Tagged: travel

Florence With the Experts: A New Program Italy-Bound Travelers Should Know About

Florence (photo by PapaPiper/Flickr)Italia Rail, the company that has been, for the last decade, the largest international vendor of Italian rail tickets, is taking that…

Celebrate New Year's Eve in a Free Hotel Room

And we're not talking the Motel 6 in Akron.CitizenM Hotels, a growing chain that has made a name for itself with stylish pod hotels (read: the digs are tiny, but very high…

Airfares Are Dipping Once Again (and Two Other Pieces of Good News for Flyers)

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…

JetBlue Announces It Will Offer Free Wi-Fi

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…

The Way of Wanderlust: A Delightful New Book of Travel Essays

By their very definition, travel memoirs introduce readers to corners of the planet they may never get to themselves. But The Way of Wanderlust, a collection of travel essays by…

Gifts You Should Give Yourself This Holiday Travel Season

In the next couple of months, most of us will be spending a lot of time in stores, and online, shopping for gifts for our loved ones. If you’re going to be traveling to give those…

The Vatican Gets More Liberal...With Visitor Hours

I'm assuming we can thank Pope Francis, though this wasn't one of his bigger announcements. But quite quiety, several months ago, the Vatican extended its hours for half the year, on…

HopStop Stops for Good

One of the greats is gone. I feel like I've lost a friend.No, I have lost a friend.Because unlike college buddies and work colleagues, Hopstop—the superb public transportation…

Paris Extends Shopping Hours in 12 Major Neighborhoods

Thanks to a recently passed bill, Parisian stores in such popular neighborhoods as the Marais, the Champs Elysees, and Montmartre will have the option to stay open on Sundays and up…

Death By Selfie: The Dangers of Taking Too Many Selfies While Traveling

With every technological advance, there’s also a step backward…and sometimes that step can be a fatal one, in the case of selfies. The modern smartphone, with its ability to not…

Meteorologists Predict Changing Weather Will Make This Year's Fall Foliage Different

First the bad news: leaf-peeping along North America’s eastern seaboard, and in the inland areas of New England, may not be quite as vivid an event as it usually is in 2015.…

Driver Licences From Four U.S. States May No Longer Be Accepted As I.D. at Airports in 2016

And those states are: New York, New Hampshire, Louisiana, and Minnesota.In December of 2014, the first phase of the Real ID Act from Congress and the Department of Homeland…

The Sky Isn't Falling But Airfares Are: Air Pricing Sees the Biggest One-Month Drop in 20 Years

For months, the second most popular travel question that's been lobbed my way (after "is X, Y or Z safe?") has been: "Why, with the cost of gas so low, haven't airfares…

Emirates Airlines Will Fly the Longest Route on the Planet: Tips on Surviving 17.5 Hours in a Plane

17.5 hours. That’s the length of the new longest flight on the planet, which will soon be offered by Emirates Airlines between Dubai and Panama City. Convenient? Certainly.…

Snapchat Becomes More Traveler-Friendly

"You and your selfies!" I kidded to my teenage daughter as she struck a pose for what seemed like the tenth time in an hour and then clicked away on her smartphone. "Mom I'm not…

A La Carte Cruise Pricing To Become Even More A La Carte, At Least on Norwegian Cruise Lines

Start boning up on your math. You're going to need those calculating skills to determine which cruise vacation will now have the overall highest costs.I reported last week that…

Are Cruises Becoming All-Inclusive? Kinda. Sorta. Maybe.

While those who head to sea are no longer afflicted by rickets (too many citrus fruits on the buffet for that), they do sometimes have to handle noroviruses, seasickness, and that…

The Time Has Come to Consider Re-Regulation of the Airline Industry

In a modern democracy, "regulation" is no longer a dirty word. Unregulated medications can hurt or kill you, unregulated monopolists can destroy competition, and unregulated…

5 Capitol Reasons to Head to Washington, DC in the Next 6 Months

The United States Congress may be in a constant gridlock, but nothing stays the same for long in the United States’ Capitol. Here’s what visitors to this always-fascinating city can…

Safety First: What Parents Need To Know Before They Send Their Kids Off to Summer Camp

Earlier this year, my 12-year-old daughter was studying the concept of utopia in her history class and having trouble grasping what the word meant. I told her to think of her summer…

New York City’s Latest Culinary Trend Is One That Your Mother—And Your Cardiologist—Will Approve Of

About five years ago came the parade of pork, in every form under the sun, the fattier the better. That trend was followed by the “Cronut” phenomenon: normally sane people getting up…

Which Frequent Flyer Program Is the Best for Actually Redeeming Miles? A Massive New Study Provides Some Answers

We have to give thanks to Consumer Reports, which has done the heavy lifting on this one, completing a study of some 70 million passenger in the last year has yielded important data…

Hey Yank, Want to Go to Cuba? You Can Now Get Travel Insurance and a Bed More Easily If You Go

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…

Portrait of a Family Volunteer Vacation in Chennai, India

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…

Is An Exotic Trip In Your Future? Here Are Some Important Health Precautions to Take in Advance of Travel

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…