The release of carbon into the atmosphere by passenger-carrying airplanes is increasingly feared to be an important cause of global warming. Numerous commentators have recently claimed that cars and planes are the world's second-fastest-growing source of CO2 emissions.
So what should we, as responsible travelers, do? More and more, it's suggested that we purchase so-called "carbon offsets" when we buy an air ticket, like contributions to funds that plant trees swallowing up the CO2 created by our travels. Last month, Delta Airlines announced that starting this summer, passengers who book their seats on www.delta.com would have the option to contribute $5.50 per round-trip domestic flight and $11 per round-trip international flight to a conservation fund planting trees throughout the world.
How real are the results of such programs? It's obvious that when 10 or 20 passengers on a jumbo jet make a voluntary gesture to offset environmental damage, that 300 or so less-conscientious passengers are causing far greater emissions through their decision to fly. Unless the contribution is mandatory among all passengers, the environmental benefit is minor. And even then, there seems a limit to the number of trees that even a universal program of "off-sets" is capable of planting.
One airline -- the expensive Silverjet flying business-class-only seats from New York to London -- has in fact required a mandatory extra-charge environmental donation from all its passengers. It boasts it has therefore become the world's only "carbon neutral" airline. The notion that all the world's airlines might be willing to follow its lead seems fanciful.
A far better way to offset the carbon emissions of air travel is to replace as many of those flights as possible with train transportation. Already in Europe, more than 70% of the persons traveling between London and Paris make that trip by train, especially aboard the high-speed Eurostar; and numerous airlines are beginning to cancel their London/Paris flights. On the continent, air travel between Paris and Brussels has virtually ceased.
When will the United States awaken to the need for replacing our own jam-packed highways and short flights with reliable, comfortable, rail service -- trains that also eliminate the giant carbon emissions of the airplanes they replace?
Alternate Airports (www.alternateairports.com) discloses the identity of airports within driving distance of the airport you wanted to reach; the latter often offer more affordable flights, cheaper parking, and less expensive car rentals. It lists alternate airports for more than 100 U.S. cities (like the cheaper Oakland as an alternate for San Francisco).
Travel Health Online (www.tripprep.com) names health hazards and recommended inoculations for countries worldwide. After registering (free), click on "Destination Information" for advice on vaccines, malaria and other diseases, including those transmitted by insects, food and water. And click on "Travel Medicine Providers" for lists of physicians worldwide.
WebFlyer (www.webflyer.com) is an impressive source for news and advice about frequent flier programs. Founded by Randy Petersen of Inside Flyer magazine, the site reviews loyalty programs, suggests strategies for using mileage, lists bonuses, and provides tools such as a blackout calendar of excluded dates for mileage award tickets.
Which Budget (www.whichbudget.com) lists the cut-rate carriers that now fly between 568 airports in 60 countries worldwide (keep in mind that many of these are not listed on the well-known airfare booking engines). Lets you select both outbound and destination airports to learn which budget carriers fly between them.
SeatGuru (www.seatguru.com) displays seat maps for aircraft used by 25 domestic and international airlines, enabling you to find and then request the best seats. Hover your cursor over a seat for comments such as "restricted legroom" or "tray table in armrest". Seat Guru also shows exit locations, galleys, lavatories, and power ports for plugging in your laptop.
JiWire (www.jiwire.com) is a worldwide directory of 65,000 wireless "hot spots", with hundreds more being added monthly. Tells you, in effect, where you can get online without plugging in (some log-in spots are free, others require payment). And JiWire can also be used to search for hotspots at airports.
It's become painfully obvious, based on more dreadful experiences than I choose to recall, that the "legal connection time" of one hour is no longer sufficient in today's air transportation. The number of flights arriving a half an hour late, and the distances that one must often cover from one terminal to another to board a connecting flight, insure that you will often miss the connection when you have booked a connecting flight scheduled to depart only an hour after your arrival. And often, when you have missed that connecting flight, you are in deep trouble with all your other scheduled activities.
Sad to say, split-second timing and efficient scheduling are no longer realistically available to the airline passenger. If only we had a decent railroad system for our transportation needs!
A few posts ago, I began devoting some of this blog to the Great Myths of Travel. There are also Great Truths of Travel -- and though they aren't equivalent to the major principles of ethics and science (the Ten Commandments are safe), they can be of big importance to your next trip. Here are the first three Great Truths of Travel (with more coming soon).
1) The less you spend, the more you enjoy. The less you spend, the more authentic is your travel experience, the more likely you are to meet typical people of the destination. You also meet a better type of traveler. In the modest B&Bs of a thousand cities, you encounter guests with a sense of adventure, an intellectual curiosity, an openness to new ideas and approaches. They are far more interesting than the pampered sorts with their stacks of luggage and arrogant demands, who flock to the first class hotels.
2) The greatest rewards of travel are had from learning vacations. The supreme activity of travel are the summer courses offered by many great universities to adults from around the world: Oxford University, University College Dublin, Cornell's Adult University, St. John's College in Santa Fe, many more that a quick look at Google will reveal. Pursuing learning for the love of learning, without grades or examinations, you use your vacation time to return to the liberal arts and improve your mind.
3) By planning in advance to meet residents of the destination, you enliven your trip. By making inquiries of your friends or associates, you can obtain the names and addresses of people at the destination who might accept an invitation to dinner or drinks. Those meetings are the highlight of any foreign trip, far more memorable than the standard sightseeing attractions.
Jim and Mary Patterson (those aren't their real names) paid an astonishing $999 per person for their visit to five Chinese cities in ten days, including round-trip air. Too frightened to sign up for a bargain-priced wonder, William and Ellen Cartwright paid some $4,000 per person for round-trip air and 14 nights in six Chinese cities.
Yet once in China, both couples walked the same stretch of the Great Wall, attended the same show of Chinese acrobats in Shanghai, walked on the same ancient brick floors of the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace, strolled around Tiananmen Square, beamed at Chinese kindergarten children in the same sort of elementary school in Suzhou, even ate in the same mammoth restaurant with singers and orchestra, to which nearly every tour group is brought in Beijing.
To the extent that their tours differed, it was in the number of passengers (30 for the cheap tours, fifteen-or-so for the expensive ones) that formed each group, and the hotels in which they were housed. But since most hotels in China are modern and less than 15 years old, the difference between them is not in the comfort of the rooms but in the elegance of the public areas -- and thus utterly unimportant.
How little can you pay? Try the following two options for starters:
$999-$1,599 for 12 days, from China Focus: The unchallenged price leader to China is the remarkable China Focus, of San Francisco (tel. 800/868-7244; www.chinafocustravel.com), whose 12-day stay in five cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Ji'nan, Tai Shan, Qufu, and Suzhou) is so great a value for the price -- it also includes round-trip air on Air China. The only condition to these rates is that you make payment by personal check or money order, not via credit card (plastic requires an extra $200 charge). The firm's Chinese-American management is so reliable that I've never received a complaint about China Focus (but rather constant passenger compliments). When: Departures through December.
$999-$1,469 for 9 days, from Champion Holidays: The east-coast runner-up to China Focus, charging slightly more, is New York's Champion Holidays (tel. 800/868-7658; www.china-discovery.com), offering departures at the above prices from Los Angeles (and from New York for an additional $100-$120). You receive round-trip air (Air China or Japan Airlines), seven nights in China (Beijing, Suzhou, Wuxi and Shanghai) at good first class hotels. When: departures through February 2008.
Nearly every user of Frommers.com is aware of the big airfare and hotel booking engines on the internet. But three websites of much lesser renown can be just as important to your travel planning.
Viator.com (www.viator.com) lists thousands of sights, tours and attractions in important cities and islands all over the world, and then lets you book them prior to leaving home, avoiding long lines at the destination or being shut out during busy holiday periods. Includes everything from London's giant ferris wheel (the London Eye) to golf courses in Hawaii, always at the same price as you'd pay on the spot.
Theme Park Insider (www.themeparkinsider.com) provides impartial theme park advice on when to go, what rides to take, safety issues, and hotel reviews -- it's well worth visiting. Click on "Park Reviews" for outspoken comments on more than 60 theme parks, from Universal Studios to Tokyo DisneySea. In addition to staff reviews, readers rate attractions and parks.
Roadfood (www.roadfood.com) steers you to that sumptuous diner where waitresses call you "Honey" and the apple pie tastes like grandma's. Though fast-food joints have taken over the interstates, RoadFood helps you find affordable, non-franchise restaurants with tasty, home-cooked food. About 1,000 restaurants are listed for the United States (also see www.dinercity.com for photos and addresses of classic diners).
You may have seen a recent Reuters dispatch about Japanese tourists who were made mentally ill by their visits to Paris, either because they were treated discourteously by French shopkeepers or because their exposure to a different way of life was psychologically unsettling. Travel can of course affect the mind, but I believe the effects of travel are usually far more positive and pleasant. Travel teaches that all people all over the world are basically alike. Travel shows us that people grow when they encounter new lifestyles. It teaches that more than a single answer exists for human problems. And by going to places where no one even thinks about America, it teaches us humility. I'm willing to bet that the overwhelming percentage of Japanese tourists to Paris are exhilarated by the experience.
Determined to stay at a hotel on your next trip to London? The drop in the dollar against the pound is bad news not simply for the American traveler but for the British hotels that cater, among others, to Americans. And some of those hotels are therefore frantically discounting their rates to Americans in order to hold on to that important segment of their business. If you will go to www.londontown.com, you'll immediately see that many important London hotels are discounting their rates by as much as 40 and 50 percent for Americans, which more than overcomes the current adverse exchange rate.
I call $1,695 plus airfare a sensible price for 15 days of hiking, biking and rafting in Spain's Catalonia region. Canada's tremendously popular GAP Adventures (booked mainly by Americans) offers a variety of travel styles, from the more tour-like Comfort and Original vacations to the gnarlier Active and Overland trips. Drawbacks: the quoted prices are not as inclusive as some others (there are lots of on-the-ground costs in the fine print, often including most meals).
She didn't wear the Stetson hat and distinctive green-and-brown uniform of a park Ranger. Her only I.D. was a metal name tag pinned to her jacket. But the guide from the Yellowstone Association (www.yellowstoneassociation.org) who met us for breakfast at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel, and then spent the entire day escorting us by van and on foot through a vast swath of the Yellowstone wilderness, was as highly motivated, well-informed, and delightful, as any member of the National Parks Service.
Nearly every major U.S. National Park has a non-profit "association" which assists in the education of park visitors. Yosemite, for instance, has one, and Yellowstone has a particularly impressive one offering a wide range of "Lodging and Learning" programs -- "Trails through Yellowstone," "Yellowstone for Families," "Springtime in Wonderland," "Autumn in Wonderland," and several more -- that combine three or four nights of lodging and meals, in-park transportation by van, and expert instruction by naturalists, biologists and geologists, who can bring about understanding of the complex wildlife, geysers and hot springs in America's oldest national park.
Their full-time services, and the room and board you also receive in park cabins with private bath, can run as low as $150 a day per adult and $90 a day per child.
On our recent trip to Yellowstone, my wife Roberta and I opted for one of the Yelllowstone Association's one-day "Ed-Ventures" -- an intense eight hours spent wildlife-watching and hiking/walking among the thermal geology and unique scenery of this American wonderland in Wyoming. The "Ed-Venture" charge is $395 for up to seven people, and if you are lucky enough to have several others scheduled for the day of your "Ed-Venture", the entire experience -- including transportation and the constant services and lecture-commentary of a Yellowstone Association guide -- can amount to less than $60 a person.
There are, of course, numerous free-of-charge walking tours of 45 minutes or so that park Rangers also offer at different sites in Yellowstone, and we greatly enjoyed these quick interludes operated by idealistic park service employees. And there are some Ranger-led tours of up to six hours, for a modest fee. But the ability of the Rangers to conduct longer tours using transport has been severely reduced in recent years by cut-backs in appropriations mandated by Congress. And what once was free, no longer is. Fortunately, the Yellowstone Association, staffed in part by former Rangers, has taken up the challenge. Call 307/344-5566 to register for "Lodging & Learning"; call 307/344-2294 to register for a personal Ed-Venture. And for more elaborate group programs, operated by the Association, call 307/344-2591.
