Arthur Frommer's Blog, page 23

Pauline Frommer's Springtime Visit to France Was Filled with New Sights and Experiences

Until recently, I have not known anyone who has ever visited the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. In fact, I had scarcely heard of it. An impressive, two-wing structure given over to temporary exhibits of far-our art (including a great deal of video art), it has been in existence, as best I know, for no more than a decade (the east wing, a separate Museum of Modern Art, is older), and has been generally overlooked by the many travel writers who have penned guidebooks to Paris.
 
But it deserves greater attention. My daughter Pauline returned this past week from a stay in Paris, full of enthusiasm for the Palais de Tokyo's current display of anthropological subjects captured in abstract oils. And she was similarly impressed by the museum's unusual and intriguing schedule of daily exhibition hours: from noon until midnight. This means that visitors can have a compelling evening activity in Paris for the reasonable outlay of €8, the museum's price of admission.
 
Apart from this novel addition to the city's famed art scene, Pauline was impressed by the number of one-day cooking schools available to the English-speaking visitor. Apparently, such instruction is presented in both French and English during the fall/winter/spring, and then entirely in English during the tourist-heavy summer months. At the more than 30 such schools in Paris, at least three of them -- Cook 'n With Class, La Cuisine de Paris, and Cucina di Terresa -- permitted students to attend simply for a few hours on one day, and thus to hone their skills at a limited number of dishes. Pauline raved about the heavenly vegetarian cuisine that was prepared at Cucina di Terresa, and although the cost of one-day's attendance was a stiff €80, that was for three hours of instruction and also included eating a full dinner.
 
A highlight of her stay was a walking tour of the Tuileries Gardens conducted by the impressive, Europe-wide (many cities) Context Travel ( www.contexttravel.com ), whose highly-intellectual walking tours are led by Ph.D.-level guides and deal with profound subjects of cultural and historical importance, in this case associated with Paris. Astonishingly enough, when 12 persons arrived for this particular tour, they were divided into two groups of six persons apiece, each with their own individual guide, so that the locale would not be demeaned by an overly-numerous group of tourists. Pauline's guide was herself a director of a distinguished group of artistic conservators whose office is in the Louvre. The other tour was led by an American who is pursuing a graduate degree in art history in Paris. You make advance reservations for these tours by accessing the Context website listed above.
 
Because she was in Paris on Sunday, May 6, the day of the French presidential elections, Pauline learned about the outcome from the highly-excited wait staff of a restaurant where she was having dinner. She immediately rushed by metro to the Place de la Bastille (jail of the ancien regime that was demolished, and its staff wiped out, on July 14, 1789, at the start of the French Revolution), where enthusiasts of French-President-Elect Francois Hollande were gathered to hear his victory speech later that evening. And in the run-up to that event, she partied with an immense crowd of mainly-young people shouting "Vive la France!" "Vive Hollande!"
 
The joys of travel. A springtime trip to France brought her such memorable encounters.

Al Qaeda's Underwear Bomb Plot to Bring Down a Passenger Airplane Makes Objections to TSA Pat-Downs a Bit Ridiculous

For many months the Internet has been full of smug comments about the efforts of TSA agents to ensure aviation security. Can you imagine? they'd sneer. Grandmothers in wheelchairs have been patted down. Elderly gentlemen have had their trousers, and the legs within them, examined for explosives. All of us have been inconvenienced, or had our privacy invaded, by these overly zealous federal employees.
 
Now, with the news out of Yemen about an attempted Al Qaeda plot to pack explosives into underwear pouches, those sarcastic criticisms of the TSA's misplaced zealotry seem a bit weak, don't they? It seems undeniable that the world's terrorists are still hell-bent on bringing down U.S.-bound or U.S.-originating airplanes with "undetectable" explosives. And I for one will be grateful for the half-hour delays in boarding flights that are caused by TSA agents patting down the arms, legs, and torsos of passengers.
 
I wonder whether the authors of these caustic anecdotes about TSA extremism will lapse into silence in the days ahead. And though I fully expect them to persist in their smug arrogance about the foolishness of TSA procedures, or about claims that full-body scanners are an expensive waste, I hope that all of us will read their renewed criticism with the careful analysis that such diatribes should receive. Let's hope that in the days ahead, TSA uses pat-down procedures even more frequently and extensively than before.

School Is "in" for Summer Travelers Who Want Something Different

You're undoubtedly aware that I'm greatly in favor of learning vacations, the summer interludes when you return to the equivalent of your college days, to the liberal arts. The two outstanding vacations of that sort are the Oxford Experience at Oxford University in England, and the Cambridge University International Summer School in Cambridge, England. But nearly all the most popular courses in those two summer programs have been full since April, as I had occasion to learn this past week.
 
But that leaves two U.S. learning vacations that are both the full equivalent of anything England has to offer.
 
One of them is Cornell's Adult University in Ithaca New York. Its one-week courses -- and you can stay for either one, two, three or four weeks -- run from July 8 to August 4, are attended by every sort of person, include all three meals daily, an afternoon cocktail hour, and cover subjects ranging from classical music to wine tasting and the literary works of the Bronte Sisters. There are literally dozens of different courses, all on the Cornell campus, with lodgings in an ultra-modern student residence. It's one of the most exhilarating summer vacations -- I gloried in it last summer -- and you can learn more by going to a website for Cornell's Adult University (www.sce.cornell.edu/cau).
 
And then there's an equally profound series of one-week summer vacations at St. John's College, which has two campuses -- one in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the other in Annapolis, Maryland. Both of them run summer sessions for adults -- learning without examinations, without grades, simply pursued for the love of learning, and involving the reading and discussion of the great books of the Western tradition. The Santa Fe session runs for three weeks from July 8 to July 27, the Annapolis session runs for one week from June 4 to June 8. And you can learn more by googling "summer classics" at St. John's.

Summer is the Peak Time for Travel Scams: Watch out for Fraud

You've just turned on your computer to access your e-mail, when suddenly you're confronted with an immediate emergency. Your grandson aged 19, or else a friend in his fifties, or your former assistant at the corporation for which you worked, is sending you an urgent, electronic plea for help. They are either in a foreign hospital, with a slightly disabling ailment, or in a foreign jail -- in Paris, let's say -- for having inadvertently violated a traffic rule. And they can't get out of either the hospital or jail without paying a bill of seven hundred and fifty dollars. Can you please wire the money?
 
So help me, I actually received such a plea for help less than two years ago. And I came close to wiring the money until I first had the sense to attempt to verify the claim. It wasn't easy. The criminal who concocted the scheme -- and that person must have sent the plea to at least fifty different persons in one day -- had obtained amazingly realistic information about the identity of my grandson, friend or acquaintance from various social media sites where that information had been posted for all to see. The popularity of Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, and the easy access to personal information appearing on those sites, has greatly expanded the opportunities to use common travel predicaments as the setting for scams.
 
I've now heard of numerous people who have received these summertime appeals for help, supposedly sent by a friend who was traveling in Europe or Southeast Asia. And I know of well-meaning sorts who have actually wired the money.
 
Travel scams are on the rise. They are skyrocketing in number and in size. They used to be confined to offers of free trips or stays that actually required attendance at heavy-handed solicitations to buy time-shares. But the people selling time-shares are pikers when compared with the crooks who are now dominating the travel scene.
 
The lesser form of scams involves the use of robo-calls. Your telephone rings, you pick up the receiver, and in quick order you first hear the sound of seagulls, then of waves breaking on the shore, then various bars of maritime-like music, and then the stentorian speech of a gravelly-voiced announcer saying: "This is your captain speaking and I'm inviting you on a cruise -- a free-of-charge cruise".
 
You ultimately pay the small amount of taxes and fees associated with that cruise -- the actual sailing is supposedly free of charge -- and find yourself confined to the deck of a ferry traveling from a port in eastern Florida to the Bahamas, a "cruise" of about two hours. You don't receive a cabin. The small amount you've paid for phony fees and taxes is actually triple the size of a ticket for deck passage that you could have bought on the very same ferry.
 
The scams currently on view in the world of travel are endlessly ingenious. Some of them tell you that you are the lucky winner of a contest -- that you will be receiving a free vacation simply for paying a registration fee. The reason so many people succumb to these phony announcements is that there actually are legitimate contests, and some people are correctly chosen as winners. But those people receive a registered letter announcing they have won -- and not a recorded phone call. The receipt of a registered letter is perhaps the only persuasive evidence that a contest is on the up-and-up.
 
Beyond that, the would-be traveler must simply bear in mind the ancient adage: There is no such thing as a free lunch. In this time of travel scams, it's more important than ever to be constantly guarded and alert.

Summer Deals, Pt. 2: China on a Tour

Now for the same amount of money that you'd pay for a two-week Mediterranean cruise, you can also go to China. Such companies as ChinaSpree ( www.chinaspree.com ), China Focus ( www.chinafocustravel.com ), Pacific Delight Tours ( www.pacificdelighttours.com ), or Ritz Tours ( www.ritztours.com ) are charging around $2,500 (reflecting a cash discount or an early-purchasing decision), and also including round-trip air to China all the way from New York or San Francisco; they are charging that little for a virtually all-inclusive two week tour of several Chinese cities, including air, food, sightseeing, lodging, everything.
 
China is no longer as cheap as it was last year. The Chinese currency has recently risen by as much as 8% and Chinese workers are demanding higher incomes. But again, when you consider that you can fly there all the way from San Francisco, and for just a bit more from New York, included in the price, you find that a China vacation is still a very real bargain.
 
By way of a side comment, it's possible, too, that heavy tourism to China, and the constant presence of foreign tourists there, is a factor that keeps the political system a bit more open than it might otherwise be -- although some of you may disagree with that claim.

Want to See Europe for Cheap This Summer? Try a Cruise

It's just a few days until summer, the high season for travel, and yet too many of us are still uncertain as to where we plan to travel during that customary vacation period. I thought I'd contribute a few thoughts.
 
Currently, the single best value in travel are cruises of the Mediterranean. If you will go to the websites of any cruise discounter, you'll be amazed at the low rates for one-week and two-week sailings of that storied sea.
 
The reasons are several -- an unsettled political climate in several of the countries lining the Med, the recent tragedy of the Costa Concordia -- but primarily the general notion that the cost of trans-Atlantic airfares to reach the embarkation ports is simply unaffordable.
 
Let's start with the cost of the cruises themselves. If you'll go to a typical cruise discounter, like Vacations To Go ( www.vacationstogo.com ), and opt for the Mediterranean and a cruiseline like Royal Caribbean, and seven nights as the duration of the cruise, you'll have difficulty finding a single departure costing as much as a thousand dollars per person. In fact, you'll find numerous departures in June for $499 and in July for $599 per person.
 
And if you'll search instead for a two week cruise, and type in the words Celebrity Cruises, you'll find numerous departures of such upscale ships, on 12-night cruises in June, for as little as $849 and $999 -- that's as little as $80 a day. You'll find two-week cruises in July for under $100 a day. (And those July prices will undoubtedly come down even more as we approach that month.)
 
In addition to cruises on the large cruiseships, you'll also find spectacular bargains on the smaller ships carrying only 200 to 400-or-so passengers (a website for those smaller cruiseships is SmallShips.travel. This summer sees a buyer's market for all ships in the Med, large and small.
 
Now it's true that to reach the Mediterranean this summer, you'll need to buy a round-trip airfare for about $1,300 per person. So your total cost for a one-week cruise will be about $1,900, even $1,800, and your total cost for a two-week cruise will be about $2,400.
 
And you'll want to keep in mind that for a just a bit more, you can add on a several night stay in the colorful Mediterranean city in which you start or end your trip -- a city like Barcelona, or Venice, or Rome or Malaga -- and thus you'll have a longer-stay vacation for a totally affordable cost.

Would-Be Tourists from "Friendly" Countries Must Apply Electronically for Permission to Travel to the U.S.

 The citizens of 36 countries (basically, the nations of western Europe and such other friendly places as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea) don't need visas to enter the United States as short-stay tourists. They don't have to pay the forbidding $140 per person that we charge other foreigners simply to apply for a visa. And that leaves those lucky supporters of the U.S. utterly free to visit the U.S.A., doesn't it?
 
It doesn't. Unknown to most Americans, the citizens of those 36 visa-waiver countries need to file an English-language, computer-generated, electronic request to visit the U.S. -- something known as an ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) -- on the eve of any trip here. And they have wait for an official response of approval before they can actually board the plane to come here. They must also pay $14 while doing so.
 
And what does their ESTA request consist of? It involves filling out a comprehensive questionnaire, in which the applicant answers such questions as to whether they are a terrorist or other known criminal, whether they have ever been accused of fraud, whether they suffer from a communicable disease or from mental or physical disorders, the address where they will be staying in the U.S., and so on. The questionnaires are uploaded to the Department of Homeland Security, which obviously lacks the resources to ascertain the validity of these answers. It is obvious that the 19 hijackers of planes that flew into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, could in an hour's work, have responded to that questionnaire in a manner that would not have aroused the slightest suspicion.
 
It will take you at least a half hour, provided you're a fast reader and totally fluent in English, to read the explanation of the application that appears on the official website of the ESTA program ( https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/ ). It will take you at least another half hour, perhaps longer, to fill out the application. And applications, obviously, require not simply an understanding of English but some ease with use of a computer, which doubtless many would-be visitors fail to have (they can, of course, enlist a relative or friend to help them with the burdensome questionnaire).
 
And now consider the job of reviewing these questionnaires. Even at the depressed level of foreign visitors to the U.S., several tens of thousands of such ESTA's must reach the Department of Homeland Security each day. Who reads them? Who analyzes them? Has the Department hired the several hundred employees needed to examine the applications?
 
"Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad," are the words of the ancient Latin adage. It is simply loony to believe, in my opinion, that the Electronic System for Travel Authorization helps protect the United States, impedes a single would-be terrorist from coming here. Yet Congress passed the measure and the Department of Homeland Security seeks to implement it.
 
Imagine if you were compelled to fill our a questionnaire in French upon contemplating a visit to France. How many would-be visitors to France would be deterred from attempting the trip?
 
The new tourist agency assigned to increase tourism to the U.S. would be well advised to petition members of Congress to repeal this ill-considered measure. It is an exercise in folly, an example of shooting oneself in the foot, on the part of a nation that could benefit tremendously from the billions of dollars in income that additional incoming tourism could bring, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of additional jobs that increased tourism would generate.
 
(And by the way, if a name check of the questionnaire could enable the Department of Homeland Security to prohibit travel by a person on the no-fly list, that information is already available to the government when the airlines submit their passenger lists to the relevant authorities).
 
The effect of ESTA? It is to bewilder or intimidate a great many would-be visitors to the U.S. It is, again, an exercise in sheer folly.

Airline Mergers Should Push the U.S. to Improve its Rail Systems

The most important current news in travel is the strong possibility that American Airlines may merge with U.S. Airways as a result of the bankruptcy proceedings recently initiated by the former. That's a goal avidly pursued by the chairman of U.S. Airways and frequently discussed by industry figures, and it probably means that the United States is now on its way to having as few as four important airlines.
 
How can that be? Well, consider: United Airlines has now merged with Continental, Delta has merged with Northwest, Air Tran has merged with Southwest, and American may merge with U.S. Air. What will inevitably result from all this are much higher airfares, especially on the extensive and previously competitive routes serviced by American and U.S. Airways, and a possible reduction in the frequent flyer privileges had by passengers of both airlines.
 
One response, from members of the public, might (and should) be a renewed effort to increase the size and efficiency of Amtrak, to set this nation on a course towards an effective rail system. Trains are the most efficient user of fuel per passenger and airlines are among the least efficient. If we are to achieve energy independence, we must attend to the needs of our railroads, replacing some part of our reliance on planes. Only the most committed ideologues could deny that proposition.
 
There is some small progress on the road to high-speed rail, as in California, where planners have now reduced the proposed cost of the San Diego-to-San Francisco high-speed rail route by $30 billion, and where work is about to begin on the first segment of that line. In Italy, the wealthy Ferrari company has announced it will proceed to operate its own high-speed trains on the rail tracks capable of accommodating such vehicles in Italy. Ferrari will soon provide an example of how even private interests may benefit from high-speed rail lines constructed by the government of that nation.
 

Brand USA Just Doesn't Get Why People Aren't Coming to the U.S.

I've just viewed the one-minute TV commercial that Brand America will soon begin running in several foreign countries to attract tourism to the United States. Based on a song performed by the daughter of Johnny Cash, who presents its lyrics entirely in English (that's right, English, yet for foreign consumption), the commercial consists of a montage of familiar, homely scenes of life and nature in the United States -- forests, rivers, people enjoying themselves at outdoor barbecues, mountains, urban streets, kids playing -- all presented as if foreigners didn't possess similar forests, rivers, outdoor barbecues, mountains, urban streets, kids playing. Not a single iconic attraction appears in the commercial -- neither the Statue of Liberty nor the Grand Canyon -- and various masterminds of advertising apparently believe that this is the way to generate a passionate desire to visit the U.S.A.
 
Unlike many other countries, the United States is constantly revealed and shown to the world's population in our Hollywood films. I don't think it's a lack of familiarity with our nation that has depressed our incoming tourist figures. I believe there are millions of additional foreign residents who would like to vacation here if they could more easily obtain visas to do so. We now charge many of them $140 per person simply to apply for a U.S. visa, and require a personal interview in a consulate that may be hundreds of miles from where they live. Even to citizens of visa-waiver countries (who can come here without visas), we require that they electronically transmit a desire to do so in advance of leaving home. The barriers to incoming tourism are many and varied, and I would think that Brand America might be better advised to concentrate on those immediate means of permitting more foreigners to spend vacations in the U.S.

An Organization for Obese Travelers Has Now Fought Back Against the Discriminations They Say They Face

If you are a person of size, do you deserve to face discrimination and lesser rights when you travel? Is it fair that you should be denied boarding of planes, or higher prices or insults when you arrive at an airport? Have you the same right to travel with dignity as others possess?
 
Since 1969, the National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance ( www.naafa.org ) has been advocating against the slights and hurts that obese people face when they travel. And they have now created an online brochure or pamphlet that details the many ways in which an obese person can fight back. You'll find the text of that document by clicking here (link opens PDF file).
 
On Sunday's Travel Show ( www.wor710.com/arthur-frommer ), we interviewed travel writer Harriet Baskas (her popular blog is at www.stuckattheairport.com ) about several of the positions that NAAFA has staked out in recent times. She points out, most importantly, that the airlines all have differing policies that fat people should know, so they can favor the airlines that do react sympathetically to their needs. Some of the airlines, for instance, will require that a fat person purchase two seats when they book aboard that airline's planes; some don't. And some -- but not all of them -- will refund the cost of the second seat if the flight in question turns out to be only lightly booked, making such a purchase unnecessary.
 
When such a person does purchase two seats, they should be careful to ascertain that the two seats are adjoining ones, and separated by armrests that can be raised. If traveling with another overweight friend, they should purchase three seats for the two of them--not four. Because lavatories aboard planes are extremely small, and thus unusable by many obese people, they should plan ahead, hoping to avoid the need to use one in flight. And overweight people should purchase their own seatbelt extenders; often, the airplane in question has exhausted its small supply in using them for other passengers, and you may be denied the right to take off without one.
 
These are only a sampling of the many useful tips in NAAFA's pamphlet. Go to the website to read about more.