Greyhound bus line expands its priority boarding system

by Jamie Rhein on

Back in November, Catherine wrote a post about Greyhound’s $5 extra per ticket priority boarding, seat assignment system. After a month of trying it out, the system must be working well because it was expanded in December to include a large portion of Greyhound’s departure cities. (see news release) Not all trips from the departure cities are elibible for priority boarding, however.

The main purpose, I think, from the passenger’s perspective is to help allieviate the stress of wondering if you’ll get a seat on the bus at all, or have to wait for another. Also, you have more likely a chance to get your choice of either an aisle or window seat. Since the system lets you pick your actual seat, say goodbye to the risk of getting stuck next to the bathroom. If traveling with kids, it helps guarantee that you’re not going to need to ask a passenger if he or she would move so you can sit with your child.

Less stress means you’ll be more likely to take the bus which can be a real economic deal. For the bus company, $5 for a passenger isn’t all that much, but put all those $5 together and you have a money boost.

However, as Catherine pointed out, you can’t get the priority boarding over the Internet. It’s only available at the bus station which does mean waiting in line at some point unless you head to the bus station during a non-busy time. If you happen to live in or near a town or city with a Greyhound station, you can go 30 days in advance or less to purchase the priority boarding. If you want to take your chances, you can purchase priority boarding 20 minutes before your trip.

In order for your priority seating to be honored, you need to be at the gate 20 minutes before your departure time.

If the bus station is as packed as it was when my dad attempted to take the bus from Columbus to Cincinnati, having priority boarding would have assured him a seat if I had gone to the bus station a day or so earlier to get it. The day of the trip would have been too late, although he was traveling the day before Thanksgiving so bus travel was at a high. If you’re traveling in the summer, I bet it’s a similar situation.

The thing is, you can’t get priority boarding yet out of Columbus, but all buses out of Cincinnati and Cleveland have the option. Still, if there’s a smoother way out of those two cities, it should translate to an easier time in Columbus. My dad’s bus was delayed for hours in Cleveland which is why he never managed to actually take the bus.

For a list of all the available priority boarding cities, click here.

Mahalo on How to Fly With Kids

by Justin Glow on

Mahalo has been cranking out lots of travel-related how-to articles lately: how to book a cheap hotel room, book a cheap flight, successfully bid on travel, fly with pets, and their latest on how to fly with kids.

I don’t have kids, but I used to be one. I remember a trip to England with my Mom when I was 4 or 5 years old. Before we boarded our trans-Atlantic flight, I got lost in JFK airport. I can only imagine the pace at which my mother’s heart raced when she turned around to see her 4-year-old out-of-sight in one of the nation’s busiest airports. Luckily I was a smart little kid, and I wondered back to the women’s restroom where we had just came from. She found me waiting patiently inside the doorway, but by that time the airport staff had already been alerted. One of the gentleman who was in the search party gave me a NASA-branded Matchbox car to celebrate. I remember the strangest things.

One of the most useful parts to Mahalo’s guide is tips on keeping your kid entertained during the flight. Nobody likes a screaming, out-of-control kid, especially when they’re locked in the same tube as you at 35,000 feet. I usually feel bad for the parents… as long as they’re at least attempting to settle the child. It’s a weird feeling: I hate you and your child for giving me a headache, but I understand that kids are kids, they’re going to scream and cry from time to time — especially when locked in a tube at 35,000 feet. So it’s okay.

I was easy to entertain, apparently. I spent the majority of my time on that first flight to England untying and re-lacing my saddle shoes while drinking ginger ale.

Mahalo: How to Fly With Kids

More Road Trip Games

by Jamie Rhein on

Martha recently wrote in a post about road trip games inspired by her 5 day trip across the Canadian praries.

Here is a game that we play on trips. This is a version of the alphabet game. In this version players search billboards and road signs for letters of the alphabet starting with the letter A. A sign can only be used once. Once you see the letter you need, you call out what it is and the sign where you saw it. You have to go in alphabetical order. Once a sign is used you move onto the another letter on another sign. Whoever gets to Z first wins.

And here are three road trip games you can buy. Kevin Joy, a writer for the Columbus Dispatch pulled together suggestions in an article I’ve culled from. These particular three appeal to me because they don’t require technology to play.

Conversations to Go—If you want to think of things to talk about, here’s a solution. This game doesn’t seem to have winners or losers. According to the description there are cards with questions that center on travel. If you’re creative, why not think up your own questions? On the otherhand, pulling questions from a box have a certain random appeal tha breaks down trip monotony.

Miles of Smiles: Travel Games & Quizzes to Go. This one is published by American Girl so the cover looks “girlie”. Hopefully, the games inside would interest boys as well. I like these game books because they provide many options from which to choose. When stuck in a car for the next 50 miles until there’s a highway exit, it’s great to have some control over something.

Are We There Yet? – This one looks like it might be my favorite of the bunch. It’s a card game, scavenger hunt where players are delt five cards with items on them. Whoever finds their items first wins. To speed things up (like in Wyoming it could take hours to see something new) you can put a time limit or within a mile limit on this one.

Carrying Children

by Jamie Rhein on

Ember’s post about bare bottomed babies in China made me smile for sure. What humans do about potty-training is definitely cultural and part of our psyche.

Another thing I have noticed when I travel is how we carry babies and children around. When I lived in The Gambia, I never stopped being amazed by watching how women and even young girls could tie a baby or small child on their backs with a two-meter length piece of cloth and do anything– pound grain, hoe fields, walk for miles, sweep. It never mattered what the carrier did, the baby always managed to sleep and never slid off. If I did that, I’d drop a kid for sure.

I did try to carry my son in a front carrier, (too hot), tried a snuggly side thing, too awkward, and mostly ended up carrying him in my arms or on my hip. We did take him on a long boat in Krabe, Thailand and on a canal boat ride in Bangkok in a baby car seat carrier when he was three-months-old. There were brief moments when we handed him over the water to put him on a boat or take him off when we thought, “WHAT ARE WE DOING? ARE WE NUTS!!!” but our son was perfectly content to go along on any ride.

When he was about a year, we hired a sherpa to carry him in a Kelty carrier when we hiked in Dharamsala, but other than that, my husband usually carried him on outings that involved long walks. With the theme of how we carry children, here are some photos from various parts of the world.

A young girl and her baby brother. Taken by rogiro in Kenya. The comment of this one is sweet. Basically, the idea is, “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

A boy and his sibling in Laos by David Johnstone. It’s not too hard to tell which one is having the better time.

This is one way to carry a child and work on your triceps. Taken in Sapa, Vietnam by Han-01.

This is in Myanmar. I love the composition of the hats. Hats off to Romana Chapman.

Not me and not my son, but it’s the kind of carrier I was not that good at. Niall A snapped this one.

Taken in India by Betageri who has several lovely shots of children. Carrying just the child– or the wood would be hard enough for me.

This one is closer to my style of carrying a toddler, and the expression I get is about the same. Taken in China by Lindsey Timmerman.

A father in Armenia carrying his child on Universal Children’s day by Bayamin. Currently, my son’s favorite mode of transportation.

Need some baby carrying travel advice? Click read.

Whogoslavia Means Traveling with Kids

by Grant Martin on

How many folks have heard, “Travel now before you have kids?” When I didn’t have kids and I was traveling it was, “It is good you’re traveling now before you have kids” as if once I had kids, I’d park myself in a chair somewhere to do what, I don’t know. I always figured as soon as a kid is born one should hit the road to get him or her used to hitting the road. When we adopted our daughter from Vietnam when she was 3 1/2 years old we were living in Singapore. Two weeks later we moved back to the U.S. and a two-month-long journey that brought us from Hawaii to Ohio through California, New Mexico and New York, some of which was done in a U-Haul.

Writer Ayun Halliday has really hit the road with her husband and kids. They’re on a journey this month to various spots in the Balkans and she’s chronicling the trip on one of her websites, Whogoslavia. Halliday is one of those writers’ writers who discover a never-ending source of fodder in daily life because she gets out there and lives. For those of you who’ve thought about setting up your own travel website, hers is a clever example. For those of you who fancy traveling with kids, this might entice you to jump on in. I know it makes me think that we need to cash in our frequent flier miles soon and go somewhere further than where our car can take us.

[from ParentDish.com]