Tag Archives: Christmas

AIRLINES: Bah! Humbug!

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©Roman Snytsar | Dreamstime.com

The end of 2011 will see higher airfares than a year ago. Those who don’t book early can expect to pay the price, literally.

When it comes to airfares for the upcoming holiday travel season, I have seen the future — and it sucks.

The buzz among the experts has the airlines raising ticket prices up to 6 percent for the Thanksgiving holidays and as much as 10 percent for Christmas.

Think of this as “games airlines play.” Apparently, Delta led the charge to charge more, and they’re all in on it, even the low-fare operators like AirTran and its new parent airline, Southwest.

These are the base airfares we’re talking about, before you tack on the taxes and all those wonderful add-on fees of which the airlines are so fond.

And just to make sure that you’ll have to pay more, airlines are taking planes out of service, meaning there will be fewer seats available for the peak holiday demand, seats that will come at a premium.

There will still be some deals to be had for the tough-minded and persistent shoppers among you, but even those will cost you more than they would have a year ago. Cute, huh? It’s enough to make the calculator in your iPhone weep.

To put it in the simplest terms, you’re getting jacked.

According to Rick Seaney at FareCompare.com, this is the 17th time this year that the airlines have tried to raise their fares, and the ninth time they’ve succeeded.

It doesn’t always work because one or more of the airlines often refuse to play along. This time, though, they’re all playing the game.

What this means for you is simple:

  1. Shop hard. Hit your favorite airline sites, travel booking sites, even live human travel agents. By any means necessary, right?
  2. If you can, be flexible in your travel dates. Try to book for travel on off-peak days and avoid the heaviest days, like the day before Thanksgiving.
  3. Consider smaller airports, or flights that aren’t non-stops. But even this can be tricky if you’re in a place where winter snowstorms often ground flights.
  4. Pay special attention this year to travel sites that specialize in last-minute deals and fares.
  5. This above all: BOOK EARLY! In fact, if you have any thoughts of traveling this Thanksgiving holiday, you probably should stop reading this blog and start booking right now. Seriously.

If all else fails, consider taking the train this year.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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

You already know about last week’s bombing by an al Qaeda terrorist of a popular tourist cafe in Morocco. Guys like this want you to think they represent the real Islam, which they don’t — except perhaps in some lunatic parallel universe.

But there’s one thing about Islam they really don’t want you to know about: The Muslim tradition of hospitality.

After the bombing, I went cruising the Googlesphere to learn more about it. This is some of what I found:

  • “A tradition within Islam actually stipulates someone is allowed to stay in your home for 3 days before you can question why they are staying and when they will leave.”
  • “Families judge themselves and each other by their generosity to guests when they entertain.”
  • “Among the Bedouins, whoever sees a stranger coming from afar and exclaims, “Here comes my guest!” has the right to claim him.”
  • “Failure to be hospitable is one of the sins of the Arab world.”

It all may sound a bit “over the top” to us, but it actually makes a lot of sense. The region that gave birth to Islam is one of the most unforgiving desert environments on Earth. Nomadic life was common, and settlements offering food, water and safety were few and sporadic.

In conditions like these, “the kindness of strangers” was how you stayed alive. It still is.

Christianity, Judaism and Islam all preach hospitality, but Muslims treat it as a duty, a matter of honor.

I experienced this firsthand in Senegal, where the daughter of our group leader insisted that we couldn’t leave the country before she prepared a meal for us of thieboudienne, the country’s national dish.

(That’s her up there on the right, holding one of her children, standing next to her father, our team leader, Ogo Sow.)

Thieboudienne

That meant taking time from her factory job to gather up the needed ingredients, then spend God-knows-how-long preparing this huge stew of spicy fish, vegetables and rice, served with green tea and mint. All this for her father and six non-Muslim American strangers.

We truly didn’t want her to go to all that trouble for us, but he made it clear that it wasn’t our call, or even his.

Indeed, had we just gone straight to the airport, I think she might have tracked us down in Dakar, 124 miles away, and fed us her wonderful thieboudienne.

Is this the mindset of people who reflexively hate foreigners? That is the lie that the Morocco cafe bomber and those like him are trying to sell you.

Resist the urge to buy.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from Smarter Travel
Too early to start thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas travel? JetBlue doesn’t think so. Apparently taking the view that it’s never too early to start filling seats on your airplanes, they’re stealing a march on their competition by opening their booking window through the end of the year. So far, Southwest and JetBlue’s other rivals aren’t matching the move, but you’d better believe they’re watching. Does the early bird get the holiday bargain?

from USA Today
A former Miss USA says she was “molested” by the TSA during one of their enhanced patdowns. Actual rape victims might take exception to the “molest” claim, but she does she have a point?

LAND
from the New York Times
Airlines aren’t the only ones beating down your travel budget with fists full of add-on fees. The rental car agencies are doing it, too.The NYT’s Frugal Traveler, Seth Kugel, shows you how to avoid the money traps.

SEA
from USA Today
A glut of cruise ships this year in European waters plus unexpectedly low demand equals nervous cruise lines…and maybe some unexpected Euro-cruise bargains?

from USA Today
Counting the vessels of rivals it has bought up over the years, Carnival Cruise Lines now has 100 ships. That’s more large ocean-going vessels than a lot of navies.

AFRICA
from Der Spiegel (Germany)
An influx of refugees from North Africa is causing European Union members to consider restoring border checks. It’s a touchy subject that’s having an impact on relations among EU member states.

from the Telegraph (London, UK)
The Rift Valley of East Africa is the only part of the Earth’s geography that you can see clearly from the moon. It would be a lot easier, cheaper and more worthwhile to see it from Kenya and Ethiopia.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the Los Angeles Times
The State Department updates its travel advisory for Mexico as bodies start turning up in unmarked graves in border towns torn by violence between rival drug cartels.

ASIA
from the New York Times
Singapore — staid, stodgy and utterly uptight. You haven’t been here lately, have you?

from CNNgo
The Seven Deadly Sins — and the Asian city that best symbolizes each.

EUROPE
from the New York Times
Want to find classic Italy and lose the tourist mobs at the same time? Find Trieste.

WEST AFRICA JOURNAL: Images and impressions

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If you’ve never been to Africa before, especially if you’re a black American, West Africa may be the best region to get your introduction to the Mother Continent. That’s what I did, in the Gambia.

And if you’ve been keeping up with the West Africa Journal I posted after my trip, you know I’ll never be the same.

The pretext for my visit was the International Roots Festival, a biennial commemoration of the Gambia’s legacy in the African slave trade, as documented by author Alex Haley in his book “Roots: The Saga of an American Family.”

We visited the village of Juffureh, where Haley located the descendants of his African ancestor, Kunta Kinteh. They’re still there and we met them. We saw the Slavery Museum there, which exhibits the iron “implements” used to bind and shackle the captives.

We also cruised up the Gambia River to James Island, where Kinteh and perhaps as many as 1 million Africans were warehoused before being loaded onto slave ships for the long cruise across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and a life of forced servitude.

And we were there when it was renamed Kunta Kinteh Island.

We met a British woman who has been compiling records on hundreds of European slave ships. Thanks to her, I now have the names of three “slavers” that sailed into Louisiana in the 1700s — the Betsey and Hennie, the Ruby and the Prince de Conty. The odds are pretty good that my own ancestors arrived from Africa on one of those three ships.

And of course, there was the futampaf, the rite of passage through which i was adopted by a Gambian family and given the name of Yaya Colley. In all, 38 African descendants from the United States, the UK and the Caribbean (including Jamaican reggae star Luciano), went through it.

The country describes itself as “the smiling coast of Africa.” It sounds like a lame bit of marketing, until you start meeting Gambians and realize:

  1. They take it seriously, and
  2. They do everything they can trying to live up to it.

Like the family in the village of Kanilai who adopted me.

Like the parking lot attendant who invites you to the naming ceremony for his newborn child, after meeting you the day before.

Like the Tourism Ministry aide who stayed with us long after his working hours were over, helping us out, so long that he lost the use of his government car and had to take a cab home. We practically had to waterboard him before he’d let us pick up his cab fare.

Like the hotel maid who, seeing me washing out shirts in the bathroom sink, took them without being asked, washed them, ironed them and left them neatly folded in the middle of my bed — along with the $20 bill she found in my shirt pocket.

And if you’re a black American visiting the Gambia, what you may see as a vacation, they treat as a homecoming. They aren’t merely happy to see you. They’re overjoyed. And they can’t do enough for you.

Gambian Muslims speak of celebrating Christmas with their Christian neighbors, while their Christian counterparts celebrate Muslim holy days with them. The country is 95 percent Muslim and 5 percent Christian, but if there are any tensions or conflicts between the two, they’re extremely well hidden.

There’s tremendous poverty in the Gambia, especially in the countryside, where electricity and running water are exotic luxuries or simply unknown for many. Like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the country is battling malaria, which kills about 1 million Africans a year.

But the people’s spirit remains warm, upbeat, irrepressible.

By themselves, without the great beaches, five-star hotels or rich cultural heritage, they make the Gambia a place worth coming to, or in my case, coming back to.

And God willing, I will.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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

Dorsoduro, Venice, ital;y | © Greg Gross

A NEW YEAR IN TRAVEL
Hello and welcome to 2011. What will the New Year bring us? I don’t have a crystal ball, but based on what we saw coming out of 2010, there are some things we can expect.

Right off the bat, higher airfares. Two reasons.

The nightmarish weather of the last Christmas season cost the airlines a lot of money that they’ll be looking to recoup. The other reason is the airline industry f-word.

No, not “fees.” That’s our f-word. I’m talking about fuel.

Back in Jan. 2009, the price of crude oil — from which our gasoline and their jet fuel derives — was right around $33 a barrel. Two years later, it’s threatening to hit $100bbl. Which means the cost of filling up those jumbo jets is about to hit the stratosphere.

The airlines have to find a way to absorb that financial hit. And with many of them having made a point in recent years of reducing their number of available seats and cutting back on flight and cabin crews, there’s only one way they can do it.

That’s right: hijack your wallet.

All this makes it more important than ever for you to stay alert for bargain fares and airline sales, and be prepared to pounce when you see a good deal. Don’t hem and haw in the hope that it make go down if you wait. For the first half of this year, at least, that probably won’t happen.

Make use of good travel sites that help you track fares, give you timely warnings on airfare sales and let you check as many airlines as possible. Be sure to check individual airline sites, as well.

Two of my favorite Web sites for scoping out airfare sales and airline trends are Smarter Travel and Airfarewatchdog. ST is more general, while AFW can be tailored to monitor fares from your home airport, but both are helpful.

If you use other sites that you think do this well, share them with the rest of the IBIT family.

PASSPORT TO TRAVEL
If you aren’t already a member of The 25 Percent Travel Solution — the roughly quarter of the American population that owns a valid U.S. passport, this would be a great year for you to join the club.

For one thing, we have one of the lower percentages of passport holders in the developed world, which partly explains why so much of the world seems to know more about us than we know about them.

For another, the government increased passport costs last year and there’s no guarantee they won’t do it again in the near future.

So get that little blue book and start collecting stamps.

Visa stamps, that is.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from AirTrends.com
Want to know how an airport enhances its repution? Always be looking to make life easier for travelers. that’s what Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport does, and they’re doing it again with a fresh take on to airport waiting lounge.

LAND
from Lonely Planet
Global recession aside, there are still some eye-candy destinations out there that won’t make your wallet quiver in fear, and the LP folks have a list of ten, and they literally are all over the map.

from the New York Times
Vacation rentals are starting to throw in some nice extras in their attempts to compete with high-end hotels. Bad for the hotels, good for you.

from USA Today
Honeymoon travel has long been a staple of resorts around the world. Now, they’re doubling up on the romance. Prepare to embrace the “engagementcation.”

SEA
from TNOOZ.com
Cruise ships are all about getting you and keeping you out of your cabin. The Tnooz folks have some ideas for using technology to make your cabin a better place.

from the Jamaica Observer
What does the new Falmouth cruise ship port in Jamaica have in common with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner? Both are state of the art. Both promise a great new experience for travelers. And both are way behind schedule.

AFRICA
from Marrakech Loisirs
Feel like “raising sand?” This Morocco tour operator offers some eye-catching options, especially if you’re into horses or 4x4s.

from Agence France Presse
The ill wind that crippled holiday air travel in both Europe and the eastern United States created a ripple effect that reached all the way to Africa.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the New York Times
An enjoyable weekend in one of the priciest cities on Earth, on no more than a hundred bucks? This, I gotta see.

from the Guardian (London UK)
Reliving the rum-saturated days of Hunter S. Thompson in Old San Juan.

ASIA
from Lonely Planet via BBC Travel
If you’re a foodie, you already have Hong Kong in your sights. The LP folks have some tips to refine your aim.

EUROPE
from Bootsnall.com
Almost every museum and art gallery of consequence in London is free to the public. That and plenty of other no-charge activities in one of the world’s priciest capitals.

from Lonely Planet
The LPs hit you with their list of the best ways to see Europe. Among them — a train (naturally), a ferry, a bike, a kayak, a…mail bus?

from the Guardian (London UK)
A lot of cool new hotels are opening in London this year in anticipation of the 2012 Olympics. You might want to check them out now, before they rates do a pole vault.

Lounge or languish?

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Winter travel may be a good excuse to splurge a bit on an upscale airport lounge. But do your homework first.

The recent snowstorm that put the smackdown on European Christmas travel left thousands of air passengers stranded and suffering in airports across the continent and the United Kingdom.

But I promise you, not all those folks were suffering equally.

The ones safely ensconced inside upper-class airport lounges, the ones reserved for First or Business Class passengers — with their lush, comfy chairs, free drinks and snacks, and free wi-fi that really works — were almost surely a lot better off.

But you don’t have to pay for that wildly overpriced bed-seat at the front of the airplane to gain access to those lounges. You can buy your way into that lounge, even though your ticket says you’re sitting in Sardine Class…uhh, I mean Coach.

Most times, you won’t be in the airport long enough to justify the added cost of a lounge pass. In effect, it becomes a vanity purchase, one of those things you do not because you need to, but just because you can.

But after watching what travelers have been going through in London, Paris, Frankfurt and elsewhere, it might not be a bad idea to have access to an upscale airport lounge, if only as a back-up. Their seating is more comfortable. They have free food and drink. Many even come with showers.

It’s not as good as a comfy bed in a nice hotel or a real meal at a good restaurant, but it may be the next best thing. I mean, if you’re going to be stuck at the airport, you might as well as be stuck in relative comfort, right?

Moreover, in the interest of keeping their best-paying passengers happy, airlines often put their more experienced and sharpest desk staff in the lounges. They might be able to rearrange your flights in ways that a regular desk clerk can’t, or won’t.

That alone might make the lounge worth the cost of admission during a weather delay.

Just as with flying itself, you have several options and choices when it comes to getting into an airport lounge. You need to carefully consider each to determine which one exactly meets your needs and fits your budget.

There are basically four ways to gain access to airport lounges — the lounges themselves, the airlines, credit card companies, third-party vendors. We’ll take them one at a time.

AIRPORT LOUNGES
Some airports feature upscale lounges that will let you pay to stay for a day. Some of these are under the auspices or a particular airline, while others belong to the airport itself.

Indeed, there a move afoot in newer airports around the world to provide lounges for a wider range of passengers, so if you’re going anyplace where you might be stuck for awhile, it’s worth it to inquire.

THE AIRLINES
Several airlines sell one-time access or annual passes to their lounges, especially if you’re enrolled in their frequent-flier program. Ask. Also ask if your purchase counts toward your miles. If it does, that’s a little extra benefit to you.

At American Airlines, for instance, a day pass to their Admirals Club lounge is $50 per person. By comparison, the annual pass starts at $500 for individuals or $825 a year for couples. And just as use can use your frequent-flier miles to buy flights, you also can use your miles for yearly Club passes.

NOTE: The more miles and flights you have with AA in a given year, the cheaper the annual pass. This is typical of most airlines.

Some airlines charge a bit less for their annual passes, some more. Shop around.

Unless you fly often during the year, the day pass is probably your better bet. There too, rates vary among airlines, although not great deal.

If your flight is a code-share that’s actually putting you on a different airline than the one through which you booked your flight, you could find yourself in that other airline’s lounge, as well. This is one of those times when that alliance to which your airline belongs becomes important.

If your airline doesn’t have a lounge at the airport where you need one, ask if they will help you buy a pass from one of their code-share partners that does.

CAVEAT: Make sure your airline, or its code-share partner, have a lounge in your destination airport. Lounges are not universal. What’s more, some airlines have closed lounges to cut costs.

CREDIT CARDS
Some higher-level credit cards have extra benefits that include the option of buying an airport lounge pass. This can work to your benefit because the credit card company may offer lounge access through more than one airline at a given airport, including some that may not be a part of your airline’s alliance. Contact your credit card company and see if they offer this option.

THIRD-PARTY VENDORS
The third option is third-party passes via private vendors. These sell passes to airport lounges of many airlines, across the United States or around the world. Like the airlines, they may sell either annual or day passes, or both.

One outfit that specializes in day passes is the British-based LoungePass. Their day passes at airport lounges around the world may be anywhere from $5 to $20 cheaper than the airlines, so touching base with them wouldn’t hurt.

The largest such third-party vendor is Priority Pass, which claims to have access on sale to 600 airport lounges worldwide. They offer three different annual passes, all three of which are cheaper than nearly any annual airline pass. The catch: in addition to the annual fee, you may have to pay an admittance each time you actually use an airport lounge.

Again, do your homework.

Airport lounges might not be something you need or want to indulge in on every trip, but in the face of extreme delays — for whatever reason — it’s a good card to have in your back pocket. Those airport floors aren’t all that inviting.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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

GO SOUTH, YOUNG MAN/WOMAN/CHILD
This winter is shaping up as one to avoid travel north of the Equator, or the Mediterranean, if at all possible.

If you’ve got Christmas/New Year’s travel plans that include Europe, I have three words for you:

“Sorry about that.”

Mother Nature decided this month to give the European continent a blanket for Christmas. A thoughtful gesture, except for one thing. The blanket consists entirely of ice and snow.

The last time Europe saw this much snow, Napoleon was trying to find his way home from the gates of Moscow. It’s enough to make the Abominable Snowman go shopping for space heaters.

And it has unleashed chaos on the road grid, rail networks — and most of all — the airports of Europe.

From London and Belfast, Northern Ireland to Frankfurt, Germany, the number of delayed and/or cancelled flights already numbers in the hundreds. By the time you read this, they may number in the thousands.

In Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport, perhaps 3,000 stranded passengers were forced to spend the night this weekend — and they were among the lucky ones. At London Heathrow, thousands of air passengers didn’t even have that luxury; they were stranded on the tarmac, still in their planes.

Elsewhere in Britain, stranded motorists trapped by ice and snow were forced to sleep in their cars. They may be doing the same in Germany, where traffic on some highways has been backed up as much as 25 miles.

The farther east you go on the continent, the worse it gets. News agencies are reporting nearly 100 dead in Poland alone.

I truly adore European Christmas markets, but this might be a really good year to defer that white Christmas you were thinking about.

Puerto Rico has the only true rain forest in U.S. territory, and the Dominican Republic has some very cool — and very cheap — all-inclusive beach resorts. Down in Rio de Janeiro and Bueno Aires, below the Equator, they’re heading into mid-summer. And Hawaii looks awfully nice this time of year.

Just sayin’.


And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

AIR
from Budget Travel via Yahoo! Travel
What do snow globes, peanut butter and underwire bras have in common? They can all set off TSA detectors at the airport. Think I’m kidding? Read.

from the New York Times
Airport apps for your smartphones that you can’t — or shouldn’t — be without.

SEA
from Smarter Travel
Is it better to book shore excursions aboard your cruise ship, or book them independently from local operators. Booking on the ship is more convenient. Booking on land saves you money. But there are other factors to consider.

from USA Today
Cruisers love them some Royal Caribbean. Readers of Travel Weekly, a travel industry magazine, chose RC as the world’s best cruise line overall, and gave it top honors in a half-dozen individual categories. Its sister line, Celebrity, pulled down a couple of individual honors of its own.

LAND
from Forbes via Yahoo!
Tis the season to be shopping, and according to the Forbes folks, these are the ten best shopping cities in America. Note that New York City didn’t even make the list.

from USA Today
A list of when and where to get the best price breaks on hotels at major destinations around the world.

AFRICA
from CNN/Inside Africa
Travel books on Africa…written by Africans? A novel concept, to say the least. But a group of African writers is on a pilgrimmage around the Mother Continent with the express goal of making that happen. Their work eventually could change the way the world sees Africa, and the way Africa sees itself.

from the Guardian (London UK)
Dakar, the capital of Senegal, is developing a thriving arts scene. VIDEO

from the New York Times
Madagascar is not the easiest destination to get around in, but its flora and fauna, much of it found nowhere else on Earth, make it worth the effort.

AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the San Francisco Chronicle
If you enjoy reading or writing, you know there’s something especially cool about seeing for yourself the places that inspired your favorite stories. The Chron lists five places in the western United States, most of them in or near San Francisco, that served as the setting for major works of fiction. Think about your favorite readings, and come up with a list of your own!

ASIA/PACIFIC
from Todd’s Wanderings
Ten free things to do in Tokyo, one of the world’s greatest — and most expensive — cities.

from the Guardian (London, UK)
Malaysia is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Asia, and nowhere is that diversity of culture better reflected than in its food — a mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian and its own unique cuisine called Nyonya. Tasty, and if you follow this guide, really inexpensive.

from the BBC
German-style Christmas markets come to Japan. VIDEO

EUROPE
from Associated Press via CBS News
Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, is being opened to tourists by the Ukrainian government some time next year. They swear it’s perfectly safe. They do. Honest.

from Associated Press via Yahoo!
Three years after creating a successful citywide bike-sharing program, Paris is upping the ante in a major way: a car-sharing program featuring 3,000 electric cars, available 24/7 to anyone with a subscription or a credit card, and a valid driver’s license.

AVIATION QUEEN: Going to Germany? Don’t Forget The Christmas Markets!

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It’s Christmas market season in Europe, and IBIT will have plenty to share on this tradition, starting with our very own Aviation Queen!

By Benét J. Wilson
In my day job, I write on business aviation at Aviation Week.  Among all the myriad things we do, we also put on conferences and seminars across the world. 

This week, our Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul group is holding an engine repair seminar in Munich.  I was having a Twitter conversation with one of my colleagues attending the session and he asked for tips of things to do.

Back in December 1998, I was in Munich for a press event held by a now-defunct German aircraft manufacturer.  But one of the events on the trip was an evening visit to Munich’s famed Christmas Market.   This market, located at the Marienplatz in the center of the city, has been held since the 14th century.

The Marienplatz has a series of outdoor booths that sell everything from Christmas ornaments to food to German pastries. The ornaments range in price from reasonable to ridiculous, but will become treasured keepsakes on your family tree for years to come.

But I have to warn you, like I warned my friend — beware of the booths selling hot mulled wine.  The wine is delicious on a cold winters’ night, but can leave one tipsy – especially if you decide to indulge in adding a peppermint schnapps shot!

For a complete list of the markets, click here — and genießen sie!!

Interested in aviation, journalism or social media? Check out Benét’s new Web site, AviationQueen.com!

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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

Grand Canal, Venice | © Greg Gross

THE ROADS BEST TRAVELED FOR 2011
You may not even have settled on your Thanksgiving and Christmas travel plans yet, but now would be as good time to start thinking about where in the world you might like to land in the year ahead.

With that in mind, the folks at Lonely Planet have put out their list of Top 10 Countries for 2011. They based their selections, they said, on “topicality, excitement, value for money and…that special X-factor.”

If a few of these places are any indication, they may have thrown in a little Y and Z factor for added flava. If you’re one of those people who’s never crossed a state line or been out of sight of land before, I can just about guarantee that:

  1. The thought of visiting at least seven of the ten countries on this list has never once crossed your mind, and
  2. At least two of them, you never knew existed before this list came out.

Those two facts alone make it worth a read.

AND THE WINNER IS…
Speaking of top destinations fort 2011, readers over at Frommer’s voted their choices.

The winner? Ireland.

You can see the entire list in this slideshow.

ASYLUM, LIBERALLY SPEAKING
Does the ascendancy of the Tea Party in America make you want to sleep with the lights on? Are you afraid that the rise of the America-über-alles set will make your life here uncomfortable, untenable, downright impossible?

If so, the crew at Gawker.com is looking out for you with a list of “Five Foreign Cities to Move to When the Tea Party Takes Over America” — complete with the pros and cons of each, and the cost of housing.

It’s all in good fun. I hope…

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

from Frommer’s
Some airline frequent-flier programs are better than others, especially if you don’t really fly all that much. The Frommer’s folks have a few of them in mind for you.

AFRICA
from allAfrica.com
The oldest human footprints in the world are in Tanzania, and the government and scientists are working on a plan to let you see them.

There’s more to experience in Africa than wildlife safaris and slavery heritage, especially at the northern and southern ends of the Mother Continent. Foodie tours, anyone?

from South African Tourism
Information on cookery schools, township cuisine tours and tours that let you talk South African wines with some of the country’s major winemakers.

from GoAfrica.About.com
Anouk Zijlma offers tips and links on culinary tours in Morocco and South Africa.

AMERICAS
from Frommer’s
Thanksgiving is coming. How about letting someone else slave over the hot stove this year and taking a nice trip somewhere in America? The Frommers gang have a diverse list of destinations.

from Travel Weekly
If you have travel plans upcoming shortly for St. Lucia, best check with your airline and/or hotel before you leave. The recent visit of Hurricane Tomas did a number on the island’s roads.

from Frommer’s
How to really eat like a local in Los Angeles. That means restos that use locally grown produce and finding the farms in Los Angeles — that’s right, I said it: Farms in Los Angeles! — where it’s grown. If you’re up to it, you can even roll up your sleeves and get involved with the growing yourself. SLIDE SHOW

ASIA/PACIFC
from USA Today
You’d like to see Asia and you love to cruise, but flying halfway around the world just to board your ship can pretty much play Dracula with your travel budget. Silversea Cruises is trying a program they hope will get you past that, and get you on board. How does flying to Asia in Business Class sound?

from Time
You’ve got 24 hours to kill in Hong Kong. How best to kill them? A few good ideas here from Liam Fitzpatrick.

EUROPE
from the New York Times
Food fairs in Paris — redundant or a match made in foodie Heaven? Go with Door Number 2.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST

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

Christmas market, Strasbourg, FR

Strasbourg, France — Christmas market | © G. Gross

‘TIS THE SEASON…TO SHOP FOR HOLIDAY FLIGHTS
If you’re planning Thanksgiving or Christmas trips, you need to start tracking your airfares now — and there are Web sites that will help you do that.

The summer vacation season is over. The Labor Day weekend is history. Time to put away the rolling duffel and focus on the demands of work or school.

Unless you’re planning to go somewhere for the Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays. If you are, you need to start planning now — that means tracking airfares.

Even if it’s too early to actually buy your Turkey Time or Yule flights, it’s not to early to start monitoring the trends in airfare prices as we move into fall. That’s especially true this year, with base airfares in general — and U.S. airfares to Europe in particular, according to USA Today — steadily creeping higher.

The problem with that, of course, is that you have a life, which means you can’t sit at a computer keyboard all day, monitoring airfares on the Web. The good news is: You don’t have to.

There’s a goodly enough of Web sites out there that will track airfares for you. Just enter the departure and destination airports and your travel dates. The sites will do the rest.

Some are set up to track the trend in pricing for that particular flight. Others will send you email alerts whenever the price drops, or when it falls or rise beyond a certain amount. You make the call on when to pull the trigger and buy.

You’ll have to register on the sites for these kinds of services, but in most cases, that’s both easy and free. Here are a few that are worth trying.

This list is by no means all-inclusive. Do a Web search on the term “track airfares” and you” find others. Experiment, but by all means, don’t confine yourself to just one site.

Momondo is of special note, since this European airfare search engine often lists airlines that Travelocity, Kayak and many of the other “usual suspects” do not.

So get busy tracking for that holiday trip. And when you do see an airfare you feel comfortable with, buy it and be done with it. Don’t make yourself crazy, or hesitate too long, in the hope of seeing a radical price drop.

HOWEVER…

Before you whip out the credit card, ask the airline what their policy is if they lower the price on your flight after you buy it. You might be refunded cash for the difference, or be given a voucher for a future flight. Yapta makes a point of helping with that.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

from Smarter Travel
Believe it or not, there are still a fair number of low-cost travel destinations around the world whose charms make them worth the jet lag. The folks at ST offer up this list. SLIDE SHOW

from Smarter Travel
Around the world above the Equator, the leaves will soon be turning. ST shares their ten favorite places to check out the fall foliage. SLIDE SHOW

AFRICA
from the New Bern, NC, Sun-Journal
A local African-American heritage group is planning a nine-day tour of Ghana Nov. 1-9. You don’t have to be a local to join them.

from SFGate.com (San Francisco, CA)
An ancient Egyptian coastal town is being resurrected.

AMERICAS
from the Los Angeles Times
According to the U.S. State Department, these are the top ten cities around the world where American tourists get themselves into trouble with the law. Tijuana, sure, but…London? Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna DO…? SLIDE SHOW

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Los Angeles Times
In Samoa, you’ll find a blend of modern-day tropical paradise and old-school family values.

from the Los Angeles Times
Can fame ruin a place? Ubud, the Indonesian location on the island of Bali made famous in the book (and now movie) “Eat Pray Love,” has now become something of a travel Mecca for women of a certain age looking for Mr. Goodlife. The locals are not entirely thrilled. Ubud retains its charms, anyway.

EUROPE
from the New York Times
Rome is opening up more of its historic sites, and keeping them open longer.

from the Los Angeles Times
In 21st century France, they’re building a 13th century castle — and they’re building it “old school.”

Pearls before swine (flu)

2 Replies

The name may be funny, but this virus is no joke. If you’re traveling this fall and winter, be extra careful.

St. Mark's Square, Venice

St. Mark's Square, Venice

This year, flu is a four-letter word: H1N1. If you’re wondering why all the hype, do a search on the term “1918 pandemic” — and prepare to be terrified.

Swine flu, known back then as “Spanish flu,” killed somewhere between 50 million and 100 million people worldwide, including as many as 700,000 in the United States.

Basically, H1N1 hijacks your immune system and turns it against you. Even more insidious, H1N1 dupes people with a relatively mild strain of the flu, only to return months later with a mutated, deadlier version. We already had our first relatively light go-round last winter.

Just ahead, just in time for the Thanksgiving and Christmas travel seasons: Round Two.

Bear in mind that this comes on top of the traditional seasonal flu, different from H1N1, less virulent, but is no less capable of killing those whose age or condition make them susceptible.

If you’re thinking this upcoming holiday season might be a good one to stay home, I won’t argue with you. And this would not be a good year to skip the flu shot.

But what if you have to travel this holiday season?

I sought out the advice of experts — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention principally among them, and scoured the Web for information. This is what I found with so far.

THE OBVIOUS REMINDERS
Clean hands. Wash them every chance you get with soap and hot water. Can’t wash your hands? Keep one of those little bottles of waterless hand cleaner handy, and make sure it’s alcohol-based. A pocket pack of antibacterial wipes will serve just as well.

Use a handkerchief, bandana or a fresh paper towel to open doors or touch other surfaces in public places.

Cover up. Cover your own mouth and nose when you cough or sneeze, preferably in your elbow instead of your hands — and make sure your germy little kids do the same.

Keep your hands out of your face, and not just away from your mouth. Your eyes may be windows to the soul, but they also make an easy entrance for a virus.

Lastly, if you’re already sick, just stay home. Seriously. If you show up at the airport obviously ill, there’s a good chance the airline won’t let you on the plane, anyway.

Also, don’t go rushing to the hospital demanding antibiotics. Antibiotics don’t work on viruses, including this one. All you’re doing is exposing yourself to people who may already be even more sick than you are.

BEFORE YOU GO
A good month in advance, start prepping your body for your trip — healthy diet, regular exercise, plenty of rest. Take a good multivitamin with lots of Vitamin C.

Check out your destination cities, towns, regions. If they’re reporting significant numbers of swine flu cases, seriously consider changing your itinerary.

ON THE ROAD
The LoveToKnow information Web site, I found some interesting tips on coping with the notoriously unhealthy air aboard airplanes. Their advice:

1) Seek space. That is, as much space as you can find between you and other passengers. Whenever possible, choose larger planes that at least theoretically have a chance to have some empty seats around you. Fly non-peak hours, days and routes. To that, I would add consider using smaller airports that are less likely to be crammed with fellow travelers.

They also suggest choosing a seat in a spot that has the minimum number of other passengers passing back and forth. A window seat would be good. Another add from me: If there are parents with babies sitting near you, ask to change seats.

2) Arm yourself. Stay hydrated in flight. That means water, juice or tea. Keeping the mucous membranes in your nose flush with fluids is one of your natural protections against disease.

Keep one of those little surgical face masks handy, too, if there are folks coughing and sneezing near you on the plane or in the terminal.

Use the plane’s restroom as early as you can, or not at all. If you’ve ever seen an aircraft lavatory near the middle or the end of a 5- or 8-hour flight, you know why. If not, just use your imagination. As the kids say nowadays, “Ewwww!”

Remember that pocket pack of antiseptic wipes? Be prepared to use them on anything — and I do mean anything — touched by others. The armrests. The seat pocket and anything in it. The tray table and the button to recline your seat. The latch for the overhead bin. Anything.

After you’ve landed, don’t join that stampede in the aisle. Chill out in your seat until you can get up calmly and walk out, without bumping up against a bunch of other people, one or more of whom may already be on speaking terms with H1N1.

Lastly, when you picked up your checked baggage, wipe down the handles with your bags. You have no idea who’s been handling your bag or the state of their health.

This would all be good advice for train and buses as well as airplanes.