Foreign River Cruises Are the Big Travel Hit of 2014, But Whether They're For You is an Open Question
Posted on 06/20/2014, 6:45 PM
River cruises are the big success of the current travel season: as amazing as it may seem, no fewer than 53 new river cruiseships will be joining an already-large number this year and in early 2015. One company--Viking--will alone be adding some 24 spectacular and luxurious "longboats" to its fleet. And so heavy are advance bookings for these 130-passenger vessels that rarely will you find...
More Visitors to New York City Are Spending a Considerable Amount of Time in Brooklyn, Not Only for Their Lodgings But For Their Cultural Entertainment
Posted on 06/20/2014, 12:15 PM
Would-be visitors to New York City face a dreadful paradox. On the one hand, they yearn to experience The Big Apple. But when they call for a hotel reservation, they encounter the highest hotel rates in all of America--often as much as $400 a night for a standard double room. The solution to this travel-blocking conundrum? Brooklyn, the borough of Brooklyn. An immense city o...
Tourism to Machu Picchu Has Virtually Exploded in Recent Years, Despite the Refutation of Its Most Popular Explanation
Posted on 06/17/2014, 12:30 PM
In the world of travel, Machu PIcchu, the famed "Lost City of the Andes", occupies an increasingly-high position. Currently, more than 1,000,000 tourists a year are visiting this enchanting city of the 15th century Incas. To place that figure in perspective, consider that many other popular nations (whole countries) receive less than 800,000 tourists a year. How many other archaeologica...
A Website Called Wanderu is Now Able to Advise You About Nearly All the Low-Cost Bus Services for Travel in the U.S.A
Posted on 06/17/2014, 11:45 AM
With the recent expansion of a major internet site for booking bus transportation, the bus has come into its own as a major method for travel within the United States. None other than the mighty Greyhound has now added its thousands of daily departures to the choices offered on Wanderu.com. And why is that important? It's because Greyhound is no longer the most expensive of our dom...
Nickel and Diming at Sea: Extra Charges for On-Board Entertainment
Posted on 06/17/2014, 11:45 AM
There have been times I've felt that someone should be paying me for sitting through the shows that pass for entertainment onboard some cruise lines. That being said, cruise ship entertainment has been getting better in recent years (hurray for Blue Man Group!). But with this improvement, it seems, will come a price tag. Carnival Cruise Lines is already charging between $20 to $150 (for VI...
The Questions Put to our Weekly Radio Program Reveal Broadly-Held Travel Concerns--As Witness the Following
Posted on 06/17/2014, 9:00 AM
Although some of the questions put to us on our weekly radio program may seem rather ordinary at first, they nevertheless reflect widespread concerns about problems in travel. Here are a number of those recent questions and our responses to them: Q. The popular, recent Disney film, "Frozen", was supposed to have taken place in Norway, and portrays that nation as unusually attractiv...
A Number of the Questions Recently Posed to Our Weekly Radio Program Reveal Strong Concerns About Problems in Travel
Posted on 06/13/2014, 1:15 PM
Although some of the questions put to our Sunday radio program may seem rather ordinary at first, they nevertheless reflect widespread concerns about problems in travel. Here are a number of the questions recently put to us (Arthur and Pauline Frommer), and our answers to them: Q. The popular, recent Disney film, "Frozen", was supposed to have taken place in Norway, and portrays th...
A New App for Your Cellphone or Tablet Lets You Read Magazines for Free, But only at an Airport or in the Plane!
Posted on 06/13/2014, 12:15 PM
If an entrepreneur were to create a cellphone app that permitted you to read various magazines free of charge, that wouldn't be a news event suitable for discussion on a travel-related website like this one. But when an entrepeneur creates a free-of-charge magazine app that is usable only when you are at an airport--in other words, an ...
Frequent Changes for Frequent Flyer Programs: Another Consumer Unfriendly Switcheroo Is on the Horizon
Posted on 06/10/2014, 2:00 PM
Lassie may be loyal. But flyers—at least those who aren’t business travelers—may want to ditch that strategy. That’s the only conclusion to come to after the latest announcement from United Airlines that, like Delta Airlines, it will be switching to a revenue based points system. (Delta’s new program goes into effect on January 1 of 2015). What that means is that UA travelers, starting Ma...
A Broad Range of Non-Academic Learning Vacations of Varied Sorts (But Mainly in Arts and Crafts) Are Still Available for Your Summer Vadcation
Posted on 06/08/2014, 6:45 PM
In the world of learning vacations, such famous names as Oxford, Cambridge, Cornell and St. John's tend to dominate discussion. These are the schools to which a great many American adults go in summer for a vacation week or two of re-immersion into the liberal arts. But perhaps an equal number go to schools focusing on arts and crafts, folk dancing, yoga, religion, languages. ...