The use of condos or vacation homes in place of hotels may well be among the most important trends in travel. A nationwide service that acquaints the public with these residential properties, has recently (and selflessly) published the internet names of forty-some-odd competitors, and I think it's useful to our readers to ... Read More »

One of the most prestigious of all the companies renting condos and vacation homes is Endless Vacation Rentals ( www.evrentals.com ) owned by Wyndham Hotels. The fact that a large hotel chain should promote short-term residential properties that compete with hotels is a remarkable testament to the increasing popularity of ... Read More »

On yesterday's Travel Show ( available online here ), I interviewed Jeff Tucker, co-editor of Beat of Hawaii ( www.beatofhawaii.com ), about the trend in mainland-to- Hawaii airfares. However pessimistic he was about them, he was even more doleful in discussing inter-island airfares. With a reduction to two in the number of ... Read More »

The various cruise discounters are constantly scrambling to package the  Panama Canal  with a two-week cruise that often includes one-way airfare on each end of the trip, and yet sells for only $100 a day. Among the most active of these companies is Travel Themes and Dreams (tel. 877/870-7447;  ... Read More »

Though the U.S. dollar has recently strengthened a bit against the euro and the pound, the costs you face in England and on the continent are still pretty daunting.  Europe  is a fairly costly destination, and so are the airfares going there. This summer to Europe, you can expect to pay a minimum of $800 ... Read More »

No sooner did I announce, as I did last week, that Go-today.com was charging only $899 for a stripped-down package for attending the Oberammergau Passion Play, than Gate 1 Travel ( www.gate1travel.com ) began offering a very similar package for only $799. At least it seems like the same package. Like Go-today, Gate 1 is ... Read More »

The new book on rail transportation in the U.S., Waiting On A Train by James McCommons, is so full of detail that it cannot easily be summarized. I attempted a short analysis in a post of several days ago. But one point he made is so important, and irrefutable, that it deserves separate mention. It deals with undeniable ... Read More »

Both the train to Machu Picchu, the Inca Trail for hikers going there, and Machu Picchu itself, have now been closed by Peruvian authorities for what they say will be "at least" seven weeks. Given the notorious optimism inherent in all such re-construction estimates, I'd wait for at least three months before attempting a ... Read More »

The new Electronic System for Travel Authorization, which went into effect last month, requires that those desirable foreign tourists who are permitted to enter our country without a visa (mainly from western Europe), will nevertheless have to send us an e-mail three days in advance of arrival requesting the right to come ... Read More »

I advised you earlier in January about a $1,099 air-and-land package to the so-called Golden Triangle of India (Delhi, Agra, Jaipur) offered by that familiar source of budget-priced packages, Gate 1 Travel. Amazingly, its price of $1,099 per person includes round-trip airfare to New Delhi, including all fuel surcharges, and ... Read More »