Author Archives: Shelli

About Shelli

Shelli Stein is a health and fitness entrepreneur who travels the world in search of culture, food, and fun! Besides contributing to Travel with Grant, you can find her at Joy in Movement.

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How Many of These Great Towers Have You Visited?

Towering over us all are many impressive structures! These towers even have their own federation. It’s called the World Federation of Towers and its membership lists 54 great towers.

I heard about this list a while ago. Then Brian Cohen at The Gate wrote about it and jogged my memory. I’ve been to 15 of the towers, so I’ve barely scratched the surface. And speaking of jogging my memory, if simply visiting the towers isn’t enough for you, you can “tower run” them! Learn more about the great towers here or check out Brian’s article and see how many you’ve visited. And if you’ve ever done a tower run, do let us know what that was like and if you’d ever do it again!

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Has Working With My Hyatt Concierge Gotten Any Better?

I make no apologies for being the Hyatt fan girl here at TWG. Though as I write this I’m sitting in a Hilton property lounge :)

My Hyatt Globalist status comes with benefits and perhaps my favorite one is having a concierge to work with. My Hyatt concierge relationship did not go well in 2017 and turned into quite a frustrating saga. I shared this with you in a few blog posts.

Recently a reader asked me how things were going with my current Hyatt concierge, so I thought it might be interesting to share an update with you. This may not be of interest to everyone, but if it’s interesting to some of you, then I’m glad I took the time to write this out.

Continue reading

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Is Overtourism Ruining Countries?

Is overtourism ruining countries? It’s an interesting question that some countries, particularly Japan, are facing right now. I actually had no idea tourism in Japan was booming. My own relationship with Japan started some 30 years ago. I went there multiple times to attend a Japanese art and culture program. Back then when I traveled outside of the major Japanese cities, many Japanese people had never seen an American before. Continue reading

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Which of Hyatt’s New Properties Excite You Most?

Some rumors stay rumors and some materialize. In the case of Hyatt’s acquisition of Two Roads Hospitality, I’m thrilled the rumor materialized. Bringing Two Roads Hospitality under the World of Hyatt umbrella adds 23 new markets and potentially 85 properties. Any increase in Hyatt’s footprint is a good thing. More opportunities to both redeem and earn Hyatt points are always welcome.

I wasn’t living under a rock yesterday when this news broke, but I was preoccupied with drinking coffee and talking with baristas in one of my favorite cities thereby creating another Bean Around the World post for TWG readers. I’m late to the announcement party, but in this case better late than never.

Even though the integration of these new properties won’t happen until 2019, I’m looking ahead and was actually surprised when I looked at the list of properties being added to the Hyatt portfolio how many I’ve either stayed at, knew about, or would be interested in visiting. I may even have to get my skis out of storage for some of these fun locations!

It will be interesting to watch this unfold, see which properties do become Hyatt properties, how elite benefits will be honored, and the points award charts for some of these unique properties. For me, one major disappointment in this acquisition is that even though Hyatt’s expansion with Small Luxury Hotels increases its scope in Europe, this acquisition does not. Come on Hyatt, show Europe more love!

Do any of the properties Hyatt’s bringing on board through this acquisition peak your interest? Any you’ve already stayed at you’d recommend?

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Are You A Typical Rideshare Customer?

A new survey of rideshare passengers just came out, and I have to say some of the findings surprised me. The survey, done by Bellhop, Rideguru, and our very own rideshare man-in-the-know, Harry Campbell, The Rideshare Guy, wanted to know whether people felt if and how ridesharing was improving their quality of life.

The survey refers to rideshare as “mobility options”, which is a new term for me as it relates to ridesharing. The survey included both taxi or other services in the same general category of mobility options. Of course, surveys are always a bit suspect because it depends on how questions are worded and how terms are defined. In this case I wish some of the survey terms such as “better life” were more clearly defined. However, taking all this into consideration, if you use ridesharing services it’s interesting to see if you fit into the same categories as the respondents or not. And if like me you rarely use these services but are curious about the business end of them, the survey and article is a quick and easy read and a good glimpse into rideshare customer experience.