Our friends in the Northwest recommended a seasoned Realtor in Juneau, Alaska. We met with John Williams, who founded Juneau Real Estate in 2001. His company represents the real estate needs of residential and commercial clients in Juneau and beyond. Their offices are located in the Jordan Creek Center and directions can be found on their website.

Unlike so many “big box” real estate offices, John’s aim is to be friendly, as well as professional during his transactions. Getting to know his clients is an important and necessary part of the process. John and his small staff have resided in the Juneau area for a vary long time.

We found his website very helpful from the beginning of our search until we closed on our house. John and his staff were always available to help via email and over the phone. Much Thanks.

In the next couple of weeks we’ll be visiting Eugene Oregon again.  Although we only got to really know the owners of Eugene’s Alternative Realtor when we sold our home there, we are going to be spending time with them while we are there.  10 months later, and we are still appreciative of the way this Eugene Real Estate office came together to sell our home— in less than a week.

The speed with which they got us organized to get our clutter removed, had our home inspected and repaired and then brought in the community of Eugene agents had us spinning. Yet, their hard work paid off. Yes– in an unbelievable four days, we’d accepted the offer presented to us and were happily packing for our move south.

Owners, Pam and Dave, are backed by a great staff.  Whenever we had a question about anything, we could email or call and receive an immediate response from one of the four folks who handle their workload.

This Willamette Valley city of over 150,000 residents, has a lot of real estate agents to choose from, so to have one stand out (so remarkably) from the rest of the pack was a pleasant surprise. As with many experiences in our lives, we find that a referral from a friend always works out in our favor.  Our acquaintance with Eugene’s Alternative Realtor is no exception. Only we didn’t just hear from one source that we should choose Eugene’s Alternative to sell our home, we got a thumbs up from several friends on this one.

As professional photographers who travel a lot, Santa Cruz, California is our chosen home and headquarters.  It’s a beautiful area and convenient to the city and airports.

One of the reasons we chose to make Santa Cruz our headquarters is because we needed to rent a secure, long term, self-serve storage unit, and after looking around, we found Store More America had everything we needed.  Although we own a lot of photo gear, we always travel light.  We require climate-controlled storage for the expensive, fragile equipment we’re not hauling with us.  In addition, we like to take advantage of the area here as well as the places we visit on our photo shoots. Our “toys” include surf/boogie boards, skis/snow boards and bikes. (these just don’t all fit in the condo)

Store More Americas’ Santa Cruz Storage Facility is perfect for us.  It meets our #1 requirement: security is excellent. We can access our gear easily.  Hours are super convenient. We’ve found the staff to be completely professional.  Oh, they are helpful and friendly too.

Finally, Store More America has four locations.  Three of them are really close to our place. We had to get out the map to decide on the one that was most convenient for our needs.  We opted for the Soquel storage location. We are writing this blog because we keep running into folks here who need good storage in the central-coast area.

Recently, our friends were invited to a family wedding on Maui.  They, as we all are these days, are unsettled by the expense of the trip, so they called us to ask for any advice we might be able to offer in the way of cheap rental cars on Maui.  They are flying into Kahului, so we suggested they reserve their car there. They’ll be able to attend the celebrations in style, while saving enough money to do some sightseeing during their free time.

This conversation with our friends got us to thinking that this advice fits all Hawaii car rentals, on all the islands.  We’ve learned we can save money by staying away from the traditional rental agencies such as Dollar, Thrifty, Budget, Avis or Hertz. The online discount car rental agencies are much more affordable.  Yet, we get the same car as if we’d rented from one of the big companies.

When we are looking for a discount vehicle rental in Kona or Hilo on the Big Island, money-saving transportation on Molokai, or a Kauai car rental, we look into the discount agencies when we hire a rental car.  The same goes for finding cheap Honolulu rental cars for a crazy vacation on Waikiki Beach. We always decide we want to make a trip to the north shore, and we find the best deals for our money are found online for a rental car on Oahu.

As well, the cheap airline websites offer great deals. We have found great deals for flights and lodging together on one site. So, as we suggested to our Lahaina-bound friends, we like to save all the money we can on getting there, so we can take full advantage of the “aloha” the Hawaiian Islands have to offer.

I was recently called to Kauai on business regarding a condo I own in the Poipu area. Of course, one always needs a vehicle in Kauai unless you are staying in Lihue near the airport. I typically just rent a car from Enterprise. Not this time, a friend told me about a new service which offers discounted rental cars in Kauai. I visited their website and submitted a rental request. Wow! I was surprised to learn that their price was much less than renting direct. I saved over 25% and was thrilled. I chose a mid-size car because I had decided to bring my new folding bike along. It was a perfect fit for the trunk of the Sebring I received.

Our pick, you guessed it, AlohaRents.com is the hands-down winner. We requested rate quotes from the 3 big cheap car rental companies in Hawaii. We chose Honolulu to be specific. Only because the largest fleets on the islands are housed there. The three companies we selected were: Car Rental Hawaii, Discount Hawaii Car Rental and the winner, Aloha Rents. The car we selected was an economy model. AlohaRents.com also offered bonus benefits, such as extra drivers at no charge and young drivers for free.

We just returned from a photo shoot at Waikiki on the Island of Oahu. The vehicle rental personnel were very helpful and kind.  They sent us to a cool place on Oahu’s North Shore for our day off. The majority of work we completed was shot at Diamond Head near Waikiki. We spent a total of three days and actually brought back over 800 photos.

Some of the Jeeps we rented were used in the images this time. So, our thanks go out to Hawaii Jeeps. If you need a ATV, stop by one of their 3 locales in Waikiki Beach.

I would love to move to the San Juan Islands in Western Washington State. The Northwest is beautiful and this island actually receives about half of the rain as Seattle, Washington. This particular piece of property is only about two miles from town. The owners claim that the house is a fixer-upper. I will continue my dream of owning over 25 acres of land near Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. Maybe someday we will move to FH.

A different assignment this time. Off to Florida! We have been invited to take part in a new car advertisement being filmed in the Florida Keys. We’ll arrive in Miami Florida and the girls will drive us down to the southern most tip, Kew West, Florida. The car was comped to us by our friends at Florida Car Rental which is operated by Florida Sun Car Rentals. It’s not like we could not afford their typical discounted rates! We are using a large E-150 van for our large group of travelers. I’ll let you know in the next customer review how the auto rental works-out. We are not to worried. We have used Sunshine Rent a Car for years. Long before they were acquired by the parent company of Florida Car Rentals.

Eugene Oregon has many Realtors, but only a small amount are in the top 5% of the areas real estate agents. Over the years we have had the joy of working with a local firm whom many consider to be Eugene’s only real estate office. I am referring to Eugene’s Alternative – Realtors of Eugene, Oregon. The office specializes in a wide range of new construction, existing Eugene homes for sale and Greater Lane County real estate. The business maintains four brokers on a full-time basis, two men and two women. They operate like a team, all with their specific strengths shining bright. I am not discussing typical realtors or an average real estate office. You will be amazed with the thoughtfulness and efficiency of this group of individuals.