Tag Archives: Arthur Frommer

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.

IT’S BACK: The LA Times Travel & Adventure Show

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Kalapaki Bay, Kaua'i | ©Greg Gross

The annual Travel & Adventure Show series comes to Los Angeles this weekend. My advice: Rest up, pace yourself and wear comfortable shoes.

Also, prepare yourself for a terrific couple of days learning about travel.

Heading back to Los Angeles this Saturday and Sunday for the annual LA Times Travel & Adventure Show at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

And just like last year, I’ll be posting the highlights from the show as fast as I can, so watch for my posts this weekend. It’s not easy. This show is huge and there’s an awful lot to take in.

This is one of a series of such shows held each year across the United States. There was one last weekend in Washington DC. Others will be held in New York, Chicago, Dallas and the San Francisco Bay area, so there’s a good chance at least one of them will be within your traveling range.

After they worth the trip? Absolutely, especially if you’re just getting into travel, have a lot of questions, or are looking for information on tours and destinations that you haven’t heard much about.

As it was last year, the Automobile Club of South California (that outfit that we drivers generically refer to as “AAA”) will be back in force as presenting sponsor. We tend to think of the Auto Club only when we need a tow truck, but the fact is the they also are very big on selling tours and trips.

If you’re a beginning traveler, there’s definitely something to be said for lining up that first big international trip through an outfit that you already know and trust.

But the show is also great for introducing you to new opportunities and travel suppliers whom you might not have heard of before, especially in this area when newspaper travel sections have been shrinking and the recession has prompted a lot of us to cut back on magazine subscriptions.

For instance, I learned about Ethiopian Airlines at last year’s show. I didn’t know Ethiopia had an airline. Turns out it’s one of the more respected airlines in Africa, an up-and-comer, flying modern jumbo jets and generally getting good marks for service.

There will be presentations on tours and destinations all over the world. You get the chance to ask questions of the experts. You also get to meet and chat with some of the travel experts you find on the Web, like Johnny Jet and George Hobica of Airfarewatchdog.com.

Speaking of celebrities, Rick Steves, he of PBS European travel renown, will return this year for a presentation as will California PBS travel personality Huell Howser.

He’ll be joined by the Travel Channel’s irrepressible Samantha Brown.

But the one I’m most looking forward to seeing is the man I call “The Godfather of Travel,” Arthur Frommer.

Millions of Americans have seen the world over the past half-century, in large measure due to the insight and encouragement they’ve gotten from his writings. What he doesn’t know about world travel may not be worth knowing. He’s 82 years old, and still going at it — still writing and still traveling.

Arthur Frommer is who I want to be when I grow up, presuming that ever happens. He’s a doer.

This travel show also gives you the chance to be a doer. Climbing walls, zip lines, scuba lessons in a portable swimming pool and something called “rope steering.”

You’ll also get the 4-1-1 on how to track down the best travel deals, as well as advice on how to punch up your travel pics and video from experts, one of whom is a good friend of many years, La Times travel writer Chris Reynolds.

For those who’s rather stand and watch, there also will be culture displays from a half-dozen different nations and regions — everything from Thai boxing to belly dance.

You will come away from this show feeling empowered, encouraged…and quite possibly exhausted. Not the worst way to spend a weekend.

IF YOU GO
Tickets:
At the door, $12
Buy online in advance. $9
Buy in advance at any AAA office, $8.
Parking: $12. No in/out privileges.

If you plan to attend the show and want to park at the convention center, get there early. The lot tends to fill up.

Also, be warned that the second day of the show also coincides with the running of the LA Marathon, so be prepared to run into detours en route to the convention center — another reason to go early.

For more information, go to the LA travel show Web site here.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE BIZARRE FROM THE WORLD’S BEST TRAVEL MEDIA

Samoan fire knife dancer, Maui

Samoan fire knife dancer, Maui | @Greg Gross

SPEAKING IN TONGUES
In private business and public service, America has a crying need for people who can speak more than one language. It’s one more good reason to travel.

There’s an old joke that goes something like this:

“If you speak three languages, you’re trilingual. If you speak two languages, you’re bilingual. If you speak only one, you’re an American.”

Sad, but unfortunately true.

As a newspaper journalist, I watched U.S. news organizations trying to cover Mexico with reporters whose Spanish vocabulary couldn’t cope with the menu at Taco Bell.

Few Americans of my generation bothered learning other people’s tongues — and our attitude the most part, was “why should we?”

In the 20th century, America was the planet’s alpha male, the economic and political big dog. If you wanted to run with us, we said, you’d better learn English.

The world’s response: So be it. In nations large and small on every continent, English became a mandatory class subject.

New century, new dynamic. We find ourselves confronting a world increasingly capable of dealing with us not only on our own terms, but in our own terms.

It explains why you can seemingly go almost anywhere in the world and find a local English speaker. And the higher you go on the economic/social/political ladders, the more of them you find.

Meanwhile, the world’s major languages remain a mystery to far too many of us. This has implications for everything from community functions and international business to national security.

In the 21st century, our prideful, chauvinistic attitude toward language simply won’t fly anymore.

Just last week, in fact, First Lady Michelle Obama urged students at the historically black Howard University in Washington DC to join the global community by studying abroad.

“Studying in countries like China isn’t only about your prospects in the global marketplace. It’s not just about whether you can compete with your peers in other countries to make America stronger,”she said. “It’s about the friendships you make, the bonds of trust you establish and the image of America that you project to the rest of the world.”

You can read the entire Washington Post story on Mrs. Obama’s visit to Howard here.

Luckily, there are plenty of language schools out there where students of all ages can learn a new language, in the country where that language is spoken. And the folks at GoAbroad.com have a list. Scores of countries and scores of languages, from Afrikaans and Aymara to Turkish and Xhosa.

Even more luckily for us, the list is in English.

FLASH SALES BY PHONE
Flash sales are invitation-only discounts on everything from clothing and home items to luxury hotel stays. Comes now a British outfit, VoyagePrivé, that’s taking things two big steps further.

According to the folks at Tnooz.com, VoyagePrivé, which bills itself as “a private travel club selling quality holidays at discounted prices, exclusively to its members,” is now setting up an iPhone app to make exclusive offers and add-ons. Available to iPhoners only… and it’s free.

Is this the wave of the future for online travel discounters? Maybe not, but it sure sounds intriguing. This one bears watching.

AND NOW, HERE’S THIS WEEK’S DIGEST:

AIR
from USA Today
All those who suffer a fear of flying, take note: The United States got through all of 2010 without a single airline fatality, the third time in the last four years. Airline safety is one field in which the USA still leads the way.

from CNN
from Budget Travel
QUESTION: What does an airliner have in common with an impoverished developing country? ANSWER: Don’t drink the water from either. Don’t use the ice, either. And in the case of the plane, beware the seat pocket in front of you. It’s a potential hiding place for everything but disco fever.

Delta is gettin’ jiggy with standby flying. They’ve create an online auction system for passengers who volunteer to be bumped from a flight that’s been overbooked, a common practice that airlines do deliberately. The CNN crew thinks this is a great thing, if you play the game right.

from Reuters
SPECIAL REPORT: Did Boeing’s penchant for outsourcing sabotage its new state-of-the-art Dreamliner?

LAND
from Independent Traveler
Eight rail trips with scenery to die for, if the trip itself doesn’t kill you. Some of these are not for faint-hearted tourist types.

from Tnooz.com
Speaking of trains, this will give you an idea of how successful high-speed rail travel is in France: The country’s national railroad has the second most popular travel Web site in France. It was Number One, but slipped last week behind a skiing site. Something tells me that won’t last long.

SEA
from the New York Times
A Caribbean cruise aboard Celebrity Eclipse. When you go to a shipboard restaurant — and the menu comes to you on an iPad — you know you’re not on you’re father’s cruise ship. It’s called Qsine, and Eclipse is the first Celebrity vessel to feature it.

AFRICA
from eTurbo News
February is high season for cultural happenings on the Mother Continent. At the same time that the International Roots Festival in the Gambia in West Africa is winding down, the biggest cultural fest in East Africa, the Sauti za Busara on Tanzania’s legendary island of Zanzibar, will be getting underway. Even if you can’t attend this year’s events, take note for the next time.

from IPSNews
Mozambique braces for the worst flooding in ten years. Roughly 1.3 million people may be at risk.

fromBushdrums.com
An American pesticide banned in Europe and restricted in the United States is killing off lions in Kenya. If you want to see lions in the wild in East Africa, you’d better hurry.

from Time
Meanwhile in Tucson AZ, there’s a restaurant selling tacos made with lion meat. They buy it from a farm in California that raises lions…as food.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the San Francisco Chronicle
The Obama administration is still tiptoeing around the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, easing travel restrictions for students, religious groups, academics and journalists to travel there legally. Thousands already flout the embargo to visit the island nation every year.

What do the new regs really mean for Americans who want to visit Cuba? The Godfather of Travel, Arthur Frommer, weighs in.

from the New York Times
The Dominican Republic has some of the most inexpensive all-inclusive beach resorts in the world. But if you really want to get away from it all, you can also find some lovely, isolated stretches of Dominican beach that will cost you nothing.

ASIA
from the New York Times
The latest Japanese youth craze (and “craze” is the operative term here): LED lights for your teeth. And you thought gold “grills” were the height of ridiculous! Makes girls look like space aliens. “Take me to your dentist!”…?

from the Japan Times
Exploring the back streets of Tokyo. This time, it’s the Hakusan area. If you love the beauty of autumn leaves, this neighborhood may be your cup of sake.

from the New York Times
An influx of new entertainment, dining and shopping options are turning Tokyo’s Marunouchi district from a staid collection of offices into a happening place. SLIDE SHOW

EUROPE
from the New York Times
Europe’s economic turmoil is good news for travelers looking for bargain vacations.

from EuroCheapo
You’d expect France to produce great street food. A sweet or savory crepe from a good sidewalk vendor will make you forget all about Mickey D’s. A list of five of the best in Paris. (My personal favs come from a cart next to the St. Germain de Pres Church on Boulevard St. Germain in the 6th arrondissement.)

The Godfather in London

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The man I call the Godfather of Travel, Arthur Frommer, just returned from London, and blogged about it.

Being away too long from London is something we have in common, and I’m still overdue for a return visit.

“I firmly believe that every human being should go there at least yearly,” he wrote. And I couldn’t agree more.

This is one of those places that cuts the cutting edge. Everything and everyone from everywhere. Food, clubs, music, architecture, a legion of cultures from around the world — if you can’t find it in London, it may not be worth being found.

If you told me boredom was illegal here, I’d have no trouble believing it.

In short, London has the power to overload every sense you own, including your sense of time. In those moments when you’re caught up in the city’s electric energy and youthful, multicultural vibe, it can startle you to realize that Roman legions once marched on some of these same streets.

Mentally, I am somewhere over the Atlantic, heading east. You should be, too.

Physically.

The United States — a mixed welcome

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Increased red tape to visit the United States has fewer travelers coming here…and we’re all paying for it

Earlier this year, President Barack Obama signed into law the Travel Promotion Act.

Good. Our beat-up economy can use all the tourist dollars we can get, especially when more than half the 50 states have economies wholly or partly dependent on tourism. So come to the United States. See our great country, our beautiful lands, our historic sites. Meet our terrific people. Have a ball. Spend money.

But first, cough up $130 for a visa, one each for every member of your family. And prepare to be hassled and humiliated in the process.

Arthur Frommer, the Godfather of Travel, pointed out recently that since 9/11, the United States has been charging a $130 visa fee to visitors in a lot of countries which were ever levied a visa fee before.

UNLIKELY CANDIDATES
We’re not just talking about countries like Yemen or Indonesia or Kyrgyzstan. We’re talking about Chile and Brazil and Argentina, nations that don’t exactly have a reputation for nurturing terrorists.

In fact, if you’re coming from virtually anywhere other than Western Europe and a handful of countries in Asia and the Pacific, prepare to ante up.

Most of Asia and…all of Latin America? All of Africa? Really?

Okay, we know why Sudan is on this list — Darfur, anyone? Somalia, sure. Given our testy relations with Cuba and Venezuela, even that would have a certain logic to it. And anyone who’s seen the roster of the 9/11 hijackers knows why Saudi Arabia gets this treatment.

But Costa Rica? Botswana? The Seychelles? Fiji?

Imagine yourself with a family of four or six. You’re $520 or $780 out of pocket — and you haven’t even left home yet. And that doesn’t take into account the hassle and cost of traveling to the city where the U.S. Embassy or consulate is located, then waiting in a hotel while your visa is processed.

But it’s not just the money. You may be forced to wait for weeks to make an appointment…just to go through the time-sucking process of applying for a US visa.

You also will be fingerprinted, as if you were a criminal. No fingerprint, no visa, period.

So while you’ve got American business practically begging foreigners to come here, you’ve got the U.S. government doing this stuff. it’s called a mixed message, and definitely not one that encourages visits to the United States.

RETALIATION
Why is any of this your problem?

It really isn’t — unless you plan on traveling abroad yourself, or unless you just slipped a tax payment check into the envelope along with your Form 1040.

According to Frommer, a lot of the countries whose citizens are now charged $130 for a U.S. visa have decided that turnabout is fair play — and profitable fair play, at that.

Welcome to Rio de Janeiro. That’ll be $150, please — per person, of course.

That’s money you could’ve spent on clubbing in Rio or Amazon River tours or capoeira lessons — or maybe just your airfare.

Some might call this payback. Others would call it blowback. Either way, it’s money you won’t get back. And it’s making it that much harder for already cash-strapped Americans to travel.

And they’re not alone. Foreign visits to the United States have dropped the last three years running. Instead of submitting to fees and fingerprinting, foreign travelers increasingly are giving America “the finger” by staying home or going elsewhere.

When tourism is either the first, second or third-largest employer in 29 out of 50 U.S. states, that’s a problem.

Need another reason to give a damn? According to the U.S. Travel Association, the average American household would be paying out $950 a year in additional income taxes were it not for the money poured into our economy by tourism.

These measures may have been meant to slam the door on would-be terrorists, but they’re catching all our fingers in it.

My dream trip: Freighter cruise

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To cross the oceans without the glitz and the hype, that’s for me.

A recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle about a couple’s cruise aboard a Polish freighter re-kindled a long-held dream of mine.

I’ve done my share of cruises. They’re fun, comfortable and a true bargain. What’s more, the major cruise lines seem hell-bent on cramming as many pleasurable distractions into them as possible.

Whole “neighborhoods” of arcades, promenades. Theaters. Casinos. Climbing walls. Zip lines. Bowling alleys. The Oasis of the Seas, has an entire bar that goes up and down between decks.

It’s Las Vegas, Disneyland. Just add water and it’s all good.

Or is it? The Godfather of Travel, Arthur Frommer, says this about the current trend in cruising:

“The cheaper of the ships are all being converted into amusement parks. Imagine yourself lying on a chaise lounge on the top deck of a cruise ship, trying to read a novel, trying to enjoy the expanse of the seas…and above your head are screaming, yelling children going on the zip line from the stern to the bow of the ship.”

Freighters offer no glitzy shows; the sea is the star. No all-night buffets (like I need one of those!). Also, no crowds. On a modern container ship, the officers, crew and passengers altogether might not total 50 people.

It’s all about the cargo, which officially includes you.


There’s nothing wrong with all that other “stuff.” Some of us just don’t need it.

My first time at sea was a five-day reporting assignment aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.

The first morning, I wandered up to the hangar deck. People had gathered at one of those huge openings in the side of the ship for the aircraft elevators. They were staring out over the whitecaps toward a horizon that slowly changed from black to blue to a thin ribbon of red and then gold, and finally a morning sky.

They stood there, or sat on folding chairs, mesmerized, transfixed. No one moved. No one felt the need to say how beautiful it was. The only sounds were those of the wind, the steel hull slicing through the waves and your own beating heart.

Right then and there, I fell in love with two-thirds of the Earth.

Alex Haley, 1921-1992 got hooked on the sea as a cook in the U.S. Coast Guard. Years later, as the author of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and “Roots,” he was a big fan of freighter travel. This is how he described the experience in a 1986 piece he wrote for the Los Angeles Times:

“It is easy to get hooked by the sea. It starts the very first time you find yourself up there on any big, deep-water ship’s deck as it is arriving or leaving, tugboats whistling, their propellers boiling, forward or backward, pushing or pulling, to aid the great ship’s movement through the tugs’ incredible power.

Gradually, then, the big ship starts inching clear of the pier. It is sheerly majestic. You are high over the crowd and you study their faces. No matter if they are grade school kids in Peru or corporate executives in Germany, you can recognize their yearning–that “I wish I could go, too” expression.

And purely instinctively, involuntarily, you sort of languidly, lazily wave down there toward those wistful, pier-bound faces–and they instantly, eagerly wave back to you. Standing up there, feeling proud and tall, if you’ve got any heart and any sense whatever, you’re feeling grateful that He has let you be at least a little facet of this wonderful experience.”

You lose track of days. Simple things become magnified — a deck of cards, a friendly conversation, close-up looks at the way a ship really works.

(Compare that with cruise ships, which take great pains to keep you from “fraternizing” with the crew and seeing how they live aboard ship).

Haley again:

“The days tend to become identified by their characteristics of weather and sea, or by some special event, such as “The day after we saw the giant school of green turtles–”

Clearly, this isn’t for everyone, but if you go to sea for the sea itself, then the relative handful of freighter cruises that still ply the world’s oceans are worth considering.

And since I feel so much as he did, I’ll let Alex Haley have the last word:

“My bag is always packed; I’m always ready to go…anywhere.”

Text by G. Gross | Photos courtesy of Dreamstime.com

EXCLUSIVE: Q & A with Pauline Frommer

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Pauline Frommer may be known as the daughter of The Godfather of budget travel, Arthur Frommer — but she’s rapidly making her mark as a travel expert in her own right with her own award-winning series of guidebooks. During the recent Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show, she took some time out between presentations for this exclusive interview.

Q: Should Americans be fearful of traveling in Muslim countries?

A. I think that what a lot of Americans don’t realize is that there is a deep tradition of hospitality in the Middle East. A Muslim loses face when he does not treat people well in an inter-personal communication, whether that happens in a hotel room or on the streets of a Muslim nation. I would say that 99.9 percent of the Muslims you meet are very happy to meet you, even knowing that you’re American.

Pauline Frommer

Pauline Frommer

My father went to Egypt right after 9/11. When people heard that he was from New York, they grabbed him in a bearhug and said “We are so sorry for what happened to your city. This does not represent us. This does not represent who we are.”

There are extremists in every culture, but they do not represent the majority of the Muslim world. There are wonderful people in Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia, everywhere in the Middle East. And they want to welcome you.

Q. A common fear of a lot of Americans is based on the language barrier. How big of an issue is this in international travel?

A. It shouldn’t be a barrier for international travel if you don’t know the language. As long as you take the initiative to learn maybe ten words of the language of the country that you’re going to. If you learn to say “hello” and “goodbye” and “thank you” and “please,” people will bend over backwards to help you out. They want tourism; it’s the world’s largest industry. and in many nations, English…may not be the primary language, but it’s taught in schools.

You can almost always find somebody who speaks English; it depends on the place. In China, that’s rough. In Japan, it’s rough to find people who speak English. So you get the characters written down for you and you hand them to (cab drivers and so on). But you’d be amazed how much you can get along just with body language.

Q. For independent travelers looking for an authentic travel experience — as opposed to what you might get with a busload of tourists — what are some of the ways an independent traveler can get a real sense of the people and culture in their overseas travel?

A. I think you have to be a little creative to have an authentic vacation. You have to to get off the tourist track.

One of my favorite things to do is simply get lost in a city and just let yourself wander. And don’t worry that you’re lost. You’ll be able to find your way back eventually. And that way, you wander into residential areas and you wander into places that are far from the museums and tourists ties. You see what the local culture is like.

One thing we do in the Pauline Frommer Guides is we have a chapter called “The Other.” The Other Paris, the Other London, the Other Las Vegas. And we give people activities they can participate in which will give them a more authentic experience of the place they’re visiting.

For example, in Paris, there are these weekly “cafe philos,” where people gather to discuss the great philosophical questions.

They actually have this in Las Vegas, too, if you can believe it! I actually sat under the escalator in the Mandalay Bay casino with a group of about 30 people, and we discussed whether politics ultimately corrupts politicians. It was mostly locals, and I felt like I finally had an insight into what made the people in Las Vegas tick. It was absolutely fascinating! I felt like I made friends.

And that’s the great thing, when you’re not just talking to the concierge at the hotel, but going out and engaging in these types of activities. It might be a cooking class in somebody’s home; you can do that in Paris. It might be these things called “pirate dinner parties” in San Francisco, where people who love to cook gather and try out dishes on one another. It has nothing to do with pirates; you don’t have to wear an eyepatch!

There re all kinds of activities like this that break down barriers.

Q. Why would you say it’s important for Americans to travel, specifically travel overseas, in 2010?

A. You know, only 25 percent of Americans even have a passport. I think that has led to us being much more scared of the rest of the world than our counterparts in other Western nations. And unfortunately, I think we’ve had a foreign policy under our past president that was based on xenophobia.

We’re living in an age of global warming. We’re living in an age of great problems. And the only way to solve them will be for the nations to work on them together. And we need to be electing people who understand that. And we as citizens need to better understand the world, because we are part of a global community. We can’t be isolationist anymore.

A. Talk about the visa wars. What was the root of that?

Q. Well, after 9/11, we really slammed our borders shut, and hurt our businesses greatly. We instituted (a requirement for visas) from many nations from whom we had never required them before, like Brazil, like Argentina (and) many other Latin American countries where you would think the threat of terrorism is pretty much nil.

Brazil is humongous country. To get an American visa, you had to get to Sao Paolo; that was the one place in the country. You had to get it in person, and it would take two days. So just to get the visa, if you lived in a place far from Sao Paolo, would cost you hundreds of dollars, first in your airfare and then staying in a hotel. And because of that, Many Brazilians stopped coming to our conferences and trade shows. Many stopped coming as tourists to the United States. And I would say that the loss of revenue because of that is in the millions.

Because of that, unfortunately, what’s happening right now is that a lot of countries are angry about these visa fees, which are $130 to get into the U.S. So they’ve started imposing on us the exact same fee. So that’s what it costs now to get into Brazil. That’s what it costs now to get into Argentina. So even though costs on the ground in those countries are very low, with those onerous fees, it’s going to be impossible for a family of four to go to Argentina now.

England has now imposed a new tax to pay for their bank bailout of $130 to leave the country. So that’s going to really hurt tourism to England, unfortunately. I think it’s very short-sighted on their part.

Q. Voluntourism. You say not all of the projects that draw in tourists are things that necessarily benefit the people on the ground in those areas. What would be the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to choosing a volunteer vacation?

A. (You) want to look at the track record of the organization. I wouldn’t volunteer with an organization that was less than a year old. You want to ask the questions whether or not the community asked for these services to be done.

I think you have be a little wary of the corporate voluntourism. Some luxury hotels now are saying that they’re offering voluntourism projects. (LAUGHTER) And I just think it’s…you know…not so much.

To find a good one, go to the travel sites that you trust. Go to Concierge. com or Frommers.com. We have a lot of material there by journalists, which tell you not only which programs deliver a great vacation for people, but really help the areas they’re supposed to be helping.

Volunteer vacations are tax-deductible. So even if they’re more expensive, you can save money later on on your taxes, possibly. You have to talk to your accountant.

Q. This has come up as an issue on my blog — what some people call “poverty tourism” or “poorism.”

A. Oh, poorism, yeah. Now that’s an interesting and very controversial issue. Should you be touring the favelas of Rio de Janeiro? Should you be going to the shantytowns outside of Capetown? Should you be visiting the levees in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans?

I personally think it is appropriate when money goes back to the community. And so you want to make sure that that’s happening, that you’re not just going there as a gawker.

In the Ninth Ward…I took a tour of all the levee breaks. And I think that kind of tour hopefully keeps the help going to New Orleans. It inspires people to write to their Congresspeople and say “the city still needs help.” There are parts that look like war zones still, that never got rebuilt.

I don’t know. It’s a rough issue. There is no one right answer whether it’s right or wrong. On the one hand, do we only travel to see palaces and museums? Shouldn’t we be seeing real social conditions in these places? But on the other hand, is it voyeurism?

It’s a tricky issue. I don’t think there’s a cut-and-dried answer to it.


LA TRAVEL SHOW: Day One

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The Los Angeles Travel &amp; Adventure Show opened this morning at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This thing is <strong>MASSIVE</strong>.  Displays, presentations, live entertainments and demostrations, the proverbial works.

The kid in the candy store has got NOTHING on me!

Coming up: Arthur Frommer and his daughter, Pauline.

Airport luggage scales lie

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Delta Airlines flight landing at Lindbergh Field, San Diego

Weighing your luggage yourself too much of a hassle? How does unfairly being made to cough up $300 for a overweight bag grab you?

So you’re kicking back with your latest copy of Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine, when you come across this little tidbit entitled “8 Things an Airline Would Never Tell You.”

Number One on the list: “Airport luggage scales often lie.”

Here’s a portion of what the mag had to say about that:

At JFK last November, New York City’s Department of Consumer Affairs found that 14 percent of the airport’s scales were not properly calibrated. At Boston’s Logan airport, 10 percent of the scales recently inspected gave incorrect readings. The South Florida Sun–Sentinel has discovered numerous busted scales at area airports. And the list goes on.

Apparently, this is one of those dirty little open secrets of the air travel industry, common knowledge to everyone except the traveling public, i.e., you and me. We’ve already addressed the need to travel light in an earlier blog entry. If the above little bit of news doesn’t motivate you to lighten your load, nothing will.

You may be thinking “Okay, so the scales at the airport may be off a tad. So’s the scale in my bathroom. What’s the big deal?”

Airlines charge you for every bag that weighs more than they allow, whether on domestic or international flights. The charge for a hefty bag on a domestic flight can be upwards of $50. On international flights, the ante ups to $300. In both cases, that’s per bag.

When was the last time your bathroom scale cost you three Benjamins?

Enforcement of standards on airport scales is, shall we say in the spirit of charity, uneven. In some places, like New York, it’s handled by the city. In other places, by the state and still others by the county. Apparently, its not being handled anywhere with consistent rigor.

We’re not talking about discrepancies of a few grams or ounces here and there. At Dallas-Fort Worth International (DFW) a couple of years ago, they found some airline scales off by 10 pounds. If those phantom 10 pounds are being added to what your bag really weighs, discrepancies like that could put a serious bite on your trip money before you’ve even left town.

You have no way of knowing whether the scale is accurate on the day you show up.

Of course, that inaccuracy could actually work in your favor. I mean, it’s theoretically possible that the scale could under-weigh your luggage, thus saving you money if it actually happens to be overweight.

It’s also theoretically possible that there are little chartreuse men cruising around the backside of Jupiter in Saturn convertibles, but that’s not the way to bet, either.

So how are you going to handle this?

As I said at the beginning, it’s one more reason to pack light whenever you travel. But it’s also a reason to know for yourself exactly how much your bag weighs.

If you’re like me — which is to say, both lazy and cheap — you will schlep your valise into the bathroom and weigh it on your household scale. If you prefer precision, or just happen to be a gadget freak (again, like me), you might want to pick up one of those hand-held luggage scales. You can find them on the Web or any good luggage or travel shop for as little as $7.

My suggestion: weigh your bag before you leave the house, then bring the scale with you to the airport. If your bag magically gains weight on the airport scale, you weigh it on yours, where they can see it.

Here’s an even better idea: When you pack, always try to keep your bag at least 10 pounds lighter than the 50-pound maximum the airlines allow. Remember: when it comes to baggage, less is more and lighter is always better.

If you really want to take a stand on this and other issues affecting air travelers, you might consider joining an advocacy group like the Association for Airline Passenger Rights.