36 Hours in San Sebastian According to The NY Times

This list is pretty good, but they should have added some private Spanish lessons and surfing to the mix.  Food and activity highlights from the New York Times article include:

• Phantom Beach
• Museo Paseo
• Ni Neu
• Mount Igueldo
• Mugaritz

They also recommended the sterile and expensive Hotel Astoria 7 for lodging, as well as the Hotel Gran Bahia Bernardo.

Read the full article via NY Times

Massive Storm Waves Cause Damage in San Sebastian

Huge storm waves rocked the coastline of San Sebastian Donostia this week.  Check out the videos below of Mother Nature's wrath.

See more via Enterat

5 Tips for Getting the Best Deals on Flights

Peter Greenberg, a travel editor for CBS news, had a great post on Quartz today, detailing his best tips for getting cheaper airfare.  Greenberg claims that it all comes down to the day, the time and the time of the month that you book.  Some of the highlights included:

1.  Don't book too early.  Unless you are traveling on "high-traffic days, Christmas or July 4th, you stand the best chance for the lowest possible fare 45 days our for domestic travel and 60 days for international."  Anecdotally, this strategy worked out well for my wife and I, as we booked flights from the US to Spain this month for a trip in March.  The tickets were around 20% cheaper this week than they were when we looked in December.

2.   Travel midweek.  This one is pretty well known, and it's not always feasible, but if you can fly in the middle of the week instead of on popular weekend days or Fridays, you will find cheaper flights.

3.  Book on Wednesday at 1am.  According to Greenberg, a flood of discount fares come flooding into the airline companies' computer systems just after midnight each Tuesday.  That means you should figure out the time zone where the airline is based, and call at 1am. 

4.  Call, don't book online.  Yes, Greenberg insists, you must speak to a real person to get the best deals.  Apparently the really good ones don't make it back to the web before they're snapped up.

5.  Clear your cookies.  Apparently, some people think that airline websites are able to track which flights you have looked at often and dynamically increase the price on tickets you are likely to purchase.  It's hard to believe that these companies could effectively execute this, if the quality of their front end web experience is any indication, but maybe that's just an elaborate ruse to make us complacent.  Either way, it's not a bad idea to clear your cookies, or book from a different computer than the one you use to browse.

You can read the full article here. 

Beautiful Shots of Nosara and Playa Grande, Costa Rica

Here is a beautiful sunset shot of Playa Guiones in Nosara, Costa Rica.  Nosara is home to our newest Spanish immersion program in Costa Rica.

And here is another gorgeous shot of Playa Grande in northern Guanacaste (across the estuary from our Tamarindo campus)

Photo credit:  Audrey Hoyt // VBD Travel

Langua Travel Offers Spanish Immersion Plus Adventure

Our partner company, Langua Travel, launched this week and we are excited to share what they're working on!

Langua Travel will be building custom immersion trips in Spain and Costa Rica for individuals, groups and families.  While on an LT trip, students will study Spanish in multiple locations, stay in amazing local accommodations and take part in exciting activities and excursions like wine tasting, dance lessons, horseback riding and surfing.

Custom corporate trips will also be available for companies who want to provide an educational and rewarding experience to their employees for their next off-site retreat or meeting.

Learn more at www.languatravel.com.

Nice online lesson blog: Spanish Lessons on the Go

Our partner school in Costa Rica is launching a Spanish language learning blog to help past students keep on their studies (but it's open to everyone).  Check it out!

Spanish lessons on the go


They'll be adding weekly lessons as well as an ebook, so check back regularly.

CH

17 Reasons Every American Should Learn Spanish

The Huffington Post ran a piece this week explaining why all Americans should learn Spanish.  Among other things, apparently, being bilingual increases intelligence.

“Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter,” Yudhijit Bhattacharjee wrote earlier this year in a piece for the New York Times Sunday Review. “It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.”

Other reasons identified in the article included, the fact that it helps your English, that it it is the second most common language in the world, and that it can help you get a job.  No surprises there.  

Check out the full list for motivation at Huff Post.  

Saludos,

SG