Hallo! Shalom! Aloha!
I'm Daniella, a nineteen year old college student with a passion for great writing, breathtaking travels, and decadent foods! Born in Cuba, raised in Italy, and currently residing in the wonderful state of Florida in the United States, I have always had a desire and curiosity about this world and I will not be satisfied until it is fulfilled.
I created this blog to display the places I've been to, the places I hope to end up, and my experience along the way.
Besides posting images of all the world's wonders and my own travel experiences, I offer advice to fellow travelers, and explore how travel has changed in this modern age.
I've only got one shot at this life and my goal is to leave it exhausted. There is a whole world to discover so join me on this journey as I explore this earth: one blog post at a time!
25,000 Mile Journey
Positano, Amalfi Coast, Italy
It really is this beautiful. I miss this beach.
(via travelling-dreams)
Q: Hey! so basically, i LOVE your blog! I think the idea of digitality affecting travel and just different aspects of the world in general, is captivating and relevant to nearly everyone. Your layout is spot on, and you've found a way to make every post interesting, making me definitely want to read more. I was wondering how you think technology has affected transportation itself, from driving to flying, to public transportation around the country and the world.
A:
Thank you so much for all your wonderful compliments! I’m glad you enjoy the blog and I hope you continue following it in the future.
I think technology has had such a great positive impact on travel. I find it fascinating that long ago it would take months to travel at sea and now we can just take a two hour flight or drive anywhere we’d like. No horse and carriage anymore!
I would say right now the most troubling part about technology and travel is all the new measures and devices being used in airports and just how much more stressful flying is now a days. There are a lot of articles regarding if flying is fun anymore….
Despite the negatives, I think transportation has improved amazingly thanks to technology and it definitely makes traveling easier!!
Q: How do you think that being able to find nice hotel rooms cheaply on websites such as Travelocity, and being able to pretty much plan an entire trip to a foreign country affects the experience. Where it probably keeps you out of the bad parts of town, I feel like it might take away from a more the more native experience you could have without all the research. What are your thoughts?
A:
I completely agree with you. Each person’s travel experience is different and personal and therefore, those decisions affect one’s trip entirely but it depends on what is most appealing to you. I, personally, think its best to have the hotel, flight, and maybe car rental ahead of time. I guess I’m not adventurous enough to just take a flight and figure it out once I’m there. I like knowing I’ll have a place to unpack and rest, and that takes some stress out of my mind and I can actually explore much more and know I have somewhere to return to. Yet, having all that planned out does maybe bring down the adventure factor of a trip…. It all truly depends on what you are into and what you find more appealing. If you rather have a trip filled with tour guides, museums, etc and have everything planned out thats great! But if you rather just backpack and figure it out as you go thats also just as wonderful!
TOP 10 SMARTPHONE TRAVEL APPS!
Here are some best Smartphone Travel Apps. In this digital age, what traveler wants to lug around 5 kilograms of guidebooks when they could simply download applications onto their smartphone?
There are many useful travel related applications out there for iPhones, BlackBerries and other smartphones, if you know where and what to look for. In fact, it seems there’s an app for just about everything, from translating apps to help you speak foreign languages, to apps that pinpoint the closest public toilet in foreign lands. And with free wifi available in many places around the world, you no longer need to look like a tourist, struggling with maps or thumbing through your dog eared guidebook – just stop in a Wi-Fi zone, log-on, fire up your app and find out everything you need to know, from the nearest spot to get a hot dog to the best place to find a bed for the night. Some apps are free, others can cost up to $15 or more, so it’s worth knowing which ones will be worth your time (and money). To save you the hassle, we’ve tracked down ten interesting (and useful) smartphone apps that are specifically designed for the world traveler. FlightTrack($10) Babelingo ($1.99) Where (free) CurCon Currency Converter(0.99 $) LocoTrivia (free) WorldMate($14.50) Navita Translator ($5.99) Urbanspoon (free) TripCase ($4.99) SitOrSquat(free) The majority of these applications work offline as well, handy if there’s no Wi-Fi in sight – and even if you haven’t joined the smartphone wielding hordes yet, there are heaps of online travel apps that you can take advantage of to make your travels easier and safer. If you’re taking your phone along anyway, why not make it earn its keep? So dump the guide book library and hook yourself up with some handy travel related apps the next time you head to a new city. If nothing else, they’ll give you something to do while you wait for the plane/bus/train/taxi.iPhone Apps
Provides real-time flight status updates, with scheduled departure and landing times, as well as actual takeoff and projected landing – ideal for keeping track of flight changes and cancellations before you leave your snug hotel bed for the airport waiting lounge.
There are literally dozens of translation apps out there, from apps that can record a voice, translate it and then repeat it back in a foreign language, to apps that translate photos of signs (useful if you driving in a foreign land). As a basic and affordable option, Babelingo is one of the better options, with 300 useful phrases and words in 11 languages.
A very nifty Google Maps powered application, Where finds local points of interest using your current location. It pinpoints on a map the nearby Starbucks, Zipcars parking spots, hotels, gas stations (with prices), local concerts — and even friends who are in your network.
Why struggle to convert currency in your head, when you could simply tap the price into your keypad and get an instant accurate currency conversion? CurCon covers 107 currencies, and it also regularly downloads currency rate changes, which is handy.
Do you like learning about the places you visit, and then putting your new knowledge to the test with pop quizzes? Then LocoTrivia is the app for you. It uses geolocation to figure out your location and then asks you trivia questions about the places of interest closest to you. It even allows you to submit your own questions, and there’s a global score board so you can show off your prowess to the world.BlackBerry Apps
WorldMate creates an itinerary for you based on your flights, hotel bookings and car rental service, and it even provides pre-trip reminders about weather and flight info, a greeting when you land with directions to your hotel or meeting, and much more. We suspect it probably even produces a digital lei when you land in Hawaii.
This is one of those nifty smartphone translators that does the speaking for you. Struggling with your pronunciation? Don’t worry! The Navita Translator understand more than 50 languages and is capable of speaking languages including English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, German and Russian.
A very useful application when trying to decide where to eat while traveling, Urbanspoon identifies restaurants and fast food spots in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and also runs on iPhones. Free, small and easy to install, it’s definitely a must have application for anyone traveling in the aforementioned countries.
Winner of the award for ‘Best Travel Application’ in June 2009, TripCase features flight updates, hotels in your vicinity (with prices, description and photos) and car rental services. Even better, it can connect with hundreds of travel websites, such as travelocity.com, to create the perfect itinerary.
Don’t laugh – if you’ve ever been caught short in a strange land you’ll appreciate just how useful it would be to have an application that directs you to the closest water closet. SitorSquat records bathrooms around in the world – the on-site ticker is currently recording 97,772 found facilities – so no matter where you are there’s always a place to go nearby. Whether it works as well in Mozambique as it does in Manhattan is up to you to find out.
(Source: quickonlinetips.com)
To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.
People need to travel. By ourselves, not only through stories, pictures, books or TV. We need to travel for our own sake, to see the world with our own eyes and to walk on it with our own feet, in order to understand what is ours. We need to do that so we can plant our own trees and avoid taking them for granted. We need to experiment cold days in order to learn how to enjoy the warm days. And the opposite. We need to feel lonely and far so we can appreciate our own home. People need to travel to places that they don’t know in order to get rid of this arrogance that makes us see the world as we imagine it, and not only as it really is or can be. We need to travel so we can stop being professors or specialists of what we did NOT see, when we should have been students, and simply go and see it.
Will you be traveling to Cuba anytime soon?
I will be traveling to Cuba next Summer to visit family so this is especially exciting. It has always been more than a hassle to travel over to the Pearl of the Caribbean! I hope this keeps on and it becomes much easier to fly over to such a beautiful island. Hopefully someday the government in Cuba will realize how beneficial travel and tourism is to an economy and how much it could help the country’s situation.
Well, being born in Cuba this is kind of a touchy subject to me, so best I leave it for another time.
“More airlines are preparing to fly to Cuba, according to the Wall Street Journal. With restrictions on travel to the Communist-ruled island loosened earlier this year, four large U.S. airlines - American Airlines, JetBlue, United Continental and Delta Air Lines - will operate about 25 weekly flights to Cuba for charter companies by the end of the year, the report says.”
GREAT TRAVEL DEALS !
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& travel between Oct 3, 2011- Jan 31, 2012
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Q: I really love your writing in your posts. Its a lot of fun, and very discriptive. I'm super jealious you get to travel so much. The places you visit are gorgeous! I went to New York City about a year ago and LOVED it. I like how you discribed the overwhelming feeling of there being so much to see and do. I have two questions though: Did you go see a Broadway play? and Did you venture into Chinatown? I'm curious to hear about another Floridians thoughts on that particular New York experience. :D
A:
Thank you so much!! I honestly feel as I don’t travel enough and I hope to change that in the future!! New York City is definitely magical and breathtaking especially on the first visit. I am going to continue my post… I actually did see a Broadway play. I saw “In the Heights” and OH MY GOSH! It was by far the best play I have ever seen: it was fun, emotional, and touching. Maybe its because of my hispanic background but it made me wish I would’ve grown up in New York, ha. I’m lucky I got to see it with the original cast & I would def recommend the show. I did go to Chinatown and it was so much fun! Ending up in all of the back rooms, basements, and hidden rooms of all the shops was a little scary but fun all at once! I had such a great experience & I hope to return this winter! <3
