Top Travel Trends for 2012
February 23, 2012 by Karen Amin · 1 Comment
With one month of the new year under our belt, we’re getting back into travel season, which can mean only one thing. . . the final trickling-in of predictions about what trends will tickle travelers’ fancies and entice them to dip into their savings for that big trip in 2012.
A recent article in USA Today looked at some travel trend predictions around the world, and we wanted to look at some of our favorites.
Special Event Travel
There are quite a few events this year that will bring a lot of foreign visitors to their host cities, including the 2012 Summer Olympics and Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee (that’s 60 years on the throne!) in England, and Expo 2012, the next World’s Fair, in the South Korean city of Yeosu.
Image via Wikipedia
Destinations
Travel Leaders, a network of travel agencies all over the world, surveyed more than 600 of their members and named Croatia, Vietnam and Panama as the top up-and-coming destinations for 2012. And here are the top 10 international destinations, based on 2012 booking data: Caribbean cruises; Cancun and Playa del Carmen, Mexico; Mediterranean cruises; Rome; London; Punta Cana, Dominican Republic; Paris; Montego Bay and Negril, Jamaica.
Technology
For 2012, it’s all about smart phones. For one thing, it’s an essential tool for any traveler. The day you travel, you can keep tabs on your flight’s arrival times and airport delays, and even create an electronic boarding pass to use as you go through security. When you’re abroad, you can use it as a means to keep in touch with your world back home without incurring ludicrous roaming charges. Check out our post about keeping in touch while you’re abroad.
A few other technological goodies: Community-sourced travel tips from sites like gtrot.com; Frommer’s travel guides customized to your preferences, available online; and many travel guides available in uber-portable e-book format for your Kindle, Nook or iPad.
Related articles
- Olympics, Titanic, Cuba shape travel in 2012 (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Gtrot Gives Instant Social Travel Advice (allthingsd.com)
- Travel and leisure marketing: Industry leaders identify the latest luxury travel trends (5to9branding.com)
- London TravelWatch welcomes launch of TfLs Olympic customer information campaign, Get Ahead of the Games (londontravelwatch.org.uk)
- London Olympic Travel Plan: Be Patient, Drink Beer (abcnews.go.com)
Pack Patience for Air Travel Amateurs
February 16, 2012 by Karen Amin · Leave a Comment
We’ve talked in the past about how seasoned travelers can best navigate their airport during their journey to avoid newbie travelers, large families, and other slower paced folks who can make a day in the terminal feel like a life sentence. But today, we’ve got a reminder for the seasoned travelers:
Pack a little patience next time you head to the airport.
Traveling may seem second nature to you at this point, but every day, there are thousands of people who are traveling by plane for the first time in their lives. Whether they were born in a small town with limited access to an airport, or have been financially limited in some way, or there’s a family flying with a newborn baby for the first time, the anticipation of flying alone can be a lot to deal.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
(And that’s without worrying about all the stresses of bag-check fees, the TSA checkpoint or feeling like they’re in the way of other travelers.)
Still other travelers may be getting a bit older and moving naturally slower as they head toward their destination. That’s not their choice; it’s the natural progression of things. Cut the elderly a little slack.
In fact, we’ll go one better and suggest that instead of simply being polite and casting a smile these people’s way when you pass them cordially on the left, you actually make an effort to help them.
If you see a single mother struggling with her Baby Bjorn or stroller as she’s taking her shoes off or loading her laptop into a bin, offer to hold her baby or place the laptop for her. If you see an elderly woman struggling to lift her carry-on into an overhead storage area, help her out and let her relax into her seat.
There are some travel frustrations that are inevitable, but families, the elderly and other slow-moving passengers don’t have to be among them. Remember that you’re all trying to get somewhere and use the expertise you’ve developed from your travels to help everyone get there a little less painfully.
Related articles
- Pack patience for air travel amateurs (cnn.com)
- 7 Strange Airport Security Moments (abcnews.go.com)
11 Websites for Travel Savings in 2012
February 7, 2012 by Karen Amin · 1 Comment
There are new sites cropping up everywhere for wired travelers looking for the best deals on getting to their destination, living comfortably while they’re there and enjoying everything their vacation spot has to offer.
The New York Times recently published 19 of the top travel sites. We’ve actually used several of these sites ourselves, and have some of our own favorites. Here are our top picks for the best sites for travel savings in 2012:
Flights
AirfareWatchdog.com: From e-mail promo codes to airlines that many web crawlers can’t display, this is the place for true comparison shoppers to find deals on travel.
Kayak.com: Give Kayak a price, and it’ll spit out a map dotted with travel destinations you can afford. There are plenty of customizations available, too, from climate and activities to flight length and travel region.
Bing Travel: Bing’s “price predictor” can tell you whether the fare to your destination is likely to go up or down in the next seven days, so you can save money on a trip you’re already planning.
Vayama.com: A site the promises cheap international flights, it scours the different airlines for best possible prices, letting you choose between different seat arrangements and favorite airlines.
Places to stay
Priceline.com: One word…Shatner. They may have killed off his character (they did it at the end of January), but his legacy lives on. Name your price and get a great deal…if you’re willing to risk not knowing the name and exact location of your hotel before you book.
Hotels.com: For the less daring, this is a great site to choose from more than 140,000 hotels, resorts and bed-and-breakfasts. If you travel often, you can join Hotels.com’s loyalty program to earn free hotel nights.
B & B Finder: Bed & breakfasts are nice little out of the way places found throughout the world. A great site to use if you’re looking for a quiet weekend out of the city, or want to skip the typical cookie cutter hotels.
LuxuryLink.com: High-end travelers who can still appreciate the thrill of a great deal will be right at home with Luxury Link, where you can bid on luxury travel packages.
Trip Advisor: Trip Advisor is a review site where travelers can rate their favorite hotels, restaurants, and even tourist destinations. Find the hidden gems in a new city and avoid the stinkers with Trip Advisor. They even have a smartphone app.
Other sites
Auto Slash: This car-rental helper scours the web for lower costs and better discounts, and updates the cost of your rental up until the day you travel.
Home Exchange: Have you seen “The Holiday”? For the truly courageous, swap homes with another traveler. Spoiler alert: It probably won’t be Cameron Diaz or Kate Winslet.
Related articles
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Tech Tools For Staying In Touch When Traveling Abroad
January 26, 2012 by Karen Amin · Leave a Comment
It’s hard to be apart from loved ones when you’re away for any length of time, but when you’re traveling for business, it’s 
also essential to keep in touch with your colleagues and clients — being in a foreign country isn’t an excuse for not staying in touch anymore.
Even in recent years, your only options were either buying international phone cards and relying on land lines and pay phones to check in every so often. But the more technology advances, the easier it is to stay in touch.
If your cell phone has a SIM card, you can purchase an international calling plan and swap out your domestic SIM card for an international one, which will enable you to make calls normally from your cell phone. If your cell service provider offers good international plans, this can be a great option. The same goes for texting and data plans.
Better still: Many devices, including iPads and smart phones like iPhones and Androids, have certain apps that operate best over a wifi connection. If you can get yourself to an area that has a good wireless signal and connect to that, you’ll be able to use many of the services you’re used to — including e-mail — with almost no changes and at minimal cost.
That note on wifi brings up a great option for international calling and meeting: Skype.
Skype operates on smart phones, tablets and computers, so you have a lot of access options. What’s more, you can make both voice calls and do video chats through Skype, so you can even go face-to-face with family, friends and colleagues if need be, without ever incurring international calling rates.
One last option if you’re traveling light: Internet cafes. These are everywhere throughout Europe and all over the world. For a small fee, you can connect to the Internet briefly — while enjoying a cup of coffee or a snack — and check up on your e-mail, Facebook, Twitter accounts without worrying about whether your own technology is compatible with what’s available abroad. For the cost of a SIM card and your phone calls, you may even be able to cover your communications with nothing but Internet cafes.
How to Have Safe Travels Overseas
January 24, 2012 by Karen Amin · Leave a Comment
We asked a few people around the Travelpro office about their top tips for safety while traveling overseas. Many of our people travel frequently for business, and our own Scott Applebee used to take extended business trips to Italy when he was in another position, so we have many voices of experience to give us some tips.
When you’re traveling to any foreign country, safety is serious business — even if you’re one of those business travelers who’s at the airport twice a week and bounces around the country on a regular basis. As soon as you hop the pond, as Dorothy said, you’re not in Kansas anymore. So here are our top five tips for staying safe while you’re abroad:
Image via Wikipedia
- Be smart about your money. If you use an ATM and are dealing with unfamiliar currency, head to the bathroom when you leave the kiosk and sort out your bills privately.
- Don’t take rides with strangers. When you leave the airport, don’t just hop into any car with a guy who says he can take you downtown. (This may sound obvious, but being in a new place can be disorienting!) Take a taxi from an airport-sanctioned taxi stand, an official hotel shuttle or some other legitimate form of transportation. And arrive during the day, if possible, just for extra safety.
- Keep your wits about you. It’s easy to get lost when you’re in another country, especially in old, grid less cities like Paris (again, speaking from staff experience). But resist the temptation to pull out a huge map and gawk at street signs. Looking like a tourist is just asking for trouble.
- Inform someone back home. Make sure at least one person knows where you plan to be, for the most part. They should have all your flight information, where your hotel is, the names of anyone you’re traveling with and any side trips or big stops you’re planning. They should also have copies of all your important documents, including your passport, and access to your credit card providers’ phone numbers and your account numbers (so you can call them if your cards are ever stolen).
- Be multilingual. If you’ve traveling to a country whose population primarily speaks a different language, make an effort to learn at least a few important phrases that you can use if you need help — or just want to seem in the know. Having some understanding of the local language and culture will automatically boost your chances of safety and success on your trip.
Related articles
- Travel Tips for the First 40 Minutes In Country (travelproluggageblog.com)
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- The BIG tips for overseas travel! (melsmind.wordpress.com)
Travel Tips for the First 40 Minutes In Country
December 29, 2011 by Karen Amin · 1 Comment
Our friend and travel-writing hero, Mark Eveleigh, has been doling out some pretty great travel advice on a number of different blogs, and his latest one — The First 40 Minutes on RoundTheWorldFlights.com — really caught our eye.
In it, Eveleigh details some of the different traps and pitfalls that international travelers, especially backpackers, can fall into if they’re not careful.
We found a few of our favorite tips, and think they’re especially important, whether you’re an adventure traveler on a backpacking trip around the Far East, or a business traveler landing in Mexico City, or even Chicago.
1) Don’t arrive late at night when security is lax, taxis are expensive, and you’re too sleepy to be fully alert. This is true whether you’re landing in London or touching down in Thailand. You need to be alert, even if it’s just to make sure you get the right airport shuttle, and don’t inadvertently leave something behind.
2) Know in advance what the exchange rate is, and if possible, try to arrive with enough local currency to get you through the first night. We’ve talked before about how credit cards are going to be your best bet to finding the best exchange rate. But also, the worst places to exchange money are right there in the airport — exchange rates are not in your favor in most places, but especially in the place where people are in a rush to change their money. Find a bank away from the airport to make exchanges the next day.
5) If there’s a domestic terminal in the same airport, head there and take a (often cheaper) taxi from the same stand where you see locals waiting. Some taxi services see international travelers as a way to make a little extra cash, especially if you show up wearing a suit, but that doesn’t mean you have to fall victim to it. Walk over to the domestic terminal, step outside there, and catch your cab on that end. The prices may be a little cheaper, and you are less likely to be taken advantage of. And, be sure to take only an official taxi, don’t get a ride with someone who says they’re “just as good.”
7) Don’t let yourself be rushed into anything — it can be a benefit in a particularly hassled airport simply to grab a seat at a cafe and ‘people-watch’ for half an hour. We know from personal experience that it’s easy to get caught up in the stampede of people all rushing to get off the plane, get out of the airport, and get to your destination. If you’re in a brand new country and a brand new culture, don’t get caught up in the rush and miss something important. Take a few minutes, sit down, relax, and soak up some of the atmosphere. Get an idea of what’s going on, plan out your next step (probably the hotel), and then move to the taxi stand or shuttle station at your own pace.
Going to a new country can be frightening for some people. But if you plan in advance, move at your own pace, and — this is especially important — look like you know what you’re doing, you can get to where you need to be without any hassle or problems.
Related articles
- 40 minutes (leggotunglei808.wordpress.com)
- Banks offer ‘worst’ exchange rates for your holiday money (telegraph.co.uk)
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Why Do Airlines Pad Their Flight Times?
December 20, 2011 by Karen Amin · Leave a Comment
Have you ever wondered why it takes so long to get anywhere when flying these days? And have you been curious whether airlines are just trying to make themselves look better with more “on-time” flights by padding their schedules? It can be pretty easy to take a cynical stance on padded flight times and more time-consuming travel, especially with all the other hoops to jump through when traveling by air. But maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to assume airlines are padding their flight times without legitimate cause.
The general consensus among many experts seems to be that airlines actually pad flight times for no reason other than to plan for the worst-case scenario. So many variables come into play when it comes to air travel: congested airports, air-traffic control delays, unpredictable inclement weather, unfavorable headwinds, crucial last-minute maintenance tasks, and much more.
Today’s more heavily congested airports can up the wait time for flights. With the oft-crowded airports of today, it often takes travelers a long time to make it through security and to one gate from another. Consider, too, that travelers have different levels of experience navigating their way through airports, which can also add to necessary travel time.
Also think of how the huge number of planes arriving and departing influence travel time. It makes a lot of sense — the greater the number of planes heading into the air, the more time it will take for air-traffic control to organize the incoming and outgoing flights. On the runways, it’s the same principle as rush hour vs. off-peak times on your local roads: high-volume traffic can create bottlenecks and logjams that leave people waiting and waiting.
Bad weather and headwinds also contribute to padding of flight times. As soon as thunderstorms, fog, snow, or other bad weather situations enter the equation, flights times can become very uncertain. Unfavorable headwinds, too, can slow down planes significantly.
Flight times are also padded to allow for any necessary maintenance work.
Airlines tend to pad their flight times a bit to help compensate for any of these uncertainties, which can actually be a great thing for travelers. There’s a bit of a built-in buffer to help customers arrive in time to make connecting flights or to touch down on time at their final destination.
So that’s that: With the skies heavily saturated with air travel and abounding unknowns thrown into the mix, it simply takes longer now to get from Point A to Point B. And just think — without those padded flight times, it’d be far more common to find yourself at the airport in a crowd of disgruntled travelers who expected to arrive at their destination much, much sooner. So maybe they’re not such a bad thing after all.
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What to Pack When It’s Winter at Home, But Summer Where You’re Going
December 13, 2011 by Karen Amin · Leave a Comment
As if packing for a big trip isn’t enough of a challenge already, sometimes you need to use some strategic planning to figure out what to tote along when it’s cold where you are, but your final destination is balmy and sunny.
The temptation is to take a big coat, and maybe a couple of sweaters. But you’ll find once you’re down there that you’ll never need it, and you never needed to pack that stuff to begin with. So what steps do you need to take to make sure you pack smart for where you’re going, not where you’ve left? You may be able to get by with one or two pieces of Travelpro luggage depending on the duration of your trip. Travelpro Rollaboards can expand 2 ½”. This allows you to expand the luggage, instead of taking additional luggage. This saves you the cost of checking an extra bag.
Leave bulky stuff at home.
It may be sub-zero in your departure city, but that doesn’t mean you have to drag your heavy parka to sunny locales like Jamaica or Florida. Unless you’re flying out from the frozen tundra, you’ll likely be able to get by just fine in the short times you’re outdoors in the cold with a jacket or sweater. And though you may be uncomfortable for a few minutes between the house and the heated car or the heated car and the airport, it’s worth leaving a heavy coat behind to save precious luggage space and hassle when you touch down in a tropical climate.
Pack a variety of light, thin garments for layering.
You’ll want to be warm enough in your departure city, and airport and airplane temperatures can be incredibly unpredictable, so be sure you’ve got several layers to keep your parka-free self from freezing until you make it to your sunny destination. Think layered T-shirts, cardigans, and jackets paired with comfortable bottoms. You can always shed the excess layers as you get closer to your destination. Men can change into more lightweight clothing during layovers, and women can even wear thermal tights or leggings under a dress, then remove them when they touch down.
Check the weather.
Be sure to study the forecast for the area you plan to visit. Pay special attention to both projected daytime temperatures and nighttime temperatures. After all, it can be shorts-and-T-shirt weather all day, then drop to jeans-and-jacket weather once night falls. A-ha! This is where your thin layers will come in handy. Also be sure to research whether you need to be prepared for rain. Temperatures in even the warmest of cities can quickly drop when storms blow through.
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Holiday Sale at the Travelpro Luggage Outlet
November 28, 2011 by Karen Amin · 1 Comment
Travelpro is offering a sale on some of their popular carry-on and wheeled luggage lines at the Travelpro luggage outlet, including the Atlantic Odyssey Spinners, Maxlite expandable Rollaboards and rolling duffels, and from our most popular collection, the Crew 7 Rollaboards, rolling duffels, and garment bags.
We’re even offering free shipping on orders of $100 or more.
If you’re looking to save on some luggage or travel items for the frequent travelers in your life (or just getting ready for a family vacation), check out the Travelpro Luggage Outlet for our latest holiday sale.
Four Ways to Keep the TSA From Ruining Your Holidays
November 22, 2011 by Karen Amin · Leave a Comment
The TSA is not known for its Christmas spirit, which can make everyone else a real Scrooge when it comes to holiday travel plans. It’s to be expected: there are certain travel rules everyone has to follow, and safety doesn’t take a holiday.
So if you want to avoid having your holiday gift giving ruined by some overzealous agents who think your fruitcake constitutes a security issue, try remembering these holiday travel rules:
1. No Snow Globes Allowed
Image by russteaches via Flickr
In an article on Condé Nast’s Daily Traveler, writer Molly Fergusreminds us that your liquid limit is 3.5 ounces, which is less than the volume of most snow globes. Which means you’re not going to be allowed to take your snow globe gifts along with you. Your best bet is to pack it securely and safely, and ship it ahead to your final destination.
2. Ship your gifts ahead of time.
Just because a gift is nicely wrapped doesn’t mean the TSA won’t tear into it to make sure it’s safe. If you have to carry a gift with you, leave it unwrapped and wrap it when you get to your final destination. Pack some wrapping paper inside the box (pre-cut, of course, since you can’t take scissors on the flight), and wrap it. Or just buy the wrapping paper or a gift bag once you arrive.
Or, just like everything else we’ve discussed so far, ship it ahead of time. It may seem like an added expense and headache, but if you can save yourself the stress of trying to get everything through security, you may find it was worth the money. Also, compare the cost of shipping ahead to the checked bag fees that most airlines charge. You may be surprised on how small the cost differential actually is.
3. Save room in your luggage for the return trip.
If you didn’t have a full suitcase heading out, you will when you’re coming back. Be sure to leave some empty space in your suitcase to pack the gifts you’ll be bringing back with you. This is especially true if you’re worried about having an overweight suitcase. Only pack the bare necessities, because you don’t want to get hit with overweight baggage fees coming back. And ship back any gifts that you can’t take through security.
Holiday travel is stressful enough. There’s no need to add to the hassle, especially as you’re trying to get through security. Leave stuff at home or ship it ahead, but avoid packing the things that are going to make the TSA confiscate them. You’ll have a merrier time if you don’t have to worry about it.
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