Cheap China Tour Package in Winter

Off-season package with air included makes China affordable

The first of my three visits to China was on a tour package for a rockbottom price including air fare from the US, good hotels in Beijing, Xi'an, Giulin and Hong Kong, and an upstream cruise on the Yangtze before the completion of the Three Gorges Dam. There were English-speaking city guides in each city (three of whom took the English name, Richard) and an English-speaking crew on the Yangtze riverboat.

The city guides met us at each airport and escorted us back to the airport again, but there was no full-time tour guide with us from beginning to end. Also not included were dinners (except on the ship), which meant we were free to try out local restaurants or just wander over to the nearest night market and graze the street-food stalls. I've returned to China twice since then, but that first visit in some ways remains the most memorable -- and the fact that we didn't break the bank stays with us as a big bonus.

Now comes word of a really inexpensive package from Friendly Planet Travel, whose Taste of China package has a similar low-frills format and also an astonishingly low price. There is no Yangztze cruise on this package, but the beguiling cities of Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai, which I visited on both of my subsequent trips, are on the itinerary. If booked before September 23, Friendly Planet's package starts at $999 per person, double occupancy, including airfare from Los Angeles, fuel surcharges, hotels, transfers, many meals and most of the tours. Happily for travelers who want the comfort and convenience of a package but don't care to be babysat all the time, it has built-in free time as well.

The lowest prices are for remaining dates in December and January. I've been to China in winter, both to cold gray Beijing and to colder, grayer Harbin, which is so far north that is north of North Korea. No touristic hordes and a more refined sense of being in China and not Chinaland. Of course, you'll need warm clothes (wool, fleece, hat gloves), but you'd need them if you were visiting (or living in) New York, Washington, Boston or Chicago too. Winter days in Shanghai, Guagzhou (formerly Canton, which I have also visited) and Giulin are positively balmy.

I have never dealt with Friendly Planet Travel, but the price is right and the itinerary covers most of the main touristic highlights. 800-555-5765.

Zurich Profiled in New York Times

Just yesterday, a CNN Snapshot collection inspired a post that was, in effect, an ode to Switzerland. This week's New York Times travel section's popular getaway feature is "36 Hours in Zurich," spotlighting Zurich, not Switzerland's capital (that would be Bern) but its largest city.

International Travel is a Reality Check in the Name of Sanity

Despite past terrorist attacks, Europeans haven't succumbed to continent-wide paranoia

The Rocky Mountain News' Mark Brown returned from a two-week vacation overseas, where he appreciated being far removed from incessant, excessive, simplistic media coverage of politics starring "screaming talk-show hosts" and, more important from a traveler's standpoint, observed the absence of the post-9/11 fear-mongering and paranoia that has engulfed domestic travel. Despite higher air fares, reduced flight schedules and the pathetic dollar, international travel provides a welcome blast of sanity. In his column titled "Believe it or not, there's a land where cool heads prevail," he wrote:

"No one seemed to be living in fear. We were allowed to take bottles of
liquids on trains on the continent that saw bloody train bombings in 2004,
killing 191 people. We rode London's underground with unsearched backpacks and
suitcases less than three years after the July 2005 subway bombings that killed
52 people, the deadliest terrorist attack in London's history.

"No one made me take off my shoes at the airport on the continent where shoe bomber Richard Reid boarded a plane in 2001 with the intent to blow it up. Had to
take them off over here, though.

"Daily life in London means sitting next to Arabic-looking people on the
subway a couple of times a day, carrying backpacks and other items. Nobody
blinks an eye. The biggest threat to the London Underground that particular week
was a World War II mortar that was found to still be live under a main track.
Commuters were simply rerouted for a few days as it was disarmed and
removed.

"Meanwhile, back here a doughnut advertisement was pulled because the
woman in the commercial was wearing a scarf with tassels. And a fist-bump by a
presidential candidate was characterized as a 'terrorist fist jab.'

"As we seem to become more paralyzed with fear over here, life goes on over
there. It may be too late (and, let's face it, naive) to go back to a notion
that our fellow man isn't a threat but someone we need to cooperate and
communicate with for the good of all of us."

Thank you, Mark Brown, for your words of sanity. I hope that people will continue to travel beyond our tightened borders and that at least, your column is taken to heart by some of those who continue to be wrapped in fear -- but, I am "afraid" that they won't be.

Swiss Snapshots Online

CNN Travel posted 25 great photos of Switzerland on its Snapshot series. I'm guessing the editors had a hard time narrowing the submissions down, because it's difficult not to take a great picture in Switzerland. Many of the historic main cities -- Zurich, Geneva, Lausanne and Lucerne -- are set on lovely lakes. The mountains are jaw-droppingly beauitful year-round, when flowers fill the meadows and when snow covers them under a deep blanket of white. Picturesque towns and villages tucked into mountain valleys pose alluringly for photographs too, and when the Swiss put on traditional clothes, which can vary from valley to valley, and perhaps pull out their haunting Alphorns (like the Swiss Tourism image above, with the Matterhorn in the background) , the memory remains magical. I love visiting Switzerland, and I photos of this enchanting Alpine land always bring up powerful memories and a wish to return. I hope you enjoy the CNN Snapshot gallery as much as I did.

United to Drop Denver-London Non-Stop

Carrier to slash route after just seven months of operations

When United inaugurated its nonstop to London a few months ago, my husband and I jumped on the early fares and went to England and Scotland for eight days. That flight will go bye-bye on October 25, less than seven months after it started (March 30). I vowed to write some enthusiastic posts about something other than bad airline news on this blog, because I do love to travel, but find myself sucked in by one downbeat bit of news after another.

Offsetting higher jet fuel costs by eliminating some flights and charging for services that used to be free comprise United's strategy of "aggressive action to reduce our capacity, retire aircraft and eliminate the least-profitable markets from our fall schedule," the Rocky Mountain News quoted company spokesman Jeff Kovick as explaining -- again. It has become United's mantra.

Southwest Increases Denver Service

New year brings four new Southwest flights a day to DIA

I'm a big fan of Southwest Airlines, with its lack of pretension that it is anything other than a transportation provider, its efficient turn-arounds, its passenger-friendly policies in an industry that rarely is that and perhaps most of all, continuing to allow passengers to check to bags without paying an additional fee. Southwest just announced additional flights to and from Denver: two new daily nonstop roundtrips between Denver and Boston Logan; one new daily nonstop roundtrip between Denver and Spokane and one new daily nonstop roundtrip between Denver and Reno/Tahoe beginning January 10, 2010.

The Renaissance of an Oklahoma City Landmark

Oklahoma City's grand old hotel restored as a raving beauty. Is it still haunted?

When the Skirvin Hotel was opened in 1911 by oilman William B. Skirvin, it initially had 224 rooms in two 10-story towers and was one of the first buildings in Oklahoma City with air conditioning, then called “iced air.” I'm assuming that Oklahoma City summers were as brutal then as they are today, so iced air was welcome innovation. The luxurious hotel also had running ice water in each room, a ballroom that seated 500 and imported Austrian chandeliers that cost more than $100,000 each.

In 1930, just before the Depression really hit, the Skirvin gained a third wing and a couple of more stories for a total of 525 rooms, making it one of the city's biggest as well as one of its most opulent. The hotel was reportedly the site of one of the city's biggest scandals too. According Legends of America, it is haunted --or at least was until its renovation:

During Prohibition, "W.B. Skirvin was said to have had an affair with one of the hotel maids. According to legend, the maid soon conceived and in order to prevent a scandal, she was locked in a room on the top floor of the hotel. The desolate girl soon grew depressed and even after the birth of her child; she was still not let out of the room. Half out of her mind, she finally grabbed the infant child and threw herself, along with the baby, out of the window. The maid’s name remains unknown, but her ghost continues to haunt the Skirvin Hotel and she was nicknamed 'Effie' by former employees.

"Though the old hotel closed in 1988, former guests would often report not
being able to obtain a decent nights sleep due to the consistent sounds of a
child crying. Effie was apparently a woman of loose morals and many men who have
stayed in the hotel have often reported being propositioned by a female voice
while alone in their rooms. Others have seen the figure of a naked woman
with them while taking a shower. One man even claimed he was sexually assaulted
by an invisible entity during his stay.

"Other strange noises and occurrences were reported by staff and
guests including things seemingly being moved around by themselves, such as the
maid’s cart being pushed down the hall when no one was there."

There is even a Skirvin footnote to 20th century American political-social history. Skirvin’s daughter, Perle Mesta, later became ambassador to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a traditional plum ambassadorship for those with more social standing than diplomatic credentials, and later nicknamed Washington’s "Hostess with the Mostess." She was so prominent that she was featured in a Time magazine cover story in 1949. Her life was the basis of the hit Broadway musical, "Call Me Madam."

The hotel was listed on National Register of Historic Places in 1979, closed in 1988 and stood empty for nearly 20 years. It's back now, and it is glorious. Reopened in 2007, for the State of Oklahoma's centennial year, the hotel gleams, thanks to a $56.4 million restoration that included the original exterior, historically appropriate windows, guest rooms reconfigured to today's standards, a truly beautiful lobby (center right), restaurants, state-of-the-art meeting rooms, a fitness center and all the other accoutrement's demanded of a luxury hotel in the 21st century. Wherever possible, historical elements such as moldings, tiles and ceiling treatments were incorporated into the design. Each bed includes a custom coverlet with the story of the Skirvin and its city on it.

Doug Dawgz blog, one of several that focus on Oklahoma City history, wrote an illuminating post back in 2006 about the Skirvin with more background and also some wonderful historic photos.

People who believe in ghosts spectulate that the hotel might still be haunted. In my experience here, Room 1109 (lower right after evening turndown service) isn't haunted -- or I don't believe it is. Still, there was a voice message from the front desk when I returned to my room once evening asking whether "everything in my room was all right." Everything seemed just fine, but who knows?

The Skirvin Hilton is at One Park Avenue, Oklahoma City, OK 73102; 405-272-3040.