How Much Does it Cost to Ski in Europe

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The German Online Magazine Spiegel just published Ski Pass prices in Euros for five countries of the Alpes.  If you book a ski and fly package, some of the Ski Pass prices might be lower and are already included, together with the flight and accommodation.  

I have been skiing at most of these places while living in Europe and can assure you: it is a lot of fun, temperatures (aside from January) are mostly very pleasant and the "Apres-Ski" is just fabulous: wine & dine, dancing, night-skiing, Sauna (very popular!) skating, half-pipe snowboarding, in- and outdoor swimming, snowshoeing, or just sitting by the fire place.


6-Day Ski Pass in Switzerland (CH), Austria (A), France (F), Italy (I) and Germany (D)

Land	Skipass	Preis (Euro) 2015	Preis (Euro) 2014
CH	Zermatt-Val d'Aosta	385	367
CH	Zermatt-Cervinia	362	353
CH	Zermatt	317	309
CH	Engadin St. Moritz	304	304
CH	Qatre Vallées-Verbier	296	296
CH	Flims/Laax	297	293
F	Chamonix	285	282
F	Trois Vallées	283	277
CH	Jungfrau-Region	282	269
F	Les Arcs/La Plagne	277	277
CH	Davos/Klosters	277	276
CH	Gstaad Superpass	277	246
I	Dolomiti Superski	270	262
A	Ischgl Silvretta	265	257
I	Superskirama	263	257
F	Val d'Isère/Tignes	260	253
A	Ski 6 Austria	259	247
I	Aostatal	257	255
A	Obergurgl	253	246
A	Sölden	253	246
A	Stubaital	251	244
A	Kitzbüheler Alpen	249	241
A	Salzburg Superski	249	241
A	Arlberg	245	235
F/CH	Portes du Soleil	242	238
A	Kitzbühel	241	233
I	Ortler-Skiarena	237	232
A	Ski Amadé	234	227
A	Saalbach-Hinterglemm	233	227
A	Zell am See-Kaprun	232	225
A	Zillertal	230	224
A	Wilder Kaiser	225	219
A	Montafon	223	213
A	Top Ski Kärnten	222	216
D	Garmisch-Partenkirchen	221	212
D	Allgäu-T. Superschnee	217	213
D/A	Reit/Schneewinkel	215	206
A	Obertauern	211	206
D/A	Oberstdorf-Kleinwals.	210	205
A	3 Täler Vorarlberg	210	201
I	Sestriere/Via Lattea	190	188
D	Vitales Land	172	166
D	Alpen plus	162	156
D	Grasgehren	104	99
D	Oberammergau (5 Tage)	96	96
Dok.: srt; Kurs EUR/CHF: 1,2

(Swiss Franks is 1,2 times the Euro)

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Top Reasons for Booking a Cruise

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There are many good Reasons for booking a cruise:

Multiple Destinations - Unpack Only Once
Your floating hotel takes you from port to port or from island to island and there’s no need to pack and unpack, or to mess with train or ferry schedules, or lug your heavy suitcase along with you. Evening suit / tie and beautiful gowns are no longer required. So pack lightly!

Great Value
Get value for your vacation dollar because cruise fares include a fantastic trip: great food, accommodations, daytime and evening entertainment and transportation between travel destinations. Many cruise lines offer all this under $100 per person, per night, which is much cheaper than you would spend on land for a hotel, dinner and a show. On some cruise lines, kids even sail free or at discounted rates when sharing a cabin with two adults.

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Cruising is Social
If you love to meet people from around the country - and the world - cruising provides a wonderful opportunity to make new friends. On-board, you will meet people at your dinner table, at the piano bar, in the gym or pool-side.

Ships are Like Floating Cities
Cruise ships have everything you could possibly want on-board. Today's vessels are for example equipped with Wi-Fi, cell service and satellite TV so you can stay in touch with the world during your cruise (if you really want to).  On-board shops sell the toiletries you forgot to pack, medical centers can provide medications or a doctor's services if needed, and laundry facilities let you wash your clothes mid-cruise so you don't need to over-pack. Of course, there's also the fun stuff like gyms, multiple restaurants, movie screens, spas, swimming pools, theaters and discos.

Ships Offer a Variety of On-board Activities
Today's cruise ships are designed to keep everyone happy. Want to pamper yourself at the spa while your spouse hits the casino? Or lounge in the sun reading a book while your family plays basketball. You can go to an educational lecture, a wine tasting, a computer class or a dance workshop;

Cruise Ships are Family Friendly
Cruises are fun for all ages. You will have a vacation that your 5 to your 16-year-old will all love, and that has adult activities, too -- ships now have extensive kids' facilities, split by age.

Get Quiet Time and Places on a Cruise
If you can afford a balcony, get one. It becomes your own private refuge - and a wonderful place to sit and relax. You will also be able to find a number of quiet places on board during any cruise - certainly not the pool deck on days-at-sea, but in front of the long windows at a bar during the day, and a number of different decks, inside and out, where you will hardly ever see anyone.

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Grand Turks Island

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No Single Mosquito on Board!

What I love most on cruises: there is not a single mosquito on board!  Coming from Canada where you can only sit on your patio with a screen to keep these critters out, it is a pleasure to sit at night on your state room's balcony with the light on or a candle and read or watch the stars, without being bitten or having to spray yourself constantly.

So have lots of fun on your next cruise!

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More Useful Links:

·         Insider Tips for an Amazing Caribbean Cruise
Caribbean Cruise Insider Tips

·         Hand luggage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hand Luggage Requirements for Various Airlines

·         Cruises - First Time Cruisers - Cruise Critic
Advice for first-time cruisers; how to pick a cabin, get a bargain, what to pack.

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Dunn's Falls Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Useful Accessories for Any Trip, Not Only Cruises:

• I love the Delsey Luggage Helium Aero Carry-On Spinner Trolley.  Fits in overhead bins of all major air carriers, and holds a lot of clothing. You can carry it on board of your cruise ship, ready to check-in right away.  No longer waiting for your luggage!
• A charger is a must!  1,115 times a 5-Star review for the EASY ACCESS AKKU
• Want to watch the Whales and Dolphins?  Or discover the islands before anyone else? A high-quality, light-weight binocular brings even more fun to your cruise!

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Free Entrance at the Best Museums in Paris

Paris is undoubtedly one of world’s cities with the most important museums of historical and contemporary art and architecture.  Not only the recently opened, eye-catching feats of modern architecture in the world, the Louis Vuitton art museum, but dozens of outstanding, world-wide known places enchant locals and visitors alike. 


Get your Paris Pass
Free Metro Travelcard & Entry to 60+ Attractions 
It’s your all-in-one package and will save you time, money and stress, providing you everything you need to discover Paris!  

Examples of Paris Pass Benefits:
Free Entry to The Louvre Museum with the Paris Pass.  Normal Entry Price: Adult: €12.00
Home to hundreds of thousands of classic and modern masterpieces, the Louvre is the icing on the cake of French culture and a testament to European art history – it’s not surprising that it’s also the most visited art gallery in the world!

Centre Pompidou   
The National Museum of Modern Art at the Centre Pompidou houses one of Europe's most important collections of contemporary art.

Musée d'Orsay  
The Musée d'Orsay's light, airy rooms guide you through three floors of amazing modern art, from Degas' ethereal dancers to Monet's water lilies, all the way to Gaugin's leafy jungles. Major works by Van Gogh, Delacroix, Manet, and others are shown too.

Museum of Modern Art of Paris - Picasso Museum   
Contemporary art buffs will enjoy a visit of the city of Paris' museum of modern art, created in 1961 and housed in the distinctive Palais de Tokyo. The terrace outside the palace allows a striking view of the Eiffel Tower.

Rodin Museum   
In addition to Rodin’s iconic works such "The Thinker", the museum hosts an extensive sculpture garden that's a true pleasure to explore.

Carnavalet Museum   
Pay a visit to the Carnavalet Museum. Housed within the walls of two Renaissance-era mansions, the Hotel de Carnavalet and the Hotel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau.  The Musee Carnavalet in Paris includes an ornate garden.

Musée du Luxembourg   
Situated on the stately grounds of the Luxembourg Gardens, this museum is one of Europe's oldest, and was opened in 1750 as France's first state-run collection of paintings.

Musee Jacquemart-André  
This is another lesser-known gem in the Paris arts scene that focuses on masterpieces in 18th century painting. 

Louis Vuitton Art Museum    
The hyper-modern ship-like museum building opened its doors on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne park, on Monday in a glitzy ceremony attended by French president François Hollande.
Designed by architect Frank Gehry, known for designing the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum building in Bilbao, Spain, the striking structure boasts 12 glass sails which billow around the museum's main building - nicknamed 'the iceberg'.

There are certainly many more places for historical and modern art lovers to explore in Paris.  Which one is YOUR favored museum?

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UPS May Charge More for Last-Minute on Christmas

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UPS said it may charge customers more money for last-minute delivery. “If it [a late surge] creates challenges and adds costs we would charge a premium,” said Chief Financial Officer Kurt Kuehn to Reuters.  But that’s not all. “If it puts our service at risk, we would have to deny,” he added.

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If you remember last year - or if you were one of those who did not get a Christmas gift - a surge in online orders left two million express packages back in storages on Christmas Eve. This year, the company is doing its best to avoid that delivery nightmare.




55,000 Additional Workers
To meet the expected demand for the 2014 holiday season, UPS invested $500 million for infrastructure upgrades, including hiring up to 95,000 seasonal employees to “support the anticipated holiday surge,” according to a recent press release, while in 2013 the company hired only 55,000 additional workers.

What's more: UPS tests a new service called UPS Access Point in Chicago and New York locations to speed delivery and lower costs.  With this new feature, neighborhood grocery stores and convenience stores act as pick-up locations for packages when someone isn’t home at the time of delivery. UPS hopes to have the service available in over 4,400 stores by the end of 2015.

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What YOU Can Do:
Make everything better this year. Start shopping today for your Christmas Gifts.  Be smart:  the selection is larger, prices are lower and you have for sure more time (and fun) than in December.  Save yourself the hassle and maybe additional expenses of shopping two days before you want to present the gift. 

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Shakespeare and Company, Paris

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Every writer has heard about this bookstore in Paris, some have even bunked there, lots of articles have been written, from Wikipedia to The Guardian, but the most interesting story can be found at several pages of the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine.
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Twice the Same Name
It all started with the first store and library in 1919, named "Shakespeare and Company" by the founder Sylvia Beach, an American expatriate.  Her bookstore and lending library became a hangout for Lost Generation writers such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce, whose Ulysses was first published in its complete form by Sylvia Beach because authorities in Britain and America deemed it obscene. She closed up shop during the Nazi occupation and never re-opened.
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New Bookstore in 1951
Years later, another American, George Whitman, opened the present store at 37 rue de la Bûcherie, near Place Saint-Michel, just steps from the Seine, Notre Dame and the Île de la Cité. 
The shop has become a popular tourist attraction, even Frank Sinatra bought books there, and was featured in the Richard Linklater film Before Sunset and in the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Jacques Chirac were later customers too.  "Shakespeare and Company" and the late owner George Whitman have been the subject of Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man, a 2003 documentary film.
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Famous Writers
Writers who logged time at the current "Shakespeare and Company", sometimes even sleeping there, include Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Lawrence Durrell, Anaïs Nin, James Jones, and Ray Bradbury.  
Sylvia Whitman, the founders daughter, continues to run the store in the same manner as her father, allowing young writers to live and work there. Nathan Englander, the American novelist, was even married here in 2012.  Do read the companys "Le Blog" about current events.
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Characterizations by Writers

• C. J. Flood, a British writer whose first young-adult novel was published earlier this year: “I didn’t get as much writing done during my time there as I intended, but I certainly felt like a writer.”
• Dave Eggers:  “an absurd place—almost down to the last crooked corner and narrow staircase, it was the bookstore of my dreams.”
• Ethan Hawke: “It is definitely Dionysus’s favorite bookstore.” 

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What a Personality!
Lots of fun to read in Vanity Fair about the life of the late George Whitman, such as when he saved a writer who ran from the Riot Police in Paris after a demonstration, or how he arrived in Paris after serving during the war as a medic in Greenland. Whitman came to Paris in 1946 to study at the Sorbonne on the G.I. Bill, and used his G.I. book vouchers to start a lending library, but also started selling books.  When he opened the Shakespeare and Company bookstore he mentioned to his parents: "a niche where I can safely look upon the world’s horror and beauty.”
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A MUST When Visiting Paris
After reading the Vanity Fair feature In a Bookstore in Paris, about George Whitman and his literature obsession, you might as well buy a ticket to fly over and visit "Shakespeare and Company".  For sure more fun than ordering e-books online.  

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Amazing Destination for Nature Lovers: Grand Turks

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The Grand Turks Islands boast not only the most beautiful beaches in the world, especially for nature lovers, who can discover a very interesting flora and fauna in the “Turks”.

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Plants and Flowers
Agaves, called sisal locally, were commercially grown until the 1920’s. Today sisal plants – Agave – can be seen around the islands growing wild and some have been planted in the Museum Garden.
Native plants that can be found include the Turks Head Cactus, Sea-Island Cotton, a wide variety of Orchids, Native Oak and Mahogany (both used for boat building), Mangroves, Lignum Vitae, silver and green Buttonwood, Sea Grape, wild yellow Allamanda, Acacia, Sea Oats and Cordia.
There are also a wide range of plants that have been brought here such as Aloe Vera, Coconut and wild Pomegranate. G

Grand Turk Island's nature has fantastic objects for award-winning photos. Capture your memories! Amazing cameras at bottom prices  
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Bird Watching
The salt ponds and inland marshes serve as excellent feeding grounds for resident and migratory birds. Search for Great Blue Herons, Flamingos, Osprey and Pelicans alongside Egrets, Terns, Frigates, Boobies and other water birds.

As part of the National Parks system more than twelve small cays have been set aside and protected for breeding grounds. 170 species of bird can be found in the Turks and Caicos Islands from Pelicans and Flamingos to Osprey and Cuban Crows. These bird species provide a paradise for ornithologists.

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Travel Destination Marketing Organization Budgets

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My first thought:  It must be a typo, when I read that 71% of Destination Marketing Organizations spent 25,000$ or less for Social Media management.  Even more shocking are the numbers of 37% of these, who spent between $1 and $10,000 only in their yearly budget.  Only when the International Organization showed the stats on their website did I believe it.

Travel Decisions:  Online

We all know:  Travel is big business and content marketing (e.g. travel stories or destination guides), posted on Social Media, are a great way to wet the appetite of travellers to book and agencies to recommend traveling to these destinations.  68% of leisure travelers begin their search online without a destination in mind.  Travel information and decisions are almost made entirely online.  People shop around before booking a package. A lot. 76% of Americans get their information through Travel Review Websites, 61% book through Online Travel Agencies and TripAdvisor stats show for example that for hotels THE most important sales factor are images.  As more as better.  And where can potential travellers find images for their destination?  Exactly! On the internet / mobile phones!   There is no doubt that destination marketing organizations need to show lots of information, travel stories and tons of images!
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What to Accomplish With a Budget, Less Than $10,000?

There are not only budget concerns, but also problems to keep up with trends and technology for destination marketing organizations, and most important: the factor time.  Almost 30% of organizations pointed out that time is their biggest problem.  What better than to contract with a Social Media marketing specialist and a knowledgeable travel content writer to help with relatively low-priced online help?  Another important thing would be to train the Destination Marketing Organizations staff better, so that they can answer inquires from the press.  Years ago I asked a provincial travel organization in Canada (home of ten-thousands of floatplanes) for a list of float plane operators, or at least a handful of addresses.  They did not know…  Can you believe that!  Even though their main brochure showed a floatplane on the cover.  Something similar happened at a travel fair when inquiring about Native travel - the representative of the province denied that there are any Native travel offers…   Destination Marketing Organizations:  Get your act together: Online and Off-line!
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More Travel Planning Statistics:

http://fredericgonzalo.com/en/2014/10/16/8-etourism-stats-to-consider-for-2015/

http://www.destinationmarketing.org/industry-news

http://www.destinationmarketing.org/blog/big-reveal-budgets-staffing-and-future-social-media-dmos

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Top Ski Resorts at Big White, BC, Canada

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Big White was named one of the Top Ski Resorts from a world-renowned resort test portal based in Germany. After an assessment covering 18 stringent criteria, the site Skiresort.info awarded Big White 4.3 out of a possible five stars.
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Big White Ski Resort, awarded North America’s #1 Family Resort, is Canada's largest, totally ski-in ski-out resort village.  With over 2,765 acres (1,147 hectares) of skiable terrain on 118 runs serviced by 16 lifts, you will be entertained at any level. 

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"Champagne" Powder Snow
Big White is home to Canada’s longest six-passenger express chairlift, 4 high-speed express quads and an 8 passenger express gondola boasting a lift capacity of 28,000 skiers per hour - which means no lift line-ups.  At an average temperature of -6’C (21’F), Big White receives over 750 cm (24 feet) annually of the Okanagan’s finest "champagne" powder.  The official trail stats are 18% beginner, 54% intermediate, 22% advanced and 6% expert. 
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Shop Sports on Amazon - Gear Up

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In addition to downhill skiing and snowboarding, there are lots more fun winter activities, including snowshoeing, tubing, skating, snowmobiling, dog-sledding, horse-drawn sleigh rides and nordic skiing.  Enjoy!
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Where to Dine and Wine

Fabulous Globe Café and Tapas Bar offers not only a hearty breakfast buffet, with the best coffee in town, but also provides uniquely creative cuisine, particularly for après ski and dinner when they serve up a large range of interesting tapas to share with friends in a lovely décor and ambience.

The 6 Degrees Bistro in Stonebridge Lodge incorporates Italian and Mediterranean fare, which can be accompanied by a range of fine Okanagan wines.

Snowshoe Sam’s is the liveliest of après establishments or nightspots at Big White. It has a great pub atmosphere, and it’s also good for some inexpensive nosh. They offer live entertainment (Friday's and Saturdays) or a DJ during the week.

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Where to Stay?

Here are just three examples of dozens of accommodations in Big White:

http://www.chaletsatbigwhite.com/

http://skicrescendo.com/

http://www.chaletsatbigwhite.com/condos/bulcrk17/

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