Travelrific® Travel Journal
Picture postcards in prose.™ Check out the blogroll on the front page for official merchandise and other resources!Archive for U.S. travel
You Can Be a Select Traveler
By Linda Tancs
Imagine yourself sipping champagne in an ornate wood-paneled dining car, watching the Italian Dolomites soar as the steward offers you yet another canape. Or perhaps you prefer the French country elegance of a château. Or the craggy, mystical highlands of Scotland. Or the samba beat of South America. Whatever your guilty pleasure, Continental Airlines now gives you a menu of options to choose from with their new Select Escapes luxury packages. They’ve put together an impressive array of high-end rail tours, palatial digs, resorts and spas. Someone once said, “Vacation used to be a luxury, but in today’s world it has become a necessity.” Does that mean that a luxury vacation is an imperative? You decide.
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New Hotel Chain Promises a Lofty Experience
By Linda Tancs
If tight ceilings, small beds and even smaller TVs are putting a crimp in your hotel experience, then maybe Starwood’s new offering will give you a lift, or should I say, a loft. “aloft” is the newest budget entry in the chain’s array of properties, sporting oversized windows, HDTV flat panels, oversized beds and showers, and 9-foot ceilings that even Brobdingnagian guests should find comforting. The majority of open properties at the moment are in North America, ranging from Montreal in the East to Rancho Cucamonga in the West. Other properties slated to open in 2009 and beyond include hotspots such as Orlando, Nashville and Denver in the U.S. and international locales such as Brussels, U.A.E. and the Asian Pacific region. With hotel development in full vigor worldwide among the leading players, let’s hope that guests won’t be aloof over aloft.
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Happy Earth Day
By Linda Tancs
Today marks a worldwide celebration of our natural resources. What better way to commemorate the day than to see what’s on in some of Mother Nature’s most glorious natural environments. How about Hawaii? Many Earth Day-related festivities have already started–and ended. However, the Kona Earth Festival is still kickin’ until 21 June. In Thailand, morning chants at Dhammakaya Assembly Hall started off the annual salute to our environment, ending tonight with fireworks at the Grand Meditation Square. Calgary is celebrating with a call to action to Ward 9 to pick up litter for 22 minutes! And the U.K.’s North Norfolk coast, an eco-friendly paradise for backpackers, is hosting an exhibition on environmental technology and initiatives at Deepdale Farm. What’s on in your neighborhood?
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Travel Promotion Laws
By Linda Tancs
Few people may realize that in 2007 yet another pass was made in Congress to create an advertising fund to promote travel to the U.S. The Travel Promotion Act of 2007 intended to address declining travel to the U.S. by earmarking $100 million generated by private industry and overseas visitors’ entry fees to facilitate understanding of America’s entry system and promote U.S. travel. These activities would be undertaken by a non-profit corporation to be known as the Corporation for Travel Promotion. Even fewer folks may recall that in 2002 a similar initiative fell flat. Of course, the circumstances differ surrounding the introduction of a travel promotion bill in each of these years. In 2002, the primary concern in developing the legislation was to allocate funds from a $100 million proposed reserve to the states to prop up tourism following 9/11. In 2007, the bill’s sponsors blamed harsh border control and entry requirements for a drop in tourism despite a weak dollar. There is certainly support for that position. Just consider this portrayal of travel to the U.S. by travel columnist Matt Rudd from January’s Sunday Times in London: “Nowhere else can a visitor expect such a spirit-crushingly frosty reception. A preflight e-interrogation, epic queues at immigration, thin-lipped questioning from aggressive border guards, and an outside chance of a rubber-gloved rectal rummage are all part of the fun.” Ouch. On the other hand, a recent report from the Federal Reserve claims that the one bright spot in America’s economy at the present time is–drum roll, please–foreign tourism! So perhaps the bottom line is that, so long as schizophrenic assessments pop up among bureaucrats, any proposal to bring America’s promotional spend in line with that committed by our chief competitors will surely be doomed.
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Viticultural Areas Abound in U.S.
By Linda Tancs
So what is a viticultural area, you ask? It’s a wine grape-growing region with distinctive geographic features, similar to (but distinguishable from) an appellation of origin. The U.S. has over 180 American Viticultural Areas. As you might suspect, a great majority of these are in California. You might be surprised at some of the other locations on the list, places like the Ozarks in Arkansas, the Mississippi Delta, Virginia’s Eastern Shore, Texas High Plains, and southeastern New England (Connecticut, Maine and Rhode Island). So move over beaujolais and make room for the home-grown varietals.
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Power Napping At a Pod Near You
By Linda Tancs
You’ve heard of yellow cabs. Now meet YeloCab in New York City, a suite of cabins with adjustable lighting and reflexology designed to invigorate you during your busy day. Now you can catch some zzz’s in style. Learn more at www.yelonyc.com.
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Travel May Affect Insurance–Part Two
By Linda Tancs
In follow up to our 26 February post, New Jersey has now passed a law forbidding life insurance companies from adjusting premiums based on the travel predilections of policy owners–for the most part, that is. Exclusion is made for the application of sound actuarial principles or past experience. You can read the new law at http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2008/Bills/A2000/1586_I1.HTM.
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Desert Dreams in Winter
By Linda Tancs
Ah, winter. In the midst of Arctic 50-mph winds, I’m trying hard to embrace its virtues. Or at least think of warmer, drier climes. How about the Alvord Desert in Oregon? Cracked and dry in summer, like winter hands–or lips. So at least it has something in common with the here and now although you’d freeze your tail off there, too, at the moment–except for the hot springs. Lying in the shadows of Steens Mountain, it only gets six inches of precipitation per year. Reminds me of Dickens’ “Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit”: “Look round and round upon this bare bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter’s day, how beautiful the shadows are!”
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The Price of Excess
By Linda Tancs
In the good old days, excess baggage generally meant checked baggage that exceeded two freebies, or bags that went over the standard weight or size. In any of those limited cases, additional fees would apply. Now, however, at least one major carrier has broken with tradition. As has been widely reported, United Airlines will now charge economy-class customers with non-refundable tickets $25 for a second checked bag for travel within the U.S. and to or from Canada, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands. High-tiered frequent flyers, award ticket holders, refundable ticket holders, first class and business class passengers need not worry–the two-bag freebie continues to apply. Is it reasonable to assume that if fuel prices drop down, the newest surcharge will go away? If fuel prices continue to escalate and, in the absence of a huge public outcry, the surcharge sticks, will other airlines follow suit? Readers, weigh in.
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Countdown to Mardi Gras
By Linda Tancs
Time flies. Just a mere 5 days to go till New Orleans brings down the house. There’s still time to book your flight but, alas, is there (affordable) room at the inn? Maybe www.travelnow.com can help. Check out the parade schedules and other Mardi Gras must-knows at www.nola.com. It wouldn’t hurt to pray for better weather, either. Some krewes have already been postponed or cancelled.
You’ll need a warm shirt, with temperatures hovering in the 50s tomorrow. Why not buy a Louisiana sweatshirt here: http://www.cafepress.com/wanderfulplaces/2321003
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