Lynne Kiesling was suffering jet lag last week. Lynne, and everyone else, here are some basic tips on avoiding jet lag. Don’t fly coach. That alone makes a huge difference, both in ability to sleep and in general relaxation/stress mitigation level. Many folks report good success taking No Jet-Lag pills. It may be a placebo, but anecdotally they seem to work. Drink alot of water. Avoid alcohol especially on overnight flights. Try to adjust to the new time zone the day before flying out. Continue to adjust to the local time by sleeping or forcing yourself to stay awake during the flight. Upon arrival at your destination, take a shower and change clothes. Then stay up until bedtime in that location, no matter how tired. A quick nap is OK, but that’s it. If it’s…
Choo Choo … and wait.
Joe Brancatelli reminds us that for all the romance of trains, and for seeming cost/hassle advantages, Amtrak is just plain ‘ol unreliable — especially outside the Northeast corridor.
Some nice off-season deals at San Juan’s Wyndham El Conquistador
A friend of mine is getting married this summer and work constraints are going to keep him and his wife relatively close to home. They’re likely going to travel to the Carribean (they had been considering Thailand and Indonesia when they expected to have more time). So I was looking at deals at some of the nicer properties around, especially in Puerto Rico. Last month I stayed at the Wyndham El Conquistador in Fajardo, Puerto Rico (about 30 miles from San Juan). It’s a bit of a controversial hotel in the eyes of many. It’s a huge resort — 900 or so rooms. My general take is most complaints stem from room choice or being surprised at the price of food. A little careful planning, combined with realizing the food at resorts are expensive (think…
Never in a million years…
CNN journalist Richard Quest did a Star Alliance Round-the-World trip in economy and lived to tell the tale. Of course, if his journey had started off in Cairo he could have done business class the whole way for the same price…
Changes at Hampton Inn
Chris Barnett rhapsodizes about improvements chain-wide at Hampton Inn. Some of the changes you’ll soon see at a Hampton near you are cosmetic: red-carpet welcome mats and planter gardens at the entrance; black-and-white photography in the lobby reflecting local city scenes; piped-in traveling music; and a stylish front desk with nicely designed signs. Other changes are substantive: free high-speed Internet access in guestrooms and wireless Internet access in the lobby and meeting rooms. The new guestrooms look far more residential than a road soldier’s barracks. Beds are skirted, raised 28 inches off the floor and outfitted with a handsome headboard, better sheets and four pillows fluffed up and displayed at an angle, Ritz-Carlton style. The bedspread has been replaced by a “coverlet” with some designer touches. The mattress seemed pretty firm to me. The room…
Budget Hawaii
Frommer’s has 55 tips for planning an affordable vacation to Hawaii. Though somewhat obvious, many of them are much more widely applicable than just Hawaii excursions.
Public Transit Systems
Lynne Kiesling passes along a piece on public goods and transportation which wisely concludes These two cases indicate something very important for city planners. First, if a city demands mass transit, private enterprise will supply it. Second, if a city does not demand mass transit, building it anyway (publicly, since private enterprise does not supply what is not demanded) will result in a system so poor that few people want to ride it and that can only survive on continuous 11th-hour rescues with tax dollars. Either way, we will get from point A to point B without you.
What’s in YOUR luggage?
A biology professor faces charges for packing the severed head of a harbor seal in his luggage without a permit. [H]e found a dead seal on Revere Beach and cut off its head so he could use it for educational purposes. He was catching a flight to Denver from Boston on Friday, Massachusetts Port Authority spokesman Phil Orlandella told The Boston Globe. Federal wildlife laws make it illegal to disrupt or remove body parts from a dead mammal, or to transport any illegal fish or wildlife product.
Avoiding Dirty Hotel Rooms
Peter Greenberg has some tips on avoiding bacteria and making sure your room is properly cleaned. Q: What’s the most surprising hotel secret you’ve learned? A: The high level of bacteria on the TV remote control unit. I advise taking anti-bacterial wipes for the remote, the phone and the clock radio. … Q: So how clean is the average hotel room? A: I assume the worst and take a proactive role. First, I take the bedspread off. Most hotels clean them at most three times a year. If you stay in a hotel that claims to change the sheets daily, pull back the top sheet and blanket and put a match on top of the bottom sheet near the foot of the bed. If the match is still there when you come back, they didn’t…
Hotel Booking Wars
Hilton is going to invest $175 million in its website. I’m not even sure how it’s possible to spend that much on their interactive offering, but they see it as an important past of their strategy to combat the major travel websites which incur much higher distribution costs.Sites like Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity have in some cases negotiated 30% discounts on room rates which they then take as profit when selling the rooms to customers. They also take money from customers immediately in the form of prepayment, while only paying the hotel when the stay is completed, earning a return on the float in the process.Hilton’s chief executive claims these sites are gouging customers Expedia, he said, was “bad, but not in a Biblical sense. They just charge too much. A 30 per cent [mark-up]…
