My goodness, London was absolutely gorgeous last week when I arrived for a short visit before embarking on a trans-Atlantic cruise. St. James and Green Parks were indeed green and lush, the sun was shining and the flowers around Queen Victoria’s statue were in full bloom. The city has been enjoying a long, lingering summer. The rains will come soon enough, but for now London is looking her best. It was a great visit, even if it seemed to cost me $80 every time I stepped out of my hotel room, given that the pound is trading at nearly half to a dollar. Which makes a nice, reasonably priced five-pound sandwich a hefty ten bucks, a fifteen-pound cab ride suddenly whooshes up to thirty smackers, theater tickets and hotel rooms are doubled, and so on. More...
Native American-owned casinos are stepping up to the next phase of the travel business – building hotels, spas and restaurants to go with the blackjack and craps and slots – and it does my heart good to see what they’re creating. Reservations are absolutely awash in money these days because they’ve hit upon a very simple formula for attracting customers: People want to gamble, smoke, drink and stare at blinking, purring, jingling slot machines for hours at a time, and they’re perfectly happy to be entertained by cover bands and TV screens showing ESPN all day. More...
With the recent news that an ice shelf the size of Manhattan broke off in the Arctic Ocean last month, I thought it might be a good idea to suggest a cool way to visit the Arctic while it’s still there. To that end, I suggest that you don parkas and mittens and check out the new Northwest Passage itinerary of Canadian-based Cruise North expeditions (Another travel tip: You might have to remove the mittens first before approaching your keyboard). More...
I thought I’d deliver some good news, for a change, on the Hawaii Superferry, which runs from Oahu to Maui and back and is the first regularly scheduled ferry service between the islands. As readers of this space will remember, the launching of this ferry last year was anything but super, as environmentalists and island activists stopped the boats in their tracks with a barrage of complaints and legal challenges. The Maui service was started, stopped, and then started again only after clearing the Hawaii Supreme Court. A similar ferry passage to Kauai was stopped altogether after activists physically barred the first boats from landing on the island by blocking entrance to Nawiliwili harbor with their surfboards and outrigger canoes. The Superferry people are still trying to figure out how to successfully – not to mention peacefully – sail to Kauai. More...
They don’t call it a fringe festival for nothing. Right now through August 24th, the Edmonton Fringe Festival is taking place in the booming city in northern Alberta, which is pretty much on the fringe of civilization. After Edmonton it’s all oil-sand fields and prairie all the way up to the Arctic Ocean. Not a whole bunch of culture emanating from those oil-field roustabouts. More...
Alert blogmeister Jon Moore, a scientist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, got in touch last week to tell us about his recent cruise to Alaska with a Celebrity cruise ship. It was the first cruise that Jon, his wife Lonnie, and sons Daniel and Jamie took, and his comments were instructive for anyone considering a cruise vacation this summer. There are still several weeks left in the Alaska cruise season and bookings are available on several lines.
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You know, a lot of us are concerned these days with the high cost of travel, especially as it relates to fuel prices. Many of us are taking vacations closer to home, which accounts for the Travel Guru sightings last weekend at Milo McGiver State Park in Oregon, where a newly acquired used tent (only $35, Ma!) doubled for my usual palatial digs at four-star resorts. More...
This is complicated, but bear with me: I had to go high up in the North Cascades mountains of Washington, to the new Suncadia resort, to hear a professional football player who can rock, and to try the newest thing coming in seafood. And I’m glad I did on both counts. More...
I’ve been away from Brooklyn too long. Obviously, things have changed there rather dramatically. I gather that they now speak French, and dese and dose have been replaced in the local parlance by les and las. I’m making this assumption because I just received a press release announcing the opening in Brooklyn of something called Hotel Le Bleu, which touts itself as the borough’s first true boutique hotel. The release had something of a Brooklyn flavor, because the writers took pains to point out that the name means “The Blue Hotel,” for any of you who missed French 101 class this morning. More...
Aw, shoot, gas prices are ridiculous. The airlines now want to charge us to check bags (so maybe we should charge them when they lose them). It’s pouring in the Midwest, sweltering in the Northeast and freezing in the Northwest. But it’s still June, and there’s only one thing we can do: Let’s get married, honey, and I’m not talking about down at the county courthouse. We need a lavish trip to do this right, and that’s where Lisa Light comes in. More...
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