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The Hardships Encountered by Passengers at the Nation's Overcrowded Airports Are Because of Congress' Refusal to Properly Fund Amtrak

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 05/26/2016, 4:30 PM

Photo credit: Jake McGuire We are now in the full throes of the summer travel season, and the airports are jammed. I use the word "throes" advisedly. The dictionary defines "throes" as "intense or violent pain or struggle," and that's exactly the phrase to describe our current airport conditions. The check-in counters are jammed, the corridors a mass of crowds, the security...

Reports: The TSA Speeds Up Lines By Allowing Shoes, Fully Packed Bags

By Jason Cochran

Posted on 05/25/2016, 6:45 PM

For weeks, the news has been clogged with reports that airports were often seeing lines of as long as two hours for security clearance. According to independent reports on Twitter today, the Transportation Security Administration has resorted to speeding up lines by instructing passengers not to remove their shoes, the way they have been forced to do for 15 years. This comes the day after the...

And Still They Come: Ever-Larger Cruise Ships to Displace the Smaller Vessels, Causing Grave Harm to the Once-Delightful Activity of Cruising

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 05/22/2016, 5:00 PM

Photo Credit: Royal Caribbean Recently, the travel trade press has been filled with headlines about the largest cruise ship ever built. It is the 5,500-passenger Harmony of the Seas that has just been delivered by its shipyard manufacturer to Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. The monster vessel will sail the Mediterranean this summer, and will then move to the Caribbean for the winter. ...

A Decision by the President's Daughteer to Experience a "Gap Year" Before Entering Harvard Has Brought Immense Publicity to this Travel Option

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 05/22/2016, 1:45 PM

When the President's older daughter, Malia, announced that she would experience a "gap year" before entering the freshman class of Harvard University, her decision brought considerable publicity to what, for many American young people, is an increasingly popular travel activity. Though not every "gap year" involves travel, enough of them do to justify this discussion in a blog dev...

The Possibility of Public Disorder is Perhaps Another Problem of the Upcoming Summer Olympics in Rio

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 05/19/2016, 12:45 PM

Zona Sul, Rio de Janeiro. Photo credit: ru_boff/Instagram On my own several trips to Rio de Janeiro (as a one-time tour operator, I offered charter flights there), I confined my visits to the areas around Copacabana Beach and Ipanema Beach. I had been warned by numerous acquaintances not to venture into downtown Rio, the Tijuca Forest, or any other area outside those two famous be...

Why Are So Many People Acting Like Jerks in National Parks? A Radical Proposal to End the Selfishness

By Jason Cochran

Posted on 05/18/2016, 9:00 PM

Did you hear about the "Tourist Bros" who reportedly have a warrant out for their arrest for trampling on fragile areas of Yellowstone? A vanity project called "High on Life SundayFundayz" is in serious hot water. Somehow, these arrogant Canadians convinced people to send them money to take a cross-country American trip in a customized RV and shoot social media video as they went along. I...

Travel to Cuba is Now in Full Swing, Available on Group Tours or Cruises at Outrageous Prices, But Affordably to Totally Independent Tourists

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 05/12/2016, 1:00 PM

Photo credit: Ana/Wikimedia Several months ago, when Carnival Cruises announced it would soon begin offering cruises to Cuba, it did so in the strangest way. Instead of promising a standard cruise program, one that would visit several Cuban ports and allow passengers to tour the highlights of those locations, it characterized its program (perhaps inadvertently) as consisting of o...

Two New Websites Are Poised to Become the Airbnbs of RV Rentals

By Pauline Frommer

Posted on 05/09/2016, 9:30 PM

It was only a matter of time. Just as HomeAway.com and Airbnb.com dramatically changed the home rental industry, now two relatively new sites are transforming the ways people rent motorhomes. As with the vacation home sites mentioned above, they’re created for peer-to-peer interactions. And the increased competition between average Joes and traditional rental agencies (also found on these si...

With Americans Caught Up in the Presidential Race, Travel May be Somewhat Reduced, Creating Unexpected Opportunities for Persons Determined to Travel

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 04/28/2016, 4:30 PM

To the U.S. travel industry, now is the “election year curse”—a time when both domestic and international travel slow perceptibly. And this year, that sluggish trend has apparently been made worse by the terror attacks in Paris in November of 2015, and by the terror attacks in Brussels in early March, 2016. ­­­­Though it’s too early to make a firm prediction, it’s possible that tran...

Not as a Hypothetical Prediction, But in Disturbing Reality, the Surviving Big Airlines of America are now Acting like Classic Monopolies

By Arthur Frommer

Posted on 04/25/2016, 12:45 PM

When, through mergers and acquisitions, the big airlines of America were reduced to four (Delta, United, American, and Southwest), such critics like me complained that they would soon begin acting like monopolies, taking joint actions, immediately copying each others' worst anti-consumer rules, ceasing to compete. Nothing could better support such a prediction than a tota...

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