NYC, or Portland, and they would all be in your price range.  Clicking on a city will then give you the actual details and flight options (no need to cover here, since it's pretty self-explanatory from this point.

Let me give another example to show the power of this capability.  Let's say I want to take an international trip, but I'm on a tight budget.   I really want to visit Asia, but I only have a flight budget of $750.  Where can I go from San Francisco?  I put in the flight origin, dates, and filters in the map, and in a matter of seconds, I can see a trip to Shanghai for only $612 and Beijing for less than $500!

Scenarios 3 and 4: Finding the cheapest flight dates for a specific destination

OK, so now our last two scenarios:

• You want to visit Chicago but need to find the cheapest weekend to visit.
• You want to take a few days off in early May to visit Boston and want to easily see all your flight options in one place.

For the first one, you can easily use the calendar that I showed in the first scenario.  Put in some random dates, and then look at the various weekends.  In this example, there's a great deal at the beginning of May.

Now, what about the last use case, where your dates are much more flexible.  Here is where Google flights has some much more powerful, but far less used options: Flexible Dates and Price Graph.  You'll notice these options when clicking on the calendar dates.

With flexible dates, you can see flexible departure and return dates all at once for a destination.  Here's the view for a trip between San Francisco and Boston in late April or early May.  Don't leave on April 30 - those flights are expensive!

You can use the arrow buttons on the right and on the top to modify the dates.

Now, the last feature to go over is the price graph.  This is pretty nifty if you want to view all the options for a 4-day trip to a particular destination.  Let's say you want to go to Boston again, and you know you want to stay there for four days.  What are your options?  With price graph, you just select the number of days you want for your trip, and that's it!  We can see here that May 1-5 is a good option, and then the prices spike in late May.  If you look at the bottom, you can see through to much later in the year - looks like there's a drop in prices just before Christmas.

Conclusion

As you can see, Google Flights is an incredibly powerful tool that can help you find cheap flights, even when you're just wanting to explore, with no particular date or destination in mind.  Here's a quick summary:

• You know the destination and dates -> Use the basic calendar option
• You know the dates, but want to pick a destination -> Use the Exploration Map
• You know the destination, but have flexible dates -> Use the Calendar, Flexible Dates, or Price Graph features.

All of this might seem like a bit much at first, but trust me, you will get the hang of it quickly.  Pretty soon, you'll be traveling a lot more for a fraction of the price.  Now, for my next post, I'll cover some additional resources for exploring cheap flight options.

Mr. Burberry - Fragrance Review

So here goes for my first lifestyle/fashion post.  I'm a guy who loves a good fragrance.  I usually keep several, as I like to have a different scent for different moods or occasions.  My close friends and family know this as well.  I was pleasantly surprised though, a couple weeks ago, when my sister brought me a surprise gift from her trip to Sephora, a small bottle of Mr. Burberry fragrance.

It's a brand new fragrance, and she always thinks of me as a Burberry fan (classic, yet modern).  Thus, she generously decided to get me a bottle.

The bowtie decoration is a nice touch!

I had never tried it before, but I love the smell.  It's got a bit of a seductive/sensual tone (similar to Gucci Guilty black), so it naturally feels like more of a nighttime/going out fragrance.  Yes, it will work fine for that occasion, but I also decided to spray some for work today, and it works quite well.  The smell isn't too strong, and later in the day, it turned to a more casual, subtle tone (like Eau de Lacoste - White).

Thank you sis!  I've definitely found one of my favorite fragrances.

Topdeck Travel: Trail to the Alps - The Final Chapter (Munich)

Our last destination on the Trail to the Alps trip was also a short one - Munich.  That said, I was really looking forward to the city.  We arrived on a cloudy day and got a tour of the heart of the Munich.  The best part though was much sausage lunch with a pretzel and beer at the famous Hofbrauhaus. 

Munich

Hofbrauhaus

Our hotel was all the way out in the suburbs (and traffic was terrible), but I decided to make the trek back to town with the group for dinner.  There was no way I was staying in on my last night!  We got back to the Karlsplatz and had dinner at the Der Pschorr beer house.  I was really excited for it (and I love Hacker-Pschorr beer).  In all honestly though, it wasn't that great.  I was a bit disappointed in the letdown.

And that was my trip!  The next morning I left the group to get some rest at the airport hotel and flew back to San Francisco the day after.  In all, I had a blast!  Yes, I was exhausted at the end, and it wasn't always the greatest having the long bus rides or sharing a hotel room.  Nevertheless, it was a fantastic way to experience Europe for the first time (and it also changed my mind about group travel, as I was skeptical before I took the trip).

Expect to see some more lifestyle posts now that I've finished with this long travel series.  Later this year though, be on the lookout for a second group of Topdeck posts after I come back from another European adventure!

Topdeck Travel: Trail to the Alps - Part VI (Austria)

With our exit from Italy, we were back into the gorgeous Alps, this time in Austria.  Many on the trip had rarely seen snow, so the white landscapes were a brilliant site to many.  Thankfully, we made it to our site in Tyrol before the big snowfall hit.

Our hotel was quite nice, with an excellent location right next to the slope where we had our ski lessons.  In fact, we had a great view of the morning snowfall when we woke up.

Right outside the hotel

Another view by the hotel

My first day was spent on the slopes.  I took the beginner/intermediate lesson since it had been a while since I had been skiing.  It was fun, and the slopes were good.  I was exhausted by the end of the day though.  That said, I still went to the apres-ski party at one of the local restaurants.  It was a blast, with traditional music and some delicious schnitzel for dinner.  I feel like the whole town was there.

Schnitzel dinner

The next day, I opted for the trip to Salzburg instead of deciding to go skiing again (I can always go skiing near Tahoe if I feel like it).  The city was gorgeous.  We went up the hill to castle, and the views were spectacular.  We could see both the city and the countryside - the countryside kept reminding me of 'The Sound of Music.' 

View of Salzburg

In Salzburg, I also got to see the Duomo and the Residenz, but unfortunately not Mozart's birthplace (ran out of time).  That night, we had one of our best dinners on the trip - ribs!

One more stop - Munich.

Topdeck Travel: Trail to the Alps - Part V (Venice)

After a fantastic trip to Rome, we were ready for our last city in Italy - Venice.  We left Rome in the morning, and just before arriving in Venice, we made a quick stop in Verona, the home of Romeo and Juliet.  We got the chance to walk around a bit, see some shops, and stop at the main tourist site - the fictional Juliet's balcony. 

We didn't visit the islands of Venice until the following day, but we did have a delicious group dinner on the mainland.  The restaurant was in a residential district, so it was actually kind of cool to see a residential part of Italy, and the pasta we had was delicious!

The next day was so exciting.  I had heard that Venice was known to disappoint, that it was an over-hyped, hot and humid swamp.  My experience was quite the opposite.  I had a wonderful time and thought the city was incredibly unique (it seemed like the entire city was a tourist attraction).  For us, the weather was just fine (although it was January - I can imagine it being quite hot in the summer).

Once on the islands, we did a quick walking tour before getting some time to stroll around ourselves.  It wasn't too hard to navigate.  We saw the Piazza San Marco, along with St. Mark's Basilica and the Campanile.  We also saw the Bridge of Sighs.  Our tour guide even pointed out the Church where they filmed the scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  In addition, we also got our included gondola ride, which was a lot of fun.

The Grand Canal

Another view of the Grand Canal

St. Mark's Campanile

Well, that's it for Italy - next stop: Austria!

Topdeck Travel: Trail to the Alps - Part IV (Rome)

Finally, all roads lead to Rome!  This was the point of the trip I was waiting for.  To see ancient Rome and the Vatican.

We arrived at Rome in the later afternoon.  We were staying in a very nice hotel on the west end of the city.  That evening, we walked around the city to explore some of the major, yet quick sites, like the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain (it was sadly undergoing renovations at the time).  I still remember the sense of awe when we suddenly walked out into the open and the Pantheon was right in front of us.  We topped off the evening with a nice dinner, followed by a walk to the Colosseum.

The Pantheon

The Colosseum at Night

The next day, we started off with a guided tour of the Vatican Museums.  The collection was incredibly vast, and the tour guide was excellent and extremely knowledgeable.  I still remember gazing up at the Sistene Chapel and finishing up the tour in St. Peter's Basilica.  It was an describable experience being in such a holy place.

View of St. Peter's Basilica (from the Roman Forum)

After finishing up in the Vatican, the group and I got some quick lunch and then went off to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.  We decided to go in without a guide, but it was still fairly easy to navigate.  We started off in the Colosseum and then walked all around the forum.  I've been at old sites before, but none this old.  Being at a place that was active some two thousand years ago is something I cannot easily describe in words.  All I can say is that it was difficult to comprehend sometimes that I was standing in a spot where the Roman emperors used to walk. 

The Colosseum

Inside the Colosseum

Arch of Constantine

As the sun began to set, I headed back to the hotel in preparation for another big destination - Venice.

Topdeck Travel: Trail to the Alps - Part III (Milan, Pisa, and Florence)

Out of the Alps, we were on our way to Italy.  One of the exciting parts about this trip was that each time we visited a new country, it was my first time in that country.  Every few days, I would get to cross a new country off of the list, and of all the countries on the trip, Italy was the one I was most excited about.

Our first city to visit was Milan.  We arrived in the late afternoon, and after check-in, we got a walking tour of the city.  We started off at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping center and as we exited, the Cathedral was right there in front of us.  It was a gorgeous site.  Unfortunately, there were a lot of scammers in the square in front of it, so that was a little annoying.  We then went over and caught a glimpse of the Sforza Castle.  We topped off the evening with some excellent Italian food (pizza, of course).

Milan Cathedral

The next day, we were on our own to explore the city.  I went out with a group to the Cathedral.  They were going to walk all the way up to the roof, but I wasn't in the mood to climb all those stairs, so I went out on my own.  I took the subway to see the Castle Sforza in the daylight.  It was a nice little walk.  I then grabbed some lunch before meeting back with the team.  That afternoon, we were on our way to Florence, but first, we had a quick stop in Pisa.

Pisa, although quick, was awesome.  We arrived near sunset and got a great view of the leaning tower.  I didn't realize it beforehand, but there's also a Cathedral at the site, and it was simply beautiful (at least on the outside - I didn't get the chance to go in).

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Now to Florence, my favorite city in the whole trip.  One of the unique things that surprised me was the lack of cars in the city center.  They do a good job at not allowing them in.  We actually had to walk a bit to get to our hotel from the bus. 

In the morning, we got a formal walking tour of the city, including a demonstration at a leather shop.  Our guide was excellent!  The only downside is that we were in town on a Monday, so all of the major museums were closed (Thus, we didn't get to see the real David statue, just the fake one outside the museum).

Afterwards, I went with a bunch of the crowd to have pizza (yes, more pizza) at one of the local restaurants where apparently one of the cast members from Jersey Shore worked for a bit.  With my belly full, it was time to explore the city.  One of the other travelers and I went into one of the smaller museums.  It was ok, although it was pretty cool to see Galileo's telescopes. 

Next, on the recommendation from our driver, we hiked up to the viewpoint at Piazzale Michaelangelo.  It was just fantastic - one of the best views on the whole trip!  Next, we hiked down to two final stops: the Basilica of Santa Croce, where many famous people (Galileo, Machiavelli, Dante, and Michaelangelo) are buried, and the Florence Duomo.  That night, we had a group dinner at one of the new food courts in the city.

View of Florence

In all, this was definitely one of the most interesting segments of the trip, as it had my least favorite stop (Milan) and most favorite (Florence) right next to each other.

Topdeck Travel: Trail to the Alps - Part II (Switzerland)

After our visit to Paris, we were on our way for the long drive to Switzerland.  Yep, we left Paris early in the morning and drove most of the day.  That's one of the key things about these trips: you really just get an introduction to each city, and then you're off to the next one.  For me though, that was fine, as I can always go back later now that I've been and am comfortable getting around in Western Europe).

Even though it was pretty long, the drive was gorgeous.  The French countryside was idyllic with its small villages, and the road up the Alps was breathtaking.  The mountains are so prominent!  I've seen mountains plenty of times (having visited Lake Tahoe a bunch), but I was still blown away by the beauty of the Swiss Alps.

On this trip, we visited the town of Engelberg, near Lucerne.  The main attraction was going up Mt. Titlus (about 10,600').  We took the cable car all the way up to the mountain.  On the top, the views were spectacular.  We also got to walk through an ice cave inside a glacier.  We ended the afternoon with some souvenir shopping and a nice Swiss lunch.

View from Mt. Titlus

Swiss lunch

The next day, we were off to Milan, but we first made a stop in Liechtenstein.  We were there for a couple of hours, which was about all we really needed.  We saw the sights and went the to souvenir shop. 

Liechtenstein

Then, it was off to our next destination - Milan.

Topdeck Travel: Trail to the Alps - Part I (Paris)

This is post on something I did a while back, but it's something I feel that I should really mention, as it was such an experience (main point: It was incredible!).  I'm writing this for anyone who wants more info on what it's like to go on a Topdeck Travel trip.

A while back, I took one of the winter tours to Europe with Topdeck travel.  I had a ton of vacation saved up, but no one to travel with.  I was single at the time, and most of my friends, family, or co-workers either couldn't take the time off or couldn't afford the trip.  I wanted to go to Europe badly, and I wasn't comfortable going to the mainland, where English is not as widely spoken, completely on my own for the first time. 

For a while, I wasn't aware of companies that offered travel for young people or solo travels, so when I started finding out about them, I got insanely excited and began researching them inside and out.  After looking through the companies and available trips, I decided on the Topdeck Travel Trail to the Alps trip.  It had the major sites that I wished to visit, and it was a hotel trip, not a hostel trip.

I flew out to London a few days before the trip started so I could see some extra sights and also visit family.  As the time approached, I was definitely getting nervous.  Would the people be friendly?  Would this be a fun two weeks?  Would there be a storm in the ferry crossing, etc.   I barely slept the night before trip check-in.  Shortly put, none of that happened (minus the storm, but it actually wasn't that bad).

We started off with an early morning drive from London to Dover.  We met our trip leader in London, but the driver was actually waiting for us in Calais.

Upon arriving in Paris, we checked into our hotel and had our kick-off dinner.  This was my first visit to Paris.  After driving through the suburbs and then seeing the inner part of the city, it seems like they just take all the trash in the city and dump it in the suburbs.  The city is quite clean, while there was trash and litter everywhere on the outskirts. 

After the dinner, we got a driving tour of the city, including the Eiffel Tower.  It was an incredible sight to see.  And of course, the trip leader gives us tips and strategies to avoid the hecklers (she gave us tips in other cities as well).

Eiffel Tower

The next day, I got up early and started touring the city with one of the other tourists.  We kicked off early at Notre Dame.  I must say, I was pleasantly surprised and impressed.

Notre Dame

Next, we walked over to the Louvre.  Even taking the less common entrance, the wait was long.  I can't imagine what this place would be like in the summer.  That said, the first thing we did once we were in was go straight to the Mona Lisa.  With that out of the way, we spent some time touring the remainder of the museum.  Topdeck had a group bike ride scheduled, but I forgot the time, so I accidentally missed it (it was no big deal).

The Mona Lisa

We then went over the to Eiffel Tower again to see if we could go up, but it was was too foggy, so we went over the the Arc de Triomphe.  It was pretty amazing to see in person.  Just as amazing though was the Etoile roundabout intersection around the monument.  Twelve streets coming to an intersection with no stoplights or stop signs. 

Arc de Triomphe

After a nice walk down the Champs-Elysees, the last main sight I saw was Les Invalides to see Napoleon's tomb.  The day wrapped up with a tasty dinner back near Notre Dame.

And that concludes our time in Paris.  One of the things I really liked about Topdeck is that they give you a mix of group activities and self-exploration time, so you can see things with the group and also wander around on your own.  In the next post, I'll write about the portion of the trip in Switzerland!

A Weekend in Wine Country

Ok, so time for my first real post.  After living in the Bay Area for some time, I've finally had the chance to visit wine country.  In this post, I'm going to give a review of some of the spots we went to on our day and a half long visitIf anyone asks, I may expand this post to write individual reviews of some of the different places along the visit.

Late on a Friday afternoon, my girlfriend and I drove up to Napa from the South Bay.  As any local knows, Friday traffic can be atrocious, and this day was no exception (We crawled along at about 10mph through most of San Francisco).  We finally arrived at the Westin Verasa Napa (in Napa, CA) around 8:00.  Check-in was fairly quick, and even though my SPG Suite Night Award didn't go through, we were still able to snag a suite upgrade.

We chatted with the bellboy about some places to eat, and have gave some good suggestions for dinner - both a sushi place and a steak house.  I was pretty tired and didn't feel like anything too heavy, so naturally I defied common sense and went for the steakhouse.  We took the house car to Cole's Chop House a few minutes away, and it was well worth it.  The staff was excellent, and the food was delicious.  I got the filet.  We shared a baked potato, and I had a nice Manhattan to drink.  I would definitely recommend the place.

Coles Chop House

We slept in the next morning and had our breakfast at the hotel.  The service was a little delayed, but it was no big deal.  Breakfast was pretty tasty, and we got to lounge around by the pool area.  All in all, I'd say the hotel was pretty nice (It wasn't bad by any means),  but it probably wasn't worth the rate they normally charge.

The Westin Verasa Napa - Pool

The Westin Verasa Napa - Courtyard

Fruit Bowl Breakfast

Our first stop was BV vineyards (no appointment required == awesome in my book).  I've enjoyed their wines in the past and was really excited to visit.  We decided to opt for the Reserve Tasting Room ($15 more) since we were there and I've never tried their fancier wines.  The place wasn't too crowded at all, and the gentleman at the counter was quite friendly.  We each ordered the reserve tasting and WOW!  This is definitely the best Cabernet I have ever had.  My favorites ended up being the Tapestry blend, the Latour Cabernet, and the Clone 6 Cabernet (only available at the winery).  We walked out with four bottles!

Latour Cabernet at BV Tasting Room

Our next stop was Frog's Leap winery only a few minutes away.  I got the recommendation from both my Lonely Planet and Moon travel guides.  The scenery and atmosphere was spectacular.  We had a reserved patio seating with wine and cheese.  The atmosphere was much better than BV (although a patio by a garden is naturally much nicer than a standard tasting room), but I thought BV still had better wine.  Being done with wineries for the day, we stopped by a local Taqueria before the beautiful drive to Petaluma.

Frog's Leap Winery

For Sonoma, we stayed at the Sheraton Sonoma in Petaluma.  I wasn't expecting much (in consultant speak, it's only an SPG Level 4), but I was pleasantly surprised.  Again, being a Platinum member, we got upgraded to a suite, and it was a wonderful room with a massive bathroom (and the pool was really nice too).

For dinner, we drove to downtown Petaluma for some Italian dinner.  The place, Risibisi, was cute, but the food was just ok (maybe I had just eaten too much of the calamari appetizer).  Also, downtown Petaluma gets really sketchy after dark (almost like downtown San Jose), so that wasn't too fun.

Risibisi

For Sunday morning, we were off to one more winery, Gundlach-Bundschu, before heading home.  Again, I got this one from my Lonely Planet and Moon travel guides.  The location on the hillside was beautiful.  I accidentally walked into the tasting room first, but then realized our reservation was for the lake outside (thankfully, since the tasting room was really crowded).  This place was amazing.  The wine was absolutely wonderful, and so was the food they served with it (my girlfriend loved the chutney).  To give you an idea, I ended up buying a full case of wine.

Our Table at Gundlach-Bundschu

Wine Tasting all to Ourselves!

View from the Tasting Area

With the last winery visit complete, we were on our way home.  One last big thing for the trip was driving back on the Golden Gate Bridge.  It was absolutely beautiful - even better than the pictures.  I'd definitely love to walk or bike across it in the near future.

All in all, I can safely say my first trip to wine country was a blast!  I would definitely recommend a visit to anyone, even the novice wine lover.  The Napa Valley was beautiful, and it wasn't insanely crowded like everyone says (although there were a decent amount of people).  The prices were high, but the people still seemed friendly and genuine.  Sonoma was really nice and much more laid back.  It was still a bit crowded in my opinion though, and definitely avoid downtown Petaluma at night.

One final piece of advice - go to wine country to enjoy the wine, and if you go to many wineries, it's ok to use the spittoon (you won't hurt anyone's feelings, and it's difficult to enjoy fine wine when you're drunk).  I was actually a bit shocked that for the whole weekend, I didn't see anyone else use one.

All of My Wines from the Trip

What You're In For . . .

Hello everyone,  I'm Bryan, a tech consultant in Silicon Valley.  I've had quite a few experiences in life and have learned many lessons throughout school and my career, so I've decided to write a blog to share my thoughts, experiences, and lessons with others.  The topics will cover a wide range: travel advice and reviews (expect a lot of hotel and restaurant reviews), career and life lessons, style tips, life in the Bay Area, and maybe even favorite books and recipes - all written up with a hint of sarcasm ;-).  I sincerely hope that you enjoy reading the blog as much as I enjoy writing it!