7 Days; 7 Travel Stories

1. Online

A rundown of some online travel guides that can help you navigate new cities or find quirky attractions at your planned destination from the WSJ.

TripWiser.com: Find vacation ideas by browsing through other people's trip itineraries. The site's maps, photos and destination briefings provide an easy way to look before you leap.

WeJustGotBack.com: Get family-friendly vacation advice about specific destinations, like Cape Cod or New Orleans, or more general travel tips.

Gridskipper.com: Look to this site, which bills itself as the "decadent urban travel guide," to find hot nightlife and top restaurants in cities world-wide. A summary page displays briefings on the featured locations and plots them on a Google map.

Waymarking.com: Search for unusual sites by location, category or both. The site relies on global-positioning-system coordinates, but people without a GPS device can search by ZIP Code. Categories include everything from "odd-shaped buildings" to "scenic railroads."

Another site that's similar in spirit is RoadsideAmerica.com.

Yelp.com: Read restaurant and nightlife reviews that are mostly written by locals. The site works best for bigger cities, like San Francisco and New York, but also has reviews for smaller towns. WSJ

2. Airline

Northwest said it will trim maximum flying hours for pilots on domestic routes to 86 from 90, cut this month’s US capacity by 4 percent and add as many as 350 pilots. Also in the new pilot contract, a $1,000 bonus for perfect attendance now through September 3, and overtime pay of 50 percent for flying more than 80 hours a month. The new contract is designed to return Northwest to its historical status as one of the industry’s most reliable airlines. With 1,400 departures daily, the airline canceled flights after pilots missed shifts during June and July. Bloomberg News

3. Weatherline

From the inventor bin...an umbrella that glows when it is going to rain. Priced at $125, The Ambient Umbrella features a net-connected contraption at its handle that provides weather information from Accuweather. http://www.ambientdevices.com/ Boston Globe

4. Greenline

Boeing expects the number of commercial jetliners to nearly double, to 36,420 in the next 20 years. By 2050, the industry is expected to contribute anywhere from 6 to 10 percent of the gases and particles tied to global warming, up from about 3 percent today. Aviation’s expansion has led to political problems for the industry in Europe, where there is increasing pressure to cut back on air travel, reduce airport expansion, and increase taxes on tickets. In response, the EU proposed rules that would require airlines serving domestic routes to enter into an emissions-trading scheme by 2011.

Carriers flying to and from Europe, including US airlines, would have to enter the system by the following year. The US and other nations plan to vigorously fight the proposal at an international meeting of aviation authorities in Montreal in September. They say that it would drive up costs for airlines and violate the principle of air service deals brokered between governments. Further, they say Europe doesn’t have the right to force carriers to buy credits for carbon dioxide emitted in US or international air space. Washington Post

Separately, a June 2007 study commissioned by airlines and aircraft manufacturers estimates that compliance with the proposed EU emissions-control regulation would cost airlines $60 billion-$90 billion between 2011 and 2022 and reduce their profits by $55 billion in the same period.

5. Timeline

Time travel has long held a fascination for many of us. One young boy, growing up in the 1950s in the Bronx in New York, was especially interested in these tales. Ronald Mallett was just 10 when he found solace in science fiction. More than 50 years later Mallett has learned a lot more about science. He's now a professor of physics at the University of Connecticut and he seeks funding for his Space-Time Twisting by Light project.

It would work something like this: we know that massive objects, such as stars and planets, can bend both space and time. Dr Mallett and others believe that light too, because of its inherent energy, can also bend what's called the space/time continuum.

Thus...Build yourself an extremely powerful ring laser, and pop some material - maybe even one day a human - in the center of this vortex of light, and you might just be able to drag what's inside the machine back or forward through time. BBC News

6. Fineline

Italy has dethroned Hawaii as the world's No. 1 honeymoon destination in Modern Bride magazine's annual "World's Best Honeymoons" survey. Second on the list was Hawaii, which was the top destination in the Modern Bride survey for a decade. Tahiti came in third, followed by Costa Rica at No. 4 (up from No. 10 last year), Mexico, France, the Maldives, Anguilla, Fiji and Greece. The number of honeymooners traveling to the Aloha State fell to 215,973 through the first six months of this year, a 1.2 percent drop from the same period in 2006.

7. Frontline

Hyundai Asan, the South Korean operator of privitized tours in North Korea, has announced plans to spend $3 billion by 2025 to develop its tourism complexes on the North's east coast. The company said it plans to develop the coastal area from North Korea's eastern port city of Wonsan to Haegeumgang, near Mount Geumgang, where it has built a mountain resort.

Mt. Geumgang, divided into three parts--Naegeumgang (inner, western part), Oegeumgang (outer, eastern part) and Haegeumgang (seashore), has long held a spiritual allure for Koreans and will now be accessible daily starting this summer season, instead of three times a week in the past. The complex has attracted 1.5 million visitors since 1998, up to now mostly consisting of South Koreans. Official records show 8,000 other visitors came from 48 countries.


Cruiseline Bonus

Ship berth capacity based on double occupancy...Carnival 50,878. Costa 24,890. Holland Ameria 20,052. MSC Cruises 17,786. Norwegian 22,048. Princess 35,380. RCI 55,356. Celebrity 13,452. Travel Trade


Rich’s Weekend Reader is published by AndTyler2 Communications. All rights reserved. Information from various sources and mostly rewritten. andtyler222@verizon.net