David Armstrong on Travel

Review: Wingate by Windham, Mechanicsburg, PA

2012-01-28T14:28:00.000-08:00

My wife and I recently ventured to central Pennsylvania, home of a foodball-mad populace and caloric fave foods such as peanut butter-flavored pie and sliced Lebanon baloney. There are a handful of bed & breakfasts in the area, but they are typically pricey. The biggest of the big-name hotels in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's capital city, is the Hilton, but it was booked when we visited.

What to do?

We booked a Wingate by Windham - part of the group that includes Ramada, Days Inn and TraveLodge - in suburban Mechanicsburg. Or, rather, we thought we did. Upon arrival at nearly 11 p.m., road-weary and wanting to fall into bed, we were informed that we had cancelled our reservation, which was breaking news to us. The hotel was fully booked and there were no available rooms. Or were there?

Heads were put together. Supervisors were consulted. In the end, we got a room. Actually, it was in effect a suite, as we occupied two adjoining, rarely used rooms on the top floor of this nondescript modern building, barely removed from the busy, noisy Pennsylvania Turnpike. The rooms overlooked the hotel parking lot from above the main entryway. But, hey, we had an adequate bed and two empty refrigerators that we used for bottled water, juice and milk, and we had a place to stay.

The place is - how to say this? - odd. The lobby reeks with the smell of chorination, as the doors are left open to the hotel pool. There is breakfast just off the lobby but it is decidedly bland: Think tasteless yet fatty, waxy miniature muffins, small cartons of cereal, borderline drinkable coffee and the like. It doesn't taste good but it gets you going. Staff were nice and tried to be helpful, though they had that undertrained quality common in roadside inns in the United States.

Well, you get what you pay for, right? We paid $69.30 USD per night for our king bed room, breakfast included, with no extra charge for use of the second room - which also meant we had a second bathroom and second smallish closet that allowed us to spread out. The hotel also offers free Wi-Fi and in-room microwave ovens.

The Wingate Mechanicsburg is far from a destination hotel, but if you're passing through and tired of driving, it's an option.

Wingate by Windham is located at 385 Cumberland Parkway, Pennsylvania Turnpike exit 236, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 USA. Tel: 717.766.2710.

Cool Move by Lufthansa

2012-01-27T15:16:00.001-08:00

Lufthansa, Germany's largest airline, said today it plans to expand its automatic check-in service to some 400 routes in the 26-nation European Union. Furthermore, the carrier will roll out this service globally "in the coming months,'' according to Lufthansa's Americas office, in New York.

Sounds like a cool move to me.

This is how Lufthansa characterizes its automated check-in:

"Passengers with an existing booking are automatically checked-in 23 hours prior to their departure and will receive an electronic boarding pass with their reserved seat number shortly after, which they can choose to have sent to them by e-mail or to an Internet-enabled mobile phone. The service is available to all members of the Miles & More frequent flier program who have selected the automatic check-in option under "travel services' in their customer profile. In the event of a change in travel plans, passengers with a re-bookable ticket have the option of cancelling their online check-in at lufthansa.com or by calling the Lufthansa Service Center.

"Passengers traveling with luggage can check in their bags at a baggage drop-off counter or at a check-in kiosk on presentation of their boarding pass. Seats can also be changed online via a mobile phone or at a self-service check-in kiosk.''

When can we in North America, and other travelers outside the EU, get access to this convenient-sounding service, pray tell?

Soon, they say.

"In the coming months, Lufthansa expects to expand the automatic check-in service across its global route network and make it available for all flight bookings, thus allowing passengers who are not Miles & More members to take advantage of this popular service.''

Bring it on.

19 Money-Saving Travel Web sites from NY Times

2012-01-26T16:53:00.000-08:00

It's a couple of weeks old now, but easy to miss amidst the New Year's hoopla - and the information is still current: Namely, New York Times reporter Michelle Higgins's piece "19 Web Sites for Travel Savings in 2012.'' If you missed it, I highly recommend tracking back and finding the story on www.nytimes.com.

The hard-working Higgins highlights sites that can save travelers money on flights, hotels, cruises, car rentals and home exchanges, and provides thumbnail descriptions of each. Her piece was published on paper Jan. 4 and posted online Jan. 8. Just do a byline search for the writer.

Higgins singles out sites such as AirfareWatchdog.com, LuxuryLink.com, Hotels.com and HomeExchange.com, among others. If you're planning to be on the road this year, some due diligence on the Net can definitely save you money. This is a valuable, helpful piece that shouldn't slip by.

Misery Air: United (cont.)

2012-01-25T17:51:00.001-08:00

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, asked to cite examples of major decisons his vice-president, Richard M. Nixon, participated in, famous replied "If you give me a week, I may think of one.''

That is how I feel when I try to come up with a major virtue of United Airlines (aka Misery Air): If you give me a week, I may think of one.

I flew United (www.ua.com) twice in the past few days between San Francisco and Vancouver, British Columbia on a travel-writing trip. Nothing terribly untoward happened and United's infamously cranky cabin crews - the carrier's "friendly skies'' era is long gone - at least stayed out of passengers' faces. That's something, I guess. The last time I flew United, flight attendants openly mocked passengers and blamed travelers for the overstuffed overhead bins,

This time, little things went awry. Flying in economy class, everyone's favorite, the passenger in front of me put his seat all the way back, nearly knee-capping me. He kept it there during take-off and landing, which is supposed to be a no-no. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to get into it with a fellow traveler. Neither did the flight attendants, although enforcing safety regulations and seeing to the comfort of all their customers is their job.

On the way back from B.C., on-board another crowded, narrow-body, single-aisle Airbus A320, more little things went wrong. Although I was one of the first passengers in the way-back of the plane, when I went into a washroom well before take-off, I found a messy unflushed toilet. Early in the flight, I flicked on the overhead light so I could read. It winked on, and then it winked off. And then it winked on again. And then ... I turned it off for the duration of the flight. I squinted and read in semi-darkness.

No big thing, you may say, and you would be right. Both flights arrived safely, and one of them was even on time. But as the old song says, little things mean a lot. And little things add up. United still has a lot of work to do to make its customer service more than notional.

The Woz Wuz on my Plane

2012-01-25T17:21:00.000-08:00

I am not much of a celebrity hound. Eight years as a movie critic and arts and entertainment feature writer at a daily newspaper saw me conduct dozens of personal interviews with superstars and your just plain stars, and that pretty much helped purge me of any tendency to be star-struck.

I was pleased, though, to see The Woz - Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak - on my plane while flying between San Francisco and Vancouver, British Columbia - twice - when I flew to Richmond, B.C. to cover that intensely Asian Canadian city's Chinese New Year celebration. Whether The Woz flew there to mark the Year of the Dragon, I am not sure. But there he was, without any entourage, flying commercial - albeit in first class - locked into his handheld device before takeoff and after landing. He was clad in sneakers that looked like - well, inexpensive Chinese knockoffs - and traveling without that celebrity aura of leave me alone, you riff-raff.

The other passengers, including me, did leave him alone. Maybe The Woz lacks the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs's charisma, I dunno, but it's hard to image the brilliant, high-powered Jobs traveling that way. Wozniak is brilliant, too. His is the high-tech genius that created the Apple I and Apple II computers, launching what is now one of the richest and most famous companies in the world.

I interviewed Jobs in the '90s, when he was waging a charm offensive to rally public opinion behind his controversial use of a noisy helicopter to commute to his job as the head of Pixar; this was after Jobs's exile from Apple and before his triumphant return. I have never interviewed Wozniak but I've always liked him and was pleased when San Jose, California's worthy The Tech - the Silicon Valley high-tech museum - renamed a short street in its downtown location Woz Way (www.thetech.org.) Wozniak has his own Web site, natch: www.woz.org, and it provides some updates on the latest doings of this famous, refreshingly down-to-earth, traveler.

And, hey: Gung Hay Fat Choy, everyone.

Obama's Good First Steps for Tourism

2012-01-20T11:47:00.000-08:00

Hopefully, the Fantasyland locale is not a portent.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced several welcome steps to boost international tourism to the United States, in a speech delivered yesterday at Disney World, in Orlando, Florida. Meant to address the fall in U.S. market share to 11 percent of world tourist arrivals in 2010 (from 17 percent in 2000), Obama outlined a number of policy initiatives in a new executive order. (You can read the order in its entirety at www.whitehouse.gov). Among them:

* Expand the U.S. visa-waiver program to more nations, including defacto nations such as Taiwan
* Send 100 additional consular officers to Brazil and China, to help shorten backloads of visa applications that can drag out for months, and thus speed the arrival of more free-spending foreign tourists to the recession-racked U.S.
* Promote U.S. national parks and monuments and rural areas as worthy tourist destinations, to go with urban stand-bys such as New York City, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, San Francisco and Los Angeles
* Expand Global Entry, a system that eases re-entry into the United States by American citizens to 24 U.S. airports from 20
* Appoint the inevitable government task force to ponder the matter further and get back to him

Some things can be done on a national level by the federal government that can't be done by the welter of state and local tourist boards and hotel, airline and hospitality companies - and especially so compared to pure marketing plays.

An example of the latter is Brand USA, a tourism promotion board created by the Travel Promotion Act of 2009, which Obama signed. It's not clear that Brand USA's efforts could have helped arrest the decline in U.S. tourism had the board been in existence during the past decade. Indeed, Obama's executive order notes that changing global travel patterns, the rise of large middle classes in China, Brazil and India and stepped-up U.S. security measures after Sept. 11, 2001, have all lessened the U.S. role in world tourism. New marketing slogans and advertising campaigns, absent traveler-friendly policy changes, aren't likely to do much good.

Campaign-watchers did not fail to note that Obama made his announcement in tourist-friendly Florida. Not coincidently, Florida is a perennial swing state in American elections. Obama, running for re-election, is spinning his orders as job-creators - an obligatory move in any election but especially so during tough times.

Still, there are concrete policy changes afoot, and this is good to see. Nothing revolutionary, mind you, but these are steps in the right direction.

Parallel 37 at Ritz-Carlton San Francisco

2012-01-17T15:03:00.001-08:00

I have to admit, I was worried when I heard San Francisco's Ritz-Carlton Hotel had replaced its classic fine-dining restaurant The Dining Room and replaced it with a new place called Parallel 37. Then I heard that The Dining Room's gifted chef, Ron Siegel, was in charge at Parallel 37. Right away, I relaxed.

I was right to feel renewed confidence. Siegel - who worked for Thomas Keller at the famed French Laundry and Michael Mina at Aqua, cooked in New York, was the first non-Japanese to win the original "Iron Chef'' competition and was head chef at Masa's - has a list of skills as long as his resume. Boiled down to essentials, he works wonders with the fresh fish, meats and produce of the San Francisco Bay Area, brining a subtle French touch to American food. Moreover, Siegel not only talks the talk of local, seasonal and sustainable, he walks the walk.

The restaurant, located just off the lobby as you walk in, opened in December 2011. It is one of several recent and future changes at the 20-year-old San Francisco Ritz-Carlton. The splendid Lobby Lounge, home of fine afternoon teas and live evening entertainment, is undergoing renovation. Presently closed off for construction, it is expected to reopen this spring.

Parallel 37 - named for San Francisco's latitude - is designed to the max, 21st century stylish, loud and frequented by a jeans-wearing but appearance-conscious crowd. I miss the elegant classicism of The Dining Room, but Siegel's revamped menu - including but not limited to - the obligatory small plates, is flavorful, inventive and delicious.

I dined with fellow travel writer and friend Patricia Nickell, who was in-town on assignment. Patti is mostly a fish person, as am I oftentimes. But this time I followed the recommendation of our personable and funny server - he reminded me a bit of the actor Owen Wilson - and ordered the succulent slow-cooked pork entree with braised greens, flageolet beans and madeira sauce. It was wonderful. Patti liked the beans so much she ordered a side for herself. We started our feast with flutes of Champagne, then moved on to Merry Edwards Pinot Noir, a very tasty and versatile California vintage.

If you're in-town, check out Parallel 37. It's very good and with luck will last as long and operate as well as the vanished Dining Room.

The Ritz-Carlton is located at Stockton Street at California Street, San Francisco, CA 94108 USA. Tel. 415.296.7465. Web: www.ritzcarlton.com or http://parallel37sf.com.

My Hotel and Airline Reviews

2012-01-12T17:04:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in a post a few days ago that I have signed on as a contributing editor at www.AirlinesAndDestinations.com, a New York-based site that operates in what we journos rather wonkishly call the travel "space.''

Over the past 10 days or so I've crafted hotel reviews and one airline review (the latter is about Cathay Pacific Airways's trans-Pacific business-class service) for the site. The hotels in question are Inn on the Alameda, in Santa Fe, New Mexico USA; Shangri-la Hotel, The Marina, in Cairns, Queensland, Australia; The Opposite House, in Beijing, China; and the Conrad, a Hilton hotel in Tokyo, Japan - that one hasn't been posted yet but I'm told it will be by this weekend.

If things go according to plan, there'll be more.

These are professional reviews, not the rants and wet kisses of social media. The pieces are intended to be thorough, reporting-driven and helpful to travelers. If you want to check them out, go to the site's home page, where you'll see the name of the hotel (or airline) and the words By Contributing Editor. Click on the headline to read the full story, which appears under my byline. If a review has rotated off of the A&D home page, you can look it up under the hotels or airlines category.

I'm going to be writing more reviews - as well as the usual mix of travel features, news and commentary - right here, too.

As things roll along at A&D, I'll give the occasional heads-up here, as well as on Twitter, where I tweet as Armstrongtravel.

RIS Restaurant, Washington, D.C.

2012-01-11T10:44:00.000-08:00

RIS initially sounds like it might be one of those Washington, D.C. alphabet-soup agencies - you know, like the FAA, FBI, NSA or TSA. Not so. It's the first name of this excellent, popular restaurant's co-owner and head chef, Ris Lacoste, who opened the namesake venture in Washington's West End in 2010 and for some reason decided to put the name all in capital letters.

Here's another initially odd thing about RIS, and Ris - her food can best be described as elegant American comfort food. Sounds like a contraction. But again, not so. Lacoste cooks seasonal American fare, using fresh ingredients in often-familar-sounding dishes and giving them her own inventive touch. The result is a smashing success, combining fine-dining with casual small-plates. The athmosphere is lively but just quiet enough to allow you to converse with your dining companions. Washingtonian magazine named RIS one of its 100 Best Restaurants for 2011.

My wife and I were introduced to RIS on a recent trip to the U.S. East Coast by our friends Ellen and Joe, who work in the District. The four of us sat at the bar and drank wines by the glass, then my wife and I repaired to a small table and had a light evening meal. We liked it so much we returned the following night, taking the very short walk from our hotel, the Westin Georgetown, this time occupying a cosy booth for two. Again, it all worked - just the thing for two traveling Californians who were a tad overfed on heavy food (think peanut butter pie and dumplings and fried fare) a few days before in Pennsylvania, land of the thickset consumer.

We started with a Grey Goose vodka tonic for her and Tanqueray gin martini (dry, up, with olives) for me. The missus had succulent mussels and crispy fries while I feasted on oysters Rockefeller, a classic dish made with a light touch. We ended with two excellent farmhouse cheeses - one cow's milk, one sheep's milk. A nicely balanced French wine, Simonent Febve Chablis, complemented the entrees.

Prices are reasonable for a restaurant of RIS's calibre in the capital city: $10-$25 USD per person for Monday through Friday lunch, $25-$50 USD per person for Monday through Saturday dinner.

The creator of RIS's toothsome cuisine came to it in an interesting way. Born in Massachusetts, with a degree in French from the University of California at Berkeley, Lacoste cooked in France, then came home to cook at the restaurant Georgetown 1789 before going out on her own. Her food, like her education, is well-rounded and refined.

RIS is highly recommended if you're in D.C. as a leisure traveler or a road warrior, or if you live nearby but haven't found your way there yet.

RIS is located at 2275 L Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20037 USA. Tel.: 202.730.2500. E-mail: info@risDC.com. Web: www.risDC.com. Discounted self-parking is available at Circle Parking (1120 23rd Street, NW) with validation from RIS. Nearest Metro stops are Foggy Bottom-GWU and Farragut North.

AirlinesAndDestinations.com

2012-01-07T16:23:00.001-08:00

Some news for the New Year: I just signed on as a contributing editor at AirlinesAndDestinations.com. I'll be writing occasional reviews and features for the New York-based site, which is just over two years old and growing at a nice pace. I'll be doing some writing about airlines and probably a bit more about destinations - including worldwide attractions such as hotels and resorts.

I'm happy to be doing it. AirlinesAndDestinations's co-owner, co-founder and editor, British expat Christian Kjelgaard, is a respected, Scottish-born aviation journalist who served as editor at Aviation.com when that site - owned and operated by an entirely separate company - was a going concern. I wrote for him there, including a twice-weekly column called David Armstrong on Air Travel. That site was a victim of the Great Recession. The independent AirlinesAndDestinations is Chris's creative response, and has a broad scope, meant to align aviation with places people fly to for business and pleasure.

I'll be flagging pieces I write for them in this blog, which will not be slowing down at all. Do check out AirlinesAndDestinationss for its sake, too. It is a bright site, with 65 percent of regular readers living in the United States and a healthy 35 percent in more than 100 countries around the world - a truly global digital venture.

Oakland and The List

2012-01-07T15:59:00.000-08:00

Ah, list-making time again. How precious.

Every year at about this time - which is to say, the end of one year and the beginning of the next - travel media line up to draw up their lists of what's in and what's out, and share their wisdom about what destinations you absolutely have to visit. You know, be there or be square, Where to Go Now, etc.

Ths year, the upmarket, Ivy League-driven New York Times (www.nytimes.com) puts at no. 5 of its 45 must-see places of 2012 a place I know pretty well: Oakland, California. Not suprisngly, visitoakland.com, whose melancholy task it is to promote tourism to this interesting but gritty (and occasionally scary) city across San Francisco Bay from San Francisco is sending out e-mails to tout the recommendation.

The Times touts Oakland chiefly for the revitalization of its Uptown district - actually centered near downtown at roughly Telegraph Avenue above 20th Street - and the most expensive restaurants by celebrity chefs it could visit on the parent company's expense accounts. Uptown is indeed an interesting area, worth your time if you're in the Bay Area. Other places, such as Temescal, the restored Victorian Row of houses and restaurants downtown and especially Rockridge, on the northern city line with Berkeley, are worth a visit, too.

I used to live in Oakland and I like some things about it very much, but as a long-time Bay Area guy, I have to level with you and say it is not most people's idea of a tourist paradise. Most of Oakland is not pretty, some of it - especially West Oakland, east Oakland, downtown's streets after dark and long blocks of murderers' row along International Boulevard are visited at your own risk. Some Oakland BART transit stations and especially the parking lots are high-risk.

I suspect the Times flagged Oakland because the writers and editors like to play with a frisson of fear and see themselves as hip and pioneering, very cool trendspotters, if they do say so themselves. It could be a reaction to the Gray Lady's longtime reputation as an authoritative but dowdy Establishment sheet. Not any more, the Times's hipsters want us to know.

OK, if you say so. Bottom line for travelers: Don't avoid Oakland, just keep your eyes open and explore it on your own, within the broad guidelines cited above.

Cairo

2011-12-30T16:51:00.000-08:00

For nearly a year now, I have been following the news - with alternating elation and deep concern - about the Arab Spring as it manifested in Egypt and especially Egypt's fascinating, maddening, engaging capital city, Cairo.

Concern has been trumping elation lately. Never more so than today, when I read this paragraph in a Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com) news story about Cairo:

"Since the spring, the (Egyptian) military chiefs have allowed or ordered major crackdowns on protesters that have left as many as 100 people dead, and they have sought to enshrine their powers in a new Egyptian constitution, but so far have failed. Now, the generals seem to be using civil society groups as scapegoats, accusing them of using foreign funds to support nefarious efforts to destroy Egypt.''

This after the military raided 17 Cairo offices of pro-democracy groups, confiscating documents and equipment and accusing the organizations - some of which are based outside Egypt and receive some funding from abroad - of, well, as the Post story puts it, "attempting to destroy Egypt.''

I visited Cairo in 2009 and 2010. I met some interesting people there and because I have done that, I know a little more and care a lot more about what happens in Egypt. Travel can do that for you. It was clear to me that there was a pent-up demand for democracy, repressed under since-deposed president, Hosni Mubarak. Such people don't want to destroy Egypt, they want to build Egypt. Now, it appears that Egypt is being burdened with Mubarakism without Mubarak. In place of an aged and out of touch dictator stands a xenophobic, anti-democratic army that may well be trying to restore a military dictatorship.

I hope the brass hats fail. And I hope non-violent resistence to their aggression will succeed. Only then can the millions given some measure of hope by what started in Tahir Square on 25 January 2011, return to building a free nation. And only then will gates to travel and tourism be fully reopened. Most foreigners are understandably skittish about visiting Egypt right now. In line with that, two of my frequeent U.S. freelance outlets cancelled commissioned travel features I was to have written about Cairo. That's a small annoyance for me. It's far more important for a poor populace that depends on revenue from Egypt's crucial tourism industry - think the pyramids, the sphinx, the Nile, the Red Sea, Luxor - to earn a living wage.

Here's to them. Here's to them in 2012, and beyond.

Inn on the Alameda, Santa Fe

2011-12-25T13:33:00.000-08:00

I just signed on as a contributing editor to the New York-based Web site www.AirlinesAndDestinations.com, where I'll be contributing the occasional piece on hotels, resorts and, as the site's title infers, airlines. It's a newsy site, especially if you fly a lot and most especially if you fly a lot internationally.

My inaugural piece is a review of the Inn on the Alameda, a charming getaway property in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is the top of the review:

"The Inn on the Alameda's general manager looked on as I checked in at this gorgeous Santa Fe boutique hotel and said "You look familiar. You've stayed here before, haven't you?' I had, once.

''In 2003.''

For more about the inn, go to www.innonthealameda.com - and check out AirlinesAndDestinations.com for more travel features, news and reviews.

And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you, too.

Rest for the Weary

2011-12-22T14:05:00.000-08:00

Quick, a show of hands: How many travelers think airplane pilots - some with hundreds of lives in their hands - should get enough sleep to fly safely before they take off? No one? Nah, I didn't think so. Me neither.

NOT.

I think we can agree that pilots should be rested. Disagreement comes about on what 'rested' means, with airlines traditionally pushing pilots hard to keep working and pilots pushing back, saying they are tired, need more rest between flights and shorter working days. Recently, this long-running debate has taken place against the frightening backdrop of a fatal Colgan Air regional commuter jet near Buffalo, New York, in February 2009 that killed 50 people. Federal Aviation Administration investigators said pilot fatigue played an important role in the crash.

Yesterday - nearly three years after that terrible accident - the FAA (www.faa.gov) issued changes to work rules for U.S. airline passenger pilots that had last been overhauled in the mid-1980s. Some rules date back to the 1960s. A good deal more is known now about the effects of sleep deprivation and the challenges posed by night flying, which is when UPS, FedEx and other cargo carriers do a lot of their flying. Controversially, the new FAA rules exempt cargo carriers, over the objections of cargo plane pilots.

It's taken nearly three years following the Buffalo crash to hammer out new rules primariy because airlines argued that stiffer regulations will cause scheduling problems and the subsequent operational changes would cost money. The FAA weakened the new rules in response, reducing the FAA's projections of additional costs to $297 million USD over 10 years, down from an earlier estimate of $2 billion USD.

The airlines have two years to implement the changes. Put that together with the nearly three years that have gone by since the crash of the Colgan Air jet - operating as a Continental Connection flight - and the delay will reach five years. That's a real sense of urgency for you.

As reported by the Associated Press in today's Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com) "Jean Medina, a spokeswoman for the Airlines for America trade association, said that the group is reviewing the new requirements. "We support changes to the rule that are science-based and that will improve safety,' she wrote in an e-mail.''

For those who track such things, Airlines for America, or A4A, is the new name of the U.S. trade association that used to be known as the Air Transport Association (www.airlines.org).

Just what are the rules changes?

According to a Reuters report published 22 December on www.airwise.com, "The policy ... would reduce the maximum work day from 16 hours to 14 hours per day. Pilots would get at least 30 consecutive hours free from duty on a weekly basis, a 25 percent increase over current policy.

"The rule also sets a 10-hour minimum rest period prior to flight duty, a two-hour increase over the old rule.

"The FAA imposed a 'fitness for duty' standard on pilots, who would have to certify before starting work that they are well-rested.''

According to media reports, the captain of the doomed Colgan Air flight logged onto a computer in the wee hours in an airport crew lounge - he apparently didn't get any sleep the night before. The first office flew overnight in a cockpit jumpseat to Newark, N.J. from Seattle, so she could get to work. Both pilots could be heard yawning on audio tapes recovered by investigators.

The AP noted in a line that is moving and chilling in equal parts: "Families of the dead have lobbied relentlessly for more stringent regulations to fight pilot fatigue.''

CD Cafe, Beijing

2011-12-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

The year was 1996. It was my first trip to China - to Asia, actually. I just flew in to Beijing from Detroit on Northwest Airlines (when they were independent - remember?), hadn't slept a wink and was exhausted. Nevermind. A gaggle of Chinese artists and fellow U.S. journos wanted to go out that night for reveling purposes.

We motored from the highrise China World Hotel (www.shangri-la.com) to an unprepossessing joint on the eastern Third Ring Road and tumbled out of the car. It was the CD Jazz Cafe, a local hotspot, a place, we were told, to hear live jazz. It looked from the outside like a cluster of cabins stapled together. Inside, it was cozy, soft-lit and - true to the name - a jazz band - a good one, composed of talented Beijing players - was holding forth on the small stage.

We settled-in with some surprisingly good local red wine - Dragon Seal. It was a good evening, if foreshortened by fatigue. When we later indicated with drooping eyelids that it was time to go to our pillows at the China World, an energized Beijinger exclaimed in astonishment "Americans!'' Yeah. Party-poopers.

Exactly a year ago, I was back in Beijing, staying this time in a smartly designed hotel called the Opposite House (www.theoppositehouse.com), a stylish outpost of the Hong Kong-British outfit Swire Hotels (www.swirehotels.com), where roaming staffers check you in on their iPads. Located on Santilun, the erstwhile Bar Street - largely transformed from an strip where visitors bought DVDs for one dollar U.S. into a high-end retail center where visitors and locals throng a big, glassy Apple Store - the Opposite House is just a short walk to the Third Ring Road. Pulling a wool cap down on my head, tugging on my gloves, I strolled through the neighborhood, past foreign embassys with their alert Chinese guards and over a highway overpass and there found, to my astonishment ... the CD Cafe, looking as tumbledown as ever. It's still here, I marveled. I was so wiped out on my first visit, I had no real idea where it was and I hadn't returned since '96.

I am pleased to report that this old favorite is indeed still there and evidently going strong. Called the CD Jazz Cafe for a long time, it served as a venue for touring jazz musicians such as Wynton Marsalis. Recently, it has been rechristened the CD Blues Cafe and Bar, because the place is now featuring - yes- blues bands. Small but mighty, the CD Blues Cafe and Bar is listed on cool Web sites such as Local Noodles (www.localnoodles.com) and in Beijing publications for foreigners such as The Beijinger (www.thebeijinger.com). It also crops up in some guidebooks. Should you find yourself in Beijing, it is very much worth a visit.

Hope they're still pouring Dragon Seal.

The CD Blues Cafe and Bar (www.cdbluescafe.com) is located in the Chaoyang embassy, fashion, shopping and drinking district near the east Third Ring Road. It's on the east side of the busy road, just south of the sprawling Agricultural Exhibition Center. It opens late and closes late. Local phone number is 6506 8288.

Cell Phone Flap

2011-12-16T14:51:00.000-08:00

The United States is working itself into a lather - something Americans so enjoy doing - over this week's proposal by the National Transportation Safety Board to ban all mobile phone use by drivers of cars. Some of the nation's 50 states already ban handheld devices. But the proposal by the NTSB (www.ntsb.gov), a branch of the oft-reviled federal government, would ban hands-free devices, too.

It's America's Outrage du Jour.

This proposal will fail, for two reasons: First, it makes too much sense. Logic suggests that texting, talking or e-mailing from behind the wheel of a two-ton moving vehicle might be a tad dangerous. But logic has nothing to do with it, which brings us to the second reason for imminent failure: It would be seen as infringing on the individual rights of Americans, among the most individualistic people on earth. Some of my countrymen would rather be dead than allow Big Gov'mint to tell them what to do, even if it would serve the greater public good. And so, with the continuing explosion of smart-phone use by drivers, some soon will be.

But why sweat the small stuff? There is already push-back by phone-makers, states-righters, and don't tread on me types, and predictions are being made that any laws passed will be laws not enforced.

This is the time of year when travel-watchers predict what the coming holiday will be like. The American Automobile Association (www.aa.com) produces one of the most closely followed forecasts. This holiday season, encompassing Christmas and New Year's Eve and running from Dec. 23, 2011 to Jan. 3, 2012, will see 91.9 million Americans travel more than 50 miles, predicts the AAA. Some 83.3 million of them will drive, driven to their cars by rising air fares, crowded airports and airplanes, famously limited U.S. train service and slightly less expensive gasoline.

Think just how good it will be to have a teenage driver drinking and driving on New Year's Eve and texting something along the lines of "U cool? I had awesome cupcakes at grandma's'' while sharing the road with you.

Hold that thought, and Happy New Year.

Battersea Power Station

2011-12-11T10:52:00.000-08:00

We bounce around the magnificent ruin, packed into a golf cart, yellow hardhats bobbing on our heads, as mist comes through where the roof used to be be and our guide points out the nesting place of the only known pair of peregrine falcons in central London. Someday, he promises, this place will be a chic dining, drinking, shopping and partying destination, served by a fleet of water taxis and up and running for the 2012 London Olympics.

"This place'' is the Battersea Power Station, located hard by the River Thames on the south bank just outside central London. The year is 2005. A Hong Kong investor has big plans for revamping the old power plant, a fixture on the river with its four towering smokestacks since 1933 and abandoned since 1983.

That was then. This is now: The battered old site is up for sale again, the Hong Kong investor having sold in 2006 to an Irish group that couldn't keep up with ballooning costs of redevelopment. The banks want their money back. The whole complicated, on-going story is detailed at www.nytimes.com in a terrific, if slightly saddening, New York Times story by Julia Werdigier, posted Dec. 9.

As it happens, my wife was born in and raised in Battersea, the gritty, gradually gentrifying neighborhood that surrounds the former power station - designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, who, the Times story reports, "also designed London's red telephone boxes and the power station that now houses the Tate Modern museum ...''

Locals - and interested non-locals, like me - have been hoping for some time now to see a similarly glorious new chapter for the enormous Battersea Power Station - commanding even in decrepitude. My wife and I were briefly hopeful after our tour in '05, transfixed by a developer's vision that included putting a bar in the Art Deco control room, with its parquet floor and view of the vast former turbine hall. If that bar is ever built, it will become the coolest bar in London the day it opens.

Much rides on redevelopment of the listed building and its 40-acre site - including, apparently, whether Battersea will get two planned subway stations on the London Underground. Incredibly, this long-time working class area - now also a favorite of artists, architects and estate agents - does not have a Tube station to call its own. This must be unique for a district this size so close to central London. Posh Chelsea sits directly across the Thames.

I'd say Stay Tuned - one of those stock cliches so beloved by journalists - but you may have to stay tuned for an awfully long time to find out what's going to happen to this brooding old building.

SAS Biz and Premium Economy

2011-12-07T16:06:00.000-08:00

I recently traveled on Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) between the United States and Sweden, flying premium economy from Chicago to Stockholm on the way to Sweden and business class from Copenhagen to Chicago on the way back. It was a good journey.

It will not come as a Stop the Presses moment for frequent fliers to read that business class is better than premium economy class on the same airline. That said, SAS's Economy Extra is a superior example of an increasingly popular type of service perched midway between biz and coach class. This past week, SAS won the annual award for best long-haul premium economy in a poll of frequent fliers for the U.S. monthly magazine Global Traveler (www.globaltravelerusa.com). It's not hard to see why. Unlike offerings by airlines that serve up premium economy with heavier doses of economy than premium-quality product, SAS features service that borrows more from Biz.

As the airline notes, "Economy Extra passengers on SAS's long-haul routes are seated in a separate cabin in seats that are one inch wider and offer six inches more legroom than in Economy. Other features include laptop computer power outlets at every seat, greater choice of meals and drinks and personal video screen with audio and video on demand. Economy Extra customers may use the Business check-in, have an increased baggage allowance, and access to Fast Track security, where available, and earn more EuroBonus points.''

Speaking of business class: It's good. I flew SAS biz class once before, in May 2007. It was fine then, but seems to have been upgraded, with better in-flight entertainment choices and enhanced food and drink menus. Surveys of frequent fliers show that most people care most about their seat and about on-time arrivals and departures. I care about those things, too. But on flights that can last 10 hours or so, I also care about amenities that some travelers consider frills: Namely, food and drink and ways to make the hours fly by when you're not sleeping or working: music, movies, games, TV.

As a corporation, SAS is a rather ungainly bird. The airline - which flew 25.3 million passengers in 2010 and was rated the 10th-best airline in the world by Skytrax (www.airlinequality.com) that year - is jointly owned by the governments of Norway, Sweden and Denmark with 50 percent of shares plus one more share. The rest is privately owned. None of this matters in the sky, where service from a smoothly multilingual staff nicely strikes a tricky balance between attentive and unobtrusive, polite but not fawning.

About those food and drink offerings: SAS stocks the caraway-flavored Scandinavian liquor aquavit (Aalborg Jubilaeums), savory meat (lamb on my flight), fish and vegetarian entrees and open-face sandwiches. The wine list was short but well-chosen: One of the two whites was the French product Alain Grignon Viognier 2010; one of the two reds was a good pick from Chile: Falernia Reserve Carmenere 2009.

One more thing: SAS was cited as Europe's most punctual airline in 2010 by the respected research outfit FlightStats, which tracks such things.

In sort: Good airline, good ride.

For more information: www.flysas.com/us.

Japan's Travel Road to Recovery

2011-12-05T15:17:00.001-08:00

Virtually every sentient being on the planet knows that northeastern Japan was devastated by a powerful earthquake and tsunami and severe damage to nuclear power plant facilities this past March. Sadly, the loss of life and damage to property was substantial. In line with that, travel to Japan - including parts of the country that were not affected by the tragedy, which is to say, most of Japan - fell off a cliff.

What many people may not know is just how successful Japan has been at restoring services and tourist amenities. Not everything is back to normal. Most seriously, the restricted area around the damaged power plant on the Pacific in the stricken Tohoku region will be off-limts for visitors and former residents for quite some time to come - but many services are running at near-normal levels in Tohoku. Travelers should also be aware that radiation levels in Tokyo are running below measured levels in many other world capitals.

Japanese tourism authorities are understandably eager to convey the message of near-normality. Constantly changing conditions are updated on the Web site of the Japan National Tourism Organization (http://www.jnto.go.jp/eq/eng/). Another good source of current information about travel to Japan can be found here: http://www.visitjapan.jp/eng/top.html.

As a journalist who writes about Japan and a traveler who finds Japan one of the safest and most interesting countries in the world, I, in turn, have been eager to learn more about what things are like nearly nine months after the tragedy. To that end, I had lunch in San Francisco recently with Midori Yamamitsu, consul and director at the Consulate General of Japan, and her colleague Takeshi Kurashina, vice consul.

They told me that the Tohoku region is well-known in Japan for its succulent oysters, rice cultivation and fine sake, all of which help draw visitors to the region. Nowadays, these and other products are being monitored for radiation, to ensure that unsafe products don't reach the marketplace.

Over our lunch, I sipped a glass of Koshi no Kanbai, a clean, smooth sake that, I later learned, is one of Japan's premium sakes. (Thank you, Google.) It's called Pure Realm in English. Made in Niigata Prefecture in the Hokuriku region, it is an artisan sake that can be hard to find, even in Japan, but well worth it if you can.

Even amidst all the devastation of last winter, the beloved Matsushino island cluster has survived, I was told. Small, uninhabited rocky islands covered with pine trees, Matsushima'a 260 isles are counted among Japan's natural treasures. Local ferries are running again, though some long-distance ferry service is not. Also, the airport has been repaired and is up and running, though with fewer international flights. Tokyo's massive Narita and Haneda airports were never seriously damaged and are operating long-haul international flights as they always do.

The JNTO site states that no additional power blackouts are expected, though visitors may find the famous bright lights of Tokyo to be less bright in the near-term and some escalators in airports and train stations may not be operating.

It would be a stretch to say things are perfectly normal - just business as usual - but the rip-tide of fear that put the entire, and very diverse, island nation off-limits for travelers this year shouldn't be allowed to run rampant into next year.

Japan is still traveling down the road to recovery. The good news is the pace of that recovery is accelerating and the traveler's path is smoothing out.

Sonoma's Blessed Olives

2011-12-04T11:51:00.001-08:00

Olives - after wine grapes - are the second-most important crop in California's Sonoma - an unpretentious getaway destination and prime agricultural area. Sonoma is actually three overlapping places in the north central part of the Golden State - town, valley and county.

During the otherwise slow, rainy winter months, Sonoma puts on an annual three-month-long Festival of the Olive (www.olivefestival.com). Local chefs feature the fruit in their dishes, bartenders vie with one another to fix the perfect 'dirty'' martini - spiked with olive juice and flecks of fruit - wineries set out olive oil tastings, hotels offer off-peak deals and the area generally celebrates all things olive.

As it happens, my wife and I are amateur olive growers. We have a few slender, young trees on our property and in recent years have home-cured olives we hand-picked from our trees. The goal is to make our own olive oil when we get a big enough crop.

So it was that we motored yesterday to the town of Sonoma for the blessing of this year's commercial olive harvest. The event took place before a hundred or so olive fanciers in the nearly 200-year old Somoma mission and church - the northernmost and youngest of the chain of missions built from Mexico's Baja California deep into the U.S. state of California from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Founded by Jesuit and Francican friars from Spain, the missions introduced olive trees to California. The variety - or cultivar - the padres planted is known today as the mission olive. This is the variety we have out in back of our house.

This 11th annual blessing of the olives was a lovely event, staged to the sounds of an acoustic trio playing (mostly) Mexican music in the long, deep, narrow nave of the old mission, which is still used for Roman Catholic church services. The blessing was performed in a soft, lilting Irish brogue by Rev. Michael Kelly.

Outside the church, in what is now a state park, mature olive trees flourish, providing, in the warm months, a sheltering canopy for picnicers (admission $3 USD). The church's full name is Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma, and it humble but beautiful, with whitewashed walls, narrow windows and a weathered roof supported by wooden pillars.

Wendy Peterson, of the Sonoma Valley Visitors Bureau, MC'd, as half a dozen speakers extolled the health benefits of olives, spoke of the millennia-old olive oil trade born in southern Europe, the Near East and north Africa, proudly recounted the painstaking revival of historic, long-neglected olive groves at the California missions and hailed the modern American trade in olives and olive oil. California produces well over 90 percent of U.S. olive oil. In recent years, the state's growers have become mainstays of the organic, slow food, locavore movement.

Sadly, the nonprofit group that spearheaded the worthy work of reviving the old groves - the Mission Olive Preservation, Restoration and Education Project - disbanded after yesterday's ceremony. After 13-years of volunteer labor, its trove of knowledge is headed to the University of California at Davis and other educational centers where it can be cared for and developed.

If you visit Sonoma, be sure to sample some olive oil. If you have time for only one olive-inspired stop, check out the Olive Press shop (www.theolivepress.com) at the far southern tip of Sonoma Valley. Then, sip some local wine. Combined, the olive and the grape provide a true taste of Sonoma - and California.

For more information:www.sonomavalley.com, phone toll-free in the U.S. 866.996.1090, or, when you're local, go to the visitors' center in the handsome brick building in the town of Sonoma plaza: 453 First Street East, Sonoma, CA 95476 USA.

What's in a Name? Myanmar or Burma?

2011-12-02T17:19:00.000-08:00

What's in a name? When it comes to Burma - or is it Myanmar? - plenty. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discovered this on her visit to the long-isolated Southeast Asian nation, where what name you use indicates what your politics are or even what ethnic group you come from.

I, too, found this out when I ventured there a decade back in search of a travel story. I wasn't supposed to go, following the argument that tourism gives the corrupt government more revenue, while travel sanctions would weaken the regime. But the regime simply cut deals with neighboring powerhouse China and took in even more money that way. With tourism, at least some money makes its way to local working folk. When I was there, they averaged $1 USD per person per day in income. So, I went.

Burma is the older name. Myanmar is the name the ruling military junta, in power since the early 1960s, gave the country maybe 20 years ago. That makes it bad, right? My former newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, was among a number of Western media outlets whose editors thought so. The Examiner style gurus refused to use Myanmar, so my every reference in the travel section cover story I wrote after my trip was struck and changed to Burma for publication.

But things are not as simple as that. Burma is a name bestowed on the country by British colonial rulers. The Burmese are the largest ethnic group, but there are minorities fighting border wars with the authorities of long duration. Calling the country Burma is like saying most people in the United States are Caucasian so the country should be called the United States of Caucasia. Problem: It's not inclusive.

People who object to Myanmar do so because they don't think the junta should be free to rename - or rebrand, in marketing-speak - the country. But Myanma, without the R, was the name of a bygone kingdom in the vincinity; it refers to a place, not a group, and its use is more progressive than the name it replaced, despite the rotten reputation of the junta - which may be liberalizing at long last.

So, I'm sticking with Myanmar - even as I lament the name-change from the lovely Rangoon to the rather flat-sounding Yangon for the country's largest city. Happily, the city of Mandalay is still called Mandalay.

BTW, when I asked English-speaking locals in Yangon/Rangoon and Mandalay how the name of the country is pronounced, they told me the final R is silent. Imagine a southern American drawl, then say ''ME 'n ma,'' and you've pretty much got it.

My story in Napa Sonoma magazine

2011-12-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

If you are traveling in Northern California anytime in the next four or five months, check out my profile of Napa artist Gordon Huether in Napa Sonoma magazine. In time, the piece, headlined "Civic Artist,'' will be possted at www.winecountry.com, but for now, it is available in ink-on-paper form.

Here is the lead paragraph - the lede, in journalistic lingo:

"Walking around downtown Napa with Gordon Huether is not unlike taking a stroll with a hipper, artier Mr. Rogers. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and Huether, who owns an eponymous gallery on First Street, seems to know everyone: shopkeepers, restaurateurs, tasting-room servers.''

Page 30, if you're looking.

AMR in Chapter 11

2011-11-29T11:14:00.001-08:00

At last, years after fellow U.S. carriers went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization to cut costs, AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines, filed Chapter 11. It could - and arguably should - have been done long ago. (www.aa.com).

For travelers, the impact won't be felt strongly, at least not at first. AMR's new chief executive officer, Thomas Horton, says that American - the world's third-largest airline - will over time trim its route structure and reduce the number of flights. The airline is operating normally and AA flights are landing and taking off at hub airports at Los Angeles LAX, New York JFK, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Miami and Chicago. Tickets are being honored as per usual. The airline's frequent flier program has not been affected, nor have its code-shares and other forms of cooperation with oneworld alliance partners Japan Airlines and British Airways.

The big losers in this filing are AA employees, who number 78,000, and now face layoffs and deep cuts to their defined-benefit pensions. AMR shareholders are simply sunk. The company's stock, which soared north of $40 USD per share in 2007, fell to 33 cents today. The Chapter 11 filing makes the stock worthless.

AA lost $162 million USD in the third quarter of this year; it was the 14th time in the last 16 quarters that the company has lost money. According to a report in today's Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com), AMR has lost $20 billion USD since 2001. That number sounds high but if true, that is about half the combined worldwide losses of all airlines in that time-frame. It's an enormous amount of money, brought about by a combination of low-cost competition, volatile fuel prices and the high cost of servicing pensions.

Under Horton, who replaces longtime CEO Gerard Arpey, American has a chance to straighten up and fly right. The changes will be painful for workers and shareholders but, long-term, travelers will probably benefit from a streamlined, modernized airline. This is especially true as AA starts to take possession of the 460 new planes it has ordered - an order the company says will not dwindle as it makes its way through bankruptcy.

Santa Fe's Kakawa Chocolate House

2011-11-27T13:08:00.000-08:00

When I asked Peter Wolf, co-founder and owner of Kakawa Chocolate House, what got him into the business of making and selling chocolate, he smiled and replied without hesitation: "The buzz.''

I can see why. On a blustery, rainy morning in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when a power failure knocked out the lights, it was Kakawa's chocolate creations that proved illuminating. Nestled in an intimate former private home in the high-desert state's capital city, our small group peered through dim natural light at delicious-looking, house-made chocolate bars and chocolate truffles in their display cases.

The buzz Wolf alluded to made its presence felt when I sampled what he aptly described as an elixer. The naturally occuring caffeine and modest amount of sugar provided a pleasant lift, perfect for an inclement day. I was sipping a rich, dark, thick, largely unsweetened brew derived from a drinking chocolate favored by Thomas Jefferson. Served from a blue and white cup and saucer, it was unbelievably good, velvet-smooth. Kakawa whips up other chocolate drinks inspired by historical sources (as well serving its own, strictly modern creations). Some of these elixers are as close as we can get these days to the drinking chocolate enjoyed by Aztec nobility in pre-Columbian Mexico or, later, in the shops and cafes of Old Europe.

Wolf, a contractor when he's not selling chocolate, is a cocoa proslytizer. He knows, and cares about, the natural and cultural history of chocolate. A section on Kakawa's Web site is entitled "Cosmology.'' Kakawa's chief chocolatier, Ariana Rossi, has the chocolate molecule tatooed on her forearm.

If all this sounds a little bit precious, don't be put off. The quality of Kakawa's products justifies any explanation or marketing claim made for it. If you find yourself in the lovely desert town of Santa Fe anytime soon, go.

Kakawa Chocolate House is located at 1050 E. Paseo de Peralta (near the popular shopping street Canyon Road), Santa Fe, NM 87501 USA, tel. 505.982.0388, www.kakawachocolates.com.

Misery Air: United

2011-11-24T10:40:00.001-08:00

It's Thanksgiving Day in the United States, and I know I'm supposed to feel thankful, but when it comes to flying United Airlines - the big carrier at my main airport, San Francisco International (www.flysfo.com)- I just can't.

My feeling about United (www.ual.com) can be summed-up like this: Misery, thy name is United Airlines.

My wife and I flew Chicago-based United from SFO to Washington Dulles International earlier this month, paying a bit extra for Economy Plus, to get a little extra legroom. That worked out OK, but what didn't go well was the passenger-flight crew relationship. Simply put, the crew on our flight couldn't have cared less about the comfort and convenience of their customers.

The main source of tension was the overhead luggage bins. By the time most passengers clambered on board the needle-thin, single-aisle aircraft - following frequent fliers, military people in uniform, and people who needed help boarding - the bins were full. Seated in row 7, I, for example, had to stow my carry-on in the bin over row 35. I was lucky to find a spot.

This situation has come about because airlines, led by money-bleeding United, have reduced the size of aircraft on many routes, slashed the number of flights and instituted extra fees for everything from extra legroom to checking bags, in an attempt to finally return to profitability. Hoping to save money in tight times, many passengers are, not surprisingly, opting to carry on their bags. The rub: There is not enough space for them. So, passengers struggle with their bags, increasingly frustrated, the boarding of aircraft is delayed and take-off is delayed, compounding frustration.

Rather than help, United flight crews such as the sarcastic, snickering bunch of flight attendants on our overbooked flight, all too often stand idly by, amused by the frustrations of their customers.

"Come on, honey, try again, honey, move it, honey,'' one FA said loudly as a diminutive woman struggled to find space for her bag. Later, in voices, loud enough to be heard by passengers, the FAs gathered in a tight knot and talked, laughing all the while, about a passenger who went fruitlessly from one side of the aisle to the other, trying to find a space to stow a bag. Another FA on the intercom said in a hectoring voice that the plane could not take-off until all the overhead bin doors were closed and if we wanted an on-time flight we had better get the lead out.

Blame the customers - it's the customers' fault for a situation United itself created.

United's largely notional idea of customer service came about several years back when staff had to give back benefits and wages to management bent on downsizing. Employees couldn't strike back effectively at management so they have taken it out on people they can push around - their customers - who, it must be pointed out, are the only reason these disgruntled employees have a job in the first place.

Back on Oct. 1, 2010, United merged with Continental Airlines, creating a new company, United Continental Holdings Inc. In recent years, Continental had forged a reputation for a generally well-run and traveler-friendly company. When I flew Continental in November 2009 from London to Newark, near the end of a round-the-world trip, I was pleasantly surprised by how good Continental was.

The merger has yet to fully finish-up, however, and the can-do Continental culture has not replaced the miserable United culture, even though chief executive officer Jeff Smisek came over from Continental to run what is now the world's largest airline. As a useful piece in the 24 November Chicago Tribune by reporter Gregory Karp points out, the new United hasn't received an SOC - single operating certificate - from the Federal Aviation Administration, giving the merged company permission to cross-crew its flights. Until that happens - Karp reports it should come soon - the customer-friendly Continental staff can't blend in with their United counterparts. (www.chicagotribune.com).

As it is, the frequent flier programs of the two heretofore separate airlines will fully merge Jan. 1, 2012, and the company will soon take additional steps to become one in the coming months. As I and other long-suffering United customers can attest, it can't happen a minute too soon.

Thanksgiving a Travel Turkey?

2011-11-23T16:31:00.000-08:00

The Thanksgiving holiday season begins in earnest today in the United States, where Turkey Day might just be a travel turkey again this year.

Why? Let us count the ways.

1. Crowds. No way to avoid them. Along with Christmas and maybe Fourth of July weekend, this is the busiest leisure travel window of the year in the U.S. Expect crowded airports, long lines at security and everything that goes with that.

2. Crowded planes. The airlines have been cutting back service, flying fewer routes and using smaller planes, since Sept. 11, 2001, and aviation downsizing has continued apace since the start of the Great Recession in 2008.

3. Jammed overhead luggage bins. Smaller planes, combined with a three-year trend for U.S. carriers to charge extra fees for checked bags - Southwest Airlines is a notable exception - means passengers try to carry it all on, quickly filling the limited storage space in the smaller planes. As passengers struggle with luggage, it takes more time to board the plane, creating additional frustration.

4. High costs. Orbitz Worldwide Inc. reports that the average round trip air fare in the U.S. from today through Sunday, 28 November, has risen 11 percent to $373 USD from Thanksgiving last year. For road warriors, gasoline is also up and there will be crowded highways; the American Automobile Association forecasts 4 percent more people will drive to Grandma's place this Thanksgiving than last. Think it gets better at hotels? Nah. According to TravelClick Inc., the average nightly rate for U.S. hotels is 5 percent higher than last year at this time, at $126.35 per night.

What can be done about all this? Not a lot, but you can make incremental improvements, using loyalty points, paying extra for flying premium economy class and trading that SUV for a vehicle that sips, rather than chugs, fuel.

Short of that, well, just perservere. Getting there will not be half the fun, but when the turkey reaches the table at Grandma's, it'll be alright. Hey, it's still Thanksgiving.

The Road to Penn State

2011-11-18T14:16:00.000-08:00

STATE COLLEGE, PA. - The road to State College - home of Pennsylvania State University - passes through wrinkled, weathered mountains, down long valleys flanked by tree-covered ridgelines, past modest farmhouses with satellite dishes in the yard and, finally, winds down into a hill-ringed bowl called Happy Valley. The enormous football stadium - Beaver Statium seats nearly 108,000 fans - is overlooked by Mt. Nittany, namesake of Penn State's Nittany Lions sports teams.

These days, the road to Penn State - which I drove with my wife and relatives last weekend for a fraught football game against the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers - is more like the road to purdition, and Happy Valley is far from giddy with joy.

As most people in North America know - and all fans of U.S. college football are aware - a high-profile former Penn State assisant coach is under arrest for alleged child molestation. Moreover, two senior Penn State officials are in custody for supposedly covering up the offenses and lying to a grand jury. The university president has been deposed. Penn State's legendary head football coach, Joe Paterno, has been fired. Some of the alleged abuse occurred while the accused worked for Paterno and several alleged assaults occured on university property. Paterno is not charged with any crime, but the famously morally upright coach has been slammed for following only the letter of state law, passing on information about the supposed assaults to his university superiors but not calling police, himself. He resigned, effective at the end of the season, but was fired just hours later. By phone.

It was an intensely emotional time to be at Penn State at last Saturday's game, on a visit I had planned long before the current storm broke. I visited a community suddenly - and, it can be argued, belatedly - introspective. I saw people deeply saddened about the apparent experiences of at least eight abused boys and determined to rebuild their university's honorable reputation. The Nittany Lions football team walked arm-in-arm onto the field at the start of the game in a slow processional and knelt at midfield with their Nebraska opponents prior to kick-off. It was a moving moment. Nearly all 108,000 spectators observed a long moment of silence. One jerk yelled out "Play football!'' "Shut up!'' a woman retorted. After a few titters, the huge crowd was absolutely silent. There was eloquence and dignity in the silence.

After that, the game - won by the visitors, 17-14 - seemed anticlimatic. People understand there is more at stake than football. For Penn State fans, it was a singular experience, partly because of the seriousness of the charges of child abuse and partly because Joe Paterno was no longer on the coaching staff he joined as an assistant in 1950. It's hard to overstate how revered JoePa, is he is called, is in Pennsylvania. Back in the '80s, I strolled into one of the many lackluster "family'' restaurants that dot the state and nearly walked into a life-size cardboard cutout likeness of Paterno. I almost expected the coach to show us to our table. Last weekend, after wandering through lingering fall color on PSU's leafy campus to the hugely popular campus Creamery, I noted that Peachy Paterno - vanilla ice cream with peaches - is still on the menu. Well, for now, anyway.

Today, more sad news: Paterno's family just announced that the 84-year-old has lung cancer, supposedly treatable. Let's hope so.

There's a lot of accountability to be established, a lot of healing to be done and a long road ahead for Penn State - and there's a lot of thinking to be done about the wisdom of falling in love with a sport, a coach or an institution without also bringing a measure of scrutiny along for the ride.

Carmel, California's Aunt Fairy Bird

2011-11-08T16:20:00.000-08:00

I lunched recently at Casanova restaurant, in Carmel, California, where I came across this short history of the restaurant's cottage-like building - rendered in what I'd call Carmel Hobbit architectural style - as printed in a local newspaper, the Carmel Pine Cone. I am reposting the undated item because I find it charming:

"Some years ago, we were walking along Fifth between San Carlos and Mission, when we suddenly heard a gentle "hello'. The sound came from behind a screen door in a tiny house, the worse for wear, just past the Shell station. We approached the door (which never opened) and met Aunt Fairy Bird, a small black lady who had lived there for over 50 years.

"Her house, situated as it was in downtown Carmel, was in truth a shack, but it was coveted by nearby landowners. She lived there alone for many years. When she died at nearly 90, not long after our only encounter, her house and a lot were the object of spirited bidding in an estate sale. We learned that she had once been the cook for Charlie Chaplin, that her husband Tom had been a popular handyman in Carmel, and that she was a handy-lady for several Carmel families.

"While cleaning uup her house, her executor found a great many Social Security checks that she had saved, hidden in the pages of newspapers and magazines. With him we helped open her safe deposit box and found a gold watch and two $2 bills. Aunt Fairy Bird's place is now occupied by Casanova Restaurant. Approach it with some reverence.''

Actually, Casanova is worth visiting not just for history but for cuisine. Run by a Belgian family, it is now a destination restaurant in this popular seaside town and is known for country French and Italian food.

Casanova is located on Fifth Avenue between San Carlos & Mission, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California USA. Tel. 831.625.0501. www.casanovarestaurant.com.

Travel Bug, Santa Fe, New Mexico

2011-11-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

Just back from Santa Fe, New Mexico, with the smell of burning pinon pine still in my nose, and a sharp memory of 20 degree F weather and flying snow, in my head. To get in out of the cold - and just for fun - I stopped by Travel Bug, a welcoming and well-appointed travel books, map and travel accessories shop, right near the 400-year-old town plaza. After spending some time browsing, and buying just two of the many appealing books I saw there, I'm adding Travel Bug to my short list of great travel book stores, where it joins New York City's Idelwild (www.idlewildbooks.com) and London's Stanford's (www.stanfords.co.uk).

Simply put, Travel Bug (www.mapsofnewmexico.com) is terrific. You can sip an espresso or nosh on snacks at tables topped with topographic maps laid out under glass; pick up a GPS device or warm socks, a Tilly hat or an inflatable globe of the world. If you're in this ruggedly beautiful part of the world, be sure and stop in. Travel Bug is global in scope but locally rooted and independently owned. If you do stop by, don't forget to pick up a guidebook or street map of Santa Fe ($5.95 USD), an eminently walkable town, even if winter does sometimes arrive in early November.

Travel Bug is located at 839 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501 USA, tel. 505.992.0418.

Five Cool Things About Stockholm

2011-11-02T16:10:00.001-07:00

There are far more than five cool things about Stockholm, of course, but here are some I especially liked on a recent visit to the Swedish capital:

1. Ostermalmshallen Market. This spacious indoor market occupies a heritage building, and it is a beauty. Stocked with bakeries, fishmongers, cheese sellers, coffee makers, sweet shops, produce vendors and more, it's a great place to snack, shop or have lunch, and a great place to people-watch. On my first visit, a sharp-eyed local called my attention to Benny Andersson, the former member of ABBA, walking the aisles with an environmentally sensitive string bag. Shoppers and workers pretended not to notice him. Benny bought some cheese. Which is only appropriate when you consider how much cheese ABBA sold. Located on Ostermalmstorg. http://saluhallen.info.

2. The Royal Dramatic Theatre. In Swedish, the Dramaten. This ornate structure is the showcase for high-art, theatrical division. The great filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, also an accomplished man of the theatre, was artistic director there after he retired from filmmaking. Public tours, including the extensive costume department, are available to the public, and the classic, horseshoe-shaped main auditorium and marbled halls are impressive. Nybroplan. www.dramaten.se.

3. Kvarnen. In English, "The Mill.'' A well-appointed, spacious tavern with a full, bustling bar and busy kitchen, this is the fictional hangout for Lisbeth Salander in Stieg Larsson's insanely popular trilogy of crime novels - you know, the one that begins with "The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo'' and concludes with "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest.'' I didn't see the tiny, punked-out Salander there or anyone who looked like her, but the fish is fresh and tasty, the schnaps and beers are cold and this is a lively spot to hoist a few and eat casually and well. It has a stylish edginess to it; when the manager gave me his business card, I saw that it is made of metal. Tjarhousgatan 4, www.kvarnen.com.

4. Gamla Stan. In English "Old Town.'' This is the narrow-laned part of town where Stockholm began in the 13th century. The heart of the district is perhaps unavoidably touristy but locals visit, too. The Royal Palace, the enormous and grand official residence of Sweden's kings, is in Gamla Stan, just off the water. In warm months, people sit outside drinking coffee - Swedes consume copious amount of coffee - or licking ice cream cones. Swedes supposedly eat the most ice cream of any people in Europe. Yet, Sweden is chilly. Go figure.

5. The Red Room at Berns Salonger. The Red Room is, incongruously for a stately European hotel and performing arts venue, a pan-Asian restaurant, albeit an Asian restaurant that also serves Swedish staples like the rich moose meat I sampled at lunch. Story goes: Some Chinese were stranded in neutral Sweden when China was invaded at the start of World War II, and couldn't get home. If you have a lemon, make ... dim sum. The Red Room was transformed into the first Chinese restaurant in Sweden. Before that, it was a haunt of artists and writers, including August Strindberg, a regular, who set a short story in the restaurant - then more like a private club, and pre-Asian - and entitled it "The Red Room,'' natch. Berzelii Park, www.berns.se/en.

Sis

2011-11-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

My aunt Sis Armstrong had another, given first name, but absolutely no one called her anything but Sis. I suppose that's because this late-blooming, intrepid traveler felt like kin to so many people. Sis passed away the other day, an unconventional person from a conventional background, who had an insatiable curiosity about the great world.

Sis didn't travel seriously until late middle-age, but by the time advancing years kept her from the road in her early eighties, she had seen first-hand parts of the world she only glimpsed in photos and dreams during her younger years: Spain, London and parts of southern England, Italy, much of Canada and the United States. In her later years, she typically traveled on customized tours with the estimable group Elderhostel, where professors and other experts gave talks and led tours of places visited.

She traveled independently, too, especially after she retired from a career in retail and work for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A working-class woman who didn't go beyond high school and lived her whole life in the small city where she was born, she largely educated herself.

At age 70, Sis and my mother - who, at the same age, had never been on an airplane - flew from Pennsylvania to my home in California. Once on the ground, they trekked all over San Francisco on the city's less-than-stellar public transport system, never deterred by unknown territory or inconvenience. Sis walked right up San Francisco's famous, and steep, hills with robust strides.

When she was nearly 80, Sis went with a group from her church to the Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota, where she served as an unpaid volunteer teacher, building bridges between cultures. Inquisitive, intelligent, fearless and possessed of a keen social consciousness, she was a remarkable woman in many ways. Engaged with her community, she was known to many, a beloved figure. Sis was one of life's true travelers.

Rest in peace.

Ingmar Bergman's Projection Room

2011-10-28T15:30:00.000-07:00

Near downtown, on a stately street near the university, through a handsome arched doorway, across the theatre lobby, nearly to the framed and mounted poster advertising "Fanny and Alexander,'' then up a few steps, is the modest projection room where Ingmar Bergman learned to love cinema.

The theater, a lovingly restored 1914 structure in the Swedish university town of Uppsala, is called the Slotts Biograph (in Swedish: Slottsbiografen). Bergman served as an upaid assistant to the projectionist while growing up in Uppsala, his hometown, in the 1920s and 1930s. The room, small but neat, is much like it was then.

The cinema,with its traditional single screen and non-traditionally comfortable seats, is a pleasure to visit. It still shows movies, including silents, though Slotts is no longer a commercial cinema. Rather, it is an arts center with a special emphasis on film. Theatrical performances, music, readings, meetings, even weddings for the heritage-minded, also take place there. The theatre operated as a commercial moviehouse until 1991. It was declared a monument in 1994. Extensively restored, it was reopened in 1996. With just 130 seats, about half as many as during Bergman's boyhood, it is more comfortable now than back in the day.

Visiting the Biograph was one of the highlights of my recent visit to Sweden and Finland. It provides a physical link to Sweden's rich cultural past and to Bergman, an Old Master who is to the movies what Rodin is to sculpture and Rembrandt is to painting. It's easy to imagine the boy Ingmar lifting a new reel of film and offering it to the projectionist, peeking out of the projection room at flickering black and white images on the screen of this marvelous, three-dimensional magic lantern and trundling home after the show to his grandmother's apartment.

She occupied an entire floor in a handsome building that still stands. This was the home fictionalized in Bergman's late masterwork "Fanny and Alexander,'' released in the early 1980s. Before that, making pilgrimmages to see Bergman pictures such as "Wild Strawberries,'' "Smiles of a Summer Night'' and "The Seventh Seal'' were artistic rites of passage for many filmgoers, including myself. His works survive as touchstones of 20th century European art cinema.

After retiring from filmmaking, Bergman (1918-2007) served in Stockholm as artistic director of the magnificent Royal Dramatic Theatre. Tours are offered in that cultural mainstay of central Stockholm and they are well worth taking.

Still, there is something innocent and beguiling about Slotts Biograph. It is easily reached from the central train station in Uppsala, which is only 40 minutes from the capital by train. If you get the chance, go.

Slotts Biograph is located at Lower Linnankatu 6B, 753 09, Uppsala, Sweden. Tel. 018.101101, e-mail info@slottsbio.com.

Five Cool Things About Ventura, California

2011-10-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

There are more than five cool things about the city and county of Ventura, in California. But here are some sterling places to go and things to do that especially appealed to me on my recent visit to Ventura, my first:

1. Downtown Ventura Historic District. This is an eminently walkable area filled with vintage buildings, many of them refurbished and repurposed, used for shops, bars, restaurants, museums and more. The heritage building where Earl Stanley Gardner, creator of "Perry Mason,'' had his law office and the old county courthouse just up the hill, now City Hall, are especially worth seeing. www.ventura-usa.com/things-to-do/areas-to-visit/downtown/.

2. Watermark on Main. Occupying parts of the building where Perry Mason's creator once worked, is the sumptuous Watermark restaurant and its rooftop bar, W20. Owned by the husband and wife team of Kathy Hartley and Mark Hartley - Mark's talent management company manages Olivia Newton-John and country music stars Brad Paisley and Clint Black, among others - this is a gorgeous tricked-out restaurant downstars with superior versions of California comfort food, along with live jazz. W20 was added-on upstairs and expertly blended with the heritage architecture. It has a lovely bar, really jumping at the weekend. Mark Hartley told me there are something like 16 venues that offer live music within a several block area weekend nights. 598 Main St., Ventura, Calif., tel. 805.643.6800, www.watermarkonmain.com

3. Patagonia showcase retail store. The upmarket climbing and outdoor gear company has its mother ship in the restored and renovated Great Pacific Ironworks building, in downtown Ventura city. With a helpful, enthusiastic staff and row upon row of top-quality gear in a handsome redbrick building topped with skylights, this is the place to get in touch with your inner Sherpa. 235 W. Santa Clara St., Ventura, Calif., tel. 805.643.6074, www.patagonia.com.

4. Santa Cruz Island. The largest island in Channel Islands National Park, and the largest island in California, this rugged, rocky redoubt for seabirds and rare wild foxes is reached by ocean ferry from an hour to an hour and a half from Ventura city harbor with the well-run Island Packers company. En route, you may well see swarming birds, leaping dolphins and the occasional whale; blue whales, the biggest creatures to ever inhabit the planet, have been spotted here. The island is largely bereft of tourist amenities but that is by design. It has sea kayaking and hiking paths galore. I did the strenuous 7.4 mile return hike from the pier to Smugglers Cove, with its sandy beach, gnarly-trunked mature olive trees and now-abandoned ranch house, to have a picnic and rest my weary bones. National Park visitors' center 1901 Spinnaker Dr., Ventura, Calif. tel. 805.658.5700, www.nps.gov.

5. The final cool thing is, er, actually two cool things, both located down the highway south of Ventura city in the town of Santa Paula. The California Oil Museum occupies the ground floor of a 19th century building downtown. It is loaded with old oil producing equipment used in the early days of the oil fields of Southern California and has venerable knick-knacks such as tall, spindly gasoline pumps from the earliest gas stations. Upstairs, fitted-out with period furniture, is the original headquarters of Union Oil Co., now part of Chevron: 1001 E. Main St., Santa Paula, Calif., tel. 805.933.0076, www.oilmuseum.net. A short walk from the oil museum is the Museum of Ventura County Agricultural Museum. Opened in late September 2011, this fine new museum, located in a converted railroad warehouse, has old farm equipment, exhibitions on farm life, a strong interactive component to appeal to children and a clear, steady focus on the still-active agricultural life of the county, one of the United States's leading producer of fresh strawberries and its major producer of fine juicy lemons: 100 E. Main St., Santa Paula, Calif., tel. 805.525.3100, www.venturamuseum.org.

Beam Me Up, Scotty

2011-10-26T17:40:00.001-07:00

There's nothing like flying domestic in the United States - and especially flying domestic in coach - that makes me want to crib a line from the old "Startrek'' TV show and say "Beam me up, Scotty!'' If only it would work.

It's no secret to any frequent traveler that domestic flying, especially in the back of the bus - er, plane - suffers by comparison with long-haul transcontinenal or trans-oceanic flying, especially in the front of the plane where first- and business-class is located.

That gap is widening, especially in the U.S. - burdened as it is with airlines that have only recently resumed making money - and that could be temporary, given the state of the national and global economies. Old fleets, shrinking the size of planes used to create packed flights, cutting routes, charging extra for most anything - this is the legacy of a lost decade for U.S. carriers. An antiquated air-traffic control system and overcrowded airports racked with delays add to the problems.

I am fortunate enough to fly often in business and occasionally in first class on long-haul flights by top international carriers. When I fly domestic, though, I often fly coach. This was the case last week when I flew with United Airlines from Los Angeles (LAX) to San Francisco (SFO). It was situation normal all fouled up - again.

What went wrong? Well, no United employee appeared at the designated gate until the scheduled 4:35 p.m. departure, and then only to announce a gate change and a delay. New departure time: 4:58 p.m. Opps! Did we say 4:58? We meant 5:15. All three departure times turned out to be fiction. In fact, the flight went wheels up at 5:53. We left 68 minutes late for the 53-minute flight.

The personable pilot did his best to lighten the mood for frustrated passengers. "This is United flight 460, with eventual service to San Francisco,'' he announced as we sat on the tarmac awaiting permission to take off.

The various reasons cited for the delay were: plane arrived late at LAX; minor mechanical problem; air traffic backup at SFO due to bad weather; and, finally, the need to take-on some extra fuel lest we be ordered to circle before landing in San Francisco. (We weren't.) There was, of course, no room to cross one's legs or retrieve items stored under the seat in front, given how tighty packed the rows of narrow seats were. The bad food for sale on the plane? Don't ask.

Well, so, you might say: What's the big deal? This is absolutely normal. And that's true. That's my point: It's absolutely normal.

Argentina's Santa Julia (+) Wines

2011-10-25T17:43:00.000-07:00

Four years ago, my wife and I visited the Southern Cone countries of South America: Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. Most of the trip was first-rate, never more so than in Mendoza, the high, arid province where 75 percent of Argentina's affordable, world-class wines are produced. Over several days, we visited maybe half a dozen wineries - bodegas. We wound up our touring at Familia Zuccardi, a sprawling, family-owned spread at the foot of the magnificent Andes - which were still wearing a spring cloak of snow when we visited.

While touring the property with a company guide, we spied a table in the vineyards, set with cutlery on white linen. "Wouldn't it be incredible to have glass of wine there?" I said to my wife, nodding toward the table. "You will,'' our guide interjected. "That's your table.'' So, we did have wine there - Zuccardi wines, of course - some made from grapes grown in that very vineyard, along with fresh bread, cheeses and Mendoza olive oil.

Yesterday, I did the next best thing to traveling back to Mendoza; I attended a press luncheon in California for Zuccardi Wines. Zuccardi's vintages are becoming increasingly available in the United States, which the company counts as one of its primary global markets. Chicago's Winesellers Ltd. (www.winesellersltd.com) imports the wines, which retail in the $9-10 USD range in the U.S.

Over lunch at the South American-themed San Francisco restaurant Destino, we tasted sustainably produced vintages - some of them organic - from the winery's new Santa Julia (+) line. It wasn't the same as being in Argentina, to be sure, but the presence of Julia Zuccardi - the line's namesake - helped bring a bit of Argentina to us. Julia, fluent in English, heads up the winery's active tourism division (www.casadelvisitante.com.ar) and plays a key role in marketing. Also on hand to help out with the meal was Argentine chef Ana Rodriguez Armisen, from Famiia Zuccardi.

The wines were supple, rounded and, as the saying has it, fruit-forward, with a smooth finish not often associated with wines in that modest price range. They were also markedly better than most organic wines I have tasted - which are finally getting better, as more producers gain experience making them. Her family's winery, Julia Zuccardi says, has been embracing sustainability for 10 years, making Zuccardi one of the earlier exponents of "green'' winemaking.

We tasted Santa Julia (+) Brut Rose, a Torrontes, a Malbec and a Santa Julia Organica Cabernet Sauvignon and Santa Julia Organica Chardonnay, among others.

Back when my wife and I visited Familia Zuccardi, we followed our wine and appetizers in the vineyards with a full lunch and tastings in the bodega's restaurant. All told, we tried no fewer than 14 wines at lunch that September day. (We had a hired car and driver to take us around.) I didn't try that many wines yesterday, but the California luncheon - organized by Zuccardi's U.S. public relations agency, Folsom and Associates - did as much as anything could to bring back the flair and generosity we experienced in Mendoza without my actually being there.

That, I hope, will happen another day.

Wanted Man

2011-10-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

Abdel Basset al-Magrahi, a Libyan convicted of masterminding the 1988 Pan Am Lockerbie bombing that killed 259 travelers and 11 people on the ground, is reportedly still living in Tripoli after returning to a hero's welcome in 2009. Released on compassionate grounds by blinkered Scottish authorities because he was supposedly on the verge of death from cancer, Magrahi was giving self-serving interviews to the international media as recently as Oct. 3 of this year.

Magrahi maintains he didn't do it and that the facts about the Lockerbie bombing will soon emerge. A Dutch court disagreed with his profession of innocence, which is how he came to be imprisoned in the first place.

As for the convicted mass-murderer's decrepitude, it should be noted he has been dying any day now for more than two years. A Reuters report published in the British press this month reported that while Magrahi held forth for the media, "An oxygen tank stood nearby, but he did not use an oxygen mask during the interview.''

The Dec. 21, 1988 bombing, one of the bloodiest terrorist attacks on travelers in modern history, numbered among its victims 189 Americans - including 36 students at Syracuse University, my alma mater, who were returning from studies in Britain for their end of the year holidays.

The United States opposed Magrahi's release by Scotland and his return to Libya and is seeking his extradition.

"He does seem to have made a miraculous recovery ... he never should have been let out of jail,'' the Reuters dispatch quotes U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland as saying. "We continue to believe that the right place for Mugrahi is behind bars and we will continue to make that case to the Libyans.''

Good luck with that. The present, hopefully transitionary leaders of Libya demonstrated their commitment to justice and compassion on Thursday in videos showing the beating of the deposed dictator Moammar Khadafy. In an earlier announcement, the victorious rebels - who beat Khadafy on the battlefield thanks to military help from the West, including the U.S. - have said Magrahi will not be extradicted from Libya.

Khadafy's ghost will continue to haunt long-suffering, good-hearted Libyan people in many ways for many years. It will continue to haunt the West, too, especially so long as Abdel Basset al-Megrahi remains at liberty.

23 Years, 270 Deaths, One Dictator

2011-10-21T16:38:00.001-07:00

Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy's capture and apparent execution yesterday comes nearly 23 years after agents of his government bombed Pan American World Airways flight 103, killing 270 people in the air and on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland, in late 1988. It was a brutal end for a man ultimately responsible for one of the most vile acts against travelers in the modern era.

His departure does nothing, of course, to erase the pain that lingers after all these years - nor does it offset the celebratory images from Tripoli several years ago, when a Libyan convicted of the crime returned to a hero's welcome after being released from a Scottish jail, supposedly because he was terminally ill. At last report, he was living in a comfortable villa in an upscale section of Tripoli.

That said, images of the dictator's last moments do nothing to inspire confidence that the North African nation will suddenly evolve into a kinder, gentler society. As for the rebel leaders saying the strongman died in a cross fire, their claims seem debatable at best. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? It's easy to see it happening.

My California in the Fall story for Alaska Airlines Magazine

2011-10-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

If you're traveling with Alaska Airlines this month, check out my piece on California in the Fall, headlined "Golden State Grandeur,'' in the airline's monthly in-flight magazine. It begins like this:

"I'm cruising with the top down, the convertible engine humming, music turned up, feeling the caress of a light breeze under clear, blue skies. My route skims the coastline between San Diego and Los Angeles, past many beautiful beaches. In other parts of the country, this experience wopuld be possible only on a summer day. But this is California: It's an October day, and the temperature is a perfect 75 degrees.''

The story is a round-up of good things to do between now and early December, from San Diego north to San Francisco and the Bay Area. If you're traveling in that part of the world, it will hopefully give you some fresh ideas. Interested? The article starts on page 87.

Chateau Montelena at the Westin St. Francis

2011-10-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

I attended a swell event last night at the vintage, circa-1904 Westin St. Francis Hotel, in San Francisco, to mark the grand opening of a rare hotel winery-branded tasting room. Located just off the lobby in a former jewelry shop opposite the grand staircase, the new arrival is an outpost of Napa Valley's well-regarded Chateau Montelena Winery.

Actually, "well-regarded'' may be an understatement. Chateau Montelena (www.montelena.com)is justly celebrated for its Cabernet Sauvignons and Chardonnays. It was this winery's 1973 Chard, in fact, that beat out high-end French white Burgundies in a blind tasting by French judges. This is the now-famous 1976 Judgement of Paris showdown dramatized in the 2008 movie "Bottle Shock''.

Last night, the winery took over an ornate first-floor ballroom in the St. Francis (www.westinstfrancis.com) to pour half a dozen of its fine wines, from a welcoming glass of Reisling through Chardonnays, a Zinfandel and on to a big Cab. Scrumptious canapes from the hotel kitchen matched up splendidly with the wines.

Of course, you don't have to visit San Francisco and the Bay Area to drink Chateau Montelena wines, but if you are in town, the snug tasting room (open from 1-8 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday) is a good place to get a taste of Napa Valley. Chateau Montelena Winery is located in the town of Calistoga, at the north end of Napa Valley, about 90 minutes drive north of San Francisco.

The tasting room is a nice place and, as far as I have been able to determine, the only winery-branded hotel tasting room in this wine-mad city. I'm not aware of any other winery-specific tasting rooms in any hotel, though I wouldn't swear that there aren't any. In any case, buy a bottle of Chateau Montelena in the tasting room and they waive the corkage fee in the St. Francis's Oak Room, a handsome, traditional dining room in the hotel, so you can drink it with dinner.

The St. Francis, a grande dame hotel on San Francisco's bustling Union Square, is old school in the best sense. It pays a lot of attention to food and drink, with the top of the food chain being occupied by Bourbon Steak, an elegant steakhouse run by accomplished San Francisco chef Michael Mina. Bourbon Steak, too, is located just off the hotel's Powell Street lobby, right by the new Chateau Montelena tasting room, in the space formerly occupied by the chef's namesake Michael Mina restaurant. If you're in the neighborhood, check it out.

Finnish Made Easy

2011-10-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

Jet-lagged and puffy-eyed, I looked down at the placemat on the breakfast table in my Helsinki hotel the other day, and laughed out loud. On the placemat are printed a number of phrases in English, with translations into Finnish. A few lines are serious but most are tongue in cheek, meant to provoke a giggle.

Such as: "Is that stuffed reindeer for sale?''

And: "My hovercraft is full of eels.''

Not forgetting: "I'm so lost.'' (Olen hukassa).

The hotel is delightful in lots of ways. Nicely appointed and attractively designed guest rooms. Good location walking distance from Helsinki's vibrant Design District and eye-pleasing, tree-linede Esplanade. A cool (though lighty used during my visit) lobby bar. A healthful, bountiful breakfast buffet.

The hotel's name? I thought you'd never ask. It is the Hotel Fabian, located at 7 Fabianinkatu 00130 Helsinki, Finland. tel. 358 9 6128 2000, www.hotelfabian.fi.

On the room card, another message is printed: "We don't mind if you stay longer.'' I wouldn't mind either.

Graham Greene, My Plane and Train Default Author

2011-09-30T17:41:00.000-07:00

Graham Greene, the late, masterful British novelist and well-rounded man of letters, is the writer I most enjoy reading when I'm on the road. I'll be taking two Greene novels with me on my upcoming trip to Sweden and Finland: "A Burnt-Out Case'' and "No Man's land.''

Greene was also superb at crafting non-fiction. One of my favorite travel narratives is his "Journey Without Maps'' (the Vintage Classics edition). When I'm on a plane or long-distance train, Greene is my default author. He's whip-smart, a gifted descriptive writer and accomplished storyteller. Greene's books run like well-oiled, beautiful machines. The characters in his novels - think of "The Quiet American'' or "Our Man in Havana'' - always seem to be in over their heads, enmeshed in complexities they don't understand.

In "Journey Without Maps,'' Greene's first travel book (1936), Greene, himself, is in over his head. In Liberia for a month-long walkabout in the backcountry, he is woefully unprepared. In a sympathetic but clear-eyed preface, Paul Theroux observes that Green was afraid of moths and birds, didn't know how to drive a car and didn't know how to read a compass. He also, as the old journalism saw has it, didn't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Exaggerated or not, this darkly humorous account of rugged walks in the bush, drunken European expats, unfamiliar tribal customs and local despots is an addictive read. Greene may not have known how to read a compass, but he could read people, and he is a lodestone for travelers.

To Scandinavia and Finland

2011-09-30T17:35:00.001-07:00

I'll shortly be going back to Sweden for the first time in four and a half years, and onward to Finland, for the first time ever. It's a travel-writing trip and I am looking forward to it.

I'll be taking Scandinavian Airlines to Sweden and back to the US of A - my second time flying with Star Alliance-member SAS. It'll be my first time on oneworld alliance member Finnair. I'll be winging it to Helsinki with them.

Needless to say - although it appears that I'm saying it anyway - there will be travel articles and blog posts in this space as the trip unfolds, and for a while afterward.

How do you say "See you later'' in Swedish? Not sure. Maybe I'll find out.

Anwar al-Awlaki

2011-09-30T17:21:00.000-07:00

My first reaction on hearing the news today about the death of U.S.-born radical Muslim cleric - a terrorist who sometimes targeted travelers - from a drone attack in Yemen was it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

There is much wringing of hands in the United States over whether the U.S. government should be in the business of killing U.S. citizens; this assassination, a truly exceptional case, will probably feed the paranoid fear and loathing of the federal government in some circles. It shouldn't.

Let's be clear about who this man was. He had a bloody hand in recruiting unstable, violent people to kill innocents, especially innocent Americans. Traditionally, in many cultures throughout history, treason has been punishable by death. What are attacks on state targets, fellow citizens and civilians, if not treason? Among his targets in failed bomb plots were the passengers of a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day, tourists and locals in New York's always jammed Times Square and bombs he hoped could be put in parcels in the cargo bays of airliners.

I don't mourn for him, and don't think this fanatic, who cast a long, cold shadow over travel, earned any protection or exemption from justice by virtue of his citizenship.

One traveler's opinion.

"Pan Am'' Loses Lift

2011-09-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

What hath "Mad Men'' wrought? A silly, pre-feminist romanticization, set in the early 1960s, called "The Playboy Club,'' and a stylish but wafer-thin TV series called "Pan Am,'' also set in the early 1960s and named after the late, lamented Pan American World Airways, which folded its wings in 1991.

Of course, "Pan Am'' - an hour-long fiction series that airs Sunday nights on the U.S. network ABC - has almost got to be romantic. It is set in 1963, when people of means took airplanes and most other people walked, drove or took the bus. Flying was actually fun then, and it wasn't accessible to everyone, so it had a certain snob appeal. Moreover, in that pre-feminist era, there were few good jobs for women. Before women could become CEOs and entrepreneurs and race-car drivers and professional basketball players, a job as a globe-trotting flight attendant - "stewardess'' back then - was considered glamourous. "Stews,'' as they were called, saw the world, met guys and wore snugly tailored, sexy uniforms.

Half a century later, in a largely wised-up era, it's hard to see it all in quite the same light, even though we know the show isn't real. It's fiction, after all, not a documentary. Still, as my wife and I watched the series premiere last night, her lip curled ever so distinctly with disapproval. It's fair to say she has no wish to see women go backward, even in make-believe. "Pan Am's'' retro time-travel might be easier to ignore if the show's writing and acting were first-class, or even premium economy. But even though "Pan Am'' has creative connections to engaging shows such as "ER'' and features recognized performers such as Christina Ricci (as one of the stews), the new show quickly loses what lift it achieved during its quick-step introduction.

The period details - hair, clothes, ciggies, cocktails - are usually right, and the proceedings have an initially pleasing glossy look. But a little of "Pan Am's'' devotion to fashion without substance goes a long way with viewers like us. We tuned out about halfway in, before the subplot about Cold War espionage really took off.

This was just episode one, to be sure. Maybe "Pan Am'' will fly with audiences looking for "come fly with me'' escapist entertainment. I worked a few years ago with some young guys who thought the skinny tie, ring-a-ding-ding style of the perfectly named Rat Pack was cool, too, so you never know.

Wedding Bells in Blighty

2011-09-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

My wife and I just missed celebrating our wedding anniversary in England on our recent trip to Blighty - her homeland and the place we were married. Still, the slight cooling of the weather brought back memories of our early-autumn wedding. - and the swell country manor-turned-hotel where the ceremony took place.

That would be Pennyhill Park (www.pennyhillpark.co.uk), still a favorite of couples about to tie the knot and couples returning to remember when they did so. The place is merely wonderful, and historic. The oldest part of the hotel dates back to 1851; a state of the art spa was added in 2004. The outside of the main house was covered with scarlet-colored ivy - Virginia creeper, to be exact - the day we were married. The light rain that fell in the morning cleared up on cue, creating magnificent skies and all-around fine weather - perfect for drinks on the terrace following a simple, beautiful civil ceremony in the hotel's library. The string trio we hired played beautifully while we and our guests from the U.K. and the U.S. sipped Champagne. It couldn't have been better.

Pennyhill Park, located on an old coaching road in Bagshot, Surrey (still quaintly known locally as London Road), is close enough to London Heathrow International Airport to be convenient for international travelers and far enough away to avoid noisy overflights. The hotel has a posh bar known as the Ascot Bar, and a Michelin-starred, fine-dining restaurant called Latymer. Oh, and there's a 9-hole golf course on the property. Home in season to the English national rugby team, the hotel boasts a rugby pitch on the drive from the main road. All told, the property consists of 123 lushly landscaped acres. A private home for most of its existence, Pennyhill Park has been operated as a hotel since 1972.

Consider this an all-in plug for Pennyhill Park. We had a lovely experience there - indeed, anyone can have a good time at this polished 5-star retreat, provided your purse is able to handle it. For our special time, we made it work, and our recent trip to Blighty raised echoes of wedding bells.

Cool Tech for Napa's Chilly Grape-Growing Year

2011-09-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

California's Napa Valley is world-famous for its justly celebrated wines - and wines, of course, begin with grapes, which brings me to today's post:

Namely, the cool, rainy, late-harvest 2011 grape-growing season in Napa and the growers' response to it. If they succeed in meeting the challenges of such a year, as they believe they will, there's all the more reason to visit the valley to savor its wine and food, lovingly manicured vineyards and pretty towns.

Some 550 grapegrowers and related businesses belong to Napa Valley Grapegrowers, a nonprofit trade organization headquartered downtown in the city of Napa. ("Napa'' is actually three places: city, valley, county.)

Every spring and fall, the association (www.napagrowers.org), founded in 1975, holds a lovely outdoor press conference and luncheon to talk grapes. Journalists accustomed to attending press conferences in windowless hotel ballrooms and beige government offices emerge blinking in the unaccustomed sunlight, like moles on holiday. I attended the spring "bud break'' gathering this year but missed the recent fall press conference, held at Stagecoach Vineyards. So, I caught up with NVG spokeswoman Jennifer Putnum to find out what happened.

Northern California typically gets nearly all its rain in winter, but significant spring rainfall and even rare summer showers - coupled with cool temperatures - have posed challenges to grape growers, she says. Chief among them is what she terms "mildew pressure.'' Lots of mildew could, of course, ruin the harvest.

Eyeballing the vines and using remote sensors and data collection devices allow growers to use cool high-tech to save the grapes in chilly seasons. This includes everything from removing canopies so the grapes can get more warming sun to relying on decidedly non-tech means like just hoping for good weather. The growers got some of that this week when temperatures hit the mid-90s F in Napa Valley. "We can't control the weather,'' she says, "but we can control our response to it.''

One Napa wine-grape grower, Paul Goldberg, of Rutherford Vista Vineyards, notes Napa Valley and neighboring Sonoma Valley's presence in a region that also includes Silicon Valley. "We are blessed to be in a region that affords us the opportunity to be innovative with technology. It is extremely important to be able to monitor the various microclimates in the valley in order to be proactive instead of reactive,'' Goldberg says by way of example.''

"An example of innovative vineyard technology,'' the NVG notes in a press release, "is Paul's remote control irrigation system, recently implemented to monitor every aspect of irrigation, including well levels, water pressure, soil moisture and more. Through this system, Paul can also set alerts to his phone to notify him of any unusual changes to the irrigation system ...''

"Some of the vineyards are among the most-measured vineyards in the world,'' Putnam says, adding that Napa growers also work closely with agronomists at the University of California-Davis - one of the leading agricultural campuses in the United States - to deal with ongoing issues such as pests, rootstock and soil analysis.

Growing grapes - and, later, using those grapes to make wine - is part science, part poetry. When it works, it's like bottling magic. We'll have to wait to see if the 2011 vintages are magical, but the grape growers say they are encouraged so far. This year's smaller, less-dense grape clusters are also helping to control mildew, and the growers believe that having several additional weeks on the vine will helping to produce high-quality grapes.

Their bottom line, and why it will matter to wine-loving travelers: This is a smaller than usual but high-quality harvest. The wines should shine.

See Scenic Iran - Shane, Josh and Sarah Did

2011-09-21T17:02:00.000-07:00

Today, two years after their arrest and imprisonment and one year after their friend Sarah Shourd was released on medical grounds, American hikers Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal were released from prison in Iran and reunited with their families in Oman.

The three were charged with espionage and illegal entry after they apparently wandered into or close to Iran while hiking in a remote region near the border between Iran and Iraq in 2009. The trio, formerly of the University of California-Berkeley and supporters of progressive causes, insisted they were innocent but were held anyway. Their real crime appears to have been hiking while American.

Iran is the inheritor of a rich cultural tradition in the country formerly known as Persia and has a lot to offer international travelers - provided the safety and honor of those travelers could be guaranteed, which it often cannot. This is especially true of the usual suspects in Iranian political and religious discourse, Americans, Israelis and Britons.

Bauer and Fittal were the subjects of a sustained and passionate international campaign for their release, which came at the reported OK of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - one day before he was scheduled to address the United Nations. The release of the two men is said to be a humanitarian gesture. Some gesture. The repellant Ahmadinejad could have released them anytime in the past two years.

One has to hope and believe that - in the long term, at least - Iran will eventually be open again to travelers, including the young, idealistic backpackers who drive much of the people-to-people contact that animates world travel. Until then, we have humanitarian gestures like this one.

Fly in Russia? Don't.

2011-09-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a friendly word of advice: If you're traveling in or to Russia, and you're tempted to get on an airplane, don't. I know, big country. But take the train if you can, or drive. The Russian Federation and fellow former Soviet republics now loosely aligned in the Commonwealth of Independent States are among the most dangerous places in the world to fly.

A recent case in point: The navigator of a commercial aircraft that crashed in June, killing 47 people, including the navigator, was drunk on a bit of vitamin V - vodka. This, according to Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee, as reported 19 September by the Associated Press and posted on www.washingtonpost.com.

"Russia and other former Soviet republics have had poor air safety records in recent years,'' AP reports. "Industry experts say the air disasters are rooted not simply in flying older planes, but in a myriad of other problems, including poor crew training, crumbling airports, lax government controls and widespread neglect of safety in the pursuit of profits.''

Forewarned is forearmed.

My Kentucky Article 'Stop to Savor the Bluegrass'

2011-09-16T15:02:00.000-07:00

If you're Web-surfing, check out my Sept. 11, 2011, cover story in the Travel section of the San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfgate.com) about the Kentucky bluegrass region. It begins like this:

"The first time I saw Kentucky I was behind the wheel of a car. I was in a hurry. I was leaving New York State, bound for California, and as I drove cross-country with my worldly goods, the vastness of America blended into a blur of truck stops, toxic coffee and bleary-eyed days wiping bugs off the windshield. I didn't even stop for gas in Kentucky, but something about the hopelessly pretty, lovingly manicured quality of the countryside stayed with me down the decades.''

If you've got access to the ink-on-paper Chronicle, the story - with a sidebar on central Kentucky's homemade Bathtub Mary yard shrines - appears on page H-1, under the headline "Stop to Savor the Bluegrass.''

Common Sense, Almost

2011-09-16T14:49:00.000-07:00

U.S. President Barack Obama today signed a bill providing temporary, four-month funding to the Federal Aviation Administration. That's a relief; it was set to expire today, which would have resulted in a partial shutdown of the crucial agency. Just like the 16-day FAA partial shutdown this summer that furloughed 4,000 FAA workers - not including air traffic controllers - and idled 70,000 construction workers at a time of stubborningly high unemployment.

The bill also extends funding for U.S. highways through March.

This, it would seem, is a triumph for common sense. But is it?

The latest FAA funding extention was the 22nd time a temporary patch was put in place when the House of Representatives and the Senate passed separate bills that they could not harmonize in joint committee. This means the drama will happen all over again in January 2012.

The smooth functioning of one of the world's largest and most crucial aviation systems is one of many things falling victim to Washington gridlock. The ease of movement, safety and efficiency of millions of American and international leisure and business travelers is put at unnecessary, unwanted risk when posturing politicians can't agree.

Next year is an election year. Things don't look good for the triumph for common sense - or the ease of travel for people flying to, from and around the United States.

Flying While Wrinkled

2011-09-09T16:55:00.000-07:00

As Americans wade into days of special remembrance of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and frequent fliers recount how travel has changed since then, allow me to add one more observation - one not often remarked-upon:

It is now much tougher than it was 10 years ago to pass smoothly through airport security if you are an older person. Why? Because consciously or unconsciously, security screeners want to show that they are being fair - i.e., not profiling or singling out young males, Muslims or most people of color, for fear they will be accused of racism, religious intolerance or discrimination. Result: Elderly people of all backgrounds - whites probably somewhat more often - are given extra attention for pat-downs and additional X-ray screening. This is supposed to make the point that even people who look harmless, mainstream and docile have to pass muster with the guardians of the skies: Not so fast, Granny.

Counter-intuitive, creative security? No, just knee-jerk, spineless bureaucracy.

I watched a long report on the PBS NewsHour last night that showed video of travelers being pulled over in U.S. airports for extra scrutiny. The majority were white-haired, wrinkle-faced elders - some in wheelchairs, with canes or wearing prosthetic devices, though the reporter didn't acknowledge the pattern. He did cite the now well-known case of a 96-year-old woman who was pulled over because her adult-diaper was wet and didn't scan. The truly preposterous will get publicity; the persistent pattern, not so much.

I fly a lot, and I see some truly scary people breeze through security
and zip toward the plane while the oldsters get flagged. Is this protecting travelers from terrorists? I think not.

The massive re-think of U.S. laws and attitudes designed to root out discrimination against minorities or anyone who happens to be different - "driving while black,'' for example - is historically and ethically justified. When thinking stops, and procedures calcify into political correctness - as with flying while wrinkled - justice is not served.

And neither are safety and security.

Rick Perry, Traveling Man

2011-09-08T16:11:00.000-07:00

To paraphrase John Greenleaf Whittier, Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: Rick Perry.

You might not link the bodacious Texas governor and Republican presidential hopeful with travel and transportation in a word-association test, but Perry and travel are more closely linked than you may think.

For one thing, there is the matter of Perry's own travel, which is considerable. The galivanting govenor is campaigning hard for the GOP nomination, which means hitting the hustlings in state after state. Just how much he's spending to do this - and who is providing the money - he declines to say, which, under Texas's ever-flexible regulatory regime, is legal. (See the Houston Chronicle's take at http://blog.chron.com, posted August 20).

Perry, while not a travel, tourism and transportation wonk as such, has nevertheless built a considerable track record of transit oddities.

Such as:

* He wanted to build a big toll road in Texas but backed off when property owners complained about losing land to eminent domain - that sounds like Big Guv'mint right there, don't it?

* Perry boosted a bill to outlaw full-body patdowns at Texas airports by Transportation Security Administration personnel who use them to keep terrorists off of airplanes; that plan, too, was dropped.

* Campaigning in Iowa, Perry vented about U.S. Department of Transporation rules that require farmers to pay for commercial driver's licenses if they drive their tractors across nearby roads. Just one problem: there is no such rule. Nor is there any such plan, according to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who was forced to issue a press release to counter the vaporous claim by the potty Perry.

In the meantime, Perry's in-state critics charge that he has let the Lone Star State's highways go to pot by failing to spend enough money to keep them up, let alone build new ones. That might mean taxes, which is, of course, an affront to Perry's tea party supporters.

In fact, government and taxes are responsible for creating America's transportation infrastructure, from the transcontinental railroads of the 19th century, to air-mail contracts and fat subsidies to the fledgling airlines of the 1920s, to the interstate highway system of the 1950s and '60s. Most recently, Washington helped out commercial airlines with government loans when the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 caused carriers to lose bags of money in the travel free-fall that followed.

I don't often write about politics in this blog. But, you know, sometimes the real world has a way of intruding into the world of travel.

Ken Frank's Bank Cafe and Bar, Napa

2011-09-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

Dropping into downtown Napa city on a reporting assignment, my wife and I lunched at Bank, an eatery helmed by chef Ken Frank that serves as a casual, affordable companion to his Michelin-starred La Toque. This proved to be a yummy move.

Like La Toque, Bank Cafe and Bar is located in the riverside Westin Versasa Hotel in Napa's revitalized downtown. Instead of the foie gras and truffles you are apt to get at dinner in La Toque - and boy are they worth it - you might get a really good burger, a salad or something else on the light side at Bank. It was a sunny day, so we ate outdoors in the Westin courtyard. The hotel swimming pool was on one side, balconied courtyard rooms were on the other and a fountain burbled nearby in the middle of the open expanse, happily drowning out some of the cell phone chatter from a worried-looking wedding planner at a table near us.

We shared a crispy shrimp starter, lightly battered, juicy and tasty, placed atop a bed of just hot and spicy enough slaw. Then, I tucked into a grilled vegetable sandwich while my wife lunched on a fresh-cut ham and cheese sandwich. We split a seasonal green salad. The cuisine was simple, fresh and full of flavor. A half-bottle of 2007 Grigich Chardonnay went beautifully with the food and allowed us to feel safe about driving after lunch. We came away satisfied but not boozy or overfed from a lunch that was nicely paced and well-presented by Bank's attentive, young staff. The bill, for $94.18USD, was more than we had been planning to spend. Considering the quality, it was fair value. If we eat there again, as I hope we will, we will order less food; portions are ample, so it won't be a hardship.

Frank made the move two years ago to the Westin from a free-standing restaurant space up-valley in Rutherford, and seems to be making it work. Combined with his dinnertime mastery of California French fare in La Toque, he is one of the brightest lights in a Napa Valley crowded with stars.

Bank Cafe and Bar, Westin Versasa, Napa (www.starwoodhotels.com), 1314 McKinstry St., Napa, CA 94559 USA, tel. 707.257.5150, www.latoque.com.

The Boeing Store

2011-09-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

Aviation gearheads and nostalgia buffs will think they woke up in heaven should they make to the Boeing Company's store in Everett, Washington. One of 16 listed Boeing stores (www.boeingstore.com) but one of the few open to the public, this fairly sizable, well-stocked, two-level retail outlet is an aviation buff's delight.

I stopped in on a recent visit to Seattle, where Cathay Pacific Airways took delivery of a new Boeing 777-300ER and decided to throw a party to celebrate the sleek aircraft. Some of us journos were on the party list. Part of that entailed a visit to the Future of Flight Aviation Center in Everett, 25 miles north of Seattle. The store is located inside the sprawling center - an interactive aviation museum.

I am not a serious gearhead and I don't memorize minutae like the hottest fighter planes of World War II, but I loved this store. I even bought something - a relative rarity for this confirmed non-shopper. It was a gorgeous $40 hardcover book, profusely illustrated with colorful vintage ads - many by now-vanished airlines like Pan Am and TWA - that airlines commissioned through most of the 20th century to spark air travel around the world. You see the Golden Gate Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Diamond Head and many other glamourous sights, all designed to entice travelers onto airplanes. I spent maybe 10 minutes leafing through the volume and couldn't put it down. The title? Oh, the title: ''The Art of the Airways,'' by Geza Szurovy, published by Minneapolis's Zenith Press (www.zenithpress.com).

There is, of course, much more merchandise on offer, most of it available online as well as in the brick and mortar store. Items range from a $4USD 1930s Boeing flight
pin to $295USD leather flight jackets. Luggage, posters, caps, the inevitable T-shirts, apparel and much more are available, too. If flying holds any romance at all for you, this is the place. Check it out.

Airheads: Deja Vu All Over Again?

2011-09-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

That partial shsutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration that happened in July, just before the United States Congress went away for summer recess? It could happen again. FAA's temporary funding extension expires in two weeks and the politicos are butting heads once more.

The issue, according to a timely and in-depth Labor Day report in the Sept. 5 Atlanta Journal-Constitution (www.ajc.com), is a provision in proposed FAA authorization legislation that would allow railroad and airline workers to organize and join unions more easily. Major carriers, spearheaded by Atlanta's largely non-union Delta Air Lines, oppose this provision, as explained in the piece by reporter Daniel Malloy.

Travelers within, to and from the U.S. have to hope this doesn't happen again. Although air-traffic controllers were not among the several thousand FAA workers furloughed or the 70,000 contract workers on transport construction projects that were idled when their funding ran out last time, the aviation system doesn't need more disruption. Ten years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. airlines have still not fully recovered, especially with high fuel costs and a lousy economy; a partial shutdown of this important federal agency would be one more headwind for them to face.

If You Don't Like the Weather, Wait Five Minutes

2011-08-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite trivial pursuits while I'm on the road is catching British weather reports and forecasts. They are masterful evocations of ambiguity.

Consider, for example, this recent summary, culled from London's Daily Telegraph:

"General Situation: An area of low pressure over the central part of the United Kingdom will bring scattered showers to England and Wales today. To the north, rain will fall during the afternoon across Scotland.''

Hmmm. Do you reckon this means it's going to rain today, except when it doesn't, all around the country, except in places where it remains dry?

Or consider this Outlook, from the same report:

"Scattered showers will occur across England and Wales on Sunday. Occasional rain will fall across Scotland. Spells of rain will fall across England on Monday. An isolated shower will occur on Tuesday.''

Hmmm again. Scattered showers, occasional rain, spells of rain, an isolated shower - four ways of saying the same thing, all swept into one short report.

Got to admit, it's a marvelous bit of writing in its not-exactly-precise way. And it certainly illustrates the old saying "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes.''

Justice

2011-08-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

One of the storylines coming out of Libya is a widely disseminated report that the convicted Lockerbie bomber, a Libyan man responsible for destroying Pan American flight 103 over Scotland on Dec. 21, 1988, is terminally ill - still.

This is the same person who was released on compassionate medical grounds by Scottish authorities in August 2009 because Scottish doctors gave him only three months to live due to an advanced case of prostate cancer. Today, 24 months after his release, he is apparently still not feeling well. The mass murderer's brother describes him as frail, resting in a villa in what media reports characterize as a wealthy section of Tripoli.

Libyan rebels - who demand justice for themselves at the end of a gun - have rejected extradicting him to Scotland, which has in any case not asked to have him back, despite repeated requests by the United States and the national government of Great Britain that he be sent to a Western prison to serve out his term.

Pan Am flight 103's destruction accounted for one of the darkest days in the modern history of travel. All 259 passengers and crew perished in the explosion, as did 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie. Two-thirds of the victims were Americans, many of them university students heading home for Christmas vacation.

Wondrous Wembley

2011-08-26T17:11:00.001-07:00

It rises from the flat suburban plain, a big bowl topped by a soaring metallic arch: Wembley Stadium, aka National Stadium, the citadel of English football, home of the football finals in next year's Olympic Games.

Together with my wife - who attended sporting events on the now-demolished 1923"old'' Wembley on this site as a girl growing up in London - I checked out the 2007 "new" Wembley as part of the research for a package of newspaper articles I am doing on London in the run-up to the Olympics. Of course, Wembley, also home to mega-musical concerts, major rugby matches and an annual American National Football League game, is about much more than the Olympics. It is the spiritual home of British team sport, much like Wimbledon is the spiritual home of British tennis and St. Andrews is the spiritual home of British golf.

We took the half-hour Underground ride on the Jubilee line westward from Central London, got off at Wembley Park station and took the short walk to the stadium along Olympic Way, pausing before the heroic statue of Bobby Moore, legendary English footballer of the 1950s and '60s. Then we joined a guided public tour, lasting 90 minutes and costing from 8 GBP (about $13 USD) to 15 pounds ($25 USD).

The stadium, built at a cost of nearly 800 GBP and seating 90,000 spectators, is one of the msot expensive sporting venues ever built. It is a magnificent structure, partly covered by a retractable roof that leaves the playing pitch open to the elements but covering the fans in inclement weather - not that English weather is ever off, mind you. I'm speaking purely theoretically. Seats are actually plush, padded, wide enough for 21st century bottoms and surprisingly comfortable.

Wembley is owned by the Football Association, the national governing body of British football - soccer, in North America. As such, a great deal of attention is naturally paid to professional football in Britain, with authentic memorabilia galore and plenty of merchandising on-hand and offered for sale. I am a mildly engaged soccer - er, football - fan, so I suspect the visit meant more to the hardcore British fans that traipsed with us behind our affable, pony-tailed guide than it did to me, but their excitement was at times contagious. This was especially so when our tour entered the changing room of the English national team, where the shsirts of star players are displayed - David Beckham (17), Steven Gerrard (4), Wayne Rooney (10).

There are planned photo opportunities at various points along the way, including some corny touches like allowing visitors to sit in the hot seat in the press conference room where the England manager holds forth after a match. There is also a chance, which we skipped, to have a photo taken with a replica of the FA Cup; the real one, given to the champions of association football every year, resides elsewhere.

If you're not a fan, you can safely skip this tour. But wondrous Wembley is well worth visiting for football fanatics and devotees of the Olympic movement.

'Rules' Still Rules

2011-08-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

Rules Restaurant, founded in 1798, is said to be London's oldest continuously operating eatery - it stayed open throughout the Blitz, if for only two hours a day - and as such, you would expect it to be Old School. That it is, gloriously, sumptuously, memorably.

Rules, as its Web site informs the prospective diner, specializes in "classic game-cookery, oysters, pies and puddings.'' In other words, classic British cooking, before mushy peas, beans on toast and corn flakes, and well before the cutting-edge fare of Modern British cuisine. You might therefore expect Rules to be stodgy, with leaden food. There, you would be wrong. Rules, as my wife and I rediscovered last week on our sixth or seventh visit to the restaurant, is correct but not stodgy, and serves food that is hearty and intensely flavorful but far from leaden. Unlike many a traditional favorite, riding on reputation, Rules is not tired.

It must be said that this venerable destination restaurant, located near Covent Garden, bang-on in the heart of central London, is not cheap, either. Indeed, our recent meal there was our splurge, and at 177 GBP ($288 USD) for two, all-inclusive, it was our most expensive meal in London. Rules adds a thoughtfully discretionary 12.5 percent service charge to your bill; you can amend the charge or remove it.

Dear reader, it was worth every farthing, every tuppence, every shilling and guinea and quid.

We started off with gin and tonics (Tanqueray), the attentive but never intrusive waiter pouring the gin at table, followed by a smidgeon of the tonic; that way, you can add more tonic or not for a stronger or milder drink. For starters, my wife tucked into a sublime rabbit and mushroom dish on toast, while I savored a rich grouse broth. We shared an enormous main course: roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. It could have served four people and couldn't have tasted better. A good portion of the bill (45 pounds) came courtesy of the bottle of robust red wine we chose to stand up to the beef, sourced from Rules's own country estate. Dessert? But of course; this was a shared pannacotta - airy-light, yummy, just right. On past visits, we have plunged into the signature sticky toffee pudding but we are weight-watchers these days, and thought that might be a dessert too far.

The main attraction of Rules is the food and drink, but the ambiance, infused with history and traditional touches, is part of the appeal, too. Antlers poke out the walls, there are stuffed pheasants here and there, there is gilt and plush and dark, polished wood. You can read the walls: caricatures, theatre bills, posters, photographs, old menus, you name it, covering virtually every inch of wall space.

To dine at Rules, then to take a London black cab to after-dinner entertainment or back to one's hotel - this, to me, is travel bliss.

Bottom line: Rules still rules.

Sofitel's Engaging "Literary Escapes''

2011-08-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

One of the most novel and engaging ideas I've seen on the hotel front lately is a partnership by the French newspaper Le Figaro and the French hotel chain Sofitel that has brought forth a joint publishing venture called "Literary Escapes by Sofitel.'' Together, the newspaper and the hotels sponsor a handsome tabloid magazine, published on high-quality newsprint, in color and festooned with travel hotographs and short fiction inspired by Sofitel's far-flung hotels.

Well, not the hotels themselves, necessarily - rather, the places where Sofitel has hotels: Big cities like New York, Hanoi and Lyon, and exotic resorts such as Sofitel Luxor Winter Palace, in Egypt, which serves as background and inspiration for a short fiction called "The Dreadful Death of Victor Hugo,'' by the French television journalist Patrick Poivre D'Arvor. It is one of half a dozen pieces in the current issue of of the publication, which, as far as I can tell, is published every several months in English and French editions. The magazine is distributed free in Sofitel hotels - it is not sold anywhere as far as I know.

I picked up my copy in the lobby of the handsome Sofitel London St. James, parts of which are being refurbished in advance of next year's London Olympics. Fortunately, most parts of the hotel - located in a former bank - are finished; when I visited last week, the main restaurant and bar were closed for renovation. It's a fine hotel, located on Whitehall Place, just off Lower Regent Street, in the heart of the British capital. Le Bar, the smaller of the hotel's watering holes, is open. I found it an ideal late-night place to share wine and chat with English friends.

I'm not sure if other hotels have picked up on this idea or have literary ventures of their own, but I like this one. Sofitel picks well-known francophone authors and media personalities, installs them in selected Sofitel hotels and encourages them to write expansively. Every once in a while, the hotels host real-time, in-person salons where readers and hotel guests can share a drink and conversation with the writers. It's all very civilized, and a different way to market hotels.

Oh, and the publication (www.literary-escapes-sofitel.com) reads well, too. Light, compact and smartly produced, it made good airplane reading on my 11-hour flight home to California.

Five Cool Things About London

2011-08-23T13:12:00.000-07:00

There are more than five cool things about London, of course - as well as uncool things, like congestion and cost - as this great city offers so many things to savor. Among them:

1. Black cabs. London has the world's best taxis, the old-school, roomy, sturdy, handsome black cabs that navigate the capital, especially central London. With room enough for five passengers, including luggage, and two nifty pull-down seats to go with a three-person couch, they are incredibly spacious. And London may have the world's best cab drivers. They aren't as polite as Tokyo's white-gloved cabbies, but they are funny and they really know the city. Even in the age of GPS, most drivers of black cabs have memorized the maze of streets in this sprawling city and take you almost anyhwere you want to go without consulting a map or, worse, asking you how in blazes to find your destination. They are a capital service for a capital city.

2. World-class food. London and the UK generally, have a lingering reputation for bad food. The reputation is undeserved. London may be the most internationalized city in the world and as such, it has everything, though often at significant cost. Used to be the only reliably good food was Indian. No longer. Gastro-pubs and chefs specializing in modern British cuisine have restocked Blighty's larder. And if you know where you are going, you can even save money. I recommend the Pret A Manger sandwich and salad shops that operate on every other street corner in central London. For five pounds or less, you can eat fresh, tasty, healthful fast food - a real deal. If you don't eat well in London, it's no one's fault but your own.

3. History. I like New York a lot, but I've never understood the reflexive boast of Americans and some others that New York is - all together now - "the Greatest City in the World.'' No it isn't. This is true mostly for people who don't travel the world. As my friend and fellow travel writer Patti Nickell points out, London has everything New York has, plus 2,000 years of history. Wake up, Americans. Especially you, New Yorkers.

4. Free museums. The finest museums in town - meaning some of the finest in the world - often carry free general admission. You will indeed pay to see the temporary, mega-exhibitions by name-brand artists like Rembrandt or Picasso, but the extensive permanent collections of leading museums, usually no. This is another good way to avoid spending a fortune in London, which you can do if you're not careful. But you definitely don't have to.

5. Hidden gems. The metropolis is loaded with them and many of these, too, are free. Central London is walkable - again, costs nothing - and places such as Green Park, St. James's Park, Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park and Regent Park are finely made for browsing and exploring. And, again, there's all that history, often best experienced on foot. In the Seven Dials area, tucked between Covent Garden and Soho, is a historic blue marker on the wall of a building that once served as home to the comic geniuses of Monty Python. In a hidden courtyard near Buckingham Palace, just outside the 51 Buckingham Gate Hotel, is a gorgeous outdoor frieze depicting Shakespeare's characters; just look up, and there it is in all its glory.

It's London's rich cultural layers and manifold opportunities for discovery, more than anything, that make London my favorite city in the Western World.

Back in Blighty

2011-08-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

The last time I was in the United Kingdom, it was shortly before Christmas, and London's Hyde Park was ablaze with decorations and holiday lights. Re-vsiting London this month, I came back to find the city ablaze - this time with arson fires. It was no holiday, except for the gang members and hangers-on who looted, burned, assaulted innocent passers-by and ran amok for three days before finally submitting to a belated beefing-up in the number of police.

My London-born wife arrived several days before me. She said she never felt threatened but was depressed by the scenes of destruction in South London precincts she knew well as a young person - Battersea and Clapham Junction. By the time I arrived, it was all over and the post-mortem of self-examination, anger and courtroom confrontation had begun.

I have traveled to the U.K. maybe 40 times. I know it fairly well but am keenly aware I am an outsider there. Moreover, I come from the United States, which has seen its share of civil strife and violence, so I am reluctant to pass judgment on what is still a fascinating - and, now, safe once again - place to visit.

That said, the U.K. seems to be suffering a social meltdown. It has raised a generation of feral youth with no stake in the system and no belief in the future. Youth unemployment is rampant, many kids have grown up in households where an adult has never held a job, and class and racial barriers to social harmony are formidible. Add to this, the ruling class's amoral materialism and lack of ethics in the phone hacking scandal that has shaken Rupert Murdoch's media empire and forced out top officials at Scotland Yard - London's once-esteemed Metropolitan Police Force - and you have a society facing serious challenges.

And yet, and yet ... Britain, especially England, and its great capital, London, remain marvelous places to visit. Tourists largely escaped the chaos of last week, and when I walked the streets of the capital with my wife and our English friends, I felt perfectly safe. Londoners had already started displaying the resiliance for which they are well-known. Plans for next year's Olympics and Paralympics are continuing apace, and neighborhood broom brigades were already cleaning up the mess.

Serious underlying problems remain, not least the burning anger of working-class and middle-class Brits - some of whom were terrorized in their beds by hooded, masked thugs who invaded their homes, demanding money and jewelry. The call for stiff sentences for convicted rioters are being heard, and the anger behind them is justified. Whether strong prison sentences, coming at a time of severe cuts in social services prompted by global financial weakness, will create conditions for full recovery remains to be seen. It is bound to be a tough go.

As a friend and fan of the Brits, I wish them well. I am a watchful traveler, but I don't plan to drop the U.K. from my travel plans. There will always be an England, and there will always be a London. London has survived the Conquest of 1066, the Great Fire of 1666, a civil war, the Blitz of World War II, the terror campaign of the Irish Republican Army, the subway and bus bombing by jihadists on 7/7 (July 7, 2005) and more. It will survive this.

Hotel Chutzpah: A Guest Bites Back

2011-08-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

Did you hear about Rodney Harmon, the Californian who has sued Hilton Hotels Corp. for charging him 75 cents a day for a newspaper he didn't ask for? Silly, huh? Guy gets a copy of USA Today left outside his room, he doesn't read it, so he sues - a sign 'o the times in a society far too eager to litigate, right?

Not necessarily. Not entirely. Suing is extreme, to be sure. But Harmon's lawyer has been quoted in press accounts as saying the ticked-off hotel guest was riled by the sheer chutzpah - effrontery, presumptuousness - of a hotel charging for unwanted services. Hilton, like many other hotels, allows guests to get refunds on unwanted newspapers at check-out. But the catch is, you have to read the fine print and know, first, that you are being billed, and, second, that you can get that money back if you ask. Most of us are in a hurry at check-out and aren't that attentive.

This is small change, you rightly figure, but it's the principle of the thing, too. Businesses often do put the burden on the consumer - rather like having to find and check the 'unsubscribe' button at the bottom of unsolicited e-mails. The business gives the chore to you, and, hey, maybe you'll forget to do it.

Undergirding this seemingly petty squabble is something old and something new in business.

The something old is a practice that allows publishers to inflate circulation and thus charge higher rates to advertisers. USA Today gets half of its daily circulation of 1.78 million copies by cutting deals with hoteliers, according to Forbes writer Jeff Bercovici.

Back in the day, I covered media for the old, Hearst-owned San Francisco Examiner, and one of my steady sources was newspaper financial analyst John Morton. Forbes talked to Morton, who estimates maybe 90 percent of the charges on hotel bills for newspapers go unnoticed, allowing hoteliers, and the paper, to keep the change. It adds up. Bercovici estimates those hotel copies generate $82 million USD a year in circulation revenue.

This could be done fairly, as some hotels do, by asking guests at check-in if they want a newspaper and telling them then that they will (or won't) be charged.

The something new in business? Fees and surcharges for everything. Airlines charge for checking bags, for carrying bags on the plane, for sitting in aisle seats, for ordering meals in economy class and so on. They spin it by calling it customized or even bespoke service. But loss-making airlines need the money in a world of relatively low fares and high fuel costs. They still need to disclose fees more transparently at booking, but there is a rough market justice governing airline fees.

But artful, near-invisible fees at hotels and elsewhere in the travel "space''? Not so much.

It's enough to make a guy sue.

Quote of the Day

2011-08-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

Re: the London riots, here are a few chosen words from Kit Malthouse, London's deputy mayor in charge of policing, quoted in today's New York Times (www.nytimes.com), ascribing ill intent to free-floating youth who are:

"... intent on violence, who are looking for the opportunity to steal and set fire to buildings and create a sense of mayhem, whether they're anarchists or part of organized gangs or just feral youth, frankly, who fancy a new pair of trainers.''

Airheads: An FAA Agreement, Sort Of

2011-08-07T16:20:00.000-07:00

U.S. President Obama signed on Friday a deal to end a two-week partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration caused by lack of funding. Some 4,000 furloughed FAA workers can begin returning to work Monday. Another 70,000 laid off construction workers, who were working on airport expansions and upgrades before the money ran out, can filter back to their jobs.

So, all is well, right?

Well, no. This latest temporary extension of funding for the crucial agency - the 21st of its kind - lasts only till mid-September, after Congress returns to Washington, D.C. Then the whole comic opera can begin again.

There is still no resolution of the labor dispute over airline union-certification elections - one cause of the partial shutdown. There is no long-term settlement of the subsidies given to small-market communities, which media reports say run $163 million USD a year. Uncle Sam has lost two and a half times that amount - about $400
million - in lost air fare tax revenue when the taxes could not be collected during the partial shutdown. Some savings.

Now, the Internal Revenue Service says there will be no IRS refunds to consumers who paid higher fares when airlines decided to raise fares during the tax holiday. To be fair, loss-making airlines need to make money. Still, once again, the long-suffering little guy has been left at the gate.

When this dysfunctional Congress, rent by partisan divides - some calculated and carried out with extreme recklessness by Republican freshmen in the House of Representatives - gets back to work in September, the political gridlock will leave the FAA scuffle looking like a day at the beach. It would be nice to think it gets better, but it's hard to see how.

Deals, Defaults, Double Dip

2011-08-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

The United States, with its sagging transportation infrastructure and partially shuttered Federal Aviation Administration, took an accelerated path toward Third World status with the debt-reduction deal passed today by the U.S. Congress and approved by President Barack Obama.

The deal avoids a once-unthinkable U.S. Government default by just 12 hours. As always, the devil is in the details. Travel and tourism is just one piece of an enormously complicated agreement.

However, in reviewing media accounts of the intensely partisan, emotionally charged deal, travelers cannot be reassured. There is no money for upgrades of transport infrastructure that has seriously declined in efficiency and safety over the past 20 years, no assured money for research into change Obama claimed we can believe in such as high-speed rail, and no progress in sight on the long-promised, often-delayed GPS-based next generation of air traffic control to replace the outdated radar-based system we have now.

To add insult to injury - actually, injury to injury - members of Congress are leaving Washington, D.C. today and tomorrow for their all-important summer break, leaving the FAA to limp along with inadequate funding until Labor Day. This is the essential agency that oversees one of the planet's most complex aviation systems. Air traffic controllers are still on the job, but another 4,000 FAA employees have been furloughed since July 23, while 70,000 construction workers have since been laid off during a period of high unemployment because there is no money to pay for airport expansion and upgrades.

Speaking of those fun-loving, sleepy-eyed scamps, the air traffic controllers, Bloomberg Business Week has a dismaying story in its August 1-August 7 issue showing that of 140 controllers the FAA attempted to fire for a variety of reasons only 82 were actually forced to leave. Well, just so they're not inconvenienced.

America's political gridlock and money woes hurt more than public confidence and comfort - they cost money. According to a story by Washington Post reporter Ashley Halsey III in the July 27 Post (www.washingtonpost.com),
delaying repair of infrastructure such as bridges, roads, railroads and airports costs the U.S. $129 billion a year in added operational costs and travel delays. The story cites a recent study conducted for the American Society of Civil Engineers.

This cascade of bad news has slowed U.S. economic growth to an anemic 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2011, following barely visible 0.4 percent growth in the first quarter. The three major credit rating agencies are still talking about downgrading the nation's sterling AAA rating. Additionally, U.S. consumer spending fell 0.2 percent in June, the latest month for which statistics are available. Add on the coming effects of reduced federal spending and employment, and the world's largest economy could tumble into a double-dip recession, imperiling not only the United States but the rest of the world.

When will America straighten up and fly right? Not anytime soon, evidently.

It'll Be a Very Warm Time in the Old Town Tonight

2011-07-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

I know hot weather. I have been in heat: foolishly trying to walk to an appointment while wearing a pressed, briefly crisp white shirt and tie in Hong Kong heat and humidity. Strolling the Las Vegas Strip when the temperature hit 117F. Shopping in outdoor markets on a sweltering Mumbai afternoon. Stopping at a desert camp for a meal in the United Arab Emirates in weather that was far from chilly.

And I live in California, where temperatures - or temps, as our local TV weather forecasters call them - can reach triple-digits. Yet, unless they actually do reach triple digits, the aforementioned weatherpersons will not utter the H word on the air: Hot. Forecasts this week, for example, call for seven consecutive days with highs at 90F and above, yet the TV weather map reads "Very Warm.'' Excuse me, that's hot. Why the reluctance to utter the H word?

Denial of climate change, consciously or unconsciously? Could be, as said weatherpersons virtually never address global warming in their reports. Or maybe it's a California thing. The Golden State is, after all, famous as the land of sun and fun. With lots of sun come lots of high temps. They are virtually never dampened in the dry summer months by rain - er, precip (forecaster-speak for precipitation). So, maybe it's bad PR for the state, even when directed at people who live here.

Ah, well. It's supposed to hit 98F shortly and that means just one thing: It'll be a very warm time in the old town tonight.

Airheads and the FAA: 70,000 More Worries

2011-07-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

As noted here in earlier posts, the U.S. Congress - the House of Representatives and the Senate - have each passed legislation to fund the Federal Aviation Administration, but can't blend - 'reconcile' in Washingtonese - differences in the bills. Moreover, an attempt to pass a 21st temporary funding measure for the FAA failed.

This latest example of governmental dysfunctionality caused 4,000 FAA workers to be furloughed on Saturday, Day 1 of the crisis. Today, Thursday, Day 6, they have been joined by 70,000 more workers who were laboring on badly needed airport expansions and other infrastructure upgrades; these have been halted for lack of money. This means no paychecks and no spending money for these people and their families. All this at near-record highs in nationwide unemployment, when throwing 70,000 more onto the unemployment rolls means U.S. retail outlets, automobile dealerships, construction companies and other busiensses will lose revenue.

Does Congress not understand that putting 70,000 out of work - not to mention the legions of federal workers targeted by presumptive future cuts in the federal budget - means adding significantly to short- and perhaps long-term unemployment?

As slowing growth in international air-travel shows, pace the International Air Transport Association's statistics (www.iata.org)- a big influx of newly unemployed means the already-staggering business community won't see enough demand to hire these people and switch their employment to the private sector from the public sector. Result: Deep structural unemployment.

What a mess. Well, at least the air traffic controllers are still on the job and the planes are still flying. But without federal funding, without the revenue from suspended federal taxes on air fares and without continuing research on long-delayed next generation air traffic control systems, the crucially important U.S. aviation market is flying into turbulence and no one knows when it's going to fly back out.

Norway

2011-07-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

Like many, I have spent the last few days trying to wrap my mind about what happened in Norway last Friday: Namely, the slaughter of 70-odd innocents by a heavily armed white, rightwing, anti-Muslim extremist who may or may not have acted alone.

The facts of the case are difficult enough to absorb without wondering what has happened to the peaceful, beautiful, largely harmonious nation of 5 million people.

When I think of Norway, I think of the wonderful Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, the Oslo-Bergen train ride over the mountainous spine of Norway, the skiers gliding up to high-country rail stations and clattering on board the train with their gear, a father and daughter in Bergen harbor bobbing up to dockside with a load of fresh fish they had caught themselves in a small boat. It's difficult to reconcile these memories of Norway with the cracked concrete and blown-out windows in Oslo and the perfectly horrible sight of bodies in the water off the island where the mass shooting of Labor Party youth took place.

In the blogosphere, where opinion is never in short supply but facts don't always seem to matter, Left and pro-Muslim bloggers took scant time saying "see!'' and pointing out that Muslims hadn't carried out this latest terror attack, while scoring others for initially assuming they had.

They shouldn't congratulate themselves too much. It took 16 years following Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma City attack of 1995 for mass murder on this scale to happen in a Western country that wasn't carried out by Muslims. Radicalized, jihadist Muslims - who, it must be said again and clearly understood, don't speak or act for the majority of decent people around the world who happen to be Muslim - have carried out many attacks in many countries in those 16 years, claiming thousands of lives. Condemning the acts of the shooter/bomber in custody, one Anders Behring Breivik, is certainly the right thing to do. It doesn't begin to excuse the terrorist acts of others - many aimed at travelers and commuters, such as the atrocities in Mumbai, London, Madrid and several locations in Egypt, notably the tourist magnet of Luxor.

As for the accused Norwegian killer, one irony here is that he has become a mirror image of the people he hates. This fact has not gone unnoticed in Norway.

"Thomas Hegghammer, a terrorism specialist at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, said (Breivik's online) manifesto bears an eerie resemblance to those issued by Osama bin Laden and other leaders of Al Qaeda, though rather from a Christian rather than a Muslim point of view,'' reports a July 24 New York Times story. "Like Mr. Breivik's manuscript, the major Al Qaeda declarations have detailed accounts of the Crusades, include a pronounced sense of historical grievance and call for apocalyptic warfare to defeat a religious and cultural enermy.''

Once again, it has become clear that we live in a dangerous world - as if we could forget. Among other things, this latest outrage fuels the fatalism of the it-can-happen-anywhere brigade. Indeed, terrorist attacks can happen anywhere, even in peaceful Norway. The facts remain, however, that some countries - India, Egypt, Indonesia, to name three - are targeted considerably more often than others, and most organized, mass attacks in recent years have come from jihadis.

Shattered and shaken, Norway will heal over time. As for concerns about the safety of travel there, I wouldn't hesitate to go back to Norway - and I am not a traveler driven by derring-do. As always, travelers should study the patterns of the threats to safety and go with the odds. There is never a guarantee, but the chances of remaining safe in some places are definitely better than in others, regardless of what relativists would have you believe.

Jittery Generation

2011-07-23T16:28:00.000-07:00

I went to a media sensorium the other night and a baseball game broke out.

Not that a lot of people noticed. When they weren't belatedly catching up with plays they didn't watch in real-time by staring at the big video replay screen at San Francisco's ATT Park, they were working their electronic devices thumbs a-blazing, taking cell phone photos and videos, chattering into their mobiles and bopping their heads to music on their Ipods. The game? Well, the face-off between traditional rivals - the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers versus the defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants - got their attention from time to time.

It must be said that Giants management did its share to put the sellout crowd of 41,000 in mind of things other than the ostensible draw - baseball.

There was, blessedly, no dot-racing, but there were endless promotions on the video screen, messages of the will-you-marry-me-Amy variety, giveaway T-shirts shot from "guns' into the stands, blaring rock and pop music, a long video presentation on the stadium screen of couples in the crowd kissing. You would have to be curmudgeon indeed not to perform for thousands of strangers. I'll say this - the place rocked. But a good bit of it was orchestrated, as though team management wanted to control the crowd's behavior by prompting fans to embrace programmed activity so they wouldn't do anything weird that they conceived on their own. This didn't stop fans from drinking, to be sure; I saw a few fans wobble so badly they were in danger of tumbling down the concrete stadium steps.

Even in Japan, where electronic consumer crazes have erupted regularly for decades, baseball fans at the the sole game I have seen there seemed much more focused on the game. Oh, they did programmed things, too: chiefly group singing that brought to mind U.S. college football games or European soccer matches. And, yes, the hometown Nippon Ham Fighters had a big video screen installed in the Tokyo Dome, where I saw the game. And, yes, fans seemed to like to catch foul balls - but unlike in North America, uniformed ball girls waded into the crowd to retrieve foul balls and bowed politely when crowd members tossed them back.

Of course, I saw professional baseball in Japan a decade ago; it may be more like the frenetic North American major league experience now.

In any event, what we have is a jittery generation so locked-in to electronic play and distraction-by-gadget they are probably both incapable of and uninterested in enjoying the slow, thoughtful, summery feel of old school baseball. Ebbets Field, Sandy Koufax and the 1927 Yankees are very far away in time and distance and my latest experience with the peanuts and popcorn and Cracker Jacks set tells me that none of it is coming back.

Airheads, Continued

2011-07-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

That post yesterday about a threatened partial shutdown of the U.S. Federal Aviation Admistration due to partisan political gridlock in Washington? It's going to happen. Starting tomorrow, when 4,000 workers are furloughed and badly needed expansion of the dilapidated U.S. airport system is postponed due to lack of a funding agreement.

This is small-beer measured against the almost perversely infantile posturing of a just-day-no Republican House of Representatives and U.S. President Barack Obama's leading-from-behind style, but it weakens air safety and efficiency for millions of travelers. And of course, it hurts workers at a time of already high unemployment.

Today's Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com) reports "FAA Administrator J. Randolph Babbitt said that the furloughs of FAA workers would not affect the safety of air travel, but many of the agency's functions and its ability to collect $200 million a week in tax revenue that fund its operations will halt.

" 'The FAA employees who will be furloughed perform critical work for our nation's aviation system and our economy,' Babbitt said. 'These are real people with families who do not deserve to be put out of work during these tough economic times.' ''

But, hey, who cares about them when you are Masters of the Universe?

Airheads: Playing Politics With the FAA

2011-07-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

You would think essential travel services - such as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration would be too important to become playthings of powerful poitical interests.

You could think this. But you would be wrong, especially in the heat of the mean season of U.S. national politcs, which features mild, middle-of-the-roaders like President Barack Obama and his supporters versus livid, far-right activists in a struggle to see who will dominate. The FAA, which oversees the world's largest civil aviation system, is one such plaything. Wrapping up its 20th temporary funding extension, the agency faces a temporary shutdown tomorrow, absent a 21st funding extension. By Saturday, it may have to furlough 4,000 FAA workers deemed non-essential. Air traffic controllers would stay on the job.

Of course, furloughing federal workers and shutting down the government is no problem to people who are hostile to federal regulation - and, in extreme cases, to the very idea of government. Inconveniencing and perhaps even imperiling the safety of travelers? That's no big deal, either.

The nub of the issue is, of course, money. The mild, Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate has approved $34.5 billion to fund the FAA for two years - $17.25 billion a year. The conservative Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has passed a four-year bill totalling $60.1 billion - about $15 billion a year. Those couple billion extra in the Senate bill would go to fund badly needed infrastructure upgrades and airport expansions. The two houses of Congress have been unable to reconcile their different bills - which would replace all those extensions.

There are some other snafus, too. The Republican chair of the House Transportation Committee wants to end a subsidy to airlines that underwrites air service to small towns left hanging when the U.S. civil aviation system was deregulated in 1978. The Republican hails from heavily populated Florida; several key Democrats represent states such as lightly populated Montana that rely on the subsidy. The ease or lack of it with which federal workers can join labor unions is also at stake.

Evidently nothing is too petty in this mean season in American life to be out of bounds in a political struggle. And if that means causing workers to lose their jobs in a time of already stubbornly high unemployment and travelers to be incovenienced or endangered, well, that's just the way it goes. Know what I mean?

Mumbai, Again

2011-07-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

Mumbai, India's maximum metropolis, has been hit by terrorist attacks eight times since 2000, the latest arriving today when unknown killers set off three bombs in what appeared to be coordinated attacks. The explosions were timed to go off in crowded places during the evening rush hour, ensuring that a large number of innocent people would be killed or maimed. Early Indian media reports put the number killed at 21, the number of wounded at more than 100.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for attacks, but if events follow true to form, this latest outrage will be traced back to politicized Muslim extremists in neighboring Pakistan or in India, itself.

This is the biggest terrorist attack in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) since Islamic fanatics assaulted two luxury hotels, a Jewish cultural center and the central train station in November 2008, killing more than 160 innocents. One begins to run out of words when contemplating yet another assault on civilians in this vibrant, gritty, sprawling, difficult, exciting city that has the grave misfortune to be located on a hard-to-defend seafront not far from Pakistan. The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and Mexican drug cartels have also employed terror tactics, and are just as culpable.

This time, travelers didn't appear to be primary targets, as they were in the attacks on 5-star hotels filled with Indian and international visitors in 2008. This time, it was the hard-working, long-suffering people of Mumbai who were targeted.

Pundits and police will pick over the story as events continue to unfold. There will be an investigation, perhaps a commission, statements of regret. U.S. President Barack Obama, who visited Mumbai last year and stayed in the Taj Mahal Hotel and Tower, one of the hotels set on fire and raked with gunshots in 2008, has already exorssed solidarity with India. Indian security, which was very visibly ramped-up when I visited Mumbai in November 2009, has again proved insufficent.

Should travelers stay away from India, or at least Mumbai? Some, inevitably, will stay away. I put off my visit for nearly a year out of security concerns, but when I did go, I was glad I went. Everyone has to decide for himself.

What is to be done? Security officials can't turn every marketplace, hotel and airport into a fortress, but smarter security is sorely needed. Some will argue that the best way to fight terrorism is to eliminate its root causes, one of which is poverty. Yet, many of not most of the terrorists in the Sept. 11, 2001, horrors in the United States were well-educated and middle class. Fanaticism, while fed by poverty, is not created by poverty alone.

Somehow, the principle has got to sink-in that the end - heaven? a global caliphate? simple revenge for perceived wrongs? - does not justify the means - jihad, bloodshed, heartlessness toward 'the other'.

And we, as travelers, have got to use prudent common sense - and persevere. The worst thing in the world, and for the world, would be to abandon it.

The Highest Hotel in the World

2011-07-12T16:15:00.000-07:00

Mark DeCocinis gets high every day at work. But not to worry, he's not breaking the law. He's the regional vice president and general manager of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Hong Kong. Topping out at 490 meters high and towering 118 stories above the West Kowloon district and Victoria Harbor, it is the highest hotel in the world.

It's always nice to have bragging rights, but it wouldn't mean a whole heckuva lot if the hotel didn't measure up when it comes to service and splendor, too. It does both. The hotel, which opened in April of this year, simply shines. The views on a clear day are stupendous. Hong Kong doesn't enjoy clear days every day, to be sure; I peered out from my club level room on my first day to see a grey soup of clouds and smog. On the second and third days of my recent visit, however, the skies cleared and the view through the floor to ceiling windows was breathtaking.

DeCocinis, a native of Salerno, Italy who grew up in the United States, managed the Portman Ritz-Carlton in Shanghai after serving as GM at the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco in the 1990s. His experience and flair shows in the way the 312-room Hong Kong Ritz-Carlton is run. Staff are friendly, attentive, anticipatory. Decor, by leading-edge Japanese designers, pushes the boundaries of design without becoming ridiculous or outrageous for its own sake.

If you visit Hong Kong, be sure and go up to the 118th floor, where the Ozone bar occupies the highest perch in the hotel, even if you're not staying. Ozone is trendy without being chilly and has an outdoor terrace from which to drink-in the view. Western cocktail culture hasn't fully taken hold in Hong Kong yet - a fact reinforced when a fellow travel journalist ordered a manhattan and had to explain to the barman what bitters are and how to mix it all up with bourbon. But the bar crowd is attractive, the bar food is tasty the the vibe is appealing.

The hotel has knocked itself out to come up with sumptuous dining. Tosca is the lively, fine-dining Italian restaurant. The Lounge & Bar is an engaging spot on the 102nd floor - the hotel occupies levels 102 through 118, with an arrival lobby on the 9th floor - and there is a clever Chocolate Library with edible treats in the form of books and other decorative objects. I supped at Tin Lung Heen, the hotel's wonderful traditional Chinese restaurant, and it is hard to beat.

The Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong also offers a sumptuous spa, and has a posh Club Lounge on the 116th floor for executive-level guests. I was fortunate enough to have access to the Club Lounge with its chef-prepared breakfasts, evening cocktails, spirits and wine, express check-out, two free-use PCs with printer and complimentary wireless access. And, of course, there are stunning views from this level, too.

The new Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong makes a big change from the group's former hotel - a traditional gem in the city's vibrant Central district, on Hong Kong island, that was demolished several years back. The new property is much bigger and more contemporary than the earlier Ritz-Carlton. It must be noted that much of West Kowloon - a future arts and culture district rising on landfill where a rail line is also presently being built - is a big construction site. Walking around outdoors is tough to do for now, unlike in much of Hong Kong. However, the hotel sits atop the bustling International Commerce Center - the world's fourth-tallest building - so it's far from quiet or dull. At the base of this ultra-modern skyscraper is a multilevel, upscale shopping mall, which connects via a cascade of escalators to the city's superb train and subway system, so getting around is no problem.

All in all, the new hotel is a triumph - and it marks a triumphant return to Hong Kong for Ritz-Carlton Hotels and Resorts.

The Wine Seeker's Guide to the Livermore Valley

2011-07-10T17:33:00.000-07:00

If you enjoy drinking wine - especially when traveling on holiday - you've probably heard of Califoria's Napa and Sonoma valleys, and maybe been there. Maybe you've heard of the Golden State's Santa Barbara wine-producing region, too, and traveled there. The Livermore Valley? Not so much.

This state of affairs is something travel writer and radioman Thomas C. Wilmer hopes to change. Wilmer, a veteran print journalist and host of "Audiolog - The Travel Show'' on U.S. public radio stations, has written a painstakingly thorough, informative and, above all, useful guidebook entitled "The Wine Seeker's Guide to Livermore Valley.'' Livermore Valley, located in northern California about an hour from San Francisco in the East Bay, helped midwife the now-booming California wine trade. Indeed, the valley had a robust wine business in the 1880s and 1890s, lost nearly all of it during Prohibition and was dramatically surpassed in popularity by glamorous Napa and Sonoma after Prohibition was repealed.

Wilmer is an affable author and guide who doesn't put the knock on anyone; rather, he's interested in telling you what he likes about the Livermore Valley, a place he considers underrated both as a wine-making region and as a travel destination. He includes text on the valley's past - Charlie Chaplin shot movies there - and incorporates introductions from contemporary winemakers such as Phil Wente and James Concannon, two descendants of pioneer winemaking families. The Wente family brought the first Chardonnay clones to America from France, in 1912.

Along the way, Wilmer, the principal author, recruits contributors to furnish short pieces on what to do and where to hang out in the valley. Such as: Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill's restored Tao House in Danville, and the, well, downright pleasant downtown in the town of Pleasanton, with its toothsome upscale Mexican restaurant Blue Aguave Club, the Wine Steward - the East Bay's largest wine shop - and the Rose Hotel, a lovely place owned by retired National Football League coach and broadcaster John Madden.

The heart of this nicely illustrated (think good color photography), well-organized 236-page volume is Wilmer's profiles of Livermore Valley wineries. Concise, clearly written, with practical information such as opening hours, driving directions and interviews with the wineries' owners, this substantial section showcases Wilmer's gifts as a writer; you're in the hands of a pro here.

This book - and wine-making region - are most likely to appeal to travelers who have visited the San Francisco Bay Area before, seen the most-famous sights like the Golden Gate Bridge, and want to do something different. If you head east to the Livermore Valley, make sure you have this helpful trade paperback in hand.

"The Wine Seeker's Guide to the Livermore Valley'' retails for $19.35. It is published by RiverWood Books, Ashland, Oregon (www.riverwoodbooks.com). Tom Wilmer's "Audiolog'' is based at San Luis Obispo, California public radio station KCBX FM 90 (www.kcbx.org).

Lynn Ferrin on Yosemite

2011-07-08T16:46:00.000-07:00

Lynn Ferrin, who passed yesterday (see previous post), had a fine combination of lyricism and practicality in her writing. To know her writing is to know Lynn because she invested so much of herself in her work.

Here is a link to a tasty piece published in The Atlantic in 2009 (www.theatlantic.com) that shows this sorely missed writer at her best. Thanks to journalist Laura Del Rosso (www.lauradelrosso.com) for providing it:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/yosemite-apos-s-rock-stars/7374/

Lynn Ferrin

2011-07-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

Travel writer and dear friend Lynn Ferrin passed away today after a long illness and a too-short life. Lynn was in her early 70s, but seemed younger thanks to a strong body, generous spirit and positive outlook.

Lynn Ferrin was not a household name but you may have read her travel writing; she was, among things, prolific. She worked at Via (formerly Motorland) magazine, the AAA magazine for northern California, Nevada and Utah, for 37 years. During Lynn's last seven years at Via, she served as editor in chief.
She was also a widely published freelancer.

I got to know Lynn through a book-authors' group at San Francisco's Media Alliance, and over time, she became a friend. She may not have realized it, but she was a role-model to me, though she never used that awkward term. Just being around her was a lesson in how to carry oneself, in personal and professional ethics, in sheer enjoyment, in curiosity, in genuine warmth, and, not least, in how to craft a story. After she retired from the magazine, at about age 60, it seemed like she worked even harder and moved faster: climbing mountains, going on treks, rafting, exploring, writing. She had as much energy at 60 as two 30-year-olds and only in the last few years did she begin to slow down.

For years, Lynn hosted an annual holiday party in her San Francisco Victorian. I saw people there I didn't see any other time of the year. She threw the party every year on Dec. 22, the day after the solstice. Lynn's parties were packed and they were ecumenical, bringing together members of the far-flung travel tribe, and attracting writers who were sometimes rivals, ordinarily concerned with securing bragging rights and markets. At her parties, peace reigned. One year, when Lynn decided to take a year off from being a party hostess, people showed up at her door anyway; she invited them in and there was a party anyway.

Lynn was one of a very few people who as far as I know, had no enemies, nor even any serious detractors. She had hundreds of best friends and made each one feel special. She's been gone less than a day and I, we, miss her terribly.

Korean Air's High-Flying Plans

2011-07-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

I caught up over coffee recently with Korean Air executive John E. Jackson III - and catching up wasn't easy. This was both because Jackson, a long-time veteran of the company, is a busy guy and because KAL is busy pursuing high-flying plans.

Jackson, an affable American who served as the carrier's first non-Korean marketing director, was perhaps genetically fated to work in the airline business. "When I grew up, both of my parents were working for Delta,'' he says with a grin. "I took my first airplane ride when I was two weeks old.''

These days, the Los Angeles-based Jackson is KAL's vice president for passenger marketing and sales, the Americas. In line with that, he notes that KAL, which flies more trans-Pacific flights between the United States and Asia than any other airline, will be bringing one of its first superjumbo doubledecker Airbus A380s to New York this summer. Next month, in fact, flying non-stop daily service between South Korea's Seoul/Incheon International Airport and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Here are excerpts from our conversation, with more details about Korean's corporate flight plan:

"We're going to put fewer seats on the A380 than any other airline: 403 - 12 in first class, 301 in economy and 92 in business. We'll devote the whole upper deck to business, the first airline to do so. The aircraft is big but it's not meant to hold 900 people.

"We're also going to install the first duty-free shop on an A380. There will be a bar and lounge on the upper deck, and they will be open for the whole flight.

"We derive 50 percent of our revenue from premium class customers. We have the product to support it. And the route structure, we've got that.

"We anticipate a lot of business and corporate travel on the New York route. A lot of the Fortune 500 companies are in the East, in New York.

"This year,'' he continues, "we'll be adding 20 percent more flights between Asia and the Americas. China is huge for us. (Due to the tragic Japan earthquake and radiation leak), a lot of people who used to transit through Tokyo, are transiting through Seoul/Incheon. A lot of people are experiencing our service. The airport is so well thought-of. It's definitely one of our advantages to have that airport.

''We're flying daily in San Francisco, daily in Seattle. We're going from three flights a week to five in Dallas, doing 10 a week from Chicago. We're up to five daily flights out of LAX (Los Angeles). We're very bullish on the L.A. market. The Korean market there is very important.''

Jackson acknowledges that KAL, like other airlines, lost some altitude during the global recession, but says the worst appears to be past.

"I wouldn't characterize it (business) as strong, but it's certainly coming back. We're probably back to about where we were. So, we've recovered, though we're about two years behind where we'd wanted to be. We've returned to profitability. A couple of years ago, the won (South Korea's currency) really dropped. We pay our fuel bills in U.S. dollars. Hedging fuel prices? No, we don't do a whole lot of it.''

Beyond North America, "We're looking seriously at every country in South America'' for possible explansion, Jackson says. But this will be done prudently. "Everybody's looking for yields thes days before you start to add flights.''

KAL also has a unit that operates business jets, coordinating that service with its regularly scheduled commercial flights. This, he says, is a growing niche. "There are a lot of companies that are using business jets, even those that own their own jets.''

With that, our coffee klatch is over. Jackson is outta here. Catching a plane, of course.

Highway Blues

2011-07-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

Thirty-nine million Americans were expected to drive 50 or more miles from home this Fourth of July holiday weekend, according to the American Automobile Association. Millions more were set to hit the road in Canada for the Canada Day holiday weekend.

So that there might be some measure of safety on the highway - achieved partly by holding down drunken driving - many state, provincial and local law enforcement agencies set up traffic roadblocks. Police check drivers' identities and see whether they have been drinking alcohol. This helps reduce the historically high number of traffic fatalities - nearly 34,000 in the United States in 2009, of which about one-third involved drunken drivers. So, this would seem to be a good thing, no?

So one might think. But, of course, no good deed goes unpunished. A Wisconsin-based group called the National Motorists Association complains that the U.S. government pressured Apple and Research in Motion to ban apps showing where roadblocks are set up, bragging that their organization has forged boldly ahead and continues to list these locations on its Web site, so that drivers can avoid them.

The organization links its position to the whole idea of political independence, which its executive director explains thusly:

"This type of harassment seems ironic, given the onset of the Fourth of July holiday, a natonal celebration of our country's independence and enshrinement of individual freedoms. I don't think that being grilled by armed strangers, or having your personal effects scrutinized and searched by government personnel under the presumption of guilt rather than innocence is quite what the signers of the Declaration of Independence had in mind in 1776.''

Doing 80 miles an hour in a motor vehicle may not have entered into the Founders' thinking either. And "armed strangers''? That's one way of describing law enforcement.

Personally, as a survivor of a traffic accident two years ago brought on by an intoxicated 20-year-old - who was speeding and driving drunk at 5 o'clock in the afternoon - I am grateful that law enforcement is on the job and trying to reduce highway mayhem. Fortunately, I survived this sudden and frightening crash, as did my wife, who was at the wheel and driving responsibly. The medics who promptly arrived on the scene put my wife on a gurney and into an ambulance and drove her to a hospital for observation. She emerged without serious injuries and was released that same night. The drunk driver was arrested - those darned armed strangers again! - and ended up paying us a small amount of money for damaging our car, which spun out after we were clipped from behind at speed.

When I read rants like the one I quoted above, I don't think of powdered wigs, quill pens and 1776. I think of my wife in an ambulance, an IV hooked to her arm and me on the phone to her grown daughter telling a shaken woman that her mother was hit by a drunk driver and is in the hospital. As for enjoying the "enshrinement of individual freedoms,'' you have to be alive for that. Ironic, isn't it?

San Francisco Tourism's Pep Rally

2011-06-30T11:19:00.001-07:00

San Francisco is one of the world's favorite tourist towns - and the city has the numbers to go with it. A community of 750,000, it draws about 20 times that number of visitors every year, generating some $8 billion a year in visitors' spending. Travel and tourism is the city by the bay's number one business by revenue.

Players in the tourism biz get together at an annual luncheon organized by the San Francisco Travel Association (www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com) to break out the latest stats, give out awards, watch jazzy videos and listen to speakers - all smartly and professionally scripted and choreographed. This year's luncheon, the 101st, had the throbbing spirit of a pep rally, complete with a cheering, hundreds-strong audience in Moscone Convention Center, a booming soundtrack, vibrant graphics and can-do message.

And why not? 2010 was a good year for the tourism biz in San Francisco. International visitors - who comprise one-third of arrivals - stayed strong. Overall visitors were up 3.1 percent to 15.92 million from 2009. The city got a shot of adrenaline from the 2010 World Series champion San Francisco Giants, who won their first Major League Baseball crown since relocating from New York in 1958.

Accordingly, San Francisco - which competes with the Big Apple, Las Vegas, Orlando, San Diego and Los Angeles for convention, meeting and leisure tourism dollars - is trying to build on the momentum. This year, the city hosted International Pow Wow, the big annual travel show produced by the U.S. Travel Association, getting another shot of publicity from 400 international journalists who attended the event and toured San Francisco and the greater Bay Area. Also this year, San Francisco International Airport opened a long-closed, beautifully renovated terminal 2; I've flown several times out of the 'new' old terminal and it's a beauty. In May, SFO's arrivals jumped 5 percent over May 2009, the busiest May ever for one of the nation's leading airports.

If you're planning a visit in the next year or two, San Francisco will have some new offerings to go with its classic line-up of restaurants, cable cars climbing halfway to the stars, hills with panoramic views, street characters and superb weather. The city is spending $56 million to upgrade Moscone Center, a job expected to be finished in 2012. In 2013, SF will host the lucrative America's Cup sailboat competition. A long-promised new cruise ship terminal is, well, supposedly approaching, somewhere on the horizon.

All told, it's taken a decade to get back to the numbers the city enjoyed prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the unholy trifecta of SARS, avian flu and recession. In tourism, the Great Recession - reflecting the world's wider economic climate - appears to be waning, if at a painfully slow and uncertain pace.

Still, we'll call the glass half-full.

So - in the words of an old song, "If you're going to San Francisco, wear some flowers in your hair/You're going to meet some gentle people there.'' And every other kind.

Kabul Clarification

2011-06-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

Just to be clear: The Kabul Intercontinental Hotel attacked by terrorists this week is not connected to the global InterContinental Hotel Group, according to the London company, which has issued press releases explaining that it lost control of the Kabul property when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Since then, other operators - no great respectors of trademarks or intellectual property, evidently - have continued to run the now-unaffiliated hotel under the same name.

When it comes to globalized commerce, you just never know. Back in the 1990s, on my first trip to Asia, I booked a room in the Fairmont Hotel, in Tokyo, and got a really good - which is to say low - rate. When I arrived, I found a perfectly good old-school hotel built after World War II when Japan was reconstructing. It was not affiliated with the upmarket Fairmont chain, now based in Toronto; Fairmont didn't own the rights to the name in Japan. That hotel has since closed and was demolished.

Anyway, it's a very different Intercontinental in Kabul.

Welcome to Kabul

2011-06-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

Travelers remain a target in politico-religious conflicts, as today's bloody attack on the InterContinental Hotel in Kabul shows. The latest unconscionable assault on civilians by suicide bombers and gunmen follows February's attack on the Kabul Safi Landmark Hotel and the horrific 2008 hotel attacks in Mumbai. The common thread in all these mass killings is that they were launched by Islamist terror cells based in Pakistan who see travelers as soft targets.

Early media reports vary, as they always do amidst the chaos, on the number of attackers and victims in Kabul. It will take time to sort out the final toll. The Taliban have claimed credit, if that is the word, for carrying out the latest outrage, which they will dignify by calling an "operation.'' Afghan government officials and foreigners were reportedly singled out.

Protecting hotel guests is an especially difficult proposition. Hoteliers I have talked to say they want to have effective security consistent with hospitality; they don't want their hotels to look like fortresses. In some parts of the world, they already do. Hotels I have visited in and around Cairo, Egypt - where attacks on tourists are manifold and tourist sites and hotels are often staffed by uniformed Tourist Police - station conspicuously armed guards at the main lobby and have X-ray screening machines like those at airports. Alternate exits and entrances are often blocked off. In Mumbai, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, one of the hotels attacked in 2008, was flanked outside by an armored car, paddywagon and concrete street barriers when I stayed there in 2009, almost exactly a year after the attack.

Not every hotel wants to go to those lengths, but every hotel has to have a flexible and constantly updated emergency plan, just in case. Without question, organized violence against travelers makes traveling less pleasant and at times downright dangerous. So, welcome to Kabul, and welcome to the new normal. It will be like this for the foreseeable future.

It's Weird Up There

2011-06-27T15:44:00.001-07:00

You know it's the silly season when media reports - in the United States, where I live, anyway - are filled with reports about a man dressing in exposed women's underwear while flying, a college student with trousers hanging below his waist being taken into custody and escorted off a plane, and the Internet buzzing about a pilot who inadvertently complained into a radio frequency about the unattractiveness of female flight attendants and preponderence of gays at his airline.

Is there nothing better to talk about? Apparently not, at least not in the slow old summertime.

Critics charge - they're always charging something, have you noticed? - that the aforementioend pilot, an employee of Southwest Airlines, was inappropriate in his choice of comments. No doubt he was, though he didn't know anyone except his co-pilot was listening to remarks made in the cockpit that were in fact disseminated through parts of the U.S. aviation communications system. Said critics are now demanding the pilot undergo sensitivity training. Good luck with that. The opinions, which veer on the knuckle-dragging side, are nonetheless this fellow's personal opinions. As long as they don't interfere with safe and efficient operation of an aircraft, it's hard to image they constitute a truly serious offense.

The guy who flew in women's undies? A 65-year-old white guy with white hair, photographed on a smart phone in purple halter and bare midrift, a choker, long black stockings and tight purple underwear. He told the San Francisco Chronicle that he flies like this a lot, doesn't mean to offend anyone and does it for fun. He is apparently an elite level frequent flier on US Airways and describes himself as a business consultant.

As it happens, US Airways is the same airline that tossed the college student, an African American football player, off a flight before take-off after he allegedly refused to hitch up his pants when the flight crew asked him to, and then - in the airline's account - grew belligerent. The student says, no, he was cooperative and was sitting in his seat when approached and his underwear - described as skintight by several fellow passengers - couldn't be seen. The NAACP has gotten involved, claiming this is a clear case of racial profiling. The young man has a lawyer. In America, where racial animus has been boiling over for generations, playing the race card is always a possibility, as is litigation.

US Air compounds its public relations and customer relations problem by saying the airline has no dress code; people are free to fly as long as their private parts are concealed, according to the Phoenix-based carrier.

That still leaves a lot of territory for debate and disagreement. In the usual venting and rage-o-rama, common sense, whether by airline or passengers, seems to have gone missing. Yet, having some regard for the sensitivites of others, whether enforced by rule or not, doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Is keeping one's snarky opinions of fellow employees to oneself really that hard? How about covering up one's body? Hard? Really hard? We don't have to start issing burkas for passengers to put on in transit, just exercise a minimum amount of courtesy.

And so the battle rages, along with ongoing media coverage - and media commentary, like this post. And just think, it's only June. Wait till the really slow news months roll around. July and August should be doozies.

Pan Pacific's Shopping List

2011-06-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

Todd Wynne-Parry is on a shopping spree. But if he finds what he's looking for, he won't be able to fit it into a shopping bag.

Wynne-Parry is shopping for hotels. Not to book them - to buy them.

Vice President Development, North America for Pan Pacific Hotels Group, Wynne-Parry has been based in San Francisco for about a year. His mission: to acquire and rebrand hotels in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco for his employer, a Singapore-based hospitality company known for its sleek, business-oriented hotels and refined, discreet Asian hospitality.

I met over coffee with the Michigan-born executive, who has worked in the Asia Pacific region for InterContinental Hotels Group, Starwood Worldwide Hotels and Resorts and Marriott Corp., among others, before he returned to the United States for Pan Pacific (www.pphg.com).

Wynne-Parry tells me his company nearly landed and reflagged a JW Marriott in San Francisco, but that deal didn't come together.

The company is keen to get back into the San Francisco market. There was a Pan Pacific Hotel not far from the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market streets but the group lost the hotel a few years ago; it is now Parc 55. Somewhere near Union Square or South of Market (San Francisco's trendy SOMA district) would be right, he says. Those areas are both close to the city's Moscone Convention Center.

Pan Pacific - a corporate sister of ParkRoyal Hotels - also wants to be in New York because, well, it's New York; Chicago, because it's a major business and leisure destination, and Los Angeles, due to its market-size, marquee name and presence on the Pacific Rim. "Somewhere in the West L.A. corridor'' that runs between downtown L.A. and Santa Monica would be best there, he says.

Generally, the company prefers management contracts to outright ownership, but will look at both options. "It depends on opportunity and if the pricing isn't ridiculous,'' he says. And they'd rather acquire "a hotel that has good bones,'' reflag it, change the reservations system and the staff uniforms and get busy. But they'll do an extensive renovation if the hotel needs one.

"It's on a case-by-case basis.''

Pan Pacific, a subsidiary of UOL Group Limited, a leading Asian property company, already has properties in Whistler, British Columbia (two of them, in fact), Vancouver, B.C. and Seattle. It is also growing in Australia and China. When I ask about the competition, Wynne-Parry cites Starwood's Westin brand, Marriott, InterContinental and Sofitel as key rivals.

Pan Pacific is a founding member of the Global Hotel Alliance, a joint marketing venture that includes Leela, Kempinski and Omni hotels. GHA Disovery is the group's shared customer loyality program.

Prime hotels are not exactly selling cheap in the U.S. at present, but if Wynne-Parry succeeds in his four target markets, travelers - especially business travelers - can expect to see Pan Pacific hotels in more U.S. cities. "Our secondary circle would include Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, Boston and San Diego,'' he says.

Can't Get No Satisfaction

2011-06-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

It's not exactly a Stop the Presses moment, but a new survey of American consumers shows that U.S. commercial airlines are among the least-liked businesses in the United States. Business travelers, who spend a lot of time in the sky - and often have to pay high walk-up fares to go with added fees that airlines have tacked on to try to make a profit in a time of sky-high jet fuel - are especially disgruntled.

Every year, the American Customer Satisfaction Index records the results of a survey of selected U.S. consumers, and every year the section on air travel makes melancholy reading. Only 65 percent of fliers describe themselves as very satisfied or fairly satisfied.

Southwest Airlines, the perennial leader, ranks highest for the 18th consecutive year. It may not be entirely coincidental that Southwest is the major holdout in not charging fees for checked bags - a pet peeve of passengers. Continental Airlines, which merged with United Airlines - also known as Misery Air among regulars - saw its customer satisfaction score drop 10 points from last year.

Any good news? Yes. Most U.S. travelers are satisfied with U.S. hotels, giving the indstry as a whole a respectable score of 77 points.

Tokyo Three Months After

2011-06-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

Japan's maximum metropolis, Tokyo, was little damaged by the frightening trifecta of earthquake, tsunami and radiation that struck several hundred miles away in northeastern Japan in March. But the world's most populous city - and one of its most vibrant - has suffered along with the rest of that normally very safe country by sustaining severe damage to its reputation as a safe place to visit.

Three months after the massive disaster, Japan is trying to relaunch its important travel and tourism industry; the industry accounted for 5.3 percent of Japan's gross domestic product in 2008 and generated 4.3 million jobs, according to Japanese government officials. As Japan's capital and largest city, Tokyo contributes a lion's share to both.

According to a story published June 15 in the Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com), the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan in April plummeted 62.5 percent from the same month last year. Figures for May were expected to be equally dismal, or nearly so, as lingering fears of earthquakes and/or radiation are causing many travelers to stay away.

Those numbers have prompted an unusual letter from the Governor of Tokyo, Mr. Shintaro Ishihara, asking travel journalists and others to help get out the word that things have returned to normal in Tokyo and the city is actually perfectly fine as a destination. I received the letter today, dated June 15 and sent on paper by post from Japan to my home.

Of course, it is part of Ishihara's job to promote tourism and the economy in general, but his words seem heartfelt, and as far as anyone can know now, largely factual.

His language is also notably more temperate than his initial reaction to the disaster three months ago, when he suggested it was "devine intervention'' and punishment for the Japanese people's "egoism.'' The American TV and radio commentator Glenn Beck said something similar about the disaster, asserting it could be "a message from God.'' The controversial Ishihara, a former writer and frequent source of critical remarks about foreigners, apologized under pressure.

Anyway, so that you can evaluate Ishihara's appeal for yourself, here are excerpts from his June 15 letter to foreign writers:

"I ... felt very proud as a Japanese to learn that the calm response of our citizens in such trying times has been highly lauded by the people of the world. The nation is now working as one for the recovery of the stricken regions, and Tokyo is also doing everything in its power to support such efforts.

"Tokyo suffered very little direct damage from this diaster,'' he writes. "With regard to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident, this is unlike the accident at Chernobyl, which resulted in widespread damages; we are not detecting levels of radioactive materials that will impact health, and the lives of the inhabitants of Tokyo are currently unaffected by this incident. It's business as usual here in Tokyo. Please dispel any concerns you may have about visiting and staying in our city, as there are no problems with the water, air, food, public transport and other urban functions, and public safety here remains as high as it has ever been.

"You can thoroughly enjoy the charms of Tokyo again, as well,'' he continues. "Tourist attractions such as Tokyo Disney Resort and the Edo-Tokyo Museum have resumed operations, and events such as the gala summer Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival will be held ...''

"I hope you will visit Tokyo and Japan,'' the governor concludes, "and experience the Tokyo of today - a Tokyo that is no different from what it was like before. Please also see with your own eyes how Japan is taking the path to recovery, united in its efforts to overcome this tragedy. I would also be very grateful if you could then return home and inform others about the strength and vibrancy you found in our city and our nation.

"The people of Tokyo await you with our established spirit of warm hospitality. Feel safe about visiting Tokyo and Japan. We look forward to welcoming you.''

Oh No, Canada

2011-06-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

Oh, Canada - rioting again? It's just a game.

Try telling Canadians that ice-hockey - the national sport in The Great White North - is anything other than life and death, though, and you might be pitched into one of the street fires set in last night's riot in Vancouver, B.C. The reason? The city's National Hockey League team, the Canucks, lost to the Boston Bruins in the penultimate game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals, dashing hopes for the first Stanley Cup win for a Canada-based NHL franchise since the 1990s. The riot prompted some belated and already outdated travel advisories; it's over, though the fires, looting, overturned cars, thrown beer bottles and other bad behavior did pose a hazard of sorts to visitors and locals should they be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Canadians are caricatured as really, really nice, reserved people - people so polite, they say thank you at ATMS. I have lived in Canada twice and traveled there many times and I can assure you Canadians are just as ornery as their neighbors to the south, if more lightly armed. Of course, the thought that this could be true sends them into spasms of denial. The fact that the Canucks blew the series, after leading three games to two, makes it all the more imperative to run amok. The Canucks lost game 6, 5-2, on home ice and then got their butts kicked in game 7 by a 4-0 score.

The truth is, Canadians are likely to riot not only when they lose but also when they win - witness the ugly riots along Montreal's St. Catherine Street last year after the Quebec city's beloved Canadiens won a post-season series. Or, the 1993 Montreal riots when the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup. Or way back in 1955, when Montrealers rioted when Canadiens star Maurice Richard was suspended. Well, you'd run riot, too, after saying thank you to ATMS your whole life, eh?

It's safe to go back now. Although Boston won the Cup, with the help of Canada-born-and-bred pros, in Vancouver, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal, it's wait till next year.

On Duty and On Amtrak

2011-06-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

I just took a ride between New York City's Pennsylvania Station and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on always beleaguered Amtrak, the U.S. national passenger railroad system, and saw some notable changes since my last time on the rails a year ago.

Most of those changes have to do with security - namely, there is a lot more of it, especfially those aspects of security that are designed to be visible. While I waited for the evening departure of my train below the low roof of busy Penn Station, I saw a number of Amtrak Police on duty as well as fatigue-clad regular soldiers with sidearms strapped to their thighs. Mounted video screens played a repeating loop of interviews with dog handlers whose charges sniff out possible explosives on the trains and in the stations. Travelers are now told they must carry photo identification and be prepared to show it, though no one in the station or on the train asked to see mine. Travelers were also told to be ready to have their luggage inspected, though this didn't happen in my carriage, either.

All this, of course, has come about because of recovered documents in the Pakistan lair of the late Osama bin Laden that mentioned targeting U.S. trains for future terror attacks. The ramped-up security inches American train travel a little closer to the frustrating security maze of American airports, muting one of rail's advantages for consumers. But with the present air of menace, one can hardly blame Amtrak for heightening scrutiny.

Looking around at the fast-food joints and relatively murky environs of New York's major long-distance rail station - Grand Central Station handles significant commuter traffic - I grew nostalgic for something that hasn't happened yet, and may not happen: The conversion of the magnificent post office right nearby into the 'new' Penn Station, as proposed years ago by the late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan. Even this wouldn't entirely make up for the destruction, in the early 1960s, of the original Penn Station, which rivaled Grand Central in grandeur. But it would bolster America's struggling rail system - once arguably the finest in the world.

A Taste of Graham Greene: On Travel

2011-06-15T11:15:00.000-07:00

The late British world traveler, memoirist, screenwriter and novelist Graham Greene is my default author when I'm on a long-haul airplane or long-distance train. Greene was one of the best at blending literary quality and accessibility and his books are set in far-flung, often colorful locales.

In the midst of a smooth, six-hour flight on Virgin America (www.virginamerica.com) from New York to California yesterday, I opened Greene's 1982 novel "Monsignor Quixote.'' A ruminative, often-funny entertainment, the book tracks a road trip around Spain by a communist mayor and a priest - who, in a nice fictional touch, is a direct descendant of Cervantes' Don Quixote. This modern Quixote isn't on horseback. Instead, the priest drives a broken-down old car he names Rocinante.

"Father Quixote was glad to have a room to himself, minute though it was,'' Greene writes in one road-wise passage. "It seemed to him that his journey had already extended across the whole breadth of Spain, though he knew he was not much more than 200 kilometers from La Mancha. The slowness of Rocinante made a nonsense of distance. Well, the farthest his ancestor had gone from La Mancha on all his journeys had been the city of Barcelona, and yet anyone who had read the true history would have thought that Don Quixote had covered the whole immense area of Spain. There is a virtue in slowness which we have lost. Rocinante was of more value for a true traveler than a jet plane. Jet planes were for businessmen.''

A Solution in Search of a Problem?

2011-06-07T16:44:00.000-07:00

On May 25, former Best Western and Hyatt Hotels executive Jim Evans became the first CEO of the newly created Corporation for Travel Promotion. Evans marked his arrival in his new job by addressing International Pow Wow in San Francisco, outlining how the new entity plans to sell the United States as a red-hot travel destination.

The very next day - May 26 - 400 miles down the Pacific coast in Los Angeles, some 2,000 elderly British cruise ship passengers were detained and searched for up to seven hours by U.S. Immigration officers as the travelers arrived in port for a short visit to L.A.

The L.A. incident, which sparked widespread media coverage in the United Kingdom, is one example of just how tough a challenge Evans and the CTP have ahead of them. Actually, the U.S. is already a hot travel destination: business and leisure travelers venture to the U.S. by the millions, generating jobs and pumping money into the still-anemic economy. However, since the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, the country has lost market share to other popular international travel destinations, such as China, France, Spain, Italy and the UK.

Restoring and expanding market share is Evans's job. Funded by a $10 fee paid by every international visitor from visa-waiver countries - to be matched by hoped-for private donations from the business community - the CTP plans to launch a major marketing inititive in traditional sources of travel to the U.S. such as Britain, Germany and Japan and emerging markets.

Good luck with that. Americans have an almost mystical faith in the power of marketing - we believe we're a nation of super-salesmen - matched only by our faith in technology and gadgets to solve problems. But here we may be barking up the wrong tree. National organizations such as the U.S. Travel Association, major hotels and resorts, states, cities and industry players such as airlines and tour operators already market the U.S. hard. Adding one more voice could only add to the noise. The new public-private CTP may be a solution in search of a problem.

The cause of softening travel demand to the U.S. isn't poor marketing, it's poor policy. It's the tight visa restrictions on people from countries such as the aforementioned China, India and Brazil. It's the understandably crucial and necessary airport security in the U.S. - the only country attacked on a large scale with hijacked aircraft - that while necessary, is often not done smartly or kindly. The seven-hour search of British pensioners in L.A. is just one example. The long lines, harsh voices of security screeners and seemingly arbitrary decisions in the security queue go a long way to negate pretty photographs, snappy tag lines and the travel industry's eager embrace of social-media campaigns.

In short, it isn't the marketing. To tweak on old line from the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign: It's the policy, stupid.

Putting the Wow in International Pow Wow

2011-06-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

International Pow Wow is a big travel show held annually with the intention of sparking more leisure and business travel to and all around the United States. Every year the gathering - which brings international and U.S. media together with tourist boards, tour operators, hoteliers, airlines and the like - is held in a different U.S. city. This year, it rolled out over five days in San Francisco, the first time Pow Wow has been in the city by the Bay since 1992.

It takes a real city - diverse, dynamic, with layers of culture, entertainment and history - to put the wow in Pow Wow; a mere convention center surrounded by tract homes or desert sands won't do it. San Francisco did it. Although San Francisco, in all candor, can be smugly self-regarding, it delivers on most of its promises to travelers. In fact, San Francisco courts travelers. And no wonder - travel and tourism generates $8 billion in annual revenue, making it the biggest business in the city by revenue. The San Francisco Travel Association - the renamed former convention and visitors bureau - says the travel biz accounts for about 67,000 jobs in the city, directly or indirectly. That includes hotel workers, airline employees, cabbies, bartenders, staff at the city's esteemed restaurants and others.

Like all conventions, Pow Wow is mostly about speeches and meetings. Organizers claimed that the 5,000 attendees - mostly from Europe, Asia and the U.S., itself - held some 70,000 meetings, including a good many one-on-ones. I was in a few of them. Typically, journalists drift over to tables staffed in a big ballroom in the convention center - Moscone Center, in San Francisco's case - for short conversations and the exchange of business cards, as media explain to travel vendors what they are interested in covering, and vendors tout what they have to offer. If you've ever wondered how the seemingly bottomless demand for content is generated in newspapers, magazines, Web sites and elsewhere, this is how: It comes out of structured and unstructured networking.

San Francisco has been a popular destination for years, but not even popular places can stand still. Some of the wow factor is always there, but some is built and newly introduced, such as the beautiful, extensively renovated terminal 2 at San Francisco International Airport (www.flysfo.com), which reopened in April after being closed for 10 years. Other travel-themed attractions are in the pipeline, including:

* A $56 million USD touch-up of Moscone Center, set for next year.
* The 34th America's Cup finals, in 2013 (www.americascup.com/sanfrancisco).
* The relocation of the innovative, hands-on childrens' science museum the Exploratorium (www.exploratorium.edu) to Embarcadero Piers 15-17, also in 2013.
* A long-promised new cruiseship terminal, scheduled to open at Pier 27 in 2014 (www.sfport.org).

Also coming:

* In 2016, the completely rebuilt downtown Transbay Transit Center opens, replacing a delapidated, recently demolished facility built in the 1930s.
* In 2016, the downtown San Francisco Museum of Modern Art plans to triple its gallery space (www.sfmoma.org).
* The long-term renovation of Treasure Island, a big, manmade island in San Francisco Bay in the shadow of the Bay Bridge is scheduled to be completed, with new hotels, restaurants, housing and a marina, also in the busy, busy year 2016.

Finally, in 2018, a new central subway will connect San Francisco's long-struggling southeastern neighborhoods with a direct light-rail connection to mainstays such as Chinatown, Moscone Center and Union Square.

Thanks to San Francisco Travel for the information.

A Tale of Two Terminals

2011-06-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

So, I left Las Vegas for San Francisco and the next big travel show: Pow Wow, the annual international marketplace for travel vendors and media organized by the U.S. Travel Association. This entailed a short flight from the desert's neon oasis to the city by the bay.

I got to Vegas's McCarron International Airport (www.mccarron.com) early after a short taxi ride, so I thought I'd just settle in and wait for my flight. This was a mistake. The food was standardized fast-food grub, the lights and noises of the one-armed bandits - there are, of course, slot machines in the airport, this being Vegas - were non-stop and distracting and 'ere long, I was thoroughly tired of the place. To be fair, Las Vegas airport authorities have big plans to upgrade the busy facility. Right now, they are reopening gates in Concourse C that serve Southwest Airlines that were closed for nearly a year while work went on.

Anxious to move on, I wandered over to the Virgin America boarding gate and asked if I could get on an earlier flight. Turns out, I could. Bliss! The flight was fast and pleasant and almost before I knew it, I was deplaning at San Francisco International Airport's (www.flysfo.com) just remodeled and reopened terminal 2.

The only problem was I was so early that I wasn't able to leave the airport right away. I would still have to wait, it would just be at SFO instead of Sin City International. That turned out to be just fine.

I settled in with a back issue of The New Yorker, nestled in a Jetsons-style futuristic chair near long tables where passengers fired-up their laptops and just across the aisle from a charging station for electronic devices. I bought a coffee at Peet's, the first-rate, Bay Area-based coffee and tea chain, and proceeded to pass a pleasant hour and a half. The contrast with Las Vegas was striking. SFO's terminal 2- the former international terminal, closed in December 2000 and finally re-opened after an extensive re-do in April of this year - has an almost feline coolness and repose, whereas McCarron conveys the frenetic energy of its home city. SFO was so relaxing, I was in no hurry to leave. When I finally did head for the exits, I passed a museum-quality exhibition of silver jewelry, eyeballed one-of-a-kind food shops of near-artisan qualaity and pulled my wheelie under the natural light that poured in through the skylight overhead.

Like most people, I wouldn't deliberately choose to spend oodles of time in an airport. But if you're going to do that anywhere, SFO - at least the reborn terminal 2 and the handsome, 11-year-old international terminal - is one place to do it.

Quotables

2011-06-03T16:44:00.000-07:00

This year's Global Travel & Tourism Summit meeting of international travel-biz executives and government officials, which I recently attended in Las Vegas, was one part bombast and one part high seriousness. When speakers, delegates and media weren't gambling, eating, drinking, sightseeing, chattering or being subjected to high-decible recorded music and throbbing graphics, they wrestled with very important issues: Like how to make travel both convenient and secure and how to fully onleash travel's power to raise revenue and create jobs.

Inevitably, much of what was said was instantly forgotten. But occasionally someone broke through the noise with incisiveness and humor, wrapped in quotable remarks. Here are two quotables I liked, one serious, one funny.

After a speaker noted that international tourism arrivals soared worldwide to 806 million in 2005, up from just 25 million in 1950, Steve Ridgway, the chief executive of Virgin Atlantic Airways, took the stage. Those aren't idle statistics, he noted, and the transformation of travel happened for a reason, with implications that go well beyond travel and tourism.

"We would not have a global economy without the jet engine,'' Ridgway pointed out. "China and India would not be emerging without the jet engine.''

Sounds obvious but it's not something people give full weight to.

On the flip side of serious, there was Las Vegas's peppery, diminutive mayor, Oscar Goodman, who walked up on stage to the sounds of an Elvis Presley song, with a towering, costumed showgirl on each arm and a cocktail glass in his hand.

"I never go anywhere without my showgirls and my martini,'' Goodman wisecracked. "I have the most fun of any mayor in America.''

It's hard to argue with that.

The Global Travel and Tourism Summit

2011-06-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

WTTC is one of those abbreviations you wouldn't know unless you are in the travel biz, but it's well-known within the industry and stands for World Travel & Tourism Council. Why is it important? The organization crunches numbers, follows trends in travel, advocates for improvements in the travel experience for consumers and once a year holds a big meeting that it calls the Global Travel & Tourism Summit.

The summit, which brings together CEOs from 100 big travel-business companies with journalists, tour operators, hoteliers, airline executives and members of local, state and national tourism boards, was held recently in Las Vegas. This was the first time it's been in the United States since 2006. Maybe it was the U.S. location, but this year's conference, which I attended, was preoccupied with two things: finding a balance between convenience and security in travel and gaining some respect from politicians for the job-creating prowess and revenue-generating power of travel and tourism.

Many were the complaints about how hard travel visas are to get for would-be travelers to the U.S., especially people from non-visa waiver countries like Brazil and Chile, and countries that Washington thinks may pose a threat to American national security, meaning not only - but especially - Muslim countries.

"If it takes 30 to 100 days to wait for a U.S. visa, maybe you're going elsewhere,'' observed U.S. Travel Assocation head Roger Dow. Dow suggested streamlining the process (which is analyzed online at the Web site www.smartervisapolicy.org).

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano later said that streamlining may well be needed, but striking the right balance is tricky. "We obviously have a challenge, and we want to keep America safe at the same time,'' she told the audience in the convention center at Aria Resort and Casino.

All the more reason to finally implement oft-mooted, long-delayed trusted traveler programs for road warriors willing to submit to advance background checks, industry execs said. We're working on it, Napolitano replied, in so many words.

The WTTC also released a study at the global summit - its 11th annual meeting - that the organization said shows fully 9 percent of global GDP is derived, directly or indirectly, from tourism and travel, especially business travel. The study, conducted by the private firm Oxford Economics, concludes that travel and tourism is a major driver of world trade - hence the industry should get a good deal more respect from governments around the world. The study was commissioned by American Express, the Singapore Tourism Board, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority and the U.S. Travel Association - organizations committed to the promotion of travel - so this should be taken into account when its conclusions are used to make the industry's case to officialdom.

Indeed, the travel-biz's characterization of itself makes it sound like the Rodney Dangerfield of global businesses. Why, the U.S. doesn't even have a minister of tourism, many attendees complained in apparent wonderment. They found a semi-sympathetic ear in Valerie Jarrett, a close confidant and senior advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, who promised to carry their message to the White House from the summit, which she addressed. Also on hand was U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who reiterated Obama's commitment to restoring America's roads, bridges and airports and expanding its light-rail and high-speed rail options.

Problems are never solved - and can't be - at big meetings like this; all people can do is air their grievances, float their ideas and try to advance the conversation. This is basically what happened in Las Vegas, where attendees took time out from sightseeing and gaming to air the issues of the day. In short, it was a talkfest, but talk about the security conundrum and other issues may lead over time to progress that travelers, themselves, will notice in the air and on the road.

Aria Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas

2011-05-30T17:05:00.000-07:00

As long as I am on the subject of hotels (see the two previous posts), allow me to add some more thoughts about Aria Hotel and Casino, which opened about a year and a half ago on Las Vegas Boulevard (''The Strip'').

Las Vegas hotels are known for their lavishness and size, and Aria certainly has both. At 4,004 rooms and suites, the place is not small, and the property's look-at-me colors, ornamentation and all-things-happening-at-once quality turns the hotel into a 24-hour sensorium. There is the obligatory casino, with its games of chance, smoke and polyester and desperate-looking patrons trying for the big score, of course. Beyond that, the hotel boasts 16 restaurants and 10 bars. Here, as elsewhere in upscale Vegas hotels, dining is not only about cheap breakfasts and groaning board buffets anymore - though there there is a popular buffet, called The Buffet. I settled-in at Julian Serrano, the tapas place right off the main lobby, with its smart barmen, swift service and toothsome Spanish food and drink.

Speaking of the lobby, it is of course huge, and as it, too, opens off the main lobby, it has that come-hither quality. This is in sharp contrast to the big gaming hotels in Macao, China, where I went just 10 days after leaving Vegas; in Macau, military-style armed guards stand sentry at the entrances of hotel casinos, providing a distinctly intimidating air - though that doesn't stop Asian gamblers, who have long since passed Vegas in generating gaming revenue, from going in.

When you're as big as Aria, any problems can become magnified. When I checked in, the reservations computer system was down; I had to stand in very long lines for 45 minutes before the computer issue was resolved and I was able to check in. Checking out two days later took about 20 minutes - not bad but certainly not fast.

The place has big virtues, too, though. When I joined another stalled queue at the concierge desk, a staffer roaming the lobby came right over and helped me without being asked. It was a welcome personal touch in a massive hotel. The guest rooms are spacious and come equipped with lots of high-tech features, including having window curtains open automatically when you come in and flick on the lights - an energy-saving feature. Incredibly for a huge Vegas hotel, Aria has won LEEDS Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for its attention to environmental concerns.

The hotel is connected indoors and out to the inevitable shopping mall, and to The Strip. On the way out of the building, you pass a massive and nicely done water wall. Like many Vegas hotels, Aria does a lot of discounting and incentivizing. When I checked in, I was given two drink coupons, which I forgot to use. More importantly, I paid just over $100 U.S. per night to access 5-star comforts, due in part to the fact I was attending a meeting at the hotel. I am not a Vegas guy, as over-the-top glitter is not something I value highly. That said, I would stay in Aria again if, heaven forfend, I have occasion to go back to Sin City.

Aria is located at 3730 Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas, NV USA, tel. 866.359.7111, www.arislasvegas.com.

The W Hotel, Seattle

2011-05-30T01:59:00.000-07:00

While attending the ceremonious delivery of a new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft to Cathay Pacific Airways in Everett, Washington, I checked in to the W Hotel, in the heart of downtown Seattle. It was a generally comfortable, if occasionally quirky, stay.

First, the good stuff. The Seattle W has all of the Starwood urban chic brand's signature stylishness. Staying there, you feel you should be attending an art opening or a design and fashion-themed event. And, indeed, film festival attendees - all arty stubble, shaved heads and black garb - were checking in when I was there. Location is important, of course, and the W has a good one, close to downtown Seattle's symphonic hall, tourist attractions like Pike Market, good restaurants such as Wild Ginger and happening watering holes like Purple, a cafe and wine bar. The W's own in-house restaurany is good, too, serving inventive, hearty and flavorful breakfasts, among other things.

But - you knew there had to be a but - I do have one quibble, about the hotel's business center. Traveling without a laptop or other electronic device, I was leaning on the biz center to get some business done. This was not easy, due partly to the fact that the center has just two PCs for guests' use - in a 26-story, 415-room property - and chiefly to its restricted hours: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., with limited access otherwise. When I asked, at about 9 p.m., if I could use the center, a front-desk agent told me I'd have to have a tech-minded staff member go in there with me, and guess what?

"I don't think any of them are here,'' she said.

Clunk.

I did my work the next day, with a friendly but unaccountably curious W staffer hovering close by in the small business center.

With business travelers from many time zones arriving at all hours, you'd think an urban, midsized, self-consciously proud 21st century hotel would make it easy for their guests - as in providing 24/7 access. I'm at the Ritz-Carlton in Hong Kong now - that's where I am writing this post, in fact - and I was able to get in the unstaffed Ritz business center at 5:30 this morning by using my room key. That's what a smart, customer-friendly hotel does. W Seattle, please copy.

The W Hotel Seattle is located at 1112 Fourth Ave., Seattle, Washington 98101 USA, telephone 206.264.6000, Web: www.starwood.com.

Vegas, Baby!

2011-05-29T15:06:00.001-07:00

Billboards around my part of the planet in California proclaim in ads for the ARIA Hotel: "The Center of Vegas. Shifted.''

Allowing for the usual advertising and marketing hyperbole, that's not far off. ARIA, a mostly tasty, nifty 4,0004-room highrise (hey, it's Vegas) hotel, sports the obligatory casino, of course, but it has much more on offer for us non-gamblers. I stayed there two nights for the World Travel & Tourism Summit, where Obama administration honchos like U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood met with global travel biz leaders at a newly constructed convention center. People at the convention promoted their ventures, of course (cities, towns, nations, tour companies, hotel chains, airlines and the like) and worried about the uneven world economy and tight U.S. travel visas restrictions. (We're working on it, replied high-profile guests like presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett, a former hotel GM).

When not in meetings in windowless rooms amid tight security, I trolled The Strip and the attendant clustered hotels, restaurants and brand-name shops in City Center, the development that has been opening in stages over the past year or two in Sin City. Vegas and ARIA are about more than buffets now in the Food Department, happily. I settled-in for tapas and cava at ARIA's Julian Serrano, run by and named for the gifted Spanish chef of the same name. While not cheap, the food was sumptuous, the service swift. City Center reminded me a bit of the interconnected highrises of Tokyo, very unlike the sprawl in the desert that Vegas (Vegas, Baby! if you're enamoured of the Rat Pack and 'Mad Men') has long represented.

Of course, some things don't change. On The Strip, a street preacher was calling out: "The Bible isn't just a book, it's God's autobiography.'' Moments later, a cluster of men in cowboy hats walked by, leaflets in hand, wearing T-shirts that gave a phone number and a message that read: "Girls to your room in 20 minutes.''

Get Your Kicks on Route 66

2011-05-16T18:59:00.001-07:00

He walked into the bar long and lean, a gun on his hip.

"Is the gun loaded?"' a journalist inquired.

"Of course it's loaded,'' he replied laconically. He wore a moustache and a big cowboy hat. Which figures, because we were in Williams, Arizona, a historic Western mining and ranching town of 3,000 on old U.S. Route 66 that bills itself as the Gateway to the Grand Canyon. The town has the restored depot of the busy Grand Canyon Railroad to bolster its credentials.

"How do you keep law and order?'' the tall stranger with the revolver was asked.

"Behave, or I'll shoot you,'' he replied.

All in fun, to be sure. The tall stranger with the revolver on his hip - unloaded, actually - and a marshal's badge on his coat was John W. Moore, the whimsically theatrical, duly elected second-term mayor of Williams. Moore takes this cowboy business seriously, along with his adopted town's heritage from Route 66, America's "Mother Road.'' It's Arizona 66 now, as the old road's role was usurped in the 1980s by Interstate 40, which bypassed Williams. Rather than give up and dry up like a tumbleweed, Williams has reinvented itself as a nostaglic tourist destination.

Thus, the old wooden bar and walls with stuffed animal heads in what signs identify as "The World Famous'' Sultana Bar, a Western watering hole opened in 1912 next to the Sultana Theatre, also "World-Famous,'' which will celebrate its centennial next year with stories and songs.

And thus, Mayor Moore, who migrated to Williams in 1986. "I wanted to see a cowboy town,'' he said, "and an old Route 66 town with muscle cars. Williams has a bit of both. We got the cowboy - that's me. And we got Route 66.''

Our group trailed after the lanky mayor, admiring his cowboy gear, as he walked along Route 66 saying hello to people he knew and likewise to people he didn't. He posed for pictures with two husky guys in Harley-Davidson shirts who were riding their motorcycles through town. Then he popped into DeBerges Saddlery & Western Wear, where one of my companions bought a fine cowgirl hat. The smell of leather drifted through the store and the workshop in back attested to the fact that they do a lot of leatherwork on-site.

Onward we strolled, past a vintage gas station that now operates as a gas-station museum, past a recreated Wild West town that looked like a movie set ("They do a lot of film work here,'' Moore said) and on down the road to Twisters Route 66 Cafe, which is decorated with 1950s-style juke-box memorabilia. I relaxed with a cherry phosphate; the chilled, sweet drink was served in an curved classic Coca-Cola glass. There was a ripe, red cherry at the bottom. It was definitely a trip back in time.

That night I bunked in the Downtowner, a nicely restored motel right on old Route 66. I spent a comfortable night there, save for the gunning engines of the motorcycle that I had glimpsed earlier, parked in the motel parking lot. I thought it was just a curosity on display. Wrong. It was in use, along with some of the muscle cars the mayor alluded to earlier. Cruising, "American Grafitti'' style, is still done.

Next morning, I ate a hearty breakfast, drank strong coffee and got back on the road.

Frankfurt Airport's Slo-Mo Upgrade

2011-05-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

When I first started flying to and through western Germany's Frankfurt International Airport in the early 1990s, I liked it a lot. The airport, located just outside Frankfurt am Main, Germany's financial capital and knowledge-industry nexus, was well-run, easy to use and big but not too big if you were a passenger changing planes at this busy European hub.

Then, ad hoc expansion combined with congestion made Frankfurt Airport an unwieldy place to use, especially compared to Munich International - built from scratch in Bavaria, in Germany's picturesque south. Frankfurt Airport seemed to me by 2000 a workaday airport whose physical limitations made actually working there a real pain. Still, I flew through Frankfurt often, chiefly due to its excellent connectivity to other European cities and beyond, and because it is the biggest hub and home of Lufthansa, Germany's de facto national flag carrier.

After a recent visit, I am happy to report that Frankfurt's shambolic reputation - the word is British slang for haphazard, notional service, originally applied to London Heathrow Airport - should in the mid-term become a thing of the past.

In October, Frankfurt will open a new runway, helping to ease the back-up and flight delays caused by the 55 million passengers expected to use the airport in 2011.

According to Robert Payne, who handles corporate communications for international press at Fraport - the company that operates the airport - Frankfurt Airport has acquired the former site of an air force base. This, Payne told me, will enable the airport to build a third passenger terminal. Originally slated for completion in 2015, the new terminal will actually open in 2017 or 2018. This, Payne said, will enable the airport to handle 25 million more air travelers a year. Additionally, Terminals 1 and 2 are being renovated.

Oh, and coming along, too, is a new office-and-retail complex called Squaire, constructed atop the already existing ICE rail station at the airport. Glassy, classy Squaire will include two Hilton hotels. The ICE rail station, and an already-existing DR train station combine with the A3 and A5 motorways - which intersect at the airport - to make Frankfurt Airport a model of intermodal transport. All this development, Payne said, is designed to transform the airport into a 21st century Airport City. Already, some 73,000 people work there.

So, Frankfurt Airport is getting a major upgrade, albeit in slow-motion. If these plans play out the way they should, the airport's shambolic rep will be no more. And to that, this frequent flier says "amen.''

Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel

2011-05-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

There was a time, not so very long ago, when the very words 'airport hotel' conjured a picture of a dark, dank, distinctly low-rent place to stay. Some airport hotels are still like that, but, increasingly, major hotel brands are upgrading the airport hotel experience.

Such is the case with Starwood's (www.starwoodhotels.com)Sheraton-branded property - full name, Sheraton Frankfurt Hotel and Conference Center - at Frankfurt International Airport. I stayed there earlier this week during an overnight visit to Frankfurt, Germany's financial capital. Actually, I should say overnight visit near Frankfurt, as the airport and thus the hotel are a few minutes by train outside the city center, flanked by busy highways and a lovely protected forest.

The Sheraton Frankfurt Airport is a big hotel, at 1,008 guest rooms. Not Vegas-big, but big enough, especially when you factor-in the presence of a conference center, hotel breakout rooms and a sizable, airy lobby, bar, breakfast and coffee area and substantial business center. The business center was especially important to me this time, as I was traveling without a laptop or other electronic device. The first 30 minutes of PC use (with a printer) is free; after that, it costs 8 euros per hour, including the printer, which I used to check-in and print out my airline boarding pass.

The hotel's location isn't as good as, say, the Fairmont at Vancouver, B.C.'s international airport - that hotel directly accesses the terminal. And it's not quite as stylish as the Hilton at Copenhagen International Airport. That said, the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport is a good-looking structure. Importantly, guest rooms are fairly large and well-equipped (think iron and ironing board, coffeemaker, hairdrier, Wi-Fi access) and come complete with a good desk, ergonomic chair and, thankfully, a comfortable bed. It's a 5-to-7 minute walk from the hotel lobby into terminal 1 through an enclosed corridor link.

Should you have the misfortune of getting stuck in Frankfurt airport overnight - as I did while changing planes after a visit to Berlin a few years ago, when a blizzard closed the airport at midnight - know this: There are far less pleasant places than this well-run Sheraton to spend the night and refresh yourself for your flight. The Sheraton is located at Flughaten, Terminal 1, Hugo-Eckner Ring-15, 60549, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Tel. (49)(69)69770. Web: www.sheratonfrankfurtairport.com.