Impromptu Trips

since moving to canada, people have one constant question for me - "what do you like most about canada?"

and i only have one answer for them - "the ease of traveling."

from my experience, traveling from the philippines and traveling from canada are very different. when we were in the philippines, traveling to the US would require months of preparation. since the US was far from the philippines and plane fare from the philippines to the US is kinda costly, we would maximize our trip by having long vacations and by squeezing as many places as humanely possible to see. and as we all know, long vacations from the office require at least a month's notice.

in canada, however, we can decide to travel at a moment's notice. and because it is so close to us, we do not need to have long vacations nor do we need to take a leave from the office.

i remember one particular time last summer. we only realized that it was going to be a long weekend after hubby came home from work on a friday. he asked what we wanted to do for the long weekend. impulsively, we thought, why don't we go to new york tomorrow? and then off we went to new york the following morning.

that night, prior to packing our things, i went online and googled online travel guides to check out things to do in new york. since it was my kids' first time to be in new york, we wanted them to have a varied experience of the city. in my search for places to see, i stumbled upon Trusted Tours & Attractions. they have a list of 40 new york city attractions which you can visit for free and even have special discounted tickets which you can actually print from home. it was so convenient.

i went through the list and ticked off the things i thought my children would love to see. we took them to see the statue of liberty, times square, the empire state building, the metropolitan museum of art, and the rockefeller center. each attraction was thoroughly enjoyed by my children.

for a very impromptu trip to new york city, trusted tours and attractions certainly helped me in planning out a very memorable trip for my children. and since they offer discounted tickets to the best sightseeing tours in 23 cities across america, i will definitely visit their site again when i go look for things to do in chicago.

so if you are currently planning your next vacation and looking for ideas on what to do, sign up now for the Trusted Travels eNewsletter and you just might win a handheld GPS. their offer ends June 30th, 2008, so better sign up right now!