Under new ownership, the 432-passenger paddlewheeler, the American Queen, has resumed operating its stately, seven-day, four-mile-an-hour cruises of the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Memphis, slightly longer than the four-day cruise that my wife and I enjoyed three years ago. Should you consider it?

The positive points, first. A Mississippi River cruise encounters no waves or unsettling movements; the floor beneath you is as steady as a rock and you are never seasick. Seated in a comfy deckchair outside your cabin (nearly every cabin faces outdoors), you gaze on the shore and activities of the Mississippi (barges with freight and produce, shore-side plantations, industrial plants in the stretch between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, but no further north), while reading Mark Twain's classic Life on the Mississippi. The atmosphere is peaceful, relaxing, full of meaning.

As for your accommodations, they are as comfortable as you'd want, the staterooms twice the size of the average cruiseship cabin, the bathrooms also. Meals are quite good, always copious, and served by a sensitive and attentive waitstaff. "Southern hospitality" is the standard.

Most surprising, the evening entertainment is clearly superior, in my view, to what you'd enjoy on most seagoing cruiseships. Because the American Queen cruises up and down the river, stopping in towns along the way, it usually picks up a city's very best entertainers for a single night's performance, and then drops them off the next morning (by contrast to the practice of employing far-less-talented jacks-of-all-trade to present an entire week's entertainment on the average ocean cruiseship).

So what are the drawbacks of a Mississippi River Cruise? Up to a third of all passengers (more, in my experience, than on most cruises) were elderly Americans, and some livelier but less-understanding cruise goers might not appreciate their presence. Another third were far more active, middle-aged Americans, and the remaining third included some families with children, some younger couples, a few singles traveling in pairs. Heavily composed of people from the south and midwest, this was about as traditionally and typically American a crowd as you can envision, and some regarded heavy card-playing as what you do on a cruise. Sophistication, wayward opinions, counter-culture viewpoints, and flirtatious matchmaking, are not what you find on the Mississippi. And some Americans might regard that combination of factors as pointing to a dull vacation.

I didn't; I thoroughly enjoyed this respite from a harsher, faster life. But don't say I didn't warn you. And for more information, log on to www.deltaqueen.com. Seven-days costs as little as $1,651 per person, double occupancy (though some dates come in at $2,689).

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Labels: american south, cruise, mississippi river

I thought you'd enjoy a reader's letter in response to my recent speculation about cruiseships costing as little as senior citizen housing:

About two years ago, my wife and I were on a cruise through the Western Mediterranean aboard a Princess liner. At dinner we noticed an elderly lady sitting alone along the rail of the grand stairway in the main dining room. I also noticed that all the staff, ships officers, waiters, busboys, etc., all seemed very familiar with this lady. I asked our waiter who she was, expecting to be told that she owned the line, but he said he only knew that she had been on board for the last four cruises, back-to-back. As we left the dining room I caught her eye and stopped to say hello.

We chatted and I said, 'I understand you've been on the ship for the last four cruises.' She replied, 'Yes, that's true.' I stated, 'I don't understand,' and she replied without a pause, 'It's cheaper than a nursing home.'

So there will be no nursing home in my future. When I grow old and feeble, I am going to get on a Princess Cruise Ship. The average cost for a nursing home is $200 a day. I've checked on reservations for a Princess cruise and I can get a long term discount and senior discount price of $165 a day. I will have as many as 10 meals a day if I can waddle to the restaurant or I can have room service (which means I can have breakfast-in-bed every day of the week). I will meet new people every 7 or 14 days.

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Labels: cruise, retired

Apart from the standard attractions of Philadelphia -- Independence Hall, the Benjamin Franklin Museum, top restaurants, and more -- the temporary King Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute is the event of the decade. It's the first to have left Egypt in many years; it will remain in Philadelphia only until September 30 before moving to London; and it apparently includes every major item other than the actual funeral mask of the young king and his mummy. More than a million visitors have already been to see it. You will of course need reservations, which can be made by phoning tel. 877/TUT-TKTS or by accessing www.kingtut.org. Tickets are dated and timed for between 8:30am and 9pm. They cost from $17 to $32 and also enable you to see objects from the tombs of other pharaohs who ruled during Egypt's Golden Age. Here's a remarkable travel opportunity.

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Labels: philly

Several weeks ago, I drew a storm of criticism onto my head by suggesting, in a blog, that current State Department and Department of Homeland Security officials were responsible for a recent sharp drop in incoming tourism to the United States (see "Why hasn't tourism to the U.S. soared?"). Several readers wrote that my criticism of these eminent people was based simply on my political beliefs. I had pointed out that in numerous countries, it required several months simply to obtain an appointment with U.S. consular officials to discuss an application for a visa. And that such torpor could not help but discourage travel to the U.S.

There's now been another development. As if the failure to issue visas expeditiously weren't bad enough, the Department of Homeland Security has proposed (as reported in the trade press on June 25) to create additional obstacles to those foreign citizens who don't need visas to travel here. Under the Visa Waiver Program, citizens of 27 countries (like Great Britain and Ireland) don't require visas; the Department is proposing that these exempt individuals, in advance of departure, provide the U.S. with biographical data and their proposed travel plans within the U.S. They would then receive electronic authorization to proceed with those plans. A nation that cannot issue visas on time is expected to quickly and correctly review the travel plans of millions of other would-be tourists to the U.S.

In what way do these new obstacles protect us? How would such a requirement prevent a terrorist from simply e-mailing that he is planning to visit friends and relatives? Or to sightsee and attend the theater in New York? And don't such silly added steps simply discourage tourists from coming here?

So it's necessary to repeat my earlier contention. With so much at stake, with so much income, including tax income, to be enjoyed through added tourism, with so favorable a time for incoming tourism because of the weak U.S. dollar, the failure to create smooth and reasonably quick procedures for the issuance of visas is a catastrophic oversight. The further proposal to require that foreigners advise us in writing of their plans is loonier still. The entire situation calls for intervention by grown-ups.

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Labels: passports, trends

Three travel organizations provide such important services to cost-conscious vacationers, at such low prices, that they deserve recognition:

Adventure Center (tel. 800/228-8747 or 510/654-1879; www.adventurecenter.com) is a 27-year-old California firm that acts as the U.S. representative for a dozen, major, budget-priced operators of exotic and/or adventurous trips throughout the world (companies like Britain's Guerba Expeditions or Explore Worldwide). You travel in groups limited to between 8 and 24 persons. By keeping its own mark-ups at exceedingly low levels, Adventure Center enables cost-conscious Americans to enjoy the world's lowest-priced adventure travels (truck safaris, walking tours in underdeveloped countries, antarctic expedition cruises) operated by highly-skilled specialists with a long record of safe and successful touring. Scan its literature or website and you'll be struck by how affordable these once-in-a-lifetime exeditions can be.

Evergreen Bed & Breakfast Club (tel. 800/962-2392; www.evergreenclub.com) has, for 26 years, arranged comfortable but rock-bottom-priced homestays for persons over the age of 50 traveling to nearly 2,000 cities in North America and a growing number of locations abroad. Members offer rooms in their private residences to other members at the nominal charge (they call it a "gratuity") of $10 per single, $15 per double, per night, including a big breakfast. Yearly membership fee: $30 single, $37.50 double. Participation is by persons who do frequent traveling in the U.S.; who enjoy the camaraderie and friendship of private homes; and who are themselves willing to act as hosts on occasion in exchange for receiving such nominally-priced hospitality.

Intervac International Home Exchange (tel. 800/756-4663; www.intervacus.com), founded some 54 years ago and operated today in the U.S. by Paula Jaffe, is typical of the several vacation exchange clubs that enable Americans to swap their homes or apartments with those of persons in other cities, here or abroad, during their respective vacations. By permitting individuals to make use of a valuable asset -- their own home or apartment -- to live free elsewhere, it enables tens of thousands to travel in the best possible manner. And as you learn the modest charges for participation in Intervac ($78.88 for a yearly web-only membership), you immediately see that its managers are not involved in this business to get rich.

Let's give a cheer for the selfless, budget-minded operators of low-cost travel programs!

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Labels: tour companies

It's like no tour brochure you've ever seen. In place of "today we go to the Tower of London," it hits you with shockers, like in this trip to El Salvador from November 24 to December 3, 2007:

[We visit the site] where Oscar Romero, the six Jesuits and their co-workers, and the four North American church women were killed. We take part in spirited dialogue with people in grassroots movements...and [others] who experience this democracy facing global challenges. We learn how trade agreements affect immigration and the poor.

Now in its 26th year, the program known as "GATE" ("Global Awareness Through Experience"), designed and escorted by members of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (of La Crosse, Wisconsin), will offer numerous departures in the remainder of 2007 and throughout all of 2008 of six different programs to nations ranging from Guatemala to El Salvador to Mexico and Eastern Europe.

The tours are open to people of all ages and of all faiths.

Among the obstacles they've overcome were those thrown up by their superiors. Compelled to drop the words "liberation theology" from their literature, and other highly charged language about the wealthy elites that dominate certain Latin American and other countries, they seemed for a time (I've been following them for years) to be growing cautious.

But as far as I can see, the basic themes of these tours -- the emphasis upon contact with low-income people in foreign countries -- remain unchanged. Thus, in the spring and summer of 2008, GATE will escort groups of Americans to meet "the indigenous peoples of Guatemala." Participants will "explore human rights issues and an active resistance that stretches across centuries as well as the implications of a more recent development, CAFTA." On escorted tours of Oaxaca, Mexico, "a poor state," members of the traveling group "will learn something of the problems [Oaxaca] faces in education and agriculture, especially as they touch the lives of indigenous women."

Costs are remarkably low, an average of $1,175 per person plus airfare and $150 registration fee, for stays of nine and ten nights' duration, including lodging and all meals except one. Additional information is had by writing to GATE, 912 Market Street, La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601-8800, phoning tel. 608/791-5283, or faxing 608/782-6301.

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Labels: alternative information, tips

I sometimes worry that readers of this blog may not be able to access the rich assortment of comments made by other readers in response to posts that ran many days ago. By clicking on the words "Write and read comments about this post," they will of course see readers' comments with respect to the particular post at which they're looking -- but only with respect to that one post.

There's a broader assortment available to you. If you will click on any "Write and read comments about this post," you'll access a page that is headed with the line "Travel Talk > Arthur Frommer's Blog >." And if you'll then click on "Arthur Frommer's Blog," you'll access a page containing, in effect, a giant table of contents: the titles for no fewer than 120-or-so of the posts appearing in the preceding 25-or-so days.

And at the end of each of those titles, you'll find references to the number of persons who responded, often favorably, sometimes angrily, always entertainingly and smartly, with respect to that post. One recent blog subject drew 44 comments (both pro and bitterly con) as of today (and the numbers are constantly going up).

So for a more complete look at the dialogs that these blogs often provoke, simply click on "Arthur Frommer's Blog." I hope you will.

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Labels: blog

In our last word on the subject, I need to respond to those readers who have asked, in effect, how do you undertake a first visit to Sicily? Where do you start, where do you go?

The major cities and sights are all along the sea, and the seaside highways are the routes taken by most visitors, as they were for me. You start in Palermo, site of the international airport, and concentrate there on the 12th century, mosaic-covered churches and structures associated with the Norman conquerors of that time. From there you might drive for an overnight stay to the medieval mountaintop city of Erice (with its awesome views of the western tip of the island), and then down the western side of Sicily to Agrigento, home to a breathtaking, Greek Valley of the Temples dating from the fifth century B.C., more than six of them, including one -- the Temple of Concordia -- that is surely the best preserved, most-fully-intact Greek temple in all the world.

Most visitors then continue to the city of Siracusa (considered in its earlier time to be a more important Greek capital than Athens) and its well-restored "Greenwich Village," the island of Ortygia off one side of the city, where your stay must be for at least two and preferably three nights. A fifth-century Temple of Apollo is a secondary sight, overshadowed by a stupendous Archaeological Museum (a statue of Venus its outstanding item) and a giant Greek (and later Roman) amphitheatre, where plays of Euripides and Sophocles are still performed, as they were in ancient times. (The museum and the amphitheatre are in the city of Siracusa proper, and not on the island of Ortygia).

Your final stop (before returning to the airport of Palermo): the sensuous, colorful resort city of Taormina high overlooking a breathtaking vista of sea and coastline, enlivened further by purple bougainvillea everwhere you look. Taormina is a rival to Monaco, to Acapulco, to every other glittering seaside resort; and some would claim it tops them all. From Taormina, you cut through the center of Sicily and then north, back to the airport at Palermo for your homeward-bound flight.

If you seek a memorable, instructive, and yet pleasure-filled European experience at moderate cost (airfare and car rental are the major expense), think Sicily.

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Labels: sicily

The recent disclosure (in a study performed by Harris Interactive for Expedia.com) that only 14% of all Americans take vacations as long as 14 days, is a startling bit of news that should cause us to ponder the quality of life in our nation.

Alone among the prosperous, industrialized countries, we have no laws whatever guaranteeing a single day of vacation time to anyone. Faced with a paltry average of two weeks or two and a half weeks a year of vacation granted voluntarily by our employers, we carefully divide that time into three-day weekends scattered throughout the year. Eighty-six percent of our population never knows what it means to enjoy a sustained period of leisure, rest and contemplation. Eighty-six percent of parents and children spend no substantial time interacting as a family.

Meantime, several European countries guarantee a minimum of five weeks of paid leave to their working population. And many of the people in those countries enjoy vacation time, in practice, of as many as seven weeks each year. My nephew, who lives in France, takes as many as three weeks of vacation in winter, which he adds to the entire month of August when he and his family travel to an island in the Mediterranean and check into an inexpensive beachside hotel without television, telephones, computer access or radio. And there he, his wife, and his two children enjoy a month together that undoubtedly provides the most cherished memories of their lives. Returning to work refreshed, he is one of the most productive employees of his firm, and his children both attend public schools for the gifted.

I am aware of the arguments that are used to oppose legislation that would guarantee decent amounts of vacation time to the American people: interference with business, free enterprise, the sacred rights of property and contract, a burden on American productivity, a decline in our standard of living. They are the same arguments that were once arrayed against the abolition of child labor and the enactment of fair labor laws.

As a law student years ago, I had occasion to read the 19th century arguments that were presented before legislatures and courts by people opposing the elimination of child labor. Those statements were identical, indeed word for word the same as the arguments against mandatory vacation time: interference with business, free enterprise, the sacred rights of property and contract, a burden on American productivity, a decline in our standard of living. You may recall that the courts actually overturned statutes prohibiting child labor as "unconstitutional."

We've come a long way since those days. We now have a federal Wages and Hours Act which mandates the forty-hour week and time-and-a-half for overtime. We have a minimum wage law that interferes in the most beneficial manner with business and free enterprise. We have statutes requiring safe working places, and prohibiting racial, gender and age discrimination in employment. How great a leap is it to pass a law requiring that every American engaged in interstate commerce should enjoy a minimum of three weeks per year of paid leave? Even that paltry an extension of our rights would bring humanity into our work lives, and cause a skyrocketing improvement in the quality of our lives.

An increase in vacation time is among the unfinished business of our democracy. It is something to propose when the new Congress takes office following the elections of 2008.

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Labels: quality of life

Following the appearance in these posts of my recent reactions to Sicily (which were quite positive), I've been peppered with questions from readers on the role of the Mafia in Sicily and the impact of that role (to the extent it exists) on the tourist.

Call me naive, but the impact of the Sicilian Mafia on the tourist is nil. From arrival to departure, you hear not a word of Mafia activities, and no tourist to my knowledge has ever been targeted by a group that has every business reason to encourage visits.

Though Sicily's economic problems -- it is one of the poorer parts of Italy -- are sometimes "pinned" on the Mafia, just as many Sicilians will talk of the wave of foreign invasions that kept Sicily from becoming a strong nation-state for so many centuries. Its strategic position in the center of the Mediterranean made it a constant and irresistible prize for a succession of conquerors. It suffered especial damage from Allied bombardment and battle in World War II.

It is this turbulent history that provides the basis for a fascinating tour. In no other part of Europe with the exception of Malta is it possible to see so many striking remains (Greek and Roman temples, Muslim mosques, Norman cathedrals) of the key eras of human history crammed into such a small space. And all this is found in a place of striking natural beauty, of fields and rolling hills covered with such lush vegetation and agricultural richness that, by all rights, it should be one of the most prosperous areas of Europe rather than one of its poorest.

Far less developed than the rest of Italy, Sicily is also far less expensive, and rarely do you encounter the startling prices or overcharges that are sometimes found in more heavily-visited parts of Europe. You also encounter a warm and welcoming local population who, in my experience, are constantly gracious towards the visitor. I'm going again.

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Labels: sicily

Our English cousins charge weighty prices ($300 and $400 per person per day) for their scholarly tours led by eminent authors and professors; but those prices are often half the level charged by alumni associations and museums in the United States. I've earlier described the greatest of them all (Martin Randall Tours, found at www.martinrandall.com) and a close runner-up (The Traveller, found at www.the-traveller.co.uk). And you can now add a third British source: Andante Travels (tel. 011-44-1722-713800; www.andantetravels.co.uk), whose focus since 1985 has been archaeology and the ancient world. In practical terms, that means their subject matter also includes classic literature and history.

Typical tours: "Ravenna and Acquileia" seeking out decorative arts from the Roman period that are still found around the Po Valley of Italy: "Great Abbeys of Central Italy" tracing the early days of Christianity by way of the country's gorgeous old monasteries. Another trip spends a week exploring the famous cave art of the Pyrenees in France, led by a specialist in prehistoric art. Guides usually consist of professors at English universities, where study of the classics is still held in esteem.

Prices, while not dead cheap because of the exchange rate, are still reasonable considering the status of the expert guides and the small size (averaging 19) of the group -- and the fact that nowadays you're unlikely to find many brainy tours for much less. Travel with Andante usually costs around £200 a day, including all meals (with wine), hotels and transportation from London, which works out to about $400 in American currency.

There's also a budget alternative, for which Andante deserves special praise. Ten of its tours are classified as "'Bare Bones" trips, which don't include lunch or dinner, and use only moderate-value hotels. These, such as the exploration of the Croatian seaport of Split led by a woman who wrote her doctoral thesis on Croatia, cost around £1,000 for eight days, which brings the cost down to around $250 a day, before flights. Other "Bare Bones" destination's include Jordan's Petra (supervised by an archaeologist specializing in the Bronze Age), Pompeii (led by a professor in classics and a field archaeologist), and a two-day exploration of Stonehenge outside London.

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Labels: smart tours, tour companies

Its Adriatic Coast ("Dalmatia") is -- according to many observers, including myself -- the most scenically awesome in all the world. Its stately capital, Zagreb, and its timeless fishing villages, are a delight. Its Dubrovnik is a perfectly-preserved medieval knockout. And its prices are among the lowest on all the continent.

From September 29 to October 31, Paul Laifer will fly you there from New York and from place to place in Croatia, supplying hotels, sightseeing and more for 9 nights (consisting of 2 nights in Zagreb, 4 nights in Dubrovnik, and 3 nights in Split), for $1,989 per person. He'll do the same from November 1 to December 10, and from January 3 to March 31 (when it's often mild along the Dalmatian coast, and never bitter), for $1,649 per person. His company, Paul Laifer Tours of Parsippany, New Jersey (tel. 800/346-6314 or 973/887-1188; www.laifertours.com), has been sending thousands to central and eastern Europe for seemingly forever, and you couldn't find a better firm to supply the basic ingredients of an exciting autumn trip to the still-balmy cities of Zagreb, Dubrovnik, and Split.

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Labels: croatia

This fall, from mid-September until mid-November, a new Italian airline called Eurofly will be offering a new and different way to tour Italy, and though its program may not appeal to the most active of tourists, it will respond to the frequent complaint of middle-aged and elderly travelers that most motorcoach tours to multiple cities are too strenuous and fatiguing.

Eurofly is a former subsidiary of Alitalia which won its independence two years ago and began flying non-stop between New York and such Italian cities as Palermo (Sicily), Naples and Bologna, among others. By offering such convenient service, to cities that had never before enjoyed non-stop trans-Atlantic flights, it has scored quite a success.

This autumn, Eurofly launches its first tour programs to such cities as Palermo, Naples and Bologna, promising to take its tour passengers by motorcoach to large parts of Sicily from Palermo, to long stretches of the Amalfi Coast from Naples, and to the greater part of Tuscany from Bologna -- but without forcing its passengers to move from hotel to hotel. Rather, it will place its tour passengers into one hotel in each of Palermo, Naples and Bologna, where they will stay for an entire week. But on most days, they will be picked up at that hotel, and taken on successive full-day tours of either Sicily, the Amalfi Coast, or Tuscany, returning every afternoon (late) to the hotel from which they began. In effect, the one resort hotel will be a "base" for circular, daylong tours leaving and return to that hotel (where every night they'll take a leisurely dinner at the hotel).

The cost, for a one-week stay including accommodations and two meals a day, at least five full-day escorted motorcoach tours, and round-trip airfare between New York and Italy, will be as little as $1,599 per person -- which strikes me as quite a value.

These air-and-land packages to Italy are more fully described on the Eurofly website, which is www.euroflyusa.com. Or else you can phone for further details to their tour operator affiliate at tel. 800/227/5858. Some tours are a bit more complex than I've described them to be; but all in all, I think you'll find that they are a very attractive vacation opportunity for your middle-aged or older relatives or friends who enjoy the comfort of an escorted motorcoach tour but dislike having to pack and unpack each day as they rush from one hotel to another on a multi-city tour.

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Labels: deals, italy

Though I'm not a fan of all-inclusive resorts (and actively avoid them on my own trips), I can nevertheless understand the desire of many workaholics to choose resorts that let them turn off from the world, which is what all-inclusives do (by eliminating the daily search for meals, by confining you psychologically to the grounds of your hotel). Several weeks ago, I wrote about the bargains for all-inclusives of the Dominican Republic offered by CheapCaribbean.com (www.cheapcaribbean.com). But just as it's necessary to go to several air-fare search engines to find the cheapest flight for a particular date, it's often helpful to scan the prices and offers of two or three popularly-priced tour operators to find the best value for all-inclusive resorts. And one of the major competitors in this field is a Miami company called Vacation Travel Mart, headed by Jacques Abitan.

His website is www.vacmart.com, all full of super-specials for most of the key all-inclusive resorts of the Dominican Republic. Though the lead price is always for a three-night package including air from Miami or Fort Lauderdale, those figures are always immediately accompanied by the cost for seven-night stays from New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.

Currently, Vacation Travel Mart is showing its rates for July and August stays, a "mini high season" in the Caribbean, when resorts charge more than they do in the late spring or early fall. But when the post-Labor Day rates appear on the site just a few days from now, you may be gratified to discover that you can enjoy a September or October week, a full seven-night stay, at a first class hotel of the Dominican Republic, including round-trip air fare, all three meals daily, unlimited drinks, sea sports and entertainment, for as little as $400-$500 from Fort Lauderdale and $550-$650 from New York.

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Labels: deals, dominican republic

A "brainy tour," as I define it, is a cruise or land excursion accompanied by a noted academic expert or other widely-published scholar, who provides a lectured commentary on the theme of the tour. To the small list of companies that provide such brainy tours at a reasonable price (like the British firm, Martin Randall, discussed in an earlier post), you can now add the tours, easily available to Americans, offered by a British company called The Traveller (tel. 011-44-20-7436-9343; www.the-traveller.co.uk), which used to operate the worldwide tour program of The British Museum. Stung by 9/11, the British Museum got out of the travel biz, leaving The Traveller as an independent organization but with the same list of outstanding guest experts.

The Traveller's destinations tend toward the rare and the arcane -- just the sort of places where a curator from the British Museum might pick up another rare artifact. The company is the first British tour operator to undertake tours to Algeria, the troubled North African country, in 15 years. It even goes to Timbuktu, in the North African country of Mali.

You might think that given the pedigree of the guides and the exotic destinations of the trips that The Traveller would be priced for the upper crust. Not so: That 16-day tour costs the equivalent of about $360 a day, which is uncommonly affordable considering (a) that the price includes round-trip air from London, as well as all-inclusive arrangements, and (b) so few outfits arrange tours there without charging playboy prices.

Tours, which average 18 people, span the world. Its "Splendors of Angkor Wat," a ten-day deep-level tour of the famous Cambodian temple citadel, is led by an art historian who has written a book on the temples. Konstantine Politis, the man who discovered and excavated the Sanctuary of St. Lot on the Dead Sea in 1991, conducts three tours: Medieval Greece, Oman, and Petra over Christmas.

The Traveller's rates usually come in around $300 to $400 a day for destinations in Europe and North Africa, and $500 a day for farther-flung locations such as South America and Southeast Asia. But once again, all of those prices include round-trip flights from London, The Traveller's home city.

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Labels: smart tours

Let's talk today about a few trivial travel purchases, or items for packing, that can often reduce the price of a trip.

Film, batteries, and aspirins should always be brought along.
Film for your camera, batteries for your electrical devices, and aspirins for your headaches, are nearly always far more expensive overseas than here. Buy them in advance, and bring them along, so that you won't have to incur that completely avoidable extra cost.

Peanut butter and Nutella are helpful items to carry with you.
They're life-saving, money-saving; take up only the smallest space in your suitcase; need no refrigeration; are high in protein and energy; and when spread on bread or crackers can save the day -- inexpensively -- when hunger pangs hit, or when you're fearful of eating local foods. Peanut butter, you know; nutella (a semi-sweet chocolate hazelnut spread) is available at most good U.S. supermarkets and in every grocery store of France, Italy, Switzerland and Spain.

Another essential item for any long trip is a tiny spool of dental floss
A friend is the source of this puzzling advice. She claims that you can do many things with dental floss. You can stitch with dental floss and a needle. You can make dental floss into a fishing line. You can tie things with it. You can secure the locks on your luggage with dental floss, since dental floss can't easily be broken or untied. Dental floss, she claims, is the secret weapon of smart travelers!

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Labels: tips

It's one of the great mysteries of travel: a group of cruises that take advantage of the vastness of the sea to sail for days on end without seeing shore, that stop in exotic ports of Africa on their way to Europe or the Caribbean, that last for two weeks and more of blissful tranquility, are nevertheless so hard to sell that they have to be discounted in price, down to levels as low as $34 per person per day. I'm talking about "re-positioning" cruises that move passenger vessels from Europe to the Caribbean or vice-versa. Yesterday, I listed four of them. Here are three more:

1) November 17, 2007: Seventeen nights on the Lirica sailing from Genoa to Fort Lauderdale, for $749 per person in inside cabins -- that's $44 a day. Sailing is from Genoa to Barcelona, then a day at sea, Casablanca (Morocco), day at sea, Tenerife (Canary Islands of Spain), five days at sea on a smooth and southerly crossing of the Atlantic, Barbados, Grenada, Martinique, a day at sea, Dominican Republic, day at sea, Fort Lauderdale. Add $350 for port charges, $59 for taxes. Third or fourth adult in a cabin, $499. Third or fourth child (under 18) in a cabin is free, paying only port charges and taxes.

2) October 9, 2007: Sixteen nights on the Norwegian Dream of Norwegian Cruise Line sailing from Barcelona to Miami, for $539 per person in inside cabins (which is a remarkable $34 a day). You sail from Barcelona to Majorca, then Alicante (Spain), Celita (Spain), day at sea, Madeira, then a six day southerly crossing of the Atlantic, St. Thomas, two days at sea, then Miami. Add $240 for port charges, $63 for taxes. (Note: the price for an outside cabin is only $699 per person).

3) October 20, 2007: Fifteen nights on the Norwegian Jewel of Norwegian Cruise Line sailing from Barcelona to Miami, for only $999 per person in inside cabins (which amounts to $66 a day). Departure is from Barcelona to Nice, then Livorno (Italy), Civitavecchia (the port of Rome), Corsica, Majorca, Gibraltar, a day at sea, Madeira, six days at sea, Miami. Add $250 for port charges and $67 for taxes.

Each of these sailings can be booked at the prices set forth above from White Travel Service, at www.cruisewizard.com or tel. 800/547-4790.

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Labels: cruise, deals

Continuously operated for more than 30 years, and the only survivor of what used to be several such counter-culture bus companies, the Green Tortoise has not only remained in business, but grown to fairly large size. It now offers not simply its classic trans-continental tours (14 days coast to coast, Boston to San Francisco and vice versa, during several months of the year) and its famous Los Angeles-to-San Francisco rides, but goes as far a field as Costa Rica and the Baja California peninsula of Mexico, and to numerous other destinations in North America. In the course of doing so, it attracts some of the most congenial and dynamic people (of all ages) in America, attracted equally by its low, low rates, and unpretentious atmosphere. And it also operates a fascinating website that you can access at www.greentortoise.com. Or else you can phone them at tel. 800/TORTOISE.

Green Tortoise brings about its low costs and congeniality by removing the seats from the bus, and replacing them with platforms on which passengers place sleeping bags. The bus (the company has many of them, in continual operation) travels only by night, while passengers sleep ("stretch-out-and-sleep-while-we-drive" is the organization's slogan); daytimes, it parks near sightseeing attractions, and passengers can visit them at their discretion. Passengers also share the task of shopping for groceries (from a "food kitty" established at the start of the trip) and cooking. The result is an amazing low price level and a cooperative interaction among all passengers.

$599 plus $171 for the food kitty (total of $770) is the all-inclusive price of the 14-day, trans-continental trip covering every major sight of America, from Boston to San Francisco. A round $39 is the charge for the overnight trip between Los Angeles and San Francisco. All other prices are carefully displayed on the organization's website when you click to see the scheduling details of all other tours -- and there are quite a lot of them.

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Labels: bus, cheap transport

Advance reading in the culture and history of the country you are about to visit can make a tremendous difference to your travels. I propose, periodically, to discuss certain books that cast an important light on popular places, including even the "potboilers" -- like the mystery novels by Donna Leon that are set in Venice or those by Henning Mankell taking place in Sweden. A reader once wrote me that she even found Irving Stone's overly-popular (and full of fluff) The Agony and the Ecstasy, about the life of Michelangelo, to be super-helpful on her trip to Florence and Rome.

A Salman Rushdie novel, the much-acclaimed Midnight's Children, illuminates the recent history of India in a way that can aid your conversations with the residents you'll meet on a trip to Delhi. Rushdie's book is the fictional story of a young boy born on the eve of Indian independence, whose family experienced the violence between Muslims and Hindus, the conflict in Kashmir, and other key political events in the time when Indira Gandhi was prime minister, taking the story of India into the 1980s.

And a user of Frommers.com first realized how the reading of a travel memoir by a skilled observer can help to focus one's memories of a previous trip (and is even more helpful if read before the trip). She reached that conclusion when she discovered Italian Days by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, on returning from a trip to that country's main cities. Still yearning for the "sounds, tastes, people, and special slants of light," she said, "I re-experienced Italy through a writer I have grown to love with a reading passion."

We'll be discussing more up-to-date and recently published books in a later post.

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Labels: tips

The "re-positioning cruise" -- shifting a ship from Europe to the Caribbean, or vice-versa -- is unpopular with the American public because it spends too many days simply at sea, without stopping at ports. The vessel undertakes a long sailing across the sunny south Atlantic, after heading down the coast of Africa (if it's a westbound re-positioning cruise) or dipping to the southern Caribbean before crossing the south Atlantic to Africa and then Europe (if it's an eastbound re-positioning cruise). Our anxious, stressed-out population apparently can't stand the thought of such a leisurely stint at sea, and the cruiselines need to charge breathtakingly low prices -- as little as $34 a day -- to fill their "re-positioning cruises".

Which makes for a superb vacation opportunity. If you're among the lucky few who can devote 16- or 17-days or so to simply luxuriating at sea, taking a "slow boat" to another continent, spending long hours with a paperback book, getting to know your fellow passengers, you'll carefully consider the re-positioning offers, which carry the lowest price tags of any vacation around. Keep in mind that though the ship may not be entirely full, its program of cuisine is identical to the one offered on the shorter cruises.

I went to Rick White of White Travel Service (tel. 800/547-4790; www.cruisewizard.com) for his choice of the most attractive re-positioning cruises. He suggested seven of them, of which we'll print four today and three tomorrow.

1) November 2: Fifteen days from Genoa, Italy, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, aboard the Costa Fortuna (one of Costa's newest ships), for $549 per person in inside cabins -- that's $36 a day. You sail from Savona (the port of Genoa) to Barcelona, then spend two days at sea, Tenerife (the Canary Islands), five days at sea, Guadeloupe, St. Maarten, day at sea, Nassau, Fort Lauderdale. Add $260 for port charges and other fees, $44.16 for government taxes, and add airfare to Genoa. Third or fourth adult in a room is $249; third or fourth child (under 18) $149.

2) November 29: Sixteen nights from Genoa to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, aboard the brand-new Costa Mediterranea, for $899 per person in inside cabins -- that's $56 a day. You sail from Savona (Genoa) to Barcelona, day at sea, Casablanca (Morocco), day at sea, Tenerife (Canary Islands of Spain), five days at sea, Barbados, Antigua, St. Maarten, day at sea, Nassau, Fort Lauderdale. Add $249 for port charges and the like, $52 for government taxes; and add airfare to Genoa. Third or fourth adult in a room is $350; third or fourth child (under 18) $250.

3) December 3: Nine nights from Barcelona to Boston aboard the brand-new Norwegian Gem of Norwegian Cruise Line, for $399 per person in inside cabins -- that's $44 a day. You sail from Barcelona, spend two nights at sea, then Madeira (Portugal), five days at sea, Boston. Add $200 for port charges, $64 for government taxes, airfare to Barcelona. Note: outside cabins are only $100 more per person.

4) March 29, 2008: Seventeen nights from Fort Lauderdale to Dover, England, aboard the MSC Lirica, for $749 per person in inside cabins -- that's $44 a day. You sail from Fort Lauderdale, spend two days at sea, San Juan, Antigua, Martinique, six days at sea, Madeira, one day at sea, Vigo (Spain), one day at sea, LeHavre (France), then Dover, England. Third or fourth adult in a room $499; third or fourth child (under 18) in a room, free (pay only cruise line fees and government taxes). Add $350 for port charges, $59 for government taxes.

Is there any such comparable bargain, anywhere?

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Labels: cruise

A large number of Americans have cell phones that don't work overseas. So on the eve of a trip, we frantically search for a new cellphone from Cingular (AT&T) or T-Mobile (which do work in some -- not all -- countries), or we pay $75 for a chip that can be inserted into some (not all) phones to render them capable of making and receiving calls abroad. And if we find a phone that will work in the country to which we're traveling, we then have to worry about whether our re-charger will plug into foreign sockets.

I met last month with the founder of the 12-year-old TravelCell (www.travelcell.com), a leading renter of foreign-enabled phones; but I must stress that a visit to Google will turn up a dozen other companies that compete with him. In a sales pitch that his competitors will probably match point for point, the TravelCell founder stressed that when you phone his toll-free number, which is 877/cellphone, you speak with a specialist who is well versed with what phones work in what countries and under what conditions. By simply listing the countries to which you plan to travel, that specialist is able to recommend a rental phone that will work in every place to which you will be going. And after agreeing on the price, the phone is sent to you overnight, along with a re-charger that will also work in the sockets of the countries to which you are going.

Like most of its competitors -- such companies as Cellomobile (www.cellomobileusa.com) or Phonerental (www.phonerentalusa.com) -- TravelCell will charge around $29.99 per week for rental of the international phone, plus $1.39 a minute for most outgoing calls from most countries. Significantly, it allows you to receive unlimited, free, incoming calls -- a feature that almost all such companies are offering today. Obviously, you have to leave a deposit covering your temporary ownership of the phone, and you pay a hefty fee if the phone is lost, stolen or damaged during your use of it (for which most renters take out an insurance policy costing 99 cents a day).

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Labels: tips

You ought to be aware, if you aren't already, that a new low-cost airline has begun flying as of late June between New York's JFK Airport and London Gatwick. It's called ZOOM, and it's been operating with great success for the past five years from eight Canadian cities to five cities in Great Britain. It has now received U.S. permission to fly from New York to London. I made a test booking on its website, in which I chose a round-trip in mid-July (you can't get more "high season" than that) and was quoted an amazing $276 for the round-trip, including fuel surcharge. While there were additional government taxes and security charges of $161, the total cost remained just short of astonishing for high season dates. Go to www.flyzoom.com or phone tel. 866/FLYZOOM.

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Labels: airlines

My recent comments about the twelve-week backlog in processing passport applications, which has wrought havoc with the vacation plans of so many, provoked more reader comments -- pro and con -- than anything I've said on this blog to date. Some die-hard defenders of the State Department and Department of Homeland Security wrote that the fault lay with the public (the same people claimed that my criticism was due to radical political attitudes).

An investigative arm of MSNBC.com has now published a report on what they think happened, and I think you'll be amused by their discoveries (the report can be found at MSNBC's website). Note how the initial processing of applications was out-sourced to private enterprise, namely the Citigroup organization of Wall Street fame, and that State Department officials claim that Citigroup made a mess of it all. Note, second, how the appropriate officials were warned that an additional 468 staff members were needed for reviewing passport applications -- and yet failed to hire anywhere near that number.

But note especially (and disturbingly) that a union representing State Department staffers has argued that the time allotted for processing each application -- a big two and a half minutes -- is too short a time to weed out fraudsters or terrorists. Despite this, each “adjudicator” is required to process 24 applications an hour, which gives them 2 and a half-minutes per passport request, even assuming that they work without let-up or a five-minute break, throughout that hour.

What kind of protection is this against terrorists obtaining a passport?

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Labels: passports