Forget Flying for Cheap: Have Them Pay You to Fly!

by Iva Skoch on

Who doesn’t love to fly cheap? Well, now a European airline is offering tickets for less than zero. Yes, SkyEurope offered tickets that sold for MINUS 10 Czech crowns (about 46 U.S. cents) for some one-way tickets. Heck, I thought it was cool when I bought tickets from them for “free.”

Does this honestly mean they’re paying you to fly? No, the hitch is that you still have to pick up the taxes and maybe some fees, so you might be surprised at the final cost, all-in. For example, a survey by Prague Business Weekly found that another carrier advertised a 7 euro flight, which, after all fees and taxes were included, netted to 265 euros.

This kind of deal has stirred the interest of regulators and legislators, some of whom think this is fraudulent advertising. The article points out that the EU might step in to require carriers to post all applicable taxes, charges, and fees with the advertised price, but says that regulation is at least 18 months away.

My thoughts on this? Look, you still can back out of buying the ticket at any time until your credit card is charged. Does anyone really feel ripped off when all they are paying is the taxes?

Red Corner: Czech Food the Worst?

by Neil Woodburn on

For quite some time now the British have deservedly suffered under the Worst Food on the Planet moniker. For centuries, the Anglo palate has been mocked, maligned and otherwise dragged through culinary slander.

According to a critic from South Africa, however, another nation has finally dislodged Britain from the dregs of gastronomy: The Czech Republic.

Jeremy Maggs, writing for The Herald, has caused a stir in Prague for suggesting that it is the Czechs who win the award for the world’s worst, “stomach-churning” gruel. The Czech’s “horrendous diet of fat and dumplings” was aptly summed up by the following plate of food served to Maggs;

…four thickly hacked pieces of undercooked pink pork with shining yellow fat rinds which were placed on top of five burst veal sausages, their seeping innards the colour of mud and blood.

Naturally, the Czechs were a little disturbed for having worsted Britain and loudly rejected the claims. Dave Faries of the Prague Post, not only interviewed a handful of local chefs aghast over the accusations, but also offered up some mouth-watering restaurant recommendations to prove Maggs wrong.

In the meantime, there’s always the beer; no one ever argues about Czech beer.

The Doctor is Out

by Iva Skoch on

Thailand used to be a destination for exotic travel, perhaps even for sex travel. Now, it is a well-established member of the ever-increasing ranks of surgery destinations. Yes, travel is not just for the well or even the well-heeled, now it’s for the wellness-seeking. too. It’s not just cosmetic surgery, either. While cosmetic surgery comprises about 80% of the travel, laser eye surgery and fertility treatments make up reasons to travel, too.

A while back, our own Erik Olsen blogged about a crazy offer to get extra frequent flyer miles to get your eyes done, and also posted an article by Casey Kittrell about medical tourism. Then, earlier this year, I wrote an article about growing cosmetic surgery tourism to the Czech Republic. Since then, the pace of this traffic has exploded, and the places have gotten even more exotic. So much so, it’s worth revisiting this issue: according to the National Coalition on Health Care, over half a million Americans left the country last year for medical or dental work. A recent article even noted a man sent by his North Carolina company to New Delhi, for gall bladder and rotator cuff surgery, to save $50,000!

Tired of travelocity? A host of surgery-tourism companies have set up shop all over the internet. Costmeticsurgerytravel.com squatted on a good web address, offering “medical travel concierge” service, as well as assurance that the doctors in foreign lands are “appropriate for your procedure or treatment.” Prague a little to run-of-the-mill for you? Try Tunisia, for example, through Cosmeticatravel.com. Or Turkey or El Salvador, through Medretreat.com. Or Brazil, through Medicaltourism.com. A quick google search turns up a page-topping, paid ad for medical tourism to “Bumrungrad” hospital. Is that where you get that hemorrhoid treatment done?

Follow up: The NY Times just posted an article on the same topic.

GADLING’S TAKE FIVE: Week of September 24

by Adrienne Wilson on

Time for another weekly wrap-up of some delicious Gadling finds from the week that was. I’d like to think of it like seconds of a most incredible dessert.

5. Locals Only, Whatever:
Iva blogged about this issue just yesterday, but she gives you a little food for thought on the big locals only issue most travelers tend to face. To go where the locals only go or to hang with your tourist friends in new cities and places? I don’t know. Some days it’s good to kick it with the locals and on some it’s cool to hang with someone who is just as clueless as you in your fancy foreign travel destination. What to do?

4. Mt. Biking the Land of Rising Sun:
When I read this piece I had the same feelings Erik did – mountain biking in Japan? Sure we would never put it past a place with such spectacular beauty, not to mention mountains, and to give us a clearer picture of the mountain biking scene he points us to a fine piece out of Mountainzone. Check it out.

3. Packing Your Bike:
While I’m on the subject of biking here’s a blurb everyone whose traveling with their bike for the first-time, second-time, or tenth-time might want to read on packing your bike and shipping it with you. Make sure you’re getting less hassle and more bang for your buck. For instance some airlines charge an additional fee for boxing your bike and shipping it while others are said not to.

2. Volunteer Vacation Day One: Shovels, Buckets & the Pit:
If you may have noticed I was away for a sweet three weeks in the Central Asian land of Tajikistan. What was I doing so far off and away? Glad you asked. I was helping to build homes with Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village program. If you’ve ever wanted to do a volunteer vacation of your own and need ideas check out this one and tell me what you think.

1. Yahoo’s New Video Travel Site:
I love hearing about new travel sites just as much as the next man or woman. With Neil’s watchful eye we are alerted on Yahoo’s new video site which in fact looks very much like bookmark material. So head on over to Yahoo, give it a look and tell them Gadling sent ya!

Locals Only. Whatever.

by Iva Skoch on

Adventure travelers tend to describe their favorite places abroad like this: “There are no tourists there, it’s just the locals.” That, of course, does not include the writer, who is, inevitably, a tourist. It’s just that he/she thinks he is slightly better (more worldly, less loud, etc.) than the other tourists.

I have always been torn about this issue. When I travel, I like to think that I go to the less touristy places, but the “locals-only” tags scare me. First of all, it is a bit hypocritical to go to a “locals-only” place as a tourist. Next thing you know, it will be in Lonely Planet described as a locals-only joint and locals will have to find a new place. And, those same tourists will also stop going, realizing that a locals-only place has go tourists-only or expensive, or both. At that precise moment, it disappears from Lonely Planet or is renamed “tourist trap.” Here is an example.This has happened to quite a few wonderful Czech pubs, too, for example U Fleku. It’s quite sad, if you think about it.

But that is not the only thing that intrigues me about people’s attraction to “locals only” places. I first discovered it when I realized that I am about the only person in Prague not concerned about “touristy places.” As a Czech native, it would never even occur to me to go to places where only locals hang out. I actually prefer to go to more cosmopolitan hangouts; a lot of natives do. Just like you would be hard-pressed to find New Yorkers hanging out in fried chicken joints because that’s what a lot of locals do, it is the same way in Prague. It is my foreign friends in Prague who always demand to go to some “locals only” place. I guess they derive some weird pleasure out of fulfilling their stereotypes of Eastern Europe: crusty old men playing cards and drinking beer. It’s like observing wild animals in their natural habitat…