Tag Archives: Alaska

the IBIT Travel Digest 1.27.13

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

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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

Dreamliner in flight

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An inside look at Boeing’s new lightweight, long-range jumbo jet, from a passenger’s perspective. Here’s what you have to look forward to in the very near future.

Just after lunchtime, Japan Air Lines Line Flight 065 took off from San Diego’s Lindbergh Field, bound for Narita International Airport in Tokyo, the first direct non-stop flight between San Diego and Asia.

It’s also the first flight from San Diego aboard Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner, whose groundbreaking use of composites in place of aluminum in its structure make it ultra-light and thus give it ultra-long range.

This bird has been a long time coming. For a variety of reasons, its first deliveries from Boeing were a whopping three years behind schedule. We’ve charted much of the 787′s teething pains here on IBIT, and along with the rest of the international travel world, eagerly awaited its arrival.

Now, it’s starting to make its appearance at the world’s airports, including SAN.

If, like most of the world, you’ve yet to have a chance to experience a 787 yourself, here’s a link to one writer’s experience aboard a Dreamliner — and as you’ll see, there’s plenty aboard this aircraft that’s new.

Meanwhile, JAL’s inaugural flight from San Diego is making its way north up the California coast toward Alaska, following the polar arc toward Japan. If you want to track the flight of JL065 as it makes its way toward Japan, you can do that at the FlightAware site here.

At some point along the way, the passengers will be treated to lunch and dinner — which, for the first time in JAL history, will include an offering of Kentucky Fried Chicken, as I mentioned in yesterday’s IBIT Travel Digest.

If all goes as planned, that probably will be the roughest part of their flight.

ALSO CHECK OUT:
A Dreamliner come true for San Diego
Dreamliner in flight
AFRICA — The air game changes
Dreamliner sighting
Battle of the bins

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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

©Roman Snytsar | Dreamstime.com

Want to be among the first passengers to fly aboard Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner? Then turn toward the Rising Sun.

Welcome to “I’m Black and I Travel,” your Number One online source for absolutely, positively NOTHING having to do with Casey Anthony. It is, however, the ideal site for travel information to help you get as far away as possible from even the mention of Casey Anthony.

Indeed, she has now supplanted Lord Voldemort for the title of “(S)he Who Must Not Be Named.”

Okay, let’s get on with it.

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A DREAM(LINER) OF ASIA
Are you one of those folks who likes to be first with things?

I’m talking about the types who will sit under a blanket overnight in front of an electronics shop to be the first to buy Apple’s newest digital toy or be the first at the dealership to buy that hot new car or be one of the inaugural passengers on a brand-new cruise ship?

It’s not that often that you get the chance to be among the first to fly on a new jet airliner, but your chance is coming soon.

A Boeing 787 Dreamliner, a ground-breaking new airliner designed to fly farther on a single fuel load than any other before it, just finished a week of operational test flights in Japan with All Nippon Airways after three years’ worth of development snags.

ANA, which was the first airline to commit to buying the 787 from Boeing, will become the first airline to fly the Dreamliner in commercial service, perhaps as early as next month.

(They’re not as well known to Americans as Japan Air Lines, but they have pretty much eclipsed JAL as Japan’s top airline. ANA has been around since the early 1950s as a regional Japanese carrier. They started flying internationally in the mid-1980s.)

Given the troubled birthing process for this jet, however, and the fact that it still must win approval from aviation regulators before accepting paying passengers, I wouldn’t expect to see Dreamliners criss-crossing the skies until sometime in early 2012.

Meanwhile, since ANA will be flying them before any other airline, you now have reason to start planning a trip to Japan.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from Christopher Elliott via SFGate.com
Typos can be costly, especially on airline tickets and particularly on international flights. If the name on the ticket doesn’t match the name on your passport exactly, your trip may end at the airport.

LAND
from the New York Times
If you’re willing to volunteer some time and (maybe) some sweat as a volunteer, it can snag you some serious travel discounts around the world. It puts a whole new spin on the term “working vacation.”

from the Los Angeles Times
A burst of investment from cash-rich Asia is creating a wave of new luxury hotels — in Paris.

SEA
from USA Today
X marks the dock. The Celebrity Silhouette, the last of a half-dozen new cruise ships hitting the waves this year, is due to arrive in her winter port in New York in a week and could be available for you to cruise this fall. Meanwhile, here’s a little sneak peek.

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AFRICA
from the Times of Zambia
Zambia re-brands itself with an eye toward more broader, more upscale and domestic tourism. The new theme: “Zambia — Let’s Explore.”

from Lonely Planet
Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Gorillas — and live volcanoes — in the mist.

from the Financial Times (London UK)
Since it opened in 1964, the Africa Centre in London’s Covent Garden served as library, resto, pub, meeting house and cultural touchstone for generations of Africans in the United Kingdom who battled apartheid in Southern Africa and ultimately won. Now there’s a new battle underway, to save this piece of modern African history in Britain from the wrecking ball.

from The Telegraph (London UK)
South Africa — and the rest of Africa — by train.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from USA Today
Cruise ships are a great there to get to Alaska. But to really see Alaska, you need a train.

from USA Today
Alcatraz, the prison island in San Francisco Bay, makes for a chilling visit during the day, but it’s downright eerie at night.

from Rick Steves via SFGate.com
Amid the great cities, Old World history and ancient art and architecture, don’t forget that Europe also has huge amounts of natural beauty.

from USA Today
Miami turns its graffiti into a tourist attraction.

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ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Los Angeles Times
Five trends to watch in Asian travel.

from the Jakarta Globe
If you love cycling, ever find yourself in Indonesia, you have got to check out these folks. The Komunitas Ontel Batavia (Batavia Bicycle Community) regularly gets together at a traffic circle to show of their bikes. Antique bikes. Sometimes hundreds of them. And the riders dress in period costumes matching the age of their machines.

from the Los Angeles Times
And speaking of bikes, anyone who knows me will tell you that this is my dream ride — a sunrise bike cruise down Mount Haleakala in Hawaii. Twenty-seven miles, all downhill. But it’s not for daredevils.

from the Times of India
Discover Pulau Ubin, the last village in hyper-urbanized Singapore. If you can find it.

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EUROPE
from the Los Angeles Times
New museums sprout up in Amsterdam, Paris and Rome.

from As We Travel
Budget travel…in Switzerland? Is that even possible? These folks swear that it is.

from The Telegraph (London UK)
The twin riverside towns of Deauville and Trouville in France’s Normandy region give the country a second Riviera, not as universally known but no less lively.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
When it comes to Ireland, the charms of Cork just might steal you away from Dublin.

​

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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


BOURDAIN BUZZ
Anthony Bourdain, TV’s favorite antihero/contrarian/rebel-without-an-apron chef, has got a new TV show coming out this fall.

Anthony Bourdain

It’s a spinoff of his successful No Reservations globetrotting gastronomy gig, arguably the most popular show on cable television’s Travel Channel (which offers an amazing variety of shows that seem to have little, if anything, to do with travel).

It’s supposed to be called 24-Hour Layover.

Bourdain — or Tony, as his fans call him — is about as unpretentious and unstuffy as wealthy and world-famous TV chef who never actually cooks anything on TV can get.

And I mean that in a good way.

Oh, you want details about the show? The Huffington Post spilled a few of the beans here.

CELEBRATE JAPAN — AND PRAY
Long before Tokyo became the capital and cultural heart of Japan, that role was filled by Kyoto. Through wars, natural disasters and even Time itself, it remains unshaken and unspoiled.

©Chiharu | Dreamstime.com

July is the month that Kyoto traditionally celebrates the Gion Matsuri, a month-long festival held as part of a purification ritual to satisfy the gods who govern natural disasters — like earthquakes.

Which is likely to give this year’s Gion Matsuri a special poignancy.

Events are scheduled throughout the month, including some spectacular parades, featuring some floats that would put my beloved Mardi Gras in New Orleans to shame — like the one seen here at right.

Kyoto was untouched by this year’s catastrophic earthquake/tsunami in northern Japan and is not affected by the nuclear emergency that followed, so you can travel to this beautiful ancient city without worry.

If you can’t make it there this year, then vicariously jump on that float and send up your own prayers and good thoughts for the Japanese people during this important month in the country’s cultural life.

STRASBOURG IN SUMMER
I first fell in love with Strasbourg about four years ago during the Christmas holidays. I wanted to see how the birthplace of the European Christmas market celebrated Noël, and I wasn’t disappointed. Ever since, I’ve automatically associated Strasbourg, the capital of France’s Alsace region, with long nights, cold days, and hot, spiced wine, vin chaud in French.

But while Christmas may be “the big thing” in Strasbourg, the city and the region surrounding it are just as worthy of a visit in spring and now, in summer, as London’s The Independent points out.

Regardless of which season you choose to visit Strasbourg, getting there is a breeze thanks to France’s high-speed train, the TGV. From the United States, you can fly into Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG), jump on an eastbound TGV without even leaving the airport and be in Strasbourg in a little over two hours of quiet, fast comfort.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from USA Today
The FAA and air traffic controllers agree on new rules to combat excessive fatigue on the job. Hopefully, this means no more controllers falling asleep on duty.

from USA Today
Should babies be banned from First Class on jumbo jets? Malaysia Airlines says “Ya!” (‘yes’ in Malay) — and they’re doing it.

from the Wall Street Journal
Do airplanes cause rain?

LAND
from SOSF.com
That’s short for “Streets of San Francisco Bike Tours.” Think The City is too hilly for fun and comfortable group rides? These folks beg to differ.

from laist.com
And speaking of bikes, can it be that the world capital of four-wheeled neurosis, aka Los Angeles, is finally discovering the bicycle?

from Forbes
The ten coolest places to get your vacation on in Latin America, as seen by a Brazilian travel outfit. SLIDESHOW

SEA
from InnerSea Discoveries
When it comes to cruising Alaska, bigger may not necessarily be better.

from Chris Cruises
The Zumba exercise craze comes to Princess Cruises.
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AFRICA
from Uncornered Market
Want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain? Here’s a breakdown on what you’ll need, and what you’ll need to do.

from allAfrica.com
Namibia opens a self-drive tourism route designed to show off the beauty of the flora, fauna and people of the Okavango River region. It’s one of 61 such routes created on the Mother Continent by an outfit called Open Africa.

from allAfrica.com
Want to get a taste of the caliber of film-making going these days in Africa? Check out The Mirror Boy — shot on location in West Africa. But this isn’t a Nollywood production. It was filmed not in Nigeria, but in the Gambia. Don’t sleep on this one when it comes to the States.

from allAfrica.com
US Embassy: Nigerians wanting to visit the United States have to apply for a visa a year in advance…at least. The reason: more applications than the embassy can handle.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from Gadling
If you’re thinking about visiting Cuba, you need professional help. Here’s where you can find some.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Mexican chocolate. It’s nothing like the Hershey’s chocolate syrup you mixed into your milk as a kid. It’s way better. How it’s made, how it tastes and the best parts of Mexico to enjoy it.

from Food & Wine via Yahoo! Travel
How and where to stay in or near some of America’s most beautiful national parks — five-star or under the stars, your choice.

from CNN
NOW HIRING: State tourist police in Guerrero, Mexico. REQUIREMENTS: Must be gorgeous.

from France 24
Need a good laugh? Head to Canada.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from The Guardian (London UK)
If that ultra-modern new high-speed train connecting Beijing and Shanghai leaves you longing for just a touch of the old China, here are a few of the extraordinary things you’ll finding waiting for you at either end of the line that can take you back in Time.

from msnbc
China opens the word’s longest ocean-crossing bridge. How long is it? If you run across it instead of driving, you will have completed a marathon…and change. Officially, it’s 2.5 longer than the old record holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in New Orleans. And the NOLA is already crying foul.

from the Los Angeles Times
An American couple tries to breathe new life into a still wounded Cambodia, one tourist at a time.

EUROPE
from France-Best-Restaurants
You keep hearing about all these fabulous Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, but who knows where actually are? These guys do.

from Budget Your Trip
Ten free things to do in London. Being one of the priciest world capitols on the planet, anything free is worth noting.

from CNN Travel
Despite its economic crisis and turmoil on the streets, Greece is actually expecting tourism to pick up this summer. The source — patriotic Greek-Americans, using their vacation dollars to try to help their homeland.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Bored with bicycling through the wine country in California, France or Chile? How about a bike tour through beer country instead? I’m speaking, of course, about the Czech Republic.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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

THE ORIENT EXPRESS — ON TWO WHEELS
For the better part of a couple of centuries, two words and one train evoked the romance of travel like no other — the Orient Express.

Long before Ian Fleming and Sean Connery became famous with it through Fleming’s book and subsequent James Bond spy film “From Russia with Love,” this train from Paris to Istanbul was synonymous with romance, glamor and above all, luxury travel.

The Orient Express I’m talking about here is nothing like that. This isn’t propelled by hissing, screaming steam locomotives. In fact, it’s not a train at all.

It’s a bicycle tour.

Tour d’Afrique Ltd. is organizing an Orient Express bike tour that follows the route of the original train between Paris and Istanbul — 50 days (11 rest days, 239 on the bike), 2,500 miles, divided into four segments.

If you have the time — and about $8,500 — you can make the whole run with them. If not, they’ll let you ride the segment of your choice. It starts June 5 and concludes July 24.

For more details on the Orient Express tour, go to the Tour d’Afrique site here.

This tour is BYOB — Bring Your Own Bike.

There’s still time to sign up, but this is not the kind of trip you’re going to take on the spur on the moment, for physical reasons if no other.

Unless you train on your bike constantly (as I should, but do not), you need to spend some time preparing both body and bike for a journey of this magnitude.

Still, it sounds like an incredible journey, does it not? Something just tells I’ve got a new addition to my ever-lengthening list of dream trips.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from the New York Times
Is Business Class the new black for the airline industry? International travelers who don’t want to splurge on First Class but don;t want to suffer in Sardine Class increasingly are striking a more comfortable, if pricier, balance.

from the New York Times
The airlines are feeling a lot better about the quality of their in-flight food. How much better? They’ve been going around major American cities, dispensing it from food trucks and even in bicycles.

LAND
from the New York Times
The NYT’s Michelle Higgins shares 12 tips for saving on the cost of gas this summer — and maybe saving your vacation.

from the Associated Press via USA Today
There are some tricks to booking a summer vacation package without feeling your checkbook has been hijacked. Here are a few of them.

from AP Travel via Yahoo!
When it comes to hiking and backpacking, less is more and light makes might.

SEA
from AP Travel via Yahoo! and the Columbus Foundation (British Virgin Islands)
Working replicas of two of the ships that Christopher Columbus led to the Americas will be on display this week in North Carolina. They were built as “sailing museums,” and they’re working their way up the Eastern Seaboard toward New York..

AFRICA
from The Standard (Nairobi, Kenya)
Not all the landmarks on heritage of the trans-Atlantic slave trade are to be found in West Africa. A group of African journalists take a trip back in time to a slave trading post in Tanzania. And that’s not all.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the New York Times
On Kodiak Island in Alaska, life is bearable for the grizzlies, and you get to see them up close. Just remember who’s at the top of the food chain around here — and it isn’t you.

from the New York Times
Can you get in and out of a Rio de Janeiro weekend on $100? The NYT’s Seth Kugel shows you how it might be possible.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from AsiaOne (Singapore), the Taipei Times (Taiwan) and Bernama (Malaysia)
The Japanese tourism industry is trying to mount a comeback back from this year’s earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster, and it’s visitors from the rest of Asia who are leading the way.

from the Guardian (London UK)
If Indonesia’s Bali is alluring but too overrun with tourists and the traps thereof to suit your sensibilities, consider its endearingly under-developed alternative: Lombok.

EUROPE
from USA Today
It’s not just ocean-going cruise lines trying to outdo one another with hot new ships. River cruisers in Europe are now entering the can-you-top-this? sweepstakes with bigger cabins and much bigger windows for taking in the views.

from the Guardian (London UK)
Alexei Sayle is a remarkable man for two reasons. The first is that he’s been cycling around London for 30-plus years. The second is that he’s still alive. VIDEO

from Deutsche Welle (Germany)
Forget the beer, sauerkraut and schnitzel. The thing Germans really go ga-ga over is white asparagus. It’s a spring thing.

Eleanor Joyce Toliver-Williams, 1936-2011

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It’s not about where or how you start. It’s about where and how you finish.

Let me pause for a moment to note the recent passing of Eleanor Joyce Toliver-Williams. But it’s her life that was truly noteworthy for a couple of reasons, the first of which has to do with travel.

Mrs. Toliver-Williams was the first black American woman ever to be certified in the United States as an air traffic controller.

You can read her obituary here.

Being the first African-American woman entrusted as a controller by the Federal Aviation Administration would by itself would be achievement enough for a lot of folks, but not her.

Mrs. Toliver-Williams went on to become the first African-American woman to run what’s known as an Air Route Traffic Control Center.

Each of America’s 22 “centers,” as they’re known in FAA jargon, controls a chunk of US airspace covering hundreds or thousands of square miles, and has hundreds or thousands of flights passing through it 24/7, which gave Mrs. Toliver-Williams a fearsome responsibility every time she came to work.

Even that, however, doesn’t quite give you the full picture.

The Cleveland center that she ran in Oberlin, OH just happens to be officially the busiest such center in the United States, and possibly in the world.

If you flew anywhere within about a 500-mile radius of Cleveland during the last quarter of the 20th century, anywhere over or near the states of Ohio, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, this lady had your life — and that of everyone else on the plane with you — in her hands.

The fact that you’re reading this now suggests that she did all right.

The other reason her life and career are worthy of note involves how she came to run the Cleveland center.

A native of Texas, she didn’t join the FAA until after moving from Texas to Alaska. She started with their Anchorage headquarters back in 1968.

As a janitor.

She worked her way up from that into the steno pool as a secretary. But she never stopped working, never stopped learning, never stopped pushing forward.

Until finally, she pushed her way right into an air traffic control tower.

Even then, it didn’t all happen immediately. She was certified by the FAA in 1971. It took another five years for her to get an actual assignment as a controller.

Sixteen years later, she was running the Cleveland center, where multiple controllers took charge of the air traffic, but all of whom answered to her.

There are a lot of reasons to be awed by this woman and the career she carved out for herself, but I’m struck most of all by the way it stands out in stark contrast to the attitudes of too many of our kids.

You know, the ones who consider things like working in a convenience store or a fast-food joint to be beneath them? The ones who want it all, but only if they can have it all now?

If life were like a game of baseball, we’d see that barest handful of us hit a homerun right off the bat, so to speak, while a few others seem to have been born standing on third base.

The rest of us have to bunt our way onto first, steal second and third, and then run like hell for a chance to score.

Sometimes, life gifts you with instant gratification, the homerun on your very first swing. More likely, you’re going to have to run the bases yourself like everyone else, one after the other, work like hell.

Just like she did.

I’m sure there were people in Anchorage who saw Mrs. Toliver-Williams with her mop and thought no further of it or her, figuring that was just her lot in life.

I’m equally sure that some of her friends in Texas said something to the effect of, “Child, why on Earth do you want to go all the way up to Alaska?”

She didn’t let the distance, the strangeness of a new environment, or anything else, deter her. She didn’t buy into anyone else’s pre-conceived idea of her destiny. She stayed on the grind and kept her eyes on the prize.

Until she got it.

Decades later, millions of air travelers in the United States, none of whom ever saw her face, heard her voice or knew her name, owe her their thanks because she got it.

That is a life worth noting, and a path to follow.

Eleanor Joyce Toliver-Williams was 74 years old.

AIRFARE ALERT: Southwest v. everybody

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Southwest Airline Boeing 737

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

What do you do if you’ve had a recent spot of bad press? If you’re Southwest Airlines, you drop your fares for a little while and hope the competition pays no mind.

Fat chance of that.

It’s entirely possible that Southwest Airlines would’ve put on this most recent fare sales of theirs even without the need to make folks forget about the cracks that developed in flight in one of their older Boeing 737s. They’ve done them often enough before.

But as the old saying goes, timing is everything.

In any case, the folks at Smarter Travel have taken note of Southwest’s most recent sale, a 24-hour special offering $39 one-way fares — $78 round-trip — on certain short-haul flights, with discounts across the board on 1,500 different routings across the United States.

If Southwest was hoping their competitors would let this short sale go unchallenged, sorry about that. American Airlines is matching. Furthermore, the ST folks say that AirTran, Alaska, Continental, Delta, Frontier, US Airways, and United are matching, as well, although they aren’t advertising which routes they’re slashing their fares on.

It’s only for today, though. The bargain fares turn back into a pumpkin at midnight.

Tickets bought during the sale are valid through June. If your schedule allows you to get a slightly jump on the summer travel season, this could be a good deal for you. Check it out.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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

THE GIFT OF AFRICA
This Christmas season, give yourself a priceless memory — a trip to West Africa for the International Roots Festival in February.

These days, the news out of West Africa is dominated by ominous and tragic events — the tense political standoff in the Cote d’Ivoire and religious violence (also politically motivated) in Nigeria.

But West Africa has other stories to tell that you’re not as likely to read about in your RSS feed or see on cable TV news. Stories of tranquility, cooperation, celebration. Displays of history and culture being preserved. People living together in peace and working to move their nations forward.

The only way you’re going to hear about these stories is by going there and seeing them played out for yourself. And by coincidence, you’ve got a great opportunity coming up in February to do just that, when the International Roots Festival is held in the Gambia.

Actually, it’s a chance to visit two West African countries where the news is largely upbeat, the English-speaking Gambia and its much larger French-speaking neighbor, Senegal. From the United States, the easiest international air connections to Banjul, the Gambian capital, are made by way of Dakar, capital of Senegal.

You’ll see for yourself the fortresses that were headquarters for the slave trade and the ports from which millions of Africans were shipped in shackles to the New World. If you’re of African descent and living in the Americas or the Caribbean, there’s one chance in four that your ancestors passed this way.

But the festival is not just a first-had presentation of a bitter legacy. It’s also a celebration of shared heritage that spans both oceans and eras, an extended cultural family that, slowly but surely, is coming back together.

Beyond that, you’ll see people working to build better lives for themselves and their respective countries, people of different ethnic backgrounds and religions living together in peace. No dictators. No incumbents who refuse to step down after their opponent wins an election. No terror in the name of God.

In other words, none of what the Western world treats as more or less the only things worth reporting extensively in Africa.

The International Roots Festival will be held Feb. 4-8 in and around Banjul. Think seriously about giving yourself the gift of West Africa, and a better understanding of a promising land, in 2011.

LIES YOUR AIRLINE TELLS YOU
One of the ways the airlines justify all their add-on fees is by saying it saves passengers money by letting them pay only for the services they want. They’ve even dressed it up in a fancy name: a la carte pricing.

Well, the folks at Smarter Travel did a little check, comparing old-school all-inclusive airfares of years past with the current a la carte fares on the same routes.

Their conclusion: Not only are you paying more for the same flight, but you’re actually getting less in return for your money.

You can see the Smarter Travel comparison chart for yourself here.

Meanwhile, as we’ve already reported here, the airlines are raking in record amounts of cash, in no small measure due to all those add-on fees. Not only that, but airlines such as American are raising their base fares, as well.

The airline industry said they were charging us all those fees to keep their base fares down…remember?

What can you say about an industry that not only lies to you straight up, but manages to insult your intelligence at the same time?

Actually, there’s probably a lot we could say, but in the spirit of Christmas, we won’t say it here.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from JohnnyJet via Frommers
Eight tips for surviving the airport during the holiday crush. SLIDE SHOW

from USA Today
First, American Airlines pulled its fare information off Orbitz. Now, you can’t find American fares on Expedia, either. Only this time, it was Expedia that pulled American’s fares…in solidarity with Orbitz. Fasten your seatbelts, folks; things are about to get bumpy.

LAND
from Smarter Travel
Some folks handicap the NFL draft. ST’s Christine Sarkis handicaps the hote travel destinations for 2011. Take a look and see which ones give you the urge to start packing. SLIDE SHOW

from Associated Press via USA Today
Don’t look now, but people are buying RVs again. It could be a sign that the recession actually is winding down, or it could mean that folks are really fed up with flying. Either way, those big vacation buses and trailers are making a comeback.

from Smarter Travel
The Web has almost done away with the need for travel agents, but not quite, in the view of ST’s Ed Perkins. He has some ideas on when the help of a good travel agent might be the better way to go.

SEA
from Frommer’s
Some folks can’t imagine a better time than an Alaska cruise. How about an Alaska cruise that’s tax-deductible?

from USA Today
The U.S. Coast Guard says that fire knocked out the engines aboard the cruise ship Carnival Splendor because the ship’s firefighting systems failed.

AFRICA
from Agence France Press
For the sport fisherman, Angola means a difficult trip heavy on hassles and light on infrastructure in a country where a two-hour drive might take you eight. The reward, a catch to do battle with one of the world’s feistiest fish, the Atlantic tarpon.

from Rovos.com
South Africa claims to have the most luxurious train on the planet. See if you agree.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the San Francisco Chronicle
If you’re looking for gorgeous scenery from the comfort of your seat, seriously consider a western Canadian rail trip between Vancouver and Banff.

ASIA
from the Wall Street Journal
If you suffer from digital withdrawal symptoms while traveling in Japan, a cure may be at hand: The Japanese have plans to install free wi-fi at tourist-heavy locations around the country.

from the New York Times
A city of 32 million souls, Chongqing — the Chinese megalopolis we used to know as Chunking — is big enough to swallow your consciousness whole — and ask for seconds. And believe it or not, that’s a good thing.

EUROPE
from the New York Times
Turkey. Is it Europe? Is it Asia? Is it the Middle East? All of the above, or none of them? It takes a lot more than a map to define this country. But when you see how much there is here in terms of history, culture, food, art, architecture and nightlife, you may not care where it is, as long as they let you come back.

from the Guardian (London UK)
Portugal is one of the cheapest cities in Europe for the budget-conscious traveler, and Porto is one of the cheapest cities in Portugal. And unlike the rest of Europe, you can actually get there now.