Are hotel star ratings getting out of hand?

by Jeremy Kressmann on

At one time, staying in a “four-star hotel” meant you were experiencing the peak of luxury. Luxurious rooms, top-notch accommodations and plenty of amenities. But increasingly a four-star hotel is no longer enough, with uber-high-end properties in Europe racing to claim six or, in the case of the Burj-al-Arab in Dubai, even seven-star ratings. At what point do the hotel stars become meaningless? The BBC took a look at the hotel-star “ratings game” in a recent article, noting the jumble of competing systems and confusion it causes for consumers.

According to the BBC, the ratings have become a subjective measure of amenities depending on the place. In much of Europe for instance, stars are assigned based on random factors such as whether the property has an elevator or includes breakfast, not by factors like building age or cleanliness. There’s similar confusion in the United States, where competing organizations like AAA and Forbes Travel offer customers conflicting systems. Those in the hotel ratings business acknowledge the confusion, though minimal steps have been taken to change the process.

The next time you check into that “Five-Star Hotel,” make sure you know what you’re paying for. In a world of increasing hotel rating inflation, there’s still plenty of room for debate.

Not-so Dangerous Destinations

by Katie Hammel on

“You’re going where?!” my father asked when I told him of my plans to go to Colombia. The Colombia he knows of, the one from the 1980’s, is filled with cocaine, street violence, and Pablo Escobar’s thugs. The country’s days as a dangerous destination are gone, but its stigma still remains.

Colombia isn’t the only now-safe country still considered by the masses to be too dangerous to visit. Forbes Traveler has put together a list of other destinations that aren’t as dangerous as you might assume.

Along with Colombia, the list includes places many experienced travelers wouldn’t think twice about visiting – Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Ethiopia are all included – plus a few a little farther off the beaten path, like Haiti and Tajikistan. The list also includes two spots that become a lot more dangerous if you travel there illegally: Cuba and North Korea.

There’s no such thing as a completely safe destination, but still most of these spots have earned their reputations. At one point, they were lands of famine, war, and strife. Now they’ve become safer, though in some (like Haiti and certain parts of Colombia, for example) problems continue and there are still areas you should not venture.

If you plan on visiting one of these “not-so-dangerous places”, do your research and be sure you know what you are getting into. The bad reputation in some of these places can mean lower travel costs and few tourists, but there may still be an element of risk.

Escape to the world’s quietest places

by Katie Hammel on

Life in most places is loud. Planes flying overhead, traffic rushing through the streets, people yelling, talking, phones ringing – it all combines to make an endless racket that follows us throughout our days. If you need to get away for some (literal) peace and quiet, take a look at Forbes Traveler’s list of the World’s Quietest Places.

Many of these aren’t the sort of places where you’ll go crazy from the silence, in fact some of them are plenty noisy. But near and far, they provide places where you can get away from the aural assault of the world and revel in a quiet(er) existence.

Included on the list are destinations like the verdant Hoh Valley in Washington State and Muir Woods in California, both places that are easy to get to from major cities but seem a world away. Further from home, there’s the island of Yap, near Guam, where the “culture is built on adherence to social peace”. The Kalahari Desert, 350,000 square miles of sparsely populated sand and scrub, also makes the list.

Victoria Falls isn’t exactly silent, but the roar of the water as it plummets 350 feet (which can be heard over a mile away) is such a natural sound and so completely shuts out everything else, that it almost feels quiet. Central Park is another unlikely addition to the list. Though it’s located in the middle of what is arguably one of the world’s loudest cities, it provides a quiet solitude away from the noise of daily life.

Roll with the rich in five easy steps: travel like you’re on the Forbes 400

by Tom Johansmeyer on

From peaking through the curtain to first class to eyeing the VIP check-in line at the hotel, travelers are envious creatures. Someone else always has something we want – be it an experience, device or amenity. We fantasize about the perfect travel experiences, wondering what it must be like to [fill in the blank with what you dig most].

Nobody knows how to travel quite like the billionaires on the Forbes 400. Sure, this crowd isn’t hitting hostels, mingling with the locals and doing all the stuff we say we prefer. They’re busy with butlers and maids and yachts and poetry readings (sorry, not joking on this one). You’re not going to get the “genuine” travel experience if you roll like the rich, but who the hell cares? The last thing I’d want is genuine if I had that kind of cash.

Interested in traveling like the insanely wealthy? After the jump, there are five simple steps to running with the big dogs when you tour the world. It’s not nearly as hard as you might think … as long as you have the cash to back it up.

1. Vacation homes are a must
Yes, there’s something to be said for the luxury of a hotel’s best penthouse with butler service, private dining and a special entrance. You don’t want to mix with the proletarians, after all. But, this type of travel means you’re not in control. Eventually, you’ll find boundaries. So, to travel like the insanely rich, buy vacation homes in the places you like best.

2. Yacht or not
Vacation homes are nice, especially when they’re on the water, but you’ll never get away from land. To dart out from your troubles – or a collapsing Ponzi scheme – you need a yacht. Right now, yacht sales are in the tank, so you can get a better price than you may expect. Keep in mind that this is a billionaire‘s game: don’t try to do it on the cheap. If you can’t afford a yacht (or simply don’t want one), you can always explain away your yachtlessness with something about seasickness or a penchant for other vices (like mistresses).

If you do go the yacht route, pimp it out properly. Rupert Murdoch took friends and families on a cruise to Alaska. Just in case that wasn’t enough, his sailboat is decked out with a “technogym,” deep-sea diving equipment and king-sized sleeping cabins.

Do it big.

3. Join a club
Rich people and clubs … crazy. It starts in college, with the likes of Skull and Bones, and by the time these kids become adults, they’re paying ridiculous sums of money just to be allowed to spend money on dinner and drinks. Michael Bloomberg, New York‘s mayor, belongs to the Game Creek Club in Vail, Colorado. The privilege involves a $50,000 initiation fee, but I imagine the grub is fantastic.

4. Have the right friends
Again, Mayor Mike does it right, golfing with Ross Perot and Silvio Berlusconi. They’re both unbelievably wealthy and turned to politics after amassing fortunes in the technology/media space. When you’re that rich, you need to travel with people like you. So, be prepared to trade in your old friends – it’s nothing personal.

5. Do weird stuff
We all know that billionaires are crazy. So, when you travel, you can’t resign yourself to sightseeing, beach-sitting and cocktail-sipping. You have to do something bizarre … because you can. Stephen Spielberg attended a cliff-side poetry reading on Ireland’s Aran Islands before touring the moors on a motorized bike. Oracle chief Larry Ellison prefers speed, flying around in a MiG 29.

Wild animal travel: Where the hunter becomes the hunted

by Katie Hammel on

There’s nothing quite like seeing a wild animal in its natural habitat. It’s why people go on safari in South Africa to see lions and elephants, trek through the jungles of Borneo in search of monkeys, and submerge themselves in steel cages off the coast of Baja California to swim with Great White sharks. But it’s important to remember that despite the precautions taken by tour guides and rangers, these are still wild animals and getting close to them in nature carries some risks. In other words: there’s a reason that safari guide carries a gun.

Forbes Traveler has put together a list of “10 Places Where Animals Eat You”, a collection of destinations where the danger of visiting wild animals in nature is greater. Among the spots that made the list are Khao Sok National Park in Thailand, where cobras kill several hundred people per year; South Luangwa National Park in Zambia, where aggressive hippos have been known to flip boats and even eat people; and Ranthambhore Bagh, India, where around 100 people are attacked by tigers each year.

The article goes on to detail other encounters with wild animals, like when the girlfriend of a Tanzanian guide had her sleeping bag dragged 30 yards by a lion, while she was sound asleep in it. It seems animal attacks can happen almost anywhere though, and the danger certainly won’t stop most people from visiting these areas to see wild animals up close. You may just want to think twice about wandering too far away from your guide.