There's No Better Time for a Quick Trip to Paris than the Autumn
Posted on 10/30/2015, 4:15 PM
To those Americans lucky enough to enjoy an autumn vacation (or the ability to take off a week at that time), a trip to Paris is a perfect choice. When Parisians return from their summer time off, they plunge into an impressive round of worthwhile cultural activities, that make for a scintillating stay in the City of Light. Although the traditional sights. attractions and events of Paris are ...
In Recommending 10 Lightly Visited Destinations for Your Next Vacation, I Avoid the Unknown Places That May Deserve Their Lack of Notoriety
Posted on 10/30/2015, 3:45 PM
This is the season for the publication of travel lists: the "10 Best of This", the "10 Best of That". Travel journalists disclose their 10 Best travel destinations for the year ahead, or their 10 Best unknown travel gems, usually places of which few Americans have ever heard, or places so expensive that few Americans would choose them. One well-known travel firm has named Botswana i...
American Airlines to Sell An Even More Basic Ticket Than it Does Now
Posted on 10/23/2015, 2:00 PM
Call it the Spirit Effect: American Airlines will be the latest major carrier to offer a no-frills, stripped-down, bare-bones version of its ticket. Starting next year, according to USA Today, American Airlines will begin offering tickets that cannot be changed or refunded or offer advance seat assignment. This new category, which will all but guarantee a middle seat on most flights, ...
And Now: Here are Three New Possibilities for Your Next Vacation
Posted on 10/23/2015, 12:00 PM
Convento do Carmo, Lisbon Tired of the same old trip? The travel industry is constantly creating the means for an entirely new vacation experience, as witness the following newly-popular destinations and a newly-revived form of European lodgings: Portugal and Colombia are the hot new destinations, attracting a great many smart travelers. Both are cheap: Portugal is, along w...
Airfares Are Dipping Once Again (and Two Other Pieces of Good News for Flyers)
Posted on 10/20/2015, 11:30 AM
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 suggested that, in other ways, flying will be getting better for travelers in the coming months. Most importantly, prices are dipping. Hopper, an app that tracks airfares and advises users when to book, came out with a...
JetBlue Announces It Will Offer Free Wi-Fi
Posted on 10/15/2015, 8:15 AM
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 a good thing, because yesterday JetBlue announced that it would be eliminating one of the most loathed flying fees: Wi-Fi connectivity. It will be offering its "Fly-Fi" for free aboard its entire fleet. And this ...
Will Foreign Travel to the U.S., or Even American Travel Within the U.S, Be Lessened by the Apparent Increase in Gun Violence?
Posted on 10/14/2015, 6:45 PM
Are parts of the United States unsafe for vacation tourism? A number of Australian activists have answered Yes to that question, advising their fellow citizens—in a widely publicized statement—to avoid traveling to the United States because of the prevalence of gun violence here. And thus, the concern of many Americans about traveling to unsafe areas in Europe a...
An Order of Nuns in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, is Using Travel to Further the Aims of Pope Francis
Posted on 10/14/2015, 6:15 PM
The recent, repeated emphasis by Pope Francis on concern for the poor has brought renewed attention to the outstanding travel program operated for that purpose. It is called "Global Awareness Through Experience" (shortened to read "GATE") and it has been offered for more than 25 years by an order of nuns, the "Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration", from their convent in LaCro...
In an Unusual Move, Princess Cruises Develops New Musicals with the Writer of "Wicked" and "Godspell"
Posted on 10/12/2015, 3:45 PM
There's a Broadway arms race raging in cruise ship entertainment. It started nearly a decade ago when Norwegian mounted a chopped-down version of the lesser-known musical Smokey Joe's Café (1994) on one of its ships. That show, a simple revue of Leiber and Stoller early rock songs, fit the mold for the jukebox style of live entertainment passengers expected: familiar, plotless, tuneful, and ove...
Several Well-Financed Firms Have Now Gone into Competition with Airbnb, Supplying You with Alternatives for Renting Low-Cost Apartments
Posted on 10/09/2015, 5:30 PM
By now, Airbnb.com has become a "household word" in travel. Most Americans are aware that the bearer of that name is today valued at billions of dollars, and that its inventory of low-cost apartments for short-term rental is perhaps larger than the world's total number of hotel rooms. Multitudes use Airbnb for their accommodations when they travel, and large numbers of persons owning a...
