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BEST BIG MEDIA TRAVEL BLOG

Last year’s Travvies voters asked for this change more than any other.

More and more media companies are launching blogs of their own, and journalists are becoming bloggers themselves. This award recognizes the leaders in the “professional” category. (Freelancers whose sites aren’t hosted on a company blog site are excluded here.)

You may nominate UP TO THREE BLOGS by leaving a comment in this post. (Click here to do so.) If your favorite has been nominated already, feel free to show your love and nominate it again, though a blog only needs to be nominated once to be in contention.

Note: The comment form automatically asks for name, e-mail address, website (optional), and a text field. E-mail addresses will never be shared or visible publicly, in keeping with our privacy policy. Enter all nominations in the text field. Use the “website” field only if you are linking back to your own site.

Jump to other nominations here:

• Best Travel Blog
• Best Single-Author Travel Blog
• Best Group-Written Travel Blog
• Best Destination or Trip Narrative Blog
• Best Informative/Practical Travel Blog
• Best Photography on a Travel Blog
• Best Big Media Blog
• Best Podcast or Video Blog

BEST PODCAST OR VIDEO BLOG

Who says blogging is limited to words and pictures? This multimedia award will go to the blogger with the best podcasts or video blogging (or vlogging).

You may nominate UP TO THREE BLOGS by leaving a comment in this post. (Click here to do so.) If your favorite has been nominated already, feel free to show your love and nominate it again, though a blog only needs to be nominated once to be in contention.

Note: The comment form automatically asks for name, e-mail address, website (optional), and a text field. E-mail addresses will never be shared or visible publicly, in keeping with our privacy policy. Enter all nominations in the text field. Use the “website” field only if you are linking back to your own site.

Jump to other nominations here:

• Best Travel Blog
• Best Single-Author Travel Blog
• Best Group-Written Travel Blog
• Best Destination or Trip Narrative Blog
• Best Informative/Practical Travel Blog
• Best Photography on a Travel Blog
• Best Big Media Blog
• Best Podcast or Video Blog

Starbucks recently changed their wi-fi provider from T-Mobile to AT&T, and a different pricing scheme is in place. But why pay, when you can get it for free?

Frequent Starbucks wi-fi user Dr. Vino sends in this tip from WiFi Net News:

AT&T says in their press release that all Starbucks Card holders, which is simply their value-storing swipe card system [edit: would it have been too hard to call it a gift card?], will get two hours of free Wi-Fi a day. No purchase is needed: you just need an active card, I confirmed with the company. Walk in, buy a $5 value card, activate it, and you’re on for two hours a day from then forward. You can also use multiple devices with a single account, within reason, Starbucks told me.

So it’s not free, since you have to drop $5 on a Starbucks card, but you can tap the value AND get free wi-fi. Until there’s free universal wi-max, it’s worth considering.

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Reader Michelle sends in a link about the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey’s plan to make the outlying Stewart Airport “carbon-negative.” Carbon-negative? So flying from Stewart actually HELPS the environment? Uhh, yeah.

In reality, the airport would offset the carbon dioxide produced on its premises by planting forests wholesale. All well and good. But is it realistic to expect an airport to counteract all of the fossil fuel burning machines that grace its pavement? And then some?

I don’t buy it. Airports aren’t exactly minty-fresh. Never have been, and as long as their tenants burn hydrocarbons, they won’t be. Offsetting the pollution they create is an honorable goal, but face it, that’s a lot of trees. Especially if the airport is expected to grow.

And it doesn’t help the local environment. “People who live around Stewart have concerns that expanded operations will exacerbate air and noise pollution and fuel sprawling development.” Indeed, I’m sure they will. And planting trees fifty, a hundred, or a thousand miles away won’t fix that.

This is a “greenwashing” PR stunt.

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Philosophical wordplay or dadaist corporate speak? JetBlue claims it’s not creating a first or business class cabin on its planes. But it does plan to “offer passengers in the first few rows and emergency exit seats of its larger aircraft additional space for an added fee.”

Hmm. Additional space. Higher price. And yet: “We’re not going to a two-cabin airplane,” CEO David Barger says.

Oh, right. You’re missing the free cocktail. Fine, don’t call it first class, then. Call it premium economy.

Or maybe it’s not two “cabins,” because a carpeted bulkhead divider won’t be introduced.

Or maybe they’re not “going” to a two-cabin airplane because they’re already there, with expensive tickets already getting access to seats with more legroom.

Ooh, Barger, you cunning wordsmith, you’re good! Or is it “bad”?

Related:
- JetBlue increases legroom, creates de facto premium section
- JetBlue introduces premium economy cabin after all
- Wilkommen! Bienvenue! JetBlue to go Euro-style with a first class cabin?
- How do you search for premium economy fares?
- Demystifying premium economy

In the United States’ never-ending quest to piss off every single foreign visitor to our country, Congress has decided that international visitors must be fingerprinted like criminals when they arrive AND when they leave the country.

But Congress didn’t say who should be responsible for taking the prints. So the airlines are being fingered (sorry…) by Homeland Security to do the deed, and they’re resisting.

On the plus side: Airlines are finally standing up for their international customers and pushing back. But they’re not pushing back against the culture of fear; they’re making a legal argument about unfunded mandates and the role of the private sector in performing government functions.

But let’s face it, airlines only objected once they had to start actively participating in the fingerprinting scheme. They only objected when they had work to do.

So if Homeland Security takes responsibility for the mandated ‘printing, will any airlines maintain their objections to the scheme? Don’t bet on it.

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For those sober enough to be reading blogs on St. Patrick’s Day…

No luck of the Irish here.
Downgraded: Your seatmate
A real headline: “Woman files lawsuit against AMR because passenger next to her masturbated while she slept.” Isn’t air travel glamorous? You sit down for a flight, and you wake up with “a substantial amount of an extremely sticky substance in [your] hair.” Blechh. They arrested the guy, so why the lawsuit? “The suit alleges that the during the investigation, American Airlines employees told police they witnessed the man move from his assigned seat into the row where the woman was sleeping. The woman is seeking punitive damages and a jury trial.” Is changing seats, in and of itself, worthy of a civil action? Sue the wanker, not the airline! (Thanks, John!)

Is there a pot of gold at the end to this rainbow?
Downgraded: Poorism
Mixed feelings about this one: Renewed attention to the trend of slum tourism, or “poorism,” whereby relatively well-off tourists travel to poverty-stricken areas for the ostensible reason of gaining perspective on just how good they’ve got it, while getting an “authentic” experience. On the one hand, they’re pumping some money into the local economy. On the other hand, it’s self-serving and exploitative, like a human zoo. “Ooh, look how the poor people live!”

They’re Magically Delicious!
Downgraded: Already minimal airport lounge snacks in the US
Gary Leff links to a hilarious photo of American Airlines snack packs … in the United Airlines Red Carpet Club. Way to stick it to the competition, by stealing their pretzels! (Alternate interpretation: Begin merger speculation.)

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Hold onto your hats. The 2008 Travvies are almost here.

Next Monday, the nomination phase will begin, in all its glory. You’ll be invited to nominate your favorite travel blogs in several categories. Thereafter, judges will whittle down the lists to a group of finalists, at which point the voting public will have its say.

And no, as the organizer of the event, I’m not eligible for any of the awards, so rest assured that I won’t be stuffing the ballot box in my favor. Or anyone else’s for that matter.

Don’t forget to review last year’s winners, and for a broader range of noteworthy blogs, review the nominees.

Watch this space, as they say, for updates. Nominations kick off on Monday.

Leave it to folks at the Fermilab, whose research typically involves high-speed particle acceleration, to rethink the ways in which commercial airlines board their jets. High speed particles… high speed boarding! Sure, why not.

Jason Steffen went on NPR last week to discuss his latest research, which had nothing to do with protons or electrons, except as they’re contained within the body of a rollaboard-toting passenger. Steffen argues that “lining up passengers whose seat assignments are two rows apart and boarding them from the back of the plane to the front — then repeating for the other rows — is the most efficient way of getting passengers onto a plane.”

The key is creating space in the aisle to allow passengers to stow away luggage in overheard bins.

Steffen’s study also yielded another potentially surprising finding: that boarding passengers randomly is significantly faster than the traditional method of simply boarding them from back to front.

So, if speed is the goal, airlines should either try alternate-row boarding, or just give up and kick it Ryanair style.

Those seeking to geek out on the full article can find it here.

Faster boarding makes airlines happy. After all, faster turnaround means planes spend less time on the ground, thereby ensuring better capital utilization. And as long as it doesn’t feel like you’re being herded in like cattle, faster boarding makes customers happy, too.

The alternating-rows concept makes a lot of sense. Then again, so did front-and-rear boarding, windows-first boarding, back-to-front boarding, open seating, and the “reverse pyramid.” So which airline will be the first to try alternating rows?

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Reader Phil writes:

I know rent a car companies often run out of some car types and then give you whatever they have left, or a free upgrade. Is there a best time of day to schedule a pickup so we can maximize our odds of an upgrade?

This is really, really, hard to predict, Phil. Of course, it’s all about the supply of cars. But that supply will depend on the location where you’re picking up, the local tourism and convention traffic, and just plain luck. I asked around, and no one would identify a pattern. (Feel free to hit the comments with your experiences!)

When I think back to the times that the car I reserved wasn’t available (which is very, very often), I can’t discern a trend. I have gotten upgraded due to lack of availability at nearly all hours of the day, and at various sizes of airport or rental location. I’ve gotten “upgrades” that ranged from a minivan at midnight in Seattle, to an SUV at 3pm in Boston, to a full-size at noon at Ontario, CA, to a full-size in Frankfurt, to whatever category a Chevrolet HHR is at 9pm in Hartford, etc., etc. But I’ve not gotten upgraded in those places, and actually gotten what I reserved, at similar times, too.

I’ll add that I really didn’t want these upgrades most of the time. I’ve argued before that rental car upgrades are generally not worth it in my book, especially with the price of gas these days, unless you’re going all-out for a truly “aspirational” ride. (”Sir, we’re out of Kia Rios, but feel free to select any of the several Lamborghinis we have parked in the lot instead. No charge.” Sure.)

Bottom line, I fear, is that you’ll be better off reserving the car you actually want, or the lowest class you’ll be comfortable with.

Related:
- Reader mail: Why would I want to upgrade my rental car?
- Rental car agent blows smoke up my backside, redux
- Reader mail: What happened to car rental late-return grace periods?
- Video: Why you never want to buy a former rental car

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Hooters Hotel & Casino is packing up the 1985-era orange shorts, the Reebok sneakers, and the chicken-wing-and-Dom-Perignon combo platter.

The hotel that was more strip mall than Las Vegas Strip will soon shutter, to be remodeled, rebranded, and reopened later this year as a luxury boutique hotel. Alas, we hardly knew ye.

A Hooters Hotel was always a questionable proposition. Vegas isn’t exactly short on supply, so to speak, for those in the market for skin. A Hooters-themed hotel might work elsewhere, say, for those channeling their inner Dan Marino while driving the highways of Indiana, but not in Vegas.

And yes, I admit, I really posted about this so I could use that headline.

Related:
- Hooters’ wings clipped; chicken wings still available at earthbound locations

The Gideon Bible is getting harder and harder to find in luxury hotels. According to recent numbers, the onetime mainstay of the American bedside table is found in around 73% of luxury hotel rooms, down from near-ubiquity.

It’s not that the books are being “removed by Satan,” as one Georgia hotelier suggests may be happening. Rather, it’s a business decision, driven by perceived decline in customer demand.

Some hotels are instead offering a range of religious books (much as you might find the teachings of Buddha in a Thai hotel room), or a note pointing you toward their library of spiritual readings in the lobby.

Marriott hotels have long offered the Book of Mormon alongside the Bible. But some go beyond religion. Hiltons may feature the Conrad Hilton autobiography Be My Guest in there, too — hardly a “spiritual” text. (I failed to look for it when I stayed at a Hilton this past weekend.)

Some cheekier hotels are replacing tales of creation with tales of procreation: the Kama Sutra.

Others are making social or political statements, such as including Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Others are making a statement by simply leaving the drawers empty.

Bedside table drawers aren’t always filled with reading materials at all. A friend of mine, a former federal prosecutor, once flew to Cuba on official business. Before going, he was briefed that one drawer would likely be stuck in place. Why? That’s where the recording equipment was located. Sure enough, one drawer wouldn’t move.

But the question goes to you: What’s your take on hotel bibles, or other religious tracts? Should hotels include them, or should they be optional? Are they an offense to non-believers, or is their absence an offense to believers? Vote in the poll, and hit the comments.

(Viewing this in a feed reader, or getting an error when you vote? Go to the source and try again.)

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