Transportation in China is not for the faint of heart

by Iva Skoch on

I was looking the the images and videos from blizzard-crippled China this morning and it made me remember my 2004 trip there. Especially the photos from Guangzhou, China’s major southern city… I remember that train station! It was packed with thousands of migrant workers then, so I can’t even imagine what it must look like now, after hundreds of thousands of people have been stranded. (See Aaron’s post from earlier today.)

This photo, by AFP, is from Guangzhou: a man pushing his friend inside an already packed train. While nothing quite that extreme happened while I was there, I will say that the Chinese people do have an amazing ability to squeeze a lot of people into packed trains and buses. Getting inside is half the fun. It is like graduating from University of Darwinism – only the strongest and those with the sharpest elbows get in. At first, you feel like you shouldn’t participate in this. After all, you are on vacation and have time…but then you realize you will never get in if you always allow everyone to get ahead of you. So you start pushing and showing with the rest of them. When in Guangzhou…

Wi-Fi and satellite TV coming soon-ish on Continental

by Jerry Guo on

Starting next January (sorry you’ll have to wait ten more months), Continental will have Wi-Fi Internet access and satellite TV on every US flight. The Wi-Fi will be free for all passengers and satellite TV will be free in first-class and $6 in coach.

They’re using the same Internet provider as JetBlue’s, which has already started offering Wi-Fi. Other airlines have also jumped on the bandwagon: WestJet, Frontier, Virgin Blue, and AirTran. As for TV, you’ll be getting CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, ESP, among others.

A part of me can’t wait until next January, but I’m also going to be a bit nostalgic about the chance to get away from it all. If there was Internet offered on the plane, I would definitely jump on it, but then I would miss reading that good book or magazine.

How NOT to kill your significant other while traveling

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Mark Twain once said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” An excellent quote, but he could have added one more item to the list of things traveling often destroys– relationships.

A long trip with one’s significant other frequently has a way of transforming an extended honeymoon into an exercise in controlling one’s murderous desires. Habits and idiosyncrasies that once seemed endearing can turn into annoying character flaws, especially when you’re with the same person all day, every day.

In honor of the approaching Valentine’s Day, Budget Travel has a new article on how not to let traveling together destroy your relationship. Some of their tips?

“Play silly games. Like ‘Which movie star does that driver we just passed look like?'”

Hmm, that was kinda dumb. This one’s a little more like it:

“You don’t have to spend every minute together. On a trip to London, we set aside an afternoon to shop on our own for jewelry and music. After a few hours of exploring alone, it’s fun to regroup and share your adventures.”

One last one: “Find your own phrase to say to support your partner when you don’t have the privacy you want or when life on the road is getting you down. For instance, a simple ‘Good morning’ can mean ‘I love you.’ “

That was sooo sweet. And, no, I’m not crying, my eyes are just watering. That’s my allergies– there’s a lot of pollen in here.

Read all the tips here.

Still have nowhere to stay for the Superbowl? Try the convent.

by Grant Martin on

In case you still haven’t booked your Phoenix accommodations or were hoping for a last minute steal for the Superbowl, now might be your time to strike. The sisters of Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery have decided to rent out a few rooms in their convent for football fans, at the palatable rate of only 250 dollars/night (which isn’t bad compared to some of the hotels charging upwards of 1000$).

Tenants are naturally limited on their choice of “extracurricular activities,” as stipulated by the nuns, including no rowdiness or drinking, but if you can get over the rules it’s not a bad deal for the weekend.

Searching through Kayak and Sidestep for “Our Lady of Guadalupe Monestery” in Phoenix, I wasn’t able to find any availability — you might have better luck calling them to check their calendar. At least the rooms look decent, and I bet they’re a hell of a lot cleaner than half of of the hotels out there.

The sisters claim that they’re going to use the money to pay off some property that they purchased. I wonder if you can write off the hotel as a tax deduction?

When NOT to take a trip

by Aaron Hotfelder on

We all know that traveling around major holidays like Thanksgiving is only for the desperate and the clinically insane, but these aren’t the only times of the year that are best avoided. Travel tipster Chris Elliott recently offered advice on other times to keep your butt planted firmly at home, in his article “Stay home! 4 days when you shouldn’t travel.”

He writes that, with the US presidential elections well underway, you should steer clear of both parties’ conventions– the Republicans in Minneapolis from Sept. 1-4, and the Dems in Denver from Aug. 25-28. During these times, getting around a city and finding a decent restaurant will be a major logistical nightmare, Elliott writes.

Also be careful to not visit a place in which Mother Nature “is in one of her moods.” Elliott writes that “late summer and early fall is the peak of storm season. Mark those as blackout dates if you’re considering a trip to Florida, Louisiana, the Caribbean, or anywhere along the Atlantic coast of the United States, for that matter.”

Of course, if your travel dates aren’t very flexible, hell, go anyway. How many people can say they experienced a tropical storm on their vacation?

Check out Elliott’s full article for more tips.

If you’ve gotta fly, might as well do it in style, right? Check out the Singapore Airlines’ Airbus A380 below.

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