There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but free beds are increasingly available all over the world. And one of the reasons is the explosive growth of two hospitality organizations called www.globalfreeloaders.com and www.couchsurfing.com. Both of them sign up people who enjoy having or being a foreign guest and allow them to use a spare room or a spare couch for overnight stays -- totally free of charge. And both organizations have elaborate systems for screening out the wrong type of person. Some of them require references and elaborate personal statements. You'll get a kick out of reading their funky websites, and if you're the right kind of person, you may want to use their services either as a guest or as a host.

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Labels: accommodations, budget

Throughout its history, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, has been a fierce competitor of the non-Disney theme parks. When Universal Studios and nearby Busch Gardens Tampa have announced plans for a new attraction, Disney has rushed to complete a competing attraction to make them redundant. Most recently, Disney has adopted a pricing scheme that lowers admission prices to persons spending their entire Orlando stay at Disney theme parks -- you pay less per day the longer you stay -- discouraging visitors from going to Universal or to Sea World or to Wet 'n Wild. I think it's important to resist those savings and split your time between Disney and non-Disney. The extra admission cost is more than offset by the lower cost, in my opinion, of meals taken at non-Disney properties.

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Labels: disney, orlando

Where: Ireland
When: From now until May 17, a week by car, including air, from $699.

Though the bargain price remains available only for the immediate weeks ahead (it jumps to $1,029 from May 18 to June 24 -- when it is still a value, even at the increased price), it buys such an excellent experience that it should be considered. Famed for its gorgeous landscapes, craggy castles, cozy pubs and caring people, Ireland is best enjoyed by car, and in family-run B&Bs. From Ireland specialist Brian Moore International (tel. 800/982-2299; www.bmit.com), you receive airfare, a six-day Hertz car rental, vouchers for five nights at B&Bs, and full Irish breakfast daily. The lead price is from New York or Washington, D.C., and is $100 more from Chicago, Detroit, Houston or Miami; and $200 more from Denver, L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, or Phoenix.

Contact: tel. 800/982-2299; www.bmit.com.

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Labels: deals, ireland, roadtrip

A number of newspapers have reported with apparent glee about the four-lane bowling alley that recently made its appearance on the newest of the cruiseships, the 2,600-passenger Norwegian Pearl of Norwegian Cruise Line. Here, they implied, was a fitting response to the rock-climbing walls, basketball courts and boxing ring that NCL's competitor, Royal Caribbean Cruises, had earlier added to the seagoing experience.

We are seeing a major change in the nature of the cruise experience. With nearly every new ship approaching 3,000-passengers in size (and several 4,000-to-6,000-passenger ships are actually under construction), each one of them crammed with every entertainment of a theme park, the cruiseliner is becoming less of a ship than a giant metallic box containing a Las Vegas-style resort. One wonders why it is even necessary for these gargantuan "sea hotels" to leave the port where they are docked? Who aboard them is even aware that they are at sea?

Sold at low initial prices to attract the mobs that their immense cabin capacity requires, the mega-vessels are nevertheless extremely profitable because of the optional onboard income -- drinks, gambling, shopping, shore excursions -- they also enjoy. In the future, the average-income, cost-conscious cruise passenger will find that only the giant ships offer affordable rates. The smaller, quieter ships with open decks suitable for reading and repose, scholarly guest speakers, and itineraries that feature the lesser and less-developed port cities, are generally the upscale "premium" ships (operated by such lines as Seabourn, Regent Seven Seas, Silversea, SeaDream Yacht Club, Crystal Cruises, Windstar, others) charging forbidding rates of often $600 to $1,000 per person per day.

But the premium lines have occasional vacancies. And in a slowing economy, which many predict will be the case in the last half of 2007, they will periodically discount their unsold cabins through such cruise brokers (some specializing in upscale cruiseships) as www.cruiseweb.com, www.cruisecompete.com, www.mustcruise.com, www.cruise.com, www.vacationstogo.com, www.cruisewizard.com, www.cruisesonly.com, and others. If you will carefully scrutinize those sites, you will quite often find an opportunity to book an upscale smaller ship at rates of as little as $300 a day (low season) or $400 a day (high season) per person -- a high price, but perhaps justified by the joy of real seagoing cruise.

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Labels: cruise, tips

Though they mean well, your friends can ruin your next vacation by persuading you to adopt all sorts of bad travel maxims. Here are three of what I regard as the Great Myths of Travel:

1) That "you get what you pay for." Wrong. All over the world you will find expensive hotels that rip you off and bargain properties that give great value. All over the Caribbean are all-inclusive deluxe hotels claiming they have several a la carte restaurants, none of which are open when you attempt to use them. Another deluxe property of which I know has the worst beach in all the Caribbean. Like so much in travel, you can't automatically assume that high price is a guarantee of value. You must do your homework, and check things out.

2) That the comfort of the stay increases when you spend more. It doesn't. When you close your eyes at night, and go to sleep, it doesn't matter whether you are in a luxury or a low-cost hotel; the quality of the mattress does. I've been to countless hotels whose lavish lobbies and public areas aren't matched at all in the guestrooms -- a common condition of the hotel industry.

3) That someone at the destination will tell you what you're looking at. They don't, and when they do, it's too late. The traveler who arrives at a destination without any knowledge of its history or culture is unable to properly absorb the brief, rushed comments of their tour guide. Advance preparation -- a few nights in the library -- is the key to a rewarding trip.

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Labels: myths, tips

Are you as puzzled as most about the sudden spate of tragedies aboard cruiseships? People falling overboard. Couples vanishing without a trace. Some observers claim it's caused by spring-break hysteria. With prices so cheap for Caribbean cruises, and no passport required of cruise passengers, young Americans -- it's claimed -- are flocking to these seagoing vacations in unprecedented numbers, getting drunk while on board, and then falling over railings. I'm not so sure (I'll voice the appropriate suspicions at a later time) and would be grateful for any theories our readers may advance.

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Labels: caribbean, cruise

A handful of summer vacations deserve to be called "classics" -- and that's the case with a week or two devoted to learning a craft at North Carolina's renowned Penland School, or a week or so of ethnic or country dancing in Pinewoods, Massachusetts. Both of these reasonably priced programs are so popular they always sell out by early May. Be warned.

Country dancing at Pinewoods, Massachusetts costs as little as $795 for an all-inclusive (accommodations, meals, instruction) week. Every year from July 14 until September 1, the 91-year-old Country Dance and Song Society operates its main summer camp in the eastern U.S. at the 25-acre Pinewoods near Plymouth. There you can wallow in traditional (mostly American and British) music and moves, past and present -- from the ancient lute to the Delta banjo, and from medieval English minuets to the Virginia reel. For $795 (with discounts for kids), the week-long programs put you up in rustic but well maintained cabins, feed you all meals, and cover all program fees (there's tennis and swimming, too). Get details at tel. 413/268-7426 or www.cdss.org.

Perhaps even more popular is arts and crafts instruction at Penland: $818 brings you a full week at this famed school for working with your hands in western North Carolina. The 80-year-old institution is currently teaching one- to eight-week courses covering the likes of glassblowing, drawing, weaving, jewelry making, photography and manuscript illumination. Tuition in summer (through August 31, after which only eight-week courses are available) is $397 a week; add three solid meals a day and dorm-style accommodations, and your total outlay (tuition, room and board) will average $818 per week. Send your inquiries to tel. 828/765-2359 or www.penland.org.

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Labels: arts, massachusetts, north carolina, summer vacation, workshops

Where: Orlando
When: May and June, 5 nights in Orlando from $399

With Florida's theme parks charging $67 per adult per day, it's more important than ever to economize on air/hotel/car. This package (which includes round-trip air, a car for the week and five hotel nights) does just that. It costs $399 from New York or Chicago, $449 from Atlanta or Washington, D.C., $549 from Dallas or Los Angeles.

Contact: tel. 888/801-8808; www.eleisurelink.com.

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Labels: deals, disney, orlando

If you're like me, you get endless brochures from alumni organizations (even those from schools you never attended) advertising tours or cruises led by a famous and eager-to-talk professor who's a specialist in the destination. They make your mouth water -- until you spot the price. These university fund-raisers (another of their functions) routinely cost $900 and even $1,000 per person per day.

So you'll want to know about Martin Randall, the source of intensely intellectual tours for well-read people, costing as little as $400 a day per person -- still high but at least sensible. London-based Martin Randall Travel (tel. 011-44-20-8742-3355; www.martinrandall.com) survives as virtually the sole source of moderately priced tours that can be characterized as genuinely intellectual. Each of its programs departs with a notable expert on board who delivers daily lectures and commentary based on hard-won expertise.

Martin Randall is a real person, not an invented figurehead for the sake of marketing, and he takes an active role in designing and shaping each of dozens of educational itineraries, going as far as to help select writers, academics, curators, and lecturers based on not only their smarts in arts, architecture, and history, but also their abilities to engage a group. Experts range from college educators to authors to members of the British Parliament, and themes span history, the arts, and even horticulture.

Randall, who came to travel by way of an education at London's ultra-prestigious Courtauld Institute for Art History, is nothing if not timely in his selection of experts -- the guest lecturer for the company's Crimean War-themed excursion through Ukraine, to be conducted in September, is Patrick Mercer, an Oxford-educated historian and British MP who in early March made headlines and lost his post in Parliament for speaking about racism in the British military.

Randall's informational website sets the tone for his briskly intelligent, upmarket tours: "Our clients are grown ups," it states with British primness. "We structure our arrangements to allow you to retain some responsibility for yourselves and avoid excessive mollycoddling."

Most of Martin Randall's European and North African tours depart from London, including airfare to and from there. If you're paying in pounds, the rates are not bare-bones but certainly do-able -- £200 to £300 a day is the norm, and each day, including the first and last days of the tour, is programmed with activities. Of course, the unfavorable exchange rate from the pound to the dollar currently means that you'll be paying about $400 a day. But, of course, that figure gets you most meals, four-star hotels, many flights (except the ones from America), ground transportation, tips, tickets, and unparalleled access to experts and art.

In the case of the Michelangelo tour of Florence and Rome, the extras include lectures by an architecture historian from the University of London and a private tour of the Sistine Chapel. The Wellington in the Peninsula tour of Spain is conducted by an author of a three-volume work about the British military genius. And the Stained Glass tour of French churches is hosted by a woman who obtained her doctorate in the Gothic architecture of northern Burgundy.

No other company currently provides such an erudite service for such a reasonable daily price. If you know of one, I'd love to be advised -- and will rush to post its name on this blog.

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Labels: tour companies

Heard about the Vaughan organization? It teaches English in Spain by inviting unpaid American or British volunteers to spend entire days conversing in English with Spanish business people at various locations. You get full room and board for doing so, but no remuneration, and are expected to perform a vigorous, gregarious role by speaking at length in all sorts of classroom and social situations. Go to www.vaughantown.com for further details on an unusual vacation opportunity that costs you nothing other than your transportation to Spain.

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Labels: accommodations, education, spain

This is a key bit of news. Starting now, if you're traveling between major mid-west cities -- especially back and forth between Chicago and Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and St. Louis -- you can get there for much less than either Greyhound or Amtrak charges by hopping aboard a Megabus. Operating not from expensive terminals, but simply from designated street corners where it picks up passengers, this new British-owned intercity bus service (tel. 877/GO2-MEGA; www.megabus.com) is causing consternation at old-line transport companies, and is about to add five additional pick-up points in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Columbus, Ohio; Kansas City, Missouri; Louisville, Kentucky; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; again on direct routes to Chicago and back. Go to the Megabus website for specific schedules and prices (which start with a come-on rate of $1).


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Labels: bus, cheap transport

I'm not sure that the full impact of recent exchange rates -- $2 for a British pound, $1.35 for a single Euro -- has yet sunk into the psyche of Americans planning a European trip. Or that they've considered the radical new tactics that a cost-conscious trip there will require.

Because the average guesthouse room -- I'm talking a modest guesthouse and a double room -- is currently renting for £100 in London and for at least 100 € on the continent, the cost for lodgings is therefore $200 a night per couple in London and nearly $150 in Europe. Multiply those costs by 14 nights, and for a pair of Americans traveling together, the average two-week trip can start off with a $3,000 tab for lodgings alone.

So what's to be done? It's clear to me that the cost-conscious American must, from now on, seek out not hotel accommodations, not even guesthouse accommodations, but so-called "private homestays" -- a low-cost, $40-per-person room in a residence whose owners are simply supplementing their income by renting out an occasional room. If you'll go to www.happy-homes.com or www.athomeinlondon.co.uk, you'll find such $40 per person accommodations in London. You'll find the same for Paris at www.goodmorningparis.fr or www.bed-and-breakfast-in-paris.com; and in Rome at www.b-b.rm.it.

For years, many of our Frommer's travel guides to Europe have laid a heavy stress on alternative, non-hotel accommodations, and my daughter's recent series (Pauline Frommer's London, Pauline Frommer's Paris and Pauline Frommer's Italy) is especially full of internet services for private homestays, university accommodations, hostels, and guest-accepting convents and monasteries. And you can bet that I'll be returning to the private homestay in future issues of this daily blog.

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Labels: accommodations, budget, england, france, guesthouse, italy, london, paris

A friend in the cruise business has alerted me to a yearlong series of bargains on cruises sailing the most exotic itineraries imaginable. These have resulted from a disastrous effort by Carnival Cruises to operate vacations at sea for the people of China.

A subsidiary of Carnival, Costa Cruises, had expected the newly-emergent Chinese middle class to flock onto the cruises of Asia offered aboard their shiny, new Costa Allegra, sailing from Shanghai and Hong Kong throughout 2007. They haven't. And the reason has apparently been a totally unexpected and almost incomprehensible dissatisfaction with the cruise product by the Chinese who had booked the initial departures.

Turns out that Chinese passengers from nearly a dozen different ethnic regions had problems understanding the one or two Chinese dialects used on the ship's loudspeakers, and that Chinese passengers didn't cluster about as part of a happy group: they tended to stay in their cabins and socialize there, they ate earlier than expected, didn't go into bars, and -- most astonishing of all -- weren't terribly interested in the on-board casino.

Result: with future sailings only lightly booked, sailings of the Costa Allegra out of Shanghai and Hong Kong have now been opened to Americans (and are being discounted to attract U.S. traffic). If you'd like a bargain cruise of the most exotic variety, leaving from Hong Kong or Shanghai and initially designed for a mainly-Chinese audience, go to the website of Costa Cruises (www.costacruise.com) or to www.vacationstogo.com, and you'll find prices as low as $114 a day for 14-day sailings throughout the year from Hong Kong to Manila, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Danang, and to a port in China itself. The prices run an amazingly low $1,609 or $1,679 per person for most of those two-week adventures. And you'll find a price of $759 for shorter, five-night cruises from Shanghai to Japan and South Korea.

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Labels: china, cruise, deals

What a leap there's been in the ability of gays and lesbians to travel openly and without fear! As recently as eight years ago, the Cayman Islands denied landing rights to a boatload of law-abiding gay vacationers, claiming that their very presence was an affront to public morals. Yet few cruise or tour operators cut back on their programs to the Caymans or supported my own argument that a destination denying access to some Americans is not entitled to receive tourism from any Americans. For years, the government of the Cayman Islands took no step to reverse their hostile policy.

Last week, in sharp contrast to the attitudes of nearly a decade ago, the prime minister of Bermuda, Ewart Brown, went out of his way to announce that Bermuda was totally receptive to gay and lesbian tourists. He made that statement after learning that Rosie O'Donnell's tour company, R Family Vacations, had canceled a cruise stop in Bermuda because various church groups had protested their presence, issuing a formal government pronouncement:

"Bermuda is a democracy that welcomes all people of all races, colors, creeds and sexual orientation ... We stress to the international community the Bermudian government's position of inclusion and acceptance of all who wish to visit our beautiful and friendly country ... While the government of Bermuda has done everything we can to welcome the Rosie O'Donnell-hosted cruise, we respect their decision however saddened we are by it."

Apparently, more and more leaders and their countries' citizens are at last recognizing that discrimination against any group because of their sexual orientation is unacceptable.

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Labels: caribbean, gay, lesbian, rights

I've learned from my weekly radio call-in show that the surest way to set off a barrage of hate mail is to suggest that Americans travel overseas for low-cost medical or dental treatment. Instantly, dozens of doctors and dentists accuse you of putting peoples' lives at risk.

If the U.S. had universal health insurance, I would not be disposed to argue the matter. But more than 40 million Americans are uninsured for medical care, and a great many more have no dental coverage. For purely elective treatments, what else are they to do than to consider medical or dental tourism?

In a recent book called Patients Without Borders, a certain Josef Woodman argues the case for that kind of travel. He claims that in Thailand, Hungary, Singapore and South Africa, Brazil, Antigua and Barbados are dozens of accredited hospitals and clinics providing high quality medical and dental care for a fraction of what's charged here at home. And though U.S. doctors and dentists will obviously challenge him, the mere publication of a heavily-buttressed, book-length defense of medical and dental tourism shows that the controversy is very much alive and that globalization has expanded beyond manufacturing and commerce to include medical and dental treatment overseas. Give a thought to Patients Without Borders, available at Amazon.com.

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Labels: health, medical travel

The internet is packed with lists of travel bargains -- "the 10 best this", "the 10 best that" -- but many of them are paid for by the packagers appearing in them. Here's the first in what I plan to make a daily selection of a top travel bargain, chosen only by myself, without any contact between them (the tour operators) and me.

Where: Bali
When: May, then mid-Aug to Dec 1, for $699

The original island paradise, its peaceful, generous people are the world's finest hosts, their religious processions and gorgeous dance dramas proudly shared with the visitor, in Hindu tradition. The price includes round-trip air from Los Angeles on Cathay Pacific Airways, round-trip transfers, and five nights with breakfast daily in your choice of beach or inland locations (the flight is via Hong Kong, but then direct to Bali); you pay $699 from L.A., $250 more from New York, varying prices from other cities.

Contact: tel. 800/243-7227; www.escapesltd.com.

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Labels: asia, bali, deals