Tag Archives: Washington DC

Obama Inauguration 2.0

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Obama inaugural 2008

Obama inaugural 2008 | © Ryan Beiler | Dreamstime.com

Your own 4-1-1 guide to historic second inauguration of President Barack Obama — and how you can take part in it. Prepare for low temperatures, high prices and tight security.

On the third Monday in January of next year, Barack Obama will, for the second time in four years, take the oath of office as President of the United States — and I’m looking forward to watching it all on television from the comfort of my sofa.

But some folks will want to be in Washington DC to witness all the pageantry in person, and why not? Call it caché. Call it street cred. Call it a sense of history. Whatever you choose to call it, there’s something special about being able to say, “I was there.”

This could be the experience of a lifetime.

If that sounds appealing, you need to start planning — and budgeting — right now. Because there may be upwards of a million people in the District of Columbia with that same sense of history.

And this kind of street cred won’t come cheap.

If you’ve been hoarding frequent-flier miles or credit card rewards points for that special trip, this may be the time.

So use this blog post to help plan your inaugural adventure. I’ll be updating it as I learn more about the upcoming schedule, events, and so on, so check back often.

You ready? Let’s get started.

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GETTING THERE
The post-Christmas winter is usually a good time to score airfare bargains on flights back East, but these days don’t favor the bargain hunter. The airlines are deliberately taking planes out of service, making fewer seats available. That keeps their planes full, but it also drives up airfares.

The best advice I can give you:

  1. Start stalking those airfare bargains now, either on your own online or with the help of a live travel agent…or a combination thereof. Check too with individual airlines on their own sites for bargains they may be holding back from the online travel agencies.
  2. Be flexible in your flight planning. Look for alternatives to DC’s two airports — Reagan National (DCA) or Dulles (IAD.) Your best bet is likely to be Baltimore (BWI).

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LODGING
Most hotels launch their room rates to the moon for special events, and Washington DC is no exception. Also, don’t be surprised to see DC hotels insist on both a minimum number of nights, (up to five) — paid in advance.

When looking at your lodging options, you have two major factors to think about. One is cost. The other is security. Not yours; the President’s.

As with flights, your cheaper hotels definitely will lie in Maryland and Virginia, just outside the DC city limits. Both are beautiful and have their own attractions that can provide a relaxed diversion from the crush of inaugural Washington.

As for security, veterans of past Inauguration Days argue for staying within the DC city limits, since it means less hassling with security checkpoints. More on that in a moment.

Check with online travel agencies like these to see if they’re offering any hotel packages for Inauguration Day, especially if they have any bundled with reasonable airfares:

Check too with hotel aggregator sites like these:

And don’t forget to check with your favorite hotel, especially if you’ve got substantial loyalty points built up with that chain.

Your cheapest options, however, will likely be through private property owners willing to rent out their apartment, condo or a room in their house. Even here, you’ll find landlords will have jacked up their rents for the occasion, especially the ones overlooking parade routes, but they should still be cheaper than the big hotel chains.

With that in mind, here are some sites you’ll want to check out:

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EVENTS
Congress has created an official Presidential Inauguration Web site. It includes a breakdown of the eight official events. In order, they are the:

  • Morning Worship Service
  • Procession to the Capitol
  • Vice-President’s Swearing-in Ceremony
  • President’s Swearing-in Ceremony
  • Inaugural Address
  • Inaugural Luncheon
  • Inaugural Parade
  • Inaugural Ball

Because Mitt Romney failed in his bid to unseat Obama, the ceremonial departure of the outgoing President and First Lady won’t be a part of next year’s inauguration.

As for President Obama, he actually will be taking the oath twice.

By law, US presidents must be sworn in by noon Jan. 20. But because that date falls on a Sunday next year, all the inauguration events will be held a day later. So, Obama will take the oath in a private ceremony on Jan. 20, and then again in public the next day, Monday, Jan. 21.

That means the world will witness the first black president in American history being sworn in for his second term in office on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And how cool is that?

Tickets to the swearing-in — about 240,000 of them — are distributed through the offices of your U.S. Senator or Representative, usually within a month or so of the event. That may sound like a lot of tickets, but for this event, it isn’t — and they will go very fast. So if you’re serious about attending, call or email your Congressional office, soon.

(NOTE: The tickets are FREE, so if someone offers to sell you tickets, it’s a rip-off. Don’t get scammed.)

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PARADE
Watching the inaugural parade is free — as long as you’re willing to stand outside on the pavement in a densely packed throng of spectators, all trying to keep warm in the midst of one of Washington DC’s bone-chilling winters.

If you want to watch from the warmth and comfort of some business establishment along the parade route, you probably will have to pay for that privilege.

INAUGURAL BALL
IBIT reader Monique White Rubin tells how to enjoy an inaugural ball — and survive the experience.

Feel like playing the ultimate game of dress-up at the Inaugural Ball? You definitely will need tickets for that, and they won’t be easily had. They are under the control of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, which falls under the GSA, the federal General Services Administration.

Actually, there likely will be multiple Washington balls in January, and the PIC eventually is supposed to have information on all of them, and which if any will be making tickets available to the public.

(NOTE: By my count, there are at least 20 UNOFFICIAL BALLS set for the inauguration. This link should provide you with information on each and how to get tickets. If you’re interested in attending one of them, don’t dawdle.)

You probably stand a better chance of seeing Allen West splitting a Herman Cain pizza with Al Sharpton than scoring tickets to one of these — but in theory, anything’s possible, right?

Not if you procrastinate, though. When it comes to events like these, he who hesitates winds up staying home.

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WEATHER
Notice the folks in the pic above from the 2008 Inauguration Day. January traditionally is one of the chilliest months of the year in DC and snow is not uncommon. Climate change notwithstanding, plan on being cold. Very cold.

If you want to avoid hassling with rental cars, try to find lodging near a Washington Metro subway stop or commuter rail line. Parking in the capital is scarce and pricey even on routine days, and a presidential inauguration drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors is anything but routine.

However, certain stations will likely be closed for security reasons. The Washington Metro inauguration page lists which stations are best to use for the parade and which are likely to be closed. Pay attention to that

On the other hand, that special Inauguration SmarTrip card on sale for the Metro could be a great souvenir of a memorable day.

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SECURITY
The Capitol police and Secret Service will have all of Washington on something close to lockdown for this event — and given the near-rabid hatred of Obama among some in this country, they should. Belts of security checkpoints and other measures will have a serious impact on your ability to get around, even what you can bring with you.

This Web page describes the measures put in place for the first Obama inauguration in 2009. It should give you a good idea of what to expect and how to plan accordingly.

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RESOURCES
In addition to the Presidential Inauguration site, here are some other local Web sites that could prove useful for the DC visitor:

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Okay, this should be more than enough to get you started.

Next stop…history.

Edited by P.A.Rice

A real tax break

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Stay at this Hyatt hotel in New York City this week and the hotel’s resident accountant will do your tax return for you — free.

This year, you get two breaks on your income taxes…sort of.

Since April 15 falls on a Sunday this year and Emancipation Day — a holiday observed only in Washington DC — happens to fall on april 16, the Internal Revenue Service has set Tuesday, April 17, as the deadline day for filing your 2011 tax return.

The other comes courtesy of the Andaz Wall Street hotel, a Hyatt property in Manhattan.

Starting today, if you stay at the Andaz Wall Street this week — and give the hotel 72 hours’ notice — the hotel will have its “Accountant in Residence” prepare your tax return for you.

Free. As in “no charge.”

You can read about the offer in this USA Today story here.

The offer runs through Sunday. After that, you’re on your own again.

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST 10.9.11

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

Venice canal

Traffic, Venice style | ©Greg Gross

TWO MINUTES TO LIVE
Could a hundred and twenty seconds worth of forethought save your life in an airline emergency?

British Airways thinks so, and they’ve got a class for their corporate passengers to teach them how.

In addition to giving them tips on how to do their own personal pre-flight check, the course shows BA passengers how to operate the emergency doors, slide down emergency chutes, use those life vests folded up under your seat, even give them a taste of what it’s like in a smoke-filled aircraft cabin.

What I find most remarkable is the class itself. Granted, BA doesn’t make it available for the Great Airline Unwashed like you and me, but the fact that they offer it at all is rather remarkable — and in my opinion, pretty cool.

Am I wrong in believing that if more folks felt they knew clearly what to do in an emergency, that fewer people would be afraid to fly?

This is something the airline industry as a whole should make available — not just to their big-spending corporate passengers, but everyone.

FALL INTO EUROPEAN TRAINS
The fall shoulder season is a great time to travel through Europe, especially by rail. Trains in western Europe are fast, comfortable, efficient — in other words, basically everything that Amtrak is not.

Train travel through Europe on its growing network of high-speed trains is ultra-efficient. By day, comfortably view the countryside as you whisk between cities or between countries. By night, bed down on an overnight train instead of a static hotel — and wake up in another country the next morning.

It’s even better if you can take advantage of one of the many Eurail passes that allow you make multiple trips over a set period.

And now, Eurail’s got a sale going that could actually give you a free day on train travel, and in First class, no less. Check it out at Rail Europe.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from the New York Times
Tips and tactics for getting some decent sleep in an airline Coach seat — or the science of sleeping like a sardine in a can at 35,000 feet.

from Gadling
Waiting for your flight to take off, and the food options in the airport lounge leave you cold? Want to have something tasty delivered to you, right at your departure gate? Yeah, there’s an app for that.

from MSN Money
Overpaid on your airfare…get a refund? Yes, you can!

from the Washington Business Journal
An all-Business Class airline suspends flights between Washington DC and Paris. Is Open Skies on the verge of closing its doors?

from ​Airfare Watchdog
Left something on the plane? Here’s how to get it back.

from the Independent Traveler
Want to get away…from the airport…faster? Here are 16 tips for how to do that, without making like OJ, and it starts before you leave the house.

​LAND
from msnbc
The Hyatt Regency New Orleans, shredded six years ago by Hurricane Katrina, gets a $275 million revival. Let the travelers say “Amen!”

from BootsnAll
Walking is great exercise and a great way to experience a new city. Here now, a list of eight relatively small cities ideal for walkers — including the one I call home!

from Frommer’s
Call them The Delicious Dozen: The best 12 cities in the world for cheap, filling and almost sinfully street food. I’ve hit six of them already, and my tastebuds are impatiently waiting to touch down in the rest. SLIDESHOW

from Globetrooper
Want to bring your MacBook on your next big trip? Here’s how to set it up for travel.

from BootsnAll
Here’s a whole different spin on the term “cross-country travel:” Ten countries small enough for a traveler to traverse on foot. And if you’ve ever traveled to Europe, you may have already set foot in six of them.

​from USA Today
Are Europeans better drivers than Americans? USAT’s Ben Abramson says yes, and says he has proof.

SEA
from USA Today
Cruise lines keep looking for reasons to make their passenger forget about going ashore: A celebrity Miami chef take charges of the menus aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas.

from USA Today
River cruising in Europe is increasingly catching on with tourists. The pace is less frenetic, the crowds are smaller, you get more exposure to the local culture — and everybody gets a cabin with a view.

from USA Today
Would you pay $59 per person to spend a few extra hours on a cruise ship that isn’t going anywhere? Celebrity Cruises thinks you just might.

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AFRICA
from Live the Magic of Africa
The ins and outs of car rental in South Africa.

from Africa Business
It’s not just travelers who are increasingly focusing on Africa these days. Forbes magazine launches its African edition.

from ​Wired
U.S. and European mercenaries are quietly taking over escort duties from Western navies in the battle against East African pirates, though not without some problems of their own.

from the Nairobi Star via ​allAfrica.com
Kenyan tourism ministers say East Africa needs a unified tourist visa for the region. IBIT agrees. EDITORIAL

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from Velvet Escape
Chillin’ in Buenos Aires, a city that specializes in being hot and cool at the same time.

from Pauline Frommer via the ​Palm Beach Post
The 2012 London Olympics are still more than nine months away, but they’re already drawing tourists.

from the New York Times
Getting yourself lost on the streets of Paris can be a good thing.

from the New York Times
The heavy rains that pounded the East Coast last month are making for some truly lush, eye-popping fall foliage this year. But those same storms also did enough damage that New Englanders ​fear it may put off visitors. So they’re masking deals. Advantage: YOU.

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ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Huffington Post
If you’ve ever dreamed of seeing the Taj Mahal, you’d better hurry. Its foundations are in such bad shape that the whole thing could collapse in five years.

​from Asahi Shimbun
Here’s a novel concept: the ancient Japanese city of Kyoto is combining the fictional works of professional and amateur writers an iPhone app in an attempt to lure more visitors to its historic attractions.

from Asahi Shimbun
The Japanese city of Fukuoka didn’t make Frommer’s list of top street food cities, but if tyou love noodles — and honestly, who doesn’t? — it just might make yours.

from the Straits Times (Singapore)
A new rail line in Singapore, the aptly named Circle Line can take passengers around nearly the entire island city/state in a shade under an hour. Great for commuters, equally handy for travelers. Took ten years to build, and already there’s an extension in the works.

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EUROPE
from Velvet Escape
How to experience Istanbul like a local.

from the Independent (London UK)
Europe’s newest foodie mecca is…Birmingham, England? Really?

from the​ Telegraph (London UK)
Okay, we all know that Brazil is a hot destination for British travelers. But why are so many Brazilians winging in the opposite direction?

the SUNDAY TRAVEL DIGEST 9.18.11

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

Liverpool | ©Greg Gross

COOL SAVINGS IN the NOLA
When it comes to travel, summer is the best of times and the worst of times for New Orleans.

A typical summer weather forecast calls for 99 degrees with 99 percent humidity, which will make it feel more like 109 — and you can just about set your watch by the pounding afternoon rain.

That’s the worst.

It seems to work some special hardships on the restaurant business in the NOLA, as this msnbc story points out.

But those same conditions that send rivers of sweat pouring down your face can bring tears of joy to the dedicated bargain hunter, because summer is when New Orleans starts lowering prices at hotels and restos.

The msnbc story makes mention of this, and a quick check of your favorite travel sites (you do have more than one, of course…right?) will lead you to still more bargains.

Meanwhile, how do you handle all that heat and humidity? Stay in the shade. Stay by the water, be it Lake Pontchartrain or the Mississippi River. Dress in cool, light colors.

And always keep some change handy for a big snowball, an ice-cold local soft drink — or an even colder hard one, like a frozen daiquiri.

You will survive, and your travel budget will thrive.

And as long as you’re there, you might as well check one of these daytrips, courtesy of CheapoAir.

PLANES v. TRAINS
A travel story in USA Today compares air travel against train travel for comfort, the check-in process, luggage and food.

The author tries to make it sound like it’s a contest. Those of you who’ve traveled on both already know:

It isn’t. It just isn’t.

At this point, the only thing the airlines really have going for them is speed over long distance — and the fact that American trains are literally a half-century behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to speed.

For anything short of a transcontinental trip, trains are easier, more convenient, more comfortable — and you don’t feel as if you’ve been abused with fuel surcharges and other add-on fees.

Train stations are even easier to use, more fun and classier than most airports. Often, they’re more beautiful than airports, as this BBC Travel slideshow suggests.

And you can enjoy the best ones, like New York’s Grand Central Terminal or Washington DC’s Union Station, without even taking a trip.

Trains v. planes? It’s not even close.

PASS/NO-PASS
And speaking of trains, Europe’s advanced network of high-speed trains and frequent local trains make getting around the continent almost sinfully easy.

Sooner or later, however, one question always comes up when you’re planning a European rail vacation:

“Should I get the Eurailpass or just buy point-to-point tickets for each leg of the trip?”

I’ve struggled with this more than a few times myself, believe me. The closest I could come to a definitive answer is: It depends on your budget and your itinerary.

Which basically is that the folks at Lonely Planet tell you. Only in much more clarity and detail, and with all your options neatly broken down.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from CNN
TSA fires 28 employees in Hawaii for failing to screen luggage for explosives. Let’s see: They’ll feel up women and search babies in their diapers, but can’t be bothered checking the BAGS? Oh, okay…

from CheapoAir
Meanwhle, TSA creates the first express security line in Pittsburgh’s airport.

LAND
from Frommers
Great locales for cooking vacations or to attend cooking schools, SLIDESHOW For my own take on the whole cooking travel thing, click here.

from Good Transportation
Three brothers are walking the route of California’s proposed high-speed passenger rail, from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

from Gadling
Your hotel safe may not be all that safe.

from Mallory on Travel
Travel insurance, yes or no? Iain Mallory breaks it down.

from The Urbane Urbanite
How to wine and dine during a power outage. If you live in hurricane country, tornado country — or anywhere within range of an Arizona electrical worker doing maintenance — you need this info!

SEA
from USA Today
How to pick your perfect cruise.

from Travel+Leisure
Are you one of those folks who turns up their nose at the mention of traveling on a ferry? This list will show you why you shouldn’t. SLIDESHOW

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AFRICA
from The New Vision (Uganda) via allAfrica.com
Northern Uganda ready to replace armies of insurgents with armies of tourists.

from the Maghreb Arabe Presse (Morocco) via allAfrica.com
Morocco is emerging as a medical tourism destination for Europeans.

from​ The Independent (Rwanda) via allAfrica.com
Another sign of Rwanda’s emergence as a serious travel destination: Marriott is building a 254-room, $55 million hotel in the capital city of Kigali.

from the ​Daily Nation (Kenya) via allAfrica.com
Fore…Africa! Plans announced to build a five-star hotel in Kenya’s capital city, Mombasa. The motivation: to encourage the growth of golf tourism in the country.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from the Matador Network
Nine — count ‘em — cool and safe places to visit in Mexico.

from the Wall Street Journal via Zagat
Attention, foodies: Peruvian cuisine looks like it just might be the NBT — the Next Big Thing. Next stop, Lima? Road trip!

from the ​New York Times
Suriname — the most captivating South American destination you never heard of.

from the New York Times
The NYT’s Michelle Higgins says the folks who treat Quito, the capital of Ecuador, as just a jumping off point for the Galapagos Islands are missing something worthwhile.

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ASIA/PACIFIC
from Canada’s Adventure Couple
Cool things to do in Malaysian Borneo.

from Lonely Planet
A tour of China — one tastebud at a time. SLIDESHOW

from Velvet Escape
World traveler Keith Jenkins examines the other Thailand, the one all the tourist hordes haven’t ruined yet. Large. Poor. Beautiful. Endearing. Welcome to Isaan.

from The Guardian
Broome, western Australia. Once, this was where you came to find pearls. Now, Broome is the pearl. The part of the story that deals with Australia’s aborigines, as usual, is anything but pretty.

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EUROPE
​from The Daily Mail (London UK)
London hotels have the worst reputation in Europe? There’s a British-based travel site that says yes. Jolly good…NOT!
​

from Bonjour Paris
The only thing I like more than farmers markets are farmers markets in Paris, and the 7th arrondissement has one of the best. Even if you don’t have access to a kitchen, it’s worth a visit.

from eTurbo News
Portugal is making a comeback as a European travel destination.

from eurotrips
A list of secret spots in Paris, compiled by a small group of former Parisians and mapped.

AIRLINES: Know your alliance, Part 1

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FIRST OF TWO PARTS

© Eric Broder Van Dyke | Dreamstime.com

When it comes to international flights, the alliance to which your airline belongs may soon matter more than the airline itself — if it doesn’t already.

Quietly and gradually, the world of airlines may be turning upside down before our eyes. That point was driven home to me recently when I got a glimpse of a jumbo jet taxiing out to take off from London’s Heathrow airport.

The name “oneworld” was painted on the sides in big, bold letters that took up almost half the fuselage.

“Oneworld Airlines? Who are those guys?” you ask. “Never heard of ‘em!”

And for good reason: No such airline exists.

Oneworld is an airline alliance. The jet actually belonged to British Airways, whose name also was painted on the side of the plane — but much smaller.

© photo360 | Dreamstime.com

Nor is it just oneworld doing this.

Look above at that United Air Lines Boeing 747 in San Francisco. You have to look twice, maybe three times, to tell that it even belongs to United.

You have no such problem discerning that it’s a member of Star Alliance, do you? Even that big logo on the tail is representing the alliance, not the airline.

A QUESTION OF IDENTITY
These companies have worked very hard for a long time to burn their brand identities into the minds of us consumers and keep them there. Fly the friendly skies. The ONLY way to fly. Hot pants on stewardesses. Singapore Girl. Painting a Boeing 737 to look like Shamu. Ding!

So when you see these same airlines visually suppressing their own identities — on their own airplanes — to hype the alliance to which they belong, you have to wonder, what’s going on here?

Airline alliances, groups of different airlines that share routes, bookings and frequent-flier mileage programs, have been with us since the late 1990s. In addition to Star Alliance and oneworld, the third of the major alliances is called SkyTeam.

Up to now, they’ve largely been out of sight and out of mind where the air passenger is concerned. Clearly, somebody wants to change that.

And just as well.

This gang of three alliances doesn’t own a single airplane, doesn’t employ a single pilot, flight attendant or mechanic. But between them, they fly more than 1.4 billion passengers a year to nearly 3,000 destinations, which translates to more than three-quarters of all the airline traffic in the world.

They even have their own Web sites on which you can plan trips and book flights online to any region on the planet.

WHO’S CALLING THE SHOTS?
These alliances actually sound a bit sinister in some respects, like an attempt by the big airline corporations to get around government rules that limit mergers and block the creation of monopolies.

“They either add a lot more convenience or they inhibit competition,” says Henry Harteveldt, the travel industry analyst for Forrester Research, an international market research firm in Cambridge, MA.

“From my perspective, they do both.”

So is the alliance tail is starting to wag the airline dog?

Mr. Harteveldt doesn’t think so:

“When you’re buying a ticket, you’re buying it from an airline and not an alliance. This is just a way to increase traveler awareness of the alliance. Frankly, it gets the airline geeks excited because they’ll take pics of the livery. The airlines are all very proud and also very different.

“The airlines involved will never ever, as some have hypothesized, put their identity in a secondary role to an alliance. The pride (of the individual airlines) is too great and the confusion would be too large.”

I take a slightly different view. Mr. Harteveldt is probably right when he says the alliances may not hold sway over the individual airlines — for now. But it may not stay that way.

The combination of economic pressures and the eternal desires of corporations to get around government antitrust rules could change that, and sooner than anyone expects.

But what does any of this have to do with your, the airline consumer? If you do all your flying within the United States, probably not a lot. If you fly internationally, however, it’s a very different story.

Bottom line: We need to be as careful in choosing our alliances as we are in choosing our airlines.

So how do you set about selecting one?

We’ll look at that next.

ALSO CHECK OUT:
Lounge or languish?
IBIT on The Cheap: AIRFARES, Part 2

AMTRAK: History rides the rails

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The past is not dead. It’s not even past. — William Faulkner, 1897-1962

History is not static. A nation’s past can move you, literally. For black Americans, a rail vacation can take you deep into your own heritage.

Earlier this spring, Amtrak trotted out a special exhibit in Philadelphia on The Great Migration, the movement of millions of black Americans out of the rural South to the industrial North.

It was meant to celebrate National Train Day, but the response was so great that Amtrak is bringing it back — first to Washington DC and later to Baltimore.

You can read all about the exhibit and how it came about in the Washington Post story here.

The exhibit’s a fine idea — as far as it goes — but it doesn’t actually go anywhere.

With a little bit of planning, however, this is one piece of black American history that can literally take you places.

America’s Great Migration of African-Americans came basically in two waves. The first took place between 1910 and 1930. The second began with World War 2 and didn’t end until about 1970.

My own family was involved in both, and as a kid, I experienced the second one myself.

In the first one, my ancestors, including some ex-slaves, left the farms of Mississippi for urban New Orleans.

When American industry began gearing up for World War 2, a good year of so before Pearl Harbor, millions of working-age black men saw their chance and went for it, traveling both north and west.

That’s how my Uncle Curly ended up in Oakland, CA, taking the old Key System trains across the Bay Bridge to work in the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco.

Two decades later, he’d join the crew that built the Oakland Coliseum.

In the 1950s, my mother followed Uncle Curly to Oakland, and brought me with her. By train.

It couldn’t have been easy to leave everyone and everything that you knew, even if what you knew wasn’t all that great, and move across a continent with little more than hope and a willingness to work your butt off.

That took more “heart” than your typical gangsta rapper knows anything about.

It also took something currently in short supply in this country — a stubborn optimism and abiding faith that no matter what, you could still better your life.

Today, you can retrace those journeys via three different Amtrak trains — all of which, coincidentally, originate in New Orleans.

One is the Crescent, which swings north and east from New Orleans to New York. The second is the Spirit of New Orleans, celebrated in song by Arlo Guthrie, that follows the Mississippi River north from the “Crescent City” to Chicago.

Last but not least is the Sunset Limited, which runs west from New Orleans to Los Angeles.

(My family’s migration path required a fourth train, the Coast Starlight, from LA to Oakland.)

I can’t tell you much about my trip on the City of New Orleans to Chicago. I pretty much slept through it.

What do you want from me; I was four years old.

Chicago looked and felt like science fiction. Never mind Carl Sandburg’s “big shoulders,” this was some kind of sprawling, hulking universe. An energetic, powerful, we-ain’t-playin’ kind of place. Even the amusement rides loomed over me.

The only things that seemed to come down to my level were the fireflies.

What kind of town was this, where even the insects were electrified? Did they plug into the wall during the day to recharge?

The Sunset Limited was next. This time, I was determined not to sleep.

Eventually, I did, of course, but I saw more than enough to get me hooked forever on travel.

Many years later, I finally followed the path of the Crescent through the Deep and Dirty South — Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, into DC.

I’d grown up with the Civil Rights movement. The televised images of the Freedom Riders and Selma were all burned into my mind. Cross burnings. Church bombings. Medgar Evers, Schwerner, Cheney and Goodman, Viola Liuzzo on one side of history. George Wallace, Lester Maddox and Bull Connor on the other.

A lot has changed for the better since those days. Not everything, but a lot. Still, a part of me felt as if I were riding through not just my ancestral home, but what once had been enemy territory.

You can still ride the routes of the Great Migration — from Bay St. Louis, MS to St. Louis, MO, from Camden, SC to Camden, NJ, and scores of other stops along the way.

You can see the places your ancestors came from, and arrive in their new worlds as they did. And you’ll arrive in better shape than many, because a lot if those original journeys weren’t on passenger trains. They were in freight cars.

Think about that as you ease your reclining seat back after returning from dinner and drinks in the dining car.

We tend to think of history as a textbook, a statue, a museum — static, silent, dead. That’s not history. That’s just our approach to it.

History lives, with lessons to teach and stories to tell. It lives in your very DNA, in the collective memories of your elders, in scrapbooks packed with yellowed newspaper clippings and fading photographs with smudged notes scribbled on the back.

And because Amtrak survives, it still rides the rails of these United States.

ADDENDUM
Look closer at that pic up there at the folks waiting in “Colored Waiting Room” in some American train station. Everybody “suited and booted,” men and women alike, dressed to the nines. Wonder what they’d think about today’s kids “sagging,” with their “pants on the ground” and their butts hanging out?

Accessible Africa, courtesy of Fly Brother

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An IBIT reader and brother in travel weighs in on getting to Africa, especially for those of “us” who live on the East Coast.

One of my fellow travelers goes by the nom de voyage of Fly Brother. He’s one of those young black Americans doing his best to dispel the notion that black men don’t travel.

When he saw my two-part series on African-Americans to Africa, it prompted him to make some suggestions of his own along those lines, including an illuminating graphic and which airlines, both US and foreign-based, can get you to which African cities.

It bears a good look, as does the rest of his blog.

Short form: He thinks it’s possible to do Africa comfortably in less than the ten days minimum that I advocated when leaving from the East Coast.

And you know what? He’s absolutely right.

Those of “us” here holding it down on the Pacific side still have to deal with that five-hour across the country before we can connect to an Africa-bound flight.

Your only shot at making your Africa connection flight from the West Coast is on a red-eye flight, and some West Coast airports (like San Diego) have noise restrictions that bar late-night takeoffs.

But if you’re starting out from New York or Philadelphia or Washington DC or Atlanta, however, you can make the hop in a matter of hours, so travel time really is not a factor.

Anyway, give him a look, and hopefully become a regular reader of his. You’ll find the brother, presuming he’s not airborne en route somewhere, at FlyBrother.com. You’ll also find him on Facebook and Twitter. Stop by and say hello.

If he’s in town, that is.

ALSO CHECK OUT
African-Americans and Africa, Part 1
African-Americans and Africa, Part 2

African-Americans to Africa, Part 2

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You don’t go to Africa because it’s easy. You go to Africa because it’s worth it. And now, you’ve decided: You’re going. Now what? SECOND OF TWO PARTS

Once you’ve made up your mind that you’re going to see Africa, all the other decisions become easier. And the first of those decisions is: Where to go.

A continent big enough to hold 54 sovereign nations is not going to be covered in one trip, or even several, so you need to narrow things down a bit. First, pick a region, then a destination within it.

Which one? That depends on what interests you.

Are you into African-American heritage, learning about the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its legacy? If so, West Africa probably would be your best bet.

Want to see wildlife found nowhere else on the planet? You may be more inclined to East or Central Africa, although southern Africa has its fair share, too.

Want a taste of Africa’s urban scene? Back to West Africa to Dakar, Senegal and Lagos, Nigeria, or all the way south to Capetown or Johannesburg, South Africa.

West Africa has another advantage, an international reputation for friendly people. A definite advantage for a newcomer to the Mother Continent.

If you’re interested in religious antiquity, North Africa may hold a lot of attraction for you. Given the state of black-Arab relations these days, that region wouldn’t be high on my own list, but that’s just me.

Once you’ve decided where you’re going, you next have to figure out how to get there.

From the East Coast of the United States, flying distances and times to Africa are a lot less than you might think, especially to West Africa. It takes about seven hours to fly to Dakar, the same as it does to Paris.

It’s from the West Coast that things gets ugly. First, there are no direct flights between West Coast airports and anywhere in Africa. None.

This means you have to fly across the United States — a five-hour flight — and then change planes, usually the following day. That means two days’ travel time, each way.

So if you’re in the habit of taking one-week vacations, you’ll need to reset your mindset when it comes to Africa. Figure on ten days, minimum. A full two weeks would be better, but no fewer than ten.

The next issue is cost. From the States, you can fly to the most distant city in Europe for less than you will pay to reach the nearest city in Africa. In some cases, the difference may be more than half.

Your best bet for saving money may be finding a travel agent or tour operator who specializes in Africa. They can put together a tour package that includes your airfare, as well as lodging, tours and whatever else.

This has the added advantage of hooking you up with an African travel specialist who can help ease your mind about visiting the Mother Continent — and also help you avoid potential pitfalls.

If you prefer doing your own trip planning, just know that getting to Africa may be time-consuming and definitely will be expensive.

Okay, fine. but what about after you get there? Finally, some really good news.

Unless you just insist on going five-star everywhere, food, lodging and local transportation can all range from reasonably priced to spectacularly cheap.

In the Gambia, for instance, you can find a modern one-bedroom vacation apartment with all the modern convenience and an easy walk to the beach for the equivalent of $85 a night. Eat and drink where the locals do, fix a few meals in your own kitchen, and you save tons of money. Taxis tend to be cheap, buses even cheaper.

Taken altogether, it makes Africa very affordable.

Even here, however, you need to budget your money as carefully as your time.

Africa may be home to some of the poorest countries on Earth, but its capitals are among the costliest cities on Earth. For the last two years, Luanda, the capital of Angola, has beat out New York, London and Tokyo for having the highest cost of living on the planet.

After that, it’s down to the details, just as it would be with any other vacation. Do you have a passport? Will you need a visa to enter the country? Will you need to pay an exit fee at the airport before you can leave?

Do you have the vaccinations you need for the region you’re visiting? Do you have malaria pills? Do the banks in the country you’re visiting accept your ATM card?

Two words: Travel insurance.

Things not to bring with you to Africa. One is too much luggage. Another is too much attitude. A third is any and all preconceptions.

The Mother Continent may have its challenges for the traveler, but it’s hardly the surface of Mars. Plot your path around the challenges and leave the fears in the airport jetway.

The rewards waiting for you at the other end will be worth it all.

ALSO CHECK OUT:
African-Americans to Africa, Part 1
AFRICA page

My London ‘hood

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South Kensington is more than just a pleasant neighborhood within easy reach of a lot of London attractions. It’s an ideal base for exploring and mastering the rest of London — and it’s been serving that role for decades.

Back in my old London neighborhood, South Kensington.

Cromwell Road. Gloucester Road. Collingham Road. Being on these streets again feels like reuniting with old friends. Each name brings back a memory, a smile.

The sidewalks bustle with people of every nationality. Travelers flow up and down the thoroughfares, towing wheeled suitcases bearing tags from the airlines of a dozen nations from Europe, Asia and Africa.

My friends Jay and Irene Berman introduced me to this neighborhood a decade ago. It’s what I call a “travel base,” one of those neighborhoods that ideally suited as a base of operations for the visitor.

South Kensington has served that role for tourists, business people and foreign students for decades, and it’s easy to see why.

It’s strategically located to the rest of the city. You can get subway trains of the London Underground to virtually anywhere from the Gloucester Road Tube station. It’s got everything you need within easy walking distance — restaurants, pubs, grocery stores, banks, post office, laundromat, Internet cafes, hardware stores.

There are some nice sites close by, as well — museums like the Victoria and Albert. Parks like Kensington Gardens and Green Park. Harrods, for those of you out there with the shopping gene.

Walk south for a few blocks and you’re at the Thames River.

But South Kensington has taught me to look not for touristy things, but for the things that give you what you need and want to make your trip a success.

In other words, the things that make you feel at home, when you’re not.

But they’re more likely to be older cities like London, built to a human scale, rather than a place like Los Angeles, which was built around the automobile. Easy access to good public transportation is one of the hallmarks of every good traveler’s hood.

There’s another factor in my choice of neighborhoods when I travel, and that’s lodging. Regular IBIT readers know I prefer apartments over hotels when I travel. Staying in apartments rather than hotels is more likely to put you in a real neighborhood like South Kensington than in a hyper-commercial downtown district.

It can cost a little more than a hotel per night, but apartment stays come with some benefits that save you money over the course of your stay. Having a kitchen to prepare your own meals, and a washer and dryer for your clothes saves you money on restaurant bills and baggage fees, not to mention making your luggage a lot lighter.

I’ve since learned that just every great metropolis has a neighborhood like this, and the truly gigantic cities in the world have more than one.

In New Orleans, for instance, there are neighborhoods along or near the St. Charles streetcar line that are just as functional as South Kensington, and have the added “perk” of being beautifully scenic, besides.

New York City has several of them, in each of its five boroughs, and you New Yorkers out there probably can and should tell the rest of us where they are. Ditto for Chicago, Atlanta and Washington DC.

Indeed, easy access to public transit is one of the hallmarks of a traveler’s ‘hood.

What would you look for in your ideal travel base? Have you ever found such a neighborhood yourself when you traveled — and if you have, where was it and what was it like?

Okay, off to the Imperial War Museum. I’ll add some pics to this entry once I’ve had a chance to shoot a little bit.

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

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE PAST
Have you ever stood in a place where history happened, history that touches you directly? If not, you owe it to yourself to do that at least once in your life.

When history touches you, it changes you.

I found that out on my second visit to Washington DC, the day I decided to take a walk down to the Washington Mall to see the Vietnam Memorial wall.

I got as far as the Lincoln Memorial.

There, I climbed the steps until I found the one where Martin Luther King Jr. had stood in 1963, the day he gave his immortal “I Have A Dream” speech.

I just stood there, transfixed. Seeing the same view he’d had across the great mall, feeling the impact of that day and those words, a seminal moment in our nation’s torturous — and as yet unfinished — trek toward equality.

The man who eventually left that step was not the same, and never would be again.

That spot has since been marked by the U.S. Park Service. It’s one of eight sites listed by the folks at Tripbase where famous people spoke to the world, and changed it.

The King speech places sixth on their list. Not surprisingly, it ranks a lot higher on mine.

MEET THE LOCALS
One of the biggest challenges for a traveler is to move beyond the tourism structure in the places you visit and get to meet and interact with residents — the regular, non-professional folks who give those places life. This is especially true when the place is outside the country and the culture that you call home.

So I’m always on the lookout for ways of doing that.

One of them is the Global Greeter Network. These are groups of volunteers in popular travel destinations whom you can hook up with for your own private walking tours, conducted from the perspective of a life-long resident who loves their city and delights in showing it off to visitors.

You can find walking tours in major cities all over the world, but those are usually for groups. With the Greeters, it’s just you and your guide for a very special hour or two.

The first of these I ever heard of was the Big Apple Greeters in New York City. The guide was an energetic, gray-haired retired teacher who could walk you out of your socks and make you love every step. It was one of the best days I ever spent in Manhattan.

In addition to New York, the network has greeters in Chicago and Houston. Even better, it has volunteers doing the walking tour thing in Paris and five other cities in France, two in the United Kingdom (alas, not London), as well as Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Russia, Serbia, Canada, two in Australia and Buenos Aires.

They even say they can find you a greeter in the Ivory Coast in West Africa. (This would be a great concept for other African nations to emulate to boost their own tourism. hint, hint)

Other programs are designed to let you break bread with friendly residents, literally. Eat With A Local is designed as a kind of cooking exchange. You agree to fix a home-cooked meal for a visitor traveling in your area, and in return, you can get together with an EWL member on your vacation for a meal and a get-together away from home.

“If you’d like to get involved, but you can’t host people for some reason, you can always offer to meet up and go out for a meal together instead!” EWL says.

It’s all part of a quietly growing Local Travel Movement, aimed at “getting in touch with the local people, seeing a place like a local!”

Works for me.



And now, here’s this week’s Digest:

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AIR
from USA Today
The competition between Airbus and Boeing at the Paris Air Show helps determine what the airlines will be flying over the next decade. And as this year’s show wraps up today, the word is that Airbus kicked Boeing’s tail assembly.

from the New York Times
Tips on how to make your own great airline food from some folks who ought to know: professional chefs.

LAND
from GotSaga
If crowds give you the creeps, these are five places to scratch off your list of travel destinations. Four are in Asia, and the fifth has the added disincentive of being a periodic conflict zone.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Exploring canal-laced, table-flat Amsterdam by bike. Your choice of three specialized routes geared to three very different sets of tastes.

SEA
from USA Today
U.S. health inspectors from the CDC board the Queen Mary 2, one of the world’s newest and priciest ocean liners, and find dozens of health violations, including roaches in areas where food is prepared? Oh, HELL no!

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AFRICA
from allAfrica.com
The good news: The nations comprising the East African Community are setting up a system to allow travelers to visit all EAC-member countries on a single visa. The bad news: Some EAC countries are moving on this faster than others.

from allAfrica.com
Kenya plans to add five world-class international hotels within the next two years.

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AMERICAS/CARIBBEAN
from Travel + Leisure
The T+L folks evidently like starting arguments. Exhibit A: Their list of the 15 best American cities for beer lovers. Who’s number One? Portland, OR. Who’s at the bottom? Just about every traditional American beer town you can think of. Let the foaming begin!

from IncaRail
A train trip to Machu Picchu? Sign me up!

from the New York Times
And speaking of Machu Picchu, there’s more than one way to climb to the top. And naturally, it may be the hard way that’s the most rewarding.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Speaking of booze, if a summer tour of the Northern California wine country sounds appealing, but the blazing heat is threatening to peel your skin off, seek shelter underground…in a wine cave. Less sunblock, more Zinfandel. Sounds like a plan to me.

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ASIA/PACIFIC
from the Los Angeles Times
A $215-million theme park devote to Hello Kitty is in the works for Shanghai, China.

from the San Francisco Chronicle
Mention Azerbaijan to most Americans and the first word likely to come to their minds is…”HUH?” But this former Soviet republic wedged between Russia and Iran is mixing the old and the new with a diverse culture and a great location on the Caspian Sea. SLIDESHOW

from the New York Times
Going to Beijing? Already there? Want to find the restaurants in China’s massive capital where they’re doing regional Chinese cuisine and “keeping it real?” The NYT’s Xiyun Yang will hook you up.

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EUROPE
from the New York Times
Not many world capitals can boast a UN World Heritage Site two hours out of town. Lisbon can: the city of Évora.

from The Guardian (London UK)
Matt Brown offers up his nominees for the ten best pubs in London. This one may require considerable in-depth research. Yep, definitely. Considerable…

from the BBC
Dover Castle is not just about ancient British history. It also was the command center where the British ran the evacuation of Dunkirk, which saved 380,000 British and French soldiers from Nazi capture (and God knows what else) in 1940. Now, you can see a new exhibit in the underground passages beneath the castle that re-creates those desperate days.