Chasing the cheap

Too many of the traveling public are supporting the 3^rd party booking services without realizing that whether it be hotel, vocational rental, or airline, chances are the “deal” brings a bunch of problems.

If you are a traveler who wants chaos, then using a 3^rd party booking service might be fine, but for those of us who like to have a great vacation at the destination without upsets, these booking services are not for you.

Beware, the 3^rd party booking services to include those selling hotels, vacation rentals only, and the others offering hotel/vocational rentals/air/car, all have no fiduciary legal responsibility to accurately offer a fully truthful travel product, nor are they worried about irate traveler law suits, these are multinational global entities with a profit factor of travel offerings deliberately filled with inaccuracies and omissions.

Having booked my air with Expedia and inbound overnight at a New York City hotel with Booking.com, I can testify to all of the above.

The positive about 3^rd party booking services: use their  information when you want to book directly with either the airline, hotel, vacation rental, or car rental, all the prices and “deals” are right there to look at, as well, the customer reviews about the offerings can give you an insight as to whether this is the travel product you want.

Calling direct enables you to make your own “deal.”

The real positive about my recent travel experience was the southern Italian city of Naples where street construction is going on everywhere—yet this city is a veritable “farm fresh” food lovers paradise at low, low prices, and I’m old enough to remember the way it used to be in the USA before we were taken over by the corporate  profit-factor culture of food products, captive to long shelf life due to inordinate amounts of salt and questionable chemicals, made in perhaps China and other 3^rd world countries where  as well, sanitation and cleanliness is always a problem.

In Naples, supermarkets are repositories of “eat healthy” items that cannot be found in other western European cities of comparable size, and I’ve traveled extensively enough to know, the citizens of Naples have farm to market fresh produce not mass produced and at prices so low it rivals anywhere in similar western Europe cities—I had the pleasure of shopping at Sole 365, where fresh baked products take up a  wall of freshly baked unwrapped bread in plastic container shelves, even salt-free bread, all with exact amounts salt, sugar etc. listed ingredients, the grilled calamari was a succulent treat for lunch at my hotel room, where the small refrigerator kept it cooled to perfection as I made my salad of perfect spinach leaves and tasty tiny tomatoes plus farm fresh zucchini that I sliced in narrow strips.  

The fact is, this large southern Italian city has much more of what northern Italian cities of comparable size lack, in Naples neighborhoods are congenial, places where neighbors are sitting in the squares and straddled on anything that lines the antiquity laden all cobblestone city streets under construction, nearby are the many neighborhood favorite reasonably priced family restaurants where the locals eat—the port of Naples offers a cornucopia of restaurant choices up and down the winding cobblestone streets, wonderful grilled seafood and great beef steaks grilled to perfection, rare, or any way you want it, in my opinion rivaling the much touted Firenze beef.

Another positive:  the very reasonably priced Palazzo Turchini that I discovered by plying the 3^rd party booking sights, and although I paid in advance for a room with full breakfast served upstairs on the hotel terrace both indoors and outdoors, my booking direct with the hotel was sight unseen, yet I  read all the reviews, this was a 4.75 stars, lacking .25 stars, and many of the rooms are facing the courtyard of this restored palace situated right in the heart of the port, but from the reviews I knew it was prudent to ask for a room with a street view for me to experience the flavor and voice of Naples—from my balcony I could see the port with the blue azure water, beyond, the island of Ischia and other islands further in the distance—the staff were on duty 24 hours, wi-fi worked all the time, staff always available to answer questions and give directions.

The traffic is part of the story of this Naples where life is good and everyone works at jobs that support their families, traffic goes on a non-stop basis, the motorcycles and cars make crossing every street a hazard, but soon I was like the natives, using my hand to motion “stop,” however I often took advantage of the pedestrian cross walks where the police in patrol vans see to it for the most part certain pedestrian rules are observed by even the most insolent motorcyclists. 

I took photos with my iPhone SE and hereafter during other travel posts I will feature some that will give more of the flavor of Naples than all of the above.