Category: Reviews

Review: Blue Car Rental – Iceland’s Best Rental Car Company?

by A Purple Life, posted in Travel, Travel Reviews

So I kept hearing about the beauty of Iceland (I guess their marketing push with IcelandAir worked 😉 ) . As a result, I put it on my list to visit at some point. However, after four years of retirement and being a nomad that moves around the world every month, my list of places to visit has been growing instead of shrinking.

I wasn’t sure when I would be able to fit Iceland into my plans, but then I was planning a trip to Europe and had a eureka moment after looking at flights. IcelandAir flights fit all my criteria and let me add a stopover of up to 7 days in Iceland to each flight for no extra money. Nice 🙂 . So I was sold and my trip to Iceland was solidified as a precursor to my mainland Europe adventures. Continue reading “Review: Blue Car Rental – Iceland’s Best Rental Car Company?” →

Is It Worth It? – The Blue Lagoon: Iceland’s Most Famous Hot Spring

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Reviews

Iceland is known as the land of ice and fire because it has both some of the largest glaciers in Europe and some of the world’s most active volcanoes. Part of having so much geothermal activity from the latter means there’s an abundance of natural hot springs around the country. And The Blue Lagoon is one of those hot springs.

I’d say that it’s Iceland’s most famous since I had heard of it many times before ever visiting the country. It was the only geothermal pool I knew the name of before even arriving. So when my Partner and I were planning this trip with my Mom, we decided to check it out.

My Mom had visited The Blue Lagoon about a decade before during her first trip to Iceland and I was cautiously curious because it appeared that the only reason I had heard of The Blue Lagoon was because they are very good at marketing, which does not always (or even usually in my experience) mean that it’s worth it to visit. Continue reading “Is It Worth It? – The Blue Lagoon: Iceland’s Most Famous Hot Spring” →

Trainer Armour: How I Prevent Running Shoe Toe Holes

by A Purple Life, posted in Fitness, Hobbies, Reviews

I’m currently on a break from running because I doubled my mileage and as a result, one of my knees wasn’t happy with me. So I’m resting, icing and doing all kinds of stretches and exercises that y’all recommended to get back in tip top shape.

However, I miss running 🙂 . So today I thought it might be fun to talk about one of the things that have made my running a lot more enjoyable this last year. Continue reading “Trainer Armour: How I Prevent Running Shoe Toe Holes” →

Review: Greyhound РMontr̩al, Canada to Boston, MA

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Reviews

As you may know, I had a less than stellar experience riding a ‘Greyhound’ bus to Canada last month that turned out to be an uncomfortable FlixBus and was also 1.5 hours late. It was a last minute trip that we booked a month beforehand because our Amtrak tickets that I had reserved about a year before, no longer existed. If you want all those details I wrote about them here: Continue reading “Review: Greyhound – Montréal, Canada to Boston, MA” →

Review: 33 Hours In Singapore Air Business Class – $7,734 of Flights for $75 [Part 2]

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Hacking, Travel Reviews

This is the second part of a very long post about my experience flying 33 hours in Singapore Air Business Class. It was a long and convoluted road that led me and my Mom to this surprisingly long, but enjoyable adventure. In case you want all those details, the first post is here:

So let’s get back into it! When I left off, I had just landed in Frankfurt, Germany from Singapore. Continue reading “Review: 33 Hours In Singapore Air Business Class – $7,734 of Flights for $75 [Part 2]” →

Review: 33 Hours In Singapore Air Business Class – $7,734 of Flights for $75 [Part 1]

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Hacking, Travel Reviews

A series of unfortunate events happened to my Mom and my Singapore Air flights to and from Australia/New Zealand in the fall of 2023.

As I mentioned in previous posts, we had planned to enjoy 24+ hours in the wild Singapore Air A380 First Class Suites, but instead, because of changes to Singapore’s fleet, we experienced their First Class for the first time, had a shorter visit in the First Class Suites and then experienced this fascinating 33 hour itinerary in Business Class. Continue reading “Review: 33 Hours In Singapore Air Business Class – $7,734 of Flights for $75 [Part 1]” →

Slow Travel Review: San Jos̩, Costa Rica РThe Land Of Pura Vida

by A Purple Life, posted in Budget Check-In, Finance, Food, Reviews, Spending, Travel, Travel Reviews

So I mentioned in my monthly recaps while in Costa Rica all the reasons that I chose to move there for over 2 months, but one of those was because I was shocked at how affordable it was to get there.

I’ve worked out that my flights are usually $200 one-way anywhere in the US. I’m able to get those prices even for longer flights because I book early and I am able to plan my travels around when flight prices are lower. However, despite Costa Rica being way farther than any location in the US, it only cost me about $200 to get there.

Specifically I paid $201.78 on American Airlines to fly from Albany, NY to San José, Costa Rica and $232.34 to fly from San José to Austin, Texas on COPA Airlines to see the Solar Eclipse. Continue reading “Slow Travel Review: San José, Costa Rica – The Land Of Pura Vida” →

Cronometer: The Best Free Food Tracking App

by A Purple Life, posted in Food, Keto, Reviews

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I have tracked my food intake for years. I love tracking things in general and find it really helpful to know and analyze what I put into my body.

I used to use MyFitnessPal (MFP) to track my food and was shocked to check my profile and see that I’ve been using them since 2012 – a whole 12 years ago. So we go way back 🙂 .

In 2012 I was very discerning about which free food tracking app I wanted to use. I downloaded a bunch of them and used them all to see which I preferred. I ended up choosing MFP because it was the most user friendly for me, and it seemed to have the largest database of food already in there so I didn’t have to input everything myself. Continue reading “Cronometer: The Best Free Food Tracking App” →