Category Archives: Tim Traveler

Oh, the places I’ll go!

Our London Times (Not to Be Confused with ‘The London Times’ So Don’t Sue Me)

A view of London's great river. I think they call it The Tim's.

A view of London’s great river. I think they call it The Tim’s.

If you have read about our trip to Paris a couple of years ago, you will recall that said exploit was in lieu of (notice my mastery of the French language) the nonsensically luxurious and exorbitant high-school graduation party that is all the rage nowadays.   Our children have opted instead to spend a like amount of money traveling to the destination of their choice:  Thing 1 chose Paris (see previous sentence above); and Thing 2 chose London.  It is this latter escapade from which we have returned some time ago that I now relate for your vicarious reading pleasure.   On a thematic note, you will notice that the Thing 1 Paris trip was all about art and architecture while this Thing 2 London trip was a tribute to pop culture and its anomic icons.

What a cute little Ben...

What a cute little Ben…

Day 1:  Our overnight flight arrived in the morning and we hit the ground running by immediately taking a nap. Continue reading →

The Best Holiday Travel Guide I Have Written All Day Yet

Well according to the likes of Perry Como, Ed Ames and Andy Williams, it’s that time of year when everyone starts going over the river and through the woods heading for Pennsylvania and some homemade pumpkin pie.  So what better way to serve my fellow man and bring peace on earth than to share from my vast experience of being somewhere else and offer some useful and very alliterated helpful Hannukah holiday travel tips?  So here goes…

HOLIDAY TRAVEL TIP #1:  Do not travel.

This is actually the only tip I have to offer but admittedly, it is born of genius. If my life experience has taught me anything, Continue reading →

A Rough Golf Trip Was a Fore-gone Conclusion

There comes a time in a Minnesota man’s life when he gets tired of driving to work on something that more closely resembles a luge track than any sort of roadway infrastructure and he starts seeing visions of Mr. Tumnus scampering through the eternal winter snow.  This sort of mid-winter crisis occurs about the same time every February.  Even cutting across the lake to save ten minutes of driving time loses its exhilarating edge.  It is at this time that the Minnesota man must escape the bonds of sub-zero normalcy and, with The Queen Mother’s permission, take part in a ceremonious man-ritual known as “The Golf Trip.”

For those unfamiliar, The Golf Trip is a time set aside whereon a group of friends seek warmer climes and do nothing but play golf, pop Advil, and consume irrational amounts of red meat, as there are no primary spousal sources of authority about to chide one into acting responsibly and wasting time on things like hygiene or vegetables.  Sometimes, if there is time left over, sleep may occur. Continue reading →

Check Out These Suite Hotel Tips

TIMe for another episodic episode of TIM’s Travel Tips, which are a lot like sirloin tips except they don’t go nearly as well with a port demiglaze.  Today’s topic is hotels.  I know there are a lot of questions out there regarding hotels like, How come desk clerks in foreign countries don’t speak better English? and, Do they replace those little shampoos every time or do they just fill them up for the next guy?

Unfortunately, I don’t know the answers to these questions, but having spent the night in everything from a third-world 5-star resort where one square of lobby marble is more expensive than all the surrounding residences combined, to a roadside mom & pop motel where mom won’t use a vacuum because it upsets all the cats and pop left her months ago for the chick who lives in the dumpster behind the local Roquefort shop, I think I am qualified to attest as to what makes a decent place to stay and what places you should avoid like a Haitian prostitute. Continue reading →

I Would Have Driven Boston’s Freedom Trail, but I Lost My Khakis

Boston CommonIf you are familiar with Boston, you know that it is famous for its garden, its baked beans, and its 2013 baseball team resembling the cast of Duck Dynasty.  It is also arguably the educational capitol of the U.S. with such respected universities as BU, MIT and Harvard, where you can get a prestigious degree in Ancient Greek or Women’s Studies that is sure to jumpstart your career as a barista.

I had a day off there this week and I was going to follow the typical American crowd and go to Cheers, but nobody there knows my name.  So instead I ventured down Boston’s famous Freedom Trail and its many sites dedicated to the distortion of America’s founding.  And of course, I took copious notes so that upon my return I could save my readers from spending upwards of $3 on an official infomap and offer up this,

The Official conTIMplating Guide to The Freedom Trail for Those too Cheap to Shell Out $3 for the Official Infomap Continue reading →