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IBIT TRAVEL Digest 2.26.12

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

Juffureh, Gambia

Juffureh, Gambia | ©IBIT G. Gross

RETURN OF THE TRAVEL AGENT?
The Internet has given us all the ability to search out the lowest price on all things related to travel, so we really have no need for travel agents anymore, right?

Not necessarily.

An admittedly non-scientific side-by-side test by the New York Times matched the Web and a travel agent to see which produced the best deals — and the live-human travel agent came out on top.

Seasoned travelers know there’s nothing like having a knowledgeable travel agent in your corner when reservations fall through or unforeseen events blow up your travel plans. Now, it looks now as if the old-school travel agent might be able to hold their own when it comes to scoring travel bargains, as well.

FLYING LOW OVER ASIAN WATERS
The only thing I love more than traveling by sea is traveling cheaply by sea, which means I’m naturally drawn to ocean-going ferries, and Tripologist.com has come up with a trip that satisfies on both counts.

As close as Japan and South Korea are to one another, it would only make sense to visit both while you’re traveling in that part of the world. But a round-trip ticket for the two-hour flight between Tokyo and Seoul could cost you $500 and up, which is insane.

For almost $200 less, you could take a three-hour cruise on a high-speed hydrofoil between the two countries, and pass easily and cheaply from the ports to the anywhere in either country via their high-speed rail networks.

Two high-speed train rides, connected by a hydrofoil? That’s me, all right.

Tripologist breaks down the particulars here.

THE (AMAZING) RACE IS ON…AGAIN!
That’s right. CBS is coming back at you with its 20th segment of the world travel contest show, The Amazing Race. The format is the same, 11 teams of two competitors each. The prize is the same, $1 million.

Being the travel addict I am, I’d probably watch this, anyway, despite all the artificial drama and instigated conflict the show’s producers try so hard to generate. But this time around, I have extra incentives.

The first is that, once again, there are contestants from San Diego on the show. Or rather, there were. The two Asian golfing sisters were eliminated the first night. Poor girls, they barely got their passports open and they’re already gone.

The other is that I have reason to believe that the race is returning to Africa. I’d watch for that reason alone. Some may watch this show for the conniving and the cattiness, but for this traveler, it’s all about the destinations.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from Smarter Travel
The new rules requiring airlines to fully disclose the cost of a flight have prompted online travel agencies to limit their flexible options — in some cases, drastically. But there are still ways to use flexible search to your advantage.

from TIME
First, they were feeling up old ladies, frisking little girls and looting people’s luggage. Are TSA screeners now using their screening machines to ogle young women’s bodies? One woman says yes, and she’s suing.

from USA Today
The merger with United has caused Continental Airlines to disappear in all but name. Now, even that is going away. ​

from msnbc
Have one of those unbearably long flights coming up in Coach? Would rather not have a seatmate, maybe even prefer having a whole row all to yourself? That can be arranged.

LAND
from Framework Cycle & Fitness
Ready to really challenge your bike and yourself? Head north to Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, Canada and ride the Cabot Trail. This ride is no joke.

from The​ Times, London UK
Better driving by motorists would make things a lot safer for cyclists. What makes this statement remarkable is that, in London, at least, it’s the motorists who are saying it.

from the New York Times
The NYT’s Michelle Higgins tells us how to get elite status from the better hotel chains. The way the hotels are adding on surcharges these days, you almost owe it to yourself to do it.

​from Away.com
TV chef Anthony Bourdain shares his five top travel tips. This could cost him his Bad Boy membership card.

SEA
from the San Francisco Chronicle
The Costa Concordia disaster is giving folks in Venice second thoughts about how close they want these massive mega-ships passing by their fragile icon of Italian history.

from USA Today
Talks are underway that could bring a cruise to the capital city of Haiti for the first time in a quarter-century.

from Cruise Critic
Twenty-two passengers from the cruise ship Carnival Splendor robbed at gunpoint in Puerto Vallarta. This probably will trigger a massive response from the authorities to crime in the Mexican port, but it might be too late to save the Mexican Riviera.

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AFRICA
from CP-Africa
Is this the footprint of God?

from The Daily Observer (Gambia) via allAfrica.com
New Fajara Craft Market opens in Kotu, part of an ongoing redevelopment of the Fajara waterfront.

from the Business Daily (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Tourism figures are up in Kenya despite worries over tourist kidnappings and conflict with Somalia’s al Shabaab religious extremist militia.

from The Citizen (Tanzania) via allAfrica.com
Mafia Island. In more ways than one, it’s not what you think. On land, lush, green, and largely unspoiled tropical landscape. Offshore, world-class diving and snorkeling.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from State.gov
The State Department breaks down its travel warnings on Mexico, going state by state.

from the New York Times
This piece is all about how to spend a weekend in New Orleans. But if you approach this city in the right spirit, a weekend in “the NOLA” can last all year.

from USA Today
A new exhibit at a Phoenix museum shows there’s more to the Apache legacy than the legend of Geronimo.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Hawaii’s lava flows are equally fascinating to scientists and tourists, but if you plan on taking in this breathtaking sight, a little caution is in order. Actually, make that a lot of caution.
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ASIA/PACIFIC
from Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan)
From giant paper floats to a private train heated in winter by a pot-bellied stove, Aomori prefecture puts Japanese culture on display.

​from the Japan Times
Tokyo’s famed Tsukiji fish market, which feeds this nation’s insatiable appetite for seafood, is a whirlwind of sights, sounds, aromas and characters. It’s also due to close in three years. So if you want to see a historic piece of daily Tokyo life, go soon.

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EUROPE
from the Guardian (London UK)
An interactive map showing the best bargain-priced restaurants around Britain, Scotland and Northern Ireland. You’ll want to keep this one in your “mobile.”

from the Guardian (London UK)
If you’re one of those people who think camping would be great if it weren’t out in the wilderness, Berlin has the hotel you’ve been waiting for. it’s called the Hüttenpalast. AUDIO SLIDESHOW

from the the Guardian (London UK)
Speaking of eateries, here’s one Parisian’s list of the ten best Paris bistros. I wouldn’t call any of these places a bargain, but they’re probably worth every euro.​

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MIDDLE EAST
from France 24
Iraqi town uses history and heritage to turn from terrorism to tourism.

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NICHE TRAVEL: Music

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Music is as good a reason to travel as food, scenery or culture — and presents you with great opportunities to enjoy all three. Looking for a great new travel experience? Follow that sound!

The English writer William Congreve, 1670–1729, assured the world that “Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast, to soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.”

Today, a love of music also can induce a traveler to dust off their passport. It’s as good a reason to travel as food, and a lot easier on your waistline.

The list of great music festivals held annually around the world, in virtually any style, genre or category of music you can name, could fill an old-fashioned phonebook — and they’re held in some of the most scenic, exotic or historic venues on Earth.

Even better, such festivals take place year-round.

THE ROOTS OF SOUND
There’s something special about listening to your favorite music performed in the land of its origin. You feel a little closer to its history, its spiritual roots, the sources of its inspiration.

And that, in turn, can leave you with a better understanding of the place and the people you’re visiting.

If you’re a lover of classical music, why wouldn’t you want to hear the works of Beethoven, Bach, Brahms or Mozart performed in Germany or Austria?

You can hear great reggae being performed these days in East London, UK or East London, South Africa, but it just won’t feel the same as when you hear it in Kingston, Jamaica.

The simple act of traveling can expose you to new music and wonderful artists you would never hear at home, especially in the offerings of America’s homogenized, pasteurized and hopelessly self-limiting commercial radio.

And it can start even before you arrive at your destination.

AUDIO SOUVENIR
One of my all-time favorite French souvenirs is a CD I bought of Natasha St-Pier. I discovered her beautiful French ballads not in some smoky cafe in Paris, but on the in-flight entertainment system aboard an Air France flight from LAX to CDG.

By the time I got off the plane, I knew I would not be returning home without a CD of her music, which I ultimately found in Lyon.

Irony alert: Natasha St-Pier is not French. She’s Canadian.

You can have a fantastic time listening to the music native to the country or culture you’re experiencing. You can have just as much fun hearing how people in other parts of the world interpret American music.

If you think about it, music may be the ultimate American export.

I still remember the very first landmark I ever saw on my first visit to Paris, the Eglise St. Germain-des-Pres, the oldest church in the city, directly across the street from the Deux Magots cafe where Hemingway, Sarte, Camus and Picasso used to hang out.

These days, they hold concerts in the church. American black gospel concerts.

That’s right, you can hear black gospel in Paris. You can also hear it in West Africa.

AMERICA’S UNIVERSAL EXPORT
On virtually any continent, you can hear rock music, folk music, hip-hop — all American originals, all being translated, transformed and played back to America from across the globe.

And there is virtually nowhere on Earth you can go without running into that most American art form, jazz.

On my first real trip outside the United States, we found ourselves in Tokyo’s Ginza district. It was only about 9 p.m., but it seemed as if the grand neon boulevard had already been rolled up for the night. There wasn’t a taxi in sight, the subway signs back then were all in Japanese and I couldn’t even tell you what direction the hotel lay in.

A group of Japanese college kids who wanted to practice their classroom English on us came to our rescue. “Do you like jazz?” one of them asked. They then led us a few blocks off the main drag to a crowded little joint on the second floor of a small, nondescript office building.

One minute, I’m lost and clueless in the world’s largest city. The next, I’m drinking ice-cold Japanese beers out of a glass boot and listening to some seriously hot jazz from a Japanese quintet who could’ve held their ground in Preservation Hall or Tipitina’s in New Orleans.

MUSIC AND THE MOTHER CONTINENT
And don’t even get me started on Africa. There are whole genres of music spinning off the Mother Continent, some of them a century or older, whole pantheons of brilliant musicians, singers, bands.

Good luck trying to hear any beyond a token few of them here in the States.

This is equally true in Latin America, and sometimes especially true for Latin American singers of African heritage.

Take just one example, Brazil. New Orleans writer and activist Kalamu ya Salaam details the discrimination that Afro-Brazilian performers have faced for decades, and still do.

About the only hope you have of hearing these talented performers is to catch them where you can in their Brazilian homeland.

FLOATING NOTES
But music travel isn’t confined to land, which is really good news if you’re fond of cruising.

The respected cruise travel site, Cruise Critic, lists music-themed cruises all the way into 2013.

A casual look at the Web site Theme Cruise Finder turns up 11 different categories of music-themed cruises. Not 11 music cruises…11 categories of music cruises.

Basically, if you can hear it on land, there’s a good chance you can also hear it at sea.

Is there a downside to all this music travel? There is, of sorts. Not long after you return home from your musical journey — or even before you get back — you may find yourself spending a lot more money on tunes from your newly expanded list of favorite artists.

But really, is that such a bad thing?

ALSO CHECK OUT:
GAMBIA: The sound of West Africa’s soul
All that JAZZ!

Graphic courtesy of Gino Crescoli | Dreamstime.com

Edited by P.A. Rice

LA travel wars, Round 2

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LA travel show

2011 LA Travel & Adventure Show | ©IBIT G. Gross

Los Angeles is set to kick off its second major travel trade show in two weeks. They’re gonna make me lose my MIND up in here!

You’ve heard of Star Wars, Storage Wars, Shipping Wars, even Monster Bug Wars. To that semi-illustrious list, you can now add:

Los Angeles Travel Show Wars.

The opening shot was fired two weeks ago at the annual Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show. Only this “Los Angeles” show was actually held at the Long Beach Convention Center.

This weekend, the Los Angeles Times Travel Show kicks off its debut exhibition at the Los Angeles Convention Center, right next-door to the Staples Center, where Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers hang out.

For me, shows like this are an exercise in information overload. It literally takes me months to process and write about all the interesting, important and valuable things I learn from the speakers and exhibitors from just one of them.

Now, Los Angeles is going to hold two, two weeks apart? If you see white smoke in the sky this weekend, it won’t be coming from the Vatican. It’ll be coming out of my ears.


IF YOU GO
WHAT: The Los Angeles Times Travel Show (see Program Schedule here)
WHERE: Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90015
WHEN: 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday
COST: Tickets $10 ($2 off if you buy early online). Kids 16 & under free.
Parking $15 a day at the convention center lots, no in–and–out privileges.

For the last few years, the Los Angeles Times teamed up with Unicomm LLC to put on the Travel & Adventure Show, one of a series of such shows Unicomm holds around the United States.

For reasons I don’t yet know, the Times decided to break off and start doing their own thing. Unicomm took theirs to Long Beach; the Times opted to stay in LA.

Round 1 took place the weekend of Jan. 14-15. From Unicomm’s standpoint, it appears to have been pretty successful, well-attended both days. Prominent in the crowds were young brothers and sisters, as well as black families with their children in tow, a sight that definitely warmed my heart.

Now, the Times is up to bat with its travel show this Saturday and Sunday. Round 2 coming up.

THE GDDFATHER
The highlights of all such shows are the featured speakers, and there’s none bigger than the Godfather of Travel, Arthur Frommer. He never fails to pass on valuable, money-saving advice, but his love and enthusiasm for travel may be worth even more than his tips.

I mean, the man is 80-something years old, he’s been writing travel guides since the end of World War II, and he’s still traveling the globe with the same spirit he did when he was half my age.

Arthur Frommer is who I want to be if I ever decide to grow up. He’ll be speaking on Saturday.

Rick Steves, the European travel maven of American public television, also will be back. He’s a big one for getting off the beaten path and off the tourist bus, two ideas I heartily endorse. But it’s his sheer love for Europe, more than anything else, that will make you want to start packing.

This being an LA Times show, you know there will have to be some journalists involved. TV’s Lisa Ling will be speaking, as well as some of the Times’ own travel staffers, chief among them my good friend, Christopher Reynolds, who’s been to almost as many places as Arthur Frommer.

In addition to the speakers, there are the exhibitors, hundreds of them, from virtually every corner of this cornerless world.

But for all the presenters who will be in Los Angeles this coming weekend, there are plenty who won’t be. Why? Because they were in Long Beach two weeks ago. A representative of South African Airways broke it down for me.

“A lot of people you see here came all the way from their home countries for this show,” she said. “They can’t afford to hang around for two weeks and put up another booth in Los Angeles.”

Which is why there’s a sizable number of exhibitors whom you won’t be seeing this weekend, including South African Airways.

The flip side, of course, is that there are exhibitors whom you didn’t see in Long Beach whom you will see this weekend in Los Angeles, and all of them will be worth a visit. But there are a few in particular that hold special interest for this traveler.

A RAINBOW OF CULTURES
One is Afro-Brazil Tours, which specializes in tour of Brazil’s Salvador Bahia region, where the heart and soul of Africa still beats in every aspect of the Brazilian culture.

And naturally, I have to hit up the folks at Fulani Travel, a British outfit that offers tours to 13 countries in North, East, West and Central Africa.

Are you surprised that African travel companies will be “in the house” in Los Angeles? They were in Long Beach, too, and for good reason: Southern California sends more travelers to the Mother Continent for recreational travel than any other region of the United States.

I’m also interested in meeting the folks from the Azerbaijan Tourism Association.

Azerbaijan for years was one of those obscure republics under the shadow, if not the heel, of the former Soviet Union. When Ronald Reagan’s Evil Empire went bankrupt and dissolved back in 1991, Azerbaijan was able to step out of that long, red shadow and show its true face to the world.

It’s one with a rich cultural heritage, a portion of which is tied directly to the legendary Silk Road.

LOTS OF ASIAN TRAVEL
Another outfit that interests me: Ceylon Express International, for a couple of reasons. For one, it offers tours not only to Asia destinations, but to Ethiopia. How many Asian travel companies do you suppose include Africa in their offerings?

The other reason: It offers tours to Sri Lanka and Myanmar, two destinations back in the world’s travel sights after years of being “off the grid — Sri Lanka because of a terrible civil war and Myanmar because it was a military dictatorship with human rights “issues.”

Peace has returned to Sri Lanka, and Myanmar — the country we used to know as Burma — appears to have cleaned up its act, to the point that the United States resumed diplomatic relations with Yangon (or as my generation grew up calling it, Rangoon) only last week.

Both countries are awash in tropical beauty and fascinating culture, as well as wrenching poverty.

There will be plenty other Asian travel exhibitors here, too, just as there were at the Long Beach show. Asian nations are pushing hard on their tourism at shows like this, and have been for the last several years.

Taiwan is consistently one of the biggest sponsors of all these shows and it hits you with a mega-presentation literally as you walk through the door. It did it two weeks ago in Long Beach; I fully expect it’ll do it again in LA.

China also will be “in the house,” as will Japan, still struggling to rebuild its tourism after last year’s earthquake/tsunami disaster.

Korea, Guam, India, Singapore, Thailand, Fiji, Malaysia and more — they’ll all be there to “represent.”

For you who want your adrenalin-overdose thrills closer to home, there’s…Extreme Tornado Tours? Oh…uhhhh, okay!

According to Times spokeswoman Hillary Manning, the paper wanted to place a special emphasis at this year’s show on family and kid-friendly travel, so you’ll see exhibitors specifically devoted to that, along with a special kids area. You’ll also see a Cruise Pavilion, dedicated to cruise travel, and a Travel in Style Pavilion, focusing on luxury travel.

If you can’t be in Southern California this weekend, check out IBIT for the reports I file from the convention center as the Los Angeles Times Travel Show makes its debut. Otherwise, I’ll see you on the floor.

And if anybody there asks how you heard about them, be sure to tell them about IBIT!

ALSO CHECK OUT:
LA Travel & Adventure Show 2012

Edited by P.A.Rice

IBIT Travel Digest

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

Photo courtesy of Cathay Pacific

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’ve got work to do.

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

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

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



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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

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

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

​LAND

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

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

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

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

SEA

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

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

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

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AFRICA

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

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

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

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

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN

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

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

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

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

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ASIA/PACIFIC

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edited by P.A. Rice

Stay healthy — get stuck!

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© Patricia Hofmeester | Dreamstime.com

“Stuck” as in vaccinated. Failing or refusing to get your inoculations up-to-date when you travel abroad can have some pretty harrowing consequences.

The New Year hasn’t even rung in yet, but the IBIT Family of readers and doers is already on the move.

One expat is leaving Japan for a teaching gig in China, while another in Beijing is looking to make a much bigger jump — all the way to Ghana, to set up her own export business.

Yet another will be couch-surfing in Ghana a week from now.

There are several other IBIT readers, many of them bloggers in their own right, coming and going all over the globe, and you’ll be sharing some of their adventures right here on IBIT.

Can you imagine how much I’m loving all this?

You may be planning your own international trips right now — and I hope you are.

That’s why I took notice when this little item popped up in my email box: “5 Dangerous Vaccination Myths,” the very first of which was this:

“Myth: Vaccines aren’t necessary.

“The only disease that has been eradicated is small pox. Everything else is still out there. Some – like whooping cough and measles – continue to cause disease in the developed world. Others, such as polio, mainly occur in developing nations, but could be reintroduced anywhere, via international travel.”

It won’t surprise you that those last two words hooked my attention immediately.

A lot of the diseases that we here in the United States long ago presumed to have been wiped out are still around beyond our shores, bringing the pain to people all over the world. Tetanus, hepatitis, dengue fever, polio, malaria, to name a few.

I’ve never understood the difference between typhus and typhoid fever; I just know I want no part of either of them.

As of this writing, there are close to 30 major diseases that can be prevented by vaccine. Why would you not take advantage of that?

Some folks have attitudes when it comes to vaccines. They think they’re contaminated or toxic. They think the vaccine itself will give them the very disease it’s supposed to protect them from. They think vaccines are just a big money-making scheme by the drug corporations, and so on and so on.

Or they just think they can get by without being vaccinated.

When it comes to vaccinations, the benefits greatly outweigh the risks — especially when one of the risks is exposing yourself to a potentially fatal disease without them.

As yet, there is no vaccine that can render you immune to malaria, but there are pills you can take that can help fend off the disease while you are traveling in the world’s malaria belt (mainly those countries closest to the Equator).

When I visited West Africa for the first time early last year, my doctor put me on Malarone, a combination of two drugs in pill form. That, combined with good mosquito repellent for both my skin and my clothes, and keeping my arms and legs covered, kept me safe.

Knowledge is power. You can look up medical information on your destination country at government medical Web sites such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They can tell you what kinds of dangerous ailments a traveler might be exposed to in a given country, and recommend preventive measures.

Hospitals have travel clinics and there are doctors who specialize in travel medicine. Tell them where you’re going, preferably as far in advance as is practical, and they will hook you up with the appropriate vaccines or pill regimen.

If these medications aren’t covered by your medical insurance, they can be somewhat expensive — but not nearly as expensive as flying home on an air ambulance to a long and uncertain hospital stay.

Bottom line: When you’re planning a trip, you need to put as much thought into your health protection as you do to your airfare and your choice of clothing…and don’t be afraid to get stuck!

Depending on where your going, the doctor’s hypodermic needle could be your best friend.

IBIT in CHINA: the world’s fastest train

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Seventh in a series

For railroad enthusiasts, or folks who just like getting from Point A to Point B faster than anybody else in the world, the Shanghai Maglev Train is the ultimate E-ticket ride.

Shanghai is a long way to go for a train ride, especially one that covers less than 20 miles and lasts for less than ten minutes.

But if you want to experience the sensation of flying low over the ground, you ought to come here. If you want to get a feel for what the latter half of the 21st century may look like, you have to come here

The reason: the SMT, the Shanghai Maglev Train. For any railroad enthusiast, this is the ultimate E-ticket ride.

The fastest passenger train on the planet, and the only one of its kind in commercial service anywhere in the world.

Faster than Japan’s “Bullet Train,” the Shinkansen. Faster than the French TGV, the German ICE train, the Spanish TALGO or the Eurostar Italia.

Faster than Amtrak’s…oh, never mind.

It runs between Shanghai’s ultramodern Pudong district and the Pudong International Airport, a distance of 18 miles. I don’t know how long it takes to drive those 18 miles on a busy weekday, but on the SMT — depending on the time of day — it’ll take you somewhere between seven and eight minutes.

If it takes eight minutes, it means they’re running at 301 kilometers or 187 miles per hour. In other words, cruising speed. If they shave a minute off the time, it means you’re flying over the ground at 431 km/h or 268 mph.

Shanghai maglev train prearing to leave for Pudong Intl Airport — © Derrick Neill | Dreamstime.com

And it’s capable of going even faster than that.

A small electronic billboard over the door inside your passenger car will tell you just how fast you’re going at all times.

At 187 mph, freeway traffic at full speed on the elevated highway next to you looks as if it’s barely rolling. At 268 mph, it probably looks as if it’s going backward.

The train itself is a German design known as the Transrapid. But it’s not in regular service even in Germany yet, nor anywhere else. Only here.

It’s very quiet. Even at top speed, you can hold a conversation without raising your voice. There’s a little bit of vibration as the SMT hits its top speed, nothing startling. Where you’ll really feel it is when the train leans into the turns, its guideway banked like a racetrack.

You can’t call it the fastest train on wheels, because there are no wheels. No rails, either, at least not in the conventional sense of a railroad.

Maglev is short for “magnetic levitation.” Basically, rows of powerful, electrically charged magnets are used to lift the train just off its guideway and send it down the line. With out wheels rolling over rails, there’s no friction, which means the train is really flying low over the ground.

And you’ll experience that feeling of flight as you ride the SMT — minus the occasional bumps of turbulence you got on the flight to China.

But even knowing all that does nothing to prepare you for the moment when you look out your window at the cars and trucks on the freeway, all of them at full speed — as you’re blowing right by them as if they were toys.

The technology is German. Indeed, the idea of maglev propulsion was first developed in the United States and Germany, and several nations have toyed with the concept for decades. But China was the first to put a high-speed maglev into commercial service.

By now, you may be wondering, “Why hasn’t the rest of the world switched to maglevs?”

One reason: cost. Maglev lines and trains are expensive to build, especially since no other convention train can use a maglev guideway.

At least, not yet.

Still, China is slowly moving ahead with plans to build more maglev lines, with trains of their own design. So are the South Koreans.

Japan, not to be outdone by its biggest Asian rival, has plans in the works for a maglev passenger train even faster than the SMT.

The United States? Your grandchildren may one day travel on an American maglev train. Or maybe their grandchildren.

Meanwhile, you’ll have to settle for getting your E-ticket punched in Shanghai.

All images by Greg Gross and property of I’m Black and I Travel unless otherwise identified. All rights reserved.

ALSO CHECK OUT:
IBIT in CHINA: An introduction
IBIT in CHINA: Beijing
IBIT in CHINA: The Wall and The Way
IBIT in CHINA: All is vanity
IBIT in CHINA: Shanghai
IBIT in CHINA: Tough history, tough people

IBIT in CHINA: Tough history, tough people

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Sixth in a series

16th-century bazaar, Shanghai | ©IBIT G. Gross

If people in Shanghai seem a little more driven than their countrymen, they have their reasons. They also have a history.

You can learn a lot about folks from looking at the history of their home.

Chinese from other parts of China seem to think that folks in Shanghai are a little unusual. Always on the grind, on the hustle, driven.

What you learn from Shanghai’s history is that these are some tough, single-minded, strong-willed folks.

Shanghai begin as a nondescript fishing village on the coast of the East China Sea, plagued by Japanese pirates in the 1500s until they built a protective wall. Folks felt safer The village grew into a port town, and then a city.

But that wall wasn’t enough to keep out the Royal Navy.

When Britain forced China into the opium trade at gunpoint in the First Opium War they also forced China to turn Shanghai into a free port, where the British could do pretty much whatever.

Ultimately, Britain, France and the United States all ran freewheeling “concessions” from their posh riverfront offices and hotels known as “the Bund.”

THE SHANGHAI GHETTO
I’d heard all about the Warsaw Ghetto, but I’d never heard of the Shanghai Ghetto.

Before initiating their “Final Solution,” the Nazis allowed some Jews to leave Germany — if they could find a country that would issue them a visa. Most, including the United States, literally turned them away.

Shanghai did not. The city accepted Jewish refugees, with or without visas.

Germany’s ally, Japan, occupied Shanghai the whole time. They not only left the the Jews alone, but refused to hand them over to the Germans.

If you go today to Houshan Park in the Hongkou District, you’ll find a monument to the Shanghai Ghetto.

Shanghai became the kind of place where money flows and anything goes. It was Vegas before Vegas, baby.

When the shippers’ need for sailors became so great that they had to kidnap men off the street, the Chinese port became an English verb — “shanghaied.”

Japan invaded China in 1937. Shanghai was bombed, first by the Japanese, then by the United States. It also was brutally occupied until 1945.

After the Japanese were kicked out, Mao Zedong and the Communists moved in. In 1966, Mao unleashed his disastrous Cultural Revolution, led by the Gang of Four, from Shanghai, which somehow kept working through it.

But when post-Maoist leadership decided to open up China to full-contact capitalism, that was Shanghai’s cue to get busy.

Today, it’s China’s most populous city. World’s busiest container port. Elevated freeways. Cutting-edge architecture. Site of a 2010 world exposition. You can almost smell the money here.

But if Shanghai seems unusually determined to enjoy its good times, it may be because it’s already seen the other side.

ALSO CHECK OUT:
IBIT in CHINA: An introduction
IBIT in CHINA: Beijing
IBIT in CHINA: The Wall and The Way
IBIT in CHINA: All is vanity
IBIT in CHINA: Shanghai

JAPAN: Faster than a speeding bullet train

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Shinkansen maglev prototype -- ©Irfannurd | Dreamstime.com

While the US quibbles over whether to drag our passenger rail service out of the 19th century, Japan is about to step deep into the 21st. Your children will be riding this one day.

Back in 1964, while Americans were acquainting themselves with a place called Vietnam, the Japanese were introducing a new concept in passenger rail service — the Shinkansen.

The world would come to know it as “the bullet train.”

It was sleek. It was efficient. It was safe. And with an initial top speed of 130 miles per hour, it was the fastest passenger train on the planet.

It’s no longer the world’s fastest passenger train, but even after nearly five decades, it’s still faster — and with only one exception, exponentially faster — than anything on rails in the United States.

Now, after decades of research and testing, Japan is about to take the next step, and it’s a big one.

The Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun is reporting that the government is finally going to link three of Japan’s largest cities, Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, with a new Shinkansen — at speeds topping 313 mph.

But this will not be the fastest passenger train on rails. This will be a maglev train, which means there will be no rails.

“Maglev” is short for magnetic levitation. Basically, a lot of powerful magnets built into the rail cars and the track bed serve to lift the electrically powered train slightly off the ground and propel it down the line — at speeds ranging from impractical to unthinkable for a conventional train.

The technology was first developed, oddly enough, in the United States. The US, Canada, Germany and Japan all spent years testing it, and all found it to work, but it had two practical limitations.

The first is that it’s expensive as hell to build. The second is that the nature of maglev means that only maglev trains can run on it.

Still, the idea of a 300-mph passenger train was just too good to die.

Los Angeles to San Francisco in an hour? New York City to Washington DC in 45 minutes? Chicago to Dallas in two hours and change?

No need for a long ride in a pricey taxi or a crowded shuttle, because when you step out of the train station, you’re already in town — and all at a price cheaper than flying?

Yeah, I could do that. Bet you could, too.

But with American policymakers largely indifferent toward passenger rail — and lobbyists from the oil, airline and highway construction industries pushing Congress to kill it off — it was long presumed that either Germany or Japan would be the first to pull the trigger on maglev.

We all guessed wrong.

Buying German maglev technology, China stole a march on everybody, opening a maglev line in 2004 between Shanghai and its new international airport in Pudong.

Eighteen miles from city center to airport, in seven minutes? Hell, yeah!

I doubt that anyone in an official capacity in Tokyo would come right out and say it, but to see Beijing leap ahead of them that way that had to sting just a little bit.

Now, Japan is raising the bar. Their maglev would be the world’s fastest train to link multiple cities.

It’s going to take some doing. Construction is set to start in three years and isn’t expected to be finished until 2045. And it’s still obscenely expensive — $116 billion at current prices — a price tag which, thanks to inflation, is all but certain to go up.

The same arguments were made about the original Shinkansen, but the Japanese pushed ahead with it, anyway. The result was a passenger rail system decades ahead of its time, and the envy of the world.

Especially in the United States.

Meanwhile in Washington, American politicians quibble and squabble over whether to bring high-speed rail to the US, using the technology that Japan pioneered 46 years ago.

Technology that Japan is now leaving behind.

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High-Speed Rail: What We’ve Been Missing

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST 9.11.11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When you travel, the quality of your experience matters.

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

But I’d much rather hear from you.

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

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

Send your ideas and suggestions via email.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

fall colors

© Shawn And Sue Roberts | Dreamstime.com

A CASCADE OF COLOR
The Labor Day weekend is fast approaching, signaling the end of summer. But for those of you thinking about a trip to drink in the beauty of America’s fall foliage, it’s time to get busy planning.

We’ve all seen the spectacular photographs like the one above, acre upon acres of trees clothed in blazing hues as they prepare to shed their leaves for winter. But if you’ve never seen this natural phenomenon for yourself, you’re depriving yourself of one of nature’s simple, silent joys.

The first time I saw it was when I went back to Connecticut to visit my friend, Walt. We spent a weekend cruising through CT, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine.

Have you ever seen something so intensely beautiful that it was hard for you to breathe? That’s how it was. A 24-hour sunrise and sunset, growing out of the ground.

Now, if you live in fall foliage country and have to rake or vacuum up millions of dead leaves every year as fall turns to winter, I’ll understand if you don’t share my enthusiasm for this time of year. But for the rest of us, this is something special.

If you’ve ever wondered why the leaves turn colors like that, this site gives a pretty good explanation.

You can find fall colors across much of the United States, especially in the Great Lakes area and even out west, as well as in Canada. But the region most often associated with fall foliage is New England.

You can do your own driving tours through fall foliage country. There are tons of guidebooks and Web sites devoted to the subject, and AAA can provide you with maps for your own self-guided tour.

Lots of hotels, inns and bed-and-breakfast houses offer fall foliage packages that include everything from meals to massages.

If you’d rather concentrate solely on the view — and isn’t that the whole point? — there are fall foliage bus and rail tours.

The bus will nearly always be cheaper, but being 6’3,” I gravitate toward trains. When it comes to legroom, it’s no contest.

So pack your bags, load your camera — and prepare to spend a lot of time saying “Wow!”

AIRFARE ALERT: Fall sale to Africa
IBIT reader, colleague and namesake Tracy Gross spotted this on the Web from ASAP Tickets Service — a fall sale from the eastern United States to 11 African destinations that stretch the length of the Mother Continent, from Cairo, Egypt to South Africa and Zanzibar. The sale runs through Sept. 15.

The US departure cities are New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago. The African destinations are:

  • Abuja………………..$1,019
  • Accra………………..$1,049
  • Cairo………………..$ 997
  • Dar es Salaam…………$1,439
  • Entebbe………………$1,049
  • Johannesburg………….$1,069
  • Kilimanjaro…………..$1,439
  • Khartoum……………..$ 989
  • Lagos………………..$1,019
  • Nairobi………………$ 969
  • Zanzibar……………..$1,439

According to ASAP, these round-trip fares that include all taxes and fees. Those prices are so good, it almost feels as if there has to be a catch somewhere.

And there is: You can’t book any of these fares yourself online. These guys actually want you to call them up and talk to a live human being. Their phone number is (877) 335-0223.

In addition to this sale, they also say they can hook you up with flights to 30 other African cities.

You’ll find more details on the ASAP Tickets Service page here.

ASAP Tickets is an arm of the International Travel Network, headquartered in San Francisco. The Better Business Bureau gives them an “A” rating (the highest you can get is “A+”).

Maybe I should ask them what they can do for us West Coast folks who’d like to visit Africa — but who don’t own a bank.

ALLIES IN THE AIR
Waiting to take off from Terminal 5 in London’s Heathrow airport, I caught sight of a British Airways jumbo jet on taxi. Only you had to look twice to tell it was a British Airways jumbo jet. The name that covered half the fuselage was oneworld, the name of the airline alliance to which BA belongs.

That was just weird, okay? But I figured it was just a “one-off,” as our British cousins say.

Only it isn’t. Seems there are quite a few airlines doing that these days, using their own planes to tout their alliances and pushing their own identities into the background.

What’s up with this? Is the alliance tail starting to wag the airline dog? And if so, what does that mean for you and me?

You’ll find out tomorrow, right here on IBIT.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from BBC Travel
A tale of two Portlands — Maine v. Oregon. The charms and attractions of each.

from USA Today
Another argument for a truly balanced transport system: The big airlines really don’t want to bother with small or isolated markets. Witness Delta’s pullback.

from msnbc
More silliness from the TSA. A black woman gets her hair searched at the airport. Her hair? Really? VIDEO

LAND
from Frommer’s
The world’s most walkable cities. See the world and get healthy at the same time. What’s not to love?

from Independent Traveler
Tips for beating brutal summer heat when you travel.

SEA
from USA Today
Costa Cruises drops Egypt and Tunisia from its 2012 itineraries due to “persistent negative perception” in the wake of political upheaval in both countries. Rgypt? Maybe? But Tunisia? Why? They’ll be switching to European destinations and Israel instead.

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AFRICA
from allAfrica.com
The Zimbabwean government looks to push tourism as a way to break down barriers across cultures.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from The Guardian (London UK)
With its bloody US-fueled drug war and its own lingering homegrown insurgency pushed to the background, Colombia is making a major comeback as a travel destination. And as you’ll see in this story, its capital city of Bogotá is one of the venues leading the way.

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ASIA/PACIFIC
from Lonely Planet
If you’d rather go farther afield for your fall foliage trip, consider Japan.

from Budget Travel
How about a nice 9-day vacation package to Afghanistan? There’s a Canadian travel company that will hook you up. No, I’m not kidding…and even more incredibly, neither are they.

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EUROPE
from the Los Angeles Times
Florence, the Italian city that gave the world the Renaissance, is having one of its own.
​