An air flight, a tube ride, and camel trek away...

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“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time” André Paul Guillaume Gide

After an amazing trip to New York in March I am finally hitting the dusty trail again and spending two weeks travelling to London, England and to Marrakech and Fez in Morocco. This will be a first time visit to the United Kingdom and Morocco and I am really looking forward to exploring the cities. I am taking this trip with two very dear friends and am can’t wait to share this adventure with them.

We booked our tickets to London offline, taking the no frills approach to international flying with Air Transat booked for us via Flight Center. To their credit, the price they got us on our tickets was better than what we saw online.

We are “backpacking” in the way you do in your late-twenties when you are too spoiled for hostels but not ready to start depleting your investment accounts. Armed with gifts from the great white north we are crashing couches and bringing some Canadian love to our international and soon to be multi-passported (you know who are) friends. We plan to mix our couch surfing with a few nights at some memorable hotels in London and some amazing Riads in Morocco.

We have managed to snag a few fantastic deals already through the William Shatner endorsed Priceline.com. If you aren’t afraid to take a little risk for a great bargain be sure to check out priceline the next time you book a hotel. The site allows you to bid on a hotel room based on rating and location and if your bid falls within an acceptable range the room is yours for the price you named.

We put a bid in for a 4-star hotel in Central London and managed to snag a room at Novotel London St Pancras for a great price. As soon as we had the name of the hotel we were staying in we went straight to Trip Advisor to check out the reviews. The hotel has a customer a recommendation rate of 88% but almost all complaints brought up in the forums were addressed directly by the hotel’s general manager or another staff member.

Clearly reading reviews is beneficial when booking flights and accommodations, something we may have been wise to do before booking our flights to Morocco on easyJet. This company is a public relations nightmare. Every other published review had complaints about late or delayed flights, questionable staff safety training, and overall unreliability. Word of mouth experiences have been slightly more reassuring however now that we have been warned we are ready for whatever this flying experience ends up being.

Once we land in Morocco we look forward to escaping into a traditional Moroccan hospitality institution, a Riad. Moroccan cities are known for their active streets and daily bustle and Riads are considered a place of tranquility away from the ever-moving city.

We booked our stay at Riad El Wiam through priceline. We weren’t able to bid on this room however we managed to secure a room at this top rated Riad for about $100/us a night. The customer reviews for this place are off the charts so I am really looking forward to our stay.

There is still a lot to do before our trip but we are off to a great start!

To read about some highlights from my trip to NYC please visit: http://noorinladhani.com/

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