Before or after making a decision on where to travel, depending on so many factors of course, you have to decide the most important question: travel alone or travel with more people.

It’s always a hard decision to say: I’m gonna travel by myself, but what about the question of traveling in group? Sometimes it’s harder, I swear.

There are plenty of different things which can create more confidence between the travelers, but also you can have different objectives of the trips and also more conflicts.

This post is based about some of my past experiences, and i’d like to share with you that it’s so important who are you going with, make sure you know them and check if your personalities fit  together, because if you don’t do that, you’ll have to find other alternatives or decide to go just by yourself (what I did last year for 2 months, meeting people on the road and in different houses)

So, before traveling with a friend, make sure:

• What is the aim of the trip: sightseeing, relax, partying, museums and architecture, escaping from the big cities and see surroundings. Make sure you know what everyone hope to experience.
• What is your budget? how many days?  this seems obvious, but it’s super important. It’s crucial to make sure your travel partner has a similar budget and days than you: a taxi is faster than the metro sometimes, and a fast food is faster than a restaurant. Both examples with different prices and more days also increase the prices.
• What type of personality you guys have: if you are dependent of people, independent or a mix. Sometimes opposites attract, but make sure this is not gonna break any plan in the trip.  I’m not a pro-tests person, but maybe this can help.
• How social you are? Depending on what activities you wanna do in the trip, or if it’s a trip to a country that you know people, make sure everyone understand what you wanna do and meet. Also, there are so many people traveling alone, would you able to fit them in your plans?
• How flexible, patiente and tolerant you guys are. Sometimes the route is stablished and your travelling companion doesn’t want to stop and spend more days in one place and you do.
• How positive and open-minded you guys are.  What happen if your reservation in a hotel is not the one you had, or that you are gonna end sleeping in a bus station somewhere filthy.
• What facts/actions can end the trip before starting it: make sure that if one of your travel friends decide finally not to join the group, the other people won’t make the same and let you without your holidays. Then you’ll have to change your plans too and if you don’t do it fast, maybe you’ll end at home during holidays.

Tip: Having conversations about travel plans before the trip. This can be challenging but you can realize if it’s a good decision to start with the trip and how.

and remember: traveling is like a test for any relationship and a way to discover yourself. You can realize and learn new things and behaviours of people you’ve know your whole live or you are just discovering. Every travel teachs, even you travel with (your)people or alone, so learn a lot and safe trip!

My travel category on my google reader always shows me new places to discover, or different tips about every city/country….I follow different types of blogs in diferent languages and during the last few months they have been talking about the airports around the world. Yes, I’m a world traveler and when I get to any airport I’d like to have the better facilities to get to the gate or relax before your next flight connection.

I remember reading a post about the best airports in the world in 2008,  and checking the best airports in 2009, and i’ve been really surprised on how WIFI is not one of the main reason for grading the airports. There are few airports around the world where you can have wireless for free, and I don’t know why Oporto is not in the list, where I could find internet for free,  and it has a low cost fares flight partnership.

Last weekend I was really delighted by the Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport because of, not only the modern architecture, amenities that offer to the passengers. I believe that waiting times in the airport and no lost luggage are reasons to rank an airport, but also there are a lot of little things in the airport can make the waiting time shorter. Who was not stuck in an airport? Iwouldn’t care being stuck in an airport likeOporto, also considered one of the best regional airports in europe by the Airport Council International with the 3d position in 2007.

I knew that some bus stations around the world have showers for the travelers, but never heard about an airport with showers for free before and that clean, confortable couches to sleep on,  and the best if you travel with kids or teens: playgrounds and foosball!! and of course,  a really modern metro/tramway that stops into the city in 22 minutes….

Suggestion: If you are preparing an escape to Oporto, enjoy all the day in the beach of Gaia and take the metro to the airport to take shower and rest a little bit before your fight . More airports like this one??

Few of you will know, last weekend I flow with Stephen to California. The reason: Nick and Nikita were getting married. It was a suprise for some of the people who were in the wedding in the beautiful Santa Barbara and I knew i was flying there 3 days before of catching the plane to go to Los Angeles.

I want to share with every person who read “The everywhere dream” the fantastic shock, so different culturally, and just have good words to describe it. Seriously, with a hindi: Nikita Dang,  plus an american: Nick Kennedy we enjoyed the perfect ceremony!! the forecast was not with us the day before of the wedding so just the cerimony was inside the hotel and not next to the beach as it was planned, but still…amazing

I could learn a little bit about Indian traditions,  India as a country and of course hindu weddings!!!On friday: the rehearsal dinner: for me…new experience as in my country we don’t have rehearsal dinners. On Saturday,  it just took 6 hours of the cerimony (starting at 8:30 in the morning) before the cocktail and the dinner.

Some of the indian traditions i learnt from this wedding:

• Vara Agaman & Paukan (The welcoming of the groom), the bride’s mother welcomed the groom and placed Teeka on his forehead as a symbol of her wish for the couple’s lifelong family). That was incredible,
• The Jaymala (exchanging of Garlands between the bride and the groom to express respect for one another and to promise to share everything) was really genuin and authentic
• Ganesh Puja, when the priest recited a prayer to Lord Ganesh requesting removal of all obstacles
• Granthi Bandhan or typying the knot: the joyous union of the couple is symbolized by tyingf the ends of 2 garments together in a sacred knot
• Havan (lighting the fire and after Mangal Phera:walking around and circlying 4 times the fire) was to call Agni, the Lord of fire, to bless the couple with purity and happiness in their lives together as the sacred flame was lit.
• Kansarbhojan when the bride and groom feed each other sweets sygnifying their total commintment to each other
• The Mangal Sutra and Sindoor Dan (sacred necklace and red powder) to symbolize groom’s commintment to her throughhout their lives.

We had a great time over there, and althought it was just for a 4 days, I had the opportunity to meet again incredible people I met throught couchsurfing and in Texas A&M last year. The hardest moment when you travel are the goodbye time, and when you realize you can meet again…it’s amazing: thanks Sean and Tori, Adam, Jack, Phil, and my other people: new one’s a old friends!!

I’ve always wanted an indian wedding and I had an indian wedding in the US!!!thanks Dang family, thanks Kennedy family, thanks Stephen…now…it’s time for an Indian wedding in my next trip to Bhārat Gaṇarājya.

And for the new weds: enjoy your honeymoon!!

and for Stephen:please, upload the pictures!!

Picture: From the wedding invitation! A common motif seen on hindu wedding invitations, the symbol or stylised depiction of Ganesha, the elephant god. His name is invoked at the beginning of any venture, event or celebration.

Summer vacations are comming,  people are starting to think about where to go and when (a lot of people have their days off in august, 2 or 3 weeks…) For the ones with a restrictive budget, or people that don’t wanna spend a lot of money travelling and they wanna go to a different country, for travelers, families that wary about the cost of taking a vacation this summer, some economic relief may be in the offing, it’s just checking….thousands of good deals are around!

I wanna share with you what we were talking about with some friends last friday in Sant Cugat. As they are preparing their holidays (which I’m thinking on joining them depending on my family), and we all wanna save money.

We were checking the prices of the possible countries to travel (going to Japan is totally different that spending 20 days in India in terms of money) with the Big Mac Index, a new way that the Economist suggested to measure the purchase power in different parts of the world taking the cost of a BigMac hamburger and the exchange rate of every country.

It’s kind of funny to see the comparison but there are some limitations with this index, as in many countries, eating at international fast-food chains is quite expensive and if you wanna save money it’s better to stop by a local restaurant, and of course, the demand for Big Macs is not that large in countries like India as in the United States.

So, we’ll continue checking what will be the closest and cheapest escape for this summer with this type of tips, the Big Mac index was a good idea, but we need more tips!!

To finish, I truly believe that eating in McDonalds with a small budget and being full is past…it’s time for Dönner Kebabs , althought the ring-shaped pastry + cofee + 30 minutes wifi at McDolands is a really good deal.

Friends, family, people around the world….

After so much time withouth posting anything by myself, now it’s time to start again expressing everyone what I’m doing or what my feelings are about the things that happen around me.Yes…it’s time to start the adventure again and I’m really excited. Thanks to my coworker who empowered me to continue with this project.

I’m gonna write different languages, I don’t know how i’ll do it in english, because it’s been a while since my last paper or assigment for university. But this can help to the people with an basic level of english and allow them to understand what I’m saying without looking the words up .

I don’t know if you noticed that I changed the name of the blog to the Everywhere Dream (i know it doesn’t sound really good but i didn’t want to change the structure of the sentence).

Instead of the American Dream, I  suggest a new dream, the dream of every place, of every territory, of everywhere. This idea comes to me because of one of my first posts just before going to Texas for college. For  ” The dream of every territory” and of course the comments of one good friend, Andrés.

I’ll be posting about my travels,  new ideas which I find them interesting and about my learning experiences.

I’ll keep it updated! For sure!

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Air Traffic during a day

incredible…

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