Mangerie Brunch


A little hard to find, and up a couple flights of stairs, Mangerie has a beautiful outdoor patio overlooking the Bosphorus in what looks like a modernized home. We were seated on the balcony, and had originally come here for the Turkish Breakfast, but couldn't help but indulge in a few other dishes from the menu.



We started with a couple cocktails and some spiced nuts as we perused the rest of the menu.




Local olives and bread

Another Cocktail

Traditional Turkish Breakfast

Additional Mezes

Steak Tartare

Scallops

Overall the food here was delicious, and the ambiance delightful.

We finished off with some coffee since we still had the whole rest of the day to go!


Turkish Coffee Served with Turkish Delight









Hot-Air Ballooning

A very popular activity in the area is hot-air ballooning. The best time to go is in the early morning, partly because of how the winds are, and mostly due to how beautiful it is watch the sun rise over such a magnificent terrain. Below are a bunch of pictures from before and during our flight. This is basically a photo post, but words feel unworthy.
























Cappadocia - Where we stayed

So there are a handful of regions in Cappadocia, but for us we wanted to stay somewhere that we could enjoy the beauty of the area even from our hotel. We settled on a cave hotel in Goreme called Kelebek and were very happy with our choice.

Kelebek was both great for coordinating our tours, transportation, and baloon ride but also offered a fantastic local valley brunch, partnering with a family nearby.
Sitting Area Outside our Room

Goreme seen from above

Uchisar Castle in the Distance

Goreme with Rose Valley in Background

Atop Uchisar

Cappadocia - Home of Pretty Rocks

Our first real stop in Turkey would be Cappadocia.

The place is boiling over with history and culture, which I could write pages about - but Wikipedia probably does a much better job anyway. It is worth noting there is a ton of history here.

The idea that I'd like to convey the most is how beautiful of a place this is, in a fully unconventional sense.


White Valley


Rose Valley

The different formations are due to a history of an active volcanic region, resulting in a bunch of different kinds of rock - sedimentary, volcanic, and some generic hard rock - that result in a beautiful landscape and occasional independent structures called fairy chimneys

Taking Bets on When This Guy Falls

Pair of Chimneys looking Phallic
.

ABC Bike Tour Bangkok

This post could have been something bigger, but sometimes laziness dominates good work. We did a bike tour while in Bangkok (ABC Bike Tour,) which was quite an enjoyable day. It included some back alley tours of the inner city, a tour of a couple different markets, a boat ride, and the opportunity to try a bunch of different snacks. The big takeaway from this post should be that Miang Kham is delicious.

Help from a few locals with a jammed biket chain.

Katherine in the market!

Morning Catch

Some of the waterways were not the cleanest


Miang Kham to go pack!

Miang Kham

Quail Egg Crack

Fresh Chicken?

Katherine Cracking Quail Eggs

Riding through the woods


Why I Always Fly Nonstop and Quantifying the Cost of Time


Let’s be honest here, flying nonstop is just way better than flying anywhere with stops. There are a few major reasons. Time – generally stops take more time – not only do you have to take two planes you also have to wait in a different airport for your next plane. Waiting is not fun.

The other big issue is risk. When you take a nonstop flight you risk missing the plane once, and you risk weather, mechanical issues, etc only once. When you have a stop you have at least double the risk. Your second plane has all the risk of a normal nonstop flight – but if your first plane has a problem, even a small delay, and you miss your connection now you are in a host of trouble.
The problem of course is that in general nonstop flights can be more expensive than stops – sometimes which doesn’t make a ton of sense given often you’ll fly further for less money – supply demand at work. So how do you quantify if the extra money or miles spend on a non-stop flight is worth it?

Quantifying Vacation Time

There are a couple of nerdy ways to figure this out. One would be – what is your vacation time worth?

Let’s say you work full time and get 15 vacation days per year. The 360 hours of paid vacation time you get are worth a lot because you’re working the majority of the rest of the time. The first question you can ask yourself is how much you would pay for one more vacation day? If you know the answer to that, all you have to do is divide that number by 12 (I’m assuming a stopover adds about 2 hours of travel time on average) and you're done – but let’s try and value your vacation days.

Work Hours Framing

Let’s assume the average traveler who is having this debate works 5 days per week all year round. There are about 10 holidays that most people get off, and then three weeks of vacation. That leaves about 47 weeks of full work, or 235 days. If you work 10 hours per day, and make $100k per year – you actually are looking at around $42 per hour (we’re ignoring taxes here, forgive me) over that time period. It seems true, that if you could work for the extra amount of time the stop over takes, you would at least pay $84 for the nonstop flight, again assuming a 2hour average time addition (don’t forget about all the extra risk!) Naturally if you make 50k, you can cut this number in half, or 200k you can double this number. Time is money after all.

Some companies even let you store your vacation time or redeem it at your salary level, so the equation becomes even more clear cut if you have more vacation than you can use and want to redeem the rest.

Vacation Cost Framing

What about looking at the value in terms of the cost of the vacation? Let’s say you book tickets somewhere that cost $500 round trip, and you are staying for a 3-day weekend. The hotel you are at costs $250 per night. The trip fixed costs are around $1250 for flights and hotel. During that time you have 72 hours. On vacation, I like to sleep a lot – but let’s assume you only sleep 8 hours per night, that leaves you with 48 hours of non-sleeping vacation time. You’re basically paying $26 per hour for that time (between the flights and the hotel, $1250/48= ~$26,) so you’d definitely be willing to pay $52 to avoid two hours of extra travel time!



American Airlines Miles Worth More Than A Nickel!




I’ve always been a big fan of thepointsguy, and bloggers similar to him who are always trying to arbitrage frequent flyer points and credit cards. I’ve played along for a while and the sad part is all I’ve really had to show for it is a massive pile of points. The problem for me has been that some of the best award travel bonuses happen on off days – getting one and a half to two cents per point if you are not into flying first class flights Wednesday to Wednesday is a bit tricky. Flying Wednesday to Wednesday is for people who have lots of time, or don’t need to maximize their vacation days.

What did I learn today? I learned that last minute travel is where there is some serious edge! On Tuesday may 26th, I was debating flying Philadelphia to San Francisco for the weekend. Round trip non-stop tickets Friday to Sunday, or Friday to Monday are pricing around $1500-$1600. One stops around $900 – but I hate stopovers. In fact, I’ve pretty much vowed never to fly connecting flights if I don’t have to.

In comes the American Airlines advantage points, who recently merged with US Airways so the points are all the same now. You can acquire points a number of ways for these programs including the American Airlines credit card, the US Airways credit card, or one of my favorites, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Booking award travel, the same flights for this weekend are 12.5 thousand points each way, plus the ~$80 or so in taxes and last minute booking fees, which is basically the same points price for a flight I would book 3 months away! (Note if you have higher status on American $75 worth of fees are waived!)


If you value these points vs what I would have spent buying a ticket the normal way, I’m using AA Advantage points at more than six cents per point! That would make the chase sapphire preferred 40,000 bonus worth $2,400 which is no chump change! Hands down the most lucrative use of points and airline miles I've ever found!


If you liked this post, and want to support more like it - use the below priceline link to book last minute hotels!