Augie and I have been very good friends for half my life! Even though he lives on the other side of the planet, we managed to stay in touch over the years and I’m grateful to have him in my life. I’ve learned a ton from him – about life in general but also about booking hotels. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to fly for free – dive in!
Video Transcription
Saturday morning in Vegas and I’m super happy Augie arrived! Augie’s one of my best friends and we don’t get to see each other that often. He lives in Dallas, Texas. I don’t have a business there but I try to go by whenever I can and connect through his city. Vice versa, he tries to fly wherever I am whenever he sees an opportunity. So he just landed in Vegas to come and relax a bit but also to see me. So I’m headed over to Planet Hollywood to meet him.
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One thing that’s fascinating about Vegas is that many places just look the exact same way. Whether it’s like 3 a.m. or 9 a.m. there’s no daylight. People are playing 24/7 in here. Sometimes a bit sad but for the most part, it’s really fun.
I’m headed over to Planet Hollywood now which is one of the places that I usually stay or used to stay at when I was here more frequently. It’s also in a very good location, they usually offer very good value for money.
How to choose the right hotel
Alright, so we are in front of the famous Bellagio fountains. And Augie and I have been coming to Vegas quite a few times in the past. In fact, it was you who kind of placed the travel bug inside me. How do you choose hotels, how do you choose where to sleep?
Augie: It’s kind of hard for me because a lot of my travel is standby. But usually, I look ahead of time. I go onto some of the larger consolidator websites like Hotels.com and Orbitz, Travelocity… And I look to see what the hotel rates are. So that way I get an idea if I’m going someplace and everything is three-four-five hundred dollars maybe I don’t want to spend that weekend there because it’s too expensive. If everything is you know 75-100 bucks for a night, that’s a good idea. So I know I’ll be safe when I get there.
How do you choose the location you want to visit
So one thing is the price which all these websites make pretty easy, right? You can filter by it. But especially for places like New Zealand that you haven’t been to, how do you choose the location?
Augie: That one’s kind of tough. You try to figure out exactly where you’re gonna be. Which tourist sites or which cities you’re gonna be around… And then I kind of go to a couple of different places, different websites, that will have a geographic setting. So you can type in an address and then it’ll pull up a radius around that specific address and you’ll be able to kind of take a look at the hotels. Or you go on to sites like TripAdvisor or whatnot – you can leave a quick note and people will start responding back right away with suggestions for that location.
I would just say “hey, I am making my first trip to Taupo, New Zealand I’ve never been there before, any recommendations on nice hotels that are not too expensive”? They’ll start throwing out suggestions and then you can find the local website you know in New Zealand and find out what the rate is and sometimes even calling them directly. You can get a great rate.
Taking the mystery out of travel
It’s always great to meet Augie. He’s someone who has had a huge influence, positive impact on my life. I’m really grateful and thankful for his friendship, all the adventures we got to go through. Definitely, someone who for me took a lot of the mystery out of travel and allowed me to live the lifestyle that I’m living today. But also just always an inspiration when it comes to how to treat others and how to be respectful and how to phrase emotions. He’s just really good with putting emotions into words.
I’m on my way back into the Cosmopolitan where we’re staying and I’m gonna check out what kind of trouble the guys are getting themselves into. And so it’s time again to turn the camera off. In case I don’t speak to you later today, I’ll talk to you tomorrow!
You can listen to the audio version here:
