Articles

Pauline Frommer

Article / Passportable

Florence With the Experts: A New Program Italy-Bound Travelers Should Know About

Florence (photo by PapaPiper/Flickr)Italia Rail, the company that has been, for the last decade, the largest international vendor of Italian rail tickets, is taking that…

Article / Passportable

Celebrate New Year's Eve in a Free Hotel Room

And we're not talking the Motel 6 in Akron.CitizenM Hotels, a growing chain that has made a name for itself with stylish pod hotels (read: the digs are tiny, but very high…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

Airfares Are Dipping Once Again (and Two Other Pieces of Good News for Flyers)

Overly chatty seatmates, cramped seating and long security lines: these unhappy byproducts of airline travel aren’t going away anytime soon. But this week, several news events…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

JetBlue Announces It Will Offer Free Wi-Fi

It's no secret that the major airlines act like lemmings. One adds a baggage fee and the next follows. One throws a sale, and soon the whole pack is in.But for once that may be…

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The Way of Wanderlust: A Delightful New Book of Travel Essays

By their very definition, travel memoirs introduce readers to corners of the planet they may never get to themselves. But The Way of Wanderlust, a collection of travel essays by…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

Gifts You Should Give Yourself This Holiday Travel Season

In the next couple of months, most of us will be spending a lot of time in stores, and online, shopping for gifts for our loved ones. If you’re going to be traveling to give those…

Article / Passportable

Et tu, Amtrak? Baggage Fees Coming to Rail

Amtrak is taking a page from the airlines.No, make that two pages. Starting today it will start charging for bags. And it's telling us this is for our own good.According to the…

Article / Passportable

The Vatican Gets More Liberal...With Visitor Hours

I'm assuming we can thank Pope Francis, though this wasn't one of his bigger announcements. But quite quiety, several months ago, the Vatican extended its hours for half the year, on…

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HopStop Stops for Good

One of the greats is gone. I feel like I've lost a friend.No, I have lost a friend.Because unlike college buddies and work colleagues, Hopstop—the superb public transportation…

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Paris Extends Shopping Hours in 12 Major Neighborhoods

Thanks to a recently passed bill, Parisian stores in such popular neighborhoods as the Marais, the Champs Elysees, and Montmartre will have the option to stay open on Sundays and up…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

Death By Selfie: The Dangers of Taking Too Many Selfies While Traveling

With every technological advance, there’s also a step backward…and sometimes that step can be a fatal one, in the case of selfies. The modern smartphone, with its ability to not…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

Meteorologists Predict Changing Weather Will Make This Year's Fall Foliage Different

First the bad news: leaf-peeping along North America’s eastern seaboard, and in the inland areas of New England, may not be quite as vivid an event as it usually is in 2015.…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

Driver Licences From Four U.S. States May No Longer Be Accepted As I.D. at Airports in 2016

And those states are: New York, New Hampshire, Louisiana, and Minnesota.In December of 2014, the first phase of the Real ID Act from Congress and the Department of Homeland…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

A New App Promises to Make Travel More Safe for Solo Vacationers

Men and women travel differently. And that’s not a comment on shopping habits or boozy pub crawls. For women, especially solo travelers, safety is always front of mind,…

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An Icon of Modernist Architecture Turns 50: Happy Birthday to St. Louis’ Gateway Arch

St. Louis’ Gateway Arch may well be the most bittersweet of the world’s iconic monuments. The planned focal point of a park built in the 1930’s to celebrate Thomas Jefferson, and…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

International Airfare Wars Make It Much Cheaper to Vacation Abroad This Fall and Winter

I reported roughly a week ago that airfares for the summer took a sharp dip; and that experts were predicting that fall fares would also be low.Sometimes it's sweet to be…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

The Sky Isn't Falling But Airfares Are: Air Pricing Sees the Biggest One-Month Drop in 20 Years

For months, the second most popular travel question that's been lobbed my way (after "is X, Y or Z safe?") has been: "Why, with the cost of gas so low, haven't airfares…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

Emirates Airlines Will Fly the Longest Route on the Planet: Tips on Surviving 17.5 Hours in a Plane

17.5 hours. That’s the length of the new longest flight on the planet, which will soon be offered by Emirates Airlines between Dubai and Panama City. Convenient? Certainly.…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

Stowe in Summer (and Fall) Is a Revelation: A Dedicated Winter Visitor Tries Another Season

White all around, visibility nil, my cheeks flapping wildly from the wind and air—this was the Vermont I knew well, after 20-plus years of heading here to tackle the ski slopes of…

Article / Passportable

Snapchat Becomes More Traveler-Friendly

"You and your selfies!" I kidded to my teenage daughter as she struck a pose for what seemed like the tenth time in an hour and then clicked away on her smartphone. "Mom I'm not…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

Active Vacations Without the Sticker Shock: How To Save on Ski Trips, Bike Vacations, Weight Loss Spa Getaways and More

Sunlight, the breeze at your back and, perhaps, a bit of sweat on your brow? Those can be pricey commodities in the world of vacations. As anyone who’s ever tried to charter a boat,…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

A La Carte Cruise Pricing To Become Even More A La Carte, At Least on Norwegian Cruise Lines

Start boning up on your math. You're going to need those calculating skills to determine which cruise vacation will now have the overall highest costs.I reported last week that…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

Carnival Cruises Announces It Will Be the First Major Cruise Line to Head from the United States to Cuba

Though I'm not sure how pleased I am that Cubans first up-close view of contemporary American culture will be the sight of a gaudy Carnival Cruise Ship floating into their harbor,…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

Are Cruises Becoming All-Inclusive? Kinda. Sorta. Maybe.

While those who head to sea are no longer afflicted by rickets (too many citrus fruits on the buffet for that), they do sometimes have to handle noroviruses, seasickness, and that…

Article / Passportable

Say "American Cheese": The White House Lifts Its Ban on Selfies

This past December, I had the priviledge of visiting the White House as part of a convocation of travel writers, brought together by the Obama Administration to get out the word that…