The Unvarnished Truth About The Amalfi Coast [Roundup]

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • The truth about the Amalfi Coast.
    @millenniallex honestly my main takeaway is if youre gonna come here dont make the same mistake i did – go for at least a week and definitely not TWO DAYS 😭 #amalficoast #eurosummer #dying ♬ original sound – Lexi Jordan

  • Expedia will no longer supply Hopper with hotel and vacation rental inventory. Expedia says the reason is because Hopper “”exploit[s] consumer anxiety and confuse[s] customers, leading them to purchase services they neither need nor fully understand.” If Expedia was motivated by helping customers, in my estimation it would be the first time in their history. (Skift)

  • Clint Henderson reviews Centurion New York

  • I believe the napkin story is apocryphal, though.

  • While a pilot shortage means parked regional jets at airlines like American, Southwest Airlines still has the equivalent of 31 parked Boeing 737s in peak summer.

  • While we’re at it, it grates me that local journalists in Kansas City refer to KCI rather than MCI. Oh, and I don’t care what the city council there said, stop calling Atlanta’s airport Hartsfeld-Jackson while we’re at it.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Look carefully. Up there somewhere is exactly the sort of person I go to Europe to get away from.

  2. The name of the airport is Kansas City International. That abbreviation is KCI. I know you know this, but MCI is the IATA code, not the airport’s abbreviation. The local journalists may all be horrible at their jobs, but in this case they are correct.

  3. I can’t believe you guys put this here. I’ve been there and I didn’t have any of these issues. No streets, ferry with your luggage? Did she not do ANY research before she left. This is perfect! “Look carefully. Up there somewhere is exactly the sort of person I go to Europe to get away from.”

  4. They make it hard to get to the Amalfi Coast because if you have to take a train to a ferry and then carry your bags up yourself they don’t want you there. You’re supposed to sail in on your yacht and have someone else to carry your bags up for you.

  5. First, this woman is wrong! The Amalfi Coast has roads, quite a few.

    Second: She is ignorant of the facts. She was in Positano, one of many small, and charming, towns on the Amalfi Coast. She thinks Positano is the Amalfi Coast. She is very wrong.

    The Amalfi Coast is roughly 44 miles in length. All the other towns have roads… to some extent. Positano has a road… taking you to massive parking lots. What most people would think Positano to be width wise, is under a mile.

    She is correct, if you want to get to hotels, restaurants, bars, shops, you need to walk. But that is true in almost every small town in Italy.

    Luggage: She can pay someone to deliver her luggage on motorized carts.

    The charm of Positano to me is, there are no roads.

    As for me, sometimes I drive and sometimes I have my driver in Sorrento, Aldo, pick me up from Naples or Rome, either the airport or the train station, and drive me where I want to go. Aldo has also picked me up from the train station in Sorrento and in the port of Naples.

    If she has enough money to stay in Positano for two weeks, she can afford a driver.

    If you are going to travel to a foreign country, do your homework and ask questions.

    A classic case of American Tourists thinking everywhere on the face of the globe is just like the USA.

  6. I had a company called Accessible Journeys help with my plans for Italy. I had my son with me and he is in a wheelchair. We went to the Amalfi coast. We had no problems. It was beautiful. We had a guide and driver that spoke English.

  7. When my wife (z”l) and I were in Venice, where there were no automobiles – we hired a “public porter”, a delightful Italian institution. The porter showed up at the pre-arranged time at our hotel, took our luggage onto his hand cart, and set off for the vaporetto. He even stowed our luggage on the boat. They will take just about anything anywhere for a reasonable fee.

    In Positano, they are called “Positano Porters”, and you pre-book them.

    If you want somewhere else to look and run like home, stay home. And, as @Steven observed, do your research before you leave.

  8. I am glad that ignorant woman and all the social media influencers are in Sorrento. It will keep her away from the best places in Calabria, Pulia, and Sicilia. She needs her passport revoked.

  9. @Matt: KCI does not exist except in the little minds of millennials who want to abbreviate everything so texting it is easier.

    Try to book a flight to KCI and you aren’t going anywhere.

    It’s MCI. Deal with it.

    And by the way, there is no state called “Cali.”

  10. @1KBrad: I don’t mind being wrong but only when I’m wrong. I am 50 years old and it’s been called KCI since before anybody knew what a millennial was. Or Gary was born.

    Here is a link to the dedication program from 1972: https://northeastnews.net/pages/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Drive-to-your-Gate-technology.jpg

    Please note the repeated use of KCI. Again, KCI is an abbreviation. Like NATO or USA, used all the time by people of all ages before cell phones and texting existed. If you call it MCI I’ll know what you’re talking about but it’s still the IATA code.

  11. The use of “KCI” goes back to the airport’s opening in 1972. KCI is an abbreviation that people of all ages use, like NATO or USA.

  12. Sure thing Matt. Call Delta and tell them you want a flight to KCI and see how that goes for you.

  13. The Amalfi post was pretty good considering her point was DON’T TRY TO DO IT IN TWO DAYS. I would add don’t go in summer, either.

  14. She would be better suited in Milan, perhaps? We rented a car and drove from Rome to Amalfi with an 11 month-old. Booked an Airbnb with a view of the water, right at the bus stop in Positano. We did have to carry our bags up one flight of stairs, the horror, but voluntarily walked up 1,800 steps on the Path of the Gods day hike, bambino in the chest carrier. What a beautiful and phenomenal area. The people were so incredible interacting with our infant son.

  15. This is obnoxious, but I think we have to admit that it holds a kernel of truth. Almost all beautiful places in Europe — and certainly all or nearly all in Italy — are absolutely overrun with tourists to the extent that they have lost 95% of their charm and suffer from terrible tourist fatigue such that local culture is all but squashed out of existence. The smaller the town, the more pronounced this effect is. Europe is not what it once was, and its because of people just like her doing what she’s doing.

Comments are closed.