Arthur Frommer: Prosecution of Fake TripAdvisor Reviewer Raises Questions
Posted on 09/18/2018, 1:00 PM
The defendant, in a recent criminal prosecution brought in Italy, was a man who operated a company manufacturing fake hotel reviews. Presumably hiring excellent writers, he apparently sent hundreds of fake recommendations to TripAdvisor.com, claiming that particular hotels (at which the writers had never stayed) were outstanding in their service and facilities. For this work, the defendant was app...
Turkey Is Insanely Cheap for Travelers Right Now
Posted on 08/20/2018, 12:00 AM
Turkey's ongoing currency crisis, during which the Turkish lira has lost more than 40% of its value, is making a vacation in that country extremely affordable at the moment for travelers from places with stronger economies. As of this writing, one U.S. dollar equals 6.04 lira. According to USA Today, $1 got you 3.54 lira just one year ago. That means that American travelers can get a lot of bang...
Arthur Frommer: Climate Change Is Jeopardizing the Travel Experience
Posted on 08/17/2018, 6:00 AM
Is climate change for real? And is it having an impact on the recreational travels we undertake? If you would put that question to relatives of mine living in England, they would loudly respond, “Yes!” They live near an English province where temperatures recently reached 111 degrees Fahrenheit (44 Celsius). While such heat would only slightly affect residents of, say, Phoenix, Arizona,...
U.S. Airports with the Most and Least Secure Wi-Fi
Posted on 07/20/2018, 11:45 PM
You already know that airport Wi-Fi can be maddeningly slow. Did you know it also could be leaving you vulnerable to hackers? That's the conclusion reached by a new study (which you can download here) from cybersecurity company Coronet. Analyzing data from the devices of more than 250,000 passengers who had traveled through the 45 busiest airports in the United States over a five-month period, re...
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Nuts! Southwest Airlines Stops Serving Them on Flights
Posted on 07/10/2018, 9:30 PM
If you were on Family Feud and Steve Harvey asked you to name a snack served on an airplane, it's a cinch that peanuts would be on the board, probably as the number-one answer. Which is odd because peanuts aren't served on the planes of major airlines anymore, with only one or two exceptions. Delta is one—though according to Travel Weekly, that airline will "refrain from serving peanuts on a spe...
A Deadly End for the Yellowstone Daredevils
Posted on 07/09/2018, 12:00 AM
Two years ago, in the spring of 2016, a few young Canadians created an international scandal by treading into forbidden, protected areas of Yellowstone National Park and recording it for their social media followers in the name of living life to the fullest. The men were famous for shooting videos of themselves doing extremely dangerous things in beautiful places. We wrote at the time: "Hundreds...
Arthur Frommer: Quintana Roo, Mexico, is Gaining as a Tourist Destination
Posted on 06/26/2018, 12:00 AM
While numerous destinations in Mexico are suffering from what some describe as an overly sensitive spate of tourist warnings from our U.S. State Department, one area is obviously resisting that trend. In 2017, some 22 million tourists visited the state of Quintana Roo, in sharp contrast to some declines in Mexican tourism elsewhere. Quintana Roo is the location for super-popular Cancun, Pl...
How Bad Will Hurricane Season Be This Year?
Posted on 05/30/2018, 12:00 AM
Hurricane season officially starts Friday, June 1, but the first named storm of the year has already arrived. Subtropical depression Alberto made landfall in the Florida Panhandle on Memorial Day and continues to bring the threat of heavy rains, wind gusts, and flash flooding as it moves through the Southeast. The Weather Channel predicts the storm could last through late Wednesday, as what rema...
Arthur Frommer: What Would Happen if Mexico Published Warnings About the U.S.?
Posted on 04/08/2018, 9:30 AM
The Secretary of Travel for Mexico, one Enrique de la Madrid, was recently interviewed by the editor of Travel Weekly and expressed considerable upset at the various “advisories” (warnings) published by our U.S. State Department about travel to different parts of Mexico. Every time, he said, that there is an outbreak of violence in or near a city of Mexico, our U.S. State Department quickl...
TSA to Make You Remove Snacks from Your Carry-On—Except When It Won't
Posted on 03/29/2018, 3:00 PM
The next time you go through airport security, you could be asked to remove all food from your carry-on luggage, along with all the other stuff that gets removed—your shoes, your laptop, and, should you be selected for an invasive pat-down, your dignity. Then again, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) might let you keep that Snickers bar or bag of Cheetos in your bag as it slides al...
For Tourists, This Is the Last Straw!
Posted on 03/09/2018, 12:00 AM
Last call! More and more, you're going to have to go without drinking straws. Single-use plastic straws are distinctly unkind to wildlife. Fresh straws choke animals. Then each straw is said to take longer than 200 years to break down, and all the while, it disintegrates into ever-smaller and smaller bits that are eaten by small animals, fish, and even plankton. The plastic bits eventually make it...
How Not to Do Yosemite in Winter
Posted on 02/20/2018, 9:00 AM
I sometimes think my real job as a travel writer is to be an idiot. It's my job to make mistakes and then report on them so that my readers can have fun, safe, and error-free vacations. This week, I really succeeded: I almost died twice. I just left Yosemite National Park in California. I had thought this column would be about the wonders of Yosemite in winter. And while it is wondrous, the famo...
After 50 Years, Jesus' Baptism Site May Fully Reopen to Tourists
Posted on 02/16/2018, 11:00 PM
The section of the Jordan River traditionally designated as Jesus Christ's baptism site, where the Man from Galilee kicked off his mission to bring peace to the world, is currently surrounded by nearly 4,000 land mines. In other words, the peace-on-earth project still has a ways to go. But at least some moves are being made in the right direction. Following many delays and ongoing negotiations, ...
A Luxury Island Retreat Where Only Women Are Welcome
Posted on 02/02/2018, 3:15 PM
We told you women-only travel was going to be a big deal in 2018. To wit: In September, a private island off the coast of Finland will begin welcoming guests—and dudes need not apply. Christened SuperShe after a networking group designed to empower women, the luxury isle will specialize in wellness offerings such as fitness classes, healthy eating, and artsy activities. Founder Kristina Roth t...
Is It Safe to Vacation in Cape Town Once the Water Runs Out?
Posted on 01/31/2018, 12:00 AM
We have never been here before. A major world city is about to run out of fresh water. On April 12, the drought-stricken city of Cape Town, on the southwestern tip of Africa, hits Day Zero. That's when the reservoir levels drop too low, taps run dry, and water must be trucked in. How we reached this point is important. While climate change dramatically reduced rainfall in the Mediterranean clim...
San Francisco Airport Can Now Send Emergency Texts to Passengers
Posted on 01/18/2018, 8:00 AM
San Francisco International Airport has become the first in the nation to receive approval from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to send emergency text messages directly to any cell phone onsite—devices belonging to passengers included. The warning system will work something like Amber Alert notifications used in response to child abductions: In the event of an emergency, travelers will re...
U.S. State Department Travel Advisories: Where to Find Them, How to Read Them
In 2018, the U.S. State Department revamped its travel warnings to make them easier to understand. Here's how to find them and how to use them to plan a safe trip overseas.
Arthur Frommer: For No Real Reason, Feds Attack the Legality of Cannabis Tourism
Posted on 01/12/2018, 1:00 AM
Because the current U.S. Attorney General is a fierce opponent of marijuana, we can expect a massive legal attack against travel to the states—mainly California and Colorado—that have recently legalized its use. What is startling about this prospect is that the alleged dangers of smoking marijuana have been denied by every respectable study. The key examination of marijuana was cond...
New York City's Airport Dentist Looks Back on 30 Years in the "Smile High Club"
Did you know there are dental offices at New York City's LaGuardia and JFK Airports? Dr. Robert Trager has been tending to the smiles of airport personnel and passengers for three decades.
Want a Cannabis Vacation? Now There's a Whole Town for That
Posted on 01/03/2018, 12:00 AM
One day after California, America's most populous state, made recreational cannabis consumption legal, the Los Angeles Times reported on an entire town where getting stoned is the whole point of the joint. It's called Nipton—as in Nipton in the bud. The village was purchased last September by American Green, a publicly traded, Arizona-based cannabis company. Nipton is a speck of a century-old mi...
If Morality Won’t Persuade U.S. to End Gun Violence, How About Economic Damage?
Posted on 10/10/2017, 4:45 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...
