Be on the lookout for credit card skimmers in The Netherlands

by Scott Carmichael on

Dutch public transit user Paul Wiegmans noticed something strange when he tried to purchase a tram ticket from a machine in Amsterdam; the card slot looked a little out of the ordinary.

When he took a closer look, he discovered a so called “skimmer” had been placed over the original card reader. Skimmers are devices that read your credit card information at the same time the real reader does its work.

Skimmers have been used in restaurants and other locations for years, but this is one of the first I’ve ever seen where the unit was attached to a ticketing machine.

The skimmer reads the information stored on your card, and a small camera keeps an eye on the number pad, in order to capture your pin code.
Paul wrote a nice description of how the skimmer works (Dutch, translated version here). Even if you don’t understand what any of this means, the photos will give a pretty good indication just how smart and sleazy these thieves are.

The transit agencies are aware of the problem, and have asked their staff to keep an eye on the machines while they work on a long term solution.

If you use a credit card machine, always be on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary, if in doubt, don’t swipe!

The only good news is that your credit card company will usually be quite accommodating if fraud is detected, especially since many of these stolen credit card numbers will be used abroad for “out of the ordinary” transactions.

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England overtakes The Netherlands as the busiest country in Europe

by Scott Carmichael on

England has the dubious honor of overtaking The Netherlands as the busiest country in Europe. For every square kilometer of land in England, there are 395 people, compared to “just” 393 people in The Netherlands.

Of course, the big difference is that The Netherlands has all those people spread out over a fairly small portion of land, in England you can drive a couple of hours and reach Wales (140 per sq. KM) or Scotland (167 per sq. KM), where the population density is much lower.

Then again, the same can be said for the Dutch, as almost 50% of the country is just an hour or less away from Germany (230.9 per sq. KM) where things are much quieter outside the major cities. As Holland continues to build in the few remaining open spaces between its “randstad” cities, England won’t hold onto this record much longer.

Naturally, politicians would not be what they are today if they didn’t use this news as a new excuse to complain about immigration. Then again, England has a long way to go if they plan to catch up with Bangladesh (1045 people per square kilometer) which has the largest population density of any major country. Once you start looking at all territories, Macao is the clear winner with a little over 18,000 people for every square Kilometer!

Talking travel with professional RV roadtripper Adelle Milavsky

by Jerry Guo on

Adelle and Ron Milavsky, a lovely retired couple who live in Connecticut, have been road-tripping across Europe for years. They’ve written the definitive guide on RV trips, Take Your RV to Europe: The Low-Cost Route to Long-Term Touring and now here to share a few more tips about this rather under-rated method of travel.

You recently came back from yet another RV roadtrip through Europe. Tell us a bit about it. How far did you go? What were some of your best memories?

Over the years, we’ve spent more than a year touring Western Europe. Our latest trip was in April and May this year. We only stayed for six weeks this year instead of our usual 10 –12 weeks. We knew that it would be considerably more expensive this year because of the low value of the dollar. Because gas was as high as $10 a gallon, we only traveled in The Netherlands, Belgium and France with one stop in Germany.

In all we drove about 1500 miles. Our main stops were Bruges, Ypres, Waterloo and Gent in Belgium; The Hague, Amsterdam, and Keukenhof Gardens in The Netherlands; Metz, Nancy, Strasbourg, Troyes in France; and Aachen in Germany. Our bills from this six-week stay were still affordable. Our total outlay for six weeks of travel (not counting airfare) was about $3,000 more than what we would spend at home for food and entertainment. For our 42-day stay, gas costs us $1200, campgrounds just under $1000.
Why Europe and not the US for RV trips?

Once we had begun, we found RV’ing in Europe was even nicer than RV’ing in America. Distances are much shorter, most cities have campgrounds in or near them, and public transportation is good. All of this adds up to a great way to travel – no set itinerary, complete freedom to go where you want and a minimum of driving. And of course, no packing or unpacking between stops.

Worst experience while RV roadtripping? Best?

We’ve had some uncomfortable moments when we were lost (or rather, taken the scenic route). But in all this time, we’ve never had a bad experience, except for the memorable time we decided to take the “2.8 meter Tunnel” to Caen in Normandy, France and found that our RV was 3.1 meters high. (We knocked the cover off our air conditioner and it never worked again.) But we’ve loved our extended stays in all the big cities in Europe – including Amsterdam, Bruges, London, Paris and Rome. We’ve been to Roman ruins, medieval cities and castles, towns built into the sides of mountains, museums of all sorts, caves of neolithic paintings, cathedrals, zoos, wonderful gardens, historic homes and more. And countless open-air markets.

When did you guys get the travel bug? What’s your traveling background?

Before my husband, Ronald, retired, we had traveled the “usual” way to about twelve countries. Most were in Europe but we’d also been in China, Thailand and Korea as well as Venezuela. We stayed mostly in hotels, and ate most of our meals in restaurants. So we were “experienced” travelers.

In 2001 we bought a small motor home and traveled across the U.S. We fell in love with this style of traveling and decided that driving a motor home in Europe might give us a chance to really spend time there in an affordable way. Even better it would allow us to do something that we’d always wanted to do – go to the outdoor markets and buy food to eat at home as the Europeans do.

With gas so high, are roadtrips still affordable?

This way of traveling allows great flexibility. We used various published guides to European campgrounds, but there is a great deal of information available on the internet. We choose our next destination using three criteria. First, how far away is it from where we are now (we like to drive no more than a couple of hours per day). Second, what is interesting in that city? Third, is there a campground with bus service to the tourist area close by?

How can travelers take their own RV trip?

When we realized that how enjoyable and affordable it was to travel leisurely and extensively through Western Europe. Ron decided that someone (namely Adelle) should write a book about our adventures in Europe. So I did. Take Your RV to Europe was published in 2005 by The Intrepid Traveler. It goes into detail about how to ship and what to expect when you get to Europe. Any one who is interested, can go to our website and blog, where we publish our letters home detailing our experiences. Ron is working on a very informative web site that combines our experiences with an enormous number of links on the internet for information about the places we have visited.

Is it possible to rent a RV in Europea? US? How?

It is possible to rent an RV in many places in Europe. Renting costs from $124 per day in the “low season” to $194 per day in the “high season”. This year, renting an RV for six weeks from April 24 to June 4 would have cost us just about the same amount as shipping our RV both ways. But, if we had stayed our usual 12 weeks, the cost would have been approximately $13,000 for a comparable size unit. You can see why we chose to ship our RV.

What about shipping a RV to another country?

The price to ship a motor home is computed per cubic foot. In 2002, we paid $2000 for our 21 ft. rig, but now the cost runs a bit more than $3000. If you can stay in Europe for three months or more, shipping a small RV would still be the most inexpensive way to travel. That $6000 round trip for the RV translates into about $66 per day. Together with campground fees, that is $100 a day, but that includes both overnight accommodations, the equivalent of a rental car to travel in, and the possibility of eating “at home” which saves a huge amount of money.

Incidentally, there is one other big “reason” to ship your own unit if you can. Traveling in the UK with a rented rig where the driver is on the “wrong” side of the vehicle is very hard and can be dangerous. But in your own motor home, you are able to judge the size and shape of the rig. The hard part is not sitting in your accustomed position. It is easy to remember to drive on the left!

Final thoughts?

We have literally visited hundreds of cities and villages in Europe, and it’s been a wonderful experience. We think that other Americans should consider it.

Would a Dutch Smoking Ban Mean the End of its Famous Coffee Shops?

by Jonathon Morgan on

There’s plenty of reasons to visit Amsterdam — the people, the culture, the beautiful, walkable city — but let’s get real: the place is famous for its coffee shops, where patrons come to sit back, relax, and smoke a couple doobies. But like other European countries, the Netherlands is considering a ban on smoking tobacco in restaurants, cafes and bars — so will this signal the end for the country’s pot-smoking tourist traffic?

The answer, in short, seems to be no. Namely, because the clientele at these establishments aren’t actually smoking tobacco. Those who like to smoke their marijuana mixed with tobacco (a circumstance in which the ban probably would apply), will most likely get around the restriction simply by mixing their dope with something else. “You can bring parsley or old socks if you want, cut them here and smoke them, nobody will say anything,” one Dutch politician and coffee shop owner told Reuters News.

A ban — which could go into effect at the beginning of 2008 — might even mean good news for the makers and distributors of marijuana smoking paraphernalia, such as pipes, bongs, or other oddball contraptions potheads have dreamed up for the sake of improving their high.

So don’t worry, it looks Amsterdam’s tourists will be getting stoned wherever they like for the foreseeable future.