Tag Archives: Turkey

the IBIT Travel Digest 1.14.13

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

Southwest Airline Boeing 737

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

LOOKING ELSEWHERE, LOOKING HOMEWARD
Last weekend’s Los Angeles Travel & Adventure Show in Long Beach was equal parts eye opener and reminder.

Japan, still pushing hard to rebuild its tourism after the earthquake/tsunami/radiation disaster of 2011, was the biggest country sponsor this year, with all kinds of intriguing offers, including one that never would’ve occurred to me — anime tourism.

Expect to hear more about that later on IBIT.

Turkey also had a major presence this year, as did Indonesia. Baja California destinations — from Cabo San Lucas at the peninsula’s southern tip to Tijuana, Rosarito Beach, Ensenada, Tecate and Mexicali, also were representing well, and that was good for this old Baja hand to see.

But the destination that reality hooked my attention this year was Malaysia.

How many of us ever seriously consider Malaysia as a place to visit? How many of even know where Malaysia is? Well, somebody knows, because it’s the tenth most popular tourism destination in the world.

And in this case, getting there might actually be half the fun. Its national air carrier, Malaysia Airlines, gets a five-star rating from Skytrax for its passenger service, one of only six airlines in the world to be rated that highly.

At the other end of the travel scale, and literally on the other side of the floor, there were a lot of exhibitors touting outdoor and adventure travel in places like California’s Sequoia country and Yosemite National Park. It reminded me that we have some world-class attractions right here at home that we too often take for granted.

IBIT says: Watch for more on all of this in the coming days.

DREAMLINER DIFFICULTIES
How’s this for a reality TV show: You’ve got this hot new jet, state of the art, but there are so many problems building it was three years late arriving. But now it’s finally here and flying all over the world and everything’s great and…

Wait, say what? Electrical fires? Fuel leaks?

Welcome to the very real world of Boeing and its new 787 Dreamliner.

The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering a safety review after those problems surfaced aboard Japan Air Lines 787s in recent days.

Such reports can’t help but make travelers nervous, especially those flying across oceans. However, this CNN report puts it all in perspective.

Bottom line: all new planes have teething problems. The Boeing 707 and 747 did back in the day, as do Airbus aircraft, most recently its A380 super-jumbo. When the problems arise, you jump on them, as the FAA is doing, fix them, keep an eye on them…and move on. We should do as well maintaining our cars.

Still, it does bear watching, which IBIT will be doing.

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TITANIC SAILS AGAIN?
Did you see the movie “Titanic” and come away wishing you could have sailed on that early 20th century luxury liner — minus the iceberg, of course?

Three years from now, you may get your chance.

The Associated Press is reporting that an Australian billionaire is planning to build a 21st century replica of the ill-fated vessel in a Chinese shipyard, combining old-school opulence with state-of-the-art construction, propulsion and navigation features that Capt. Edward John Smith could not have imagined back in 1912.

You can read the entire AP story, courtesy of USA Today, here.

The would-be builder hasn’t set a price tag for this project, but you know the old saying: “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”

And this guy apparently can.

Even so, other attempts to create a Titanic 2.0 have never left the proverbial drawing boards. If all goes well, however, the new and improved Titanic will hit the water sometime in 2016.

This time, hopefully, the water won’t hit back with a large, angry block of floating ice.

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BOEING 737 — SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW
For nearly haf a century, while bigger, faster, more imposing-looking airliners have grabbed headlines and captured the imaginations of travelers, the stubby, unassuming little Boeing 737, like the one above, has quietly established itself as world’s the most widely used airliner.

Every five seconds, two of them are taking off or landing somewhere on the planet. Not bad for an aircraft which began life as basically a cut-down version of the Boeing 707.

Over the decades, a steady steam of modifications have made them bigger and more sophisticated. Now, Boeing is planning to take their winged bus even further with yet another large-scale makeover. The result, called the Boeing 737 Max, should be ready for service by 2017.

To the layman’s eye, it’ll still look the same 737 that first flew in 1967. But in many ways, as USA Today reports, it will be a brand-new airplane.

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And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Christopher Elliott
The merger between American Airlines and USAir seems all but official. What does it hold in store for the traveling consumer?

from the Los Angeles Times
What flight attendants really think of you. Everything you’ve always wanted to know…or maybe never wanted to know.

from the Washington Post
Jet lag is hard enough on a body in any direction, but it’s actually harder on you flying east than west. What to do about it.

LAND
from Smarter Travel via USA Today
Ten overrated tourist traps — and ten better alternatives. Agree or disagree?

from the New York Times
You’d think famed travel author Paul Theroux has been just about everywhere, but his wish list of destinations is still massively long — and many of them are right here in America.

WATER
from USA Today
The steamboats are back on the Mississippi River this summer, and the competition could be fierce.

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AFRICA
from The Mirror (London UK)
For a real off-road mountain bike adventure, with gorgeous views thrown in as an extra, consider South Africa’s Table Mountain above Cape Town. Just mind the puff adders.

from The New Times (Rwanda) via allAfrica.com
What a concept: Rwanda sets new rules enabling African nationals outside of East Africa to obtain visas on arrival in Rwanda. A big step forward for African regional travel, perhaps?

from the Namibian (Namibia) via allAfrica.com
one of Africa’s great rivers, the Okavango, and the struggle to save it from pollution.

from Bulawayo 24 via allAfrica.com
A new 5-star hotel opens on the shores of Lake Victoria, just in time for the August general assembly of the UN World Tourism Organization in Zimbabwe.

AMERICAS
from the Los Angeles Times
In the United States, bus travel is often disparaged by many. In Brazil, it’s the way to go.

from The Guardian (London UK)
If you really want to “cowboy up” for less than an American dude ranch, do it vaquero style on a working cattle ranch in Mexico.

from SFGate
Scottsdale, AZ is more than golf clubs and baseball spring training. Save some love for some seriously gorgeous desert.

from SFGate
California’s Monterey County, long known for its beautiful seashore and iconic jazz festival, has quietly become a heavyweight in another arena: wine. Could the Napa Valley natives be getting restless?

ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Washington Post
A traditional guesthouse in rural Japan, where the highlight is Italian food prepared by an Australian chef.

from the Daily Mail (London UK)
When the Iron Curtain fell for good in the early 1990s, a lot of historic, unspoiled and intriguing Central Asia opened up to the world as new nations. One of them is Uzbekistan.

EUROPE
from The Lookout via Yahoo
Birth of an island? What was nothing more than a sand bar ten years ago has now appeared as a fully formed 34-acres island off the coast of northern Germany.

from the Los Angeles Times
Now free to be creative, Russian chefs are putting a modernized touch on tradition Russian cuisine.

RANT: Does America need a tourism czar?

2 Replies

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Our haphazard, unfocused, uncoordinated efforts to sell America to the world’s tourists won’t cut it in the 21st century. We have to do better.

President Barack Obama last year signed an executive order creating a task force to design a National Travel & Tourism Strategy. It was a follow-up to his 2010 signing of the Travel Promotion Act of 2009.

Believe it or not, it’s the first time in our history that the US government has set promoting foreign travel to America as a national priority, something that most of the world’s nations, from the poorest to the richest, have been doing for decades.

To American ears, the title “tourism minister” has a quaint, even comic ring to it. To the rest of the world, however, it’s no joke, and here’s why:

Some time last month, a man or woman packed a bag and boarded a plane, train, bus or a ship to travel from one country to another, maybe for business but more likely for pleasure. That person was the one billionth traveler of 2012, the first time the world has ever seen that many people traveling in one year.

Tourism worldwide generates about $1 trillion and hundreds of millions of jobs annually. It’s growing almost in defiance of the recession. Just about every nation on Earth wants as big a piece of that action as it can get, and they’re all working very hard at getting it.

The world’s top ten tourism destinations, in order, are France, the United States, China, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, Mexico and Malaysia. The US is the only one of the ten that doesn’t have a Cabinet-level official devoted to promoting tourism.

Some may argue that America has done well enough at attracting tourists without needing one. “We’re Number Two! We’re Number Two!” What’s the problem with that? Let me count the ways.

  1. Our Economy American unemployment is unacceptably high. This country has been bleeding manufacturing and other blue-collar jobs for decades and those jobs are not coming back. At the same time, you will be hard-pressed to find another industry in the world generating more new business and new cash flow than tourism. Think this economy could use some new jobs?
  2. Our Pride Since when were Americans content to be Number Two in anything?

And yet we sort of muddle our way through the business of attracting more visitors — and their money — to this country.

New York City is America’s top travel destination, and last year, the Big Apple drew a record 52 million visitors. The fact that the City of New York runs 18 tourism offices around the world probably had something to do with that.

It’s great that New York can afford to run its own overseas promotional campaign, but why should it have to? And what about all our other great cities that can’t afford to run their own foreign offices?

The Travel Promotion Act of 2009 created something called the Office of Travel Promotion within the US Commerce Department. Show of digital hands: How many of you out there ever heard of the Office of Travel Promotion before this moment?

If I dig long and hard enough, I can probably find out who runs this office and what it’s doing on behalf of American tourism — but why should I have to? Why should anyone have to?

I could easily tell you who’s in charge of tourism in Denmark, Brazil, Singapore, Botswana, or more than a hundred other countries. All the government’s efforts to bring in more visitors flow with a single, concentrated focus through that person’s office.

Who holds that responsibility in the United States? Who is the face of American tourism in Washington? Thirteen years into the 21st century, I have no idea — and I’m betting you don’t, either.

The federal government’s attempts to push American tourism abroad hasn’t even taxied to the head of the runway yet and already, it’s a hot, disjointed mess — a board here, an office there, a task force over in the corner.

Who’s running this?

Somebody needs to take charge here, a Cabinet-level official with the clout to pull all these scattered efforts together, and a profile that guarantees direct access to the President and Congress when necessary.

A tourism secretary. A tourism minister. A tourism czar. The title itself doesn’t matter, but the need for it does. Because the global competition for those $1 trillion is heating up, and the rest of the world is not waiting around for Washington to get its act together.

the IBIT Travel Digest 12.23.12

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

Tongli, China's ancient Venice | ©IBIT/G. Gross

Tongli, China’s ancient Venice | ©IBIT/G. Gross

UP A LAZY ASIAN RIVER
River cruising has long been a travel staple in Europe and shows little sign of slowing down. But cruise lines and tour companies increasingly are looking to Asia as the Next Big Thing in cruising.

According to USA Today, Viking River Cruises, one of the biggest names in European river cruising, has already announced plans to offer river cruises in Myanmar and Thailand, starting in 2014.

Others aren’t waiting that long. Travel Daily News.Asia is reporting that Travel Indochina is already adding Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) and Laos to a river cruise itinerary that already includes Vietnam, Cambodia and Yangtze River cruises in China.

With increasing world interest in Asia and growing middle classes in Asian countries with money to spend and a desire to see more of their own homelands, Asian river cruising could be a hot market for years to come.

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PUTTING A STOP TO MOTION SICKNESS
So far, this is one of life’s ailments that has mercifully passed me by. But there are plenty of people who suffer with this — and “suffer” is the operative term.

At the least, it can seriously interfere with your ability to enjoy travel. At its worst, it may prevent you from traveling altogether.

We’ve all had our share of laughs about motion sickness. Even Hollywood films and cartoons have gotten in on the levity. But every time I see the airsickness bag on the airplane or see folks on cruise ships with that little scopolamine patch on their necks, I’m reminded that motion sickness is no joke.

It’s a physical misunderstanding. Your inner ear tells your brain, “We’re moving!” Your eyes are saying, “No, we’re not!” Your stomach wishes they’d both shut the hell up.

There’s no real cure for motion sickness, but there are ways you can deal with this, and the New York Times breaks it all down at length in this article.

Their suggestions may not rid you of this curse, but they might make life a little easier for you, or your kids.

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CHARGED UP
A lot of us travel with a lot of electronic gear — smartphones, iPods, tablets. They make us productive during those long flights, or at least keep us from dying of boredom.

But even if they’re fully charged when we leave for the airport, their batteries may be no match for that 10-hour or 12-hour transcontinental flight. And finding an available electrical outlet in a crowded terminal during an unexpected delay can be…well…challenging.

Which is why the Summit 3000 battery pack caught my attention. As Smarter Travel points out, it’s neither very light or really cheap, but if you need to keep your devices running in places where a plug isn’t handy, you may be glad you have this.

One especially cool feature is that it’s dual-voltage, which means you can use it overseas with no hassle; all you need is a plug adaptor for the country you’re in. And if you travel with electronic gear, odds are you already have some of those.

Still, it isn’t powerful enough to charge a laptop, which leaves my black MacBook feeling neglected and resentful.

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FLYING YOUR FELINE
Traveling with pets is always tricky, especially if the pet is a cat. It’s tough enough on the sensitive little critters, even without having to deal with the TSA — which actually lost one traveler’s cat in New York JFK airport.

There’s nothing we can do about the TSA, but there are things cat owners can do to make travel easier on their beloved felines, and the folks at Smarter Traveler lay out their suggestions in this slideshow.

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AND FINALLY…
If your Boeing and you want to test how well in-flight wifi works aboard your aircraft, what sort of exotic, sophisticated, state-of-the-art testing equipment do you use?

Why, potatoes, of course — 20,000 pounds of potatoes, right on the passenger seats.

And as proof that I’m neither crazy nor making this stuff up, check out this CNN story on Boeing’s wifi tests.

And please, no mashup jokes.

And now, here’s The Digest:

AIR
from Travel Weekly
Don’t look now, but your already miserable experience getting through airport security could get a lot worse two weeks into 2013. It’s all about your driver’s license and an eight-year-old federal law that gone unenforced — until now. IBIT will be exploring this in depth shortly.

from the Washington Post
Spas. Yoga. Luxury food. Fine dining. An international resort? You’ll increasingly find these high-end amenities in the last place you’d look for them — American airports.

from Christopher Elliot
Is the TSA doomed? A respected consumer writer says the powers that be have heard the traveling public’s gripes — and they’re paying attention.

from Smarter Travel
Seven ways to avoid airline baggage fees. SLIDESHOW

LAND
from the New York Times
Have you ever longed to explore ancient historic sites, without having to contend with mobs of tourists? Here are five spots around the world where your wish may come true…for now, anyway.

SEA
from Gadling
Cruise travel is rebounding from a rough year.

from Travel Weekly
Are the Viking River Cruises people building a navy or what? Already with ten new cruise ships on order for next year, they’ve already committed to eight more in 2014. That makes 24 new river cruisers in three years. But given Viking’s interest in Asia (see above), it makes perfect sense.

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AFRICA
from The New Times (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
The national airlines of Kenya and Rwanda hook up in a strategic partnership that eventually could stremaline regional air travel between eastern and central Africa.

from The Point (Gambia) via allAfrica.com
A village on a pristine coastal stretch of the Gambia becomes the anchor point of an ambitious experiment in ecotourism.

from Vanguard (Nigeria) via allAfrica.com
A state government in Nigeria wants to turn the site of the country’s first recorded plane crash into a tourist attraction. Uhhh…

AMERICAS
from The Guardian (London UK)
We think of New Orleans mostly as a grown-ups’ playground, but come Christmastime, it becomes a magical place for kids.

from SFGate.com
Good news from Mexico: There’s a hotel building boom underway in Cancun.

from the Washington Post
A foodie’s tour of Peru. SLIDESHOW

from the Sacramento Bee
Hollywood has its stars, but in California’s Anza-Borrego Desert, you’ll get an unrestricted view of the real ones.

ASIA/PACIFIC
from CNNgo
Riding waves of modernization, gentrification and newly made Chinese money, there’s never been a better time to visit Hong Kong. An insider’s look at one of the world’s perpetually energized destinations.

from CCTV (China)
China and Nepal sign a commitment to promote tourism between the two countries.

from the Jakarta Post (Indonesia)
Have you ever poured Thousand Island dressing on your salad and wondered if such a place actually exists? It does. It’s in Indonesia, and the governor of the nation’s capital, Jakarta, would love to see the Thousand Islands region become a tourist attraction.

EUROPE
from the New York Times
Walk through history in the ancient city of Toledo, a city holy to Catholics in Spain. Its religious importance saw it escape multiple wars almost untouched.

from The Guardian (London UK)
How Vienna waltzes through Christmas.

from The Guardian (London UK)
The world’s oldest monument was discovered only about a decade ago. It’s 11,000 years old. And it’s in Turkey.

from the Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette (IL)
For most travelers interested in Europe, Slovenia doesn’t register as a worthwhile destination. And that’s kind of a shame.

the IBIT Travel Digest 12.16.12

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

©IBIT/G. Gross

©IBIT/G. Gross

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ANSWER: It usually doesn’t.

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

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

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

Happy bargaining hunting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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And now, here’s The Digest:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the IBIT TRAVEL DIGEST 3.26.2012

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

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

© Radkol | Dreamstime.com

TINGO ALL OVER
A new hotel reservation site has made its debut on the Web. It’s called Tingo, and its main calling card comes into play after you make your hotel reservation.

The folks at Tingo say they will keep an eye on your pre-paid reservation. If your room price drops after you’ve reserved it, Tingo will arrange a refund of the difference, automatically.

You can read more about Tingo in this msnbc.com story here.

BRIDGING THE WORLD
In my next life, I might be an engineer, because I love bridges. Admiring them. Photographing them. Sailing under them. Or best of all, walking over them.

I still have fantasies about riding the elevator that runs up the inside of each of the two towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, with my trusty little Canon G12 camera in hand, to take pics from the very top.

That probably explains why I got such a kick out of Cristina Puscas’ list of 13 famous bridges that you can walk or climb. It’s on the BootsnAll Web site, which specializes in independent travel.

With this list as a guide, bridge-hopping can take you around the world.

INDIA, NORTH and SOUTH
The New York Times devotes its Sunday travel section this week to Asia, starting with a sizable story on India that features three possible itineraries based on time — one, two or three weeks.

The piece itself is informative enough, but some of the comments below it are just as insightful, especially those that suggest a possible bias on the part of travel writers toward northern India.

AMELIA EARHART WOULD BE PROUD
Finally, the folks at Air France are making a point of showing off one of their crews on a recent Flight 438, a Boeing 777 from Paris (CDG) to Mexico City (MEX).

Three pilots, 13 flight attendants. All women.

The airline put up its own video to mark the occasion.

I’m not sure how the macho Mexican male passengers on the flight reacted when they found out about the all-female flight crew, but I’ll bet the mujeres on board were diggin’ it.

And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from Gadling
When’s the best time to shop for your airfare? These guys say six weeks in advance.

from Budget Travel
What happens when your airline reservation magically disappears. One travel editor’s experience.

from AirSafe
On any given day, ten people will come to a US airport to board an airplane with a weapon in their possession — and seven of them will get past airport security. One of several statistical bits about the TSA, arrayed in the form of a vertical graphic.

from USA Today
How to keep European transportation strikes from blowing up your travel plans.

LAND
from Smarter Travel
Traveling to Europe this year? Bringing your iPhone with you? From restaurant guides and subway maps to currency converters and translators, these apps are custom-made to help the European traveler, and most of them are free.

from Woman Seeks World
One traveler’s list of the ten most popular countries to emigrate to. If you get the impression it’s a somewhat Eurocentric list, I wouldn’t argue.

from Lonely Planet
The LP crew offers up its list of the world’s ten best cycling routes. Saddle up.

SEA
from Fodors
Looking for a cruise that gets you off the familiar itineraries? One of these might feed your need for something different at sea.

from USA Today
Another old, familiar name in cruise ships is going away…sort of. Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas, whose wrap-around smokestack-mounted lounge created an iconic silhouette among Caribbean cruisers, is being transferred out of the fleet.

from USA Today
The river cruise business is heating up bigtime, especially in Europe. The Viking line christens four new European river cruisers…on the same day.

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AFRICA
from Nature
Private developers are scrambling to buy up vast tracts of African land. Is this land grab holding back progress on the continent?

from eTurbo News
Perhaps none too soon, given the above developments, Tanzania plans to host the first-ever pan-African conference by the UN World Tourism Organization on sustainable tourism management in national parks and protected areas.

from University of Oxford
Did you know that Africa has as many cities of 1 million people or more as Europe? These guys see that as one of six reasons why investing in Africa is a good idea.

from NewsDay (Zimbabwe)
Think Americans are the only people in the world who are into reality television? Zimbabwe has its own reality TV show in the works, this one focused on the country’s tourist attractions. And yes, they plan to market this show globally.

from Wolfganghthome
Rwanda is hooking up with Google Maps to digitally mark its major tourist destinations, a first for the Mother Continent, according to this blogger.

from Travel Travel (United Kingdom)
A sample of the kind of cheap Africa vacation packages available from Europe. This one just happens to include a stay at the hotel where I stayed in the Gambia.
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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from Frommer’s Travel
Five ways for Americans to legally visit Cuba. SLIDESHOW

from USA Today
America’s capital is loaded with history, charm, great eateries, great watering holes — and it’s table-flat. Sound like a great weekend bike ride? Now, you can rent your wheels in Washington DC.

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ASIA/PACIFIC
​from the New York Times
Myanmar, the country that many of us still think of as Burma, is emerging as a new travel destination for the early 21st century. A primer on how to get there and what you’ll find.

from the New York Times
A generation ago, Laos was the site of the Southeast Asian war your parents didn’t know about. Today, it’s the exotic, fascinating travel destination that you may not know about.

from Gadling
When it comes to visiting India’s famed Taj Mahal, timing is everything, especially if you want that great pic.

from msnbc.com
Poor Las Vegas. First, they had to contend with casinos on Indian reservations siphoning off visitors. Now, they have to deal with Singapore.

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EUROPE
from The Quirky Traveller
The quirky side of Britain’s Lake District.

​from Mo Travels
A black American expat in Amsterdam shares her all-girl getaway near Lake Garda in Italy.

from The Guardian (London UK)
​Reader tips on where and what to eat in Turkey. If all you’re expecting is kebabs, prepare to be pleasantly surprised.

from USA Today
International airports have been built on artificial islands before, but never at the mouth of one of the world’s busiest rivers, like the Thames in England. The mayor of London thinks that’s a fine idea.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Okay, this is just strange: Camel wrestling in Turkey? If your travel tastes run toward the bizarre, see this ancient Aegean custom — before the Turkish government finds a reason to ban it.

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