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the IBIT Travel Digest 1.27.13

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

IMG_1605

DANCING THROUGH CUSTOMS
One of the fringe benefits of writing a travel blog is that you can make some great friends doing great work. One such friend of mine is Renee King, who publishes A View to a Thrill.

In her most recent installment, she gives us the 4-1-1 on of the US government’s trusted traveler programs that can seriously speed you through the Customs process upon your return to the United States. It’s called “Global Entry” and here’s what Renee had to say about it:

“Originally created to target frequent international travelers, the U.S. Global Entry program has been a virtual god-send for travelers who want a fast and secure way of skipping the lines altogether when re-entering the United States.”

To pick up all the details on “Global Entry,” check out Renee’s article here. And then bookmark it. You’ll want to keep this one handy.

Anyone who doesn’t “get” the importance of this program has never walked/stumbled/staggered off a jumbo jet with about 300 other exhausted souls after a transoceanic flight lasting 12 hours or longer, only to queue up in a Customs line…with the passengers of two, three or four other jumbo jets, all doing the same thing you are.

I have. I don’t recommend it.

If such a trip is a one-in-a-lifetime deal for you, then you may not need this program, especially when it costs $100. You’ll also have to make an appointment to be interviewed, electronically fingerprinted and see if you qualify for the program — and frankly, not everyone will.

But when you walk off that plane in a jet-lagged fog and breeze by all those folks suffering in line, you’ll swear it was the best time and money you ever spent on travel.

And if you make more than, say, three or four globe-girdling flights per year, you need this.

To apply for the Global Entry program, start here.

ALL ABOARD…THE NIGHT TRAIN
If it’s true that, in the words of the old Amtrak commercial, “there’s something about a train, then there’s something even more captivating about an overnight “sleeper” train.

Watching the sun set from the privacy of your own compartment, then bedding down for the night with a window full of stars and awaking the next morning in a different city — or a different country — is unforgettable.

It’s also practical. A sleeper train combines transportation and lodging in one. Instead of losing a day traveling between points, you arrive at your destination early the next morning.

It’s not cheap, but a private compartment often includes all your on-board meals, as well as other perks unavailable to Coach passengers, all of which makes the sleeper experience worth considering.

London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper has considered it at length, and compiled a slideshow of what they consider to be the top ten overnight sleeper train runs in Europe, including one between Europe (London) and Africa (Marrakech, Morocco).

Paris-Barcelona? Paris-Berlin? London-Penzance? Yeah, I could happily do any of those.

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AFRICAN FASHION MADE EASY
Not many folks on this side of the Atlantic are aware of it, but Africa has developed quite the fashion scene. We’re talking high-end threads for men and women from high-profile designers from the length and breadth of the Mother Continent.

Until a few years ago, your best shot at checking out this vibrant and growing fashion world was to fly to one or more of perhaps seven African cities:

  • Lagos, Nigeria
  • Nairobi, Kenya
  • Cape Town, South Africa
  • Johannesburg, South Africa
  • Dakar, Senegal
  • Luanda, Angola

And if you want to get a feel for the sources of inspiration that drive these African fashions, that still might be the best idea.

However, you do have alternatives. Lots of them, in fact.

New York City, Los Angeles and Dallas both annually hosts African Fashion Weeks. But if you feel like giving your fashion trip some international flavor — with a bit less expense and a lot less flight time — there’s the Black Fashion Week in Paris and the Africa Fashion Week London, now in its third year.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Business Insider via Yahoo
A Germany-based air safety monitoring group lists the world’s ten most dangerous airlines over the last 30 years. Read with some large grains of salt.

from eTurbo News
An Indonesian airline adopts new Sukhoi Superjet 100 airliners from Russia. The reason: They can operate from the country’s short runways.

from NBC News
Southwest Airlines is betting that you’ll be willing to pay $40 extra to board their planes early. Would you?

from eTurbo News
Ethiopian Airlines cuts flights from Addis Ababa to Europe.

LAND

from Travel Weekly
A heavy late-December snowfall has the skiing looking good at America’s ski resorts.

from The Telegraph (London UK)
What do you get when you take an Amtrak train between Toronto and New York? A 12-hour rail cruise through US history and some of North America’s most gorgeous scenery.

from Forbes via Yahoo
Can you measure a country’s happiness? The Legatum Institute of London says it can, and it’s produced a list of the world’s ten happiest nations. And no, the United States is nowhere in the top ten.

from Time
Has snowboarding lost its mojo?

SEA
from Cruise Industry News
More evidence of the cruise industry’s growing tilt toward Asia: Princess Cruises to homeport a second cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, in Japan.

from Cruise Critic
For those of you dying to escape the frigid winter, there are six cruise ships sailing in warm waters that nearly always have cabins offered at a discount.

from Cruise Industry News
The upscale cruise line Silversea plans to offer shorter (and thus cheaper) cruises in Northern Europe and the Mediterranean.

from Cruise Industry News
As cruises go, this one’s the ultimate icebreaker. Hapag-Lloyd Cruises is planning an August cruise of the Northwest Passage fron Greenland to Alaska on one of its expedition ships, the Hanseatic. You don’t often see the words “expedition” and “5-star” in the same sentence.

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AFRICA
from Reuters
You might want to hold off on that Cairo vacation a little longer. Things are getting hectic — and deadly — again in Egypt.

from al Jazeera
Museum in Mali trying to protect some of the country’s historic artifacts from the threat of destruction by radical Muslim insurgents.

from eTurbo News
British Airways pulls out of Tanzania, and Emirates is the first airline to step into the void.

from The Telegraph (London UK)
Tourism officials in Egypt report that foreign visits are up, but not as much as expected.

from eTurbo News
Ethiopia turning to China, India and Russia as potential new tourism markets.

AMERICAS
from the Huffington Post
George Hobica says Albuquerque NM has been overshadowed by Santa Fe, but it deserves a closer look. Especially if you’re a fan of beer, road trips and under-the-radar cool.

from Travel Weekly
Want a shot at some warm winter weather and a whiff of that new hotel smell? Start saving your coins and circle Dec. 2014 on your calendar. That’s the the 1,000-room $1 billion Baha Mar casino resort is set to open its doors.

from the Chicago Tribune
If you’re a baseball junkie, a visit to Chicago’s historic Wrigley Field is something close to a religious pilgrimage. Now, the Sheraton hotel chain is planning to put up a boutique hotel directly across the street from the old ballpark. Think they’ll pt bleachers on the roof?

from Reuters via NBCNews
More flights and a weaker dollar have combined to create record-setting tourism in Hawaii.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from BootsnAll
Southeast Asia is a great destination for rail travel.

from China Daily
The dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku (or if you’re Chinese, Diaoyu) Islands is throwing cold water on tourism between the two countries.

from SFGate.com
Walking in the path of samurai. Scenic medieval walkways in Japan.

from The Guardian (London UK)
What would you see on a 40-mile walk across a city of 30 million souls? Marcel Theroux gives us his answers from his trek across Tokyo, the first of a series of walks across the largest cities on Earth.

EUROPE
from ABC News via Yahoo
Welcome to County Kerry in southwest Ireland, where drunk driving is legal. And no, that’s not a typo.

from eTurbo News
Ukraine’s largest airline, AeroSvit, goes belly up, stranding hundreds of passengers in the process.

from The Guardian (London UK)
It wasn’t that long ago that the term “luxury hostel” might have been the ultimate oxymoron in travel especially in Europe. It’s fair to say that things have changed. A lot. SLIDESHOW

the IBIT Travel Digest 1.6.13

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

Bay Bridge bike path

Welcome to the first IBIT Travel Digest of 2013. Let’s get going.

SAN FRANCISCO: BAY HEATING UP?
The folks at Smarter Travel have listed San Francisco as one of the travel destinations to watch in 2013.

That might sound a bit like saying the sky is blue and water is wet, since San Francisco has always been a hot travel destination. But the city that calls itself “The City” has some new attractions going on line this year, and it’s all about the bay that gives the city its name.

This year, the Aquarium of the Bay is putting in an exhibit devoted to the rare river otter — one of which recently turned up, almost as if on cue, in the ruins of the old Sutro Baths, to the delight of sightseers and the puzzlement of scientists.

The Exploratorium, which has delighted generations of visitors with its science exhibits, also is getting a new and greatly expanded headquarters this year along the city’s waterfront.

But the main event will be the opening of the sleek new east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, replacing the old span damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Not only is the new bridge gorgeous and designed to hold up better in an earthquake, but it incorporates something that cyclists have dreamed about for decades — a separate bike/pedestrian path. The illustration above shows you how it will look once it’s in service.

People will be able to ride or walk from Oakland to Treasure Island, the halfway point of the bridge, something that was never possible before.

Plans/discussions/arguments are underway to add a similar deck to the original west span of the bridge.

I can’t wait for the chance to take my bike up to the Bay Area and join my cycling friends, old and new, for a spin over the bay — even if it’s only to Treasure Island. Half a bay is better than none.

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GO SMALL, LEAVE HOME
You already know about the cruise ship industry’s building boom, but it’s not just the big lines building big ships. Less well-known outfits also are turning out new, smaller vessels. One example is Alaskan Dream Cruises, which currently operates three small ships for Alaskan cruises.

How small is small? ADC’s three vessels hold a combined total of 162 passengers. Your typical Carnival or Royal Caribbean cruise ship may hold close to ten times that many — on one deck.

When you board a typical cruise ship, holding anywhere from 2,000 to 5,400 passengers, you may feel as if you brought half of your hometown with you. Not so on a small cruiser. It’s a completely different experience. Faster. Smoother. More intimate.

The super-small cruise ships can easily get into scenic inlets and bays, even explore small rivers, where the floating behemoths would surely run aground. Once ashore, you get more time to sightsee, because your small cruise vessel can dock at much smaller harbors. The mega-ships have to shuttle you back and forth on tenders, which really eats into your limited time in port.

Being smaller, such cruises are seldom cheap. But the experience can more than make up for the price.

AMERICAN + USAIR = ?
With each passing day, a merger between American Airlines and US Airways looks like a done deal.

Even before American filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year, industry analysts have been expecting the airline to be snapped up by one of its financially healthier rivals. When Delta dropped out of the fray and United opted to buy Continental instead, that pretty much left the field open to USAir.

And as we move into the new year, the wheels are already turning.

Last month, American’s pilots approved a new contract, the last of the airline’s three labor unions to get on board. Having all three unions signed means that American can now come out from under Chapter 11.

The other shoe dropped just last week, when USAir pilots gave their blessing to a proposal by their American Airlines counterparts on how the two groups would handle a merger.

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DRAMA BUILDING ON THE BLUE NILE
Ethiopia kept its plans for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam so quiet that they first were labelled “Project X.” But when you’re planning the largest dam in Africa on one of the world’s most disputed rivers, that’s a hard elephant to hide.

When finished in 2015, the reservoir it creates on the Blue Nile River will be double the size of Lake Tana, the largest lake in Ethiopia — and the source of the Blue Nile itself.

Issat Falls, Lake Tana, Ethiopia

Issat Falls on Ethiopia’s Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile. © Cdkeyser | Dreamstime.com


Simply put, the GERD is Hoover Dam on steroids. It will surely become an enormous tourist attraction, and the electricity it generates could transform Ethiopia.

But mega-dams often do major, unforeseen damage to the environment, and Ethiopia shares the Blue Nile with Egypt and Sudan. Both countries already are unhappy about this dam.

Make that very unhappy.

People a lot smarter than me have been saying the next great global conflict will be over water, and observers in East Africa are already sounding alarms over this project.

IBIT says: Expect drama.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Travel Weekly
Could this be the Next Big Thing in airline add-on fees? Bundled fares.

from the New York Times
New screening procedures from the TSA are letting some travelers actually leave their shoes on when going through security. The key word there, of course, is some.

from the Los Angeles Times
Save on airfares to Europe? Think off-season and outside the proverbial box.

from NBC News
Forget the Six Million-Dollar Man. Tom Stuker is the One Million Frequent-Flier Mile Man. And that’s how you get a jumbo jet named after you.

LAND
from the New York Times
How to get the most out of TripAdvisor.

from National Geographic
Ice hotels. If you’re not “cool” after spending a night in one of these places, see your doctor.

from Smarter Travel
For a lot of women, wearing stiletto heels while traveling may be impractical. In Greece, it’s also illegal. One of 11 weird laws around the world that can trip up the unwary traveler. SLIDESHOW

from CNN Travel
Ten cars for every type of traveler.

SEA
from Gadling
Ways to save on your next cruise.

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AFRICA
from Mashable
Take a good look, world. Here they come: A smartphone and a tablet computer, designed by an African, built by Africans. Hitting the market now. This could be IBIT’s future travel gear…and maybe yours, too?

from informAfrica
Forget “The Lion King.” The leopard — not the lion — is the real “king of the jungle.”

from the Washington Post
Not all of Africa’s fascinating sights are of wilderness and wildlife. A look at urban Tanzania and Ethiopia. SLIDESHOW

from Africa Review
Mali’s Islamic extremist insurgency threatens the country’s deep musical traditions.

from The New Vision (Uganda) via allAfrica.com
Bill Gates loves Uganda?

AMERICAS
from the Wall Street Journal
New York City is still America’s biggest tourist draw. Who says so? A crowing Mayor Bloomberg — and a record 52 million visitors in 2012.

from the Los Angeles Times
The many and varied joys of a stay in Santa Barbara. A guide to its sights, sounds and tastes.

from NBC News
The US State Department issues a new travel advisory on Haiti: “No one is safe.”

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Washington Post
Would you build an entire city around an airport? The place is called Songdo, and if this experiment works, it could change the way the world travels.

from France 24
Not content with making knockoff purses, pirated movies and even fake Apple stores, the Chinese may be counterfeiting a set of skyscrapers.

from CNN Travel
China prepares to open the doors to the world’s largest building.

EUROPE
from The Guardian (London UK)
Twenty bargain vacation options across Europe.

from Associated Press via USA Today
If you’re planning to visit Vatican City anytime soon, bring your prayers but leave your plastic. The Vatican has gone cash-only.

from the New York Times
Berlin. It’s not just about currywurst and beer anymore. The city’s better restaurants are racking up Michelin stars. Ich bin ein foodie?

from CNN Travel
QUESTION: How do you get the world’s largest airliner through a small French village? ANSWER: Very carefully.

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT Travel Digest 12.16.12

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

©IBIT/G. Gross

©IBIT/G. Gross

DOWN AND (NOT) DIRTY EATS, WORLDWIDE
I’m not a foodie; I just like food. And I love checking out the hidden, under-sized, under-rated places. The incredible street vendor. The lovingly run Mom-and-Pop storefront.

It’s great when you do that in your hometown. When you can do it on the other side of the world, it’s magic.

So I could hardly restrain the joy when London’s The Guardian newspaper introduced me to a blog after my own heart, or at least my own palate: Culinary Backstreets.

This blog focuses on five cities — Istanbul, Athens, Barcelona, Mexico City and Shanghai. If their content is any indication, you could lose your mind — and gain some weight — in any of them.

It’s a reminder that you don’t need a fistful of Michelin stars to find a galaxy of wonderful flavors.

The specific blog post that The Guardian locked in on was one about a street food paradise in an old Shanghai neighborhood that was almost lost to redevelopment.

A story like that speaks not only to my love of urban street food, but my taste for preserving and enhancing an old community instead of tearing everything down and replacing it with the new, the shiny, the sterile.

Real people, in a real community, making and selling real food. How does “urban renewal” improve on that?

ANSWER: It usually doesn’t.

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AFTER-CHRISTMAS (TRAVEL) SALES
One nice way to beat the post-holiday blues would be to score yourself some after-Christmas travel bargains, and the period between the day after NEw Year’s and Martin Luther King Jr. days is one of the best ties of year to do it.

The folks at The Motley Fool call this period “dead time” for the travel industry. I prefer to think of it as hunting season for the smart travel consumer.

To that end, the Motley Fool folks have some tips on how to snag some killer travel deals during that period.

Happy bargaining hunting.

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LUGGAGE TAGS? TRY LUGGAGE APPS
Believe it or not — and I know some of you won’t — the airlines are getting better at not losing your checked bags. Statistics from the US Department of Transportation say so. Considering that they make you pay nowadays for the “privilege” of checking them, I’d say that’s only fair.

Still, air passengers do sometimes find themselves left waiting vainly at the luggage carousel, something we’d all love to avoid. And yes, there’s an app for that.

Delta Airlines started the ball rolling with its Fly Delta app that, among other things, allows you to track your checked baggage.

The makers of Bag-Claim say their iPhone app sends a signal to your phone and your Bluetooth headset to let you know when your bag is nearby, and it continues until your bag is literally in your hand.

Another possible option, depending on whether the Federal Aviation Administration decides to loosen up its rules on the use of personal electronic devices in flight, would be to toss your own GPS tracking device into your bag.

One example would be the Pocketfinder GPS Locator. Like Fly Delta, it works with iPhones, Android phones, Windows Mobile devices…and for us digital troglodytes out there, even Blackberrys.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Business Week
Eastern Europe’s state-owned airlines are struggling in the post-Cold War era, with some cutting services and one, Malev of Hungary, shutting down altogether. Hopes that their Western European counterparts might buy them — and thus save them — so far seem in vain.

from Associated Press via Yahoo
Can you put your smile on strike? Flight attendants for Cathay Pacific sas they intend to do just that. And no, this is not a satirical piece from The Onion. The’re serious.

from USA Today
Is South Korea’s Incheon International Airport now the world’s greatest air terminal? The Airports Council International says yes. See why, and see how the world’s other major airports fared.

LAND
from the UN News Service via allAfrica.com
The number of tourists worldwide hit the 1 billion mark in 2012, a record. And as ominously huge as that number might sound, the UN World Tourist Organization thinks that could be a good thing. Maybe even a very good thing.

from Smarter Travel
Is duty-free shopping really the bargain it’s cracked up to be? ST’s Ed Perkins says don’t believe the hype.

from Independent Traveler
If you’re traveling in Britain, better keep it down in the hotel. The hotel noise police are looking — and listening — for you.

from Travel Weekly
Washington fires a warning shot at 22 hotel operators over their hidden fees.

from Travel Weekly
Hertz competes its purchase of Dollar Thrifty rent-a-car. What was three car rental agencies not that long ago is now one. Hertz now controls 26 percent of the rental car market. The company that owns Enterprise, National and Alamo controls 50 percent. So much for competition.

from Travel Weekly
OFFICIALLY COOL: Need some exercise? Need to charge your smartphone or your laptop? The Starwood Element Hotels chain is installing exercise cycles in its hotel gyms that simultaneously let you do both. Charge your devices by burning calories? Genius.

SEA
from Friends of the Earth
The cruise industry has sent the last decade or so trying to clean up its image as an environmentally unfriendly industry. If this report card from Friends of the Earth is any indication, it’s still a work in progress.

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AFRICA
from The Star (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Kenya launches a campaign to promote cultural tourism abroad.

from East African Business Week (Uganda) via allAfrica.com
Turkish Airlines begins flights between Istanbul and Mombasa, Kenya. Flight time, about six hours. Turkey could make a nice stopover enroute to East Africa. Hmmmm…

from The Herald (Zimbabwe) via allAfrica.com
Poaching in Africa is taking a frightening turn. Park rangers in Zimbabwe kill two elephant poachers in a shootout. The rest flee, leaving behind…mortar bombs? If poachers are using mortars, against animals or people, this is no longer a police matter. This is war.

AMERICAS
from the New York Times
Manhattan is for lovers. Book lovers, that is.

from BBC Travel
Think of Idaho and a lot of words may come to mind. “Cultural mecca” probably won’t be among them. Think again, says the BBC.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from The Guardian (London UK)
In Japan, the best skiing is found at small-scale local spots. No crowds and lots of perfect powder. Are you packing yet?

from GrindTV via Yahoo
This is how you get around China’s Mount Hua. When they say the view is to die for, they mean it. If you slip, you’ll be falling for awhile. Actually, you’ll be falling for a mile.

from Travel Weekly
Myanmar, the country most of us grew up knowing as Burma, may or may not have fully abandoned its dictatorial government and fully embraced reform — but that’s not stopping US and other Western travelers from bum-rushing this country. Good idea, or bad idea?

EUROPE
from the New York Times
There’s more to anchovies than those super-salty strips of fish most people want “held” off their pizzas — and anchovy season on the Black Sea in Turkey may be just the time and place to find out why. Ask for the hamsi.

from Reuters
Well, this is not jolly good. A TripAdvisor survey of travelers finds London not only dirty and expensive, but the second most unfriendly city in the world. Only Moscow was worse. Bloody hell, eh what!

from the Los Angeles Times
An early peek at Sochi, Russia, the Black Sea venue for the 2014 Winter Olympics.

the IBIT Travel Digest 12.2.12

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

Catalina sunset

Sunset off Catalina Island | ©IBIT/G. Gross

ALL ABOARD — WORLDWIDE
If you love rail travel — or just loathe air travel — The Guardian newspaper in London has one of the best resources for planning a fantastic rail vacation.

It’s created its own Web page dedicated to great rail journeys around the world.

Stories about terrific train trips on almost every continent, planning advice, suggestions from readers, photo galleries, it’s all there.

One such trip that’s definitely on my list is aboard The Canadian, a train that travels across virtually the breadth of Canada, from Toronto in the east to Vancouver on the Pacific coast.

It’s not a high-speed train, but given the beauty of the land, including the Rocky Mountains, you won’t want to go that fast, anyway.

Even if you don’t actually use it to plan a train trip, you’ll probably learn some interesting things from it.

For example, thanks to the English Channel tunnel, it’s now possible to travel not merely from London to Moscow, but from London all the way across Europe, Russia and Siberia to Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean — crossing ten time zones and nearly 8,000 miles — without ever stepping onto an airplane.

Not that you’d actually want to, but you could.

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STRETCHING OUT ON AMERICAN
There’s a truism in the fashion world that says if you wait long enough, everything comes back in style. That may be the case among the airlines, as well.

About a decade ago, I joined my first airline mileage program. The airline of choice was American. The reason? Back then, American touting the fact that it was removing seats from its aircraft to create more legroom between rows. When you stand 6’3,” you pay attention to things like that.

Sure enough, a few years later, the airline decided it needed the money, so it put all those seats back into all those planes. Bummer.

Fast-forward to November 2012. An email from American Airlines pops up in my inbox:

“Good things do come to those who wait.

Earlier this year, we mentioned that extra legroom in the Main Cabin was coming. We’re happy to tell you that Main Cabin Extra seats have arrived. You’ll enjoy the following benefits when you purchase a Main Cabin Extra seat:

• Extra space to stretch out
• Group 1 boarding to settle in early
• Seats near the front of the plane so you can get on and off the plane faster”

Legroom is back. Cue the Kool and the Gang music. “Ce-le-brate good times, come on!”

Well, not entirely. There are a couple of differences this time around.

A decade ago, the extra legroom was spread through the entire cabin. This time, it’s being limited to the Main Cabin Extra section at the front of a selected group of new jets.

The other difference is one you’ve probably come to expect by now. If you want a seat in Main Cabin Extra, and you don’t have elite status with American, you’ll have to pay for it, anywhere from $8 to $118 per flight, according to American’s Web site.

On the other hand, you won’t be paying hundreds or thousands of dollars extra for a First or Business Class seat.

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AFRICAN VISA
If I had a dollar for every unsolicited credit card application that turned up in my mailbox in the last five years (and went straight to the shredder), I could probably fly someplace nice… in Business Class. But here’s one Visa card I wouldn’t mind having.

It’s called the KQ Msafiri Visa credit card. It’s result of a joint venture between Barclay’s Bank of Kenya and Kenya Airways.

Not only do your purchases with the card earn miles toward free Kenya Airways flights, but you also get priority check-in and boarding, and up to $56,500 in travel insurance, free.

Cool. But what I’d really love to see would be for outfits like Kenya Airways, South African Airways, Ethiopian Airlines or Arik Air to partner up with some American banks — preferably some black-owned American banks — to create a credit card whose purchases would build miles toward travel to Africa.

That’s one credit card application I wouldn’t shred.

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AND FINALLY…
This last item sounds like a punchline, or maybe something from the satirical news Web site, The Onion…but it’s neither.

Starting this weekend on selected international flights, Japan Air Lines will be serving its passengers in-flight meals featuring…Kentucky Fried Chicken.

That’s right, JAL is hooking up with KFC. According to the JAL press release, it’s to be called “Air Kentucky.”

Greasy fried chicken at 35,000 feet? Neither I nor my bowels know quite what to make of this. Believe it or not, however, it does make a certain amount of sense, although perhaps not for the reason you’d expect.

It would be logical to presume that JAL is doing this to placate those Western passengers whose faces turn unnatural colors at the very thought of eating sushi. But you would be mistaken.

According to the press release, “KFC is widely popular in Japan, particularly during the Christmas season.” And according to CNN, it ties in with a JAL gimmick of partnering with restaurtant chains popular in Japan, such as “MOS Burgers, Yoshinoya beef bowls and Edosei pork buns.”

And there you have it. Pass me the sushi, please.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Smarter Travel
A holiday gift from your friends at ST, the ten airlines that give you the best legroom in Coach — or as I like to call it, Sardine Class. SLIDESHOW

from Travel Weekly
Flying to the Caribbean from anywhere in the world? No problem, mon. Flying among the Caribbean islands on regional airlines? Big problem, mon.

from Travel Weekly
Delta to begin flying between Seattle and Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport, which is closer to the city than its other airport, Narita. But Seattle’s gain will be Detroit’s loss.

LAND
from Smarter Travel
The ST crew highlights the cold-and-flu season by pointing out the 10 Germiest Places You Encounter While Traveling. Their title, not mine. Never mind that, just take their advice and stay healthy going into the New Year. SLIDESHOW

from CNN
First, the bad news. Hotels are now going the way of the airlines and hitting their guests with hidden “resort fees.” The good news? The feds have taken notice.

from Smarter Travel
Five off-season travel destinations that are really cool, and not just because it’s winter. SLIDESHOW

from Travel Weekly
Ridership isn’t the only thing growing at Amtrak. Look for a larger number of Amtrak Vacations packages in 2013.

SEA
from Travel Weekly
Houston has had a gleaming new cruise ship terminal since 2009, but no cruise ships ever made port calls there. Starting next November, that will change.

from Travel Weekly
More life preservers, better tie-downs for heavy equipment aboard ship and standardized procedures for bridge officers are among the safety changes being proposed within the cruise ship industry as a result of the Costa Concordia disaster.

from CNN
How do you “undiscover” an island?

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AFRICA
from Travel Weekly
British travelers recently declared Cape Town, South Africa to be their favorite city in the world — and it looks as if Europe’s international airlines are getting the message.

from the South African Government News Agency via allAfrica.com
A cultural, historical and anti-poverty industrial center dedicated to the memory of anti-apartheid martyr Steve Biko opens in South Africa. The Steve Biko Heritage Centre is expected to become a major tourist attraction.

from The Star (Kenya) va allAfrica.com
With foreign tourism starting to dry up, mainly over security fears as Kenyan forces tangle with Al Qaeda-aligned terrorists from neighboring Somalia, the government tries to boost domestic tourism to compensate.

AMERICAS
from CNN
The ravages of Superstorm Sandy are not preventing holiday visitors from pouring into New York City.

from CNN
Take a look at Detroit through the eyes of its mayor, former NBA superstar Dave Bing.

from SFGate.com
Up in the Napa Valley, you can find restaurants that design menus around the finest local wines. Not down in Monterey. This beautiful seaside-scenic town, a two-hour drive south from San Francisco, has gone nuts over local craft beers — so much so that several local restos now feature entire dinners built around local brews.

from the Los Angeles Times
Memories of the California gold rush live on in Yreka.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from China Daily
Have you ever seen any of those ancient Chinese paintings depicting incredibly beautiful landscapes, towering bullet-shaped limestone mountains that couldn’t possibly be real? Well, they’re real, all right, and Guilin is the place that inspired a lot of those paintings.

Travel Weekly
With cruise sales leveling off here and sailing over their own “fiscal cliff” in Europe, the cruise lines are turning to Asia to pick up the slack. Singapore has already built a new ocean terminal large enough to dock the world’s biggest liners, and more are coming.

from CNNgo
Paris? New York? San Francisco? Madrid? You can all sit down. The Michelin Guide to the world’s great restaurants has crowned the gourmet capital of the world — and it’s Tokyo…still.

from Travel Weekly
Canada’s Four Seasons becomes the latest luxury hotel chain to plant its flag in China with a new 313-room luxury tower in Beijing.

EUROPE
from The New Yorker
Paris, that gastronomic capital of haute cuisine, is going ga-ga over its newest craze. Brace yourself: It’s American hamburgers. We’re not talking Mickey D’s, either.

from Cisco
The next time you find yourself in one of those classic London cabs, whip out your smartphone or your iPad and see if its wifi is working. Cyberspace is coming to the hackney carriage.

from Reuters
It’s no big deal anymore to find a Muslim mosque in Paris. A gay-friendly Muslim mosque in Paris? That’s a very big deal.

Edited by P.A.Rice

the IBIT DIGEST 10-28-12

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

awash coffee ceremony

©IBIT/G. Gross

HIT THE COFFEE ROAD
In addition to wildlife safaris, history and heritage, you now have a new reason to visit East Africa: coffee. An outfit called ET African Journeys is offering a 14-day tour next month called Ethiopia & the Birth of Coffee.

Don’t expect a lot of “down” time on this trip. The package includes visits to a coffee cooperative and at least three different local tribes — the Erbore, Kanso and Woito peoples. You’ll also head into the Great Rift Valley for 4×4 drives and boat rides on valley lakes, as well as the Blue Nile Falls. You’ll also be seeing two different UN World Heritage sites, the castles of Gondar and the rock churches of Lalibela.

Lest you drop from sheer exhaustion and sensory overload, they’ve also worked a couple of resort and spa stays into those 14 days, as well.

Ethiopia is where coffee was born and there are those of you who will swear it’s the best in the world. It spread east into the Arab world and then to Europe before finally making its way to the Americas and the rest of the planet.

I’ve never been a big coffee drinker, but after getting my first taste of it during San Diego’s African Restaurant Week, I can tell you this: Ethiopian coffee is the only coffee I’ve ever had that I would willingly drink black. It’s smooth, it’s flavorful and it won’t bite your tongue off.

I’ll make my apologies to Juan Valdez later.

The tour departs Washington DC’s Dulles airport on Nov. 30 aboard a long-range Boeing 777 jumbo jet from Ethiopian Airlines. For more information, go to the ET African Journeys site here.

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TRAINING FOR VACATION
These days, Amtrak has jumped with both rails into the package vacation business.

Amtrak Rail Journeys last from seven to 13 days and combine multiple destinations. Some feature famous sites like the Grand Canyon. Some are regionally focused — the Northeast, the Deep South, the West Coast, the Canadian Rockies. At least two combine rail trips with cruises.

Costing from about $1,000 to $4,000 per person, none could really be called cheap, but considering that your transportation, lodging, meals aand tours are all included in the one price — not to mention the experience of train travel itself — you may find it offers real value for the money.

Amtrak also offers much shorter (and much cheaper) Rail Getaways to individual cities in the United States and Canada, as well as national parks and attractions like Hearst Castle in California and several national parks. These tend to last no more than three days and run from about $300 to $600 per person.

If the idea of a vacation on rails gets your blood racing, check out the Amtrak Vacations page.

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AMERICAN DELIVERS…SORT OF
Think of this as a kind of pre-emptive strike from American Airlines.

We all know how much travelers resent those airline baggage fees. We also know that travelers are starting to turn toward air freight companies and luggage shipping services to get their bags picked up and delivered, thumbing their noses at the airlines in the process.

Well, before too many more folks opt out of letting the airlines handle their bags, American has decided to partner up with one of those services to offer its own baggage delivery. For a fee, you can now bypass the luggage carousel and let American deliver your bags to your home or hotel.

You can read about it here at Travel Weekly.

Sounds like a great idea, and a pretty slick move by American…until you learn that you pay for this extra service on top of the airline’s checked bag fees. That, I suspect, will be a deal-breaker for a lot of travelers.

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AIR ALTERNATIVE TO PARIS
OpenSkies is a small upscale subsidiary of British Airways that flies trans-Atlantic routes with smaller Boeing 757 narrow-body jets set up to be more comfortable for travelers willing to pay for a pricier ticket.

In addition to offering more legroom, nicer meals and seats that don’t leave you feeling you’ve spent six hours in a vise, the airline is now offering flights from New York into Paris’ other major airport, Orly.

Most international travelers, especially from North America, usually fly into Paris via the massive, chaotic and perpetually packed Charles de Gaulle international airport. If you’ve experienced CDG in the past — and would do anything to avoid a repeat of it — this may be your chance.

And now, here’s the Digest:

AIR
from SmarterTravel
You know those controversial airport X-ray body scanners? The TSA is quietly replacing them with scanners believed to be less potentially harmful. But the old machines aren’t going away, just being moved to smaller airports.

from Yahoo Travel
Coming soon to an airline near you — personalized airfares. Individual airfares based on your personal profile data and travel history. Good deal or something sinister? Read and decide.

from Smarter Travel
Eight foods and beverages to avoid when you fly. Some, like beans and garlic, are no-brainers. Others, like alcohol, are no surprise. But sugar-free gum?

from Travel Weekly
With Orbitz, you may not always know: the federal government fines the online travel agency $25,000 for failing to properly disclose airline baggage fees.

from USA Today
Feel like living dangerously? North Korea’s Air Koryo, judged by aviation experts around the globe as the world’s worst airline, launches a Web site. Apparently, the site is about as functional as the airline it represents. Pyongyang, anyone?

LAND
from the Travel+Lesure via the BBC
The five best neighborhoods in America for authentic ethnic food — and you won’t see a lot of “the usual suspects” on the list. If you have dissenting opinions, list your own nominees in the Comments section. SLIDESHOW

from SmarterTravel
Was it something you said? Five phrases never found on the lips of a good traveler. SLIDESHOW

from Travel Weekly
There’s a little less competition in the rental car business these days. Hertz is buying up Dollar Thrifty. Good news for Hertz. For the traveling consumer, probably not so much. But the feds still have to bless this merger, and there’s no guarantee that they will.

from the United Nations
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, adds 26 new locations to its list of world Heritage Sites. Meanwhile, the crew at SmarterTravel picks its ten favorites. Your bucket list may need a bigger bucket.

from USA Today
Few visitors to New York City have reason to hit Staten Island, even with the lure of a free ferry ride from Manhattan. That could change by 2016 if plans go ahead to build the world’s biggest Ferris wheel in the Big Apple’s most ignored borough.

SEA
from Travel Weekly
This from Carnival Cruise Lines: No more saving deck chair for someone who’s not on deck.

from Travel Weekly
For those who plan ahead: The Cunard line has already set its world cruise itineraries for 2014 The cruises can last three months — but Cunard will let you buy much shorter segments, as short as eight days.

AFRICA
from CNN Travel
If unique wildlife is your thing, then Tanzania may be your place. Who’s up for a safari?

from Bulawayo 24 via Travel Comments
Ahead of next year’s big general assembly of the UN World Tourism Organization in Zimbabwe, three African airlines are adding more flights to Victoria Falls. You don’t have to be a UNWTO attendee to take advantage.

from Gadling
Forget trick-or-treat. If you want to see something truly spooky, check out the annual migration of 8 million African bats. Relax, they only eat fruit.

AMERICAS
from the BBC
New entry fees and visa requirements going into effect in Argentina and other South American countries. If you’re planning a trip to South America, don’t wait until departure day to get yourself up to speed on the new requirements. If you do, you may never get out of the airport.

from Agence France Presse via France 24
You know all that stuff you’ve been hearing about how the Mayan calendar forecasts the end of the world in 2012? Well, the Mayans say it’s all bogus and they have one word for all the folks out there pushing this myth: STOP.

from the New York Times
Want to really go New Age in Santa Fe, NM — and get healthier at the same time? Explore it by bike.

from The Guardian (London UK)
El Vilsito. Auto mechanics by day, wonderfully fixed up tacos al pastor by night. Only in Mexico City.

ASIA
from Xinhua News Agency via CNNgo
China is taking not quite $1 million to turn its first atomic bomb test center into…a theme park? Swords into plowshares is one thing but, uhh…wow. This is one new tourist hotspot that could be just that.

from China Daily
For decades, travelers from around the world have descended on Hong Kong in search of bargains. Now, te Chinese are doing it, too.

from The Province (Vancouver, BC, CANADA)
There’s a lot to see and do in Hong Kong. There’s even more to see and do outside one of the world’s most densely crowded cities. Venture out.

EUROPE
from The Guardian (London UK)
There are lots of good reasons these days to visit the Czech Republic. Here’s one you may not have heard about — good skiing, incredibly cheap.

from the BBC
In Paris, the Seine is getting a 35 million euro makeover that will make the riverbanks more pedestrian friendly and even more attractive to locals and visitors alike. It comes at the expense of daily commuting motorists, who are less than thrilled.

from CNN Travel
Ten cool and free things to enjoy in Paris, including your own guided tour with a local. Did I mention that it’s all free?

AIRLINES: Bailing out

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United Air Lines flight on final approach, San Diego

United Air Lines flight on final approach, San Diego | ©IBIT G. Gross

Around the United States, airlines are quietly pulling out of airports where they’re not turning a profit. Expect to see more of this.

One day this coming June, an Airbus A319 belonging to United Air Lines will push back from its gate at Oakland International Airport and taxi down to the end of the airport’s sole runway.

With San Francisco Bay and the San Francisco city skyline off its left wingtip, it will make the long, rumbling takeoff roll to lift off from that runway. It will easily clear the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and make a long, graceful, climbing right turn before it disappears beyond the Berkeley hills.

Never to return.

After 75 years, United is pulling out of Oakland, saying its operations there just aren’t profitable enough.

Over the decades, United became one of those airlines you just took for granted in Oakland. Smaller, newer outfits came and went, but United was a mainstay, one of the big boys, as rock-solid as those Berkeley hills. You knew those guys weren’t going anywhere.

Well, now they’re going. And United is hardly alone in pulling back from airports around the country.

Frontier Airlines already has announced plans to stop flying to and from Boise, ID, Tucson, AZ and Aspen, CO. It terminated its Milwaukee flights last year. American Airlines is ending its operations out of Burbank, CA, a Los Angeles suburb.

Some of this is an outgrowth of the wave of airline mergers taking place over the last several years. Duplicated routes get pared down, chopped. In other cases, airlines retreat from markets where strong competitors like Southwest and JetBlue have the edge.

And sometimes, airlines just find it easier and cheaper to operate out of smaller airports than larger ones, such as when Southwest pulled out of San Francisco a decade ago and made Oakland its Bay Area hub. (Southwest eventually returned to SFO, but only with a relative handful of flights compared to OAK.)

None of that applied to United’s withdrawal from Oakland. The airline just wasn’t making enough money there, so…see ya!

Okay, airlines have as much right to make a profit as any other business. I get that. Still, it’s jarring when you show up at your local airport and one of the major airlines you’ve grown accustomed to seeing there — and flying from there — is gone.

It doesn’t matter why. All you know is, the ticket counter is empty and dark, the familiar signs and logos have been taken down; only their outline remains.

It’s a bit like coming home and finding a “For Sale” sign on the lawn in front of your next-door neighbor’s suddenly vacated house. The place just doesn’t feel the same anymore.

It also creates practical problems for travelers, who now may have to travel a lot farther to catch their flights.

When British Airways pulled out of San Diego — something they’ve done twice since 1988 — it meant the only way foor San Diegans to get a flight to London was by descending into the hell known as LAX.

Folks up in Burbank and the rest of the San Fernando Valley who intend to fly on American will now have to do the same.

The airlines really don’t care about any of that. The easiest — and perhaps more importanty to the airlines, cheapest — way for them to deal with a low-performing destination is to simply erase it from the route map. No need to work harder or seek creative ways to boost sales from that city.

Just bail out.

Indeed, when you watch U.S.-based airlines for a while, you realize that cutting seems to be what they do best.

Cutting routes. Cutting employees. Cutting back on amenities and customer service. Taking planes out of service to cut back on the number of available seats — and thus have a pretext for raising airfares.

All of which makes it likely that, in an economy still struggling to come wings-level, Oakland will not be the last city this year to watch a familiar airline vanish over the horizon.

DID YOU KNOW?
United Air Lines began flying from Oakland in 1937, the same year that Amelia Earhart took off on her two attempts to fly around the world — also from Oakland.

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 3.11.12

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

© Christina Deridder | Dreamstime.com

KENYA: GOING BEYOND BUSH AND BEACH TOURISM
I’ve been saying for awhile now that there’s a lot more to Africa than just exotic wildlife. It looks as if the folks in charge of Kenya’s tourism agree.

According to media reports out of Nairobi, the Kenya Tourism Board is abandoning its focus on beach and safaris. Now, they’re looking to diversify their approach, touting the East African nation as a destination for multiple forms of upscale travel — among them cultural tourism, eco-tourism and sports travel.

Kenya also is looking to raise its profile as a prime African location for MICE — traveltradespeak for meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions.

(South Africa is the Mother Continent’s current leader for MICE tourism. Looks as if Kenya wants to break off a chunk of that lucrative market for themselves.)

All this is being done with an eye toward drawing more tourism from Europe and the KTB started pushing this updated concept of Kenyan tourism at the International Travel Bourse show last weekend in Berlin.

Kenya continues to draw international visitors despite its military clashes with al Shabab militias from neighboring Somalia.

For more on this story, check out this report from theNairobi Star.

“LOVE BOAT” TO THE BONEYARD
According to USA Today, the cruise ship that served as the floating set for the TV series “The Love Boat” ‐ and may well have helped launch the modern cruise industry as we now know it — is sailing toward an inglorious end.

The vessel formerly known as the Pacific Princess, has been sold to a demolition company in Turkey, where she’ll be cut up for scrap.

Apparently, she’s been laid up at a dock in Genoa, Italy for nearly a decade.

You can read the USA Today story here.

Those old enough to remember the show also will recall how huge we thought the ship was. In reality, she only held a maximum of about 600 passengers. Today’s mega-cruisers can hold more than that on one deck.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from the New York Times
Is there any way to make airplane food taste good? The airlines are trying everything — and I do mean everything.

from the New York Times
A couple of Sea World penguins get the celebrity treatment aboard a Delta flight. Not only do penguins fly, but in this case, they flew First Class. The humans loved it. VIDEO

from USA Today
The skies haven’t been that friendly of late for babies and parents. In one instance, TSA screeners denied boarding to a nursing mother. In another, JetBlue booted an entire family off a flight after their toddler went to DEFCON-5 with her tantrum.
​
LAND
from the New York Times
From how to save money on whale-watching in Hawaii to why your next pair of contact lenses should come from Thailand. A roundup of tips from the recent NY Times Travel Show.

from Budget Travel
A vacation rental site adds insurance to protect vacation home renters from nasty surprises.

from Frommer’s
Buy fragile things when you travel? Here’s how to pack them to survive the trip home. SLIDESHOW

SEA
from USA Today
The Costa Allegra, the container ship-turned-cruise ship that went adrift in pirate-infested waters off the East African coast after an engine fire, has probably sailed her last cruise. Her owners, Carnival Cruise Lines, say she will be sold or scrapped.

from USA Today
Another bit of fallout from the loss of the Costa Allegra — beleaguered Costa is cancelling its Red Sea cruises this year. The ship that was to be used in the Red Sea, the Costa Voyager, is being shifted to take Allegra’s place.

from USA Today
Carnival Destiny, the first of Carnival’s mega-sized cruise ships, is going to get one of the biggest makeovers ever done on a cruiser. By the time she re-emerges, even her name will be different.

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AFRICA
from Capital FM (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Buoyed by what is sees as an improving global economy, British Airways is adding flight between London and the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

from The Chronicle (Ghana) via allAfrica.com
Aviation officials in Ghana say their citizens are being subjected to artificially high airfares, antiquated equipment and disrespectful treatment by flight attendants aboard foreign airlines. Accra is threatening retaliation if the foreign carriers don’t “come correct.”

from This Day (Nigeria) via allAfrica.com
Four years ago, Lagos welcomed the arrival of the first yacht hotel anywhere in Africa. Four years later, the Sunborn Yacht Hotel is a floating white elephant, yet to welcome a paying guest. PICS and VIDEO

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from The Associated Press via The Grio
In New York’s Harlem, the phenomenon of gospel tourism is increasingly filling the pews of dwindling black congregations with white European tourists. It’s proving to be a mixed blessing.

from Budget Travel
How well do you know New Orleans? Test your knowledge of the NOLA with this quiz.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Mention the Amazon and the first place you’re likely to think of is Brazil. Add Peru to that list. Especially if the prospect of exploring the Amazon via a small luxury cruise appeals to you.
​
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ASIA/PACIFIC
​from Voice of America
One year after being rocked by a devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, Japan is still trying to get tourists to come back.

from the Los Angeles Times
In Vietnam, the city of Hanoi is making a name for itself among international travelers looking for the best in Vietnamese cuisine.

from the Los Angeles Times
Another sign of growing affluence in China — a domestic wine industry.

from Your Singapore
Remember when Singapore was known for its staid, ultra-conservative lifestyle? The St. James Power Station is an old coal-fired powerplant converted into the ultimate nightlife venue — ten different bars and live music venues under one roof. (Wikipedia lists 11.) So much for staid.

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EUROPE
from TravPr.com
“Paris pour les femmes” means Paris for women. A European tour company is offering luxury tours of Paris—exclusively for women.

​from The Guardian (London UK)
“Foodie” may be a dirty word these days among the travelerati, but if you’ve got a thing for both rustic Italian countryside and great Italian food, there are some places to stay in rural Italy that can satisfy both cravings.

from The Guardian (London UK)
And speaking of Italy, virtually every hotel in Venice is on an island, but this one has an island pretty much to itself, well away from the tourist mobs.

​​

AIRLINES: Bin Wars

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©Heintje Joseph Lee | Dreamstime.com

When air passengers’ battles over the overhead bins reach their logical extremes, the consequences will be ugly, even tragic. We need to stop the madness.

It’s going to happen. Maybe this year, maybe next year, but it’s going to happen. Somebody’s going to get hurt, perhaps fatally, and somebody else is going to jail for a long time.

Lovers’ quarrel? Political protest? Gang rivalry in “the hood?”

No. It’s going to happen on board an airliner when two passengers, equally long of reach and short of temper, come to blows over the overhead bins.

If you’ve seen the madness that ensues when passengers board a flight — with all their luggage with them — you know it’s coming. We see it every time we fly, people bum-rushing airplanes as if they were holding an after-Christmas sale on board, just to get “dibs” on the limited bin space.

Why? Because nobody wants to pay the added fees for checking their bags if they can help it.

Some of the airlines are exploiting this — rather smartly, I hate to admit — by letting passengers pay to move to the head of the line. But that does nothing to lessen the battle of the bins.

Boarding an airliner has all the potential of becoming the next full-contact sport — or reality TV show, which is probably worse.

But getting “clocked” by a fellow passenger is not the only way someone is going to get hurt behind this. It’s not even the most likely way.

No airliner flying was ever designed for passengers to bring all their luggage on board with them, especially suitcases the size and weight of a small car. The biggest reason for that concerns your safety, and it has to do with turbulence.

When a plane that can weigh more than half a million pounds starts bouncing around the sky like a tennis ball, it’s the scariest moment that most of us will ever experience in the air.

But that’s not the only thing that can happen.

Turbulence strong enough to bounce a flight attendant off the ceiling also may be strong enough to pop the latch on one of those overhead bins, especially one straining to hold a lot of overloaded luggage.

Think flying is a bad experience now? Let somebody’s fully loaded suitcase come flying out the overhead — and land on your head.

Don’t think it can happen? According to the Association of Flight Attendants, it already does, about 4,500 times a year.

It’s a miracle that no one’s been killed yet.

I’m still holding out hope that the airlines will one day come to their senses and do away with their baggage fees, but we both know that’s not the way to bet.

Until that glorious day comes, the alternative is to either cough up the extra cash, or recognize reality and pack less. This traveler is opting for Door No. 2.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST 9.25.11

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

Water show, Bellagio hotel-casino, Las Vegas | © G. Gross

SORE SHOULDER?
When it comes to air travel between the United States and Europe, especially flying west from the Old World to the new, the “shoulder season” may no longer be quite “all that.”

My friend, Porsche, an American expat in London and a blogger in her own right (Spinster’s Compass), has been having an helluva time trying to find a decent airfare to get home during the pre-Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday months.

Fuel costs to the airlines — and the fuel surcharges with which they’re hitting passengers — no doubt play a major role in raising ticket prices. Post 9/11 fees to pay for extra airport security are a factor, as well.

But there may be still other reasons why, to paraphrase Jimmy MacMillan, the fares are too damn high!

IBIT will investigate.

Meanwhile, if you can delay your European travel until deep into the winter — say, January or february — the Godfather of Travel, Arthur Frommer, suggests you check out the Irish national airline, Aer Lingus, for potential bargain fares.

DON’T LET THE BEDBUGS BITE
When it comes to dealing with bedbugs, some travelers are finding out the hard way that the cure can be worse than the disease.

Fatally worse.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention are reporting that consumers’ use of do-it-yourself pesticide treatments to fight the annoying little bed biters is proving to be more unhealthful than the bugs themselves.

Prolonged contact in beds with the poisons have led to score of people getting sick since 2010, and at least one person has died, the CDC reports.

Not only that, but these do-it-yourself chemical treatments seldom really work, anyway, according to the experts.

On the other hand, if you can delay your travel until deep in the heart of winter — say, January/February, there may be bargains to be had, especially going to Europe from the East Coast.

Meanwhile, if you’re traveling in bedbug country, your bed may not be the only thing you have to worry about. There’s a company called BugZip that sells sealed, zippered bags designed to keep the little nasties from crawling into your luggage and coming home with you.

At the very least, you should never leave any of your bags open when you travel. When you put something in or take something out, close it back, immediately.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from msnbc
Onboard wi-fi. Power outlets at every seat. Live satellite TV. In-flight programming you can download to your iPod. Welcome to the future of in-flight entertainment.

from USA Today
Don’t think airline baggage fees can affect you on international flights? Guess again, especially if you’re one of those folks who packs too much.

from CNN
Can an airline take away your frequent flier miles if you complain too much?

LAND
from the Wall Street Journal
Don’t look now, but there’s a new generational of jet-setters taking off to see the world. Okay, go ahead and look!

from Electric Bike Tour Company
Cross the Golden Gate Bridge on an electric bike, cruise down to Sausalito, return to San Francisco by ferry. With no big hills to climb, you don’t need an electric bike, but what the heck.

from Frommer’s
Nine great cities in the world to take a culinary vacation or attend a cooking school. Yes, travel can be delicious. SLIDESHOW

from National Geographic
And speaking of delicious, the NatGeo folks serve up a list of ten places around the world featuring some terrific annual food festivals. Any foodies in the house? Road trip! SLIDESHOW

from Lonely Planet
Thinking about doing a volunteer vacation overseas? The folks at Lonely Planet say there are some things you need to think about before you go. Ten things, to be exact.

SEA
from Capital Jazz
A jazz and soul music cruise set for Halloween week out of Miami aboard Carnival Valor, with stops in Jamaica, Mexico and Belize.

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AFRICA
from Shabait.com (Eritrea)
Peace and development in the East African nationao of Eritrea is drawing positive comments from foreign visitors.

from the Art of Backpacking
Three ways to immerse yourself in Dakar, the capital of Senegal.

from the Daily Nation (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
It’s not just about safaris anymore. Kenya is developing into a hub for international sports tourism, a place where world-class athletes and wanna-bes alike come to train.

from the ​Daily Champion (Nigeria) via allAfrica.com
Nigeria’s Arik Air has won Category 1 status from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. It will now be allowed to fly Nigerian-registered aircraft to the United States with Nigerian flight crews. They’re pretty proud.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the New York Times
Brazil is no longer the cheap travel destination it once was, but in Rio de Janeiro, corner juice bars that double as restaurants are a cheap, tasty and healthy way to stay on budget.

​from the Travel Channel
Hotels in Boston that give you the most bang for your buck. At least, these guys think so.

from the New York Times
Exploring the rugged natural beauty of Maine by bike tour.

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ASIA/PACIFIC
from Wikipedia and Wikitravel
What do you do when the world’s largest city has no more room to grow? If you’re Tokyo, you build some artificial islands, fill them with ultramodern architecture, amusement parks, shopping and eateries, and call it all Odaiba, aka Tokyo Waterfront City.

from the Press Trust of India via MSN News
If you’re visiting India sometime in the future and you hear Russian being spoken, it won’t be an accident. India is looking to double Russian tourist visits.

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EUROPE
from the National Geographic
Belgian waffles…in Belgium! What a concept!

from As We Travel
Must-dos and sees in Sicily.

from Hike Bike Travel
Doing France with your family by bike? Some tips to make it fun — or at least bearable — for everybody.

from USA Today
Got a layover in London? Don’t just hang around the airport. There are plenty of short, fun tours to help you pass the time.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST 9.11.11

Leave a reply

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

Pirogues at the Banjul ferry crossing, the Gambia | ©Greg Gross

THE DOG DAYS OF TRAVEL?
The travel industry has conditioned us Americans to view the Labor Day weekend as the official end of the summer travel season. The folks at Lonely Planet would like to offer a dissenting view.

September, you see, is the start of the “shoulder season,” which just might be the traveler’s best friend. Lots of attractions, smaller crowds, lower prices at hotels, restaurants and the like.

The way they see it, in fact, September may be the best month of the entire year to get your travel on, worldwide.

For a region-by-region LP breakdown of the factors that make September a month to give your suitcase a workout, click here.

THE NORTHERN ROUTE
Back in the day, a little-known way of saving money on flights from North America to Europe was to go via national flag carriers from the northern reaches of the mid-Atlantic. The principal vehicle for this was Icelandair, the national airline of Iceland.

According to the Godfather of Travel, Arthur Frommer, this gambit still works today, but via a different airline.

The best way to save on airfares these days from the States to Europe, he says, to is to begin your journey in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, via the national Finnish airline, Finnair.

You may need to do a stopover in Helsinki to complete your onward journey, bt that’s not necessarily a disadvantage. If anything, it has the added benefit of introducing you to an intriguing part of Europe often overlooked by Americans.

For more details on this northern air route to European air bargains, click here.

WANT TO RAISE YOUR VOICE?
According to msnbc, recently concluded meeting of heavyweight policymakers in airport security, immigration and border control came to a conclusion that should not have required a meeting to reach:

When you travel, the quality of your experience matters.

I can hear your teeth gnashing already as you recall your most recent exercise in traveler’s frustration. I myself would love to have had the chance to introduce them to the blue-uniformed stone-faced Sphinx I recently encountered at the San Ysidro border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana.

But I’d much rather hear from you.

What changes in immigration and customs procedures would you most like to see that would make for a better travel experience?

I’ll be collecting your thoughts, suggestions and ideas until Sept. 30. The best answers will be featured here on IBIT, and also compiled into a report which I will send personally those same policymakers.

Send your ideas and suggestions via email.

Meanwhile, you can read the short msnbc story on the meeting here.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST
And finally, no need to remind you what day this is, or what happened ten years ago.

9/11. The Twin Towers. Al Qaeda. All of that.

We’ve heard a lot of talk about how the world changed on that day. In a decade of traveling since then, I found the world generally to be the same mix of good and evil that it’s always been.

In that same time, I’ve watched us use our newfound fears to justify old-school discrimination and prejudice against anyone perceived as “different.” Seen us frisk little girls and search babies in their diapers at airports, decide that torturing people was okay.

The world didn’t change on 9/11. We did. Mostly for the worse.

So I’m thinking this is a good day to think about who we want to be as a nation. Because in truth, America is the world’s greatest ongoing experiment in nation-building — and the experiment is far from finished.

Those who died on this day weren’t soldiers fighting for a cause. They were largely regular folks like the rest of us — all races, and all religions, just trying to make it.

The best way we can honor them, I think, would be to live our own lives the best we can, treat one another the best we can, and try in our own lives to uphold all those high-sounding values we so often proclaim to the world.

Ultimately, history will judge us not on whether we remember what happened ten years ago today, but on what we do with the memory.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from USA Today
United Air Lines says it’s committed to maintaining its Denver hub. The size of that hub, however, is shrinking. That means fewer flights to and from the Mile High City.

from WhichBudget.com
ATRA, the Air Transport Rating Agency of Switzerland, lists the ten safest airlines in the world. Finally, a reason to feel good about US-based airlines.

from the Associated Press via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
On the other hand, is the rush to automate airline cockpits eroding the stick-and-rudder flying skills of airline pilots?

LAND
from Agence France Presse via France 24
Recession? Terrorism? Who cares? According to the UN’s World Tourism Organuization, international travel for the first half of 2011 is up nearly 5 percent, with South America and sub-Saharan Africa leading the way.

from the New York Times
For the last few years, some small but tech-savvy car-sharing services like Zipcar have been quietly taking a bite out of the rental car business. Now the big boys are firing back, and it’s the biggest of them all that’s leading the charge.

from The Economist (London UK)
Where are the world’s ten most liveable cities? According to The Economist, four are in Australia and a fifth is in New Zealand. Of the rest, three are in Canada and two in Europe. The United States? Dont ask.

from BBC Travel
I’ve said it before: There’s something about a train station. The BBC agrees, and offers proof. SLIDESHOW

SEA
from Atlas Cruises and Tours
Is there really such a thing as free activities aboard a cruise ship? Not only is the answer “yes,” but the list is varies, and rather long.

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AFRICA
from the Daily Champion (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Kenya Airways is out to become Africa’s air connection to the rest of the world, with Nairobi as its hub. To that end, they’re looking to double the size of aircraft their fleet within five years.

from the News Junky Journal
According to South African research, African tourism grew by more than 10 percent in the first five months of this year. Leading the charge were Tanzania, Malawi, Ghana and Botswana.

from the ​Times of Oman
Kenya reaches out to — and into — wealthy Oman is search of tourists.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from BBC Travel
Prohibition my be just a memory, but the underground drinking culture it inspired via the speakeasy still lives — in Philadephia.

from the New York Times
The Dose Market in Chicago is taking the flea market concept and running with it, uptown and upscale.

from the ​San Francisco Chronicle
Lots of tourists fly over or cruise past Hawaii’s active volcanoes. Not many get a look at one from the inside. But you can.

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ASIA/PACIFIC
from NHK World (Japan)
All but forgotten amid the global 9/11 hype, Japan pauses to mark the six-month anniversary of its devastating earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster.

from Gadling
There may be more than one Great Wall of China.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Would you take a kayak out into the ocean at night, just to look at the stars? You might if you were in New Zealand.

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EUROPE
​from Rick Steves via the Huffington Post
You’re in Paris for the first time, finally, and the Eiffel Tower is high on your list, even if it’s just to get it out of the way. You can wait in the long high-season lines with everyone else, or you can follow Rick’s advice here.

from Ma View Francaise/My French Life
An expat offers up a decidedly unromantic view of life in the City of Light. Prepare to have a few bubbles burst (or not).

from Nomadic Matt
One of my buds in the travel blogosphere recounts his experiences traveling through Ukraine.

from the New York Times
Catalonia — hiking in the shadow of Spanish volcanoes.