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I recently returned from the British Virgin Islands, and I promise more on that trip will be forthcoming.  In the interim, I wanted to quickly let people know some ways of getting to the British Virgin Islands, as they are not the most accessible destination.

One way to get to the British Virgin Islands is to fly to Beef Island (airport code EIS).  American Airlines flies there from San Juan, Puerto Rico (I believe this is an approximately 30 minute flight).  Once you’re there, you can take a taxi to destinations on Tortola Island.  If you’re going to Peter Island Resort, or anywhere on Virgin Gorda, you’ll probably need to take a ferry or water taxi to that final destination.

Another way to arrive in the British Virgin Islands (the BVI), is to fly to into St Thomas, and then take a ferry from St Thomas to Tortola.  From Charlotte Amalie (St Thomas), you can take the Tortola Fast Ferry (the locals recommended this over Native Son this trip, so I’ll take their word for it) to Road Harbor on Tortola.  For adults a one way ticket will run you $30; round trip $55.  I personally like taking the ferry as you get to see a lot on your trip between the islands from St Thomas to Tortola.  And if you aren’t keen on being on a ferry for fear of rocking and rolling too much, it’s really quite smooth unless you catch the weather when a storm is approaching or has just left the area.  Wear sunscreen though; I got pretty burnt on the hour trip between St Thomas and Tortola since I stayed on deck the whole time.

More on the trip to follow.

On my last flight across the country, I was told by the flight attendant that the price of alcohol on United flights has risen from $5 to $6 (for economy class, Business and First remain free).  It’s not that big of an increase, and I can understand why given the price of fuel, it just means I need to plan a little better; no longer will a $10 bill cut it, I’ll need that $10 and $2 extra.  Just wanted to give everyone a heads up on that so you don’t get caught out holding out your $5 bill in an attempt to get some booze on your long night flights.

Let me start by saying that I’m naming this post ‘The Rambler Flies to Detroit’ because I don’t feel that I actually was there.  I took off from San Francisco at 12:40am local time, then landed in Detroit at 8:08am local time.  Now most “normal” people would spend a night before flying back; not I!  You better believe I was back at that airport at 2pm on a 3:42pm flight from Detroit to San Francisco.  All told, I spent 20 hours outside of San Francisco; probably one of the fastest trips I’ve taken for that kind of distance.

A little about my flight.  I flew Northwest Airlines, which is a first for me as I generally fly United (what can I say, I fly enough that United gives me free stuff, and I like free stuff).  I booked my ticket two days before my trip, which usually leads a really damn high price.  The flight attendant happily reminded us for both flights that frequent fliers would receive APPROXIMATELY 2,083 miles; sounds pretty exact to me, but whatever, that’s not the point.  So given that distance, most people would expect a ticket price of around $600 last minute for a economy class.  Oh no, not Northwest, they managed to stick it to me for $1,775 for an ECONOMY (aka you can’t get cheaper than this) class ticket.  Excuse me, is the seat made out of the hide of a rare buffalo?? Does it come with a massage and a happy ending?!  Do I at least get free booze?  To all these, the answer is a resounding “No”.  Granted the seats were very comfortable, but not that comfortable.  Let’s run some numbers; for $1,775 what could I get??  Well off season, I could go to Europe twice.  I could take an almost 500 mile cab ride.  I could take the train across the country at least twice (I actually want to do this).  I almost contemplated upgrading to first since it was only an extra $250; they make it just low enough that you almost want to throw in the towel and call out “ah the hell with it, hit me”.  I resisted the urge though, arguing to myself that it really wasn’t worth the extra money for a 4-5 hour flight - hell, it wasn’t worth $1775 for a 4-5 hour flight but I didn’t have a choice about that one as Northwest was the only airline flying direct from San Francisco to Detroit.  Detroit is THAT popular of a destination.

On to Detroit airport we go.  Actually a very impressive airport.  Very clean and modern with a train running inside to shuttle you to the far flung gates.  All in all, much more impressive than any number of airports I’ve been through.  The strange thing about the Detroit airport was the car rental oddly enough.  The cheapest car was an intermediate SUV.  Now I’m used to normally rolling out of a car rental in a small Chevy Aveo style vehicle.  Not in Detroit!  Oh no, I rolled out of National Car Rental in a (Alamo owned) Kia Sportage.  Maybe gas really has gotten that expensive, and people are willing to pay more for smaller cars at car rentals - I wouldn’t know, I don’t have a car and subsequently don’t look at gas prices.

I don’t really have much to say about actually being in Detroit since I was there for such a short amount of time.  The parts I saw could have been Denver, Arizona, or Virginia.

Right now I’m sitting on my second flight of the day bound for the Virgin Islands, which will be another post and another round of stories and rants.  For now though, I think I feel the urge to fall asleep with my mouth hanging wide open for everyone to check out my molars.

Until next time, ramble on.

Last time I spoke about traveling to Estonia.  Cuba on the other hand, was like a slice out of the 1950s.  Seeing the old Chevrolet cars rolling down the streets was incredible.  What’s even more amazing is that they’ve kept them running for so long.  I know my Toyota won’t be running in another 40 years!

The people were also incredibly friendly; everyone wanted to stop, talk, and tell you stories.  I met people who had previously lived in the United States and had moved back to Cuba before the travel restrictions.  Many people asked me what it was like traveling to cuba and I can honestly say it was awesome.  And for those wondering, no there was not a large Police or Military presence, even though I was staying across from a military outpost for part of the trip.  There were Police offices on corners of streets in Havana, but we get that in New York as well, so it wasn’t particularly noteworthy.

One thing I did think was very interesting was that when talking to the Cuban people, many of them said they would not be in support of lifting the embargo on trade between the US and Cuba.  The primary reason they wanted to maintain the embargo was the fear that if lifted, the travel restrictions would be lifted, and many of the younger generation (the future workforce) would leave Cuba and emigrate to the United States.  This would leave the Cuban economy in a critical position of being unable to support itself with a workforce.  I personally am not sure how I feel about the trade embargo and the restrictions on travel.

Has anyone else been to Cuba?  What were your experiences?

Of all the places I have traveled, Estonia and Cuba were undoubtedly the most interesting. Traveling through Estonia, and particularly Tallinn was like traveling back in time. The cobble streets, and medieval looking buildings were incredible. One awesome thing I didn’t know before going is that Estonia actually has one of the most advanced wifi rollouts out of Europe. Amazingly my US cell phone got full service the entire time I was there; it did, however, cost $1.99 a minute, so talk fast!

I wouldn’t recommend going anytime other than the middle of Summer. It’s light until Midnight, and the sun comes back up at 3:30AM! Think if you reversed that, you’d probably see the sun for around 4-5 hours a day if you went during the winter - simple answer, don’t go that time of year.

I got there by flying to London, England, then to Frankfurt, Germany, then Tallinn, Estonia. I’m not sure I would recommend going for more than a few days, since I covered the city of Tallinn twice in two days. That said, it was pretty cool, and you’re close to many other interesting places to visit such as Finland, Sweden, and Norway. If you go during the Summer, you can hit all these places as well. Again, the winter will be a lot of darkness.

More about traveling to Cuba in my next post.