Blogs from United States, North America - page 9

I cannot neglect to mention--and every day I count my blessings--that I met a very beautiful , strong, resourceful woman on my travels through Southeast Asia (recorded in this blog in 2006), and I married her. This is Perpetual Zighe Nakis, who we call Chelly--the Queen of my life--and we have been married for 16 years now. They have been the most joyous and wonderful years of my life, but they have not all been easy years. We've traveled the world and lived in 13 different homes in 3 countries. We now have two children together, we own a house, and we have merged our extended families in the USA, Kenya, and elsewhere in the world. One of the things that I tell every newly married couple is that your marriage vows are more than a ... read more

A Trip to New Orleans This February, Chelly and I went on a trip to New Orleans. It's a city we'd never been to before, and one we have always been fascinated by. We've considered visiting it for several years. Whenever we plan our anniversary trips (our anniversary is January 1st), we look around the map of warm places within a short flight distance, including the southern US, Mexico, and Caribbean. New Orleans has been an option several years in a row, but it never quite ranked high enough. This time around, circumstances converged to make it happen. First, on our trip to Jamaica last February for Chelly's birthday, American Airlines mades some mistakes and issued us a series of travel vouchers for about $300 per person. These were good towards new tickets within a year, ... read more

Las Vegas authorities estimate that around 450,000 people will visit the city for the big event, although most of them, obviously, won’t be able to enter the stadium. The game will take place at Allegiant Stadium, a state-of-the-art facility and home of the Las Vegas Raiders, with a capacity for 65,000 fans for a regular game. For this matchup, however, it’s estimated that there will be around 72,000 people in attendance. That may sound like a lot, but this stadium actually has the fifth-smallest capacity of all the venues in the league, which has only contributed to ticket prices going up for this edition. According to StubHub’s data, 26% of ticket buyers are from California, meaning Niners fans could have home-field advantage. Nevada and Kansas/Missouri are next with eight and seven percent, respectively. This ... read more

From Travelzoo: Las Vegas will always have a few tricks up its sleeve — after all, every blockbuster magician on earth takes up residence there or passes through. Still, you’ve got a pretty solid idea of what the city’s got in store for visitors. The rest of the state, though? Not so much. Odds are, if you’ve never been to Nevada (or you’ve only ever been to Vegas), everything else is a bit of a mystery. And actually, that’s not a bad take. Mystery defines a lot of the state’s top travel experiences in the best possible ways, whether you’re into ghost towns, aliens or just the mysteries of the universe (the local astro-tourism scene is, well, stellar). Then again, the wild beauty of the terrestrial landscapes is enough to make you wonder at the power ... read more

Newsweek says: The most affordable tickets in the nosebleeds are tagged at $6,609 on SeatGeek, but that's just the entry point; there are tickets selling for as high as $62,999. As of today (Jan 29) seats have reached $8,000+. This is true for all ticket vendors: Ticketmaster, Stub Hub, etc. My friend was comped a lower level seat ticket from a Strip casino, with a face value of $10,000! Ticketmaster's lowest price as of January is $8,000. One strategy that I have used successfully for the World Series is to wait until kickoff/first pitch. Carrying around that much cash is rather problematic, so I will use Venmo or Zelle. Flights aren't cheap, either. A cross-section of round-trip flights from major cities like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Houston averages $712.25. My round trip airfare is ... read more