The 100 Best Affordable Vacations (72 page)

Check out the “Spa Tapas” or “Spa Sampler” menus of mini treatments being offered at spas nationwide. It’s a top trend in this slow economic recovery, says the International Spa Association.

Look for day spas when you travel that may charge 40 or 50 percent less for that massage or facial than you’d pay at your hotel. You can find them by doing a simple Google search online.

If you’re opting for a high-priced spa treatment, do it at a resort with expanded facilities that includes use of them for the day with your spa treatment. At some, you can get a spa treatment then spend the rest of the day in the fitness facilities, steam room, relaxation room, or by the pool.

Diane Bair and Pamela Wright, who cover spas for AirTran’s
GO
magazine, recommend the following spas for value:

 
Birdwing Spa.
Set in a 300-acre woodland, this 15-room destination spa 70 miles east of Minneapolis has won a slew of awards, thanks to killer packages like this one: Two nights (Fri.–Sun.) with five meals, fitness classes, wellness presentations, massage, and choice of a facial or herbal body wrap for $515.
Birdwing Spa, 21398 575th Ave., Litchfield, MN 55355, 320-693-6064,
www.birdwingspa.com
.

 
The Oaks at Ojai.
Charmingly low-key, the Oaks is widely regarded as the best affordable destination spa in the country. Owner Sheila Cluff, who ice-skates competitively at age 71, is her own best advertisement. Look for fabulous specials online, like the popular mother-daughter 50 percent–off deal, offered twice a year. Weekend rates start at $195 per person per night, including fitness classes and meals.
The Oaks at Ojai, 122 E. Ojai Ave., Ojai, CA 93023, 800-753-6257,
www.oaksspa.com
.

Once you are in the mountains, you can easily visit the colonial towns of
Taxco
—famed for its silver—and
Cuernavaca
—known for its gardens—on day trips, which can be arranged by the hotel upon request. Taxco is an hour away, Cuernavaca an hour and a half. Or you can just wander into the sweet town of Ixtapan de la Sal, scooping up silver jewelry and locally made face creams and clay piggy banks, then stroll back to lounge by the hotel pool, margarita in hand. That won’t help you lose weight, but it just might be what you need.

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH

Hotel Spa Ixtapan,
Ixtapan de la Sal, Mexico, 800-638-7950,
www.spamexico.com
.

go it alone

NATIONWIDE

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

—
THOMAS JEFFERSON, LETTER TO J. BANNISTER, JR., DURING JEFFERSON’S PRIVATE TRAVELS IN FRANCE (1787)

91 |
Traveling solo isn’t everyone’s first choice, but for many of us, it’s the only practical option. If friends and family don’t share your travel interests, you either go alone—or don’t go at all.

That’s been the lesson for co-author Jane Wooldridge. As a college student, she headed off on a European backpacking trip with a male friend. Their budgets and interests were so different that by the end of the first week, the two parted ways.

He took their only guidebook. In those pre-Internet days, she was left to jot down youth hostel addresses from borrowed copies of
Let’s Go Europe.
“I was terrified,” she says. It was her first trip outside the United States.

Lonely and scary though it was, that first solo trip literally changed her life. “It proved to me that I could manage on my own, just about anywhere—even in a foreign country.” That trip gave her the confidence to move to unfamiliar cities, take new jobs, visit Asia and Africa, and drive alone across the United States (28 days, 5,000 miles). Now married, she’s visited more than a hundred countries—some on vacation, and some as part of what became a travel-writing career.

Her advice: “Be safe, be smart, be money-wise. But don’t bypass the places you want to see just because no one in your circle has the time, money, or inclination to go with you.”

Here are her suggestions for three trips to take on your own:

San Francisco, California.
Great restaurants, terrific sites—what’s not to like about San Francisco? What makes it a great choice for traveling alone is that it is a bustling city with good public transportation (making it relatively cheap and safe to get around), busy walking districts that bustle at all hours (meaning you’ll have plenty of company on the streets), and lots of business and single people (meaning you can pull up a chair at a communal table in a great restaurant, or dine alone and not look out of place). And if you go out of season (Dec.–May) or on a slow weekend, you’ll have a better chance of snagging a value rate at one of the city’s downtown hotels.

Top choices for things to do in the City by the Bay: Ride the
F-Market & Wharves streetcar line
(www.streetcar.org, $2) that runs between the Castro District and Fisherman’s Wharf, visit
Alcatraz
(www.nps.gov/alcatraz,
www.alcatrazcruises.com
, day tours including ferry start at $26), join a free
walking tour
(www.sfcityguides.org), and take in the view from the sky-high lounge
Top of the Mark
(Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel, 999 California St., 415-616-6916,
www.intercontinentalmarkhopkins.com
).

SOLO SAFETY

Here are some of Jane’s tips for traveling safely on your own:

Traveling by car

 Check all working parts (tires, belts, etc.) before you start out on a long trip.

 Fill up on fuel; never let your tank go below one-third.

 Use a GPS or have good maps handy.

 Avoid the roads less taken—a romantic idea, but potentially dangerous.