In December 2018, we decided to layover in Doha, Qatar for a little over 24 hours to explore the city on our way to Bali. We arrived to DOH – Hamad International Airport in early afternoon and departed the following afternoon which gave us and afternoon and a morning to explore the city. In this…
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Barbados is the most easterly island in the Caribbean and populated by about 280,000 people. The island is formed by limestone rocks and measures about 430 square kilometers. Barbados is just north of the equator and far away enough from the hurricane belt that it usually gets spared from them. While less known than other…
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Winter is a time when many of us just want to get away from the cold and snow and it’s also the time when it’s the most difficult to travel. During the polar vortex, thousands of flights were cancelled and hundreds more today when a winter storm hit Southern Ontario. Like many travelers, we’ve experienced…
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Once upon a time, WestJet and American Airlines were partners, which mean that you could earn 100% of miles flown and credit them to AAdvantage. Since we weren’t going to fly enough to earn Air Canada status on the fares we were booking and we weren’t going to earn enough WestJet Rewards $ to make…
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As Canadians, we decided to fly on WestJet’s red-eye flight from YVR – Vancouver into CUN – Cancun Airport and take a shuttle to Playa Del Carmen to spend 2 days there, before hopping on a ferry to Cozumel. In this post, we share tips and information about taking the ferry from Playa Del Carmen…
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The island of Cozumel is about 10 miles wide and 30 miles long, which makes it quite small and easy to explore. Other than certain spots, it is also largely undeveloped. We had considered renting bikes but that would have limited us from riding from our hotel to town and perhaps a bit further, so…
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As airlines change fare structures to drive profits, travelers are faced with many more decisions about which fare to book based on their priorities. Not all fare classes will include 100% earnings for miles flown, some include access to seat selection while some don’t, some fares can be upgraded and some can’t, and different fares often…
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Based on the flying we have planned for this year, we have signed up for the Air Canada Status Challenge. Compared to other airlines, Air Canada doesn’t have a status match but has a status challenge. A status challenge requires you to complete requirements prior to receiving status vs a status match which gives you…
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The Maldives conjures images of white sand beaches dotted with palm trees, bright aqua ocean water with coral reefs brimming with colorful fish and postcard sunsets from the beach or over the water villas. With over 105 resorts scatted among 2,000 individual island, the Maldives is a bucket list destination where one can escape the…
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The Maldives conjures images of white sand beaches dotted with palm trees, bright aqua ocean water with coral reefs brimming with colorful fish and postcard sunsets from the beach or over the water villas. With over 105 resorts scatted among 2,000 individual island, the Maldives is a bucket list destination where one can escape the confines of large resorts to experience a vacation as a castaway on a small island. For budget travelers, it’s not the most cost-effective destination for the average tourist due to the high price of food and beverage, the additional costs of speedboat transfers or float plane tickets, the lack of cheap accommodation, and high taxes and fees added to everything.
In this post, I will share the table and criteria we used to compare 4 different hotel options in the Maldives to keep our costs at around $500USD per day.