Now That the Cost of Travel Within Europe Has Been Lowered Through the Decline In the Value of the Euro, Why Not Consider a Longer Trip There?
Posted on 04/08/2015, 3:30 PM
The sharp, recent decline in the value of the European currency, the Euro, has convinced a large number of Americans that they can now consider not simply a short, inexpensive, one-city trip to a single European city, but a longer trip of three or more weeks to a number of European nations. I couldn’t be happier over that realization, so highly do I value the benefits of widesprea...
Hey Yank, Want to Go to Cuba? You Can Now Get Travel Insurance and a Bed More Easily If You Go
Posted on 04/02/2015, 3:00 PM
And another piece—no, make that two—has fallen into place for Americans with a yen to visit the long-forbidden Cuba. Today, massive online lodging company AirBnB (it serves as a marketplace for apartment and room rentals around the globe) announced that it would be repping more than 1000 beds in Cuba, just as online insurance marketplace InsureMyTrip.com sent out a press release that the number...
Fee Hikes May Be Coming to a National Park Near You
Posted on 04/02/2015, 1:15 PM
(Photo by NPCA Photos/Flickr) It's no secret that America's greatest treasures, its National Parks, are woefully underfunded. So it should come as no surprise that after a moratorium of nine years, fees will be going up at some of the most popular parks and recreation areas. These include entra...
Portrait of a Family Volunteer Vacation in Chennai, India
Posted on 04/02/2015, 6:30 AM
When Vani (not her real name) was five years old, her mother dropped her off to live at the SEAM Children’s Home in Chennai, India. Vani’s mother had remarried, and her new husband didn’t like the little girl. He had beaten her severely a few times. SEAM, a home for orphaned and semi-orphaned children, offered safety and the promise that the child would be educated. Vani barely spoke when sh...
Is An Exotic Trip In Your Future? Here Are Some Important Health Precautions to Take in Advance of Travel
Posted on 03/31/2015, 1:30 PM
Heading to Quebec City? You can likely just hop on a plane or train without a second thought. But for other destinations—many parts of Asia, Africa, South and Central America and now the Caribbean (thanks to the Chikungunya virus)—you risk your health by traveling without advance precautions. For my own recent trip to India, I learned the following tips from travel physicians and other cautious...
After Germanwings: Are the Budget Airlines Less Safe than the Others?
Posted on 03/26/2015, 2:30 PM
On Thursday morning on ABC's The View, Michelle Collins, one of the show's revolving co-hosts, suggested that because the European cut-price airlines are tough on customers with fees and optional pricing, then it's possible that attitude contributed to the pilot-initiated crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 in the French Alps. "I have to say this airline, Germanwings, they're a budget air...
Don't Buy the Hype! $10 Flights to Europe Will Never Be a Reality, And Here's Why
Posted on 03/18/2015, 5:30 PM
Anyone who has ever been on Facebook knows what click bait is. That's when some website—it used to be one you'd never heard of, but now everyone's doing it—writes a sensational headline that you just can't resist clicking. This week, the hot-button click bait goes like this, from The Huffington Post (a common click-bait culprit): Transatlantic Flights for as Low as $10 Could Become a Real...
Want to Use Your Frequent Flyer Miles? Guess How Many You'll Need. No, Really, GUESS, Says One Airline
Posted on 03/12/2015, 9:00 AM
How would you feel if you walked into a grocery store and underneath the butter, the broccoli and the babaganoush were signs with question marks rather than prices? Well, Delta has done the equivalent of that just recently on its website, when it removed the charts showing the minimum number of miles needed to book. As if mileage programs weren't opaque enough! This follows on the heels, or s...
When Your Vacation Escape Involves Literally Escaping: The New Tourist Attraction That’s Sweeping the Globe
Posted on 03/11/2015, 6:30 PM
The theater was shabby, with a disheveled group of marionettes hanging in a little stage at the front and wooden tiered seats so old and flimsy they looked like they’d fall apart if an audience member guffawed too hard. Dust coated many surfaces and the only contemporary items in the room—a massive digital wall clock and a mysterious, multi-colored wall panel of flashing lights—just added to the...
Special Globe, A Superb New Website for Families with Children With Disabilities, Debuts
Posted on 03/09/2015, 10:15 AM
Travel was an important, and much beloved, part of Meghan Harris’ life growing up. Her father was a professor, and he used his sabbaticals to show his family the world. Harris hoped to do the same when she started a family. But her first child, daughter Eliza, was born with Rett’s Syndrome, a chromosomal abnormality that is fatal to boys and causes development delays and mobility impairments i...
