trip styler

The Savvy Traveler :: Charles

[trip style = urban + weekend getaways + staycation]

Charles Yap is an influencer, traveler and tea drinker. He talks the talk, walks the walk and lives up to his snazzy title as the Director of Global Brand Communications for InterContinental Hotels Group. His position is a tall order, heading up the social media strategy for each of the group’s seven hotel brands, including InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza and Hotel Indigo. It's no wonder he's a top-ranked online travel influencer who's built his loyal following with dedication and smarts---and as a nice guy. For all of these reasons {plus his awesome street style}, we're ecstatic to feature him as this month's Savvy Traveler! Charles tweets at @HotelPRGuy.

1/ What are your top 3 trip styles and why? 
[trip style = urban + weekend getaway + staycation] I am very much a city guy and I've been living in London for three years. During weekends, I try to take short trip style = weekend getaways to neighbouring European capitals. I also love trip style = staycation exploring London---you can live here for an entire lifetime and still find new things to discover. Whether traveling or at home, I'm a fan of photography, architecture, exploring museums, going to the markets and checking out new restaurants and bars.

2/ What items are always on your packing list?
I travel light and avoid checking my bags, so packing wisely is essential. I never leave home without:
- My jeans by 7 for all mankind
- Dunhill reversible belt
- Chinese travel tea set from Teanamu
- Elemis Men SOS Survival Cream
- An extra BlackBerry battery

3/ Hometown Saturday must-stops?
My two favorite markets in London are Broadway Market in East London and Borough Market near London Bridge. Both are foodie markets and great places to stop for lunch and coffee. I also like exploring the historic pubs of London; my top three are The Grenadier in Belgravia, Windsor Castle in Notting Hill and The Dove in Hammersmith.

4/ Favourite destination, hotel or resort in the world & why? 
My love of big cities and amazing architecture draws me towards destinations like Paris, Prague and Rome. I also love historic hotels and one of my favourites is InterContinental Paris Le Grand, opened in 1862 by Empress Eugenie. During the hotel's opening, the neighbouring Opera Garnier was still under construction. I recommend one of the 82 rooms or suites overlooking the Opera, and ordering the Fashion Pastry at Cafe de la Paix. This year, the focus is on fashion designers from Brazil, India, China and Russia, and the current pastry is by Indian fashion designer Manish Arora.

5/ Best trip you've ever taken? 
My visit to Hanoi in January 2008 is probably the best trip I've ever taken. It was extra special because it was a reunion with friends who had moved to other parts of the world. We spent our time exploring the old city, navigating the busy traffic, eating where the locals eat and watching the sun set over Westlake!

6/ Best way to secure a fabulous stay with an InterContinental or IHG Hotel online?
Follow @IHG_Deals on Twitter for special deals and fun giveaways. We also offer a best price guarantee on www.IHG.com, which means that if you can find a lower price elsewhere online, you get your first night free.

{If you know anyone who should be featured in our once-monthly Savvy Traveler series, drop us a line!}

More Savvy Travelers
Rachel, The Suitcase Siren
Tiffany, The Luxury Travel Inspector
Lora, The BC & OR Family Travel Expert

[photo of Charles by @jennkol]

Healthy On The Road :: Anthony's Tips

{Editor’s Note: When she’s not training clients or being trained by her dog Zuzu, Leah writes Healthy on the Road, published the first Thursday of every month.} 

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with one of the most sought-after fitness professionals in Western Canada---Anthony Findlay, founder and owner of Level 10 Fitness. Anthony’s accomplished resume is far too big to summarize here {check out his bio---you’ll be impressed}, but suffice to say, he’s a BIG deal in the health, fitness and high-performance sports world.

Despite his demanding schedule, Anthony lives a balanced life where traveling with his wife {with or without their kids} is a priority. Fortunately, Anthony is no stranger to keeping fit and healthy while traveling; he's responsible for keeping two national sports teams in top form, both at home and away.

I asked Anthony to share his tips for staying healthy on the road:

Be Regular Anthony explained that travelers often start their trip off on the right foot and with the best intentions. Shortly after arriving at their destination, they might visit the gym or even go for a run, but for many, that’s where it ends. Away from the regular schedule, workouts are often the first thing to slip away. Anthony emphasizes that “the beauty of travel is being able to take advantage of whatever is at your disposal.” It can be the perfect opportunity to try new things and add some variety to your fitness routine. Keep up your regular routine, but just mix up the activity. He suggests getting outdoors, planning workouts and adlibbing on others, stating that people are often surprised by what awaits them at their destination. He provided a recent example from his own trip to the island of Kauai. He and his wife had heard the hiking was good, but what they discovered far exceeded their expectations. Before they knew it, their surfing vacation turned into a trekking vacation, and they loved every moment of it! Note: Anthony pointed out that runners and walkers have an advantage while traveling; not only is their form of exercise very transportable, it enables them to see and experience a local area in a way that most travelers don’t.

Bring It If you dig into the Trip Styler archives, you'll find a great piece on the value of throwing a tennis ball into your travel bag. Anthony adds that even if the only thing you get around to doing on your vacation is some stretching at the end of the day, follow it up with a tennis ball massage to work out points of tension. Anthony also suggests throwing a golf ball {great for rolling out your feet after a big day of walking and exploring}, tubing and/or exercises bands into your bag. He shared a recent experience from Las Lenas ski resort in Argentina where he was thankful to have some tools on hand: the Canadian Snowboard Cross team were staying at this relatively remote resort for two weeks. When not competing, they needed to keep up their strength and conditioning program, but lo and behold, the resort had no gym or training facility on site---time to get creative! Using hallways, bathroom stalls, tennis balls, tubing, bands---whatever Anthony could turn into a training tool---they managed to keep their training program together prior to hitting the hill!

Research & Look Ahead Surprises are great, especially if you’re a “go with the flow” kind of person, but there’s also something to be said for having an idea of what lies ahead and gearing up to perform your fitness routine accordingly. Anthony provided a great illustration of this using the Manly Beach area of Sydney, Australia as an example. Having never been there myself, his description of a possible workout had me wanting to pack my gym bag and jump on a plane ASAP. In a nutshell, he said that every beach in the area has a pool at the edge, so an awesome workout would involve a run/swim circuit, where you run from beach to beach, jumping in for some laps at each pool: Shelley to Manly to Freshwater to Curl Curl to Dee Why. Sounds like the gladiator meets beach god/goddess workout, love it! {Note: ladies, you probably need to wear your sport bikini to pull this off!}

What You Need To Stay Healthy Do you have any dietary restrictions or allergies? Remember, many parts of the world aren't equipped with options like we have here. Asking for gluten-free food in some places will get you nothing more than a confused reaction. If this is your situation, then you might need to be prepared with supplements etc., or put some more thought into your destination and the options available there.

Celebrating Right Anthony says that all too often people arrive at incredible destinations and celebrate too quickly. Indulging in food, drink and late nights can be a fun part of travel, but if you’re on a trip style = active & adventure ski trip at Chamonix Mont-Blanc in France, you'll want to be in top form to get the most out of the experience. Anthony added that many people forget about the effects elevation has on everything from rest and recovery to food and fluid requirements. One of his tips for pacing yourself with alcoholic bevs: have a glass of water for every drink.

Seasonality Anthony suggests that many travelers don’t pay enough attention to the time of year they're planning to visit their destination. For example, someone heading to Southeast Asia with visions of beaches and snorkeling may not realize they're visiting in the rainy season {summer and early fall}. This is critical information when he travels with his outdoor athletes---a lesson he learned while in South Korea with the Canadian Snowboard team, where temperatures dropped to -20/-30 degrees Celsius. For lean athletes spending hours on the hill, this is cold and planning around gear, training and recovery times etc., becomes crucial.

More Healthy On the Road… The INSANITY Workout Hydrate! Summer Paddling Healthy Road Trip Choices Make Any Trip Style Healthy The 20-min Exercise Itinerary Active, Relax, Repeat Healthy DIY Plane Snacks Hotel Room Exercises {You can do in your underwear}

[photo: anthony]

A Nouveau Trip Styler!

Earlier this summer we announced a few changes at Trip Styler, some of which we introduced in June, some of which were coming. That time has come and our back-to-school shopping included a new website!

At some point this week, you may have noticed Trip Styler looked a little different. Though we're still deeply in love with our old design {to the point of wanting to frame it for sentimental purposes}, we wanted to create something that enhanced your user experience, communicated our growth and provided more space to share important news at the top of the site! In addition to the nouveau aesthetics, we've also added new features.

New Features
  • TS Recommends - Behind every trip style is a travel tip and resource. Trip Styler Recommends was created to connect aspiring jetsetters with the best online tools, so trips can be booked quickly and efficiently. TS Recommends houses our fave resources organized by trip style and budget. Check back in a few weeks to see the list of recommendations grow even more. And while we're on the topic, we wanted to make sure you knew about the 50+ hotels we've reviewed here.
  • Press - Profiling our guest editor spread in NET-A-PORTER's mag and interview with Toursim Vancouver, check our all Trip Styler's press in one spot.
  • Pinterest - Have you heard of Pinterest? If not, it's an online pin board where you can create virtual photo boards of images you source from the web, other pin boards or snap with your smartphone/camera. We're a little obsessed, so check out our boards in progress and follow us. We pin everything from trip styles to cabin decor, so it's a mixed bag of goodies.
  • Trip Styles - We've distilled our 16 different Trip Styles by category for awhile, but we wanted to make sure you knew! Have an upcoming trip? Search by trip style or destination via our main navigation bar.
Coming Up
  • Fridays are back! - This summer we held back from publishing any content on Fridays since we knew you didn't want to read about travel, but actually take off early from work to travel! Starting next week Fridays are back and trip styled with an updo. The last Friday of every month will still be the ever-popular Fashion Friday, while every other Friday we'll feature a Trip Styler-worthy accommodations {hotels, resorts, camp/glamp sites or vacation rentals} so you can learn about all the fabulous places we read and write about every day! We're going to call it Roam+Board, get it?

Not Stopping Here We're always thinking of new ways to enhance Trip Styler, so expect more goodies over the next few months. Also, let us know if there's any other travel lifestyle topics you'd like us to cover and we'll do our best to incorporate them.

Finally, nothing can happen without a great team, so I'd like to thank Kate for designing the new site and Ben for programming it! I'd also be remiss not to mention Alvin, who has also done a huge amount of coding work for Trip Styler over the past year and a half!

Safe + happy travels this long weekend, Trish

Travel App Tuesday :: Hail A Taxi

travel apps :: taxi apps[trip style = urban] Today we're talking taxis. An app-tastic way to hail them.

{Taxis are on my mind because I'm headed to the Big Apple tonight. Though it's not my practice to hopscotch across time zones {Australia->Vancouver->New York} within a 3-day period, the hubs was going, we were able to get Nacho King {our dog} a sitter and secured Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tickets, so how could I say no?}

What if there was an easier way to hail a taxi, by just tip-tapping an app?

Now there is. Here are some options for Vancouver, elsewhere in Canada or your next trip to the US of A:

Free Taxi Apps Taxi Now This Vancouver start-up has taken hailing a taxi to the next level with GPS. Simply pull out your phone, see which taxis are nearest to you, hail one and watch it drive to you. Testing this app, the map showing which taxies were nearest to me crashed twice, but worked a third time. I love the idea behind this app, and will definitely use it next time I need a cab. Works best in: Vancouver, Canada with drivers in Toronto, Calgary and Ottawa quickly signing up too. Available for: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Android

Taxi Magic As one of the most celebrated taxi apps, Taxi Magic is the first online booking service to integrate right into taxi dispatch systems. In major US cities where this app works best, find a taxi based on your location, track its arrival and charge the ride to your credit card. Note, this app also has web and text support if booking online or via text is more your thing. Works best in: major cities in the US as well as tap-to-call fleets in 4000 US and Canadian cities. Available for: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Blackberry, Android, Palm.

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Other Travel Apps Every Tuesday we feature a new travel app. Don’t forget to peruse the other 70+ travel apps we’ve reviewed from travel first aid, to luxury and boutique hotel finders, to border waits and trip itinerary management. Here are the most recent:

 

Fashion Friday :: Spring Mini Break

[trip style = weekend getaway]

"A mini break means true love." - Bridget Jones's Diary

Thank goodness for spring. We can all go back outside now. And since most of us don't get spring break anymore (boo!), how about a spring mini break, Bridget Jones style? And yes, I'm referring to the infamous mini break that included the "tarts and vicars" Playboy Bunny debacle. I bet you never thought you could take spring style cues from the delightfully awkward Bridget Jones!

Trip Styler Tip: Ladies and gentlemen, tortoise shell sunglasses and aviators never go out of style. Neither do denim jackets, which are the perfect spring-weight coat. I always bring mine on holiday.

Now what to bring?

Women (clockwise from top left) Acne tag milk denim jacket, ASOS 70s kaftan playsuit, Twelfth St by Cynthia Vincent berkeley tote, Marc by Marc Jacobs below the knee dress, Topshop wendy nude twist wedges, Topshop monk sand soft lace up shoes, D&G sunglasses, ASOS tailored 2 in 1 jumpsuit, Topshop white snake print scarf

Men (clockwise from top right) Ben Sherman ls blazer, Ben Sherman wiltshire shirt, A.P.C. new cure jeans, Nike x Steven Alan shoes, Mosley Tribes x Temple Bags sunglasses

{Fashion Friday posts are published on the last Friday of every month and written by fashion blogger Heather.}