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Air Travel with Kids and Pets – 17 Tips to Keep Your Sanity

Air travel is challenging under the best of circumstances, but when you add children and/or pets, things can get downright hairy. Not to mention smelly, messy, and noisy! While I do not make a habit of traveling with my dog or cat, I have, but I have a lot of experience with my kids—who can be equally as smelly, messy and noisy. So how do I do it? Actually it is pretty simple Be Well Rested. Get enough sleep the night before. If you’re like me and time always slips…

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Green. Forever, it has been my favorite color. Green this and green that. Kermit is green. The Pitons of St. Lucia are green. My face after a particularly rough night out with my friends might be green. But when did travel get so green? Admittedly, I am not entirely on the environmental bandwagon. I could recycle more judiciously, and I probably ought to spring for those energy-efficient light bulbs. As for my SUV, well, I still have a few more payments on it. But suddenly all the travel world is …

Traveler Comments That Make You Say, "Duh!"

I have been in the travel industry for over a decade. I have owned retail agencies and online agencies and have spent countless hours working with clients helping to plan that perfect trip. My recent column on “Become an Instant Travel Agent!” schemes brought out the fury of the multi-level marketing (MLM) crowd, who claim that most Internet-savvy consumers do not need the hand-holding and personal advice of a professional travel agent. I beg to differ. Below is a small sample of the many obtuse comments clients have made to…

Don’t Let Your Guard Down

Several months ago, I was in a casino in a city with which I am very familiar. I was so comfortable, I almost felt like I owned the place. Yes, my guard was down, and if it weren’t for the hangover I was nursing, I would have been out $500. I decided to play a little blackjack and went to the bank ATM to withdraw some money. After keying in my PIN number and the amount of my withdrawal, a little old lady (everyone’s grandmother) asked me to read a…

Politically Incorrect: 4 Rants

I am not sure where political correctness ends and stupidity begins anymore. I am not sure I ever knew. But what I do know is that everywhere I look, people are cowering in corners for fear of insulting or offending someone else. Recently Macy’s made the news for allowing its employees to say “Merry Christmas,” but I notice Best Buy is holding out for the more politically correct “Happy Holidays” and Target is still giving the Salvation Army the boot. Retailers may be leading the politically correct crowd, but the…

Confessions of an Electronic Traveler

Sometimes I think that the days of leaving your life behind are a thing of the past, and maybe that’s a bad thing. But, like it or not, today we are more connected than ever. We’ve got e-mail from cruise ships, satellite calls from the Serengeti, cell phones in flight. BlackBerrys, Palms, PDAs, and PIMs — they’re becoming as common as calculators. But what are the really essential electronics for the traveler? And how best to use them? Cell phones. Perhaps the greatest invention of the last 20 years is…

So, You Wanna Be A Travel Agent?

Back in the mid 90s, I almost bought a restaurant. It was a great restaurant — great location, great food, great patrons and great potential. Then a friend of mine who owns several restaurants took me aside and warned me, “You don’t want to get into the restaurant business unless you are born into it!” Probably very good advice. So what did I do? I got into the travel business, instead. Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Well, yes and no. Certainly the travel industry has faced…