August 2013 – Page 2

“This Week in Travel” Visits San Francisco

By Dick Jordan | August 26, 2013 | Comments 2 comments

Tales Told From The Road publisher, Dick Jordan, found a nice online surprise awaiting him when he arrived home after dining out with friends on Saturday evening: An invitation to spend Sunday afternoon at the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco with a star-studded cast of travel writers recording the “This Week in Travel” podcast.

(Clockwise: Chris Christensen, Don George, Spud Hilton, David Lytle, Dick Jordan, Jen Leo, and Jodi Ettenberg. Behind the camera: Ann Hilton. Photo courtesy of Amateur Traveler.

Instead of following the show’s usual format that begins with a review of top travel news stories and ends with tips for travelers, co-hosts Chris Christensen (Amateur Traveler.com) and Jen Leo (JenLeo.com) moderated a round-table discussion between theses six guests:

Jodi Ettenberg of Legalnomads.com and author of The Food Traveler’s Handbook
David Lytle, Executive Editor at Fest300.com
Ann Hilton and her husband, San Francisco Chronicle Travel Editor, Spud Hilton
Dick Jordan of Tales Told From The Road
Don George, Editor at Large and Book Review Columnist for National Geographic Traveler magazine, Special Features Editor and Blogger for Gadling.com, Editor of Geographic Expedition’s online magazine, Wanderlust: Literary Journeys for the Discerning Traveler, author-editor of ten travel books, and co-chair of the annual Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference.

Listen in on the lively discussion between Dick Jordan and these “travel illuminate,” as Chris Christensen refers to them.

(Although this episode of “This Week in Travel” is audio-only, during most shows co-hosts Gary Arndt, Chris Christensen and Jen Leo, joined by a special guest, broadcast from multiple locations around the globe via live streaming video in a Google+ Hangout on Air; after the broadcast ends, the show is available for viewing on YouTube and also as a audio podcast. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or, better yet, listen to the show with the “This Week in Travel” iPhone app, as Dick Jordan does while working out at the gym.)

Flylite’s Goal: One carry-on bag fits all overhead bins

By Dick Jordan | August 23, 2013 | Comments 0 Comment

You’d think that all of the world’s airlines would have adopted a common standard for the size of carry-on bags that passengers can bring aboard. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration says that

“The maximum size carry-on bag for most airlines is 45 linear inches (the total of the height, width, and depth of the bag). Anything larger should be checked.”

But that doesn’t mean that all U.S. airlines will allow you carry on a bag that doesn’t exceed those total dimensions, nor does that “rule of thumb” necessarily apply to airlines based in other countries. …

Travel Photo Thursday: Great Vacation Videos

By Dick Jordan | August 22, 2013 | Comments 2 comments

A great vacation photo can be worth a thousand words about the sense of the place.

A great vacation video can tell the story of the place.

But while most travelers can, with a little effort and the use of photo editing software, capture a great vacation photo, producing a great vacation video takes much more thought and skill.

To divine the techniques for making mini-movie masterpieces, we’re going to analyze four of these twenty one-minute films by Christopher Reynolds of the Los Angeles Times.

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