San Francisco: 5 places to eat for free

One of our most loyal commenters on the blog is Iolaire McFadden. In late May, he and his wife Susan flew to Auckland, nabbing a $399 round trip flight to Auckland out of LAX. Iolaire has kindly shared some tips with us about planning the trip: Normally our lead time on good deals is about six months, so this was extremely last minute for us, booking only a couple of weeks in advance.We found that hotels in NZ are relatively expensive versus our recent trips to Portugal and Argentina. These days we usually find smaller, business-type hotels or limited service hotels on Booking.com. For that reason I started looking for a Priceline equivalent in NZ. On some random FlyerTalk post I found mention of Wotif and one other site. We started looking at Wotif and generally were happy with their selection and quoted rates versus say Kayak or Booking.com. It seemed to be NZ oriented, because it differentiated between Auckland CBD along with about 10 other Auckland suburbs, and it offers many types of accommodations, camper parks, hostels, hotels, apartments. The choice in accommodations was very helpful as we tried to decide between a camper van or a car. We choose the car due to the challenges driving over there…. One attractive thing with Wotif is they have all sorts of promotions tied with low prices. For example free internet, meals, wine etc. Most of those promotions require a two night stay. They also allow you to filter a lot of hotels easily, I.e. 3 star and up Hotels, whose max rate is under $100 USD, then just hover over the price matrix to see the special deals. For Auckland we choose a Black Label (opaque: you don't know the name until your credit card is accepted) hotel for $1 NZ more than a comparable hotel with the same rating and relatively same features. We were attracted to the black label hotel because it had a Sauna and it hyped up the soft pillows and bed which made it sound like a decent hotel. As soon as we paid we found it was the Rendezvous Hotel Auckland. Looking at the map it seemed like that was near the edge of the CBD, and few blocks out from the other choices we looked at. However in the end this was our best hotel on the trip for $139.93 USD for both nights—and that included checking in at around 8 a.m. no questions asked, what seemed like decent room on the 9th floor, etc. Our second hotel was the Ibis Rotorua, we booked it on NeedItNow since that had a prepay option that was much cheaper than Wotif, also looking at my notes Booking.com had had the same prepaid price. That hotel was not quite as nice, and we got a lower quality room that reflected the price we paid for $82 for two nights. Our third hotel was at the Bella Vista Napier, a smaller motel booked via Wotif. At that locations the hotels seemed fairly high priced, with lots of motels. The deciding factor here was the promotions offered via Wotif, free continental breakfast. This ended up being toast, butter, and jelly that you cook yourself in your room. But again it was appreciated given other hotels did not seem to offer that option. Our final night we did a walk up purchase at the historic 1890's Rob Roy Hotel in Waihi. The odd thing there is that it is in above a pub and casino that is basically closed down as of 4 PM and the doors are locked at 7 PM, negating my concerns about being housed above a pub. NZ hotels ended up being very accommodating, the staff are friendly, all hotels have LOTS of tea bags and instant coffee along with a electric kettle, even the higher end Rendezvous Hotel Auckland. This was quite different from our stay last year in the Vancouver Hyatt which now features a single serve coffee maker with ONE complementary cup of coffee, and "self check-in kiosks." Talk about unfriendly stays. (Do a search for "Hyatt single serve coffee" and you will see how this is now one of their key "Features & Services" across the country.) MORE Just Back From… a Solo Trip to New Zealand Scouting Report 2010: Havelock, New Zealand 39 Affordable Hotel Chains Only Locals Know Real Deals: Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific

We went looking for your best photos of California, one of the most geographically diverse states in the nation. Our 22 picks include hills covered in poppies in Three Rivers, ships battling in San Diego, a ghost town in Bodie, and fog rolling in over L.A. Launch the slide show. MORE READER SLIDE SHOWS Portraits | Wildlife | Hawaii STILL IN SEARCH OF... Last Call! Share your bridges photos for consideration in our upcoming slide show. Upload the photos through myBudgetTravel and tag them "bridges."

There's a new attraction on the block to satisfy new-millennium-Britain's celebrity cravings: the Hollywood-style bus tour. Four times daily, minibuses leave from near Madame Tussauds celebrity waxwork museum in Baker Street, central London to offer four kinds of tour: of celeb homes, film locations, famous musical spots and places associated with pop culture. Homes visited include houses lived in by Madonna, Winston Churchill, Princess Diana, Jimi Hendrix, Oscar Wilde, and Jim Morrison. The film and music locations include places from the Harry Potter movies, the Hugh Grant film, Notting Hill, various James Bond locations and former haunts of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, and the Clash. The pop culture bus stops at everything from the Ritz Hotel to Abbey Road and the former home of Wallis Simpson—the American who married British king, Edward VIII, forcing him to abdicate the throne. Trips take 90 minutes, cost $38. thecelebrityplanet.com. MORE Budget Travel's London coverage

Joe Routon is a longtime contributor to my Budget Travel, and we've spotlighted his images on our site and on the cover of Budget Travel's June 2009 issue. We recently noticed he often takes sharp images of his food, so we asked him for some insights. What prompts you to take a photo of your meal? Anytime I go to a special restaurant or go on a trip abroad, I photograph my food. It's fun, and it provides a visual record that will help me remember how much I enjoyed the meal. I love food and I love photography—combining the two is a great joy. Probably my favorite image is "Mexican Dessert" [shown, above] which shows a dish of mango ice cream topped with fresh strawberries. I took the photo for a friend who had just opened a restaurant, Tortilla Press in Collingswood, N.J. He needed pictures of several dishes. In return, I got to eat the food. Any advice to others on photographing food in a restaurant setting? Most professional food photographers use lights, but I prefer to use natural light, sometimes with a reflector disk or two. I select a table near the window and, with my camera on a tripod, take many photos of each dish, rotating the plate and shooting it from different levels, high and low, and different angles. I also vary the aperture setting to try different depths of field. It's important to work quickly—food tends to "wilt" after a few minutes. For that reason, I'll set up the shot with a "stand-in," a piece of fruit or a crumpled bag; so, when the food is placed in front of me, I'm ready to start shooting immediately. Do you have any professional experience that trained you for food photography? I'm a portrait painter by profession. After studying music in college I went to seminary to get the master of sacred music degree, after which I served as an organist/choir director in a Methodist church in Tennessee for 10 years. With my wife (also an organist) and three small children, I moved north to study portrait painting in N.Y.C. at the Art Students League and at the National Academy of Design. I worked as a newspaper photographer to help pay my way through art school. After a few years, my wife and I moved south to Haddonfield, N.J. The publisher of The Haddonfield Times asked if I would be the paper's restaurant reviewer/critic, so I did that for a year, just for fun. I quit after I started gaining weight. It was a real ego trip to go into a fine restaurant and see my review framed and hanging on the wall or taped to the front window. Has your painting influenced the way you take photographs of food in any way? When I paint, I prefer natural light, so that's a carryover. It's much easier for me to get natural colors with natural light. Composition is extremely important, whether painting portraits or photographing food, and a little knowledge of color helps. I'm careful about arranging colors that complement each other, and I try to avoid photographing food on orange or blue plates. I prefer simple white dishes. CALLING ALL READERS Give Us Your Best Food Shots! We're now looking for your photos of the tastiest meals you've eaten while traveling. The best will be featured in an upcoming article in Budget Travel. Tag your photo "food and drink" to make sure other my Budget Travel members can see and rate it. UPLOAD NOW