7 Days; 7 Travel Stories
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1. Zagat Goes Beyond Restaurant Reviews

Zagat, the company that loves to do surveys, tackled the airline industry for the first time, naming Midwest, Virgin America and Jet Blue as the best for economy and coach service. Virgin America, Continental and regional carrier Hawaiian Airlines topped the list for first and business class. Southwest, Continental and Jet Blue were most consistently on time. The biggest loser in the survey was US Airways, which took last place for premium and economy service and for punctuality.

2. Keeping Up With Jones Online

A guide to some of the new and reincarnated travel search and book sites from The Canadian Press.

http://www.boo.com/ offers travel reviews from consumers, search capabilities for 2,500 destinations in 170 countries, comparison hotel prices, and booking through boo or hotel websites.
www.vayama.com: An online booking agency for international air travel with flight and fare options to about 190 countries.

http://www.vibeagent.com/ Combines user-generated reviews, meta-search capabilities, and social networking ala TripAdvisor + Kayak + Facebook for personalized hotel recommendations and booking at the best prices for 120,000 hotels.

http://www.yellowpages.travel/ up to 12 travel websites, including Orbitz, Kayak, Expedia and SideStep. Users click on each site's logo at the top of the page for the results.

http://www.searchboth.com/ a subsidiary of YELLOWPAGES.travel, allows users to search two travel sites at the same time and places the results from the sites on a split screen.

http://www.professionaltravelguide.com/ Offers reviews of hotels and restaurants from professionals - journalists and expert reviewers from the travel industry - including insider tips and specific, detailed information about more than 159,000 hotels.

http://www.yapta.com/ Stands for Your Amazing Personal Travel Assistant. Enables travelers to tag flights from several airlines, including American, United, Delta and Continental, and alerts them when the fare drops. But unlike farecast.com, which predicts whether prices are rising or dropping, yapta can continue tracking prices even after you purchase the ticket.

http://www.tripit.com/ Organizes travel plans into one master online itinerary. Forward flight, hotel, rental car, and other confirmations to an e-mail account, and TripIt will e-mail travelers with the link so they can see and manage the itinerary.

http://www.orbitz.com/ Offers a new social networking component - OrbitzTLC Traveler Update - with real-time updates from travelers about security wait times, traffic and parking, taxis, etc. at more than 40 airports.

http://www.besttripchoices.com/ Matches travel personalities with best destinations.

http://www.fabsearch.com/ For the fashion-conscious traveler. Fabsearch features blurbs on hip restaurants and trendy hotels from media mentions in sources ranging from Vogue and Town and Country magazine to DailyCandy.com, the Financial Times and Wallpaper.

Yahoo! Trip Planner (http://travel.yahoo.com/) : Helps travelers create a personalized guide for an upcoming trip, with information on hotels, attractions and restaurants, and share the details of their trip with friends and other travelers.

http://www.americanexpress.com/ Click on Travel, then Local Color, a one-stop shop for travel information. Combines Lonely Planet Guides, IgoUgo reviews and Travel + Leisure magazine articles to give travelers "local color" about a place. (Travel + Leisure is published by American Express Publishing Corporation).
www.travelocity.roadtripwizard.com: Helps travelers plan U.S. road trips, with maps and step-by-step directions. Features info on shopping, restaurants, festivals and other attractions, with directions on how to get there.

http://www.cfares.com/ Searches airline and travel websites. Users can purchase a platinum membership for $50 a year, which provides access to the site's best priced wholesale fares and special fares from the airlines.

http://www.everywhere.com/ a magazine about travel with reader-generated stories.

http://www.everyscape.com/ Take a 3-D tour of Cambridge, Mass.. The company also charges between $250 to $2,000 to create an online indoor tour of a business.

http://www.itinarod.com/ Continues its evolution, enabling visitors to search for the best travel planning web site by selecting the appropriate personality profile.

3. Asia Offline

The Indonesian government will present medals to foreign tourists who have visited the country at least 20 times. The initiative is designed to encourage more foreign tourists to this South Asian country. Indonesia plans to launch "Visit Indonesia Year 2008" in the next few weeks and expects to attract seven million tourists, one million more than 2007. ETN

4. Along the Green Trail

The recent cruise mishap in Antarctica brings to light the rapid rise of ship tourism in this last major ungoverned territory on earth and concern for the continent’s fragile environment. More than 35,000 tourists are expected to visit Antarctica this spring and summer, compared to just 6,750 in 1992-93.

The flotilla bringing the tourists include small ships like the 100 passenger Linblad Explorer that disappeared beneath the sea last month with 48,000 gallons of marine diesel fuel, to the Golden Princess with its 2,500 passengers and 1,200 crew members. At issue: With Antarctica being an ungoverned territory, there are no obvious answers about who is responsible for dealing with any environmental damage the Explorer may cause or how methods can be created to prevent future sinkings.

The Antarctic Treaty and related agreements, collectively called the Antarctic Treaty System or ATS, regulate international relations in Antarctica. Initially signed by 12 countries in the early 1960s, the Treaty now includes more than 46 countries and sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, establishes freedom of scientific investigation and bans military activity. Seven countries lay claim to land: Chile, United Kingdom, Argentina, Norway, Australia, France and New Zealand.

One non-government group keeping watch is the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC), an association of environmental organizations that participate in Antarctic treaty meetings. Founded in 1978, AS0C is a global coalition of more than 100 environmental organizations. Its mission is to ensure that the Antarctic continent and its surrounding islands and ocean survive as the earth’s least unspoiled wilderness. Learn more at http://www.asoc.org/. NY Times and other sources

Separately, Former VP and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore served as key note speaker at the Conference on the Environment hosted in mid-November by the National Coral Reef Institute and the Turks and Caicos government. The focus of the conference was “Thinking Green, Adapting to Climate Change.” In attendance were ministers of the environment from a number of Caribbean Community nations (CARICOM).

Gore encouraged the group to consider environmental, social, and political issues when planning economic strategy. The Conference was the culmination of the Turks and Caicos’ year-long efforts to commemorate 2007 as the Year of the Environment. Key objectives during the year were to raise the level of environmental consciousness and develop public and private partnerships to manage the environment.

Turks and Caicos invests more than $5 million annually in the upkeep of reefs and the environment; schedules activities such as beach cleanups and tree-planting events; endorses environmentally friendly products; and helps develop partnerships to manage the environment. Travel Weekly

5. Moon Over New Hampshire

Riders of the Mount Washington Cog Railway enjoy the natural views as it chugs up New England’s tallest peak. The Ride has been called the Railway to the Moon. But there is double meaning here. Eight hikers were recently cited for dropping their pants and “mooning” passengers as the train went by. “Mooning the Cog” is something of a tradition for people hiking the Appalachian Trail. Its origins are unclear. Some say it started as a way for hikers to protest the noise and smoke coming from the train. Others say it started as, and continues to be, nothing but a joke. NY Times

6. Luxury Travel Report

So, what do celebrities and other A-list travelers bring on a trip? Kimora Lee Simmons, president of Baby Phat and creative director of Phat Fashions, wears lightweight fabrics on long flights. She also staves off dehydration by drinking lots of water. When it comes to packing, Simmons swears by her Louis Vuitton luggage.

Barenaked Ladies lead vocalist Steven Page never leaves home without his noise-canceling Bose headphones, iPod and laptop. He also recycles plastic water bottles, filling them up with tap water, shampoo or lotion.
Where to stay? Celebrities favor luxurious ones, of course, especially boutique hotels. The Mondrian Hotel and the Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles, and the W Hotel Times Square and the Trump Hotel in New York, to drop a few names. Montel Williams' chain of choice is the Ritz Carlton. He's also fanatical about tipping well and being polite to the staff. Forbes.com

The Top 20 luxury magazines: Departures. Private Clubs. Robb Report. Harvard Business Review. Barron’s. ABA Journal. The Economist. New York Magazine. Financial Times. W. Architectural Digest. Veranda. Conde nast Traveler. The Wall Street Journal. the New Yorker. Fast company. NY Times. Yachting. Wine Spectator. www.luxurytravel360.com

7. Singapore Sling

To enhance its role as the region’s airline hub, Singapore’s tourism board is developing programs to give visitors waiting between flights something to do. The $48 million master plan includes a luxurious spa retreat, a new habitat for the breeding and display of the Singapore’s Zoos’s five cheetahs, and turning a 3-hectare site into a nature park. ETN

Rich’s Weekend Reader is published by AndTyler222 Communications. All rights reserved. Information from various sources and mostly rewritten. andtyler222@verizon.net