One of the most important decisions and keys to the success of any trip is to pick the right plage to stay. We thought it would be a good idea to share our picks for the best places to stay in the cities we visit. I spend literally hours research areas and apartment buildings for each trip, and wanted to share the fruits of that labor with you. First up is Buenos Aires, a city experiencing a huge surge in tourism in the past few years. Check out the video above to see our pick for the best neighborhood to call home.

Have you been to Buenos Aires? Tell us your picks and experiences in the comments.

We love to cruise.  There are a few tips and tricks we wish we had known.

1. Map Out Your Room

On one cruise we spent extra to get a balcony room and CELEBRITY CRUISE LINES sucked and tricked us into thinking it was a normal room. Even the cruise ship maps did not show it was under an overhang blocking half the view and the sun.  Go to cruisecritic.com to make sure the room you got is good.

2. Bring a Travel Mug

If you love to take coffee from the breakfast buffet, the little plastic cups are terrible.  Plus I liked to bring juice up onto deck with me, a travel mug closes and doesn’t easily spill on a windy deck.

3. Bring Ziplocs

You always need Ziplocs for wet bathing suits after shore excursions and your ripped toiletries bag.  You can also bring Ziploc’s for some veggies from the buffet you want to bring on deck or cereal for the kids.

4. Figure Out Your Table Before Getting On Ship

Many ships have communal dinning tables.  If you want a table for just your family, be sure to call ahead.  Or if you do not mind sitting with new people, ask for people in your age group.  Nothing is worse than being a pair of newlyweds at a family table.

5. Bring Binoculars

There is tons of nature spotting, you should bring a pair of travel binoculars for some fabulous sightings.

6. Bring Tupperware

Again, it is great to have some Tupperware to save food for later. I also love putting food in Tupperware for flights instead of having to buy while traveling.

7. Bring QuickDry Towels

If you plan on doing shore excursions, you should bring quickdry towels.  They are light weight and dry before the excursion the next day.  Often times the ship will not let you bring towels off, and even if you do they are bulky and get your other clothes wet.

8. Research Shore Excursions Early!

Never ever take a shore excursion from the ship.  They are usually poorly planned and really expensive.  Look BEFORE you get on board because Internet is expensive. It is ver easy to book on your own.

9. Get An E-Reader (or iPad)

So you have less stuff to bring on board, I highly recommend getting a Kindle or Sony E-reader or a soon to be released iPad.  This helps because you have less books and you can bring newspapers, magazines and blogs all in one place.

10. Figure Out the Changeover Times for the Buffet

We loved eating at the buffet and soon realized the food was freshest right when they had changeover times.  Ask a friendly wait staff when they switch out the meals at the buffet so you can get the freshest food possible.

If you do it right you can save a lot of money cruising.  Would love your tips below!

Portland is a fabulous place to come and visit (when it is not raining!).  We have a couple of areas to recommend that might not make all of the guide books.  Here is how you can do Portland Oregon in a weekend:

10 of the Best Things to Do in Portland, Oregon

1. Pioneer Square

Pioneer Square is right in the middle of downtown and a great area to ride around the trams. We loved “The Park” for amazing soup and curry chicken salad sandwich.

2. The Pearl

The Pearl is a very hip part of town that is filled with galleries.  Try to go on the first Thursday of the month when all of the galleries are open late and serve little snacks. Try the Tapas place-Oba to eat.

3. Japanese Garden

Take a hike from the Portland Zoo to the Magnolia grove and the Winter Garden and end up at the Japanese Garden.  The hike will take you about 40 minutes and you will see some great houses and forest around Portland.  The Japanese garden is worth the entrance fee and has amazing views of the city.

4. Division Street in Southeast

If you want great dessert go to Pix Dessert place in South East on Division St and walk along for wine bars, sushi places and other great restaurants.

5. Mississippi Street

Gravy is an amazing place for brunch on Mississippi street and then you can stroll along and check out the vintage shops, boutiques and cafes.

6. Alberta Street

Alberta street is a funky little area with restaurants and shops.  Check out a very Portland breakfast joint called Tin Shed—dogs allowed!

7. Hawthorne

Hawthorne can be a bit seedy, but you can find some great greasy pizza and bowls at Rice Junkies.  I love the vintage clothing shops and the perfume house.

8. 23^rd and Knob Hill

23^rd is a more upscale part of Portland, very close to the Pearl.  This area is also called Knob Hill, you can walk around to the houses and get some Boba tea while shopping in upscale boutiques.

9. Cart Villages

Portland is full of amazing cart villages, cheap areas you can get food out of carts.  I love Potato Champion and Whole Bowl.  One of the best Cart Villages is at Stark and 5^th.

10. Northwest Farmers Market

If you have some time drive out to Northwest and see some of the big houses.  Every Sunday morning in the parking lot of Wilson High School you can go to the fresh Farmers Market. I highly recommend the Tamales.

Portland is an eclectic, fresh and beautiful city.  You can get everything done in a weekend, but be forewarned you might want to stay forever if you catch some sun!

We’re huge fans of getting crazy good deals on travel. One of the best tools out there for this is a little something called Travelzoo. If you already use Travelzoo then you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, Travelzoo can save you literally tons of money when you book any kind of travel, but is particularly good in finding package deals to some pretty exotic destinations.

I’ve booked numerous different trips through them at incredible savings – I’m talking about $500 round trip tickets from LA to Europe, or $600 tickets from LA to Sydney. The best thing about it is that I never even have to check the site. I signed up for their once a week “Top 20″ list. This is a list of the best deals around the world – anything from hotel discounts to airfares to cruises to vacation packages to concert tickets. You can even personalize the email to your home city so you get more relevant offers each week.

Now whats great about the newsletter – and this is where I really start saving money – is not only buying some of the packages I discover through it, but setting baselines for similar trips I come across elsewhere online. For example if I see roundtrip all-in airfare from LAX to London at $600, I know that when I see it priced elsewhere at $800, it may not actually be that great a deal. Were constantly bombarded by messaging that says we wont find cheaper airfares anywhere else, but I’ve set baselines with prices I’ve seen on Travelzoo for a lot of the most popular air routes. Now deals you see on Travelzoo are sometimes exceedingly rare, and you may have to be overly flexible to get the absolutely lowest rate, but its important to know just how cheaply some theoretically expensive travel can be had.

Another use for this powerful information is the knowledge of how low hotels and tour companies are willing to go (and how bad you’re getting ripped off the rest of the time). If you’re flexible in your travel plans, pick up the phone and call the hotel you were thinking about booking, or their competitor who wasn’t advertising at the same price point. The worst they can say to your offer is no, and the best is yes.

You can visit Traverlzoo at Travelzoo.com, or see their Top 20 weekly deals at http://top20.travelzoo.com/

People in close relationships actually become more similar to each other over time. This is not that surprising, but still gives us some interesting ways to think about our relationships.

Another interesting finding is that we are wired to mimicry. Infants as young as six days old mimic their parents emotions. This is a fundamental way we, as humans, learn to act, behave and feel. I think this is especially important when we think about how we fight around our children.

This is how most adults fight when they are in front of their children:

[Scene: In the car on the way home from dinner at the in-laws]

“I can’t believe you want to do that! It is so disrespectful to me.”

“Well, I can list a number of things that you do that are also disrespectful to me, so don’t even go there with me.”

“We should talk about this later.”

“Fine.”

[From the backseat] “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!”

[Several minutes of tense silence. Arrive at home.]

“Go get ready for bed your FATHER and I are going to have a little talk.”

[Mother and Father retreat into the other room, tense and upset. They emerge 30 minutes later. Tired, but no longer tense.]

“Ok, time for bed.”

[Child says tentatively] “Is everything ok?”

“Yes, of course! Sweetheart!”

In a weird sense, the child missed ‘the best’ part of the argument…how to work it out. When I ask teens or children how their parents fight, they can almost always tell me how the fight starts but not how it is resolved because parents go into the other room to ‘work it out.’ Kids need to hear this. The research about becoming similar to those around you is especially relevant here.

Consider this: The way you fight with your partner is how your teenager will most likely fight with their future spouse. If they do not see you go through the motions of anger, discussion, compromise and making up they do not know how to find resolution themselves. If you engage in constructive problem solving, your teen is likely to mimic that as well–including in their fights with you!

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but having discussions or fights in front of your kids and show how they are resolved actually helps them learn how to compromise.

This is part of our Science of Family series. If you would like to read more articles on the scientific research and studies behind relationships, families and teens, please visit our Science of Families page for tips and updated research.

Citations:

C. Anderson, D. Keltner, and O.P. John, “Emotional Convergence between People over time,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84, no. 5 (2003).

Sunderland, Margot. Science of Parenting: Practical Guidance on Sleep, Crying, Play, and Building Emotional Well-being for Life. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2006. Print.



There are a very famous set of experiments regarding jam and choice. In the 1980′s consumer reports put together a panel of taste experts to judge (out of 45 choices) which strawberry jam tasted the best. They were scored by the ‘trained sensory panelists’ on a variety of characteristics including spreadability and fruitiness. The finished report was published in Consumer Reports.

A few years later a psychologist at the University of Virginia named Timothy Wilson decided to replicate the experiment to see if students would pick the same jams as the experts. He randomly picked 5 of the jams from the list and had students rank them. Surprisingly, the students had a .55 (very high) correlation with the expert’s choices. Great, we are as good as the experts in taste testing! However Wilson then asked a second group of students to pick their favorites and explain why they liked them. This time there was only a .11 correlation to the expert’s choices!

What does this experiment tell us? When we think too much about our choices, we make the wrong choice. Barry Schwartz also argues that less choice is better. Why?

1. When we have more choices, we make worse decisions.

2. Having too much choice causes paralysis so we cannot make any decision at all.

3. More importantly, we also spend time thinking about the choices we didn’t pick, instead of being happy with the one we did choose. The more choices, the more we feel we ‘missed out on.’

I learned how applicable this was to my own life the hard way. For example, I used to offer over 20 choices for ‘special projects’ to our interns. Special projects are areas that interest our teens that we need help with. An example is the “Editor Special Project” where interns connect with and email editors of popular parenting magazines. Another example is our “Radio Special Project,” where an especially well-spoken teen serves as our teen spokesperson on radio interviews. When I gave 20 choices, not only did it take teens forever to decide (usually with many emails back and forth on the pros and cons of each one), but we had a bigger drop rate. This is when teens would do their special project for a few weeks and then email us that they ‘think they made a mistake, because they have been thinking about the Newspaper Special Project and the PR Special Project, and maybe those are better.’

Finally, I decided to limit it to three choices and I would rotate the choices as the special projects filled. Now, decisions are made very quickly and we almost have no drop outs. Why? With three choices, there is less to miss out on. With only three choices, there is no paralysis from teens. With three choices, teens have less to consider.

Think of how many choices we offer our clients and family members. Which of the following ten vacation cities should we pick? Do they want spaghetti, eggs, burgers, fish sticks or mac and cheese for dinner? It feels like choice is luxury and it is good for us. However, offering ourselves and each other less choice actually enables us to make a better decisions, will make our lives easier and helps us feel like we are missing out on less.

We like choice because it feels luxurious and it makes us feel that we could change our minds later, just in case we made the wrong decision. However, Schwartz cites an example in his book looking at mutual funds offered by an employer. It is definitely in eployees best interest to join one of the programs. By not participating they are turning down up to $5,000 per year in employer matching. The study found that for every additional 10 mutual funds an employer offered, the rate of participation went DOWN 2%!  Why would people turn down this offer when they get more choices? Having too much choice causes paralysis.

I have a choice of 175 salad dressings at my local super market. How many have I tried? 4–and 2 of those I only tried because they were in my parent’s fridge. The one time I tried to buy another type of dressing I got overwhelmed, spent 20 minutes looking at bottles, finally bought one that looked good, took it home and realized it tasted awful. I also poured it all over my salad and thought to myself before I even took a bite: “Maybe I should have gotten the ginger miso one?”

I have found such freedom in actually limiting my own choices. I also offer less choices to those around me and have had only positive responses. I took down half of the products on my website–sales all across the board went up and offer less choice to my fiance when making dinner–resulting in a headache free meal.

Offer less choice, limit your own choices and you will have better decisions all around.

Citations: