Two New Biographies Are Indispensable for Trips Through Europe or America
Posted on 12/26/2017, 7:00 PM
Hundreds of thousands of Americans are currently purchasing and avidly reading two monumental biographies in book form about two monumental figures in world and American history. In position number one on every bestseller list is Walter Isaacson’s 900-page volume on the life and achievements of Leonardo da Vinci (Simon & Schuster). The other, ranked closely behind and almost as large, is Ron ...
It Matters What Day of the Week You Book Airfares: A New Study
Posted on 12/13/2017, 6:15 PM
Some people wait for the arrival of the Beaujolais Nouveau or the start of baseball season. But for this travel writer, the day the Airline Reporting Corporation (ARC) puts out its trends report is one of the best days of the year. That’s because the report, prepared in tandem with Expedia for the last four years, is a bouquet of helpful airfare tips based on granite-solid data. The Airline Rep...
Our Top Tips for Surviving Holiday Air Travel this Year
Posted on 12/13/2017, 9:45 AM
The airlines are expecting 51 million passengers to fly in United States in the final two weeks of December, a figure that’s up 3% from last year’s record number. Break it down and that means some 80,000 more passengers a day than fly during an average day during the rest of the year. If you will be among the masses, you'll want to carefully strategize. Here are our suggestions: Check in 24 hou...
Airbnb Just Made Planning Group Trips a Lot Easier
Posted on 12/03/2017, 7:00 PM
Humans have always traveled in packs. But booking this style of travel online has always been difficult—few sites allow users to divvy up payments among several travelers. Airbnb to the rescue. The short-term rental marketplace announced last week that it is modifying its website and app to allow groups to reserve accommodations so that no one member will be left holding the bag. Here's how it...
Why It's Good Most Big Ski Resorts in North America are on Multi-Resort Passes
Posted on 11/28/2017, 12:45 PM
Skiing has always been a pricey vacation activity. But today, it’s difficult to know whether one’s investment will pay off. You reserve a room months in advance, buy your lift tickets, maybe make reservations for good après ski meals, and show up at the mountain—only to find it’s brown instead of white. True, many resorts are expert at snow making. But as dedicated skiers and snowboarders know, the...
The Trump Slump Claims Another Victim: Students Coming to Study at U.S. Colleges
Posted on 11/17/2017, 4:00 PM
In earlier blogs, I discussed the recent sharp decline in foreign tourism coming to vacation in the United States—far more than a few million fewer visitors compared to previous periods. To those figures, in statistics released just days ago, we now need to figure in a drop of several hundreds of thousands of fewer foreign students coming to the United States to study in our places of learning. Exp...
The Changing Situation of Married vs. Unmarried Folk Is Affecting Tours
Posted on 11/06/2017, 1:00 PM
In a surprising announcement, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that fully 50 percent of America’s adult population now consists of unmarried single people. And because another smaller percentage of the population is married people who nonetheless prefer to travel alone, the result is that more than half of our adult population are persons who travel without a spouse. That interesting figur...
Passenger Jets Now Fueled by Food Scraps and Vegetable Oil
Posted on 11/01/2017, 3:00 AM
At the end of 1985's Back to the Future, Doc Brown opens his Delorean and dumps table scraps and beer into a "Mr. Fusion" tank to generate the power to whisk Marty McFly into the year 2015.Now it's 2017, and although personal fusion-powered travel is still in the distant future, the ability to fly passenger planes using food waste is here.In September, JetBlue announced a plan to purchase more than...
The Cruise Industry Goes All Out to Claim Caribbean Ports Have Recovered
Posted on 10/20/2017, 1:15 PM
When did you last see an ad for land-based resorts in Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands? You probably haven’t. The damage to beaches and roads leading to some of those properties seems too significant to overcome concerns about them. While such major Caribbean islands as Jamaica, Aruba, Curacao, St. Lucia, and others have suffered no damage at all from the recent hurricanes, Puerto Rico a...
If Morality Won’t Persuade U.S. to End Gun Violence, How About Economic Damage?
Posted on 10/10/2017, 12:45 PM
Because this blog is about travel, not politics, I am prevented from discussing the issues of gun control raised by the recent shooting in Las Vegas. But I very definitely am entitled to discuss the impact of that event on foreign travel to the United States. Even before the tragic use of an automatic rifle to kill and injure hundreds of spectators gathered for a music concert in Las Vegas, oth...
