Hometown Series: Miami, Florida

Forget about what you've seen on TV from Dexter and CSI; Red Wine follower Celia would like to give you some insight into her Miami in the second of our Hometown Series.

"Bienvenidos a Miami (Welcome to Miami)! Most people who visit our metropolis refuse to label Miami as part of the "south," rather, they accept it as just the capital of all of Central and South America (with an American twist)!

Seat Reservations on European Trains

We would like to address a question we received from a Red Wine follower that we thought might be helpful for many other followers planning their train journeys abroad.

The question: "The girl with who I will make the inter-rail trip and I have just found out that we need to make a reservation for a lot of national trains. Now, this is a huge bummer because we thought that you could just go anywhere national. It is also a lot harder to plan the journey, but we see it as a challenge. Now is my question for you: how did you book the national and international trains? Which Web site did you use?"

The answer: When we traveled we only needed reservations on night trains and express trains, and we never used the express ones because they were too expensive. Night trains are great because you can get from one town to another and not waste precious daylight. The easiest way to get a reservation takes very little planning.

Three Sheets with Zane Lamprey

We all love Anthony Bordain and Samantha Brown, but for those of you bored with many of the travel programs out there where the hosts stay in the priciest of accommodations and then tend to complain about how difficult life is, we have the perfect show for you. Three Sheets is hosted by comedian Zane Lamprey and follows him as he travels around the world learning the local drinking cultures. Yes, he is paid to travel and drink in the coolest places on Earth.

Hometown Series: Louisville, Kentucky

We would like to start a new Hometown Series to give our Red Wine followers the opportunity to give some advice about the town you grew up in or where you currently live. The travelers you meet along the way and have experienced a destination or lived there for years always give the best travel advice. You’ll find restaurants, galleries, shops, clubs, bars and parks that are not even given the time of day in mainstream travel books.

Scott is going to start off the Hometown Series by telling you the best places in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

For anyone not familiar with Kentucky, Louisville is on the Ohio River and borders Indiana. It’s known as the Bluegrass State and Kentucky Fried Chicken really is from this great state, along with Papa John’s Pizza, the Kentucky Derby, Abraham Lincoln, bourbon and nine NCAA basketball championships.

Traveling by Train in Italy with Trenitalia

One of our followers is about to embark on a trip to Italy and came up with a very interesting question we thought some of you may also come across.

The question: "Ry and I are leaving for Italy in five weeks and are so pumped. I think we have everything figured out, but I am a little confused about the train. Have you guys used Trenitalia? If so, did you use the Trenitalia pass? It obviously seems like the best option for the amount of traveling we are doing, but I don't know much about it. I think the thing I'm most concerned about is getting from Rome to Milan to make a flight early in the morning. Do you think it's safe to buy a train ticket there, or purchase it ahead of time?

The answer: For the Trenitalia pass, are you using Eurail or RailEurope? These two are pretty much equally priced and seem like the best deal. We have used Eurail twice and loved it. We had an unlimited pass, but the one where you purchase a certain amount of days would also be good.

How To Plan for a Long Backpacking Journey

We recently received another great question from a reader that we want to address for our general readership.

The question: "Hi, my buddy and I are about to embark on a 3-4 month backpack of Europe. We would like to travel by train but don't know which pass to buy. Any suggestions??"

The answer: Eurail has a three-month pass you could look into. Make sure to look at the “saver” prices if you are older than 25 and you and your buddy always plan to be together. With the saver, if two or more people purchase the pass together, you can save about 15 percent of the cost.

The best thing to do in your situation is to go to countries that don’t use the rail pass during the beginning and end of your journey. For instance, lets say you decide to do a four-month trip. Buy the three-month pass (it is only $254 more than the two-month) and fly to England first since the Eurail pass does not cover the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). Travel around for two or three weeks and see London, Bath, Stonehenge, Glastonbury festival, Edinburgh, The Loch Ness Monster, Newcastle and catch a rugby match or two. Then fly (check out the great deals at www.ryanair.com) to Barcelona or any other city you might like to spend a few days in. (Sidenote: Flight on Ryanair from London to Barcelona on April 22 is $46 per person one way, which includes one checked bag.)

After you are finished with that town and you’re ready to move on, take the train to the next destination and get the rail pass validated. You have now been traveling for nearly three weeks and the pass has just started the three-month run. Then at the end of your journey, end up near an area that is not on the pass or in a city you’d like to relax and spend a week in. Now you have been traveling for four months and only needed to buy the three-month pass.

We did the math on purchasing a one-month global pass and then buying a 10-day, three-country pass, but it works out better to just buy the three-month pass if you’re going to be there for that long.

For travel in Great Britain, look into buying a young person's railcard, which saves about one third off each train ticket and also look into www.megabus.com. Riding a bus sucks, but it can be about $3-5 from one city to the next.

For more information on rail cards, visit http://www.redwinehelpsyousleepontrains.com/2009/11/travel-in-uk-young-persons-railcard.html