Last Minute Gifts For Your Cruise Traveler

by Chris Owen on

Last minute gift time is upon us and those waiting until the last minute to buy are looking for ideas – quickly. Well, here you go.

Onboard Credit – cash to spend on the ship – is always a welcome gift if your cruise traveler already has a cruise booked. You’ll need to find out their booking number, the name of the ship and the date it sails to make the order via most major cruise lines.

Internet time and other bon voyage gifts are available and can be bought right now with that same booking number/ship/sailing date information. Packages will vary from line to line but most offer them to be purchased in advance as they do bottles of wine, chocolate covered strawberries or other gifts.

These don’t have to cost much either. Bon Voyage Cakes from Carnival Cruise Lines start at $7.95. Royal Caribbean has a handy insulated water bottle holder for $13. Cruise lines also have thoughtful gift packages for birthdays, graduations, anniversaries and weddings that offer great value and make for a memorable sailing.Lunch with your travel agent can be one of the best ever gifts. Many agree that a good travel agent on their side when planning travel is a smart move. But finding a good agent can be a challenge for those that do not have one.

Getting to know a trusted travel professional can reap your traveler benefits now and come back to credit your gift-giving prowess years into the future. On this lunch, go along yourself and get the conversation started by recalling trips your good agent has helped with in the past.

A good book is always a pleasure to receive as a gift. Make it a book about maritime history and your die-hard cruise traveler will thank you sincerely. “Cunard Line: A Fleet History” by Peter Newell might work.

Too cruise-oriented? Your cruise traveler who likes to read at sea will appreciate a best seller or two … or seven. Many read a book or so each day of their cruise vacation that appropriately allows such time. Current, relevant travel writings by someone who has been to the same places your cruise traveler has booked will result in knowledge gained. Guidebooks may or may not have similar success.

Travelers with tablets and smartphones will like a gift card from their favorite book supplier. Still, there’s something about sitting on the deck of a cruise ship as it plies the ocean with an actual book in your actual hands that actually, physically turn the pages.

Need more ideas? Check this CNN Travel Gift Guide video:


[Image credit- Flickr user Lamp-tramp]

Video Of The Day: Close Encounters Of The Humpback Kind

by Libby Zay on

People travel far and wide to see whales in their own habitat, and it’s not uncommon for the majestic mammals to take notice of visitors and do a little showing off for them. In the home video above, however, a father and son are treated to the sight of an entire pod of humpback whales doing just that. It’s unclear exactly where the video was shot, but it’s evident that the whales are watching the humans, and not the other way around.

Caution: the audio on the video can get a little intense on this one (and includes a curse or two), so if you’re at the office or around children you might want to turn the speakers off.

Video Of The Day: Dozens Of Balloons Over Cappadocia, Turkey

by Libby Zay on


This video is a short but sweet time-lapse from Cappadocia, Turkey, where dozens of hot air balloons appear to bounce around like rubber toys as they hover over the region’s famous chimney rock formations. Although balloons depart daily here, passengers certainly get a once in a lifetime experience as they glide over this unique landscape, which includes hundreds of these unique pointed formations as well as the surrounding valleys and vineyards. The adventure comes with a hefty price tag – typically $150 and up per person – but it’s rare to hear of anyone who regrets the experience. Luckily, clear weather conditions are common in this region, and as you’ll see in the video, balloons depart just after sunrise because that is the calmest, coolest part of the day. It’s hard to tell from the sped-up video, but the entire activity lasts between three and four hours. It’s definitely something I’m adding to my travel bucket list!

Gifts For Travelers: Consider The Person, Place And Travel Trends

by Chris Owen on

When it comes to gifts for travelers, there are a lot of choices. Leisure travelers, those who commonly associate travel with fun, vacation time and new places have their needs. Business travelers are a different story, often looking at their frequent trips to the same place as work and a hotel room their office. Adventure travelers and others have their own priorities as well. Each has different needs. Knowing what they put a high value on can help us pick the perfect gift. To find out, we checked a number of published packing lists for a variety of travelers.

Universally common and high-priority advice includes packing a passport, travel documents like visa’s, hotel and flight confirmations, boarding passes and a list of critical phone numbers. Basics like appropriate clothing, personal care products, smartphone apps and money round out the list. Nothing really shocking there but that’s the point of a packing list, to jog our memory so we don’t forget something critical.

All of the above considered, a document organizer might be a good idea for a less-than-organized traveler on your gift list. Victorinox, the Swiss army people, has a Travel Organizer that features: a large stash pocket and full-length zippered pocket to store tickets, a passport and most sizes of currency; a zippered pocket for coins; dedicated card slots; and a micromesh ID slot ($32).

But say your traveler already has something like that or is the type of person that you know will not use it. If they have not traveled in a while, they may not know about the current trend to travel light. OneBag, a website dedicated to “the art and science of traveling light” has some ideas.”There’s no question: over-packing tops the list of biggest travel mistakes,” says OneBag on its website, which promises, “going pretty much anywhere, for business or leisure, for an indefinite length of time, with no more than a single carry-on-sized bag.”

Benefits of traveling light include increased personal security with just one bag; that’s less to lose due to theft, damage or misrouting. Traveling light means no checked bags and a more stress- and hassle-free way to go.

So maybe “things” are not what we should focus on for the traveler on our list. That leaves gift cards, arranging for an appropriate gift to be waiting for them at their destination and well wishes.

Just in time for the holidays, Carnival Cruise Lines has launched its first-ever gift card program, a pre-paid card that can be used as payment toward a “Fun Ship” vacation or a variety of shipboard purchases. Celebrity Cruises (with a double your gift card offer) and other cruise lines have a similar program, as do airlines, car rental companies and major hotel chains like Marriott, Best Western and others.

A gift card from TravelSmith or REI Adventure products would take the pressure off of gifting, allowing the traveler to pick what they want or need. A better gift card would be for places your traveler might visit on a planned itinerary or serve as incentive to book that trip-of-a-lifetime.

Someone traveling to Disney World in Florida, for example, might appreciate a McDonalds gift card. That may sound like a dumb gift but just outside the gates of Disney World where dining can be expensive, is a McDonalds and the largest McDonalds in the world is not far. Oh, all of the sudden “dumb” is “thoughtful” and absolutely used, rather than set aside with other well-intentioned gifts.

Need some other gift ideas? Check this video from US Airways:


OneBag offers some other guidelines that can steer us in the right direction too, focusing on three areas that can lead to some great gift suggestions:

  • Packing List Usage, abandoning the folly of lugging around too much stuff;
  • Weight Reduction, finding travel-friendly versions of the stuff you do carry; and
  • Bag Optimization, understanding what to look for in efficient & effective luggage.

[Photo credit- Flickr user tikigod]

Antarctica’s Tallest Peak Captured, North Pole Not So Much

by Chris Owen on

Antarctica is our planet’s southernmost continent and home to the South Pole, permanent manned research stations, penguins and an occasional adventure cruise ship expedition. This time of year, a lot of attention traditionally goes to Earth’s North Pole, home of Santa and the gang. But NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory recently passed over Antarctica’s tallest peak, Mount Vinson, as we see in this photo.

On October 22, 2012, during a flight over the continent to measure changes in the massive ice sheet and sea ice, NASA captured this image as part of its ongoing program.NASA’s Airborne Science Program at the University of North Dakota manages operations of NASA’s DC-8 Airborne Science Laboratory aircraft, which collects data for the world’s scientific community. The DC-8 flies three primary missions: sensor development, satellite sensor verification and basic research studies of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere.

Operation IceBridge is a multi-year airborne campaign to watch changes in the Earth’s polar ice caps in both the Antarctic and Arctic. Mount Vinson is located in the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica.

The North and South poles are the two points where the Earth’s axis of rotation intersects with its surface. While the South pole actually exists in a physical place on Antarctica, the North Pole is really in the middle of the Arctic Ocean in waters covered with sea ice almost year-round … except for around Christmas time when Santa, Mrs. Claus, the reindeer and elves are busy with the holidays.

NASA has tried repeatedly to photograph Santa’s home but cannot come up with more than an image of ice and snow.

“NASA’s Terra satellite was able to piece together a number of images it took to give us a complete look at the North Pole, which is usually very difficult to see by satellites, so Santa can keep his exact location secret,” says NASA captioning this Flickr photo.

[Photo Credit: NASA]