Well, it’s officially Fall, and it feels like it wen the temperature drops fast at night, and mornings are cool. Now is when I start to wonder if it’d be jumping the gun to turn the gas fireplace back on for the season! Many of you in coller climates like Canada are maybe starting to get an inkling to plan a winter holiday to a warmer climate. But what about experiencing autumn first, and how about in another culture!

If you watched the first episode of season 15 of The Amazing Race on Sunday, they started out in Los Angeles, and quickly made their way to Japan. Japan has four distinct seasons much as we do, and fall is an especially good time to visit, when it’s cool after the hot months of summer. Also like us, it’s a time of harvest and festivals, which they call matsuri. They begin with Shinto rituals and then set up stalls to sell crafts and produce. Imagine the beautiful artwork, and strange (to us!) fruits and vegetables to see. One of the three biggest festivals is in the city of Osaka. Kishiwada Danjiri Matsuri has been a festival since 1703, and the biggest attraction is when district of the city creates a danjiri (cart), and parades and races it through the city streets. The festival was created by the lord of Kishiwada castle to pray for an abundant harvest.

If you’re looking to head to Osaka this fall, there are great deals on hotel bookings. Hotels in Japan are very clean with all amenities you could want. Plus they’re really big on catering to business travellers, if you’re planning on going there on work. You can hardly go wrong picking one. The Ramada Osaka starts around $77 per night. Or for a bit more at around $109 per night, there’s the New Osaka Hotel Shinsaibahi. I think this one is a great mix of cultures because it has an Italian restaurant. I’d like to be a Canadian eating Italian food in a Japanese hotel

Of course if fall festivals isn’t your thing, even in a rich culture like Japan, you can head to Tokyo and experience everything from a Japanese game show to Disneyland Tokyo Sea. I actually think it’d be a fantastic idea to hit up every Disney park in the world, but let’s save that thought for another post. Anyway, Tokyo is a bit more expensive than Osaka, but there are still great deals. The Hotel Sunroute Ariake just opened in June 2009, and for approximately $107 per night, you can be right within easy access to tourist attractions and sightseeing sites all around Tokyo.

So whether it’s for a beautiful Fall, a Japanese festival, or even just the freshest sushi, consider a trip to Japan!

I bet there are some of you out there who are looking forward to the new season 15 of CBS’s Amazing Race starting next Sunday. They just won an Emmy, and it’s well-deserved when you consider the planning and work that goes into this program. If you’ve watched the show before, you’ll know that approximately 11 pairs of contestants travel  at a frenetic pace to and within multiple countries using a variety of transportation modes, from planes to trains to taxis to rickshaw and on foot. Clues at various pitstops have them perform challenges that are unique to the country or locale they are in, and the last pair to complete the leg is flagged for elimination, until at the very end, only one team remains.

While essentially a whirlwind trip around the world that takes them less than a month to complete, they do get an amazing taste of cultures that one might not normally experience on an average tourist trip. And from the point of view of viewers watching the journey on TV, it’s like watching a travel brochure unfold before our eyes. I hear this season has teams heading to Japan, Stockholm, and Estonia, among others. Want to bet they end up eating bugs or something else unusual at some point? That might not inspire you, but I bet seeing some of the other locale will make you want to get off the sofa and head somewhere for your own mini-adventure.

During this season of Amazing Race, each week I’ll highlight one of the places they’ve travelled to, and give you information and travel links and deals on how you can go there yourself through AnyDestination.com. I’ll also include some suggestions that are closer to home (I hear this year’s race ends in Las Vegas!).

In today’s more eco-conscious society, you might have heard negativity surrounding travel and the amounts of fuel to get us from one place to another. But with such a great world to explore, we don’t have to stop travelling altogether in order to be green. There are many small ways we can reduce our earthly impact while travelling. One way is to choose non-stop flights. A non-stop flight uses less fuel and gets you there more quickly, plus saves you money! If you’re searching through our AnyDestination flight booking engine, you can easily select to view only non-stop flights. Here’s how:

1. Visit the Flight booking engine here
2. Under Advanced Search Options, click the blue link that says “Airline and NonStop Options”
3. You’ll get a dropdown that opens. Simply check off the little box that says “I prefer nonstops.” Then click the big blue Search Flights button.  
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