7 Days; 7 Travel Stories

1. Not Knowing Where You Are Going Has Its Advantages

Mysteryflights.com.au is attempting to put romance back into air travel with daytrips and short stays to surprise destinations. Hop aboard. A day trip costs $295 (AU) and a night trip with hotel accommodation costs $395. Wind up in Adelaide, the Gold Coast, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart, the Sunshine Coast or Launceston. The service is geared for indecisive travelers that can’t decide where to go and for people buying gifts for indecisive friends. http://www.mysteryflights.com.au/. Sydney Sun Herald

2. Up In The Air

Continental Airlines joined British Airways, Delta, Cathay Pacific, SAS, and a few other airlines with the launch of a carbon offsetting program. Continental’s program is in partnership with non-profit Sustainable Travel International. The voluntary program allows customers worldwide to view the carbon footprint of their booked itinerary, which Sustainable Travel International calculates from fuel consumption of Continental's aircraft, and to make a contribution to Sustainable Travel International.

Proceeds fund the purchase of carbon offsets, which are generated from high-impact sustainable development projects that are designed to reduce the impact of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. http://www.sustainabletravelinternational.org/

Separately, Southwest Airlines, who earlier this year seemed to be losing ground to its competition, might have trumped the industry by loading up years ago on hedges against higher fuel prices. With oil trading above $90 a barrel, Southwest is purchasing the sweet crude through 2009 for about $51 a barrel. Most of the major airlines passed on buying all but the shortest-term insurance against high fuel prices. NY Times

3. Online

A 300-mile cross-country ski trail that transverses Vermont from the Massachusetts to Canadian borders is now open. Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. http://www.catamounttrail.org/.

Avoid the rental lines at ski slopes with a new company that comes to you. Door 2 Door serves 14 Westerns mountain ski resorts. http://www.d2dskis.com/

A vacation home and condo rental company serving several Western states offers this guarantee: you may switch to a property in another area with better conditions. http://www.snowguarantee.com/.

Roughly one in 10 travelers hit the road alone last year. Some companies that specialize in lone travel: http://www.intrepidtravel.com/ for small, off-the-beaten-the tours to places like Peru and Nepal. http://www.absolutetravel.com/ is a Manhattan-based travel agency which pairs compatible travelers on customized luxury trips. http://www.countrywalkers.com/ specializes in trips for women. http://www.cstn.org/ tracks solo vacation alternatives.

Registered users at http://www.redweek.com/, a timeshare exchange, rental and resales website, picked The Manhattan Club of New York City as the Top resort in this timeshare class, followed by Disney’s Beach Club Villas, located in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, near Orlando. Harborside Resort at Atlantis on Paradise Island, Bahamas. Visit to site to see top 25 list.

4. Walking The Line

Boston officials were a bit peeved when the Brookings Institution named Washington D.C. as America’s most walkable city. Boston ranked second, ahead of SF, Denver and Portland, Ore. The study used a formula that counted the number of walkable urban places per resident. Boston began promoting itself as America’s Walking City in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a way to combat the feeling that the city’s twisted streets and Big Dig related traffic jams made navigating by car a nightmare. Boston Globe

5. Holiday Cheers

What’s featured in the works of Picasso, Degas, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh; that was frequently drunk by the likes of poets Rimbaud, Baudelaire and Verlaine, writers such as Hemingway, and actors including Johnny Depp and Marilyn Monroe? Absinthe, a green spirit made with grand wormwood. Absinthe had been banned in the US since 1912 until earlier this year. The drink is said to cause hallucinations, delirium and insanity. Boston Globe

6. This and That

Come to Turkmenistan which recently announced the start of a $5 billion tourism development project along the Caspian Sea that will include hotels, parks, fountains and roads. ASTA SmartBrief/Wall Street Journal

Air America Radio, the liberal chat network, announced it would sponsor its first vacation cruise this February. Priced at $1,380 to $6,305 per person, the cruise will visit ports of call like Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta, and feature high-brow seminars led by Air America hosts, and a columnist from the NY Times. “The boat is going to lean so far left that I fear for the passengers’ safety,” quipped one prominent conservative blogger. NY Times

7. On The Ground

New York City remains the capital of limo or “chauffeured” services followed by Chicago, Washington, Boston, SF, LA, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Miami and Orlando, according to a survey by Limousine & Chauffeured Transportation. Coast to Coast there are about 131,000 vehicles in this $2.4 billion a year travel classification. Solo operators can make anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 or more per year. Avis/Budget Group recently invested $60 million in Carey International, the industry’s top performer with annual revenues of about $250 million. The survey found that corporate customers care mostly about basics, including efficient luggage handling and knowing the best routes. On-time pickup, clean interiors and professional driving were also concerns. NY Times

Rich’s Weekend Reader is published by AndTyler222 Communications. All rights reserved. Information from various sources and mostly rewritten. AndTyler222@verizon.net http://www.itinarod.com/.