Jul 6, 2007
Concluding: the 10 Commandments of Smart Travel (part III or a III-part series, which has become 12 commandments long)
7) Visiting any large city, make a point of learning to use inexpensive public transportation. Sample the neighborhoods. You'll not only save money; you'll discover how people there live.
8) And sightsee on your own two feet, without a plan, resisting the lures of city sightseeing motorcoach tours. On your own strolls, you'll eventually pass the same great monuments and museums visited by the buses, but you'll see so much more, and without cost: you'll look into the courtyards of schools and hospitals, visit groceries and shops, talk with local residents.
9) Buy your theater tickets as residents do -- on the day of performance, at half price. On arriving in any major theatre city, ask for the location of the local discount ticket booth.
10) In any English-speaking city abroad, or here at home, haunt the university bulletin boards -- they contain the best-possible calendar of events, a treasure trove of listings for free and almost nightly lectures, concerts, workshops, and social gatherings, superior to most other forms of evening entertainment.
11) In your travels through America, make use of tourist office discount coupons, available at each city's main tourist information center. These handy leaflets bring important reductions in price at places you already planned to visit or patronize.
12) And finally, never visit any destination without first purchasing a budget guidebook to it. No matter how confident you may be of your own travel knowledge, you will always find in such books at least a few valuable suggestions of low-priced lodgings, meals or activities of which you would otherwise have been unaware.
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8) And sightsee on your own two feet, without a plan, resisting the lures of city sightseeing motorcoach tours. On your own strolls, you'll eventually pass the same great monuments and museums visited by the buses, but you'll see so much more, and without cost: you'll look into the courtyards of schools and hospitals, visit groceries and shops, talk with local residents.
9) Buy your theater tickets as residents do -- on the day of performance, at half price. On arriving in any major theatre city, ask for the location of the local discount ticket booth.
10) In any English-speaking city abroad, or here at home, haunt the university bulletin boards -- they contain the best-possible calendar of events, a treasure trove of listings for free and almost nightly lectures, concerts, workshops, and social gatherings, superior to most other forms of evening entertainment.
11) In your travels through America, make use of tourist office discount coupons, available at each city's main tourist information center. These handy leaflets bring important reductions in price at places you already planned to visit or patronize.
12) And finally, never visit any destination without first purchasing a budget guidebook to it. No matter how confident you may be of your own travel knowledge, you will always find in such books at least a few valuable suggestions of low-priced lodgings, meals or activities of which you would otherwise have been unaware.
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Labels: tips
Travel's best buy is four months from now
I am often asked to name what I regard as the single best bargain in all of travel, and I answer right away: it's the $499 that Go-Today (www.go-today.com) will be charging for a round-trip flight to London and six nights with breakfast daily at a modest London hotel, from November 1 to December 13, 2007, and again from January 8 to February 24, 2008. Astonishingly enough, that price is not simply from New York but from Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, as well; and the add-on price is only an equally astonishing $70 from Los Angeles or Seattle. Though you add $149.90 in government taxes, the usual fuel surcharge is included in the price.
Once you arrive in London, you discover that an extraordinary number of sightseeing attractions are free of charge, even though they display major achievements in history, art and culture. The British Library is free of charge and displays the actual Magna Carta and musical scores in Mozart's own hand. The National Maritime Museum, free of charge, has the blood-stained uniform in which Admiral Lord Nelson died. The Science Museum, free of charge, displays a computer designed in 1950 by Alan Turing. The Natural History Museum, free of charge, is probably the most beautiful museum facility in the world. The ability to sightsee for free in London, and yet to experience some of the world's outstanding sights, partially offsets the cost of London's meals.
Call me crazy, but I think all of us should try to get to London at least once a year -- it does good things for our outlook on life.
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Once you arrive in London, you discover that an extraordinary number of sightseeing attractions are free of charge, even though they display major achievements in history, art and culture. The British Library is free of charge and displays the actual Magna Carta and musical scores in Mozart's own hand. The National Maritime Museum, free of charge, has the blood-stained uniform in which Admiral Lord Nelson died. The Science Museum, free of charge, displays a computer designed in 1950 by Alan Turing. The Natural History Museum, free of charge, is probably the most beautiful museum facility in the world. The ability to sightsee for free in London, and yet to experience some of the world's outstanding sights, partially offsets the cost of London's meals.
Call me crazy, but I think all of us should try to get to London at least once a year -- it does good things for our outlook on life.
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Labels: london
Do airline executives bear some responsibility for the severe drop in airline service standards?
In 2006, the Chairman and CEO of United Airlines, a certain Glenn Tilton, received $39.7 million in compensation. That was the year when United Airlines LOST $152 million and also terminated the pensions of its 120,000 workers. Because the default has shifted those obligations to a federal pension guarantor, which imposes limits on its payments, the pension income of United's retirees will now undoubtedly be reduced. Is it any wonder that United's employees are not well known for their service attitudes? Or that, as USA Today recently reported, United had the highest rate of passenger complaints (per number of passengers flown) to the Department of Transportation for all of 2006?
As a reader of these blogs recently reminded me, I'm simply to report facts, and not comment politically upon them. But may I pose a question? Is it proper -- or sensible -- for corporations in the travel field to cut the income of their employees while raising the income of their executives to obscene heights? Should an airline losing 152 million dollars in a single year pay 39.7 million dollars in that same year to its Chairman? And are we, as Americans, tolerating a radical abuse of power by corporate executives in paying themselves out-sized sums that have no relation to their talents or accomplishments?
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As a reader of these blogs recently reminded me, I'm simply to report facts, and not comment politically upon them. But may I pose a question? Is it proper -- or sensible -- for corporations in the travel field to cut the income of their employees while raising the income of their executives to obscene heights? Should an airline losing 152 million dollars in a single year pay 39.7 million dollars in that same year to its Chairman? And are we, as Americans, tolerating a radical abuse of power by corporate executives in paying themselves out-sized sums that have no relation to their talents or accomplishments?
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Labels: airlines
Ferry tale: Sail the Alaskan ferries for low prices and authenticity
The bulk of Americans taking cruises off the coast of Alaska are passengers on big-name, 14-story-high ships carrying at least two thousand passengers and sometimes more. Every morning, they flood into the various port cities of Alaska, cameras in hand, wallets at the ready, buses awaiting them, and then -- late afternoon -- they escape back into the ship's world of food, Las Vegas-style acts, and general luxury. At night, travelers squint at the humpbacks and glaciers through the small portholes of pricey outside cabins.You might want to consider a more adventurous approach to the 49th state: the Alaska Marine Highway System. Since almost all of Alaska's Southeastern cities are blocked from each other by impassable terrain and an absence of roads, ferries are often the only mode of travel. Several times a week, the ferries transport several hundred passengers (and quite a few cars) in between various cities: Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Juneau, Haines, Skagway, and sometimes Sitka.
The advantage of the Marine Highway over the big-name cruises? Authenticity, flexibility, and low price. You, not the execs at Holland America, decide where to go and what to see. The digs aren't exactly glamorous, but that's also the point for many travelers. There are no discos or casinos, just some lounges, bars, a cafeteria area, and a million dollar view. There are also cabins available for those who require walls, a private bath, and a bed for overnight trips.
For everyone else, there's simply a deck and an open sky. Many choose to sleep in chairs or set up tents affixed to the deck by duct tape. This is the allure of the ferries -- the adventure, the possibility of meeting local people, the hands-on approach to travel.
For ferry fees and schedules, call the Alaska Marine Highway System at tel. 800/642-0066 or log on to www.ferryalaska.com.
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Jul 5, 2007
Continuing: the 10 Commandments of Smart Travel (part II of a III-part series)
We named the first three commandments earlier this week and have four more today:
4) As a tourist, eat one meal a day picnic-style. Pick up bread, paté, cheese, wine from the foreign equivalent of a delicatessen, or at the grocery section of a department store, and consume them on a park bench, alongside a river, or even in your hotel room. You'll save money and eat healthily at the same time.
5) When eating at restaurants abroad, split, share and divide with your travel companion. When two of you dine, order one appetizer, one main course, and then split those dishes between you; you'll still send uneaten food back to the kitchen, and you'll save 50%.
6) Never judge a hotel by its facade. Some of the best lodgings values are in period buildings centuries old. Don't be deterred by the lack of an impressive lobby. Go upstairs and inspect the rooms.
7) Visiting any large city, make a point of learning to use inexpensive public transportation. Sample the neighborhoods. You'll not only save money; you'll discover how people there live.
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4) As a tourist, eat one meal a day picnic-style. Pick up bread, paté, cheese, wine from the foreign equivalent of a delicatessen, or at the grocery section of a department store, and consume them on a park bench, alongside a river, or even in your hotel room. You'll save money and eat healthily at the same time.
5) When eating at restaurants abroad, split, share and divide with your travel companion. When two of you dine, order one appetizer, one main course, and then split those dishes between you; you'll still send uneaten food back to the kitchen, and you'll save 50%.
6) Never judge a hotel by its facade. Some of the best lodgings values are in period buildings centuries old. Don't be deterred by the lack of an impressive lobby. Go upstairs and inspect the rooms.
7) Visiting any large city, make a point of learning to use inexpensive public transportation. Sample the neighborhoods. You'll not only save money; you'll discover how people there live.
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Labels: tips
Some African safaris continue to cost less than $2,000 including air
I've often referred to the African safaris costing less than $2,000 that a Canadian firm called Lion World Travel sold to the American market earlier this year. Amazingly, they've maintained that price for early-September departures of their South African programs -- including round-trip air from New York or Washington, D.C. And they will charge only slightly more than $2,000 on their best-selling program to Kenya departing in November and early December: $2,199 per person, including trans-Atlantic air, on the company's Best of Kenya program taking you on safari in the wildlife-packed (wildebeest, elephants, lions, giraffes, monkeys, cheetahs) Maasai Mara. You can book these programs either at its website www.lionworldtravel.com or by phoning tel. 800/387-2706. I very much doubt that an airfare-included price of under-$2,000 can be maintained in 2008, and these several departures may provide your last chance to enjoy a unique adventure at a moderate cost.Write and read comments about this post.
Summertime -- and the livin' is easy
With gas prices high and the economy slow, this is not a record-breaking summer travel season, and a number of moderately-priced resorts and travel programs are still showing vacancies for a great many summer dates. I've called around, and learned, for instance, that America's foremost "New Age" resort, the exciting Omega Institute (www.eomega.org) near Rhinebeck, New York (two hours by car north of New York City), still has plenty of dorm beds available for summer dates. If you're anxious to discuss personal relationships, spiritual cravings, psychological hang-ups, better friendships, or preventative holistic health, you have only to phone tel. 800/944-1001, and reserve a week at the pleasant country resort (a former adult summer camp), receiving dorm accommodations (there are also higher-priced private facilities) and three vegetarian meals a day, for about $80 per person per day. That includes free yoga and tai chi in the morning, use of all lakeside facilities, but not the various extra-charge seminars which are held each day.
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Labels: health
More than a dozen, inexpensive, western dude ranches stay open in autumn and winter
For those of our readers already looking ahead to an autumn or winter vacation: keep in mind that though the majority of low-cost western dude ranches are in the high-altitude Colorado Rockies, a number of them are found in sunnier states (like Arizona) or in low-altitude locations of Colorado, and these stay open throughout the year. If you'll request a copy of the publication, "The Dude Rancher," published by The Dude Ranchers Association of Cody, Wyoming (P.O.Box 2307, Cody 82414; tel. 866/399-2339), you'll learn the identity of several big, guest-accepting, dude ranches that remain open November through March, when others close, and charge less than $1,100 per person for seven fall/winter nights of accommodations, all three meals daily, and one week's use of a horse. I failed to point out the year-round availability of some dude ranches in last week's blog on the spring and summer activity at these unique American institutions.
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Labels: american west
Jul 4, 2007
Least expensive lodgings In Washington, D.C.? Camp out at a virtually unknown national park
Looking for cheap digs in Washington, D.C.? Say, something costing only $16 a night for all four of you? Camp out! Stay a night or a weekend in one of the least-known of all U.S. National Parks -- which is Greenbelt Park in Greenbelt, Maryland. Opened to the public many years ago, it is an underused national treasure: a tranquil, wooded park of 1,100 acres, just 12 miles from the White House in downtown D.C., patrolled by the National Park Service, and offering 178 camp sites for tents and RVs (at a charge of $16 per car-load of visitors).
You receive amenities other than simply a place to pitch your tent or place your vehicle. There are nature programs for the children, evening campfire events, hiking and biking trails, picnic areas and full shower and toilet facilities for visitors. Best of all, the entrance to the Park is just a few minutes' walk from a Metro stop, allowing you to leave your vehicle in the park (and thus avoid Washington's expensive garages) and take a ten minute subway ride to all the city's top attractions.
For additional information or to reserve a spot during the Park's crowded summer months, call tel. 877/444-6777, or go to www.recreation.gov.
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You receive amenities other than simply a place to pitch your tent or place your vehicle. There are nature programs for the children, evening campfire events, hiking and biking trails, picnic areas and full shower and toilet facilities for visitors. Best of all, the entrance to the Park is just a few minutes' walk from a Metro stop, allowing you to leave your vehicle in the park (and thus avoid Washington's expensive garages) and take a ten minute subway ride to all the city's top attractions.
For additional information or to reserve a spot during the Park's crowded summer months, call tel. 877/444-6777, or go to www.recreation.gov.
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Labels: parks
Jul 3, 2007
And now, the 10 Commandments of Smart Travel (part one of a three-part series)
I've afflicted you in these blogs with (a) the 10 Great Myths of Travel, and (b) the 10 Great Truths of Travel (see our archives, at the right-hand side of our main page). It's time for the 10 Commandments of Smart Travel, of which I propose to present three or four a day -- today, tomorrow, and the day after.
1. Never make a phone call, change money, or send out laundry from your hotel. Each of these activities is a hotel "profit center," and hefty surcharges are added. Change money at a bank, use a cell phone or public booth for your calls and visit a Laundromat to clean your clothing.
2. In addition to avoiding hotel cashiers for money-changing purposes, do the same with respect to commercial money-changing kiosks and other storefront establishments. Look instead for a bank, the biggest you can find; they pay the best rates. Better yet, search for a bank ATM machine that honors your card -- they are increasingly found all over the world -- and you'll get even better rates from them.
3. Pack the least amount of clothing your courage will allow. People who don't pack light, become money-squandering beasts of burden, needing expensive porters and taxis, unable to shop around among several hotels for the best value.
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1. Never make a phone call, change money, or send out laundry from your hotel. Each of these activities is a hotel "profit center," and hefty surcharges are added. Change money at a bank, use a cell phone or public booth for your calls and visit a Laundromat to clean your clothing.
2. In addition to avoiding hotel cashiers for money-changing purposes, do the same with respect to commercial money-changing kiosks and other storefront establishments. Look instead for a bank, the biggest you can find; they pay the best rates. Better yet, search for a bank ATM machine that honors your card -- they are increasingly found all over the world -- and you'll get even better rates from them.
3. Pack the least amount of clothing your courage will allow. People who don't pack light, become money-squandering beasts of burden, needing expensive porters and taxis, unable to shop around among several hotels for the best value.
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Labels: tips
Apartments -- not hotels -- offer the best values in Paris this year
A recent look at the website of Paris Attitude (www.parisattitude.com), my own favorite source of Parisian accommodations, serves to remind that in Paris and other European capitals, the short-term rental of an apartment can often cost far less than equivalent hotel rooms, especially if you are four or more persons traveling together. Paris Attitutude currently lists apartments throughout the city that rent for as little as $800 a week (housing four). And that's an all-inclusive price; only the use of the phone is not included.
In such an apartment occupied by four persons, you and your family can also save on breakfasts and occasional meals, while enjoying far more space than is usually available in a hotel.
Even in upgraded, top first class hotel-apartments (apartments with the services of a hotel), the saving can be considerable. At such upscale digs as an apartment-hotel in the Bastille area, cleaning is provided daily; bed linens are changed every three days, and towels each day. There is a twenty-four hour receptionist, and a bar on the premises. Yet such a studio when rented to four persons costs less than $200 a night (on at least a one-week rental), much less than you'd pay at an equivalent Paris hotel.
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In such an apartment occupied by four persons, you and your family can also save on breakfasts and occasional meals, while enjoying far more space than is usually available in a hotel.
Even in upgraded, top first class hotel-apartments (apartments with the services of a hotel), the saving can be considerable. At such upscale digs as an apartment-hotel in the Bastille area, cleaning is provided daily; bed linens are changed every three days, and towels each day. There is a twenty-four hour receptionist, and a bar on the premises. Yet such a studio when rented to four persons costs less than $200 a night (on at least a one-week rental), much less than you'd pay at an equivalent Paris hotel.
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Labels: accommodations, paris
Mickey Mouse on a shoestring -- or, Orlando on $29 a night
The world's most consumer-friendly hotel reservations service is operated by the town of Kissimmee, Florida, adjoining Orlando (and actually closer to some of the Disney theme parks than most of the lodgings in Orlando). Not only will Kissimmee's lodging service secure you a room, but it will do so at rates lower than you'd find from any commercial service or even giant hotel website -- it actually encourages the hotels and motels in Kissimmee to supply it with sacrificially low rates capable of inducing visitors to stay in Kissimmee. It you'll phone Kissimmee's central booking number (tel. 888/567-5477) several months ahead of your projected stay, and for a low season period (like September through November), they'll easily find you a room capable of accommodating four persons for around $40 per room per night. If you'll phone the number closer to your projected arrival, you'll get rates of $35 a night and, on occasion, $29 a night! Try it and see!
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Labels: accommodations, orlando
Wanna learn Spanish? Cheap? Salamanca's the place
Like Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States, the city of Salamanca (150,000 people) is the major university town of Spain. And there, in a private school charging peanuts -- it's called Salmínter -- the brightest travelers in the world learn to speak Spanish. From the moment you enter your class, held from 9am to 1pm daily, Monday to Friday, all you hear is Spanish, and within moments of entering, the sheerest beginner in each group is speaking Spanish.Salamanca is an ancient walled city whose recorded history goes back to the third century A.D. It is about two hours by train from Madrid, for which the round-trip fare is about $30. Once there, Salmínter charges the Spanish equivalent of $383 (two hours a day for twenty weekdays) or $651 (four hours a day for twenty weekdays) for a month's worth of classes, but you can limit your participation to two weeks, if you wish. Living costs for that month? You can rent a flat (through the school, which will place you) for about $8.10 a day, or be placed by the school with a Spanish-speaking family (no English whatever) that will house you in a small room and give you three meals a day at their table, for about $27 a day. And you can fly to Madrid for the low costs we've discussed in other blog posts.
For the full details on their language courses and housing arrangements, log on to www.salminter.com.
And why choose Spain for your language learning? Why not Mexico or Costa Rica? When that question is put to me, I answer diplomatically that Mexico is Mexico, but Spain is ... well, Spain.
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Jul 2, 2007
Even more useful travel websites
For the past few days, I've been describing travel websites that can prove quite valuable on occasion. Here are a final five.
Hidden Trails (www.hiddentrails.com): A good-quality listing of dude ranches at surprisingly affordable rates. Though most of its equestrian programs are in the U.S., the site covers nearly every other major country, too.
Last Minute Travel (www.lastminutetravel.com): A seller of distress merchandise -- mainly unsold hotel rooms and air-and-land packages -- at heavy discounts. Its major competitor, performing more or less the same function, is www.11thhourvacations.com.
Hotels London (www.hotels-london.co.uk): Remarkable discount rates at leading London hotels for persons waiting to book until the last week or so before their arrival. You will rub your eyes in awe over some of these opportunities.
Asiatravel.com (www.asiatravel.com): Up to 75% off at some 5,000 hotels in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and nearby. As excitement in the summer Beijing Olympics builds, creating additional interest in travel to Asia, this website should take on renewed importance.
Hostels.com (www.hostels.com): Is the largest directory on the internet of both private hostels and those belonging to the youth hostel federation, enabling you to find information about them and then to book.
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Hidden Trails (www.hiddentrails.com): A good-quality listing of dude ranches at surprisingly affordable rates. Though most of its equestrian programs are in the U.S., the site covers nearly every other major country, too.
Last Minute Travel (www.lastminutetravel.com): A seller of distress merchandise -- mainly unsold hotel rooms and air-and-land packages -- at heavy discounts. Its major competitor, performing more or less the same function, is www.11thhourvacations.com.
Hotels London (www.hotels-london.co.uk): Remarkable discount rates at leading London hotels for persons waiting to book until the last week or so before their arrival. You will rub your eyes in awe over some of these opportunities.
Asiatravel.com (www.asiatravel.com): Up to 75% off at some 5,000 hotels in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and nearby. As excitement in the summer Beijing Olympics builds, creating additional interest in travel to Asia, this website should take on renewed importance.
Hostels.com (www.hostels.com): Is the largest directory on the internet of both private hostels and those belonging to the youth hostel federation, enabling you to find information about them and then to book.
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Labels: websites
Got agricultural skills? If so, you can live for free on a volunteer vacation of the Heifer Project
Teaching unskilled villagers in Third World countries about animal husbandry (both cattle and poultry), enabling them to produce their own milk, cheese, eggs, butter and meat, has been the goal for many successful years of a "volunteer vacation" activity called the Heifer Project International, which is sponsored by various Protestant denominations. Volunteers are sent to developing countries at the organization's expense, and live there for free for periods of three weeks to several months. Though, theoretically, volunteers can themselves be unskilled at various agricultural tasks (such persons are accepted occasionally for a particular project), most volunteers undergo a screening process, and only persons able to contribute substantial knowledge and skills to the villagers is accepted on particular trips. If you fit that bill, you can learn more about Heifer Project International by phoning one of its offices in Little Rock, Arkansas, at tel. 800/422-1311, asking to speak with either Ray White or Jennifer Pierce.Write and read comments about this post.
Labels: volunteer
Can you really be a travel agent from your home? An introduction to travel jobs
"Sell travel and travel for free!" "Travel as a travel agent does -- for free!" Never in years has the pitch for "part-time travel agents" been more strident and pervasive, a veritable blizzard of ads in a whole variety of publications. From their frequency, it's probable that thousands of Americans are paying out $495 to $975 for correspondence-course "instruction" in becoming a "part-time travel agent" working at home.
So how about it? Can you operate as a travel agent from your own living room? Actually, you can. But can you earn a living from it, or at least a reasonable sum? Ah, there's the problem. Next time you pass a travel agency, look through the window at the agents sitting there with phones glued to their ears, taking one call after another, uninterruptedly, for hours -- and still earning what most travel people conceded is a modest weekly sum. Unless you have a large number of potential clients that can generate that many calls, you can't hope to enjoy more than a nominal income, especially since you will need to pay out at least half your commission income to the traditional travel agency that issues the tickets you've sold. Two or three clients a week -- if that's all you can generate -- will earn you perhaps $100, no more, for a lot of time and effort.
Moreover, if you are the kind of gregarious, dream-spinning, fast-talking, sales-oriented type with a large circle of friends and acquaintances who will buy their travel from you in big numbers, you needn't take a course of pay a fee to become a part-time travel agent. You simply visit the nearest local travel agency, and ask whether you can use them to issue your tickets; since they take on no salary obligation, and pay you only when you bring them business, they almost always say yes -- and they don't ask for an up-front fee!
As for the "free" or heavily-discounted travel arrangements that some would-be travel agents think they can obtain by going through the motions of being "travel agents"? Those privileges are no longer easy to get. The travel trade press is full of alarms and warnings about imposters and such, and most hotels, car rental companies, and the like, extend discounts only upon solid proof that you are a full-time travel agent. Unless you're deeply committed to the sale of travel, don't waste your time.
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So how about it? Can you operate as a travel agent from your own living room? Actually, you can. But can you earn a living from it, or at least a reasonable sum? Ah, there's the problem. Next time you pass a travel agency, look through the window at the agents sitting there with phones glued to their ears, taking one call after another, uninterruptedly, for hours -- and still earning what most travel people conceded is a modest weekly sum. Unless you have a large number of potential clients that can generate that many calls, you can't hope to enjoy more than a nominal income, especially since you will need to pay out at least half your commission income to the traditional travel agency that issues the tickets you've sold. Two or three clients a week -- if that's all you can generate -- will earn you perhaps $100, no more, for a lot of time and effort.
Moreover, if you are the kind of gregarious, dream-spinning, fast-talking, sales-oriented type with a large circle of friends and acquaintances who will buy their travel from you in big numbers, you needn't take a course of pay a fee to become a part-time travel agent. You simply visit the nearest local travel agency, and ask whether you can use them to issue your tickets; since they take on no salary obligation, and pay you only when you bring them business, they almost always say yes -- and they don't ask for an up-front fee!
As for the "free" or heavily-discounted travel arrangements that some would-be travel agents think they can obtain by going through the motions of being "travel agents"? Those privileges are no longer easy to get. The travel trade press is full of alarms and warnings about imposters and such, and most hotels, car rental companies, and the like, extend discounts only upon solid proof that you are a full-time travel agent. Unless you're deeply committed to the sale of travel, don't waste your time.
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Labels: travel agent
For $4.95 at Wal-Mart: A "bucky" that keeps your head from falling forward on an overnight flight
Some travelers swear by them; others think them absurd. For $4.95 at Wal-Mart, you can buy a "bucky" that you deflate and inflate at your convenience (and is thus easy to carry). A "bucky" is a wrap-around-the-neck head pillow that prevents your head from slumping forwards (and waking you up) when you fall asleep in the seat of an airplane. It comes in a stuffed version, that changes shape to accommodate the size and shape of your head, or a less expensive, inflatable version. The Wal-Mart version is a far more sensible purchase than the $24.95 stuffed variety of the bucky sold in some department stores.
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Labels: shopping
If you've got a relative or friend of middle age or older, alert them to Grand Circle
Nothing could be more dramatic than the recent sharp growth of Grand Circle Travel (www.gct.com), the leading operator of tours for middle-aged and elderly Americans. And nothing could be more unusual than the manner in which Grand Circle has achieved that increase. It does not deal with travel agents (and most travel agents get livid when they hear the name) and it does not accept bookings over the internet. It markets vacations in the old-fashioned way, by mailing massive quantities of its catalogs to literally millions of potential customers and then accepting inquiry phone calls from them. And it apparently operates its program with such aplomb that a large army of mature Americans sign up for one trip after another. If you'd like a Grand Circle catalog (and you should at least look it over), call tel. 800/959-0405.Write and read comments about this post.
Labels: tour companies
Fifty years ago, 
Arthur Frommer is generally acknowledged to be the nation's foremost travel authority. He is the founder of the
