***This giveaway is now closed.***

This week, I’m giving away a free year’s membership to HomeExchange.com, a £100 value. HomeExchange.com is a global community of 65,000 like-minded people around the world across 150 countries.You may have heard of or experienced house swapping yourself. It’s incredibly fun and cheap and means you can go anywhere, live like a local, and stay for free. The money you save on accommodation can be spent on meals out, sampling the local cuisine, regional specialities, wine tasting or even the local beer! See end of post for contest logistics.

Members’ homes come in all shapes and sizes, from cozy apartments to sprawling estates and everything in between. Home exchanging means that other than the cost of getting there, a holiday anywhere in the world doesn’t have to cost anymore than staying at home.

Read what HomeExchange.com members have to say about home exchanging.

HomeExchange.com have nearly 16,000 Members who list their homes as Gourmet friendly or who are foodie fans. Have a browse of their Gourmet friendly listings for inspiration.

Home exchanging is similar to Couchsurfing because it’s free, but it’s also reciprocal. It’s also similar to Airbnb because you host like-minded people at your home, but it does not cost you any money to stay at someone else’s place. Check out these links for more info.

• How Home Exchange works
• Short Youtube Video
• Secret Recipe for a Home Exchange
• Member stories and tips for families on our blog
• HomeExchangers: what’s in your fridge?
• Listings in Great Britain

To enter this giveaway, do one — or  both — of these things. Yes, if you do both, you get two chances to win.

1. Comment on this blog post.
2. Become a Facebook fan of Passportdelicious.com and comment on the post about this giveaway with something like “Please enter me into the giveaway.” If you win this way, make sure you check your “Other” folder on Facebook after the contest ends to see if I contact you.

Do either (or both) of these things by Sunday, May 24th at 8 pm London time, when the contest will close. Within 24 hours, I will then use Random.org to choose a winner. (I’ll count blog comments as even numbers and Facebook comments as odd numbers.) The winner must respond with their details within 24 hours of me contacting them. Otherwise, the prize goes to the runner up! Good luck everyone!!

The post Win a Free Year’s Membership to HomeExchange.com #contest #giveaway first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

*** This giveaway is now closed ***

The lovely people at Refresh Apartments have gifted me with two complimentary day passes to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London on May 21st so I am offering them to you, dear readers! What a great day out for you and a friend and/or loved one!! I went a few years back and loved being outside and seeing all the creative spaces…and drinking Champagne of course. (Champagne not included in tickets, just to be clear.) Public day passes to the Chelsea Flower Show have a list price of £99 each, so this is a £198 value! All you need to do to enter is comment below! See bottom of post for contest logistics.

If you’ve never been to the Chelsea Flower Show, it is a super lovely day out. All sorts of lovely gardens to wander around and lovely flowers and plants and trees to look at.

I can’t thank Refresh Apartments enough for offering me these tickets. If you have friends or relatives coming to visit London and they need a place to stay, check them out. Here’s a bit about Refresh in their own words…

Refresh Apartments has recently rebranded and launched an exciting new website, and is one of London’s premier serviced apartment providers. With a substantial portfolio that reaches across the city, they’re able to offer customers anything from a four bedroom apartment on the South Bank to a studio in the heart of Kensington. Serviced apartments offer a fresh alternative to traditional accommodation, with visitors able to enjoy a full living area, kitchen facilities and proper bedrooms, all at the same cost as an equivalent hotel room. The apartments can be rented for anywhere between one night and a whole year, meaning they can be tailored to suit almost any kind of stay!

With studio, one, two, three and four-bedroom apartments available, Refresh regularly work with a variety of different groups, from single travellers to whole families, and businesses looking to give clients and employees somewhere that they can call home during their time in the city. Refresh’s varied portfolio contains apartments within easy reach of virtually every London attraction, including the Chelsea Flower Show, Wimbledon, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and the many others that make the capital such a popular tourist destination.

Contest Logisitics: At 5 pm London time on Wednesday, May 13th, I will use Random.org to pick the winning comment number and a back-up comment number in case the winner doesn’t respond to my request for their mailing address within 24 hours. Crafted will mail the winner their tickets. Given that we are mailing the tickets and that the event is in London, entrants should probably live here or already have plans to be in London on that date. Refresh Apartments can be found on Twitter at @RefreshAccom.

The post Win Two Free Day Passes to the Chelsea Flower Show #contest @RefreshAccom #giveaway first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

The sale offers you the chance to save up to 50% on weekends in 2011, so if you aren’t lucky enough to win this time, why not take the family to Dublin, or enjoy a romantic weekend for two in London? You can save up to 50% at more than 3,600 hotels within the Hilton Worldwide portfolio for any weekend stay in 2011 if you book before 31 January 2011.

If that wasn’t enough, rates include breakfast and late checkout until 6pm (subject to availability) plus kids under 18 stay for free and kids under 10 eat for free at many of the properties when sharing with an adult. Book now on www.hilton.co.uk/wintersale and make the most of this massive sale before it’s too late.

For voucher Terms and Conditions please visit http://www.hilton.co.uk/giftvouchers.

And remember, to enter, just leave a comment here, telling me where you’d go with your voucher for your chance to win one of the two £200 vouchers I’m giving away! This contest is open to UK residents only. Enter by midnight UK time, January 31, 2011.

Update! 3 February 2011: The winners of the contest are Helen and Patrick! I will be in touch with details!

The post Win £200 Hilton Worldwide UK Gift Vouchers first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Old-school Chicago Neon

2011 is upon us. Thank you to my readers for a great 2010. I hope many of you stick with me even if I don’t live in London anymore. (Hey, I’ll be back in April. If not sooner!)

I’d like to give a particular shout out to the bloggers who provided me with the most traffic in 2010. Many super thanks and may the traffic gods worship you thusly in 2011. These are all Londoners with one sole exception. Will be interesting to compare the list at the end of 2011…

1. Gourmet Chick: Lawyer-turned-journalist Gourmet Chick hits all the new London restaurants and is amazingly well-travelled. When I need travel tips, I turn to Gourmet Chick.
2. An American in London: And when Cara hasn’t been there, I go to Alice. (Or vice versa.) I like that Alice does her own thing…you’ll see her at only the rarest of blog events. P.S. Alice loves Paris. And France.
3. Hollow Legs: Funny. Sharp. Excellent cook. How she does it and remains so thin, I have no idea. Hollow Legs, I hope your metabolism stays like so FOREVER. And if you have any to spare, please give me some.
4. Cheese & Biscuits: At the risk of offending many people, I think Chris is one of the best restaurant-blog writers out there today. When he’s good he’s very very good, but when he’s cranky he’s CRANKY. I love it when Chris gets cranky. (But restaurants don’t.)
5. London Eater: Lovely photos (and many of them!), unrestrained prose and very commercially-minded. (I don’t mean this in a bad way.)
6. Eat Like a Girl: Prolific and omnipresent. Every year is Niamh’s year. (Check out her latest accolades.) But I predict 2011 is the year Niamh goes commercial…
7. World Foodie Guide: London’s retired food blogger is still delivering traffic.
8. Food Stories: AMAZING recipes. Amazing energy for Peckham, her local neighborhood. Her pressure cooker post actually made me call my mom and ask for one.
9. Kavey Eats: A fantastic resource on food, recipes and otherwise. A prolific blogger and an amazingly prolific Tweeter. I don’t know how she does it. (Oddly, there’s not a link to her Twitter self on her blog!)
10. Mmm Yoso: These guys crack me up! They truly have been everywhere and eat everything. But Asian food is definitely a speciality. I was pleased to see that Kirk had stopped into Chicago recently.

The Contest: Link to my site from yours by 11:59 pm Chicago time December 31st and you could win one of three Michelin restaurant guides. (Your choice!) All you need to do is leave a comment confirming your link by 23:59 CST. More details here.

The post Thank You to Everyone, Really, And a Contest… first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

As a holiday present to my readers, I’m giving away three Michelin Red Guides (the restaurant guides) to three lucky contestants. (Hmmm…that reads somewhat confusingly. To be clear, the three winners will each receive one guide.) All you need to do is link to my site (https://www.passportdelicious.com) from yours, and leave a comment below, confirming your link and telling me where it is. You have until 11:59 pm Chicago time, December 31st 2010 to link to me and leave your comment. If you have a link to my old URL–http://www.londonelicious.com–all you need to do is update that link to https://www.passportdelicious.com–and leave a comment telling me that you’ve done so.

I’ll ask the three lucky winners to select their preferred softcover Michelin guide–London, Paris, Chicago, New York City, Tokyo, Hong Kong & Macau, Spain & Portugal, San Francisco, Kyoto Osaka, or Los Angeles/Southern California. This contest is open to anyone in any country; winners will be responsible for any customs fees.

Thanks, and wherever you are, I hope you’re staying warm! Happy holidays!

The post Win a Michelin Restaurant Guide! first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

The even better news this time around is that the contest is open to both US and non-US participants. The only catch for those of you outside the US is that the gift certificate won't cover international fees like customs.

How can you win this lovely $75 Cookware.com gift certificate? Do ANY of these three things by FRIDAY NOVEMBER 5th, 2010. (And yes…you can do all three!)
1. Leave a comment on this post, with a link to what you'd buy on Cookware.com with your $75 gift voucher and why.
and/or
2. Retweet my tweet to this post, making sure to keep @kristainchicago in the tweet. (RT @kristainchicago Comment/Retweet & Win! $75 Cookware.com GIft Voucher! http://bit.ly/dlxKSx)
and/or
3. Check out my last post about where I've been sleeping. Leave a comment about your hotel must-haves!

Next weekened, I'll use random.org to pick a random winner. Winners will be notified by e-mail. If you don't respond within 72 hours, I'll pick another number.

I took a quick spin through Cookware.com and saw a couple of things that I liked…even though I don't cook…

 
Kitchen Aid has an 18 inch covered roaster for $69.99.

 
KAHLA has this pretty little set, perfect for serving snacks or maybe even soup. And just $66.

Ooh…and how pretty is this set from Ironwood? Perfect for serving wine and cheese. (Note that each wedge holds a wine glass!) Only $61.99… 

Think about it, comment away, and maybe you'll win! Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

The post $75 Cookware.com Gift Voucher! Comment/Retweet & Win! first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

This give-away is for a lovely sunny yellow and bright Le Creuset 10.5" x 7" baking dish along with a 7" x 5" baking dish.

To enter, here's all you have to do:

Retweet this Le Creuset giveaway along with the tag #giveaway so I can track it, making sure you don't lose my @kristainlondon handle in the tweet. If you need text for the Tweet, try this: 

RT @kristainlondon Blog #giveaway: Lovely Le Creuset Baking Dishes! RT or comment to win: http://bit.ly/bwswc3

and/or

Leave a comment, telling me how you'd use either dish (or both dishes).

If you RT AND add a comment, well, that's TWO entries, increasing your chances of winning. I'll pick a random winner using Random.org.

The only catch is that this is for US and Canadian readers only. Sorry, UK readers! (But maybe you're a UK reader and have a friend in the US we could mail this to.) I promise to find an equally nice give-away for my UK pals at some point soon.

Please enter by 11:59 pm Chicago time on Tuesday September 21st. (That's Central Time in the U.S.)

Good luck!

The post Blog Give-away: Lovely Le Creuset Baking Dishes! first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

This give-away is for a lovely sunny yellow and bright Le Creuset 10.5" x 7" baking dish along with a 7" x 5" baking dish.

To enter, here's all you have to do:

Retweet this Le Creuset giveaway along with the tag #giveaway so I can track it, making sure you don't lose my @kristainlondon handle in the tweet. If you need text for the Tweet, try this: 

RT @kristainlondon Blog #giveaway: Lovely Le Creuset Baking Dishes! RT or comment to win: http://bit.ly/bwswc3

and/or

Leave a comment, telling me how you'd use either dish (or both dishes).

If you RT AND add a comment, well, that's TWO entries, increasing your chances of winning. I'll pick a random winner using Random.org.

The only catch is that this is for US and Canadian readers only. Sorry, UK readers! (But maybe you're a UK reader and have a friend in the US we could mail this to.) I promise to find an equally nice give-away for my UK pals at some point soon.

Please enter by 11:59 pm Chicago time on Tuesday September 21st. (That's Central Time in the U.S.)

Good luck!

The post Blog Give-away: Lovely Le Creuset Baking Dishes! first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

***Hey! Leave a comment and win a fab box of American and London(ish) goodies! See end.***

Yes, it’s official. I’m moving “back” to Chicago. (I say “back” because I’m not a native Chicagoan but rather lived and worked there for eight years before moving to London in 2004. My hometown is somewhere between Long Island, NY and Fort Lauderdale, FL.)

If given the choice, I would stay here in London. But we aren’t always masters of our own destiny. (That being said, in 1998, a palm reader in Hong Kong told me, “Whenever given the choice to move, MOVE. Change is good for you.”) And so it is that I go. (The abbreviated story is that I’m moving back for an excellent job opportunity.)

I debated this post for ages. How do you say goodbye when although you might be physically moving, your heart is still with a place and you are sure you will be back? I started out with “10 Things I’ll Miss about London.” But then the list got too long, and I couldn’t narrow it down. Nor did I want to. It’s a rambling list, but I’m in a rambling sort of mood these days and well, it’s my list, not yours. So bear with me. Here’s what I think I’ll miss. (And I have permission to update this.)

Marks & Spencer Roast Chicken. Olive Magazine. (I’m hoping they’ll deliver to Chicago.) Welsh Rarebit at St. John. The comte at the Borough Cheese Company. Macarons from Laduree and Pierre Herme. (Still so sad that Yauatcha stopped doing them. I’m waiting for a savvy person to start doing macarons at markets, and I’m looking forward to trying the ones from Macaron Chicago when I get back to the States.)

Direct debits. Pizza Express Salad Dressing. Living etc magazine. The 55 bus, especially from the front row at the top. Liberty. Waitrose. Penn State Sour Cream & Chive Pretzels. Green Valley. Pret’s Scrambled Egg and Roasted Tomato breakfast baguette. My old flat at the top of a converted spice warehouse in Shad Thames, The “never a dull moment” stories from my building in Clerkenwell. (Rats. Dead people in cardboard boxes. The brothel.) Grazia. The bike scheme! (Hey, I’ll at least get a couple of days out of it, assuming my key arrives by Tuesday or so.) And how no matter what day or time it is, CSI is ALWAYS on.

Broadway Market on Saturdays. Borough on Saturdays. Columbia Road and the Sunday Up Market on Sundays. The (nearly) yearly Orla Kiely sample sale. My landlord. My 15 minute walk into work. The roses in King Square. M&S underwear. M&S flavored sparkling water. The Jerusalem Tavern. The Westbourne. Crazy Homies’ margaritas. The lounge area at Eyre Brothers. (Skip the restaurant. Just go for the bar snacks.) The (burned to a crisp) East Room. The bartenders at Milk & Honey. The London Bloggers’ Meetup. Freecycle. The London Eye.

The sweethearts who work at my local Indian and say hi to me every time I walk by even though I haven’t eaten there in AGES. (They take too long, but it is good food.) My dry cleaner, Ty, who helped me out when the hookers downstairs were really getting to me. The singapore noodles and the chili spareribs at my local Chinese. The Japanese ladies on Brick Lane. Rob Ryan. Cheshire Street. Did I mention Green Valley? Fernandez & Wells. Spitalfields. Come Dine with Me. Concerts at Kenwood House. The waterbus between Camden and Little Venice.

The staff at Nicolas, the wine shop. The Sampler. How easy it is to split the check here. How close we are to France. The “new” Kings X. Whitecross Street. The crunchy tuna rolls at Pham. Terminal 5. The fishcakes at Plane Food. (I’ve had them three times now.)

You know I could go on and on, I will stop there because I can barely see the screen through the tears. But again, I reserve the right to come back and edit this post and add more as it occurs to me!

Now this is the contest bit. Over the years, have I entertained you? Made you sad or glad or mad? Please say hello (and goodbye) and leave a comment! I’ll pick a random commentator using Random.org and send them a box of London and American surprises in the post, as long as the winner lives in the UK. (Please include a valid e-mail address in your comment and if you don’t respond to my “You’ve won!” email within 48 hours, I will pick another number.) Contest will close Monday, August 9th, 2010 at 12 noon Chicago time/6 p.m. London time.

The post The Many Things I’ll Miss about London (And a Contest!) first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Visit the Chilango page on eBay for more details and to bid!

You can also view the full list of Blaggers’ Banquet auction items. Lots of cool stuff to be won!

The post Mexican Food for a Year! Chilango first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.