Guys Who Travel Articles

I was excited to stay at the Andaz this trip to Singapore, we had stayed at the Andaz in Tokyo and had a splendid stay (despite the location not be the best). My expectations were set high with this hotel and to be honest, we were a little let down by a few things.

Experiencing new lounges is always the fun part of traveling. So when we had a three hour layover at LAX, we wanted to take advantage of the new Star Alliance lounge. Brad had already done the research and figured out that we can get there without leaving security, and it would take us about 20 minutes each way. So after disembarking our United plane in Terminal 7, we started the hike. The lounge is located in the Tom Bradley International Terminal which is 4 terminals away from were we normally land with United.

Japan is one of our favourite places on earth. From all the places we have visited we find Japan has the most wonderful, if not quirky, culture. The people will bend over backwards to help you, the cities are clean, everyone is polite and NO TIPPING. Zak visited Japan for the first time in August 2015. Brad and I (Steven) have been numerous times.

We are fans of observation decks in any city and we always make a point of making a trip to whatever deck we can. The Olympic Tower was not even on our radar and to our surprise was one of the best, maybe the best observation deck that we have been to.

Today is our first day in Beijing. The visibility and air quality seems to be great so we are tackling the Great Wall today. We are heading to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, it is the less direct route than the other section of the wall but we were told this was the place to visit. So we begin our journey this morning after chowing down a very early breakfast at 6:30am at the hotel.

We are on our way to Las Vegas and we have had to make an overnight stop in Houston due to a connection issue. Don't be alarmed, but it was a security issue.

I'm travelling to Singapore for one day.

We are spending Canadian Thanksgiving weekend in Tokyo this year. Brad found a seat sale that couldn't keep us away. Our hotel this trip is the Andaz, a beautiful, new, modern hotel near the Shinbashi station.

Our route home from Japan included a leg from Abu Dhabi to New York (JFK) on the Etihad A380 in the Apartments. The leg is the reason why we planned this trip to Japan in the first place, we managed to get a points ticket in order to enjoy a one-of-a-kind travel experience.

Today we started our journey home to Toronto. We started from Sapporo and flew to Haneda (Tokyo) tonight. We are staying the night at Haneda and the really journey starts tomorrow. We are taking JAL Business class to Singapore, Etihad Business to Abu Dhabi, and then Etihad Apartments (First) to New York where we transfer to American airlines for our final leg. It will be an exciting adventure, and a long one.

Today we embark on a 10 day trip to Japan. What prompted this trip was an opportunity to fly home using points in the fabulous Etihad Apartments. More about that later. So building around this flight we decided to travel to parts of Japan we have yet to explore: Sapporo and Nagoya.

Normally I am a hotel traveler when I go on holiday; it’s the fastest simplest way to make a plan of where to stay. From individual hotel sites to aggregate sites like Expedia, Kayak or Hotels.com, I’ve always done quick and easy online bookings to secure my travel plans. Last fall when I decided to do a little California roadtripping I figured it was the perfect opportunity to try out some new accommodations experiences and compare options along the PCH from LA to San Francisco.

Fallingwater is a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright nestled in the woods in Pennsylvania. I have wanted to visit this house for a while to check out this amazing piece of history and architecture. My curiosity was piqued when I started collecting Lego Architecture sets and Falling Water was one of the sets you could purchase. Finally, this past birthday, Brad special ordered the Lego set (it has been discontinued) so we booked a trip down to PA. My rule is that I won't build the set until I see the real thing, so I was excited to finally make it down.

In order to retain status, Brad had to work in a trip that will give him enough miles to once again reach 1K status with United. Brad will be heading to Hawaii for a whopping 4 hours, turning around, and then heading back to Toronto.

In order to reach my goal of 100,000 status miles with United, I'm going to fly to Singapore for a day. It may take me 24 hours to get there and 24 hours to get home, but Business First for cheap was very tempting.

Last night we returned from a very short trip to Costa Rica. We left on Saturday and got back into Toronto on Monday night. So two full nights in Costa Rica, it was a seat sale on Copa Airlines that paid us in United status miles and for $270 CAD return, who couldn't say no?

As a freelancer in the TV industry, I enjoy the benefits of contract work, like taking breaks between jobs if I can manage it. My main gig involves a LOT of air travel across Canada and around the world, so when it came to planning for a September hiatus, I had a simple goal: less airport, more open road.

No it isn't déjà vu. I'm on my way to Hong Kong again only two weeks after the last trip to the same city. Am I crazy? Maybe. But the deal was about $600 per return ticket and the trip to Hong Kong has a great reward at the end: United 1K.

?One word of advice if you are planning to buy a SIM card for use in Japan -- buy it at the airport when you land!! It was surprisingly difficult to find a tourist-friendly SIM card to buy elsewhere in the country.

August 18th we embark on a two week long trip to Japan. Steven, Brad, Zak and our friend Alen will be joining us. We are stopping in Chicago on the way for a day then Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto and ending in Tokyo.

I always equate Maui as paradise with the comfort of America. Beautiful beaches, resorts and a Costco to pick up liquor.

If you want to shop and eat just like you never left the mainland this is the island to go. Waikiki has everything you would find in a mainland America mall... but just a lot closer to the beach.

Having being to Hawaii more than a handful of times, I have some tips for visiting the islands. As I continue to visit the islands, I'll continue to build on this information.

Saturday night, August 27, 2015, I went viral. Not in a health way, but in a social media way. I attended Kelly Clarkson in Toronto at the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre, took a video of her singing Blank Space by Taylor Swift and posted it to YouTube.

Brad and I (Steven) visited the Milan Expo 2015 this past week. The park is still "new" as it just opened last week. Although we didn't get to experience all the pavilions we did cover a lot of countries within the 10 hours that we were there.