Nile Guide.com

Not that I should be talking about other travel websites when I'm trying to get you all to look at mine but I figure hey might as well share my competitive research. The Internet is all about sharing right?

So check out www.nileguide.com where you can plan and book your trip all in one place.


It's all about building your guide by picking a destination, choosing your favorite places, organizing the list and booking any hotels, etc, that are needed and then printing it out as your itinerary.

1) Simply click around and add restaurants, things to do, and more to your list.
2) Go into your "guide" area and select the number of days you will be there.
3) Select a day and drag/drop each item into a slot.
4) Print your guide.

Or if you are lazy you can use someone else's guide! There's also hot deals and the ability to look for flights although it's not very integrated.

I decided to test it out using my Africa itinerary and here are the problems I found:

1) I can't search for a hotel specifically I can only filter the options they provide.
2) You can add things to your guide but once in your guide you can't click on them to learn more.
3) I couldn't figure out how to delete items once I put them in my "guide."
4) You have to sign up for an account to share your trip. Lame.

Nile Guide also just launched an iPhone App where you can access your itinerary from your phone and find things to do based on your location. You can read more about it here.

We Did It!

Thanks for all the help readers!

You can now directly access the Travel Addict Facebook page at:

www.facebook.com/TAddict

Travel-Addict on Facebook

At the top of my blog you'll see a little Facebook widget.

As of right now it says 85 fans.

If you aren't already a fan please become one so that you can get updates on what Travel-Addict is doing.

If we can get to 100 fans then Travel-Addict can have it's own vanity URL on Facebook.

Please help!

Drinking for Charity

This last weekend I rolled down to Hermosa Beach for the 7th Annual Hermosa Beach Pub Crawl. The theme, like last year, was Hawaiian. My costume was Dawn, the Head Shark Trainer for the Grand Wailea Resort in Hawaii. The costume featured a golden fanny pack, a tank top ripped to shreds and three laminated fish hanging from my waist.


As I mentioned the purpose of the pub crawl is to raise money for a select charity. This year the charity was Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America (www.ccfa.org). Every year the charity changes to fit what is going on with the organizers. The Crohn's Foundation was chosen because the grandfather of one of the wives of an organizer passed away from it last year. Previous charities have been Locks of Love, Mattel Children's Hospital, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation and The Lance Armstrong Foundation.

That meant at the first bar you provided $10 for the charity and received a raffle ticket for prizes at the last bar. The first bar was called Shark's Cove and the featured drinks were $4 Apple Kamikazes, $11 Domestic pitchers and $14 Premium pitchers. As you enter the bar you can order drink in the back right area and then the rest of the bar consists of a spread of tables and a couple of booths. We snagged a booth and proceeded to play drinking games for the hour we would be at that bar.


After a couple of pitchers I realized it was my turn to buy the next round so I headed over to the ATM to get cash out. I went through the whole process and then failed to get my $40! AHH! I hate bar ATMs. They are so worthless! I complained to the bar manager who mentioned that they'd been down all morning. I then suggested MAYBE YOU SHOULD PUT A SIGN ON IT and stormed back to our table to apologize for coming back empty-handed. One of the guys got up and went to purchase a pitcher. He came back with $40 in his hand and handed it to me. "I found this in the ATM," he said (apparently the ATMs had come back online). So nice of him! This kid didn't even know me and he was that honest??! Sweet! To reward him I gave him one of my fish.


The fish-giving would soon become a theme of the afternoon. Anytime someone did something nice or clever they would receive a fish. If they made a bonehead comment or did something stupid they had to give it back. The last rule was that anyone could try and steal your fish so you had to guard it with your life (yes we are lame).

After an hour we headed to the next bar, The Lighthouse. We were greeted by a small band. The singer was entertaining to be sure and was happy to take our song requests (some of which she sadly refused to play). Of the bars on the crawl, Lighthouse, was one of the few I'd already been to as my friend's band, Shaimus, plays there often. They have pretty good food too! Unfortunately, the pub crawl drinks here were $5 SoCo Lime Shots. Ick. I drank a few beers instead. This bar wasn't nearly exciting enough so we went to the next bar a little early. But, not before we grabbed the first card for our poker hand.


To keep crawlers entertained, the organizers had arranged a little game to play as you went from bar to bar. At each stop, starting with the second bar, each team would select a playing card from the deck. They would use this card, and the four cards from the last four bars to create a poker hand. The best poker hand won a prize.

Fat Face Fenner's Fishshack or FFFF was across the street and upstairs. This was by far my favorite bar on the crawl. It's a tiny little bar made up of two decks and an indoor area to order drinks. The decks were great because it was a hot day and you could stand outside and heckle people walking below. It also allowed for you to get some air. Plus, the bar just had a lot of personality and $3 Bud Light Drafts... mmm. It was here that I lost my second fish. One of the guys had walked by me and said, "Smells fishy," which got an involuntary chuckle out of me so I had to relinquish the second of my three prizes. I would have to guard the last one carefully. Before leaving we grabbed our second playing card.


The fourth bar was Sangria. I have to say at this point that all the bars in Hermosa look exactly the same. The pub crawl was being held on the Hermosa Pier Boardwalk which is just a giant line of bars. And as I said they all look the same - wooden-walled, spacious, sports bars. So there wasn't much to say about Sangria other than I was forced to take a $3 Mystery Shot. Thanks to the mystery shot I somehow also lost my third fish. I assume someone must have stolen it.


The fifth bar was Patrick Malloy's and it was standard too.


The last bar was the Poopdeck, which is the only other bar that I'd been to before. It's actually located on The Strand, which is the sidewalk along the beach. An ideal location. This bar was elevated above the others in my mind because it had fooze ball. I'm a sucker for fooze ball. Best of all it had $6 32. oz beers. I'm also a sucker for beer. It was the perfect end to the pub crawl. Unfortunately, it was also the perfect end to my memory.


The night ended at my friend's house watching "I Love You Man" as I contemplated what my hand of poker would've been had I remembered to grab cards from the last three bars. Oh well.

At least I helped a charity right?

World Weather

I've been searching for awhile for a site that shows when the best times to travel are. And I randomly came across it today.

World Reviewer Weather

http://www.worldreviewer.com/world-weather/

You can select by month and the globe changes to show what areas are too hot, too cold, and too wet. It also gives approximate temperatures and rainfall. Click a country to see top reasons to travel there too!

It's amazing. Try it out!

Awesome Austin - Part Deux

As promised, Part Two of my Austin trip!

Sunday, May 24th

Coming off a crazy party night on Sixth Street we weren't feeling too well this morning. We made the hungover decision that Mexican breakfast sounded amazing and found ourselves walking into El Sol y La Luna at Red River Street and 6th St. I had an omeletto while my boyfriend ordered the Huevos Rancheros. I wish my headache/stomache had allowed me to enjoy it more but it tasted like it would've been good if my tongue didn't feel like cardboard. The atmosphere was cheerful, the decor colorful, and the service homey.


From there we took a cab to the University of Texas to see my mom's alma mater. The campus is HUGE. I definitely wouldn't have commited to walking across it had I known. We desperately tried to find a way up to the top of the infamous Tower but apparently tours are only available during the school year. The Tower was the site of a snipping incident and a suicide and has only been open for the past couple years after being closed due to these tragedies.


We lost interest and wandered down to the football stadium and store. The store was filled with pictures of the Longhorns brutalizing the Trojans during the National Championship. It made me want to throw something heavy through the front window so I had to be removed.

Next up was Guadalupe Street which is the home base to buy all things college. There was a yummy frozen yogurt shop where you could create your own dish! There were also some cute boutiques but nothing really caught my interest.


Originally, we had chosen Austin as our Memorial Weekend destination because it coincided with the annual Austin Wine Festival. Once we got to Austin we found so many things to do that we weren't sure we wanted to drive all the way out to where the festival was being held (it's not near downtown). But at this point we had sort of run out of things to do and our hangovers were finally subsiding so it was time to start drinking again. We hailed a cab and headed to the festival.

In retrospect I am SO glad we did. I think the cab was about $40 which is definitely steep but not as expensive as we were expecting. Keep in mind, if you ever go, you can take the metro there but it takes awhile and we are very impatient. The wine festival was awesome and had a wide range of great wines. It has actually converted me to drinking white wine which I used to look upon with disdain. They also had this slushy made with peach flavored wine that was so refeshing and delicious. Eventually it started to rain so we packed back into the cab and went back to the hotel.


For dinner we tried to go the famous Stubb's BBQ restaurant but apparently they close early on Sundays. LAME. So we ended up on Sixth Street at Casino El Camino, famous for burgers. I'm learning that every restaurant in Austin seems to be famous for some type of food. The restaurant was really crowded and first come first serve for a table so we ended up in the outdoor patio, which we actually preferred. The place reminds me of the vampire bar in True Blood. It's dark and smokey with low red lighting and strange tribal drawings on the walls.


I was trying to be open to new foods so I ordered the Amarillo burger with roastes Serrano chiles, jalapeno jack cheese and cilantro mayonnaise. It took forever to get our order but when it came we were happy to see that the burgers were gigantic! Unfortunately, after one bite my eyes, noses, and mouth started watering from the searing hot peppers. You would think that four years of working at Albertsons in the produce department would have taught me the difference between Serrano and Anaheim peppers (although in my defense they look EXACTLY the same). It ended up being so hot I literally couldn't finish my burger. Luckily, the fries were amazing and not hot so I just filled up on those.

To see the full menu click here.

After dinner, we decided to go to Speakeasy, a bar meets concert venue meets club. The bottom floor contains a bar and a stage area, the second floor is more like a landing that looks out over the stage, and then the roof is an outdoor club. We were pretty exhausted and hungover AGAIN so we just sipped beers from the landing and watched some of the music acts that were playing.
I was literally falling asleep in my Heineken so we decided to call it a night.


Monday, May 25th

Today is our last day in Austin and boy have we taken full advantage of our time here. We decided to spend the remainder of our morning before heading to the airport at Cafe Crepe. Run by real life French staff the crepes are both authentic and legit. It took FOREVER to get them though which was kind of annoying. The taste was almost worth the wait - my strawberry, fudge and vanilla ice cream crepe was the perfect breakfast.


It was also the perfect end to the trip.

Awesome Austin - Part One

This blog didn't exist back during Memorial Day Weekend so we're going to go back a few months so I can tell you all about my trip to Austin, Texas. Eventually Travel-Addict.com will have domestic information but for now you can read about it here.

I was in Austin for about three days so I will be telling my in two parts.

Today's blog is Part One:

Friday, May 22nd

We arrived relatively late at night in Austin and took a taxi to the Hilton Austin at the corner of 4th Street and Neches. It is the perfect location with Sixth Street two blocks away! The rooms were really nice with a tasteful southern charm to the decor and plenty of space to sprawl out.



It was pretty late so we strolled Sixth Street looking for something late night to eat. We came across Daddy's Bar & Grill.


The inside of the Bar is a pretty standard bar when you first look in. There are a few flat screens, a couple arcade games, and tall picnic-like tables to sit at. But, then you walk up to the bar and see an array of amazing local brews to choose from and you realize you have just walked into BEER HEAVEN.

Then they serve up a menu chalk full of the fattiest, drippiest, sauciest dishes from jalapeno poppers to chicken wings to "The Coronary," a 1/3 lb. burger covered in cheddar, monterey jack, fried pickles, double bacon and ranch dressing. Heartattack is definitely an appropriate name for it. I personally went with the "Tex Mex" which was a burger with guacamole, cheddar, chopped tomatoes and onions. It was finger-lickin' good.

To see the full menu click here.

After clogging our arteries, we ventured outside into the craziness of Friday night on Sixth Street. If I went based solely off outfit choices I'd say the streets were filled with cowboys, frat boys, and hookers. I felt sorrily underdressed in flipflops and a sundress and wished I'd brought my Boobs-Ass-Legs outfit so that I could fit in with the other girls.


We were waaaay too sober to join in the fun at 12am in the morning so we headed back to the hotel.

Saturday, May 23rd

We woke up this morning to crowds of people headed for brunch and hoped desperately that we would beat them out for a table at the Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill a couple blocks down the street from the hotel.

Moonshine is a really beautifully decorated building that is definitely what you would expect of a bar in Texas. It literally oozes rich mahogany and sunshine and smells incredible even from the patio. The brunch menu ranged from Grilled Jalapeno Breakfast Sausage to Cornflake Fried Chicken Tenders. It was clearly going to be another artery-clogging day.

Having eaten the "California Diet" of greens, soup, and fat free [insert food item here], I tried to find something on the menu that wouldn't make me feel ten pounds heavier. I opted for the Stone-Baked Pizza with goat cheese, artichokes, and roasted garlic which was soooooo good. Goat cheese, artichokes and garlic are literally three of my favorite foods so there was no way I was passing it up.

You can see all their menus on the website at www.moonshinegrill.com.

After brunch we headed down Cesar Chavez St to South Congress, which is well-known for its shopping and of course....more food. The shopping was relatively pricey and not really to my taste so we didn't spend much time in the stores. We did pictures of all the strange food options that line the street in little trailers and stopped by a puppy adoption fair.



From there we backtracked to Barton Springs Road and walked towards the famous Zilker Park. Along the way we passed Sno-Beach, a trailer on the side of the road selling snow cones. The Texan heat and humidity was reaching an all-time high for the day so we gave in and decided to order one.


The menu featured almost 50 different flavor options but I went for a half-in-half lemon/raspberry. They handed me the biggest snow cone I've ever seen. And it was like no snow cone I have ever tasted. Unlike the kind you get at Dodger games or the county fair (rock hard pieces of ice with flavoring dripped over it), these snow cones were made of the softest shaved ice. It was like eating flavored snowflakes and was strangely filling. It also took our internal temperature down a few degrees so that we could continue our walk.

We continued on our way to Zilker and in doing so passed some of the more famous restaurants in Austin including Shady Grove which was my mom's favorite restaurant back when she went to college at University of Texas. I desperately wanted to eat there but we were still digesting our brunch.


On the last stretch to the park we crossed a bridge over a small stream that leads from the Colorado River to Barton Springs Pool. This is a popular area for kayakers to enjoy a sunny day drifting down the stream. It's also super fun to bring a floating cooler of beer. We decided we would definitely be doing this tomorrow.


Finally, we made it to Zilker Park just as the sky opened up and the rain started to come down. The one feature the park seems to be missing is something to stand under when it rains, so we sprinted back towards the row of restaurants for some cover. After calling a taxi to take us back to the hotel, we passed out for a much needed nap after so much walking.


We woke up and perused the internet looking for a good restaurant for dinner. Lately, I've been really into Spanish Tapas so we went with that genre and convienently just such as restaurant was located about eight blocks down the street.

On our way to the restaurant we passed Congress Bridge to see the infamous flying bats. Literally, as the sun disappears below the horizon, thousands of bats emerge from under the bridge and take flight in massive clouds. If you've ever watched the T.V. show, LOST, they make a mass that looks JUST like the Smoke Monster. Apparently, the clouds they create are so dense that they get picked up by radar as rain clouds. I have to say that I was pretty skeptical when I heard this was a major passtime of tourists in Austin but after seeing the spectacle I, too, am now a believer. Note that they are only around mid-March through November. You can even join the Segway tour that spots here along the route.


Watching the bats had made us late for dinner but they honored our reservation anyway. We arrived at Malaga Tapas Bar and were seated near the front windows which gave me an excellent view of the restaurant. The restaurant glowed from the soft lighting creating a very romantic atmosphere.


The menu was amazing and we ordered everything from meat to tuna to chicken. My favorite by far was the Queso de Cabra Frito con Miel - four goat cheese cakes that are breaded and fried and then served with sweet red onion marmalade and honey. All the dishes come on these little stacks so they don't clutter the table. The wine list is also incredible. We chose to go all out and ordered two of the wine flights: The Spanish Flight and the Blanco Flight.


To learn more about this restaurant or see their menu visit www.malagatapasbar.com.

After dinner we decided to party on the infamous Sixth Street. We started off at the Library Bar near Trinity and 6th, then barhopped around there until we couldn't see straight anymore. The second bar we went to I think was called Cheer's Shot Bar and was my favorite by far. There was an upstairs roof area with a dance floor. My boyfriend even serenaded a lucky Bachelorette with the old BSB favorite, "You Are My Fire." He grossly misrepresented the lyrics but she was too drunk to care. We finally ended up at the Blind Pig Pub (can you tell why we choose this place?) which sadly was dirty than the USC 9-0 even to two drunks so around 3am, we stumbled home and passed out.

The Library

Cheer's Shot Bar

Blind Pig Pub

To see all the bars on Sixth Street visit this site and click on the maps in the left-hand column of links: www.6street.com.

For Part Two of this awesome weekend, check back tomorrow!