Arthur Frommer: Some Little-Known Institutions Bring You a Better London
Posted on 04/18/2018, 9:00 PM
Why is it that we turn off our minds when we visit London as tourists? A city of profound intellectual pursuits, the British capital offers exciting mental rewards if we simply take the time to find them. Far removed from Changing the Guard and Piccadilly Circus are at least the following: Free public lectures: Next time you visit any major London museum, ask the attendants fo...
Coming in May: UFO Fests in Oregon and New York State
Posted on 04/17/2018, 12:00 AM
The search for signs of intelligent life in the universe hasn't turned up much so far. Even here on earth intelligent life can seem awfully hard to come by. But judging from the many UFO festivals held across the country each year, there are evidently still plenty of those who believe the truth is out there. Among this spring's crop of events dedicated to alien abductions, government cover-ups...
In New York City, Rapidly Shifting Hotel Prices, Shorter Dining Hours, and More
Posted on 04/12/2018, 5:30 PM
Every year at this time, I update the book Frommer’s EasyGuide to New York City. This involves spreadsheets of pricing, hours, and more, meaning that I’m easily able to graph the trends that shape visits to Gotham. Here’s what I’m seeing for 2018 and into 2019: Good news/bad news on hotel rates: To track hotel pricing, I use several hotel booking engines, and I test dates for the slowest travel da...
"Millennial" River Cruise Brand No Longer Restricted to Millennials
Posted on 03/12/2018, 5:45 PM
U by Uniworld, a new river cruise brand originally restricted to passengers aged 18 to 40—then 21 to 45—has now dropped upper age limits altogether. When the brand's pair of sleek, all-black ships, dubbed simply the A and the B, launch in April, adults of any age can be on board, even if they have memories of watching Nixon's resignation or the last episode of M*A*S*H. In announcing the change,...
Booking.com Introduces New Program for Unusual Stays
Posted on 03/08/2018, 12:30 AM
Unconventional accommodations like treehouses, yurts, and barns have proven popular on vacation rental sites such as Airbnb and HomeAway. For the increasing number of travelers seeking unique, Instagrammable experiences, a night in a castle or on a houseboat has obvious advantages over a run-of-the-mill chain hotel. Now Booking.com, which has an enormous online database of accommodations around t...
The Ever-Expanding Footprint of Airbnb and What It Means
Posted on 03/05/2018, 6:00 AM
With speed more head-spinning than Linda Blair's in The Exorcist, Airbnb has been growing and changing and growing once again. In just the past 18 months or so, it has added online guidebook-style material, a section for luxury rentals, another that filters for “unusual” digs, and, most surprisingly, actual hotels. In the latter category, Airbnb will be growing exponentially in the coming months: I...
Why Don't More People Think of Renting an RV from a Private RV Owner?
Posted on 03/02/2018, 9:00 PM
Probably the most misunderstood, most underused travel facility is the recreational vehicle capable of both housing and driving a family. All over America, persons own such RVs, but a good percentage of them make only a sporadic use of the vehicles they own. For much of the year, their RV remains parked in their garage or outside their home. This is such an underuse of valuable fa...
The World’s Most Rewarding Source of Free Homestays Is, and Remains, Servas
Posted on 03/02/2018, 8:45 PM
Organizations come and go that arrange for you to stay free-of-charge in someone else’s home or apartment in the course of your travels. The latest leaders in this effort are Couchsurfing.com and Globalfreeloaders.com, which are sometimes criticized as having grown too large to be effective. But another such organization—USServas.org—is older by far and careful to hand-pick both hosts and ...
Carnival Announces New Cruises to Cuba
Posted on 02/28/2018, 10:30 PM
Carnival Cruise Line is significantly increasing its sailings to Cuba. In 2019, the company will schedule 17 new cruises to the island aboard the recently renovated Carnival Sensation. The five-day voyages will be the line's first round-trip cruises to Cuba from Miami. They'll feature a day-long call in Havana as well as stops in Grand Turk, Grand Cayman, Nassau, and the private destinations o...
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, ...
