Best Online Travel Resources: Know Before You Go

Laurie McAndish King’s (that’s me) article about quirky and helpful websites for travelers originally appeared in Examiner.com:

Travel fares are temptingly low these days, but all travel is not equal. Here are some websites to help you find the best seats and meals, avoid dangerous destinations, stay healthy, comply with travel regulations, get through airport lines more quickly, purchase travel insurance, and more.

• Airlinemeals.net is the “world’s first website about nothing but airline food,” which is currently displaying “more than 17,000 photos from more than 520 different airlines. Monthly, we receive 300 new meal pictures.” There are also photos of what the airline crew eats, food from airline lounges, and behind-the-scenes photos from airline caterers.
• The Center for Disease Control helps ensure that you get the right shots (no, not photos) before you travel, by providing “health information for travel to over 200 international destinations,” including info about official travel notices, safe food and water, insects, vaccinations, tips on staying healthy while traveling, how to find health care while you’re abroad, illnesses that may not be apparent until after you return, and how to put together a travelers’ health kit.
• The XE Universal Currency Converter, the “world’s most popular currency tool, lets you to perform currency and foreign exchange rate calculations, using live, up-to-the-minute mid-market currency rates” for figuring out how much money you have in various foreign currencies, including many you probably never knew existed.
• Robert Young Pelton’s Come Back Alive, “the place where professionals, adventurers, travelers & those who work & travel in high-risk areas can keep abreast of the latest info & safety tips” includes the DangerFinder guide to the world’s most dangerous places. (You decide what to do with the information.)
• Dolans.com Straight Talk on Money audio discusses ways to decrease your chances of geting bumped from a flight, and what your rights are as a bumpee. “Despite what they want you to think, airlines don’t have you completely under their thumb! Get the straight scoop on your rights as an air passenger, including exactly when an airline does and doesn’t have to compensate you, the best way to almost guarantee you won’t get bumped from an overbooked flight, and more!”
• Flat Seats is “the world’s information guide to airline ‘lie-flat’ seats,” and includes reviews, ranking, test results, photos, and more. There’s also a page suggesting relationships between six sleep positions and personality types, as well as the possible effect of various sleep positions on health. (The “freefall position was good for digestion, while the starfish and soldier positions were more likely to lead to snoring and a bad night’s sleep.”)
• FlyClear.com promises to speed travelers through airport security in exchange for your providing biographical information and fingerprints, and having your iris scanned for ID purposes. “As a Clear member, you can bypass the long lines at airport security and get to your gate quickly — usually in about five minutes.” Membership is $199/year, or less if you subscribe for several years at a time. Assuming you don’t mind giving up your right to privacy, which I’m pretty sure people fought and died for at some time in the history of this great country.
• InsureMyTrip.com is “the Internet’s foremost travel insurance comparison site. With our diverse selection of more than 100 travel insurance plans from 19 leading companies, no other site matches our product depth, comparison features, or customer service. At InsureMyTrip.com, you can compare each policy and get the information you need to purchase travel insurance with confidence.”
• Luggage Concierge lets you travel hands-free, by taking your luggage to and from your travel destination for you. “Skip the long lines at airport check in and arrival. Luggage Concierge service is convenient, reliable, safe and secure. Your luggage will be picked up at your home or point of origin, delivered to your travel destination, and returned to your point of origin. Luggage Concierge insures every piece of luggage, and pick-up and delivery options are tailored to your specific needs.”
• Minimus “for all your travel size item needs” offers travel-sized packages of food, snacks, condiments, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, laundry supplies, and interesting specialty items like the “bug button” (pin-on insect repellant that lasts up to 60 hours), no-rinse shampoo, “pre-contact” poison ivy protection, a military field kit, hand warmer packets, and (don’t leave home without it) got2b Spiked Up hair gel. On sale when I checked: Smuckers Diet Concord Grape Spread and Tabasco Brand Pepper Sauce, Green.
• PopPlanet from the National Library of the Environment is wholly managed by the National Council for Science and the Environment. The site is for learning, information sharing, and communication about international population, health, and environmental issues.
• Seatguru.com is “the ultimate source for airplane seating, in-flight amenities, and airline information.” You simply click on an airline and the type of aircraft you’re interested in, it shows a diagram of the aircraft with descriptions and ratings of the seats.

You can find out where the bulkhead, galley, lavatories, and exit rows are; which seats don’t recline or have reduced leg room; where the in-seat power port locations are, etc. Also includes a guide to boarding procedures by airline, information about “green” airlines, and more.

• SleepingInAirports.com lists tips — funny, practical, or both — for, you guessed it, sleeping in airports: what to pack and how to deal with extremes in temperature, overzealous security guards, malodorous emanations, uncomfortable chairs, and more.

Also includes airport reviews, photos of people sleeping in airports, list of best & worst airports to sleep in, etc. My favorite suggestion was to pack a Twister game (small, lightweight, good for making friends or for whiling away long hours).

• Triporati “We help you discover great trips — for your unique travel interests” intends to “inspire, motivate, and entertain you with stories about the world that are thoughtful, endearing, informative, hair-raising, or just plain off the wall.” You can search by destination, trip type (adventure, ecotravel, family), activity (backpacking, safari, mountain biking), interests (theme parks, zoos, kids’ museums) and more.
• The Transportation Security Administration website has information on how to get through the line faster, rules for liquid carry-ons, acceptable IDs, prohibited items, traveling with fod or gifts, travelers with disabilities and medical conditiosn, traveling with children, civil rights complaints, FAA flight delay information, and the Traveler Redress Inquiry program.
• TV Trip.com provides “unbiased, professional videos to help you choose the right hotel” as well as access to online booking.
• World Travel Watch has been “reporting on worldwide safety issues for travelers since 1985.”

I’d love to hear your tips for better, safer, healthier, more convenient travel; please post a comment if you have tips to share.

– Laurie McAndish King
BATW Vice President

I’ve never understood the attraction of pet-friendly hotels. I go on vacation to get away from my pet.

Like Ginny's cat, website editor April Orcutt's kitties Natasha (top) and Fuzz-Buzz (above) prefer watching the house. (photos by April Orcutt)

OK, that’s not quite true — but I still wouldn’t bring my cat on a trip. Who would watch the house?

What I do enjoy are hotels with optional animals. The Peabody Hotel in Memphis, for instance, has twice daily duck marches from the luxurious lobby fountain to the elevator and up to the roof. It’s a spectacle that’s been part of the Peabody tradition for 75 years, and it draws such a crowd that the lobby bar is packed for a full hour before the grand Duckmaster makes his appearance.

In the town of Gualala, the attraction is chickens. The MarVista Cottages feature a basket of fresh eggs on your doorstep each day, laid by the resident hens. Each egg is unique in its shape and hue, finely crafted by a bevy of ladies who spend their day hunting and pecking about the property.

But why settle for a few feathers, when you can have a whole menagerie? Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa in Southern Pennsylvania has 3,000 acres and a wild animal park on its property. They also have a gun range, so you can stroll past big game in the morning and pretend you’re shooting it in the afternoon.

Then there’s the concept of pet lending, an idea that’s popular at the Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch. Guests of the well heeled resort can take a handsome yellow Lab for a walk, complete with dog biscuits and a leash. Would you expect any less from a posh Colorado ski property, where everyone who’s anyone is ski jouring? I don’t think so.  [Note: "Ski jouring" is where dogs pull you on cross country skis.]

And speaking of animals, the Talamore Golf Resort in North Carolina has llamas grazing along the fairways. They used to be used to carry golfer’s clubs, but apparently not enough players wanted to hire caddies who spit.

Ginny's cat Cali gives her that "You're not going away, are you?" look. (photo by Ginny Prior)

All these animal amenities are fine, but my favorites are the hotels that have cats. Probably the most famous is the elegant Algonquin Hotel in midtown Manhattan, where a prissy puss named Matilda holds court in the lobby. She’s become such a fixture, she gets mail from around the world.

Sadly, the best cat hotel in the bunch, the Historic Anderson House in Wabasha, Minnesota, just closed. A victim of the economic downturn, they were unique in their concept of offering rooms with or sans cats.

I know what you’re thinking. If I’d wanted a cat in my hotel room, I could have brought my own.

Fat chance. I’d never fit all her things in my carry on.

– Ginny Prior

Have you got a favorite travel “tail”? Drop Ginny a line at www.ginnyprior.com.

Ginny Prior has a weekly syndicated travel radio show on Sports Byline USA. If you have a travel destination you’d like to share, drop a note to The Happy Wanderer at ginnyprior.com.

Yapta is intended to help you get a handle on fluctuating travel prices so that you know when to “buy low.” Yapta conducts daily price checks on the specific flights and hotels that you choose, and alerts you when prices drop or when they fall within your budget. Yapta also alerts you when you can use your frequent flier miles to book award seats on the flights of your choice.

Already booked an airline ticket? Yapta can still help you save. Most U.S. airlines have “guaranteed airfare” policies that enable you to claim a travel credit if the price of your flight drops after booking it. Not many people know that the policy even exists — nor do they bother to check the price of their flight after purchasing it. Yapta will track the price of the flights you’ve already booked and — if the price drops below what you paid — it will alert you when you’re eligible for a refund or travel credit from the airline.

The Resurgence of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan

When: April 1, 2009, 12:00 pm — 2:00 pm

Where: North Gate Library, Hearst at Euclid Avenue, Berkeley

Hamid Mir is a prominent Pakistani journalist who specializes in investigative reporting in Pakistan and abroad. He is best known internationally as the sole journalist to have interviewed Osama Bin Laden, both before as well as once shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Mir has exposed various corruption scandals and has put major political figures, including Pervez Musharraf, Condoleeza Rice, and Hamid Karzai, on the hot seat on Geo TV, Pakistan’s most popular TV station. He has been called by his critics the media face of the Taliban, a CIA agent, an Indian Agent and more.

Hamid Mir will talk about the precarious state of the Pakistani government, the effectiveness of US foreign policy in the region, and what it’s like to be an investigative journalist in one of the most turbulent regions in the world.

The Mono County Tourism Commission has a number of free admissions to the Los Angeles Times Travel & Adventure Show (Feb. 14-15, LA Convention Center) which it offers to travel or outdoor writers who would like to go.

To attend the show, click here.  Then, enter code: EXHFREE and applicable information.

Attending from Mono County Tourism will be Sarah McCahill and Dan Lyster, and Dennis Morrison from Convict Lake Resort.

Georgia Hesse speaks to BATW members (photos by John Montgomery)

The witty, earnest, funny, practical, inspiring and petite, Georgia Hesse gave a talk at our BATW meeting Jan.17.

Georgia was one of the original journalists to give birth to newspaper and magazine travel writing. Those were the “Glory Days,” Georgia says. “At the time travel writing was pure romance.” These pioneers took glamorous, hosted trips all over the world, and they flew first class. All travel writers knew each other then because there were so few of them. Georgia was the only female and the youngest of the bunch. She says the older, “wonderful” writers taught her a lot about writing – and “dancing, drinking and carrying on.”

“At the time,” she says, “it didn’t matter what we wrote as long we filled the space with something readable.”  But, she added, “Those days are gone.”

Georgia Hesse speaks to a full house of BATW members at the St. Francis Hotel.

Georgia started the travel section of the San Francisco Examiner, which later ran in the Sunday Examiner-Chronicle and then became part of the San Francisco Chronicle. She said a very young Don George asked if he could be an assistant. (Most of us know Don as one of today’s big-name travel writers.)

Once her travel section got a budget, she says she was relegated to cabin class.

The idea of travel writing has “changed severely.” When Georgia started, a travel writer could presume nobody knew about Cambodia and other such exotic places. “That has almost gone away,” she says. And now there are thousands of travel writers. And newspapers such as the Chronicle say they will not publish stories from hosted trips. (She’s seen violations of this rule in the Chronicle.)  When she is offered a “hosted trip” today, Georgia asks the host to give her three weeks or so to see if she can place the story, which she usually can.

Georgia’s practical advice for today’s market.

Find a niche:
“It could be anything,” she says – music, art, landscape, gardening. A niche helps you know where to focus when you travel. As you walk, for example, you will find things along the way.

Narrow your focus:
It’s easier to market your stories if the focus is narrow. As examples Georgia gave titles of some of her recent stories:
“Marie Antoinette: She’s Ba-a-ack.” For this article Georgia walked the places in Paris where Antoine walked. The article follows her from age 13, when she arrived in Versailles to marry Louis XVI, to age 38, when she faced the guillotine.

Another article recaptured Georgia and her sister’s visit to museums and brasseries of a specific neighborhood in Paris, where they also stayed. This became a “Being at Home in … ” article. Georgia says the Chronicle turned the story down, telling her no one would want to make this trip. Georgia sold the article to Dean Singleton, owner of Media News, and it went into every one of his papers. Readers, in fact, did want to make this pilgrimage.

Another example of narrow focus is Georgia’s story about “Americans in Paris” that is actually about Jefferson, Franklin and Gertrude Stein.

Nostalgia:
Returning to a place you’ve been before.

Anniversaries:
50 years since a celebrated personality died or an event took place or some such.

A place you’ve lived awhile:
There’s a growing market for articles about places a writer has stayed a long time.

Plan ahead:
Before you go, do some research and plan four or five stories that can be directed to different markets. Georgia came up with these ideas before her trip to Oklahoma.

• Oklahoma, a city reborn
• Motoring on the mother road (Route 66)
• The Lincoln Highway that goes from New York to San Francisco
• Chisholm Trail (museums along the way)
• Sculpture garden of famous Indians

Trends in travel writing:

• Domestic travel
• Travel near home
• Train travel
• Cruises in the Western Hemisphere
• Travel packages for which you pay in U.S. dollars and then travel on your own
• Renting homes and apartments in other countries
• Staying in a hub city and traveling out daily. (It’s also cheaper to stay outside of a big city like Paris and travel in for the day.)

Travel tip: Take early flights
Stay the night before at a hotel that offers a shuttle or bus to the airport. Enjoy the stay; have dinner out, etc. When Georgia has an early morning flight out of San Francisco, she spends the night before at the Inn at Oyster Point. She says the inn lets her leave her car there for two weeks and will shuttle her to and from the airport. She has found this sort of hotel arrangement near airports in Paris and Milan.

A to Z marketing:
Georgia used letters of the alphabet to brainstorm marketing themes/ideas for us. We could use this technique, too.
A is for art, antiques, anniversaries
B is for biographies, boating
C is for cultures, crafts, Civil War, cocktails
D is for driving, dance
E is for essays, England
(If you want the whole list, email me at sansims@aol.com)

Websites to find editorial contacts:

• travelpublicationsupdate.com
• travelwriters.com
• worldwidefreelance.com
• travelwriterml.com
• literarytraveler.com
• transitionsabroad.com
• thoughtfultraveler.com
• and more

“It’s the Writing, Stupid”:
Some of the best travel writers can be found in general magazines. Georgia says the best writers in the world are geologists and suggests reading John McPhee.  Find a good magazine and study it. Beginners can start small but think big. They can write for neighborhood papers, brochures and backgrounder magazines.

Georgia bemoans the sloppy prose she finds in today’s newspapers. Recalling the recent story about a pilot’s successful crash landing on the Hudson River, Georgia says the pilot’s wife had told reporters about her husband calling her to say there’d been an “incident.” Georgia read one newspaper story where the reporter’s quote instead used “accident.” “Don’t make that kind of mistake,” Georgia said.

She decried the difference between it’s and its and warned writers to be careful of dangling modifiers like: “Famous for a century, we dined at Maxime’s.” Sports journalists, she says, continue to write “I could care less,” when it should be “I couldn’t care less.” She says political correctness today trumps grammatical correctness. She says never write “his or her” just to be all-inclusive because it messes up the rhythm of the sentence. “I am part of humanity,” Georgia says. She doesn’t mind the use of “his” or “him” as all-inclusive. Then there’s the “more than” or “over” issue.  It should be: “There were more than 60 people,” and “The blimp floated over the crowd.”

I came home from Georgia’s talk rethinking my travel writing focus and overflowing with ideas. Thank you, Georgia.

– Sandy Sims

First, sit within five rows of any exit. One British safety expert reviewed seating plans in more than 100 crashes and interviewed nearly 2,000 passengers. He concluded that five rows is the cut-off for getting out of a burning plane. Beyond that range, your chances of survival are much lower. People in aisles seats have higher survival rates than people in window seats.

Second, pay attention to the safety briefing and develop your Plan A and Plan B in the event of an emergency. Count the number of rows to your nearest exit and your backup.

Third, focus on your action plan during the first three minutes of flight and the last eight minutes. That’s when around 80 percent of accidents happen. In other words, before takeoff and landing, don’t take off your shoes; don’t put on a face mask to sleep; and don’t wear earphones.

Fourth, relax. Your chances of dying on your next flight are one in 60 million. That means you could fly every day for the next 160,000 years and enjoy the peanuts without a problem.

(from an article on Huffington Post by Ben Sherwood, author of The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life)