Category Archives: Blog

Jet Blue

Got Jet Blues?

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Got Jet Blues? According to all those Jet Blue junkies, Jet Blue is heading down the corporate greed path. They’ve taken their biggest single value proposition,” more legroom,” and shrunk it – and all because they want to make more money. Shame on them! Imagine an airline looking for ways to make more money, surely not! Oh hang on, most airlines make no money at all and usually the way to try to break even or make a little bit is to scrimp on practically everything. So what is Jet Blue doing that is so horrid to the Jet Blue faithful? It’s charging for luggage and it’s shrinking its seat pitch from 34.7 inches to 33.1 inches. In other words, it’s decided to take the money that’s currently being left on the table.

I know that Southwest let’s your luggage travel free, but JetBlue offers Direct TV and free Wifi! Plus Jet Blue offers Mint, a premium service for not much more money, that connects the East and West Coasts. Look at this way, I doubt they’re headed the way of Ryan Air, where you practically have to pay to go to the toilet.

So Jet Blue’s introducing new slimline seats that are two inches thinner. All of this means that the magic tube we sit in will give them an increased dollar yield, make it a little less comfortable, but still, and this is the sad news folks, they lead the way in seat pitch. By redesigning their seats and adding a few more, they still are not cramming and jamming the folks in. Most legacy carriers offer 31 inches on long-haul…yikes!

This is a great common sense move for Jet Blue; we want them to be a viable airline and make money. And they still lead the way in the two things that are important to most travelers – legroom and a smile. Below is what you can expect on the misery space level on the worst offenders for seat pitch in the business.

Virgin 32.6
American 31.8
United 31.8
US airways 31.8
Delta 31.3
Sprint 28.3
So if you want to save money, Sprint is the game – but you may have to buy some new knees at the end of the flight! And is that Virgin I see?

san miguel

The Senses Of San Miguel

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He who speaks the most, eats the least. He who eats the most, listens. He who listens, will own the secrets. – anonymous

The Senses of San Miguel: In 1810 the revolution started in these hills around San Miguel. The town itself became an inland harbor offering safe passage along the Camino between Mexico and Guanajuato. It’s a favorite place for artists and hip retirees (the Florida alternative without the hurricanes and the five o’clock specials). And you get siesta! It is simply a wonderful place to live.

There is so much going on and the culture is pouring over and into the lovely cobbled stone calles. Narrow streets with tiny doors and decorative spouts that slosh water sometimes onto the unsuspecting passersby below! There are vivid colors, pinks and greens everywhere. There are smells that stay with you, lavender, jasmine, orange and the aroma of roasting coffee. There are street vendors selling churros and tortillas and tacos on the street. The climate is practically perfect, never hot enough in the day to make you sweat and cool in the evenings because of the high altitude. 7000 feet. There are beautiful views from every direction because the town is surrounded by hills on three sides.

The church bells are a part of the music of San Miguel; bells to mark time and events to commemorate festivals and celebration. These sounds hang in the evening air at the jardin, the central plaza. There are globadores, balloon sellers, for the children who are playing, and mariachi players serenading couples at tables in cafés. The laurel trees in the central square seem to be perfectly manicured, providing shade during the day for the people-watchers and the mariachi taking their siesta. The locals mingle with the tourists as if they are not there. The merchants go about their business and actually let you look at stuff without that constant torment you find in Egypt or Marrakech.

Mexico is getting a bad rap at the moment, but there are real alternatives to the tourist traps of Cancun and Acapulco. And nobody’s suggesting you should opt for a homestay in Juarez! San Miguel is a gem and worth a try.

The Rosewood

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The Rosewood

The Roswewood in San Miguel. A friend of mine had stayed at another Rosewood and liked the hotel a lot. This hotel is amazing. We had a great room with a view, Room 303 incidentally, that looked out across the church, La Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, this is the iconic sight of San Miguel. It looks Gaudi-esque and the beautiful sandstone gives off a magical hue at sunset when the sky is still incandescent blue. I could take all this in while sitting in my balcony outside the room! Two fireplaces and phenomenal food at whatever time, skyrocket this fairly recent addition to San Miguel’s hotel offerings, to the top.

rsma_pool_cabana_v2

Add the beautiful outdoor pool, actually long enough to do laps, the state-of-the-art gym, and the close proximity to everything and you have a pretty cool set up. It’s not cheap, but pick the right dates and you have a perfect location in a perfect place. The brunch at the weekends is off the charts. Heap loads of those delicious mushrooms that grow on decaying wet corn, slapped on to fabulously fresh-pressed tortillas with a dash of hot sauce were my favorites. It’s all good news on the menu and that’s even before you leave the hotel to explore the city.

 

San Miguel

The Road to San Miguel

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The Road to San Miguel

A quick break. A time out. Mexico, in spite of all the bad press seems like a great place to head. San Miguel de Allende is where we headed. Even though it is a little complicated to get there, it’s the kind of place that makes you glad you made the effort. You know that sinking feeling you sometimes get when you have traveled forever and you get hotel nightmares and bad food as your welcome mat? Not here.

San Miguel Vista

San Miguel Vista

There are three ways to get to San Miguel: Mexico City, 4 hour drive and only worth it if you intend to spend a few days there. Not a bad idea as Mexico City is pretty cool. Leon, about 1 and a half hours away and recommended if you like bigger planes and if you want to pass by Guanajuato( the birthplace of Diego Rivera) or Queretero (the closest), 45 minutes, but accessible only by smaller planes(American Eagle essentially). We chose Queretero and because it’s such a small airport, and the planes are small, you have to check the bags…but at the gate! That is to say, no lost bags! Arrived and met by a limo guy from the hotel. Smooth and before you knew it we were heading down the cobbled streets in the beautifully hilly town of San Miguel. Checked into the Rosewood hotel in the center with stunning views and slept.

Elgin Marbles

Have They Lost Their Elgin Marbles?

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Have They Lost Their Elgin Marbles?

For the first time in ages, literally, a bit of the now infamous Elgin Marbles is on the move. Back to whence it came? No – it’s been shipped to Mother Russia as part of a temporary exhibition at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The Greeks will not be amused – and neither is the movie star lobby that is starting to bring celebrity voice to the century-old debate about the plundering of nations’ treasures. Note Monuments Men; which based on their box-office take, not many have! Too bad they couldn’t time their release better – it would’ve been a great publicity stunt.Clooney and the Marbles

The British museum and the British government is having none of it, however, and Greece is crying foul! Perhaps they should make a remake of Russell Brand’s movie, “Take him to the Greek!” The “scandal” of the Acropolis Museum is still a hot topic. Plaster-case replicas of the Parthenon marbles are displayed in place of the originals, which were spirited away by Lord Elgin in the 19th century and sit a thousand miles away in the British Museum. Even Lord Byron took issue and wrote a poem of protest.

It seems a shame that after so many years some kind of reconciliation can’t be achieved, but therein lies the problem with museums. The oldest public museums opened in Rome during the Renaissance, starting with the Capitoline, the oldest of them all, in 1471. A few years back I explored the Acropolis Museum, which sits in the shadow of the Parthenon. This beautiful glass museum tells the story of all museums – specifically the way collections of artifacts mysteriously end up miles from where they started, in places like London and Paris. More or less everything came from somewhere else and most of the time there was a shady deal. You could say it’s a reflection of history in general-intrigue, treason, and plot! It’s one of the many reasons I love to travel: You learn something new every time.

So will the Elgin Marbles ever make their way back to Greece? Only time and a ton of Russian Rubles will tell.

Airport Lounges

Airline Lounges getting Lazy?

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Airline Lounges Getting Lazy?

Clubs and places to hang out at airports are reaching a troubling intersection. Once the harbor of calm and safety, where you might feel like a million bucks, airline clubs are fast becoming overcrowded and unreliable.

Take American Admiral’s Club for example. What Admiral are they referring to? Certainly not Nelson! Please. It’s awful. Or the Delta Sky Club– there’s not much to eat: a few pretzels and some awful nuts that even if you’re not allergic to, you should be! You have to pay for the alcohol and if you were planning on a meal before a long flight…good luck! And what’s worse, Delta won’t even allow you in with stuff you have been forced to grab outside – probably for fear that others will catch on that there’s absolutely no value inside! You’re better off taking your chances in the vastly improving terminal buildings.

New concessions have opened, healthy and actually decent – places you don’t mind hanging out at. The other day at Chicago O’Hare I even noticed that Starbucks, the only bastion in days gone by, of decent coffee and half decent sandwiches, had no line. People had found healthier options and better coffee!

So, McDonald’s and Auntie Anne’s and those awful places that are still hanging around, watch out! Your concession license may cost more than your daily take – at least let’s hope so!

But it’s not all bad. Has anyone been to a Virgin International lounge recently? It’s actually good. There’s food to eat – variety, free drinks ! And if you have an American Express platinum card there’s a great club called Centurion Club. Sadly it’s only in 4 locations: LAS, DFW, SFO, and LGA. But the service is great, food decent and it made my transit and the vastly improved Dallas airport actually pleasant. Did I say Amex did something nice for its customers? Where’s the Visa lounge!?

airline food

Airline Food

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Airline Food

All this fuss about Emirates and Etihad and how the food just knocks your socks off, I don’t buy it. I was recently lucky enough to be upgraded to first class on British Airways. The food was unacceptably bad – really if I had been paying the price of that ticket, it would have ranked per bite, as the worst meal dollar per dollop I’ve ever had.

Airline food

Airline food

Those good old days when they’d fire up the stove, simmer the mushrooms and pan fry the sirloin in front of you, have gone. But still, we clamor for those moments on board. No matter that we may have eaten in the lounge before or grabbed a quick sandwich in the departure lounge, we still get excited when they walk down the aisle, no matter what class of service you’re in. Sometimes it’s just a bag of crisps, an infinitesimally small bag of nuts where the packaging must’ve cost ten times the contents, or that delightful piece of overcooked chicken or the omelet in first class that looks as though it were cooked last year. No matter! We wait with expectation as the trolley rumbles down the aisle – and we go for it!

Just like the glass of wine, we know she shouldn’t, but we go for that too. It’s something to do while you’re awake. Let’s be really honest here, the only difference between the categories is the legroom, the rest is all an illusion, best dealt with by a sandwich in the airport or an Ambien just before you take off.

Emirate Air Line

Let’s Go Fly a Kite

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Let’s Go Fly a Kite

At the recent World Travel Market in London, which is held every year in the Dock Lines area at ExCel I decided to fly with the Emirates Air Line. It was quite a thrill, actually! You take the underground to North Greenwich and it’s a five minute walk from there to the entrance. It’s right next door to the O2, the magnificent dome with bits sticking out of it that was built for the millennium and has since been used for everything from concerts to tennis tournaments. You can use an Oyster Card, they simply charge you an extra £3.30 on the card or if you don’t have an Oyster Card the “airfare” is £4.40 one-way. And there you are, stepping into your very own cable car, most people don’t seem to know about it or aren’t willing to shell out for the extra money, so chances are you do get your own gondola.

The journey time is 10 minutes and it reaches 90 meters altitude as you have this fantastic view of London – everything’s on display, the Shard, the Walkie Talkie, the Onion Dome, and in the background you can just about make out the London Eye. This is East London’s new skyline and probably London’s most vibrant reclaimed area. You get a neat little history of the East End of London piped into the cabin and I have to say that for $5, it was one of the highlights of my very quick trip to London. Gotta say that London is a city that embraces the new – I used to always imagine that Paris had the gold medal for this: the new opera, the pyramid, but London has just simply taken off and it seems to perfectly manage innovation, integration, and restoration a lot better than most other cities. If you take a blank canvas like the docklands of London, it’s so cool. It’s like you’re making history all over again for some other generation to enjoy.

I love strolling around the floor at the World Travel Market – you pass through every single country that is, from a tourist’s point of view, “visitable.” For example, no Syria, no Afghanistan and no Liberia – you get the picture. I stroll from a chat with somebody about Mongolia, wander up into the highlands of Bhutan or just get real hedonistic and hanging out at the Mauritius stand. It’s a way to travel the world for the price of an Oyster Card, no jet lag, no baggage except the stuff they give you (resist it all!) and attend pretty interesting seminars on travel trends, social media, you name it – all under one roof.

Poshtel

Poshtel

I’ve noticed now that “poshtels” are popping up everywhere. Those good old days when you could find a really awful cheap guaranteed bed bug place to stay, are disappearing fast. Now it’s the 5-star hostel – chic and groovy, but basic and cheap. You can book your own at PoshPacker. These poshtels are everywhere and for the budget traveler they’re reliable and a great way to stay in the center of the city without paying silly prices.

Incidentally another trend that came out, and I find myself slightly at fault here, is the move away from golf to biking. Apparently as middle-aged men think they’re young, they are donning Lycra biking shorts and it looks pretty grim. Those outfits were made for 20-year-olds, Tour de France winners, and Ironmen Triathletes – not granddad on the weekends. It’s frightening – see Spanx for men! Anyhow, the good news is, there are a whole bunch of designers out there willing to help. Biking clothes, see Paul Smith’s 531 collection, don’t have to be as hideous as they are – loose is good and kind and forgiving to the wearer and to the observer.

traveler's check

Bring back the Travelers Checks!

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Bring back the Travelers Checks!

I just get really tired of spending money or paying for services that are not there. My credit card bill is peppered with tiny charges per transaction every time I use the credit card overseas. That really irritates me! There are cards that advertise no international transaction fees; if you have an Amex Platinum, then it’s automatically waived. But my whole thing is how can you waive something that shouldn’t be there in the first place? It’s just another revenue stream and another rip-off.  So consider this, go look for a credit card that does not charge the fee and also go look for a credit card that has enough access points overseas so that you don’t have to constantly get ripped off at the ATM machine.

There was a recent research survey on Brits who travel and according to that, £180 Million in bank fees were charged at ATMs outside of the UK and the average charge of a cash machine overseas is between $7 and $10! So the bottom line is, do the research first and if you’re desperate and you need to pull money out, pull as much out as you can – which of course brings us back to that other almost amusing circle.  What happens if I’m ripped off the legitimate way, given the fact that I’ve already been robbed at the credit card machine? You’ve taken out too much money because you don’t want to pay for another credit card robbery – you then are robbed legitimately on the metro by hardworking honest to goodness thieves, rather than those corporate bandits, who barely laid a hand on you. So take all that money you get from the ATM and go see if you can find an American Express office and convert that into traveler’s checks. Yah, I know it’s a fantasy, I know those offices have long since gone, but it sure makes you think.

Titanic Museum

Belfast

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Belfast

My Italian friend insisted that we do something at the end of the Dublin conference. He had concocted an idea that we should drive to Belfast. I had never been, he had never been, so we rented a car and headed off into the unknown. My first mistake was to forget my passport, drive twenty miles back to retrieve it, only to discover as we entered the environs of Belfast, that there was no border patrol and no passport officer waiting behind the bushes. It was a seamless entry, with only a cell phone notification to indicate that we had passed from the Republic of Ireland into the United Kingdom. The countryside between the two cities is actually rather splendid. Rolling hills, lots of sheep – about as far away as I had imagined from my earlier nightmare visions of the “Troubles” during the 80s.

 

The funny thing is that when I asked several of my Irish friends who lived in Dublin if they had ever been to Belfast, they looked at me horrified. Who would go to Belfast?! It’s too dangerous they said. We won’t be going there in a hurry. What was I letting myself in for? Well as it turned out it all seemed pretty harmless to me. There is an area of the city now on a sightseeing tour, where you can see the various points where some of the major confrontations took place between the British military and the IRA. But beyond that, most of the place looked a bit like a suburban English town on a bad day.

We had decided to head to the Titanic Museum, constructed in the shipyards where the Titanic was built. It is a modern day masterpiece with six floors that even has a Disney-like train journey as part of the tour. You really need about three hours in the museum; the cost of entry is about £15, less if you’re a student. And frankly it’s worth an afternoon excursion from Dublin. You get to see the fascinating history of Belfast, the city that was built on flax and linen and eventually became one of the world’s major shipyards. This was almost the beginning of the luxury cruise liners we see floating the ocean today.

Disasters are always fascinating and eerie. The museum pitches the final moments and creates this austere atmosphere with only the last words of the telegraph operator and a recreation of the ship going down to provide the backdrop to the tragedy. The heroic stories pull you in and I wish I could’ve stayed there longer. Outside the museum there is a piece of graffiti on the wall that someone scrawled; it made me smile. It said simply, “it was alright when it left here.”

 

Dublin Convention Center

Dublin

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Dublin

My grandmother is Irish, she’s from County Clare on the western coast. It’s not really relevant, but every time I touch down in Ireland I feel that somehow I belong to the place. My mate is from Dublin, my neighbors are from Dublin, and on a good night with a couple of drinks inside me I can do a half decent Dublin accent.

So here I am arriving in Dublin’s new terminal building late at night (cold and raining of course) and heading to an unfamiliar area around the convention center. http://www.theccd.ie/  I’m staying at the Malvern Hotel on Cardiff Lane (http://www.maldronhotelcardifflane.com/), its most distinguishing feature being that it’s right opposite the convention center and right by the river. The hotel was ok, nothing to write home about, but certainly adequate. The breakfasts were those awful buffet things where everything looks like it’s been sitting around for hours and hours. I risked it once and smothered the whole plate with brown sauce to take away the taste and cut through the grease. My Italian friend watched me in horror. When you’re used to cappuccinos and brioche, it can be off-putting, I guess.

I was in Dublin for the WYSTC conference (http://www.wystc.org /) and in between meetings and seminars I found the time to do a little sightseeing and get over to two great restaurants: Peploes (http://peploes.com/), just off of St. Stephen’s Green and Fade Street Social (http://www.fadestreetsocial.com/) where the grilled meats are cooked in a brick oven. Two great restaurants, two great areas and neither time did I have to go down to Temple Bar, thank goodness. Dublin is a happening place, new buildings are shooting up everywhere, restaurants are full and in spite of tales of woe and recession, I saw little evidence moving around the city. It’s a cool place. And the coolest thing of all, it’s actually a cosmopolitan city at last.

Long day at the Airport

Long day at the Airport

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Long day at the Airport

Hotels always give out bad information on the time it takes to get from them to the airport. It’s not that they’re overly cautious, they’re just wrong. I just often wonder how many of the people who give us this advice, have actually ever been to the airport that they’re guiding us to. Case in point, Marmaris center to Dalaman airport.  The journey takes less than an hour. Hotel advice is that it takes two hours and of course they recommend, given the problem of security, that you get to the airport at least 2.5 hours before departure. Of course it’s all about the rooms really. They wanted the bloody rooms! I should have known.

I hate being at airports too early. I am a “maximum of 1 hour before” guy. As it were, traveling is like marriage. Once you’ve been at it for while you become ever more inventive in your ways to keep it fresh. I like the excitement of possibly missing the flight. I like to see how fast I can move through security, how economically I can buy souvenirs (if I really have to) and it means I don’t have to spend endless hours drinking dreadful coffee and eating plastic sandwiches in some awful lounge.

So here I am, spending endless hours drinking dreadful coffee in some awful lounge, wondering why I fell for the bad information yet again. To add insult to injury, my flight to Istanbul, of course, is delayed. From Istanbul, to London there’s a change of terminals before connecting to Dublin. More delays. More plastic sandwiches. This day, a mélange of Turkish Air, British Airways and Aer Lingus, a feast of cultural diversity and sweaty planes (lovely), started at 6am in the morning. It will not end until Turkish time, 2pm the next day. In other words, Australia would have been a more convenient option and certainly more fun!

Gulet Sailing

Gulet Sailing through Aegean Seas

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Gulet Sailing through Aegean Seas

If you find yourself traveling to Southwestern Turkey then there is a good chance that you’ll be taking or at least you’ll be tempted to take a Gulet charter boat http://www.admiral-tours.com Most of the great charter companies are based in either Bodrum or Marmaris and the Gulet boat, which varies in size from 14 to 35 meters, is an ideal vessel to sail the calm waters of the Aegean. All of these boats have sails, typically two-masted, but most of them poodle around the coast on engine power alone. They have a huge back seating and dining area with lavish bedroom space underneath. In the height of the summer months, the harbors of Antalya, Marmaris and Bodrum are full of these types of vessels. Originally much smaller and designed for fishing, they evolved to meet the rise of tourism in the 70s. They are a lot cheaper than renting a boat in Greece and so ideally if you wish to stay away from the crowds, then an itinerary that starts in Bodrum and skips over to the tiny airport-less islands in Greece is optimal.

Gulet

Gulet

For those of us who’ve managed to sail throughout the Greek Islands and along the Turkish coast, there is nothing quite like entering the port of a beautiful horseshoe harbor at night. It is both magical and mystical. My favorite Greek Island…well that would be giving the game away, but I would say that Symi and Sifnos come to mind and of course there’s always Mykonos for a good party. Recommended tips on Greek Island navigation is to plonk yourself down in a place like Symi, grab a small hotel room and rent a small Zodiac speedboat for a couple of weeks. Every day take that boat, cruise around the island, find a deserted spot or a deserted beach, or a tiny restaurant on a deserted beach (yes, they do exist!) and just pretend that this is the way life is forever. And every evening eat in one of the many restaurants that are dotted around the harbor. I don’t care how many times you’ve had grilled octopus and a Greek salad, it never tires…unless you’re a vegetarian. Best time to go and cheapest rates, mid-September through mid-October. The weather is still amazing and the crowds have decidedly dimmed.

Marmaris Harbor

Marmaris

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Marmaris

If there is a town to avoid in Turkey, than that would be Marmaris. We had docked there on the last day of a Gulat trip and for some reason we had thought it would be a great idea to have a wander through the town. It was, I recall a very hot day and Marmaris’ harbor fans out and is full of bars, restaurants and a very cheap and tacky arcade.

Marmaris Gallery

Marmaris Gallery

The shops sell soccer shirts and awful souvenir trinkets and the tourists are decidedly a blend of Brits and general Euro northerners; most of them sporting tattoos, tank tops and walking with their kids while smoking cigarettes. Cheap cruise ships dish out the hordes, every few hours or so.

Marmaris Harbor

Marmaris Harbor

As one departs, another seems to pop up in the harbor, as everyone heads to the fake bazaar to buy souvenir fezes and tacky shawls. No cappuccinos along this waterfront; it’s all pints of lager. Marmaris is about as Turkish as Turkish Delight. We didn’t stay long. It was so scary to my upper class English friend that he thought it was one of the most terrifying experiences of his sheltered life! We fled to our boat and retreated to a distant cove. We would come back under cover of darkness to grab some grilled octopus. Late at night, after a glass or two of wine, it seemed decidedly less tacky.

Bodrum is a short distance down the coast from Izmir and a 45-minute flight from Istanbul. In late September the weather is absolutely stunning. The last time I was in Bodrum was around 15 years ago; it was a lively town, I recall, some nightlife, a castle by the harbor and a few restaurants dotted here and there. So the change I saw was significant, it was surprisingly moderated by taste and relatively careful development.

 

 

Bodrum

Bodrum

 

Bodrum is a port city. It is the hub way of the Gulet boats and although there are few beaches within easy access, once you have driven around the bay, the inlets and coves provide spectacular settings for the hotel industry. And what better hotel to have nestled about 30 minutes away from Bodrum center, than the Kempinski Hotel? There is an incredible swimming pool, a wonderful spa, fabulous views and a strip of private beach that looks as though it has been painted onto the landscape.

If you like swimming, the large infinity pool is as good as it gets, and the water in the Mediterranean in late September is perfect for long swims or short splashes. I would return to this hotel anytime. The rooms and service were brilliant. It’s a pity we had to work.