Jeremy

Jeremy founded Living the Dream in 2008 to chronicle his long-term trip around Asia. Since then he has been on two long-term trips, visited 69 countries, and is just getting started. He is now on a Lifestyle Design quest to build businesses to pursue a life of travel.

Hiking Rota do Javali Near Manteigas – Waterfall and Vistas

While our trip to Portugal was primarily to seek out the country’s best food and beverages, we knew we had to work in a stopover in the mountains to take a break, enjoy the fresh air, and more importantly- go hiking to work off the absurd about of food we were eating!

This goal led us to Manteigas- a stunning little mountain town in the heart of Serra da Estrela Natural Park (home to Torre- the tallest point in mainland Portugal).

Purely from driving in and out of this town, we would’ve had our fill of mountains and had been overjoyed with the experience. But we really needed to go on a hike, and while in the area we hit up the 7-mile Rota do Javali for a moderate, ~3 1/2 hour morning hike up and over a mountain. 

If you have any chance to visit the area, you’ll want to consider adding on this hike if you can!

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5 of Our Top Tips for Driving in Portugal for the Best Time

When we decided to visit Portugal, we knew we would rent a car to drive around the country to explore as much as possible. We went into it assuming that driving in Portugal would be a lot like in other European countries we’ve driven in, like Italy and Iceland- that is to say, crazy at worst or covered with speed cameras at best.

As it turns out, driving in Portugal was incredibly easy, and apart from a few key issues worth highlighting we really had no problems at all. In this one, we thought we’d share more about what you can expect when picking up a car to explore here!

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United Upgrade With Miles and Dollars – Is It Worth It?

As we are reaching the point in our lives where we desire comforts when we travel, flying in business class has been something we’re moving to more and more. But as we typically cannot afford these tickets outright (as conventional routes can be $2,000, $3,000, $5,000, or more roundtrip), we have been acquiring these coveted seats in recent years using points. 

In the past, we would go the conventional route for snagging a rewards business class seat- simply using a boatload of points to buy the ticket outright while only having to pay taxes on the flight (often a nominal amount). But our points-earning capabilities have dropped a bit in the last few years such that we have to be a bit more selective with how we redeem our points when flying.

Thankfully, many airlines also let you upgrade a paid economy ticket with a mix of miles and dollars as a bit of a hybrid approach to try and snag a business class seat for less of a hit to your bottom line (pending availability). We tried this on a recent flight from Newark to Lisbon, Portugal, and had success in getting upgraded on our red-eye flight outbound.

So in this one, we thought we’d take a look at the process to score a United upgrade with miles and dollars, who has the best odds of snagging a seat in this process, and what happened when we didn’t get upgraded on our return flight home!

  • Note: This article is based on our travel experiences flying United in October 2021. Rules can and do change regularly so please read current T&Cs of your particular airline before upgrading a future flight as things may change.

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How to Travel From Hong Kong to Hanoi Overland Fast

2018 Update: We’ve been told via the comments that the bus we used may no longer be in operation or on limited days. Please keep this in mind when planning.

Direct travel from Hong Kong to Hanoi has been described as a headache for many travelers who have attempted the route without flying.  Why is this a headache you might ask?

Well, according to train travel site Seat61, the shortest possible itinerary that includes train travel takes just over two days, a few connecting cities (there is no Hong Kong to Hanoi train directly), and nearly $100 USD of funds consumed in the process just for transportation alone.

However, in my planning I found another method that could quite possibly be the worlds shortest duration in traveling between Hong Kong and Hanoi, requiring just 23 hours from door to door and a grand total of roughly $60 USD.

Train travel on this particular route siphons you through multiple different cities, typically being Hong Kong/Shenzhen to Guangzhuo, onward to Nanning, and then finally to the border and down to Hanoi.

The problem with this is that one or more of the routes is often done by night train and produces an extra day of travel and an increased cost.  However, there is one often overlooked option: a night bus.

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