International Travel Is a Laughing Matter...

...in the eyes of a clever cartoonist

My friend and travel writer colleague Reed Glenn sent me the link to the New York Times' "Abstract City" and Christoph Niemann's "Red Eye," a spot-on pen-and-ink commentary on long-haul flights.I laughed till I cried as I was scrolling through the whole thing, so you might want to grab a tissue before you look at the whole thing. It gets better page by page. I may be walking a copyright tightrope by posting the opening page of his commentary here, but I'm treating it as if it were a short excerpt used as a quote from a longer article.

Beguiling Shenandoah Valley Loop Drive

A spring drive through a historic American landscape

Scenic drives were part of my childhood vacations in New England, because my parents' generation, with World War II gas rationing etched into their memories, liked to get into the car and go. Similarly, my first husband was fond of to driving around and sightsee through the car window too.

In my present Colorado life, when my husband and I drive somewhere, it is to do something, not as an end unto itself.

I am visiting cousins in Maryland. She is ill, weak and has serious mobility issues, so as a treat, we took a drive southwestward into the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. And it was a treat for us all. As we left the metro area, we passed blooming beds of roadside daffodils. In the valley, we drove through quaint and charming old towns, past places where Stonewall Jackson's Confederate troops trumped Union soldiers, past historic markers, across the gap where George Washington planned to make his last stand if his Revolutionary army couldn't stand up to the Redcoats, past farms, along the meandering Shenandoah River close to vineyards in this increasingly prominent wine area and through woods where trees were budding and, in some cases blossoming. All this in warm sunshine even as Colorado was blanketed in an impressive (and impressively wet) spring storm.

My cousin's husband, a history buff, narrated interesting facts about Revolutionary and Civil War strategy and battle tactics that took place right there. The stories came to life when the sites were right there. The old buildings -- older than anything in Colorado -- were lovely. The mountains have a gentle roundness but are actually rugged and were more so to 18th and 19th century soldiers. The history is interesting to listen to but frankly more than I am willing to delve into. But beyond

everything touristic and historic, I treasured the opportunity to share this day with cousins whom I care about deeply.

I forgot my camera at home, so I'm grateful that the Shenandoah Valley Web folks have made these available to remind me of this precious day and to share them here.

US Passport Fees Set to Climb

If your passport needs to be renewed soon, if it needs extra pages for future travel or if you don't have  a passport but might need one (and now you do for neighboring Western Hemisphere nations), do whatever you need to before Tuesday, July 13. Post offices handle passport applications.

Passport Book

• New passport, adult, $135 (up from from $100).
• Renewal, $110 (up from $75). 
• Youth under 16,  $105 (up from $85).
• Extra pages, $82 (new fee). 

Passport Card

If you expect to travel only to Canada and/or Mexicom you can get a card instead of a book.

• Adult, $55 (up from $45).
• Youth, $40 (up from $35)

Reasons

  

No, the fee increases are not to help balance the budget. The US State Department says that passport fees cover the cost of actually producing the document but also but they also pay for emergency services provided to American citizens overseas by embassies and consular offices.

Travel on Sale; Flight Delays Drop

With fewer flights and fewer airline passengers, flight delays are down too -- but not by much

Anyone with the time and money to travel can reap the benefits of lower prices, frequent fare sales and discounts, discounts, discounts and, did I mention?, discounts. This reduction in both passengers and scheduled flights meant fewer airline delays in 2008 than in '07, according to a new report by George Mason University's Center for Air Transportation Systems Research. Academic types have gathered data to tell frequent flyers what we already know: air travel might be getting cheaper, but in many respects, the experience still, well, sucks.

The center calculated that airline passengers experienced delays totaling 299 million hours (34,000 years!) in 2008, which roughly translates to an annual cost of $8.2 billion in lost productivity. If the center had also quantified the impact of slow-moving security lines and slow-arriving baggage, the lost productivity numbers would be even higher.

“While passenger trip delay numbers are improved, the structural issues with the air transportation system remain,” said Lance Sherry, an associate professor at George Mason University and author of the report. “The reduction of flights should have taken some pressure off of the system. This did not happen."

According to Sherry, the average delay was down only two minutes for an average delay of 29 minutes. Twenty-nine or 31 minutes on anybody's watch is a half-hour delay. "Disruptions" seem to be worse than mere "delays." Dishearteningly for anyone heading for the airport, for the last two years, one-quarter of passengers experienced a travel disruption. In 2008 disruptions averaged "only" 108 minutes; in 2007, it was 112 minutes. The glimmer of good news is that this represents a 10 overall percent decrease in delays compared to 2007.

Contributing to the problems were that airlines reduced the number of flights by 6 percent and also switched to smaller, less expensive aircraft flying less frequently, according to Sherry. "The airlines cut the least profitable flights that operate at off-peak times of the day. Eliminating these flights did little to trim delays for the profitable flights that are still over scheduled in the peak hours at the major airports...Fewer flights were cancelled in 2008, but those passengers also had fewer rescheduling options because of the reduced frequency of flights and fully booked flights."

The fewest trip delays were experienced on Hawaiian Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Frontier Airlines, all with an average of 10 minutes or less. Passengers endured the most trip delays on American Airlines, with an average delay of 31 minutes.

For the third consecutive year, passengers experienced an average of trip delays of more than 30 minutes at New York's three airports: Newark, LaGuardia and JFK, and also at Chicago's O'Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth and Boston's Logan . Of the nation's busiest 35 airports the fewest delays were at Salt Lake City, Honolulu, Baltimore/Washington, Phoenix Sky Harbor and Chicago's Midway.

If you want to delve deep into the data, you can see the U.S. Airline Passenger Trip Delay Report online.

Thoughts About Travel Safety

Well-traveled American septuagenarian traveled to Iraq without incident

When I was heading for Egypt a few months ago, a number of people asked whether I was "afraid" or "nervous" about visiting the Middle East. My response was, "No." After I returned, people were happy that I had a "safe" trip. Several weeks later, when an explosion in Cairo rocked a popular tourist area, the questions and expressions of relief that my trip was uneventful continued. Click here for my post after I heard about the blast.

I would still return to Egypt in a heartbeat, and I am encouraged when other people aren't scared into staying home. Therefore, I was cheered to read "Travelers, Your Tour Bus for Basra is Boarding" in today's New York Times. Reporter Campbell Robertson wrote about 79-year-old Mary Rawlins Gilbert from Menlo Park California, who joined a 17-day group tour of Iraq by "mostly middle-aged and older, that has the honor of being on the first officially sanctioned tour of Westerners in Iraq since 2003 (outside of the much safer enclave of Kurdistan). The guide is Geoff Hann, 70, the owner of Hinterland Travel, a 'specialist adventure travel company' based in England." Hann is also the co-author of a guidebook called Iraq Then and Now and is presumably very knowledgeable and realistic about travel to this country. (Ignore that "Click to Look Inside," which came with the upload from amazon.com. You'll have to find the book there to preview it online.)

Robertson's report continued, "The trip has not been nearly as perilous as most expected. On Friday night — six years after the American invasion began — a white-haired British man and woman bought big bottles of cold Heineken in central Baghdad, walking home in the dark. The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, which helped arrange the tour, had provided armed guards for the trip, but Mr. Hann said they were too restrictive. So the group had driven around, in a minibus, with little or no security."

It seems as if Iraq might be taking a page from Egypt's tourism playbook by linking tourism and antiquities under one jurisdiction. Egypt's Tourism and Antiquities Police also guard the ancient sites and assigned an armed security officer to accompany every tourist bus. At many destinations, they were joined by a uniformed local police officer or two (right), and plainclothes security personnel seem to be everywhere too. I don't know whether this show of force is meant as reassurance to nervous travelers, as a deterrent or both, but I never felt a pang about being there.

Meanwhile, US and European shopping malls, convenience stores and even schools and universities have been the sites of all too many random, murderous rampages. Drug cartel violence has hit Mexican border towns hard, but Mexicans and not visitors have suffered, and the problems have not spread to popular tourist destinations or states to the south. Yet many people tend to be more fearful of violence in other countries, especially in the Middle East and now Mexico, than of our own shores.

Best US Cities for Vacationing on a Budget

Discount travel booking site announces its top 10 list

Top 10, top 20, top 100 and top whatever other number you want to pull out of a hat can be pretty tedious, but I'm somehow intrigued by a new one from Hotwire, the discount travel booking site. The Hotwire Travel Value Index lists the cities that offer the greatest values -- note that these aren't necessarily the cheapest but ones that provide good value.

Hotwire scored the cities 25 percent for air, hotel and car-rental discounts; 50 percent on low prices for air, hotel and rental cars, and 25 on overall appeal, affordable entertainment and choice of accommodations. I'm not sure how they came up with these parameters that seem partially redundant, but here's their list of the 10 cities that achieve these requirements (last year's ranking in parentheses, where applicable).

1. Orlando (3)
2. Atlanta (5)
3. Denver (4)
4. Dallas-Fort Worth (2)
5. Phoenix (1)
6. Houston
7. Los Angeles (6)
8. Tampa
9. Washington, DC (7)
10. Chicago

Images of Egypt: Upper Nile Valley Antiquities

Legendary temples and tombs draw hordes of visitors, scholars and archaeologists from around the globe

Egypt is a country of stone and sand, bisected by the green ribbon of the fertile Nile Valley. While the famous pyramids and the Great Sphinx are in Giza just outside of Cairo, the famous temples and tombs are hundreds of miles upstream along the river between Aswan and Luxor. Abu Simbel, south of the High Dam at Aswan, was rescued from obliteration under Nile Lake waters by UNESCO in the 1960s. Downstream from (that is, north of) the High Dam are numerous sites, including the incomparable Valley of the Kings near Luxor.

The history, legends, chronology of the kings and their dynasties, and other information are available elsewhere, so please just enjoy a sampling of images from my recent trip -- experiences I shared with thousands of other visitors from all over the world.

Abu Simbel

Kom Ombo near Aswan

Edfu Temple

Luxor Temple

Temple of Hatshepsut

Colossi of Memnon

The Valley of the Kings

Limited permission to photograph in the exquisitely painted tombs that are tunneled into mountains on the west side of the Nile; as elsewhere excavations are ongoing

Karnak Temple at Luxor

Farewell to the Upper Nile Valley

I Fought Jet Lag and the Jet Lag Won

Cairo to Colorado: nine time zones and an 11 1/2-hour flight just to reach New York

For the record, I rarely have serious jet lag flying eastbound across the Atlantic. It's always an overnight flight with a morning arrival on the other side, and whether it's a short or long flight, and I sleep well on airplanes (especially if I've had a bit of wine with dinner on board). More to the point, I'm excited to land someplace new or someplace I've been before and love. The adrenalin kicks in upon landing, I stay awake all day, go to sleep the first night and wake up my first full day wherever, more or less adjusted.

Westbound is another story entirely. Departure is during the day (usually late morning), arrival on the East Coast is sometime in the afternoon and, now that I live in Colorado, the day stretches even longer because I have another flight and two more time zones.

In the past I've tried:

• Melatonin - No significant effect on me.
• No Jet-Lag pills (right), an over-the-counter, homeopathic formulation that I buy at Changes in Latitude, a local travel store. It seemed to work a little better, but I forgot to get some this time.
• Flying from the US West Coast, which means for longer flights, which is even better for my body clock on the eastbound portion but makes the westbound trip even longer, because I have to backtrack one time zone.

I have not tried:

• Sleeping pills, mainly because on principle, I don't take sleeping pills on land, let alone in the air. I'd rather be tired than drugged.
• The anti-jet leg lag diet, because it's complicated and requires a multi-day regimen of meal manipulation.

This time, flying from the West Coast was not an option, because Egyptair only flies from New York. And I rejected melatonin, which I have at home, because it doesn't work all that well for me and besides, I recently read a post on Upgrade: Travel Better about a traveler who was jailed in Dubai for possession of of melatonin. Egypt and Dubai are not the same place, law-wise, but they might be on the same Moslem wave length. If it worked better for me, I might have put some in an aspirin bottle, but it doesn't, so I didn't.

My epic return journey from Cairo to Colorado on Tuesday, February 10, was as follows:

• 7:30 a.m.: Departure from hotel in Cairo.
• 8:00 a.m. +/-: Arrival at airport to stand in long line for baggage X-ray/metal detector just to get into the terminal. Once inside, long line to check bag and get boarding pass. Long line for X-ray of carry-ons and stroll through metal detector. Short line for Egyptian passport control. Wait for boarding.
• 10:15 a.m.: After a third X-ray/metal detector process that included TSA requirements (shoes off, laptop out of case, discard bottled water except that sealed and presented with a receipt from an airport shop) and another presentation of the boarding pass to an official stationed on the jetway, boarded the plane for the scheduled departure of Egyptair 985 from Cairo.
• 3:15 p.m. Eastern Time: Arrival at JFK International Airport. Mercifully short line for immigration, bag landed on the carousel fairly quickly, walk through customs and on to Delta terminal.
• 6:55 p.m. Eastern Time: Departure of Delta 167.
• 10:46 p.m. Mountain Time: Arrival in Denver, which meant that I got to the main terminal and baggage claim a few minutes after the 10:18/10:25 RTD bus left for Boulder. I toughed it out for the bus an hour later. As I walked toward the bus, whose door was open, my water bottle fell out of the side pocket out of my day pack, which I had over one shoulder. I bent over to retrieve the water bottle without smashing my laptop against the concrete, and when I stood up, the bus was pulling out.
• 11:35 p.m.: I gave up on RTD and took SuperShuttle, which dropped me off at my door an hour later.

My failed Wednesday, February 11, attempt at combating jet lag, which is the point of this post, involved waking up at 3:30 a.m. after less than four hours of sleep, staying up all day even if not hitting on all cylinders, attending a media event in Denver (I didn't drive and I didn't drink) and going to bed at 8:45 p.m., shortly after I got home. Result: Another short night (I woke up at about the same time on Thursday, February 12 but took three lengthy naps in the course of the day and evening. I woke up in the wee hours again today (Friday, February 13), but at least I've overcome my sleep debt, even if I'm not over jet lag yet.

I am trying to draw a conclusion or learn a lesson from this, but so far, I haven't succeeded. I do know that seeing Egypt's incomparable antiquities was worth the jet-lag misery. And at the end of the travel day, that's all that matters.

Egypt: On the Road

Views along the coastal road linking Cairo and Alexandria

I have no delusions that a tour bus ride on the 130 or so miles between Egypt's two largest city provides great insights, but it does offer snippets of life along Egypt's north coast. Here are some random images:

Just getting out of Cairo (population about 18 million and growing fast) takes some time -- little wonder with crowded roads (below):

In a country fabled for antiquity, the capital is growing, growing and growing, as evidenced by the buildings under construction in the distant outskirts (below), some legally built and others illegally erected on designated agricultural land:

Surprisingly mixed in among the buildings are farm fields (below) that are still being worked by hand:

As our bus passed a moving open-bed truck, I was able to snap this picture of a barefoot man (below) squatting atop a load of bundled brochures. A guy doesn't need a seatbelt when he's not on a seat:

Fanciful Euro-Ottoman-inspired wedding cake building (below) on the outskirts of Cairo:

Large and small mosques dot the route. All are topped with a dome, and some (like the one below) have one minaret, others two, occasionally three:

Housing construction is making a sprawling city even 'sprawlinger" -- and Western-style real estate sales are taking hold (three images below):

The farther we rolled on from Cairo, the more pick-up trucks we saw (two images below) -- loaded with cargo, fruit, people, whatever. I saw one with washing machine, one with a cow and a calf, and one with a motorcycle. Chevrolet trucks are surprisingly common, even though Toyotas, Hyundais and Hondas seem to prevail in the car category:

The round-topped towers below are not Angkor Wat wannabes but pigeon houses:

At the Master rest stop (below)...

...there stilll is service, includng hand car wash (below):

There's a lot of roadside junk (below): crumbling buildings, broken-down cars, small businesses, stacks of tires and litter, lots of litter:

The eastern reaches of Alexandria display that city's first fanciful buildings, like the one below signal the approach into Egypt's second (and most European) city:

Arizona Travel Boycott Gains Momentum

Associations and municipalities pull meetings in Arizona; some individuals simply won't go

Municipal employees in Boulder, a very liberal place that has been described as a city with its own foreign policy, will not be traveling to Arizona on city business in the wake of stringent regulations seeking to identify and detain illegal immigrants. Specifically, it is now a state crime to be in Arizona illegally and requires police and other law-enforcement agents to check documents of people they "reasonably" suspect to be illegal. Those opposed to this law, which requires local law enforcement agencies essentially to act as an adjunct of the federal government and stop individuals with or without additional cause (like a traffic violation), with a demand to produce papers has all the signs of racial profiling.  Mexican citizens have been cautioned against visiting Arizona, and a number groups have begun pulling meetings out of the state.

Arizona has suffered self-inflicted tourism wounds before. It reportedly lost some 170 conventions and the Super Bowl in the early 1990s from boycotts because it refused to approve the Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday holiday. Overlapping that boycott was one against Colorado, after state voters approved a confusing, anti-gay constitutional amendment that was never put into effect but that earned it the nickname, "The Hate State." It seems as if Arizona is poised to take that mantle, with social media calls to avoid Arizona going viral. The Arizona hotel industry trade organization has launched its own defense Facebook page.

In addition to the Boulder City Council vote to boycott Arizona, Boston, San Francisco and Oakland have done so. An immigration lawyers convention has pulled out of Scottsdale, ABC reported that the law, if not repealed, could cost Phoenix the 2011 All-Star Game. The 2009 All-Star Game brought on the order of $60 million. It is estimated that up to 40 percent of Major League Baseball players at all levels (including Minor League and farm organizations) are Latino. Some interviewed on camera say the law does not disturb them, but some of them might well come from countries with random police stops and a requirement to carry a nation identity card.

While some entities and individuals are avoiding Arizona while this law is on the books, others predictably think it's a damn good thing, by God! A USA Today online  poll currently shows that two-thirds of the respondents clicked on "I'm more excited than ever to visit the state." The remaining third split their clicks among four other opinions.


Repressive policy. Support from some. Anger from others. Backlash and reverse-backlash. Defensive actions. Posturing politicians. Innocent people (low-wage hospitality workers in particular) caught in the cross-fire. Business as usual.

A Tip for More Than a Tip for the Hotel Housekeeper

When you want to leave something besides cash for the hotel housekeeper, a simple step will keep her from getting into trouble

I just returned from a Society of American Travel Writers Western Chapter meeting in Mazatlan. In addition to printed material, our kind hosts presented us with gifts. Mine included a plastic briefcase, two T-shirts, three baseball caps, a zip-up rain jacket of a material like a lightweight Tyvek, a Nalgene water bottle, a mouse pad with three USB ports, several pens and probably some other schwag that I can't remember.

I will need the press materials and brochures that I gathered, and I already had filled much of the space in my one piece of luggage with Tarahumara baskets and other handicrafts. Sometimes at such meetings, there is a place in the press room where gifts we are unable to use can be returned to the hosts, but this time, there wasn't even a press room. My inclination would be to leave the stuff I couldn't take home for the housekeeper -- along with a gratuity, of course.

My well-traveled colleague Bob Bone suggested that when we do that, we also leave a signed and dated note with the giveaway material, specifying that perhaps the housekeeper or her children might be able to use it. He said that without such a note, a housekeeper might get into trouble if her supervisor sees her leaving with goods. Good point, and I did that.

Sometimes we take clothing or footwear with us for one last wearing before we plan to discard it. Doing this, especially in a developing country, can benefit someone down the line -- but not at the cost of getting the recipient into trouble.

Thanks, Bob, for the excellent suggestion.

Carry-Ons in the Overhead? Spirit Charges $45

Nudist resorts jump on this lousy new policy to promote the "Nakation" concept

Spirit Airlines has positioned itself as a low-fare airline, further dangling the carrot of attractive MasterCard benefits in front of passengers. But now they've added a cruel new stick, if you'll excuse the scrambled metaphor, by charging $45 (yes, forty-five dollars) for each carry-on that goes into the overhead bin, beginning August 1. What a wretched idea, paying $90 roundtrip for luggage that passengers themselves handle  -- one that I hope doesn't catch on.

Miami is their hub, and they fly to/from several other South Florida airports too. From/to points north, flights serve Atlanta, Atlantic City, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angles, Myrtle Beach New York (LGA), To the south, they fly to/from a bunch of Caribbean islands, Cancun in Mexico, several Central American cities, Columbia and even Lima, Peru.

Arthur Frommer, who has been helping travelers save money since he wrote "Europe on $5 A Day" decades ago, too Spirit to task for this terrible policy. In a blog post, he noted, "According to USA Today, Spirit receives three times the number of complaints made each year about the much larger Southwest Airlines. Its policies of customer service (or lack of it) have been widely discussed and condemned.[Then he wrote about the $45 bag fee]...Since Spirit also charges for suitcases checked aboard such a flight (it was the first airline to do so), a passenger can avoid such expense only by traveling without any luggage at all. It's hard to imagine a more inflammatory action."

"Nakationers" Save Luggage Fees

I have to hand it to the American Association of Nude Recreation for responding quickly to Spirit's new baggage-on fees by pointing out that, "Traveling with luggage is an ever-increasing inconvenience and expense - even if you don’t check your bag." The association points out that for a "Nakation" – a vacation in one of its 250 members -- the all of the necessities for a week (sunscreen, cap, sunglasses, shoes and toiletries) can go in a small carry-on that will fit under the seat, avoiding even Spirit's crappy carry-on bag fees. To avoid one last hassles involving security screening, don't bring one large sunscreen but rather two or three that are 3 ounces or less, Put them in a one-quart, clear plastic zip bag along with such optional toiletries as deodorant (well, maybe that should be optional), lip balm, contact lens solution, etc.

I've often joked (not within any official's earshot) that if the Transporation Security Agency screening becomes any more intrusive, we'll all have to go through the checkpoints butt-nekkid. Call it a pre-Nakation.

State Department Warnings: What's in a Name?

Decoding US government warnings to international travelers from the US

Unrest and violence cause travelers -- especially Americans -- to reconsider international travel plans. Ten percent more Americans visited India in 2007 than in 2006, but with the recent terrorist attacks in Mombai (aka, Bombay) in which six Americans were among the 170 people killed, that number is likely to drop. Ditto travel to Greece, which welcomed 12 percent more international visitors in '07 than in '06 but has recently been plagued by riots in Athens, the capital, and concurrent strikes by workers at the Acropolis and other popular tourist sites.

Violence, of course, is volatile, and the US State Department doesn't always get it right. There were periods when visitors shunned London (Irish Republican Army attacks), central Europe (in the era of Germany's Bader-Meinhoff faction and other far-left terrorist groups) and parts of Spain (Basque separatist violence), as well as countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America when when wars, political unrest, assorted insurgencies and government policies made them unwelcoming. Consider that under Augusto Pinochet, Chile was not a desirable or safe tourist destination, now it is, while up north, not too many Americans visit Venezuela under Hugo Chavez or neighboring Colombia with its drug cartel-related violence. And US citizens have been forbidden or discouraged from visiting Cuba for nearly half-a-century, yet those who have visited report Cubans to be warm and welcoming -- and their visits to be incident-free.

The US State Department updates and issues travel advisories ranging from subtle warnings to outright recommendations to stay away from certain nations. When deciding on your risk-tolerance in light of these advisories, consider that the US government has also been telling air travelers in this country that the threat level is at "orange" just about since the color coding system was unveiled in 2002. That annoying Department of Homeland Security recording has played so incessantly since then that it has become just so much airport background noise -- and I don't think too many travelers pay much attention.

So it is with some skepticism that I share the State Department's definition of its country-specific evaluations for Americans contemplating travel abroad. These are updated on the department's website. Country-by-country evaluations are useful because they are not as simplistic as the "Department of Homeland Security's terror alert is orange" that we hear at airports.

• Travel Advisory - This is the general category of perceived threats that could affect Americans traveling to specific regions, countries or cities.
• Travel Alert - A threat that the State Department believes is of relatively short-term duration, including upcoming elections, hurricane or typhoon threat or other short-term situation.
• Travel Warning - Chronic violence, including such obvious destinations as Afghanistan and Iraq, where the situation so inflammatory and "potentially dangerous for Americans that we want them to know about that," Michelle Bernier-Toth, director of the Office of American Citizens Services and Crisis Management, recently told Gannett News Services. Well, duh!

Bernier-Toth also explained that assessing situations is a "very collaborative process between our embassy and consulate, between various bureaus and offices within the department. . . Sometimes we tell people to consider the risk of traveling, sometimes we say you should defer nonessential travel or all but essential travel and sometimes we just recommend you don't go. The best way to figure out what kind of danger you're facing is to read the specifics of the alert."

I am scheduled to visit Egypt with the Society of American Travel Writers in February, and have read the State Department's assessment, I'm willing to accept the risk

Free Entrance to National Parks, April 17-25

The National Park Service is waiving entrance fees to the nation's 392 national parks during National Park Week, April 17-25. In addition, many national park concessioners are offering special promotions during that week. Go to the park system's website, find your nearest national park and check on specifics. Thanks to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and others for this springtime gift to the public.

British Airways Cabin Crew Stages Three-Day Strike

If you're flying British Airways in the next couple of days, be prepared for chaos, and even if you're flying another carrier on BA-served routes or airport, it might not be much better.So far, the airline has reportedly canceled more than 1,000 flights out of the nearly 2,000 scheduled during the strike period that began earlier today. There is also a possibility of an additional four-day strike beginning on March 27. This might mean a protracted period of flight cancellations, delays and crowded terminals and aircraft that could extend to the busy pre-Easter travel time.

The union workers are striking against cost-cutting changes to working conditions that the union says result in a "second-tier workforce on poorer pay and conditions." BA plans to keep "at least 60 percent of passengers flying," with planes crewed by people who are not striking (whoever they might be) and also leasing, 22 crewed planes from as many as eight other European airlines.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the strike "a disaster," and not to get too much into British  politics here, members of the Conservative party believe that the Labour prime minister himself is a disaster. Meanwhile, the phrase "second-tier workforce" might be code for contract workers rather than BA employees. This has already happened in the US. I have checked in for international flights at New York's JFK at counters staffed by airline service contractors, and James Van Dellen, who blogs as Future Gringo, recently posted a report called "Airserv: Does My Shirt Say United?" on just how negatively contractors can impact on the travel experience. Bottom line, IMHO, is that every time airlines seek to cut costs, the passenger pays in one way or another, whether it's via add-on fees or the quality of traveling.

Oddball Tours Highlight 2010 "Obscura Day"

Quirky "holiday" spotlights off-the-radar local attractions

Obscura Day is a day for special tours and visits to places around the corner, around the country or around the world that you might never even have heard of, and it falls on Saturday, March 20, this year. It was organized by the folks behind Atlas Obscura, which describes itself as "a compendium of of the world's wonders, curiosities and esoterica." It's a bit like Ripley's Believe It or Not meets the Guinness World Records meets Wikipedia. Oddities around the world are posted, and site visitors are encouraged to enhance, correct or illustrate the posting with additional images.

But back to Obscura Day. Twenty-five places in the US and 29 in other countries are offering special tours to unusual places. The tours and visits tend to be cheap or free, and space is often limited, but they are places most people are likely to miss. In fact, some are sold out and have waiting lists. There are a lot of skeletons and such, including The Bone Room in Berkeley, National Museum of Health and Medicine's collection of medical specimens dating back to the Civil War  in Washington, D.C.; and the Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. There are the mysterious stone ruins of Gungywamp Hill near Groton in my native Connecticut, and there are eerie streets of never-built housing developments, such as Everglades Unit 11 near West Palm Beach, now teeming with wildlife species, and California City, 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles with streets in the desert that resemble the Nazca Lines from the air.

And there are just plain  (OK, not plain) curiosities. They include the world's tallest treehouse in Crossville, Tennessee, the wild, whimsical Cathedral of Junk in Austin, Texas, the Newnes Glow Worm Tunnel in Australia; the Iceland Phallological Museum boasting "probably the only museum in the world to contain a collection of phallic specimens belonging to all the various types of mammal found in a single country." Probably?!?!.

Thanks to Harriet Baskas, travel journalist and Stuck at the Airport blogger, for alerting me to this, well, obscure holiday.

Luxury No Longer Means Security

Upscale hotels in unstable places and luxury cruise ships at sea are obvious targets for attacks
There isn't a day that goes by without press releases appearing in my inbox about yet another luxurious, deluxe, multi-star hotel or resort in some picturesque and/or exotic place. The recent attacks in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, were just the latest high-profile targets that appeal to first-world travelers to developing nations. Reporter Keith Bradsher's New York Times feature called "Analysts Say It Will Be Difficult to Shield Luxury Hotels From Terrorist Attacks" began:

"For decades, luxury hotels have been oases for travelers in developing
countries, places to mingle with the local elite, enjoy a lavish meal or a dip
in the pool and sleep in a clean, safe room. But last week’s lethal attacks
on two of India’s most famous hotels — coming just two months after a huge truck
bomb devastated the Marriott in Islamabad, Pakistan — have underlined the extent
to which these hotels are becoming magnets for terrorists."

Left to my own devices, I'm more of a three-star traveler (OK, maybe four-star in third-world nations) than a five-star traveler. However, when I attend a Society of American Travel Writers convention or am on other tourism-related assignment or trip, I do find myself in unaccustomed luxury. A small part of me enjoys being treated like visiting nobility, but mostly, I am embarrassed by the ritzy glitz in places where so many people have so little. I know that tourism brings jobs (including jobs as security guards) and money into developing countries, but still, such opulence and extravagance are clearly an affront to many. When clashing political ideology or religious zeal are added to the volatile socio-economic mix, the result in these mean times is predictable violence. People die, property is destroyed and another door to international understanding and peace on the planet is slammed shut.

The Times piece discussed security precautions that hotels are taking, which should be of interest and some comfort to travelers heading for potentially dangerous places. Meanwhile, CNN reported that the 'Nautica,' an Oceania Cruises ship (left) en route from Rome to Singapore, outran pirates off the coast of Yemen over the weekend while in an area patrolled by anti-piracy craft. The cargo ships and oil tanker that have recently been seized by pirates were off the coast of Somalia. Smaller private yachts have also been seized.

"The 'Nautica' was in an area patrolled by international anti-piracy task forces when two small skiffs appeared to try to intercept it, Oceania spokesman Tim Rubacky said. The ship took evasive maneuvers and accelerated to its full speed of 23 knots or 27 mph. One of the smaller craft closed to within 300 yards and fired eight rifle shots at the cruise ship, he said, but the ship was able to pull away. . .'The 'Nautica' escaped without damage or injury to its 684 passengers and 400 crew, and arrived safely on schedule in Salalah, Oman early on Monday morning,' Rubacky said."

As disturbing as these reports are, personally, I don't want to stop traveling because "something" might happen. Last June, I visited Oklahoma City, the mid-America capital of Oklahoma where Timothy McVeigh, a US Army veteran and security guard, masterminded the massive explosion that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 2000. Also that month, my car was broadsided by a speeding motorcyclist on a rural highway in western Colorado. I just hope, in the interest of global sanity, that the attacks will stop and efforts to build a more peaceful, more tolerant world will recommence.

Slides -- Snow, Then Rocks -- Wreak Havoc on Colorado Roads

Traffic from the Front Range to and from Aspen and Utah forced to take long detour

An avalanche on Friday night caused the closure of U.S. 40 over Berthoud Pass. The snow was cleared off the road by Saturday morning, so it was business as usual for skiers and riders heading for Winter Park. A rockslide in Glenwood Canyon around midnight on Monday morning was far more severe and will take longer to clean up -- to say nothing of road and bridge repairs.

Some 20 boulders ranging from 3 feet to 10 feet in diameter and tons of additional debris fell onto Interstate 70, created eight craters and dips, exposing the highway's underwiring, taking out a bridge and destroying guardails. Both sides of the highway were affected. In 1995, Aspen writer Kathleen Krieger Daily and her two young sons were killed in a Glenwood Canyon slide. Fortunately, at this late hour, none none came down vehicles this time, but drivers were forced to make a 200-mile detour between Glenwood Springs and Denver or elsewhere on the Front Range and will be for weeks.

According to the Colorado Department of Transportation, the massive slide occurred on the west side of the Hanging Lake Tunnels,  where two bridges cross the Colorado River and Union Pacific Railroad tracks just west of the Shoshone Dam and the Hanging Lake trail parking area. CDOT says an average of 19,800 use Glenwood Canyon on an average day.

Other than traffic to/from Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction and points between, the biggest affect will be on skiers heading to or from Aspen from the Front Range. In summer, traffic can use Highway 82 over Independence Pass between Leadville and Aspen, but that road is not plowed out until May, and traffic must use 82 from Glenwood Springs that dead-ends in Aspen in winter. In addition, as slickrock season begins in Moab, cyclists headed to and from Utah will have to adjust their routes.

P.S. On March 9, the Aspen Skiing Company reminded visitors about access options to making the long detour, which both Gray Line Aspen/Snowmass and Colorado Mountain Express are doing. The trip is currently six hours from Eagle (287 miles) and seven and a half hours form Denver (379 miles) -- but at least someone else is doing the driving. It is also possible to fly directly to Aspen/Pitkin County Airport, or to Vail/Eagle County, Grand Junction or Montrose/Delta County.

Amtrak's daily service is scheduled to depart Denver’s Union Station to Glenwood Springs (only 45 minutes from Aspen/Snowmass) at 8:05 a.m. and arrive in Glenwood at 1:53 p.m. The return from Glenwood to Denver departs at 12:50 p.m. and arrives in Denver at 7:18 p.m. As a bonus, it's a simply gorgeous ride. Shuttle services, taxi, rental cars and RFTA public bus are options  for the 40-mile trip between Glenwood Springs and Aspen/Snowmass. Shuttle services and taxis are from Denver International Airport to Union Station, RTD's SkyRide (Route AF) goes to the nearby Market Street Station. The Amtrak schedule is such that most visitors will be spending a night in Denver before and another after their ski vacation in Aspen/Snowmass.

Catchy Choice Hotels Commercial from Half a World Away

Do you find Choice Hotels' country-song commercial as catchy as I do? "I've Been Everywhere" popularized by Hank Snow and then Johnny Cash, it is a rapid-fire vocal list of places all over the country. To me, it is way better than most jingles. Turns out that the original song was written in Australia more than half a century ago, according to Wikipedia. One Geoff Mack wrote it in 1959 with names of Australian towns, and it was recorded by an Aussie singer named Lucky Starr (real name, Leslie Morrison). First it was a down-under hit, and then it became a hit in the US in 1962 too, when Hank Snow retooled it with American places. Johnny Cash's 1996 release was a hit again a generation later. The Wikipedia entry includes various verions released with different place names around the globe. Click here for a YouTube video featuring Johnny Cash's recording. I keep intending to figure out how many places are in the song and how many I've been to -- not a lot, really.

Amtrak To Winter Park: All Aboard

Colorado resort teams up with Amtrak to Winter Park to offer Snowball Express package

Winter Park is less than 30 miles west of Boulder, but because there is no road through the Indian Peaks Wilderness and adjacent James Peak Wilderness, the roundabout drive is considerably longer. The one shortcut from near here to right there is by train. The 6-mile-long Moffat Tunnel bores through the mountains under the Continental Divide and under the protected land. The Winter Park Resort lies at tunnel's West Portal. The Ski Train uses the tunnel for its dedicated Denver-Winter Park trip -- and so does Amtrak's California Zephyr. In fact, one of Winter Park's chairlifts is called the Zephyr in honor of the classic rail route.

This year, Winter Resort and Amtrak have partnered to offer an affordable and stress-free vacation package and called it the Snowball Express. It sure beats driving across the Plains, which are vulnerable to dicey snow conditions, and for people put off by airline hassles, it's a terrific option too.

The California Zephyr between Chicago and Oakland offers daily service -- not always punctual, but otherwise reliable. The Snowball Express includes roundtrip coach seats on Amtrak, three nights' lodging in a one-bedroom condo in the Town of Winter Park and three days of lift tickets. Book online through Winter Park Central Reservations or by calling 800-979-0327. The package is valid until the end of the ski season but must be booked by December 7. Adult prices including travel from what organizers call "preferred departure cities" are:

Chicago - $665
Naperville, IL - also $665
Galesburg, IL - $639.50
Burlington, IA - $634
Mt. Pleasant, IA - $628
Ottumwa, IA - $625
Osceola, IA $613
Omaha - $592
Lincoln, NE - $582.50

More Trains to US Ski Country

Other US ski resorts with rail access (though none nearly as doorstep convenient as Winter Park) include:

• The North Lake Tahoe resorts via California Zephyr to Truckee
• The seven resorts near Salt Lake City, a major Amtrak station
• The Aspen areas via the Zephyr to Glenwood Springs
• Whitefish Mountain Resort, MT via Amtrak's Empire Builder
• Schweitzer, ID, to the Amtrak stop at Sandpoint
• Several resorts in Vermont and New Hampshire via either Amtrak's Ethan Allen Express to Rutland or the Vermonter, with half-a-dozen stops from Brattleboro in the south to Essex Junction and St. Albans in the north)
• Amtrak's Downeaster to Portland, ME
• Alyeska, AK, via the Alaska Railroad to Girdwood

Other Countries

Canada's VIA Rail services:

• In Quebec, Quebec City for Mont. Ste.-Anne and Le Massif and Montreal (for Tremblant), including trains from New York City/Albany)
• In Alberta, Jasper for Marmot Basin
• In British Columbia, Kamloops for Sun Peaks and Vancouver for Whistler/Blackcomb

And in Europe, virtually every Alpine mountain resort has excellent, efficient, frequent and punctual rail service or at least a bus that connects directly to a nearby railroad station.