Arthur Frommer's Blog, page 19
July 30, 2012
Arthur's Blog: My Week at the Oxford Experience Ended With an Emotional Round of Latin Toasts and Warm Goodbyes
Except for one last breakfast on Saturday morning in the cavernous Henry Potter dining hall, Friday is the final climactic day of your Oxford Experience, as it was this week of mine. My classmates, my wife and myself, and our awesome Oxford don, met one last time from 9 to 1 in our apartment classroom to consider the Bloomsbury set of immense literary significance ("Virginia Woolf and her Circle" was the subject I had chosen) and to applaud our Don for her superb presentation.
We had a feast of opportunities for the rest of the day. We spent the afternoon dipping into two of the multi-story Oxford bookstores, and toured the paintings and ancient relics of the Ashmoleon Museum, before dressing in our most formal attire (jacket and tie for men, cocktail dress for women) to attend a final champagne reception in the magnificent gardens adjacent to the Christ Church cathedral. Oxford is the only university in the world to enjoy an actual cathedral, where many summer students attended the daily "evensong" services late each afternoon. Everyone had their cellphone cameras out to record the occasion and to take farewell pictures of our individual groups.
Friday evening ended with a four-course, gourmet-level, banquet dinner (duck breast was the main plate, washed down with wine and followed by port and brandy), at which the Oxford Experience chairman delivered a toast in Latin and then introduced other speakers. We were seated according to our classes, presented our don with a gift for which we had each chipped in several pounds, and then had emotional leave-takings before finally returning to our rooms. It was quite a day.
I had for years labored under the impression that the "Oxford Experience" was a bit of entertainment consisting of lectures delivered to the entire student body in large auditoriums. It was everything but. Classes are limited to 12 students, and you have a choice, each week, of eleven different subject matters ranging (as I have earlier pointed out) from "The Brain and Its Senses," to the "Life of Cardinal Wolsey," to "The History of the BBC" The courses change each week, and some students -- they are persons of all ages from around the world -- sign up for several successive weeks. Even more of them return to the Oxford Experience year after year, and regard the activity as the highlight of their summer. My wife and I met people from Australia, Paris, Nashville, the Cotswolds, California, and even Key West (an especially engaging couple). Each was a vital individual in love with learning.
Courses have already been chosen for the summer of 2013 (late June to early August), and they are undoubtedly listed -- or soon will be -- in the website for the Oxford Experience. Our don will be back teaching various aspects of Jane Austen, and other distinguished faculty will be presenting impassioned lectures on British and world history, British and world politics, different fields of science, and one particular course on spies of the world.
I can't sufficiently emphasize that this is an overwhelming experience that will remain in your memory for a lifetime, and I can't think of a better way to spend a summer week. It is stimulating from an intellectual standpoint, and is additionally pleasurable because of this unequalled opportunity to spend time in an awesome city and an historic college that has been attended by many great men and women of the world. When you take your meals under a portrait of W.H. Auden, and of Lewis Carroll, in a structure built in the time of Henry VIII, you feel deeply privileged.
We had a feast of opportunities for the rest of the day. We spent the afternoon dipping into two of the multi-story Oxford bookstores, and toured the paintings and ancient relics of the Ashmoleon Museum, before dressing in our most formal attire (jacket and tie for men, cocktail dress for women) to attend a final champagne reception in the magnificent gardens adjacent to the Christ Church cathedral. Oxford is the only university in the world to enjoy an actual cathedral, where many summer students attended the daily "evensong" services late each afternoon. Everyone had their cellphone cameras out to record the occasion and to take farewell pictures of our individual groups.
Friday evening ended with a four-course, gourmet-level, banquet dinner (duck breast was the main plate, washed down with wine and followed by port and brandy), at which the Oxford Experience chairman delivered a toast in Latin and then introduced other speakers. We were seated according to our classes, presented our don with a gift for which we had each chipped in several pounds, and then had emotional leave-takings before finally returning to our rooms. It was quite a day.
I had for years labored under the impression that the "Oxford Experience" was a bit of entertainment consisting of lectures delivered to the entire student body in large auditoriums. It was everything but. Classes are limited to 12 students, and you have a choice, each week, of eleven different subject matters ranging (as I have earlier pointed out) from "The Brain and Its Senses," to the "Life of Cardinal Wolsey," to "The History of the BBC" The courses change each week, and some students -- they are persons of all ages from around the world -- sign up for several successive weeks. Even more of them return to the Oxford Experience year after year, and regard the activity as the highlight of their summer. My wife and I met people from Australia, Paris, Nashville, the Cotswolds, California, and even Key West (an especially engaging couple). Each was a vital individual in love with learning.
Courses have already been chosen for the summer of 2013 (late June to early August), and they are undoubtedly listed -- or soon will be -- in the website for the Oxford Experience. Our don will be back teaching various aspects of Jane Austen, and other distinguished faculty will be presenting impassioned lectures on British and world history, British and world politics, different fields of science, and one particular course on spies of the world.
I can't sufficiently emphasize that this is an overwhelming experience that will remain in your memory for a lifetime, and I can't think of a better way to spend a summer week. It is stimulating from an intellectual standpoint, and is additionally pleasurable because of this unequalled opportunity to spend time in an awesome city and an historic college that has been attended by many great men and women of the world. When you take your meals under a portrait of W.H. Auden, and of Lewis Carroll, in a structure built in the time of Henry VIII, you feel deeply privileged.
July 27, 2012
Arthur's Blog: I Am in Every Respect Enjoying the Fantasy of an Oxford Education (Minus the Black Cloak)
I have just concluded the first four days of a weeklong stay at Christ Church College in Oxford, England, where I am enrolled in the "Oxford Experience," the world's most famous learning vacation.
My course of study, formally called "Virginia Woolf and Her Circle," relates to the Bloomsbury Group, those remarkable British authors, artists, philosophers and economists of the early twentieth century who set out to challenge the accepted social, political, and sexual mores of Victorian England. They were, among others, Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Vanessa and Clive Bell, E.M. Forster, Katherine Mansfield, John Maynard Keynes, and others.
We meet each day in the living room of an apartment assigned to an Oxford don (a tutor or professor) in one of the awesome sixteenth century buildings of a college that was planned by Cardinal Wolsey and completed by Henry VIII. There we discuss and argue the texts of four outstanding Bloomsbury books from 9:15a.m. to 1p.m., breaking only for coffee about halfway through each morning. Those sessions can only be described as intellectual fireworks. You do not become a don at Oxford unless you are an outstanding scholar of proven quality, and our don is like a combination of the English department heads of Yale, Harvard and Princeton in one person, sprinkled with a bit of Harold Bloom, Lionel Trilling, and Alfred Kazin.
Other students in our group (half from the U.S.; others from France, Italy, and Australia; a few from Britain) are pursuing courses ranging from Particle Physics, to The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, to the History of the B.B.C., and The Brain and Its Senses. We meet for meals in the Harry Potter Dining Hall (yes, it's the one from the first movie in the series), and also attend evening lectures on a variety of other subjects in other buildings looking down on the several quads that make up Christ Church College. I want to pinch myself when I walk through a setting that hasn't changed at all since the year 1549 (other Oxford colleges date to the 1200s).
Because this blog deals with travel and not with academic matters, I won't go on about the nature of the experience itself. But so you can decide whether you'd like to attend one of the six weeks of courses scheduled for 2013, I should tell you something about the cost of coming here to participate in an extraordinary adventure.
The seven days and six nights cost around $300 per night (not including airfare to Britain). That sum brings you: all tuition for the classes you take, six nights of accommodation in a comfortable student residence where you also receive the services of a "scout" who makes the bed and cleans the room each morning, three gigantic meals a day in the Harry Potter Dining Hall, daily escorted sightseeing of Oxford itself and other sights and famous palaces and stately homes outside of Oxford (which are optional, free activities scheduled for each afternoon), wine with your meals three times a week and at two extra wine receptions scheduled for each week, evening lectures most nights delivered by other famous Oxford Dons, and constant coffee breaks each morning, and again at night in various college halls. I count that a pretty hefty return against the $300 a night you are spending. It compares with the meals and escorted sightseeing you'd receive from standard tour operators, but it also includes those incomparable daily classes and other intellectual activities brought to you by distinguished teachers.
I'll be writing a greater length about the program scheduled for 2013. I will myself try to come back for more, and can't imagine why other intellectually curious Americans might not want to do the same. Here is a vacation activity that towers over almost any other you might consider.
July 23, 2012
Arthur's Blog: I Am Having the Time of My Life at a Vacation Activity That Fills Some People With Dread
An elderly gentleman in black bowler hat and formal black suit stood guard at the gates of the 16th century structure to which I had been directed. "I'm here to register for my classes," I told him.
"Jolly good," he responded.
And I am not making this up. He actually answered: "Jolly good."
I arrived yesterday morning (Sunday) in Oxford, England, to attend the "Oxford Experience" for a week at Christ Church College, studying Virginia Woolf and her Circle, for which I had read in advance (as directed by the school's faulty) Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, E.M. Forster's Howard's End, and Katherine Mansfield's Bliss and Other Short Stories. By noon of the same day, I registered, dropped off luggage at my room, met my "scout" (who will make the bed and clean the room each day), and enjoyed my first meal in the towering medieval hall where Harry Potter and his classmates took their own meals (and listened to various pronouncements) in the movie that all of us saw.
And yes, it was the very same long Gothic hall filmed in the movie. Above us, on elaborately decorated stone walls, were solemn oil portraits of various British greats who, to my disappointment, were motionless in their paintings' frames and did not cavort about, as in the movie. Drat!
All in all, I am having the kind of travel experience of which too many Americans dream but fail to enjoy because of their unwillingness to sign up for a learning vacation. Oxford's summer program provides a key example, at an affordable price and easily booked. What a pity that so many people are too lacking in the slight initiative to learn about and then to book this long-established program.
I'll blog a bit tomorrow about the first day's classes. And if you'd like a foretaste of next summer's program, simply read up online about the Oxford Experience.
"Jolly good," he responded.
And I am not making this up. He actually answered: "Jolly good."
I arrived yesterday morning (Sunday) in Oxford, England, to attend the "Oxford Experience" for a week at Christ Church College, studying Virginia Woolf and her Circle, for which I had read in advance (as directed by the school's faulty) Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, E.M. Forster's Howard's End, and Katherine Mansfield's Bliss and Other Short Stories. By noon of the same day, I registered, dropped off luggage at my room, met my "scout" (who will make the bed and clean the room each day), and enjoyed my first meal in the towering medieval hall where Harry Potter and his classmates took their own meals (and listened to various pronouncements) in the movie that all of us saw.
And yes, it was the very same long Gothic hall filmed in the movie. Above us, on elaborately decorated stone walls, were solemn oil portraits of various British greats who, to my disappointment, were motionless in their paintings' frames and did not cavort about, as in the movie. Drat!
All in all, I am having the kind of travel experience of which too many Americans dream but fail to enjoy because of their unwillingness to sign up for a learning vacation. Oxford's summer program provides a key example, at an affordable price and easily booked. What a pity that so many people are too lacking in the slight initiative to learn about and then to book this long-established program.
I'll blog a bit tomorrow about the first day's classes. And if you'd like a foretaste of next summer's program, simply read up online about the Oxford Experience.
July 20, 2012
Arthur's Blog: The Latest Riverboats, Balconies and All, Will Soon be Cruising Up and Down the Mississippi
As best I know, Viking River Cruises has made no actual, formal, announcement of its intention to operate river boats on the Mississippi. So it may be (let's hope) that Frommers.com will be scooping the travel world with the revelation I'm about to impart.
Several people with whom I've spoken, who have just returned from Viking River Cruises on the Rhine and the Danube, tell me that throughout the cruise, various PR types working for Viking were exultant over the fact -- they broadcast the news far and wide -- that two boats are currently being manufactured for Viking that will go into service on the Mighty Mo in 2014. If this is so, it will mark the launch of a major new industry of cruising in the United States.
At present, and as far as I know, the American Queen is the only substantial passenger ship that is making regular cruises of the Mississippi. I've sailed on the American Queen. It's a remarkable boat that provides a superb river experience. If it's joined by two Viking ships, then a fine competitive battle may soon upgrade the entire industry of domestic river cruising. Viking spares no effort to make their cruising experience the most comfortable vacation trip one can imagine.
About the only negative I found with the American Queen was that its "riverlorians" -- the so-called historians who lecture passengers about the history of the Mississippi -- were invariably chosen from the deep South, attitudes and all. One of them went on at length about how the Civil War broke out because the North was "jealous" of the South's commercial success. When she made no effort to convey a more centrist viewpoint, I stopped going to her lectures and spent the time on deck reading Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi.
Anyway, it's good news that the Swedish-owned Viking River Cruises will soon bring competition to America's mightiest river.
Several people with whom I've spoken, who have just returned from Viking River Cruises on the Rhine and the Danube, tell me that throughout the cruise, various PR types working for Viking were exultant over the fact -- they broadcast the news far and wide -- that two boats are currently being manufactured for Viking that will go into service on the Mighty Mo in 2014. If this is so, it will mark the launch of a major new industry of cruising in the United States.
At present, and as far as I know, the American Queen is the only substantial passenger ship that is making regular cruises of the Mississippi. I've sailed on the American Queen. It's a remarkable boat that provides a superb river experience. If it's joined by two Viking ships, then a fine competitive battle may soon upgrade the entire industry of domestic river cruising. Viking spares no effort to make their cruising experience the most comfortable vacation trip one can imagine.
About the only negative I found with the American Queen was that its "riverlorians" -- the so-called historians who lecture passengers about the history of the Mississippi -- were invariably chosen from the deep South, attitudes and all. One of them went on at length about how the Civil War broke out because the North was "jealous" of the South's commercial success. When she made no effort to convey a more centrist viewpoint, I stopped going to her lectures and spent the time on deck reading Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi.
Anyway, it's good news that the Swedish-owned Viking River Cruises will soon bring competition to America's mightiest river.
July 19, 2012
Arthur's Blog: Spaces Still Available for the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference in Corte Madera CA
It's probably a false sense of modesty that has kept me, until now, from mentioning that travel writers and editors associated with Frommers.com and Frommer's Travel Guides will be among the faculty at this year's 21st annual Travel Writers and Photographers Conference at Book Passage (a famous, independent bookstore just north of San Francisco) in Corte Madera, California, August 9 to 12. Speaking at that conference (which is actually a school for aspiring travel writers and photographers) will be my daughter, Pauline Frommer (guidebook author, blogger, syndicated travel columnist, and co-host with me of the weekly Travel Show) and David Lytle, Editorial Director of Frommers.com and featured speaker on countless radio and tv broadcasts dealing with travel.
I've been told that places are still available at this year's conference, which has launched numerous talented writers onto a successful career of travel writing. The faculty at this year's conference, as has been the case with every year's conference for the past 20 years, includes some of the most important names in travel journalism: Don George, Andrew McCarthy (yes! the actor-turned-travel writer), Peter Greenberg, Phil Cousineau, Susan Orlean, Spud Hilton, and many others. My own appearances at the conference have been tremendously fulfilling for myself, among the most memorable of any I can remember. Every important aspect of the travel writers' life is discussed and dissected, to the great benefit -- in my view -- of every would-be travel journalist attending.
Either phone 800/999-7909 or 415/835-1020, or visit www.bookpassage.com/travel-writers-photographers-conference.
I've been told that places are still available at this year's conference, which has launched numerous talented writers onto a successful career of travel writing. The faculty at this year's conference, as has been the case with every year's conference for the past 20 years, includes some of the most important names in travel journalism: Don George, Andrew McCarthy (yes! the actor-turned-travel writer), Peter Greenberg, Phil Cousineau, Susan Orlean, Spud Hilton, and many others. My own appearances at the conference have been tremendously fulfilling for myself, among the most memorable of any I can remember. Every important aspect of the travel writers' life is discussed and dissected, to the great benefit -- in my view -- of every would-be travel journalist attending.
Either phone 800/999-7909 or 415/835-1020, or visit www.bookpassage.com/travel-writers-photographers-conference.
July 18, 2012
Arthur's Blog: Home Exchanges Can be Arranged for as Little as a 3-Day Weekend or as Long as Many Months
Ed Kushins, the founder and president of HomeExchange.com, passed through New York City this week and agreed to be interviewed by me at the studios of radio station W.O.R. The recording of that talk will appear on this Sunday's show, and contains two new aspect of home exchanging (which can also be apartment exchanging) of which I was earlier unaware.
According to Kushins, a tangible percentage of all exchanges are for periods as short as a three-day weekend, a fact that startled me. Persons living in Boston may wish to enjoy a long weekend of theatre-going in New York City, and thus arrange an exchange with New York residents who wish to go sightseeing in Boston. By exchanging, the Bostonians save as much as the $1,200 that a three-night hotel stay would have cost them in Manhattan. The New Yorkers save almost as much in Boston.
This now-obvious use of home exchanging was something I had never before considered, and it now seems quite logical. Short-term exchanges take place between residents of Los Angeles and San Francisco, or between residents of Washington, D.C. and towns in North Carolina, and they can be arranged in an hour-or-so spent at their computers by persons who belong to the various home exchange clubs like HomeExchange.com.
Kushins himself decided to arrange an imminent home exchange in New York, and sat down to do so in late evening on the Monday night of his recent arrival. By 1 a.m., he had two offers of a home exchange.
Other members, according to him, arrange "sequential" home exchanges on around-the-world trips, something of which I again had never heard. They first make the air reservations for a series of one-week or two-week stays in the cities along an around-the-world itinerary, and then pick up a home or apartment residence in each of those cities. Since they will then be away from their own homes for a fairly long and continuous stretch of time, they are able to offer the exchangers corresponding stays in their own home or apartment.
I concluded the interview by asking Kushins whether people who lived in small and totally unknown towns could arrange home exchanges, and he responded by pointing out that such would-be exchangers are able to post lengthy descriptions of the towns in which they live, thus overcoming the lack of knowledge that others may have. He told of a resident of Modesto, California -- certainly not a household word to persons elsewhere in the world -- who was recently deluged with requests for an exchange after he had posted on www.homeexchange.com a colorful and complete description, accompanied by several photographs, of his own beloved Modesto.
I have gone on at such length about home exchanging only because of my own firm belief that this is one of the most intelligent and rewarding methods of travel -- and something most would-be travelers may want to consider. You not only eliminate the costs of lodgings by arranging a home exchange, but you proceed to live like a resident in the places to which you travel, a profound reward that expands your consciousness. You also make use of a valuable asset, your own home or apartment, rather than leaving it unused during the period of your trip.
According to Kushins, a tangible percentage of all exchanges are for periods as short as a three-day weekend, a fact that startled me. Persons living in Boston may wish to enjoy a long weekend of theatre-going in New York City, and thus arrange an exchange with New York residents who wish to go sightseeing in Boston. By exchanging, the Bostonians save as much as the $1,200 that a three-night hotel stay would have cost them in Manhattan. The New Yorkers save almost as much in Boston.
This now-obvious use of home exchanging was something I had never before considered, and it now seems quite logical. Short-term exchanges take place between residents of Los Angeles and San Francisco, or between residents of Washington, D.C. and towns in North Carolina, and they can be arranged in an hour-or-so spent at their computers by persons who belong to the various home exchange clubs like HomeExchange.com.
Kushins himself decided to arrange an imminent home exchange in New York, and sat down to do so in late evening on the Monday night of his recent arrival. By 1 a.m., he had two offers of a home exchange.
Other members, according to him, arrange "sequential" home exchanges on around-the-world trips, something of which I again had never heard. They first make the air reservations for a series of one-week or two-week stays in the cities along an around-the-world itinerary, and then pick up a home or apartment residence in each of those cities. Since they will then be away from their own homes for a fairly long and continuous stretch of time, they are able to offer the exchangers corresponding stays in their own home or apartment.
I concluded the interview by asking Kushins whether people who lived in small and totally unknown towns could arrange home exchanges, and he responded by pointing out that such would-be exchangers are able to post lengthy descriptions of the towns in which they live, thus overcoming the lack of knowledge that others may have. He told of a resident of Modesto, California -- certainly not a household word to persons elsewhere in the world -- who was recently deluged with requests for an exchange after he had posted on www.homeexchange.com a colorful and complete description, accompanied by several photographs, of his own beloved Modesto.
I have gone on at such length about home exchanging only because of my own firm belief that this is one of the most intelligent and rewarding methods of travel -- and something most would-be travelers may want to consider. You not only eliminate the costs of lodgings by arranging a home exchange, but you proceed to live like a resident in the places to which you travel, a profound reward that expands your consciousness. You also make use of a valuable asset, your own home or apartment, rather than leaving it unused during the period of your trip.
July 17, 2012
Arthur's Blog: Economic Conditions Compel Airlines of Ireland, Greece & Spain to Reduce Fares on Fall Flights
If you're looking for a cheap round-trip flight to Europe this coming October and November, your best bet are the carriers of those countries whose economy has been most badly hurt by the current European financial crisis: Ireland, Greece, Spain. That conclusion follows unmistakably from the promotional packages that Aer Lingus and others are beginning to announce for this coming October and November.
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that an Irish tour operator using Aer Lingus, Brian Moore International (www.bmit.com), was announcing fly/drive programs to Dublin for as little as $749, including round-trip airfares (and all taxes and fuel surcharges) this coming November. Actually, I overstated the price; in recent revisions to its website, Brian Moore has cut the cost of a fly/drive (round-trip air between New York and Dublin, and a car with unlimited mileage) to as little as $709 and $729 for several departure dates in late October.
Now, undercutting even those levels, are the air-and-hotel packages to Dublin offered by a company that isn't an Irish specialist at all. Gate 1 (www.gate1travel.com) has just announced a rate as low as $669 and $679 for a package combining round-trip trans-Atlantic air between New York and Dublin, and a Dublin hotel for four nights, in the upcoming month of October. The rate is as little as $719, $729, $739 and $749 for several departure dates in November through February of a package designed for a six-night hotel stay and round-trip airfare (including all taxes, fees and surcharges).
With the announcement of those surprising prices, we are witnessing the re-birth of the "throwaway package" of several years ago, in my view, namely prices that people will be able to pay simply to fly across the Atlantic round-trip, without ever using (or wanting to use) the hotel and/or car listed in the package. I am willing to bet that you can extend the date of the return flight way beyond the four nights or the six nights of the package, provided you don't ask the tour operator to provide you with more than four or six nights of hotel accommodations. And you can fly out from other cities serviced by the same flag carrier for only slightly more than the New York price.
In the coming months, sharp-eyed bargain-seeking travelers will be able to find a great many "deals" of the above sort, enabling them to fly the Atlantic at low cost by simply using Aer Lingus, Iberia Airlines, or Olympic Airlines, the flag carriers of those countries whose business-related travel has fallen precipitously. The opening salvos of the tour operators working with Aer Lingus are the first indication that airfare bargains will be widespread this coming autumn on flights touching down first in Dublin, Madrid or Athens.
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that an Irish tour operator using Aer Lingus, Brian Moore International (www.bmit.com), was announcing fly/drive programs to Dublin for as little as $749, including round-trip airfares (and all taxes and fuel surcharges) this coming November. Actually, I overstated the price; in recent revisions to its website, Brian Moore has cut the cost of a fly/drive (round-trip air between New York and Dublin, and a car with unlimited mileage) to as little as $709 and $729 for several departure dates in late October.
Now, undercutting even those levels, are the air-and-hotel packages to Dublin offered by a company that isn't an Irish specialist at all. Gate 1 (www.gate1travel.com) has just announced a rate as low as $669 and $679 for a package combining round-trip trans-Atlantic air between New York and Dublin, and a Dublin hotel for four nights, in the upcoming month of October. The rate is as little as $719, $729, $739 and $749 for several departure dates in November through February of a package designed for a six-night hotel stay and round-trip airfare (including all taxes, fees and surcharges).
With the announcement of those surprising prices, we are witnessing the re-birth of the "throwaway package" of several years ago, in my view, namely prices that people will be able to pay simply to fly across the Atlantic round-trip, without ever using (or wanting to use) the hotel and/or car listed in the package. I am willing to bet that you can extend the date of the return flight way beyond the four nights or the six nights of the package, provided you don't ask the tour operator to provide you with more than four or six nights of hotel accommodations. And you can fly out from other cities serviced by the same flag carrier for only slightly more than the New York price.
In the coming months, sharp-eyed bargain-seeking travelers will be able to find a great many "deals" of the above sort, enabling them to fly the Atlantic at low cost by simply using Aer Lingus, Iberia Airlines, or Olympic Airlines, the flag carriers of those countries whose business-related travel has fallen precipitously. The opening salvos of the tour operators working with Aer Lingus are the first indication that airfare bargains will be widespread this coming autumn on flights touching down first in Dublin, Madrid or Athens.
July 16, 2012
Arthur's Blog: A Round-Up of Recent Travel News
Since no one wants to announce new travel programs or prices at a time when travel bookings are already at their height, mid-summer is a poor time for travel developments of major importance. There are no big headlines to discuss. But there are lots of smaller travel movements to mention.
Rooms in London for the Olympics Still Available
The poor advance reservations for the London Olympics is one such event, even though most Olympics organizers almost always encounter the very same disappointment in the immediate days before the start of the games. One influential British website, TravelRepublic.co.uk, has recently disclosed that more than 400 of the London hotels it represents have vacancies for key Olympics dates. And it has also discussed, quite candidly, a dramatic drop in the prices for London hotel rooms, too. So if you'd still like to experience the excitement of the Olympics, you know where to go: TravelRepublic.co.uk, which can make reservations for you.
Apart from the customary over-enthusiasm, another reason for slow Olympics bookings has to do with unusual weather conditions in London. Apparently, the city has experienced -- and continues to suffer -- the rainiest, wettest weather in recent history -- more rainfall than in any comparable period since such statistics were first recorded in 1902, some 110 years ago. (What irony, if the Olympics were to occur during a time of constant or even intermittent rain.)
Dollar Strengthens Against Other Currencies' Declines
Currency developments are also among the incidental news of travel. The euro has fallen to a level of $1.22 and the British pound to $1.55, making matters marginally better for Americans traveling to the Continent or Britain. But even more dramatically, the Indian rupee is now selling for more than 55 to the dollar. I've pointed out on many occasions that India is now an unusually pleasant country (from the standpoint of cost) in which to vacation.
Combine Two One-Ways Fares for Surprising Savings
Several airfare aggregators have begun offering you the option of two one-way flights on different airlines in place of a round-trip on a single airline. Kayak.com is apparently the most active in suddenly revealing such cost-saving devices, so much at odds with the traditional wisdom that round-trip flights are normally cheaper than two one-ways (that's no longer the case, as long as you fly on different airlines for the round-trip). The one-way options simply show up on the search engine screens, unsolicited, when you seek a round-trip airfare, and you'll be surprised at the savings they sometimes bring you.
California High-Speed Rail Still Controversial
Controversy still rages, as I write this, over California's recent decision to appropriate over five billion dollars for an initial, 130-mile stretch of track for high-speed rail; and I've been singled out by several protestors for having rejoiced over that decision. You're simply an Easterner, one person wrote, unaware of how sparse is our Western population as compared with where you reside. Sparse? The U.S. Census Bureau now predicts that by the year 2020, California will have more than 40 million residents, which compares with a fairly similar number of people in Spain. Yet Spain has profitably built high-speed rail lines between Madrid and Barcelona, and between Madrid and Malaga, while we stagger along with our toonerville trollies.
Americans Still Planning Vacations
I am constantly impressed by the ambitious travel plans that Americans have in a time of economic slowness. On a recent broadcast of the Travel Show, listeners called in to ask about the mechanics of visiting the island of Palau in the South Pacific, and of taking the Mont Blanc express between Martigny and Chamonix in the Swiss Alps.
So even though there's no monumental news of travel, here's still plenty of color and ferment in an occupation that accounts for more economic activity than in the manufacture of autos or the processing of food. Even in mid-summer, there's some news in travel.
Rooms in London for the Olympics Still Available
The poor advance reservations for the London Olympics is one such event, even though most Olympics organizers almost always encounter the very same disappointment in the immediate days before the start of the games. One influential British website, TravelRepublic.co.uk, has recently disclosed that more than 400 of the London hotels it represents have vacancies for key Olympics dates. And it has also discussed, quite candidly, a dramatic drop in the prices for London hotel rooms, too. So if you'd still like to experience the excitement of the Olympics, you know where to go: TravelRepublic.co.uk, which can make reservations for you.
Apart from the customary over-enthusiasm, another reason for slow Olympics bookings has to do with unusual weather conditions in London. Apparently, the city has experienced -- and continues to suffer -- the rainiest, wettest weather in recent history -- more rainfall than in any comparable period since such statistics were first recorded in 1902, some 110 years ago. (What irony, if the Olympics were to occur during a time of constant or even intermittent rain.)
Dollar Strengthens Against Other Currencies' Declines
Currency developments are also among the incidental news of travel. The euro has fallen to a level of $1.22 and the British pound to $1.55, making matters marginally better for Americans traveling to the Continent or Britain. But even more dramatically, the Indian rupee is now selling for more than 55 to the dollar. I've pointed out on many occasions that India is now an unusually pleasant country (from the standpoint of cost) in which to vacation.
Combine Two One-Ways Fares for Surprising Savings
Several airfare aggregators have begun offering you the option of two one-way flights on different airlines in place of a round-trip on a single airline. Kayak.com is apparently the most active in suddenly revealing such cost-saving devices, so much at odds with the traditional wisdom that round-trip flights are normally cheaper than two one-ways (that's no longer the case, as long as you fly on different airlines for the round-trip). The one-way options simply show up on the search engine screens, unsolicited, when you seek a round-trip airfare, and you'll be surprised at the savings they sometimes bring you.
California High-Speed Rail Still Controversial
Controversy still rages, as I write this, over California's recent decision to appropriate over five billion dollars for an initial, 130-mile stretch of track for high-speed rail; and I've been singled out by several protestors for having rejoiced over that decision. You're simply an Easterner, one person wrote, unaware of how sparse is our Western population as compared with where you reside. Sparse? The U.S. Census Bureau now predicts that by the year 2020, California will have more than 40 million residents, which compares with a fairly similar number of people in Spain. Yet Spain has profitably built high-speed rail lines between Madrid and Barcelona, and between Madrid and Malaga, while we stagger along with our toonerville trollies.
Americans Still Planning Vacations
I am constantly impressed by the ambitious travel plans that Americans have in a time of economic slowness. On a recent broadcast of the Travel Show, listeners called in to ask about the mechanics of visiting the island of Palau in the South Pacific, and of taking the Mont Blanc express between Martigny and Chamonix in the Swiss Alps.
So even though there's no monumental news of travel, here's still plenty of color and ferment in an occupation that accounts for more economic activity than in the manufacture of autos or the processing of food. Even in mid-summer, there's some news in travel.
July 13, 2012
Arthur's Blog: An App Called Hotel Tonight is Emerging as a Device of Enormous Benefit to Travelers
Most apps bore me. Whenever friends extract their iPhones and Androids from pocket and purse and gaze endlessly at their dozens of apps, I don't feel the slightest envy. The apps I've downloaded are three: Flashlight (for deciphering menus in dark restaurants), Angry Birds (out of curiosity as to what the excitement was all about), and Frommer's Travel Tools (which performs an unquestioned function; I'll soon be downloading some of Frommer's Day-by-Day Guides, too).
But another app -- Hotel Tonight -- is emerging as an enormous benefit to travelers. For the 40 biggest U.S. cities, the 15 largest airports, and London, Toronto and Vancouver, it lists special discounts (as much as 70%) on unsold rooms for the very night of the day you are consulting the app. I've heard of people who have scored major coups of pricing by using Hotel Tonight to obtain a sharply-discounted, last-minute room; and as long as the people behind the app work conscientiously to consult scores of hotels on a daily basis, this particular app can perform a major service.
So I now have four apps--and am not a total Luddite, am I?
But another app -- Hotel Tonight -- is emerging as an enormous benefit to travelers. For the 40 biggest U.S. cities, the 15 largest airports, and London, Toronto and Vancouver, it lists special discounts (as much as 70%) on unsold rooms for the very night of the day you are consulting the app. I've heard of people who have scored major coups of pricing by using Hotel Tonight to obtain a sharply-discounted, last-minute room; and as long as the people behind the app work conscientiously to consult scores of hotels on a daily basis, this particular app can perform a major service.
So I now have four apps--and am not a total Luddite, am I?
July 12, 2012
Arthur's Blog: Camping is the Way to See the Alaskan Interior at a Reasonable Cost, No Expensive Hotels or Tours Required
Too many Americans assume that the only practical means of visiting Alaska is to take a cruise along its coast, stopping at the several small port cities servicing such popularly-priced ships. By contrast, the various escorted tours of mainland Alaska are much higher in price, sometimes forbiddingly so: Because the Alaskan tourist season is such a short one (June through mid-September), hotel capacity is limited and hotel rates are high.
My daughter avoided those costs, and had a better trip to boot, by arranging a camping expedition into Alaska's Kenai peninsula for herself and her nine-year-old daughter. Although she was loaned a tent and two sleeping bags by an Anchorage-based listener to our weekly travel radio show, she discovered that she could have rented such equipment from the R.E.I. outlet in Anchorage, at a very reasonable price. Picking up such equipment after she had alighted at Anchorage Airport ($750 per person, round-trip, between New York and Anchorage), and after staying overnight on arrival in Anchorage at a resident's apartment (by using Airbnb.com to keep the cost down to $75), she then rented a car and set off on the road that goes southward from Anchorage to Homer and Seward in the 150-mile long Kenai Peninsula extending southward from Anchorage.
Her nightly accommodations in the towns of Homer and Seward? They were $8-a-night fees at various campsites and camping parks along the way, all of them filled with gracious fellow campers of all ages who helped her get the hang of erecting the tent (the first night) and were interesting to meet in all other respects. The residents of Alaska themselves vacation in July and August on the Kenai Peninsula, and Pauline met and conversed with many of them, including a group of "Old Believers" -- members of the Russian Orthodox faith -- who had only recently moved from Russia to Alaska. Other Russian Orthodox had come down from Alaska's Aleutian Islands, where they had been engaged in various missionary efforts among the Aleutian tribes.
(Because native Aleutians had been interned by the U.S. government at the outset of World War II -- for "their own safety," according to officials at the time, and not because they were of Japanese descent, which they weren't -- they bear a lasting suspicion, if not enmity, towards the United States.)
Around numerous campfires, Pauline cooked for herself and her daughter, and had conversations with the other hardy souls who had chosen the camping method for seeing Alaska.
Pauline reports that the Kenai Peninsula is a microcosm of all the natural wonders of Alaska -- bears, eagles, moose and sealife, mountains and vast forests, pioneering non-conformists who live in dwellings that sometimes lack electricity, or are served by outhouses. In the unusually severe winter that Alaska recently experienced, one resident told her of having to tunnel through the snow to his outhouse, and then dig a hole from the top of the snow-covered roof down to the devices below -- and clamber down that hole!
In the course of the week in Kenai, she saw several beluga whales cavorting in the waters just off the coast. She went kayaking in the Bering Sea, from which the bulk of the seafood consumed by the rest of us, comes. Her daughter went panning for gold, and actually produced a few microscopic specks of the golden treasure. The two of them walked on glaciers, went to a maritime museum and aquarium, were invited for tea into the trailer used by an elderly couple as their residence, had countless other encounters and adventures, and generally regard the week as one of their finest vacations. You can hear the entire story by tuning in to the first hour of last Sunday's Travel Show (www.wor710.com, then scroll to the bottom of the page where all broadcasts are listed, and click on podcast of the first hour of the show).
After returning to Anchorage and turning in the car, they then embarked on a more traditional vacation by booking seats on the train from Anchorage to Denali National Park. And there they changed to a Park Service bus going into the heart of the park -- but that's a story for another blog.
It all goes to show that there are ways to visit Alaska that do not require painstaking advance reservations or hefty expenditures for hotels, restaurants and tours. This coming August, why not board a plane to Anchorage, rent a car, sleeping bags and tent, and continue in Pauline's and Beatrix's footsteps?
My daughter avoided those costs, and had a better trip to boot, by arranging a camping expedition into Alaska's Kenai peninsula for herself and her nine-year-old daughter. Although she was loaned a tent and two sleeping bags by an Anchorage-based listener to our weekly travel radio show, she discovered that she could have rented such equipment from the R.E.I. outlet in Anchorage, at a very reasonable price. Picking up such equipment after she had alighted at Anchorage Airport ($750 per person, round-trip, between New York and Anchorage), and after staying overnight on arrival in Anchorage at a resident's apartment (by using Airbnb.com to keep the cost down to $75), she then rented a car and set off on the road that goes southward from Anchorage to Homer and Seward in the 150-mile long Kenai Peninsula extending southward from Anchorage.
Her nightly accommodations in the towns of Homer and Seward? They were $8-a-night fees at various campsites and camping parks along the way, all of them filled with gracious fellow campers of all ages who helped her get the hang of erecting the tent (the first night) and were interesting to meet in all other respects. The residents of Alaska themselves vacation in July and August on the Kenai Peninsula, and Pauline met and conversed with many of them, including a group of "Old Believers" -- members of the Russian Orthodox faith -- who had only recently moved from Russia to Alaska. Other Russian Orthodox had come down from Alaska's Aleutian Islands, where they had been engaged in various missionary efforts among the Aleutian tribes.
(Because native Aleutians had been interned by the U.S. government at the outset of World War II -- for "their own safety," according to officials at the time, and not because they were of Japanese descent, which they weren't -- they bear a lasting suspicion, if not enmity, towards the United States.)
Around numerous campfires, Pauline cooked for herself and her daughter, and had conversations with the other hardy souls who had chosen the camping method for seeing Alaska.
Pauline reports that the Kenai Peninsula is a microcosm of all the natural wonders of Alaska -- bears, eagles, moose and sealife, mountains and vast forests, pioneering non-conformists who live in dwellings that sometimes lack electricity, or are served by outhouses. In the unusually severe winter that Alaska recently experienced, one resident told her of having to tunnel through the snow to his outhouse, and then dig a hole from the top of the snow-covered roof down to the devices below -- and clamber down that hole!
In the course of the week in Kenai, she saw several beluga whales cavorting in the waters just off the coast. She went kayaking in the Bering Sea, from which the bulk of the seafood consumed by the rest of us, comes. Her daughter went panning for gold, and actually produced a few microscopic specks of the golden treasure. The two of them walked on glaciers, went to a maritime museum and aquarium, were invited for tea into the trailer used by an elderly couple as their residence, had countless other encounters and adventures, and generally regard the week as one of their finest vacations. You can hear the entire story by tuning in to the first hour of last Sunday's Travel Show (www.wor710.com, then scroll to the bottom of the page where all broadcasts are listed, and click on podcast of the first hour of the show).
After returning to Anchorage and turning in the car, they then embarked on a more traditional vacation by booking seats on the train from Anchorage to Denali National Park. And there they changed to a Park Service bus going into the heart of the park -- but that's a story for another blog.
It all goes to show that there are ways to visit Alaska that do not require painstaking advance reservations or hefty expenditures for hotels, restaurants and tours. This coming August, why not board a plane to Anchorage, rent a car, sleeping bags and tent, and continue in Pauline's and Beatrix's footsteps?
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