7 Days; 7 Travel Stories
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1. Online

Last year about 29 percent of leisure travelers used the Internet to book travel, accounting for sales of $86 billion. Since launching in 2000, Trip Advisor has racked up more than 10 million hotel reviews from 5 million registered members, and has more than 25 million unique visitors monthly. Hotel booking sites such as Quikbook, Expedia and Hotels.com also added user reviews from travelers who have booked the hotel through their services. Forrester's research indicates that 36 percent of travelers look at traveler rankings when choosing a hotel, and of those, 73 percent said those reviews affected their choice.

Mapping offered by sites such as Mapquest, Google Maps, Rand McNally and AAA has gone a step further with tools that find gas stations closest to the airport (at Expedia) and ones such as GasBuddy (http://www.gasbuddy.com/) and Mapquest's gas-prices (http://gasprices.mapquest.com/), which help you find cheap gasoline. AAA's Fuel Cost Calculator (http://www.fuelcostcalculator.com/) will help figure out how much you're likely to spend on fuel during a trip. And if you're looking for fuel of another sort, Pubwalk maps publishes itineraries for more than 65 U.S. cities.

As groups of friends and family have hit the road together, sites such as http://www.triphub.com/, where group members can discuss plans, plot an itinerary and share maps, have become more popular. Podcasts and mobile-enabled features also are growing. Cities such as Philadelphia (http://www.gophila.com/) offer free podcast tours, while sites such as Priceline have added features that allow travelers with mobile devices (such as phones and PDAs) to check real-time hotel availability, then call directly to someone who can book the room.

Web sites most useful for travelers are those that offer accurate, timely information that's easy to access. That can include up-to-the-hour details on lines and delays at airports (http://www.flightstats.com/ and http://www.orbitz.com/), forecasts about when airfares probably will be cheapest (www.Farecompare.com and http://www.farecast.com/), the best and worst seats on various airplanes (www.Seatguru.com), the price of winning bids on Priceline (http://biddingfortravel.com/), alerts when airfares have dropped on tickets you've already bought (www.Yapta.com), locations of pet-friendly hotels (http://www.dogfriendly.com/) and videos of hotel rooms in Europe (http://www.tvtrip.com/).

Editorial publications such as Cruise Critic, Smarter Travel, World Hum, Hotel Chatter, Professional Travel Guide, and newspapers, magazines and guidebooks offer unbiased expert opinions online. Many feature timely blogs, such as guidebook author Arthur Frommer's blog (www.frommers.com/blog); TravelMavens (http://www.travelmavens.net/), and the Miami Herald's "Travels With Jane" (my blog) and "Exit Strategies," where travelers can post comments and ask questions.

One offline stat: Nearly 90 percent of cruises are booked through travel agents. Dallas Morning News

2. Green Goings

Traveling by train can cause more environmental damage than taking the car or going by bus, experts have found. Older trains on little-used rural routes produce more emissions per passenger than if they all went by road instead. A study on the Inverness-Kyle of Lochalsh line, Scotland, has found that cars and buses would produce a fraction of the pollutants of trains if all of their passengers were switched to the road.

This is because the 20-year-old trains serving the route often run with many empty seats, and their engines are more polluting than the latest road vehicle technology. The study calculated that trains on the Kyle line emitted an average of 4.8kg of sulphur dioxide a day, compared with 0.1kg for cars and zero for buses. Nitrogen oxide emissions were 37.5kg for trains, 9.2kg for cars and 6.7kg for buses. Emissions of particulates were also ten times higher on trains. Carbon dioxide emissions were higher on trains as well – 3,689kg, compared with 3,211kg for cars and 904kg for buses.The Scottish Government's Transport Scotland agency countered, stating that such comparisons between rail and road were not straightforward. The Scotsman

3. Star Wars

Even though MAXjet went caput in December, both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are planning to experiment with their own all-premium-class discount airlines on trans-Atlantic routes. BA’s service, developed under the code name, Project Lauren, is expected to begin service in May. Virgin Air plans a start later this year or in early 2009. NY Times

American Airlines will retrofit up to three of its plane with anti-missile technology this spring in the latest trials to protect commercial planes from attack. ETN

4. Staying Power

Provence Property For Sale: Exceptional location at the foot of the Palace of the Pope, view of the Rhone River, 10,280 square meters. The property, built in 1865, includes two gyms, library, cinema, kitchen and more. St. Anne Prison in the ancient walled city of Avignon is one of properties the French government is seeking to unload to boost state finances. Recently sold: the former residence of the commander of the French Foreign Legion and an opulent Foreign Ministry Building. Washington Post

Las Vegas plans to launch a new advertising program to build on its successful 03 campaign: "What Happens Here Stays Here." The new initiative, "Your Vegas Is Showing," showcases the city’s gourmet dining and high fashion offerings. New construction, totaling about $35 billion, is currently in progress that will yield 30,000 new hotel rooms by 2013. WSJ

Following the Hilton and Hyatt’s lead, Marriott is the latest hotel chain to install kiosks that allow guests to bypass a stop at the front desk and electronically check in. IBM has since installed more than 3,000 kiosks at 200-plus locations to date. ASTA

5. On the Water

The QE 2 set sail Sunday on its final global voyage before being turned into a floating hotel. Carnival sold the ship for about 50 million pounds (67 million euros, 99 million dollars) in November to the investment arm of Dubai’s state-owned tourism company, Dubai World. On return in April, she will be refurbished and turned into a five-star hotel at a specially-constructed pier on the world's largest man-made island, The Palm Jumeirah.

Launched by her namesake in September 1967, the QE2 has traveled 5.5 million nautical miles -- the equivalent of traveling to the moon and back 13 times -- undertaken 25 world cruises, crossed the Atlantic more than 800 times, and carried more than two million passengers. ETN
Foreign cruise ships sailing from California to Hawaii would have to spend at least two days in Mexico under a proposed federal rule meant to help U.S.-flagged ships better compete with them. Cruises departing from Los Angeles and San Diego typically include a short, token stop in Ensenada, Mexico, to meet federal laws that require ships flying under foreign flags to dock in another country before going to other U.S. ports.

The rule change proposed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection would force those ships to stay in a foreign port for at least 48 hours and allow passengers to go ashore. ETN

6. Marketing Trends

With 37 million Americans over the age of 65 and 30 million more expected to cross that line in the next decade, we serve-up four ways to group these post-retirement consumers. “Ageless Explorers” or “Rich Retirees” who respond to images of silver-haird scuba divers reinventing themselves. “Comfortable Contents” are also wealthy, but more attracted to scenes of fisherman, friendly dogs and rocking chairs.

They want to spend their final years free from the responsibilities of work, social obligations and worrying about anyone else. “Live For Todays” wish they could relax, but didn’t save much, so their financial anxieties make them easy targets for Costa Rican retirement communities and thrifty insurance plans. “Sick and Tireds” are basically those in their final days who are attracted to anything that makes the waiting less painful, particularly if it costs less than $20. NY Times

What China’s seriously rich (those with at least 10 million yuan or $1.37 million in personal wealth) want most: a survey of 660 people found that 18 per cent are interested in a space tour, and 11.7 percent say that cruising on luxury yachts would become part of their life. France was the hottest destination in Europe for its romantic allure and the glitz of the Riviera while shoppers' paradise Dubai was the most favored in the Middle East. Remy Martin along with Royal Salute whisky and Hennessy cognac topped are tops in the liquor cabinet.

Add Rolex and BMW to the mix too. Those surveyed acquired their wealth mainly from the manufacturing, real estate and tertiary industries, with most of them in the 31-45 age group. A list by World Entrepreneur magazine this month estimates that China boasts the second largest number of billionaires in the world after the US. The number of people with more than $1 billion in assets has reached 146, compared to 85 last year, it says. China Daily

7. Hot Destinations

Despite the weak dollar, there are still places where you can find a good value this year. In Europe, Portugal, as well as eastern European destinations like Montenegro are good choices. Latin America is hot, and Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil are standout destinations for 2008. Travel + Leisure

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/.