Ruby Loves Adventure

Tower Bridge, London, UK

So I was on a business trip in London and my colleagues had told me good luck when I had mentioned I'm going out on a pub tour. Why, I asked, and to which they said that almost everyone who goes out on a pub tour of the city gets on their hands and knees at some point in the night or the morning after - but it is a lot of fun.

Off I went, searching on the internet for a company to book until I found Pub Tour London. They had two tours: one for central, and one for shoreditch and I booked the central tour. It was 12 quid (GBP) if booked online on a weeknight - not too bad for someone to guide me to some of the best bars around town. Meeting place was at the Piccadilly Institute from 8 -9PM, which was a great time for me to grab dinner and get there right after work. I went alone, so it was quite daunting for me to go to a pub but whatever, this tour helps me meet new people anyway. Found the people who are the tour organizers of Pub Tour London who then connected me to new people that are also within my group. Not so bad.



After an hour in one pub, off we went to another, and another, and another. There was free shots, but I think what made me quite tipsy was the fact that I kept mixing drinks. Just so you know, if you are planning to visit London, some of these drinks can cost quite a bit of money. Try budgeting around 7 GBP for a pint of beer, more if you are planning to buy some of the mixed drinks (which can range form 9GBP up).  It wasn't all about the pubs, as the night went on, I found myself in some clubs too, which charge exorbitant entry fees. Turns out that this tour I booked from Pub Tour London is in charge of paying for these cover charges. Excellent. So, a bit tipsy and trying my best to dance and talk to some of my new friends, I finally ended the night in the wee hours of the morning, with a few more Facebook contacts and trying my best to remember how the night had unfolded. Let me just say my Friday was really unproductive, as I went on a Thursday night. (Note: Thursday nights at work are more like our drinking night to give way to the people who have families and want to leave early on a Friday to go home to their respective towns). I would definitely recommend Pub Tour London to anyone who may want to go and have fun in a new town and meet new friends along the way! They upload group photos on their gallery - so try to grab it from their website when you can.

So, since I've gotten into the points and miles game recently, I figured I'd also post my plans on how to travel for cheap in 2015.

Why so early? Because to travel for almost free, you need to book secure your award tickets as soon as you can. And it also means jumping on various promos to get as many points as you need. Oh, and this isn't a backpacker trip... we're traveling using hotels, cars, and doing all that we want to do: paying $30 for dinner? that's fine, we can offset it somewhere. Paying $50 for a tour? Yes, also fine - we can reimburse it. No holds barred, no budget constraints (much) - just trying to do whatever we want in the hopes of reimbursing as many of it using points.

So, our travel plans for 2015 are as follows and bits and bobs of what we want to do, we don't have specific itineraries yet. I'll update this page as soon as I have booked more flights/hotels and our overall out of pocket cost before the end of 2015. Note - most of these tricks only apply to the US, but you should know that YOU CAN TRAVEL IN STYLE WITHOUT PAYING MUCH - all it needs is a bit of planning and knowing what's out there! :)



Tampa (January 17-19)

• Busch Gardens - paid $45 in cash for entrance during the AMEX Daily Getaways (too bad we didn't have an AMEX card when we bought it, would have been much cheaper - paying $45 for 1 ticket is 50% cheaper than the normal price (around $100)
• Lunch - $17 (buffet) out of pocket
• Parking fee - $17 out of pocket