I recently researched a company in the UK that pays drivers money to place advertisements for businesses on their car. Is this something that you would do? A lot of people who wouldn’t have answered yes to that question a year ago are turning up with applications in hand for this business because times are tight and the need cash.

It doesn’t seem like a bad idea at all. You get paid money for the driving that you would be doing anyway. This allows you to reduce the cost of driving and gain an income that you didn’t already have access to. You don’t have to go too far out of your way to do it either – just commit to driving a certain amount of miles each month, checking in with the company and parking in visible areas.

There are certainly some drawbacks to this. You have to make sure to keep your car clean and to drive appropriately since you’re representing someone else’s company. And you have to remember that you’re going to be supporting a business or product while you do this. But that seems like a small price to pay for a little bit of extra cash right now.

From the reverse side of things, this could be a great way for small businesses to get valuable advertising without having to spend a lot of money during these tough times. Are there programs like this in the US right now? If there are, would you consider signing up?

Tags: advertising, business, driving, earn money, kathryn vercillo, marketing, money, Personal Finance, Travel

The topic of weddings and honeymoons seems to keep coming up in my life a lot lately. I have to admit, it’s not a topic that I really understand. I’ve never been someone who was a big fan of ceremonies and I kind of think that the whole hullaballoo that people put themselves through for planning an elaborate wedding is really kind of strange. Nevertheless, it’s something that people do so the topic keeps coming up.

What people seem to be telling me lately is that the wedding is stressful but only as stressful as they’d expected it to be. The honeymoon, on the other hand, is also stressful but the stress seems to surprise them because they expected this vacation part of the new marriage to be a breeze.

That expectation seems silly to me. As someone who has done a fair amount of traveling, I have come to expect that there are often going to be problems on my vacations. Travel just comes with a lot of hassles including delays and illnesses and weather issues and getting lost. Don’t get me wrong - I love to travel – but nothing about it really seems simple to me.

And it definitely doesn’t seem simple when it involves planning and going with another person. There are very few people that I’ve actually enjoyed traveling with because people have such different travel styles. I’m lucky because there are some people really close to me that I travel well with but I certainly don’t travel well with everyone that I’m close to so the idea that travel with someone else will go smoothly isn’t something I’d bank on.

I certainly think that honeymoons should be fun and romantic and enjoyable. I think that about all types of vacations. However, I don’t think that they’re simple things to plan out and make happen so that’s something all of these marriage-planning people may want to take into consideration as they do their planning!

Tags: honeymoon, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, marriage, Travel, trips, vacation, wedding

One of the things that I have been meaning to do since I moved to California but haven’t yet gotten around to doing is checking out Yosemite National Park. It seems like I always miss out on the best times of the year to go and then I end up putting it off until some later date that never comes around. It’s definitely on the list of things to do this year.

There are also some California state parks on that list. I recently got the chance to visit Alamere Falls (pictured above) which is one of only two waterfalls in California that fall into the ocean. The other one, McWay Falls, is located in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Although the park itself doesn’t look terribly impressive, I’d like to get the chance to compare that falls to the one I visited. Plus I like the Monterrey area where the park is located.

I’d also really like to check out some of the parks that are part of the Redwoods National and State Parks group. I’ve seen the redwoods but it was a long time ago and I was just driving through on my way to somewhere else. I’d like to take the time to actually hike through there and explore their beauty. Hopefully I’ll get to do at least a couple of these trips sometime this year!

What else should I see in California during my travels?

Tags: california, california state parks, hiking, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, national parks, Travel, yosemite

I recently wrote on article about culinary school vacations which is a type of travel that includes learning to cook local foods during your stay in an area. This seems like it could be a really great experience for someone who really enjoys cooking, learning and tasting local foods. Although I somewhat like those things, I don’t think that I enjoy them enough to truly have an interest in culinary school vacations. However, writing the article got me thinking about the different types of classes that you can take as a part of your travel and there are certainly some that interest me.

Language classes are the most obvious. I think it’s important to try to learn the local language any time that you travel somewhere. While it’s good to get some of the basics out of the way before the trip, I think an inmmersion class at the start of your vacation is a great idea if you’re going to be there long enough to benefit from it.

Classes that are specific to things that are popular in a local area are also coming to mind. I’ve gotten very interested in visiting Buenos Aires recently so I’ve read a lot of books by people who have traveled there. All of them seem to suggest that it’s a good idea to take tango classes while you’re there since it’s such an important part of the culture and it’s the best place to get good instruction in the dance.

Mostly I think I’m interested in shorter-duration classes than all of these, however. I’m interested in taking classes that can be completed in a day or two but which will add to my overall experience of the trip. For example, I might take a class in scuba-diving and then go diving at my destination. Or I might take a class in the history of the area or the area’s art movements while I’m there to learn more about those aspects of a destination. This suits my attention span and travel style better than a continuing class.

Tags: classes, education, hub pages, kathryn vercillo, specialty travel, Travel, vacation

I am originally from Arizona but my father was born in Ohio and we spent quite a bit of time vacationing there as kids. Although I can’t say that I’ve seen the entire state, I’ve definitely seen a good chunk of it and I can say that there are some interesting things to see there.

It’s a different world from San Francisco, for sure. The way of life is different. Even the urban areas seem to be at a slower pace than the pace I’m used to out in California. The way people treat each other seems different – neither more friendly nor less so than here but different somehow. It’s not a place that I consider to be right for me but it’s definitely one of the homes of my past.

Like many other states, Ohio has a few different sides to its personality. It’s neither liberal nor conservative (or may be either, depending on where you are). It’s got some urban areas and some rural areas and some college towns that incorporate a little bit of both urban and rural places. It’s got high-tech areas and Amish country.

Check out my suggestions for ten cities in Ohio to visit if you want to get a better sense of what the entire state is all about.  And then let me know your thoughts on different Ohio cities because I’d like some insight into what others make of this state that means something to me.

Tags: best cities, cities in ohio, hub pages, itinerary, kathryn vercillo, ohio, ohio cities, planning, Travel, vacation

San Francisco was represented in a couple of different posts in the most recent edition of the Carnival of Cities blog carnival. One of those posts was my post on the city’s creative scene and the other was more of a general travel post about San Francisco. One of our neighbors to the south, San Diego, was also represented with a post about the Balboa Park museums there which I can say from experience are very cool indeed.

There were several other posts related to different spots throughout the United States this time around although those were the only ones from California. The others came from New York (both Queens and Manhattan), Baltimore, Austin and Pensacola.

There weren’t too many non-US posts this time around which is kind of rare and sad to see. The ones that are there are worth checking out though. They’re on Melbourne, Goa and India. It’ll be interesting to see what’s in the carnival next month, won’t it?

Tags: blog carnival, carnival of cities, kathryn vercillo, San Francisco, Travel, travel blogs, travel writing

I got my first car when I was still fifteen because I was that eager to start driving as soon as I was legally allowed to do so. At 18, I took a photography job that had me in my car two days per week traveling to and from all of the little cities of Arizona. When I was 21, I took off in my pickup truck with the guy that I liked at the time and we traveled all over the country together. And at 25, I accepted a brief job helping an artist which included driving him across the country to different conventions where he sold his work.

The point here is that I’ve spent a whole heck of a lot of time in cars. Sometimes I loved it. I like road trips. I like the convenience of driving. But ever since I moved to San Francisco, I don’t own a car and I almost never drive and I much prefer life this way than the way that it was when I had a car that I drove every day.

Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of things that I don’t like about not having a car. I don’t like the days when it’s raining out and my umbrella doesn’t work right and I’m trying to decide whether it’s worse to walk in the rain or worse to get on a crowded bus with dozens of wet people. I don’t like the times on the bus when the creepy people bother me. I don’t like that I can’t get in my vehicle and just drive up the coast for the day because I don’t have a vehicle anymore.

But overall, I’d rather have a car-free life. I live in a place where I can easily walk to and from most of the things that I need to do on a daily basis. I like that a whole lot better than living in a place where I’d have to drive to and from my daily stops. I live in a place where public transportation is decent and I can go a really long way from here on trains and ferries if I want to. Mostly I prefer that to those lonely hours spent on highways around the country.

Because of the way that I live now, I have trouble understanding how people drive every day. I don’t know how my mom and my brother can each spend multiple hours in the car each day running errands and running around. I don’t understand when friends mention that they commute several hours each day to and from work. And I don’t remember how it was that I drove as much as I did back when I did. But everyone is different. Some people love driving. What about you?

Tags: autos, cars, driving, green, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, transit, transportation, Travel

I’ve been busy answering questions over at Yahoo! Answers again. One of my favorite things about being a web writer is the diversity of the topics that I get a chance to learn about and become an expert in. The fact that two of my Yahoo! Answers were recently chosen as “best answers” even though they are from widely different topic areas is a testament to the fact that web writers really get to know their stuff across a diverse range of interest areas.

On the one hand, I answered a question about which is the best city to live in. I’m certain that no one is surprised that I argued for San Francisco since we all know that this city has my heart. But I tried to be thorough in my answer so that others could see why I feel that way. This answer came from the hands-on personal experience of living here as well as the research I’ve done about the area since I write about it so frequently. I also made sure to cover the highlights of other great cities and to emphasize that ultimately the answer to this question is a really personal one.

The other topic I answered a question about was completely different. Someone asked how to pay for shipping. I think I answered that completely but also went on to try to explain some of the pros and cons of shopping when it comes to shipping fees as well as to offer tips for reducing shipping costs. I figured that people looking into shipping anything would want that money-saving information!

So hopefully that was helpful.

Tags: advice, answers, cities, how to, kathryn vercillo, Personal Finance, questions, Travel, Yahoo Answers

I love to travel but I also love to stay at home. When I am at home, I like to read about travel and write about travel so I get that experience of traveling without actually having to go through the cost and hassle of the experience. One of the things I’ve been reading along those lines is information about the world’s largest lakes.

I found out that there are two really massive saltwater lakes in this world that cause a lot of controversy about whether or not they should be named lakes. The first is the Caspian Sea which is by far the largest lake in the world if indeed it’s counted as a lake. The other is Lake Maracaibo which was definitely once a lake but is now more of a bay down in South America.

I also learn that two of the Great Lakes here (Huron and Michigan) are actually one single lake which I had never heard before. This means that it’s the biggest of the lakes there even though Lake Superior is typically considered the largest lake since most people count those first two as two separate lakes. Interesting stuff.

Interested? Learn more about 10 of the Largest Lakes in the World.

Tags: biggest lakes, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, lakes, largest lakes, Travel

I spend a lot of time writing about San Francisco. I write all sorts of different stuff about this city but the thing that I write about most is the city’s sexy side. You can learn more about that from my blog San Francisco is Sexy.

Some recent sexy city highlights from the blog include:

• 10 Sexiest Things in the Castro. This is one of San Francisco’s sexiest neighborhoods. Here’s a list of the ten hottest things to do or see while you’re spending time there.
• Belle du Jour. This is an old movie that you can learn more about from my post that I put up since it’s playing at one of our hot theaters.
• Happy Ending Massage. Are these naughty massages available for women as well as men?
• Male Sex Worker Arts Festival. Doesn’t that sound interesting?

I also provided information about how to get discount tickets to performance arts events. This isn’t just for San Francisco but also for other major cities and it’s free to sign up so check that out!

Tags: california, kathryn vercillo, San Francisco, san francisco is sexy, sexy, sexy san francisco, Travel