October 2010

Travel Tech: Virtual Tour Of Southeast Alaska

App Reviews

Riding in a van along the dirt road that led from the Bear Track Inn to the Glacier Bay Lodge, I marveled at how the van driver could use his right thumb to scroll through apps and pull up information on his iPhone while using his left hand to steer the vehicle.  Alas, on that [...]

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Destination Update (10/28/10)

Destination Updates

Here are this week’s travel destination stories on the Web: Amazon Awakening (The New York Times) Kite-Surfing In Brazil (The Washington Post) Copenhagen’s Burger Wars (Matadornetwork.com) Holidays In The Big Apple (Contra Costa Times) New England Witch-Hunting (The Washington Post) Tangiers: Worlds Apart From Europe (The Seattle Times) Ghoulish Fun Aboard The Queen Mary (Los [...]

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Travel News Update (10/27/10)

Travel News Updates

Here are this week’s travel and travel technology stories on the Web: “Smart” Vs. “Dumb” Credit Cards (The New York Times) San Francisco Top U.S. Tourist Spot (Chicago Tribune) The NFL On Jet Blue (The New York Times) Bah, Humbug! Holiday Airfares Up (Chicago Tribune) Jet Blue Flight Attendant Cops Plea (AP via The Seattle [...]

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Blast From The Past: Visiting “Mad” King George

Trip Blog Posts

George III of England, king during the American Revolution, had a small palace (just a nice, modestly large, three story home by comparison to most royal palaces we’ve seen) southwest of the City of London and City of Westminster. He and his queen and children spent many summers at that home. The palace lies within [...]

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Travel Essay: “Radio Prague Calling” (Part 2)

Travel Essays

(Part 1 of “Radio Prague Calling” ran last Monday. The story concludes today) In 1999, I went to Rome, Florence and Paris. Two years later, I spent most of a month in the northern half of Italy. I ate great food, drank good wine, rode everywhere on trains, and wondered why it had taken me [...]

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Travel Tech: iPhone “Tethering”

Travel Tech

iPhone owners waited for what seemed an interminable period of time before AT&T allowed them to “tether” their phones to laptop computers.  They literally found themselves “at the end of their tethers” (like mad dogs straining to get off of their chains and bite AT&T for denying them the tethering function). Here are tips on [...]

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Destination Update (10/21/10)

Destination Updates

Here are this week’s travel destination stories on the Web: Magical Ireland (GoNOMAD.com) Stockholm’s Royal Palace (The Seattle Times) Okinawa’s Fortune Tellers (Matadornetwork.com) Skiing The Czech Republic (Los Angeles Times) 10 Best Honeymoon Destinations (Huffington Post) Cherokee Living History (Dallas Morning News) Beijing’s Luxury “Commune” Hotel (Los Angeles Times) Biking Austrian Vineyards (The New York [...]

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Travel News Update (10/20/10)

Travel News Updates

Here are this week’s travel and travel technology stories on the Web: Making Dream Trips Real (The New York Times) An “Unhappy Halloween” Ahead At Airports? (Elliott.org) Airlines Oppose Co-Pilot Hours Rule (AP via The Seattle Times) The Price At the Pump Is Up (The Oregonian) Finding Wi-Fi In The Sky (The New York Times) [...]

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Blast From The Past: London On Foot, In The Tube

Trip Blog Posts

London is a great city for those who want to see the city on foot and has a highly organized group of walking tour guides. Today we did two, two-hour walking tours, one in the morning and another in the afternoon, with a quick lunch in a historic pub in between. We first went on [...]

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Travel Essay: “Radio Prague Calling”

Travel Essays

When I was twelve, I received a gift that immediately took me far beyond the cultural confines of Seattle: A Hallicrafters S-38E short-wave radio. Although I could use the set to tune into Seattle AM stations like KING and KIRO, it was voices from far-off places like Japan, Ecuador, and Europe that kept me up [...]

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Travel Tech: Where It’s At, At The Airport

App Reviews

One task we all face when we arrive at an airport is finding where we can get food, money, a “Romance Novel” to read, powder our noses, or take ground transportation. Before leaving home we can access on-line maps at an airport’s Website to electronically reconnoiter where to find key travel services.  Once at the [...]

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Destination Update (10/14/10)

Destination Updates

Here are this week’s travel destination stories on the Web: Europe’s Undiscovered Art (The New York Times) Finding The “Hidden” Veneto (GoNOMAD.com) Seattle, “Old” And “New” (The Oregonian) Old Santa Fe (Los Angeles Times) D.C.’s Finer Side (GoNOMAD.com) Liberace Museum Replacements (SFGate.com) 36 Hours In Rome (The New York Times) Eight-Country Alpine Hike (GoNOMAD.com) Riding [...]

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Travel News Update (10/13/10)

Travel News Updates

Here are this week’s travel and travel technology stories on the Web: Planes Fill, Level Off (The New York Times) Health, Security, At Commonwealth Games (Matadornetwork.com) Lady Gaga’s Handcuffs (The TSA Blog) Fall Travel Bargains (Chicago Tribune) Will You Like The “New” United Airlines? (Elliott.org) Using Cell Phones As Hotel Keys (The B.A.T.) Tour Company [...]

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Blast From The Past: Speaking In Tongues, Driving The Wrong Way

Trip Blog Posts

For three and a half weeks, we used our garbled German and fractured French on the Continent. Lucky for us, most of the people who have to put up with tourists speak fairly fluent English, or could figure out what we we’re trying to say in their native language. Now that we are back in [...]

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Travel Essay: The Bumper Stickers Of Summer

Travel Essays

San Francisco Bay Area residents slept-in this year as winter’s wet blanket of rain continued to cover them well beyond the end of May. When they awoke on June 23, they realized that summer had crept up on them. The solstice had passed, and the days were already becoming shorter. Forty years ago marking the [...]

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Blast From The Past: Typing Underwater at 100 MPH

Trip Blog Posts

As I write this post, we are traveling at 100 miles per hour under the English Channel aboard the Eurostar train on its 2 hour and 49 minute run between Paris and London. We just finished our three-course lunch of jambon and melon, veau (pour Madame) and saumon (pour moi), followed by a chocolate caramel [...]

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Travel Essay: The Year of Flying Dangerously (Part 4)

Travel Essays

(The third installment of Dick Jordan’s recollections of the events of September 11, 2001 appeared last Monday.  The story concludes today). Unhappy Travels A month after returning from Europe we were in the air again, this time flying from San Francisco to Newark where we picked up a rental car and drove northwestward into Pennsylvania.  [...]

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