Spicy Hometown Special Alert!

It’s that time of the week gorgeous humans. Thank you for once again gracing me with your lovely eyeballs.

Welcome to Travel Onist, where I bring you the world on a silver platter.

The world, you say?… Surely you can’t be serious?

Why yes, I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.

Before we get started today, I want to hear more from you! Whether you have feedback to share, a recommendation to give, or you just wanna say hi 👋 simply respond to the email to make sure I see it. This also helps ensure my emails don’t end up in your spam folder.

Now, let’s get down to business…

Here’s what we’re serving up today:

A boutique hotel in Costa Rica

Spicy hometown special alert

A walk down the oldest street in Europe

Don’t just redeem credit card points, do this instead

Stay

Boho Tamarindo

If you like to stay at places that inspire you to change your life forever, I’ve got a little something for you. This cozy little boutique hotel has 8 rooms (last I stayed there). The host is wonderful! She’ll help you schedule activities and even makes breakfast fresh for each guest in the morning 🥹. Super cool story as well—the family lives in a house connected to the hotel. They used to vacation in Costa Rica from France, and ended up falling in love with the area. SO they did what any rational family would do and built this place to live and work in—started their new life in their own little tropical paradise.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

Spicy Hometown Special—Kiki’s

Kiki, do you love me? Are you riding?… sorry…

I’ve been looking forward to this one for awhile 😏. I’m piloting a new segment here called (you guessed it) “Spicy Hometown Specials” where I occasionally feature my local favorites from the city I call home—New York, New York. Let me know what you think!

This place is such a mfin vibe, but you need to trust me here… Kiki’s is for wine, apps, and vibes—no more, no less! Venture off that path and I cannot help you.

The meatballs make me do a happy dance and the saganaki is an absolute slapper—that’s the crispy phylo crusted cheese pictured above. It’s the best house wine deal in NYC that I’ve found—$26 for a liter (for my non NYC or metric speaking folks, I promise that’s a good deal). Guaranteed good time. No reservations though so go during the week or pop down the street for a drink or two while you wait for a table.

Experience

Walk the oldest street in Europe—Tripodon Street

This one goes out to all my history buffs out there…If you exist, please let me know. Athens boasts the oldest street in Europe—Tripodon Street—at over 2,500 years old. Tripodon Street was also one of the broadest in ancient times, about 18 feet wide (still narrower than most roads in NYC). Named after the copper tripods once placed along its length, and dedicated to the God Apollo, it stretches from the Theatre of Dionysus to the Agora. Today, the modern-looking street is home to a commingling of new and old.

Credit to Going’s newsletter for this cool little fun fact.

Carry On

Points Hack 💯

Here’s one I’m just learning myself. If you rack up a bunch of credit card points, don’t just redeem them dollar for dollar through your respective credit card portal. Instead, look to transfer those points to an eligible airline partner. In many cases, this is the best way to get the most value for your points.

For example, when you redeem through your credit card portal, it is typically at a value of 1 point = 1 cent, whereas if you were to transfer those points to an airline partner, those points could be worth as much as 5 cents per point or even more! Your bougie business class flying self can thank me later 😘.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

This week’s AI art installation features a polar bear enjoying some ice cream at the beach.

Cheers til next week,

T.O.