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Going long? Get in Travel Shape!

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© Baz777 | Dreamstime.com

© Baz777 | Dreamstime.com

New airliners with longer range mean more hours in the air for travelers. Your best chance of reducing the misery? Get yourself ready.

It was the 19th century American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson who first declared that “life is a journey, not a destination.”

Love your work, Ralph, but you never spent 16 hours in an airline Coach seat.

Hammered by high fuel prices like the rest of us, the airlines are clamoring for passenger jets to fly ever farther on one load of fuel — and Boeing and Airbus have designs in the works to give them exactly what they want.

That means the next generation of passenger jets will be spending more time in the air, which means you will be spending more time in the air.

If you have enough cash or frequent-flier miles, seriously consider buying your way out of Coach — or as I like to call it, Sardine Class. And for those really long international flights, you’d do well to go with a 5-star airline like Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific or Emirates.

(NOTE: When you need to find a 5-star airline, go to the airline review Web site Skytrax. Don’t worry; there aren’t that many.)

But spending double-digit hours in an aluminum tube at 35,000 feet isn’t much fun, no matter where you sit on the airplane.

So what can we do about all this? Actually, more than you think. Preparation is the key.

Prepare your body
Use the time before your trip to get in shape. Walk. Ride a bike. Swim. Go the gym. Tighten up your diet. You don’t have to train for the Olympics, but being more fit will leave you better equipped to handle all the stresses of travel — not just the flight.

But it’s not just your body that needs some prep.

Know your airplane
Before you book your flight, get to know your airplane. Using the Internet, you can find out:

  • What type of aircraft the airline uses on your specific flight.
  • Get seat information for that plane on that flight — a seat map, leg room (measured in inches and called “seat pitch”), hip room, amenities (electric outlets, etc.), and other factors (whether your seat has storage space underneath, whether your armrests are movable or fixed).
  • In-flight entertainment options. What movies will be shown, what kinds of music and/or games are available.
  • Meal information, including special meals you can order in advance.

Choose your seat according what’s most important to you. Don’t let the airline sit you just anywhere if you can avoid it.

Use the info about the entertainment options on board to determine whether you need to bring your own music and/or reading material, or whether you can get by with what the airline offers.

Eat, drink and be merry
The same is true of meals. In-flight magazines published by airlines sometimes contain menus for your flight, broken down by seat class. Check the online version of the magazine, or ask the airline to mail you a copy.

Also, consider ordering one of the airline’s special meals. They don’t cost extra, are often better than the standard airline fare and you’ll probably be served ahead of your seatmates.

The only catch: The airlines need at least three days’ advance notice if you want a special meal.

Keep yourself hydrated. That means water or juices. Go easy on the alcohol — or better yet, avoid it completely.

Pack wisely, and sparingly
There’s a delicate balancing act when packing for a long flight. The trick is to bring just what you need, and no more. And that’s not something you can work out at the last minute.

Shoes that you can easily slip on and off without laces not only will help speed you through airport security, but make you a lot more comfortable if your feet and ankles swell in flight, which happens often.

Those horseshoe-shaped neck pillows you see some travelers using maybe look bizarre, but they do make it easier to sleep on the plane. The tradeoff: They’re bulky and hard to carry…unless you get a good inflatable kind, which you can find from travel suppliers like REI, Magellans, Travelsmith, Travel Essentials or Le Travel Store here in San Diego.

A lightweight, easily packable jacket or sweater can help for those hours when the cabin’s air conditioning system becomes a little too efficient.

If you can’t afford those pricey noise-canceling headphones, try in-ear headphones to help block out the engine noise. Plain earplugs will help you sleep better.

Do your ears hurt because of pressure changes during takeoffs or landings? There are pressure-equalizing earplugs that can help you with that.

Mind games
While waiting to board your marathon flight, change your watch to the time zone at your destination. The sooner you get your mind and body in synch with the time over there, the less trouble you will have with jet lag when you arrive.

Once you’re airborne, trying dividing your flight hours into manageable chunks of time — say, two to four hours — and plan what you want to do with each segment. Read. Listen to music. Watch a movie. Get up and stretch. Sleep.

Breaking that double-digit flight time into single-digit segments will make you feel a little more in control and a bit less of a prisoner. And if you end up sleeping through a planned segment or two, so much the better.

Whatever you choose to do in those chunks of time, focus on it, concentrate, engross yourself in it — to the point that you don’t think to check your watch or the time on your cell phone. Use the alarm in your watch or cell phone to alert you when you’ve finished one of your segments.

The clock that knows it’s being watched can bring Time to a standstill, on an airplane.

For the same reason, try not to look at that moving map on the in-flight monitor that shows your plane’s position, at least until after you complete a segment.

When you want to sleep for awhile, put your seatbelt on, even if the overhead seatbelt light is off. If the plane hits a little turbulence while you’re snoozing, the flight attendant won’t have to wake you up to have you put your belt on.

There’s not much that’s going to make transoceanic or transcontinental flights a good time, but with a little preparation and a few tricks, you can make it bearable.

the IBIT Travel Digest 2.17.13

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The good, the bad and the bizarre in the world of travel


BEER AND THE POWER OF TRAVEL
If you’re ever visiting New York anytime soon and find yourself feeling thirsty, you’ll want to introduce yourself to the Brooklyn Brewery.

If you have any doubts about the difference that travel can make in a person’s life, you’ll want to get to know the man behind the beers from Brooklyn Brewery, one Garrett Oliver.

Garrett Oliver

Garrett Oliver

He spent a year in Britain in the 1980s and developed a taste for Europe’s fine brews. Then, he came home to the United States, where most beers — churned out in industrial quantities by a handful of giant corporations — had no taste.

I remember those days. In much of the world back then, the term “American beer” was a bad joke, the ultimate oxymoron. When Oliver referred to the US beers of the time as “this thin yellow liquid,” trust me, he was being kind.

Most flavors of Kool-Aid had more character — and for that matter, more flavor. Some of this limp-wristed refrigerated dishwater was so pitiful, it couldn’t even form a decent head when you poured it into a glass. You were better off drinking tap water.

So in true American spirit, Oliver took matters into his own kitchen and started making his own beer at home.

Over the next several years, the amateur brewer became a professional brewmaster. And a guy who had graduated with a college degree in broadcast and film morphed into the world’s pre-eminent scholar on the brewing art.

He also became a creator of some truly world-class beers. How world-class? These days, the Europeans are importing beers from him.

Garrett Oliver is one of the reasons you now can find some 2,000 craft breweries scattered across the United States, from Portland ME to Portland OR, Savannah GA to San Diego, each literally lending its own flavor to the city in which it sprang up.

Who knows how much of this, if any of it, would have happened had Oliver not spent that year overseas, having his eyes opened by something he never would have experienced had he played it safe and stayed home. Travel has the power to change lives.

Road trip, anyone?

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AIR NIGHTMARES
Halfway through the second month of 2013, Boeing seems no closer to getting its problematic 787 Dreamliner back into service after grounding all of them worldwide due to in-flight problems with its lithium-ion batteries.

Poland’s LOT went so far last week as to declare that no flights using Dreamliners will be scheduled until October — whether the bird is fixed by then or not.

In addition to grounding all the 787s already in service, Boeing has halted delivery of new ones until the battery issue is resolved. Either way, the airlines already committed to the Dreamliner are losing money daily while this drags on.

Meanwhile, Boeing’s principal rival, Europe’s Airbus Industrie, has dropped plans to use the same battery aboard its new A350 airliner, which is designed to compete with the Dreamliner but has yet to enter service.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from USA Today
Poland’s national airline, LOT, is the latest to ground the troubled Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and it says the plane will stay grounded into fall. Ouch.

from Travel Weekly
The American Airlines-US Airways merger may be official, but there’s still a long way to go before it becoes a physical reality on the ground and in the air.

LAND
from Budget Travel via Yahoo
Getting married? Planning on raising a family? Here are eight travel destinations you might want to see before you start having kids.

from the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
Are reading and travel equally fundamental in your life? Five of the world’s most literary cities, all of them suitable for the literate traveler.

SEA
from USA Today
Multiple stories on the Carnival Triumph mess…and “mess” is indeed the operative word here, in more ways than one. And just when the cruise industry was still trying to put the Costa Concordia disaster fully behind it.

from AARP
Three classic cruise rip-offs and how to avoid getting stung.

FOOD & DRINK
from CCSD Tours
You’ve heard of pub crawls. Are you — and your bike — ready for a pub roll? These guys offer a cycling tour of pubs in Britain. They have other cycling tours in Europe, too, but this one’s for you beer drinkers out there.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Want a taste of fine French cuisine in a genteel English setting? Go north, young gastronome, to Montreal.

from the Washington Post
Welcome to Chicago, where the locals take their hot dogs seriously. Very seriously. These dogs “ain’t your average Huckleberry Hound.”

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AFRICA
from Africa.com
Want to start real discussion at your next party? Get three people together at random and ask them to name five livable cities in Africa. When they’re done, you hit them with this list of ten, and the reasons why. Watch their jaws drop.

from New Era (Namibia) via allAfrica.com
The Namibian government and the private sector lay down guidelines for tour guides.

from the Washngton Post
West Africa’s French-speaking Cameroon is a microcosm of Africa, in ways good and not-so-good.

from the Tanzania Daily News via allAfrica.com
Authorities in the Mara region are turning to a new weapon in the battle against poaching — education.

from The Namibian (Namibia) via allAfrica.com
A generation before the Nazis, Germans were waging genocide in East Africa. It’s a story little known in this country and largely forgotten elsewhere — except perhaps Namibia.

AMERICAS
from The Guardian (London UK)
When it comes to the lush jungles of Costa Rica’s incredible Caribbean coast, the local indigenous peoples make the best guides.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from Agence France Presse via France 24
Gamers in Hong Kong are creating their own great escape. All you have to do is figure out how to get out of a locked room while blindfolded and handcuffed, with a ticking clock prodding you on. In high-pressure HK, they call this fun.

from The Guardian (London UK)
What you’ll find in a walk across Shanghai, where 21st-century China coexists, barely, with the 14th.

from The Guardian (London UK)
In the largely unvisited northern Indian hill country of Meghalaya, the wild scenery is but the first of its surprises. For one thing, in this male-dominated nation historically torn between Hindus and Muslims, Christianity is the major religion and women rule the roost.

EUROPE
from France 24
Formerly down and dirty Marseilles is trying to remake itself this year as the official 2013 capital of European culture.

from CN Traveller
Berlin — rooms with a…zoo?

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT Travel Digest 1.20.13

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The good, the bad and the bizarre in the world of travel

American Airlines' new livery on their new Boeing 777-300ER airliners.

American Airlines’ new livery on their flagship Boeing 777s. What do you think? | Image courtesy of American Airlines

A NATION AFLOAT
Bangladesh — poor, low-lying and frequently flooded — is not on many people’s travel wish list. And maybe that’s our loss.

Because if we went, we’d see people using their own ingenuity to deal with the floodwaters threatening to gradually drown nearly 20 percent of their country…permanently.

In Bangladesh, climate change is not a theory. Melting Himalayan glaciers combine with annual monsoon rains and cyclones (what we call hurricanes) to inundate a country built on marshy delta. But the Bangladeshi people are finding ingenious ways to cope.

When major floods hit, the kids don’t go to school. It comes to them, on hand-built wooden boats — about the size of the vaporetti water buses that you’ll on the Grand Canal in Venice. Floating schools, floating health clinics, even floating libraries. There also are waterborne shelters for families displaced by floods.

But as you’ll see on the Fast Co.Design site, they’re going beyond adapting boats. They’re actually creating floating solar-powered farms producing vegetables, ducks and fish.

I would love to see all this in action. The Bangladeshis just might be more adapted to living with floodwaters than any other people on Earth.

On the other hand, that old “the monsoon ate my homework” excuse just won’t fly anymore. Sorry, kids.

BOEING’S BAD DAYS
To say it’s been a rough week for Boeing and its new 787 Dreamliner is an understatement.

By now, you know the story. A series of problems with the new jet, especially problems related to its Japanese-made lithium-ion batteries, led one airline after another to ground their 787s for safety inspections until the inevitable finally happened.

Not only have Dreamliners been grounded worldwide, but Boeing has halted deliveries of new ones until the problems can be tracked down and fixed.

Lots of writers, including IBIT, have pointed out that all new airplanes go through a certain amount of technical hiccups when they first come on-line. But when you’ve got batteries that leak enough corrosive fluid to burn holes through the floor and start taking out avionics, that’s no minor glitch.

Can/will the Dreamliner’s problems be fixed? Yes, and for the simple reason that London’s The Guardian newspaper points out: They have to be.

Both Boeing and the world’s airlines are all-in on this airplane. A Dreamliner demise would hit them like a financial tsunami.

All, perhaps, except Boeing’s European nemesis, Airbus, which has a rival to the Dreamliner, the A350 XWB, months away from its first flight.

IBIT will be introducing you to the A350 XWB in the coming days.

Meanwhile, should we be concerned that the same Japanese firm that makes the Dreamliner batteries also provides lithium-ion batteries aboard the International Space Station?

Oh dear…

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OLD SHIPS, NEW ROLES
The crew at CNN Travel have come across a pair of venerable vessels destined for new duties in travel. One invokes a famous legacy and a tragic past. The other, you just won’t believe.

The first involves the Queen Elizabeth 2 of Britain’s Cunard line. Known simply as “the QE2,” she spent some 40 years as an ocean liner in the grand Cunard style, making the trans-Atlantic crossing between Southampton, England and New York City.

In 2008, she was sold to an investment firm in Dubai and has been floating in limbo ever since. The word now is that she’s to be set up somewhere in Asia as a floating luxury hotel, like the old Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA.

The exact destination hasn’t been disclosed, but the betting so far is on Hong Kong. That would be supremely ironic, because that’s where the QE2′s predecessor met her end.

When Cunard retired the original Queen Elizabeth in 1969 after 30 years of service, she was brought to Hong Kong to be turned into a floating university. Cool idea, right? But while being converted, she caught fire under suspicious circumstances and had to be scrapped.

If indeed QE2 is bound for Hong Kong, let’s hope she meets with better luck.

Meanwhile, China already has a floating hotel in Tianjin. But they aren’t using an old ocean liner or retired cruise ship.

No, their floating hotel is the Kiev, a retired Soviet aircraft carrier from the equally defunct Soviet Navy. She’s now known as the Binhai Aircraft Hotel, which her owners describe as “high-end.”

And in this CNN Travel slideshow, she certainly looks the part.

No gym. No swimming pool. But does boast three presidential suites among her 148 rooms, and is probably the only upscale hotel in the world with gun turrets, missile launchers and a flight deck big enough to launch and land jump jets.

The Chinese have another Kiev-class carrier in Shenzen. They turned that one into a theme park.

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RANT: AFRICA’S SELF-INFLICTED TRAVEL WOUNDS
I have a friend whom we’ll call Lisa, an American expat living in a West African country. She was looking forward to attending a major social media event next month in nearby Nigeria. But Lisa won’t be there.

Why? Because the country in which she now resides won’t give her visa to travel directly to Nigeria and back. the immigration office insists that she first fly all the way to the United States, obtain a visa there, and then come all the way back.

This is but one example of the inexplicable bureaucracy that has hamstrung regional African travel since the end of colonial days, and it’s not reserved for expats. Africans trying to travel within the Mother Continent have had to deal with nonsense like this — and worse than this — for decades.

It’s a simple equation, really. The harder and more expensive you make it for travelers to visit your country, the more likely they are to go elsewhere — and take their money with them. That’s what makes the United Nations’ recent warning on immigration rules so timely.

You’ll see that in the AFRICA section below.

Africa is poised to explode as an international travel destination, with billions of needed dollars pouring into national economies up and down the continent. But it won’t happen until its governments stop shooting themselves in the foot.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from the from the Washington Post
Why you shouldn’t fly within a month after having surgery. Two words: blood clots.

from NBC News
American Airlines is changing its look (see above). What do you think of this new livery?

LAND
from Forbes
A rare bit of good news from your friends at the TSA: Those overly revealing full-body scanners installed a few years ago at US airports are going bye-bye.

Budget Travel via Yahoo
Top ten budget travel destinations for 2013.

from the Washington Post
The must-have items for your travel health kit.

from the New York Times
Amtrak adding awards incentives for frequent riders of their best trains. (The kid in the pic could’ve been me on my first cross-country train trip.)

SEA
from Cruise Critic
How to pick the right cruise ship for your at-sea vacation.
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AFRICA
from CNN
The violence in Mali has placed the historic treasures of Timbuktu under threat.

from the Zimbabwe Independent via allAfrica.com
The UN’s global tourism body has a blunt message for Zimbabwe (and by extension, the rest of Africa): Ease up on your visa restrictions or lose out on tourism.

from the Tanzania Daily News via allAfrica.com
How the Seattle Sounders of Major League Soccer are putting American eyes on Tanzania, and boosting that country’s tourism in the process.

from This Day (Nigeria) via allAfrica.com
A feature film meant to raise the international profile of Nigeria’s prolific film is also raising awareness of one of its biggest tourist attractions — Cross River state.

from Associated Press via Yahoo
In South Africa, veterinarians are joining the struggle to save endangered animals from the poaching epidemic.

AMERICAS
from the New York Times
If all you know of Medellin, Colombia is the memory of the late and largely unlamented Pablo Escobar, then you really don’t know Medellin. And it might be worth your while to get acquainted.

from CNN
Costa Rica. It’s not just for backpackers anymore. Livin’ large in the rainforest. SLIDESHOW

ASIA/PACIFIC
from CNN Travel
Officially, Beijing smog is not the worst in the world. But your eyes, throat and lungs all may have a very different opinion. Is a major world capital and travel destination on the verge of becoming unlivable? SLIDESHOW

from CNN
A local’s guide to Singapore. The operative word is “change.”

EUROPE
from BBC Travel
Meetups at the movies in Paris. Want some popcorn to go with that wine?

from The Guardian (London UK)
You can travel from London to Paris by air, by train, by barge and even bus. Now, if you’re up for a few days of challenging, lovely riding, you can do it by bike.

from the New York Times
Reykjavik. Capital of Iceland. Hard to spell, hard to pronounce. But easy to love during its spectacular winters.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Hiking the Scottish Highlands. Cycling in Malta. Healthy vacations don’t have to be about suffering for the sake of exercise.

A nightmare with wings

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©Roman Snytsar | Dreamstime.com

©Roman Snytsar | Dreamstime.com

UPDATE
Boeing 787 Dreamliners are now being grounded worldwide for safety checks. —IBIT

The latest mechanical incident involving a Boeing 787 Dreamliner grounds all the aircraft flying in Japan. Could things possibly get any worse for Boeing? Yes, and quite soon.

So I’m in Long Beach, CA last Sunday at the Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show, talking with the West Coast sales rep for All Nippon Airways about their new Business Class seats, which they’re featuring on their equally new Boeing 787 Dreamliners.

ANA was the first airline in the world to start flying Dreamliners, and he expresses some mild sympathy for the variety of fuel leaks within the last month that prompted ANA’s rival, Japan Air Lines, to ground all of theirs.

What a difference three days makes. Aboard an ANA Dreamliner flying over western Japan, there’s suddenly a burning smell in the cockpit and smoke in the cabin. The crew makes an emergency landing, the exit rows become exits and 137 passengers slide for their lives.

Between them, ANA and JAL operate nearly half of the 50 Dreamliners in service around the world, and airlines on every continent have hundreds more on back order. Both airlines have now grounded their 787s while mechanics try to figure out what the hell is going on with these aircraft, which have been flying commercially for barely 15 months.

How do you say “WTF” in Japanese? One more episode like this and Boeing’s public relations people may want to go into witness protection.

The Dreamliner is the first totally new airliner that Boeing has put out in a decade, a state-of-the-art design with range and fuel economy never seen before. The company spent billions of dollars to create it and the airlines, desperate to cut their fuel bills, went all-in committing to it.

In other words, the future of Boeing and more than a few airlines is riding on the wings of this airplane. And now, it’s not looking so good. In fact, as IBIT has documented, the Dreamliner has been a hot mess from the start. Design problems. Production problems.

When Boeing delivered its first 787 to ANA, it was three years late, and the company hasn’t caught up yet. Some airlines grew disgusted with the whole process and cancelled their orders.

And now this.

Groundings like this don’t just affect travelers flying from Point A to Point B. They have a ripple affect through an airline’s entire flight schedule, stranding hundreds and even thousands of suddenly very angry people.

It’s even worse for smaller airlines, that don’t have spare aircraft sitting around, waiting to fill the void.

History tells us that all new airplanes, especially those that push the design envelope as much as this one, have some teething problems in the beginning. History also tells us when it comes to public perceptions of safety, that may not matter.

To understand why, you have to go back to 1952 and the world’s first jet airliner, Britain’s deHavilland Comet.

The Comet was beautiful. So sleek, with its four engines set inside the wings, that it looked fast standing still. Big square windows for unrivaled views. Supremely comfortable inside. No propeller-driven airliner could match it.

But within a year of entering service, Comets started falling to Earth. They were all grounded while engineers tried to track down the problem, which they eventually did.

The square window shape cut into the fuselage was too weak to withstand the pressure of higher altitudes. The windows were blowing out, causing sudden decompression that the aircraft couldn’t survive. (And if you ever wondered why all airliner windows have the shape that they do today, now you know.)

By 1958, the Comet was deemed safe, but by then, the flying public wanted no part of it — and soon, neither did the world’s airlines. That also was the year that Boeing came out with its groundbreaking 707.

Within six years, the Comet was a memory — and DeHavilland was out of business.

You can bet cash money that every senior executive at Boeing knows this story by heart. They also know that every new incident, every new grounding moves the Dreamliner one step closer to becoming the Comet 2.0 in people’s minds.

Business writers already are using the words “Dreamliner” and “Edsel” in the same sentence. Not good.

Not everyone is scared, however. LOT Polish Airlines is making its first trans-Atlantic flight today with its new Dreamliner. I’ve also talked to my friends at Ethiopian Airlines, who say they absolutely love theirs and want more of them. Even the Japanese airlines are saying their 787s could return to the air in a few days.

Together, that could be enough to ease public unease about the plane. And Airbus is still a good three years away from putting its answer to the 787, the A350-AWB, into comercial service.

So Boeing still has time — a very little time in airline years — to get its billion-dollar bird together.

Even so, the folks who’ve staked their future, and that of the airline industry, on the Dreamliner REALLY can’t afford another month like this one.

ALSO CHECK OUT:
Dreamliner in flight
AFRICA — The air game changes
A Dreamliner come true for San Diego

the IBIT Travel Digest 1.14.13

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The good, the bad and the bizarre in the world of travel

Southwest Airline Boeing 737

Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 landing in San Diego | © Greg Gross

LOOKING ELSEWHERE, LOOKING HOMEWARD
Last weekend’s Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show in Long Beach was equal parts eye opener and reminder.

Japan, still pushing hard to rebuild its tourism after the earthquake/tsunami/radiation disaster of 2011, was the biggest country sponsor this year, with all kinds of intriguing offers, including one that never would’ve occurred to me — anime tourism.

Expect to hear more about that later on IBIT.

Turkey also had a major presence this year, as did Indonesia. Baja California destinations — from Cabo San Lucas at the peninsula’s southern tip to Tijuana, Rosarito Beach, Ensenada, Tecate and Mexicali, also were representing well, and that was good for this old Baja hand to see.

But the destination that reality hooked my attention this year was Malaysia.

How many of us ever seriously consider Malaysia as a place to visit? How many of even know where Malaysia is? Well, somebody knows, because it’s the tenth most popular tourism destination in the world.

And in this case, getting there might actually be half the fun. Its national air carrier, Malaysia Airlines, gets a five-star rating from Skytrax for its passenger service, one of only six airlines in the world to be rated that highly.

At the other end of the travel scale, and literally on the other side of the floor, there were a lot of exhibitors touting outdoor and adventure travel in places like California’s Sequoia country and Yosemite National Park. It reminded me that we have some world-class attractions right here at home that we too often take for granted.

IBIT says: Watch for more on all of this in the coming days.

DREAMLINER DIFFICULTIES
How’s this for a reality TV show: You’ve got this hot new jet, state of the art, but there are so many problems building it was three years late arriving. But now it’s finally here and flying all over the world and everything’s great and…

Wait, say what? Electrical fires? Fuel leaks?

Welcome to the very real world of Boeing and its new 787 Dreamliner.

The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering a safety review after those problems surfaced aboard Japan Air Lines 787s in recent days.

Such reports can’t help but make travelers nervous, especially those flying across oceans. However, this CNN report puts it all in perspective.

Bottom line: all new planes have teething problems. The Boeing 707 and 747 did back in the day, as do Airbus aircraft, most recently its A380 super-jumbo. When the problems arise, you jump on them, as the FAA is doing, fix them, keep an eye on them…and move on. We should do as well maintaining our cars.

Still, it does bear watching, which IBIT will be doing.

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TITANIC SAILS AGAIN?
Did you see the movie “Titanic” and come away wishing you could have sailed on that early 20th century luxury liner — minus the iceberg, of course?

Three years from now, you may get your chance.

The Associated Press is reporting that an Australian billionaire is planning to build a 21st century replica of the ill-fated vessel in a Chinese shipyard, combining old-school opulence with state-of-the-art construction, propulsion and navigation features that Capt. Edward John Smith could not have imagined back in 1912.

You can read the entire AP story, courtesy of USA Today, here.

The would-be builder hasn’t set a price tag for this project, but you know the old saying: “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”

And this guy apparently can.

Even so, other attempts to create a Titanic 2.0 have never left the proverbial drawing boards. If all goes well, however, the new and improved Titanic will hit the water sometime in 2016.

This time, hopefully, the water won’t hit back with a large, angry block of floating ice.

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BOEING 737 — SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW
For nearly haf a century, while bigger, faster, more imposing-looking airliners have grabbed headlines and captured the imaginations of travelers, the stubby, unassuming little Boeing 737, like the one above, has quietly established itself as world’s the most widely used airliner.

Every five seconds, two of them are taking off or landing somewhere on the planet. Not bad for an aircraft which began life as basically a cut-down version of the Boeing 707.

Over the decades, a steady steam of modifications have made them bigger and more sophisticated. Now, Boeing is planning to take their winged bus even further with yet another large-scale makeover. The result, called the Boeing 737 Max, should be ready for service by 2017.

To the layman’s eye, it’ll still look the same 737 that first flew in 1967. But in many ways, as USA Today reports, it will be a brand-new airplane.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Christopher Elliott
The merger between American Airlines and USAir seems all but official. What does it hold in store for the traveling consumer?

from the Los Angeles Times
What flight attendants really think of you. Everything you’ve always wanted to know…or maybe never wanted to know.

from the Washington Post
Jet lag is hard enough on a body in any direction, but it’s actually harder on you flying east than west. What to do about it.

LAND
from Smarter Travel via USA Today
Ten overrated tourist traps — and ten better alternatives. Agree or disagree?

from the New York Times
You’d think famed travel author Paul Theroux has been just about everywhere, but his wish list of destinations is still massively long — and many of them are right here in America.

WATER
from USA Today
The steamboats are back on the Mississippi River this summer, and the competition could be fierce.

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AFRICA
from The Mirror (London UK)
For a real off-road mountain bike adventure, with gorgeous views thrown in as an extra, consider South Africa’s Table Mountain above Cape Town. Just mind the puff adders.

from The New Times (Rwanda) via allAfrica.com
What a concept: Rwanda sets new rules enabling African nationals outside of East Africa to obtain visas on arrival in Rwanda. A big step forward for African regional travel, perhaps?

from the Namibian (Namibia) via allAfrica.com
one of Africa’s great rivers, the Okavango, and the struggle to save it from pollution.

from Bulawayo 24 via allAfrica.com
A new 5-star hotel opens on the shores of Lake Victoria, just in time for the August general assembly of the UN World Tourism Organization in Zimbabwe.

AMERICAS
from the Los Angeles Times
In the United States, bus travel is often disparaged by many. In Brazil, it’s the way to go.

from The Guardian (London UK)
If you really want to “cowboy up” for less than an American dude ranch, do it vaquero style on a working cattle ranch in Mexico.

from SFGate
Scottsdale, AZ is more than golf clubs and baseball spring training. Save some love for some seriously gorgeous desert.

from SFGate
California’s Monterey County, long known for its beautiful seashore and iconic jazz festival, has quietly become a heavyweight in another arena: wine. Could the Napa Valley natives be getting restless?

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Washington Post
A traditional guesthouse in rural Japan, where the highlight is Italian food prepared by an Australian chef.

from the Daily Mail (London UK)
When the Iron Curtain fell for good in the early 1990s, a lot of historic, unspoiled and intriguing Central Asia opened up to the world as new nations. One of them is Uzbekistan.

EUROPE
from The Lookout via Yahoo
Birth of an island? What was nothing more than a sand bar ten years ago has now appeared as a fully formed 34-acres island off the coast of northern Germany.

from the Los Angeles Times
Now free to be creative, Russian chefs are putting a modernized touch on tradition Russian cuisine.

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 11.18.12

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Sahara Desert caravan

The Sahara Desert. Think you could survive here? | ©Simone Matteo Giuseppe Manzoni — Dreamstime.com

The good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media

THE WORLD’S DRY PLACES
This edition of the IBIT Travel Digest is dedicated to my editor, P.A. Rice, whose name you’ll often see at the bottom of my blog posts. In addition to being a fine writer in her own right and a good friend of many years, she loves — I mean LOVES! — the desert.

Having been born in Louisiana and spent most of my life in coastal California, I’ve never been a desert person. Too much sand, too little shade, too many things that stick or bite you.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s usually hotter than all Hell? Unless, of course, it’s freezing cold.

But when she’s in the desert, she sees — or more accurately, feels — something different. Something profound. Something wondrous. And if you try looking at it through her eyes, you may start to see the desert in the same way.

It’s a land that makes you accept it on its own terms. But if you can do that, it will treat you to breathtaking sunrises and sunsets, night skies overflowing with stars and enough solitude to let you have meaningful conversations with your own soul.

I’ve seen sunlight and clouds combine over the Imperial Valley of California in ways that that I’ve seen nowhere else on Earth.

And as evidenced by this story in the London newspaper, The Guardian, she’s not alone in her appreciation of the world’s driest places.

The article lists incredible deserts all over the world — and tours to let you explore them. Deserts in Arizona, North Africa, Mongolia, and countries you may not even think of in terms of deserts.

Like Spain.

Don’t worry…it’s a DRY heat.

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LOW-FARE AIR TO AFRICA
easyJet is Britain’s largest airline and one of the principal low-fare airlines in Europe. It’s orange-and-white Airbus A319s and A320s are a common slight all over the continent.

Now, according to The Guardian, easyJet’s Greek founder is bringing the low-fare airline concept to the Mother Continent.

Fastjet has taken off, literally, in Tanzania.

The implications of this are huge. Africa is one of the largest and most populous of all the world’s continents — and also by far the one most under-served by the world’s airlines.

If Fastjet succeeds, spreads and inspires the rise of competitors, it could revolutionize African air travel.

Stay tuned.

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HIGH-STYLE HIGHWAY STOPS
If it’s been awhile since you took a cross-country road trip — and at today’s gasoline prices, who could blame you? — you will be forgiven if you go slack-jawed when you see what’s happening to highway rest stops these days.

I got my own inkling of that a couple of weeks ago on Interstate 5 in Southern California, heading back to San Diego.

There’s long been a rest stop overlooking the coast within the boundaries of the Camp Pendleton Marine Base, but I hadn’t stopped there in years. Small, nondescript, nothing special.

My, how things have changed. Two buildings are now three. Multiple large, clean restrooms, snack and soft-drink vending machines that actually work. And I didn’t check, but it might even have wifi now.

But as you’ll see in this Washington Post travel story, that’s nothing.

America’s rest stops are going upscale, so much so that some are on the verge of becoming destinations themselves. Check it out.

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AND FINALLY…
And as long as we’re toying with the idea of hitting the road again, the financial magazine Kiplinger offers up this list of its 10 cheapest American cities for a good vacation.

The first thing you’ll notice about this list is that only two of its top 10 cities are anywhere west of the Mississippi River. One of them is Phoenix, AZ.

Desert. It figures.

But that’s not as amazing as the city that appears at the top of the Kiplinger list, the Number 1 destination for a cheap American vacation.

Drum roll, please…Riverside, CA.

When I first saw this, my initial reaction was “really?” Then I recalled my several drives through Riverside with my family enroute to and from family visits in Texas and Louisiana, not to mention my stops there on the train.

After thinking it all over, my reconsidered thought was…REALLY???

If you think you can make a compelling case that the Kiplinger folks are right, drop me a comment here on the blog or send an email to greg@imblacknitravel.com. I’m willing to be persuaded.

Just be prepared to work at it.

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And now, here’s the Digest:

AIR
from Travel Weekly
American Airlines adds service to Europe, Asia and Latin America from its hubs in Dallas and Chicago. The flights themselves don’t begin til next year, but you can start booking them now.

from the Huffington Post
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what about the skies of the beholder? Would you fly in airplanes as ugly as these? SLIDESHOW

from CNN
The A350-AXWB is the lightweight, long-range airline that Airbus intends to compete with Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. Will it catch on with the world’s airlines…and more importantly, their passengers?

LAND
from The Daily Beast
Where to find some of the world’s tastiest cheap eats. No surprise, most of them are in Asia.

from AARP
Airline etiquette — how to deal with rude passengers in-flight.

from USA Today
Is a steady regimen of business travel hazardous to your health?

SEA
from USA Today
NCL joins rival Carnival in selling all-you-can-drink packages aboard its cruise ships.

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AFRICA
from allAfrica.com
British travelers vote their favorite city in the world. New York? Toronto? Paris? Surprise…it’s Capetown, South Africa.

from the Daily Observer (Gambia) via allAfrica.com
For foreign tourists, visiting the Gambia often means getting bum-rushed by “bumsters.” Mostly, they’re just a nuisance, but they can be a BIG nuisance.

from allAfrica.com
An unlikely alliance of US environmentalists, herdsmen from Somalia and financiers from China is joining forces in Kenya to save the rarest antelope in Africa. The hirola is closer to extinction than giant pandas, mountain gorillas or rhinos…and cannot survive in zoos.

from CNN
How to survive in the Sahara with the world’s original desert survival experts, the Tuareg.

AMERICAS
from the New York Times
Atlantic City refuses to bow down to Superstorm Sandy.

from Travel Weekly
And speaking of Sandy, resorts in the Caribbean are still reeling from its impact, these days in the form of widespread cancellations from US travelers. Good time to swoop in and negotiate a bargain, perhaps?

from the New York Times
Seth Kugel loves São Paulo. He wants you to love it, too. WARNING: You may have to work at it.

from the Washington Post
Have a thing for ghost towns? Then check out a pair of abandoned mining towns in Chile. SLIDESHOW

from the Huffington Post
For all the gloom-and-doom talk in the mainstream media about the demise of American manufacturing, there are a lot of local factories still making their own products — and making money doing it. Some of them will let you come in and watch. SLIDESHOW

ASIA/PACIFIC
from The Guardian (London UK)
Want to see where The Hobbit lives…at least on film? Head for New Zealand. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters next month. Check out the incredibly beautiful land where it was shot.

from CNN
The Hello Kitty restaurant in Beijing. The pink ambiance will make you smile. The food will not.

EUROPE
from Travel Weekly
Greece is pining for more US tourists.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Some of the lesser known but no less worthy attractions of St. Petersburg, Russia.

from the New York Times
The Prague that hides in plain sight.

from the Washington Post
Here in the States, writers joke about tree-hugging hippies who think they can sing their way to revolution and freeom. In the scenic Baltic republic of Estonia, the people there actually did.

AFRICA — The air game changes

2 Replies
Boeing 787 Dreamliner of Ethiopian Airlines

Image courtesy of Boeing

Ethiopian Airlines is set to become the first airline to operate Boeing’s new cutting-edge 787 Dreamliner on the Mother Continent.

A week from today, about the middle of lunch hour, an Ethiopian Airlines flight will push back from its gate in the main terminal at Washington Dulles international Airport, taxi out to the runway and take off, bound for Ethiopia.

When it arrives at 9 o’clock the following morning at Bole International Airport in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, it will have made history.

Because the aircraft making that flight will be one of Boeing’s new state-of-the-art 787 Dreamliners, the first to be operated in and from Africa.

That will be the flight that formally delivers the Dreamliner to EA. Regular service is set to begin some time in the fall.

It’s fitting that Ethiopian be the first African airline to fly the Dreamliner, since it claims the honor of being the first airline to bring jet airline service to Africa back in 1963.

The 787 may not be the biggest nor the fastest airliner coming into service, but it still figures to be a travel game changer, especially for the Mother Continent.

Where the now-retired Concorde supersonic transport was all about speed and the Airbus A380 super-jumbo jet is all about size and passenger capacity, the Dreamliner is all about range, i.e., how far you can fly without needing refueling stops, which eat up both passenger time and airline profits.

Ethiopian already is flying the extended-range versions of Boeing’s 777 jumbo jet, enabling it to reach virtually any major city in the world on one tank of gas. The Dreamliner, made super-light with the wide-scale use of composites instead of aluminum, is designed to go farther still.

Like I said, game changer.

Airbus is furiously pushing ahead with its own ultra-light long-distance jet, the A350 XWB, but it’s not due to come online for another two years. Until then, Boeing will have the long-range airline field pretty much to itself, and Ethiopian will be the first African airline in the game.

That’s important, especially when you remember this week’s African visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in which she pushed for more US-Africa trade.

Right now, the only African airline flying directly between the United States and the Mother Continent is South African Airways. On the other side of the Atlantic, only two US-based airlines are flying to Africa, Delta and United.

If the US and African nations are serious about stepping up trade between them, both business and leisure travelers need to be able to move more easily and cheaply back and forth.

As more major African airlines like Kenya Airways and Nigeria’s Arik Air acquire their own Dreamliners, African carriers will have a greater ability to connect with North America.

If America’s airlines aren’t willing to fly to the Mother Continent, Washington should encourage Ethiopian, KA and Arik to pick up the slack.

ALSO CHECK OUT:
A Dreamliner of Africa
Delta does Africa
Africa can’t wait
New wings over Africa, Part 1
New wings over Africa, Part 2

Edited by P.A.Rice

A Dreamliner of Africa

2 Replies
Boeing 787 Dreamliner of Ethiopian Airlines

Image courtesy of Boeing

One of Africa’s premier airlines is the first on the Mother Continent to acquire Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. The implications for African travel are enormous.

While US-based airlines wait to get their hands on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the world’s newest jumbo jet is already changing the game in Africa.

Ethiopian Airlines is the first African carrier to put Boeing’s new state-of-the-art airplane into regular service on the Mother Continent. The first arrived last December and Ethiopian has nine more on order.

This comes as Ethiopian becomes the 26th member of the Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline alliance.

Both of these developments carry huge implications for American travelers with an interest in Africa.

Let’s start with Boeing’s shiny new toy. The Dreamliner is likely to have a much greater impact on African tourism than the Airbus A380 super-jumbo jet, at least in the near term.

Simply put, the 787 is more Africa-ready than the A380. Here’s why.

With the A380, Airbus took the position that “bigger is better,” creating the world’s first fully double-decked airliner, capable of flying as many as 800 travelers at a time.

Big plane equals more seats and (in theory, at least) cheaper seats.

Boeing chose range and fuel economy over size, limiting the Dreamliner to fewer than 300 passengers and marrying its two highly fuel-efficient engines to an aircraft made mostly of lightweight composites instead of metal.

That gives the Dreamliner a maximum range of nearly 9,500 miles, which puts virtually all of Africa within easy reach from virtually all of North America.

As an example, the 6,200 miles between Los Angeles and Dakar, Senegal would be nothing for this airplane.

This means that airlines like Ethiopian, Nigeria’s Arik Air and Kenya Airways, both of which have 787s on order, will be able to reach European and American destinations in one hop, without pilots nervously watching their fuel gauges.

Until more Africans start traveling by air, the 787′s extended range serves the Mother Continent better than the A380′s size. And with most of Africa’s international airports lacking the facilities or the runways to comfortably handle the massive A380, the Dreamliner literally is a better fit.

Where Africa-bound Americans are concerned, Ethiopian’s presence in the Star Alliance is just as important, especially if you happen to be a member of United Air Lines’ or US Airways’ frequent-flyer mileage program.

Star Alliance is now the only airline alliance in the world with three African airlines as members — Ethiopian, South African Airways and Egyptair. You now can put your United or USAir miles toward an Africa flight on any one of them.

Kenya Airways is a member of the SkyTeam alliance, which means you can use your Delta frequent-flyer miles with them.

Meanwhile, Arik Air was accepted late last year as a member by the International Air Transport Association, which sets safety standards and represents most of the world’s airlines. That clears the way for Arik to join an alliance.

oneworld is now the only one of the Big Three alliances without an African partner. Arik Air membership in oneworld would enable travelers holding miles on American Airlines or British Airways to snag code-share flights to West Africa via Arik.

Don’t be surprised, then, if oneworld puts the moves on Arik Air to partner with them.

What’s more, international airlines can and do form code-sharing partnerships outside of the alliances. South African Airways, for instance, has already hooked up with JetBlue.

Expect to see more connections like this, and soon.

Without the 787′s ultra-long reach, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. With this new long-range airliner coming into African hands, a whole world of new opportunity now opens up for them — and for the world’s travelers who are increasingly turning their eyes to Africa.

ALSO CHECK OUT:
Know your alliance, Part 1 Part 2
New wings over Africa, Part 1 Part 2
Dreamliner sighting
Delta does Africa

BRAZIL: Coming to an airport near you

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After a couple of decades of quietly making its mark in regional aviation, Embraer may be ready to give both Boeing and Airbus a run for their money.

If you get the sense over the next few years that you’re seeing some new aircraft silhouettes around your airports, jet airliners almost the size and roughly the shape of the familiar Boeing 737, you won’t be wrong.

The new jets will be from neither Boeing nor France’s Airbus, but a Brazilian aircraft builder, Embraer.

Never heard of them? Don’t worry, you will.

You’ll also be flying them.

Actually, if you’ve ever caught any commuter flights from small regional airports around the United States, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve flown them already.

Embraer’s ERJ twin-jets have been the backbone of regional air services in this country (and around the world) for nearly 20 years.

Now, it looks as if the Brazilians are ready to start running with the big dogs, Boeing and Airbus. And Exhibit A is preparing for takeoff in the San Diego suburb of Carlsbad.

A new carrier, California Pacific Airlines, is preparing to start operations from Carlsbad’s McClellan-Palomar Airport, with flights to Oakland, San Jose and Sacramento, as well as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Cabo San Lucas, at the tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.

According to published media reports, they plan eventually to extend their reach further into Mexico, with flights to Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City.

Their choice of aircraft — E-170 twin-jets from Embraer.

(NOTE: The airline plans to offer 2 x 2 seating throughout the entire aircraft. No middle seat, anywhere. They also plan to assign seats. Both these factors suggest that their fares won’t be in the bargain range, but travelers may decide that the added comfort and convenience are worth it. We’ll see.)

Quite a few airlines already are flying the E-170 — among them, Delta and United in this country, as well airlines in Europe, Asia and Africa.

It’s not hard to see where the Brazilians are going with this.

As upstart airlines like California Pacific start to catch on, and established airlines look to diversify their fleets, it’s easy to envision Embraer stretching out their E-170 to accommodate more passengers per flight.

Once that happens, they’ll be directly challenging Boeing’s venerable 737 and Airbus’ A321 series with newer airplanes and newer technology.

None of this means that Boeing or Airbus are going away anytime soon. But it does mean they no longer have the business all to themselves. In the high-stakes game of aircraft building, a new player is taking a seat at the table.

If this keeps up — and there’s no reason at this point to think that it won’t — American travelers soon may have to stop thinking of Brazil as a “developing country.”

Edited by P.A.Rice

IBIT Travel Digest

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A roundup of the good, the bad and the bizarre from the world’s best travel media

Photo courtesy of Cathay Pacific

THE WORLD IS TRAVELING
According to the UN’s World Tourism Organization, the number of international tourist arrivals worldwide is on pace to hit 1 billion this year. Overall, international tourism was up 4 percent in 2011, coming in at 980 million arrivals.

Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa all saw their tourist traffic rise last year, with only the Middle East showing a decline, mainly due to the turmoil produced by the Arab Spring.

Not bad for a world supposedly locked in the grip of a recession.

You can check out the details of the UN report here.

COMING TO AMERICA
President Barack Obama used a visit to Disneyworld in Orlando, FL, last week to announce a new initiative to draw more tourists — and their money — to the United States. Its ultimate aim, he said, was to make America the world’s top tourist destination.

It’s centered around streamlining the visa process and making it easier for visitors from friendly nations to come here. For you who prefer your news direct from the source, here’s the White House announcement of the actual plan.

As you might expect, the U.S. Travel Association is ecstatic over this, and for good reason.

Up to now, Washington had more or else taken US-bound tourism for granted, as if international travelers didn’t have alternatives on where to spend their vacations, and their money. The Travel Promotion Act of 2009, also signed by Obama, was the first time ever that the U.S. government set out to promote this country as a brand in the hyper-competitive international tourism market.

Given how lucrative the travel biz is, you have to wonder why.

Tourism generates nearly $2 trillion worth of revenue and 14 million jobs in this country. Any serious effort from Washington to grow those two numbers is something we all should welcome.

But it won’t be a snap. In an exclusive interview recently with IBIT, CBS News travel editor Peter Greenberg described America as “the most unwelcoming nation in the world.”

That may be an exaggeration, but not by much. Between the steep visa fees imposed on many foreign travelers after the 9/11 attacks — mostly on countries friendly to the United States whose citizens took no part in those attacks — and the shortage of immigration inspectors at the nation’s air, sea and land ports, America the Beautiful doesn’t exactly come across as America the Friendly.

We’ve got work to do.

AMERICAN AIRLINES: GOING DOWN?
American Airlines, which recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, could be the next in that long line of US-based airlines of the last two decades or so to be swallowed up in a merger.

According to the Los Angeles Times, both Delta and US Airways are eyeing American as a possible acquisition.

Not sure which of those two I’d prefer to see make that acquisition, but strictly from the consumer’s perspective, it’s hard to see how having fewer national airlines, reduced routes, fewer planes, fewer seats and fewer crews could be viewed as a good thing.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from USA Today
Starting next month, American Airlines offering free beer and wine on most overseas flights.

from USA Today
Hairline cracks turning up in Airbus A380 super jumbo jets. European aviation authority ordering inspections.

from d travels ’round
Words of travel wisdom from someone who travels for a living, a merchant seaman.

​LAND

from The Daily Meal ​
East Coast hamburger fanatics, take note: In-N-Out, the Southern California burger chain whose following borders on the religiously fanatical, is planning to expand.

from Rick Steves via Smarter Travel
Lose your bag when you travel? Don’t lose your mind. You will survive this.

from the PlanetD
Can you ride bicycles in Africa and survive? Yes, you can. There will, however, be a few unusual challenges.

from the BBC​
Ways to get around those obscenely high mobile roaming charges when making international calls while you travel. VIDEO

SEA

from News24 (South Africa)
The Costa Concordia isn’t the only hit the cruise industry took recently. The South African government, citing safety concerns, bans cruise ships from docking at Cape Town.

from USA Today
The hits just keep on coming for the ill-fated Costa Concordia. Confirmed dead now at 13, but there may have been unregistered passengers on board, which could push the final death toll higher.

from the Daily Nation (Kenya)
Some in Kenya starting to view the caves used by Mau Mau guerrillas to fight British colonialism as potential tourist attractions. But some of the former fighters themselves are uneasy about that.

​

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AFRICA

from the Africa Review
Are bogus Chinese constructions firms doing dirt in Ghana?

from Bikyamasr.com
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which took almost half the seats in the country’s recent parliamentary elections, is telling the country’s tourism sector to relax: No sweeping changes; booze and bikinis for tourists still okay.

from the Zambia Daily Mail
Zambian government, looking to improve all forms of transport in the country, is trying to draw more foreign airlines to Zambia.

from the BBC
Five foreign tourists shot to death in a remote, rugged Ethiopian desert. Ethiopia casts suspicions on neighbor–rival Eritrea.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN

from the New York Times
If the beach crowds in Rio de Janeiro get to be too much, head for an unspoiled alternative, Praia do Rosa.

from BBC Travel
All you tokers, potheads and other recreational herbalists still have a reason to visit Amsterdam, for now — that new Dutch law that was supposed bar non-Dutch citizens from patronizing the Netherland’s famed ​”coffee shops” has been postponed until May.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Trains don’t usually come to mind when you think of Hawaii. The Kaua’i Plantation Railway could change that.

from the Guardian (London UK)
Sleep tourism? That’s right, I said it! Grenada may be one of the world’s most beautiful places to learn how to beat insomnia. But it’s not the only one.

​
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ASIA/PACIFIC

from Ready Click and Go
What and where — but mostly how — to eat in China.

​from the Guardian (London UK)
And speaking of food in China, the capital of Chinese cuisine may just be Sichuan province, which may have the the most densely packed collection of restaurants and teahouses on Earth.

from ​The Japan Times
Are your favorite North American and European ski resorts unexpectedly barren of snow this winter? You might want to look to Japan to get your downhill thrills this year.

from The Japan Times
You may have never heard of Nada, Japan, but if you’re a serious lover of sake, it needs to be on your must-visit list.

​

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EUROPE
from the New York Times
In search of real Dutch food in Amsterdam. Even if you don’t find any, you definitely won’t starve.

from the New York Times
How to hit the ground running for a fun weekend in Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city.

Edited by P.A. Rice