As previously mentioned, I’ve been using Kayak for travel planning for some time now, but I actually just discovered a new feature that is one of, if not the, best tools I’ve yet seen for helping to plan vacations that involve air travel.

The Kayak Buzz section offers a very cool, Google Map enabled shopping comparison tool which overlays destinations onto a regional or world map. The site lists the top deals for any given period of time and generally helps you decide where to go on vacation.
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s easy to see why Denver and the surrounding areas keep getting voted among the “Best Places to Live”.

The area is surrounded by the eastern edge of the Rockie mountains – the very view that inspired the words to America the Beautiful (”…for purple mountains majesty…”).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

And with a healthy respect for nature as well as a thriving economy, Denver is simply a great place to live or visit. In fact, in the 1990’s Denver grew by 30 percent – the equivalent of a thousand new residents a week, every week, for 10 years!
Read the rest of this entry »

If I could only use one word to sum up Boulder, Colorado it would be “wow”! This is one of the most naturally pretty places I’ve ever been.

Normally, I think of beautiful cities as places with some natural beauty which has been improved by man. For example, San Francisco. But then there are places like Boulder which simply need no improvement.
Read the rest of this entry »

This will be the first in a series of ongoing hotel reviews to accompany the places I Blog about when I travel. The reviews are, same as everything on OneMansBlog.com, purely subjective and as such are not open to contestation. I am the king, dictator, and master of this domain. However, if you have something to add, feel free to leave a comment. Now, on with it!

The Sheraton Colorado Springs is billed as a high class hotel which has recently undergone a $multi-million renovation. That may be the case but, given the fact that this is a large property, the money didn’t go that far.
Read the rest of this entry »

No trip to the Denver area would be complete without a visit to Pike’s Peak, so I headed on down about 70 miles south to Colorado Springs.

There are quite a few things that anyone visiting Colorado Springs needs to know… unfortunately no one bothered to share this info before I went.
Read the rest of this entry »