Audrey Hepburn said, “Paris is always a good idea.” This is especially true in Springtime, when the city shrugs off its winter blues and fills with all my favorite C’s; Culture, Cuisine, Chic Parisians and Can Can. Who doesn’t love to get their legs in the air? Simply put, I LOVE Paris – it’s a…
Bali is an incredibly popular LGBT-friendly destination that makes an ideal stopover at the beginning or end of a trip to Vietnam or Cambodia. Every year, more than five million people visit this island paradise. Just a three to four-hour flight away, Bali has a very relaxed attitude in comparison to its neighboring Muslim country,…
Personally, I love a good DYI remodeling project. Take down a wall, paint and preen, add some fabulous soft furnishings and I’m good to go. The same could be said for Louis XIV with Versailles, but on a grand scale and taking many decades. Though I am thoroughly convinced he personally did not get stuck…
Introduction: Many of you already know Brand g’s co-owner, Brian Van Wey. He has spent the last decade – along with co-owner Jeff Gundvaldson – building Brand g into an industry leader with care and thoughtfulness and a willingness to let me humiliate him on a regular basis. So, let’s begin! What’s your favorite part…
Someone has to be a trailblazer. Or a sacrificial lamb. Before I begin, let me state that I have no underlying health conditions or I probably wouldn’t be flying just yet. Because I work from home and can work from anywhere, I typically go back to St. Louis every three months to see my elderly…
We hope you find these tips from guest blooger Renee Josephine as helpful as we did! Packing for vacations can be quite the chore (think of all those outfits!). Often, we try to pack more than our luggage can hold, or we manage to forget one thing or another, like an important medication or a…
(above photo courtesy of nature.com) We have established a web page with the most current information available (updated constantly), as well as information on how Brand g is handling this still somewhat fluid situation. Check it out here: https://www.brandgvacations.com/coronavirus-covid-19/
In the past, all that’s been required for a jaunt to Europe is your passport, with that delightful police-lineup photo that looks like you’re fresh from a night out with Charlie Sheen. But starting January 1st, 2021, Europe will require Americans and other foreigners to take an extra step prior to arriving on the…
Okay, so you’re ready to start applying for credit cards to earn hundreds of thousands of miles/points! (If you haven’t read our simple primer for earning credit card bonuses, check it out, here: https://bit.ly/2NXMtJz Now, here are some tips to make the most of your time and effort: Do multiple card applications on the same…
We hope you enjoy this guest post by frequent Brand g guest and world traveler, Neal Williams. It’s filled with incredibly useful tips! — Eric I don’t remember the first overnight trip I ever took as a child with my family, but I do remember the one suitcase I shared with my brothers. It was…
We’ve all seen the social posts. Friends posing in their glamorous business class seats, holding a glass of champagne, with some caption like, “Our home for the next 12 hours.” Sure, you want to slap them. But better yet, why not join them? International business class tickets can be hideously expensive. But there are simple…
Let’s say your passport was stolen and you had to get a new one. OR you’re renewing your passport for the 8th time (hey, it’s possible, and if that’s you, you GO, girl). ANY time you get a fresh new passport in the mail, there’s one thing you have to do to avoid a cluster****…
Lounges make life prettier. Everyone eventually tires of sitting around departure gates that look like detention centers, where one guy’s eating smelly tuna fish and another is clipping his toenails. Most of us have limited tolerance for unhappy infants shrieking like banshees, or people who yell at gate agents, “Do you know who I am?”…
Hat tip to our friends and frequent guests Neal Williams and John Berger for recommending this excellent article! 10 Tips on Purchasing Souvenirs Here are some additional thoughts from them: Tip #8: If we’re wanting to purchase multiples of some item, we politely ask, “What could you do if we bought two (or three)?” Even…
(photo credit: One Mile at a Time) When you’re flying 8 or 10 or 12 hours, who doesn’t want to fly business class? Lie-flat “pod” seats. Big screen TV’s. Unlimited food and drink, served by flight attendants who don’t look at you like you should have udders and a tag on your ear. International business…
No, it’s not a driver’s license where they replace your picture with someone hotter. Nor is it where a stylist does your hair and your photo is taken with Vaseline on the lens. (Although I’d pay extra for that. My current driver’s license photo looks like I drove to the DMV straight from a fraternity…
NOTE: We have no relationship with companies mentioned in this post! I have friends who were in Cabo when one of them had a medical issue and had to be airlifted to Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles for treatment. (If you’ve ever been in a hospital in Mexico, you don’t have to ask why.) That Medivac…
If you don’t hold a premium credit card, you probably think they’re for insecure boobs who desperately want a status symbol to flash – the credit card version of a Hummer limo. But the credit card companies have been working hard to lure new customers to these cards by providing a raft of travel benefits…
River cruising has become the Kim Kardashian of travel, except you don’t want to slap it. Everyone is talking about it, you can’t avoid it, and the number of ships and itineraries has exploded in the past 6 or 7 years. So, what’s the big whoop? Why are they so popular? Well, river cruises take…
So, you’re thinking about traveling to the southernmost point of the southern hemisphere…? BOOM. Mic drop. Just try to top that one. Less than 40,000 people a year get to visit Antarctica – primarily because, like the Galapagos islands in Ecuador, tourism is heavily restricted so as not to destroy the ecosystem. (Some big, ocean-going…
If you’re geographically challenged like I am (as my husband always tells me I need GPS to get out of a parking lot) you probably think of Antarctica being in the frozen northern sector of earth. But it’s actually south of South America, in the southern hemisphere. (The Antarctic Peninsula, where most cruises explore, is…
Believe it or not, we’re only thinking of you. Booking early with Brand g has distinct advantages: Early Booking Discounts These $500 per person discounts are only offered for the first few weeks or months after a trip is announced. And since we announce our vacations 12-18 months out, it pays to plan in advance.…
Sure, it’s a SWEEPING generalization, but the Irish are known to have an affinity for beer and falling down. (Don’t a lot of us.) But there’s MUCH more to Ireland than just hanging out in pubs, as entertaining as that can be. The Emerald Isle is a place of extraordinary beauty – it’s like God…
Asia is, for us at Brand g, one of our favorite destinations, and one that gets some of the best reviews of all the places we travel to across the world. “Life-changing” and “Best trip of our lives” are phrases we hear a lot, along with “my skin was dewy fresh” (what can we say,…