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Oil hit $120 a barrel today, and the financial pundit class is talking about $200 oil. To quote the wisdom of Mr. T: “My prediction… is pain.”

High oil prices and travel generally don’t mix. But is there any segment that stands to benefit?

Apparently so. Trains!

As the price of fuel skyrockets, more people are traveling to North Carolina’s major cities by train. Ridership on Amtrak is up as much as 40 percent on some routes compared to last year.

40%? Pretty substantial. Perhaps enough to offset the higher cost of diesel.

But how widespread is this as a trend? It’s more likely a phenomenon on shorter, regional routes that would otherwise have been driven. Except for a few diehards, and some gluttons for punishment, most aren’t choosing to take Amtrak from California to Chicago.

Trains becoming more a part of your travelin’ life? Hit the comments.

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Bad news for aficionados of roadside American kitsch. As pointed out by commenter Mark, the Spindle, a.k.a. the Car-ka-Bob, was torn down from it’s Berwyn, Illinois site.

The Chicago Tribune confirms the deed. You might remember the giant parking lot sculpture from the movie Wayne’s World. It could have been yours: They tried to sell it on eBay.

But it is no more. The video of the destruction is below.

Related:
- Save the Berwyn Car-ka-bob!
- Update: Join the movement to save the Spindle

My wife and I try to have at least one city vacation, one beach vacation, and one outdoorsy vacation every year. The latter usually means hiking of some kind, but hardly extreme sports. We’ve done some hikes in semi-precarious spots, in places where you look back afterward and think, “What the hell were we thinking?” Hey, it builds character!

But I don’t think I would have had the stones to do what’s pictured in this video. Filmed in the Makinodromo/El Chorro area of Andalucia, Spain, the clip is a first-person view along a century-old trail that hugs the side of steep cliffs. The trail is neither wide, nor consistently… there. I’m sorry, but two-inch wide pipe, hanging over a free fall into the deep, does not a trail make. I’d be too afraid to take my eyes off the trail, I’d likely miss the views.

Beyond terror, there’s comedy! I enjoy how the filming hiker passes other more timid hikers on the trail, with considerable dispatch.

In any case, enjoy. After seeing this video, I know it’s as close as I’ll ever get to that particular vista.

(Thanks, Michael!)

Upgraded: Overreaction
Downgraded: Everyone
Turn on the news, you’ll see reports of American Airlines canceling more flights. At last count, they’ve canceled over 2500 flights, costing millions of dollars, and pissing off hundreds of thousands of customers. Their MD-80s weren’t properly repaired last week, when the FAA grounded them the first time (umm, why weren’t they properly repaired, exactly?). But really, was this mayhem necessary? The FAA previously gave the airline 18 months to fix this wiring. Sure, it should have been done, and done right. But if the FAA felt the airline could take 18 months to fix things, it can’t be that big a deal. So why ground every single MD-80 in the AA fleet? Punitive, sure, but who is punished? Hundreds of thousands of passengers, in addition to the airline itself. (At least the airline is rebooking passengers where possible, but flights are already full, so where can passengers really go?) Seems like a more orderly plan could have been developed.

Upgraded: Delta-Northwest merger odds
Delta’s pilots have agreed to a deal that could pave the way for the Delta-Northwest merger, previously on the skids. We’ll see. (Thanks to Dr. Vino!)

Upgraded: Them. Not you
Hundreds of thousands of people are stranded in airports, waiting to get out on the next flight. If you’re feeling bitter, you may not want to read about how airlines treat VIP passengers. Not elite frequent flyers. Celebrities. (Thanks to reader J!)

Upgraded: Explanations for the accidental discharge of a pilot’s pistol
Downgraded: The TSA
Still wondering how a US Airways pilot might have fired a weapon mid-flight? Here’s a plausible explanation, in video (or vlog) form. (Enjoy the guy’s amazing Chicago accent, as a bonus.) The post suggests that TSA’s policy — requiring an awkward padlock that can pull the trigger if conditions are right — is to blame. I’m still opposed to guns in the cockpit, but the argument against this particular lock system makes sense. Locks: good. This lock: maybe not. Better training of pilots would help, too, methinks. (Thanks to reader Dave!)

Downgraded: Checked baggage weight
In the U.S., airlines are waging a war against the second checked bag. Across the Pacific, Australian baggage handlers are threatening to refuse to move bags weighing more than 20kg (44 lbs.) Until now, 32kg (70 lbs.) were considered legal weight, and those numbers still appear in the Qantas contract. Most U.S. airlines have a 50 lb. cutoff before overweight charges kick in. But this is different: It’s not about fees, it’s about willingness to transport bags over a given weight, period. Bottom line: As always, pack light! (Thanks to reader Rob!)

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Video of the Vomit Comet, also known as a Lufthansa Airbus A320 landing in severe crosswinds in Hamburg.

Notice the aircraft’s left engine winglet HITTING THE RUNWAY as pilots attempt to land. Then note the dust as the plane’s wheels seemingly hit the dirt outside the actual runway. Finally they wise up and go around.

Why, oh why, is anyone landing in this sort of weather?!

This particular flight has now hit the front page of CNN, with minimal additional explanation.

Related:
- Video: Airbus A380 landing in fierce crosswinds
- “Lost Lunch” in Short hops — June 2, 2006 — “Lost” edition

Britain’s Guardian had my respect and admiration for some time. Until Thursday morning. And all because of a travel blog.

It’s not because they started a travel blog, per se. It’s because they disrespected their readers so completely by publishing a poorly-written, self-indulgent case study in nepotism. And they featured it on the front page.

Here’s the editor’s intro to the new blog, giving a hint of the incredible insight that is to come, right out of the gate:

Meet Max Gogarty - 19, from north London, spends his money on food, booze and skinny jeans, writes for Skins in his spare time. He’s off to India and Thailand to have a good time, and you can join him in his weekly blog.

“Skinny jeans” ??! Wow. And the actual blog entry isn’t much better.

Take that, regular Guardian travel writers! You’ve been punked.

Normally I wouldn’t begrudge a 19-year old documenting his travels overseas. More power to him, and after all, we all act like idiots in our teens. But this is on the website of the Guardian. The freakin’ Guardian. The homepage of the Guardian.

So how did he get the gig? Some dismayed commenters on the site — among the over 500 comments left — cleverly deduced that Max is the offspring of Paul Gogarty, a semi-frequent contributor to the paper. And that Thailand, one of the stops on young Max’s itinerary, is a place the young lad in the “skinny jeans” has already been to, in 2002, as previously featured in Daddy’s writings.

Within minutes, the Wikipedia entry for “Nepotism” was edited to reflect young Max’s good fortune.

The comments on the thread are scathing. Deliciously scathing. In fact, staying on the Wikipedia theme, a Guardian reader noticed that Max had apparently described himself as a “top Guardian travel columnist” in the Wikipedia entry for his secondary school, a week before his blog was launched. Smooth.

The comments went crazy. British dry humor meets mob anger. Reason enough to welcome young Max and his skinny jeans to the blogosphere, solely for the comments. Really, they’re that funny. (Even if hundreds have been deleted by the Guardian’s editors. Too bad, really.)

Some samples:

a great lesson in ‘how travel journalism works’. in other words, via sperm and eggs

Or:

@Max
“I’m doing India on my own.”
You goddamn heroic bastard. How exactly are you planning on “doing” a billion people?

But for a complete disembowelment of the Guardian’s judgment, I turn it over to John Brownlee, whose gift for metaphoric hyperbole is matched only by his nose for a good internet meme. A sarcastic tour de force. Go read the whole thing.

Update: The Guardian sticks its head even further up its backside, by accusing the collective reader response of being a case of “mob rule.” Allusions to Cuba and Hitler abound, for good measure, but the paper refuses to back down from the position that their blog idea was anything but a bad one. Brownlee is on the case, again, and hits the nail on the head.

Looking up into the sky, you’ll often see lines of white contrails painted against the blue. Sometimes it’s a mesh, sometimes it’s remarkably parallel, reminding you that there really are highways in the sky. Rarely does a day go by that we don’t see the cloudlike atmospheric footprint of travel in the jet age.

Ever wonder what those jets’ contrails actually do to the atmosphere, and how they affect the weather 35,000 feet below?

For an answer, we turn to to Chicago weatherman extraordinaire, Tom Skilling. For those who don’t know Tom Skilling’s weather reports, they are an exercise in most excellent geekdom. His 9:30 forecasts on WGN go on for far longer, and in far greater scientific detail, than any other local weather forecaster or Weather Channel report I’ve ever seen. We may no longer live in Chicago, but my weather-nerd wife can’t let go of Tom Skilling. His blog remains her daily read. If only his brother, Enron’s disgraced CEO Jeff Skilling, could have followed Tom’s footsteps. At least the older brother made good.

Tom offers this on the contrails question:

The grounding of all U.S. and Canadian commercial air traffic for three days following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks constituted a gigantic unplanned experiment, one result of which was a demonstration that high-altitude contrails affect weather at the ground. Contrails, the long, narrow, wispy ice-crystal clouds that form behind high-flying jet aircraft, result from the condensation of water vapor in jet exhaust. It was learned that contrails lower daytime and raise nighttime temperatures slightly in high-traffic jet corridors. Lacking those clouds for a few days after Sept. 11, the spread between daily high and low temperatures increased by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit.

Thanks, Kim!

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Most travelers head to the airport, check in, and let the airline take care of the rest. That’s not good enough. Especially if anything goes wrong — and things DO go wrong. You need be your own advocate, and you need a game plan, backed up with information and technology.

Here are five ways to get an edge over the more complacent travelers around you: (more…)

Downgraded: Amtrak’s Guest Rewards program
Six weeks ago, I sang the praises of Amtrak’s loyalty program, for the ability to transfer miles between programs with no loss in value. I take it all back. Every last word. As Gary Leff reports, Amtrak has, without warning, changed the terms of their transfers out of the program. Again. This isn’t the first time they’ve changed rules on the fly, without notifying their customers. Bottom line: Amtrak’s program just sucks, sucks, sucks. The managers of the program must take some sadistic pleasure in playing three-card monty with their customers. Ooh, what are the program rules today? How about now? How about now?

Downgraded: Amtrak’s planning and foresight
Amtrak doesn’t just screw with their customers on the loyalty program side of the business. They do it to passengers too. Like running out of fuel between San Diego and Santa Barbara. They required a push from a freight train to reach their destination. Granted, Amtrak has historically been given minimal resources to make it work, but filling the tank seems like a basic calculation.

Downgraded: American Airlines’ new business class
I haven’t flown it, but I was skeptical when I saw the photos. Now AA-loyalist Will Allen writes his review of the new AA business class “lie flat” (but not horizontal) seats, and it’s not glowing.

Downgraded: Arbor Day
Las Vegas man found guilty of secretly cutting down 500 trees because they blocked his view of the Strip. Noted without comment.

Upgraded: Blogger junkets
The Cranky Flier got to fly on the Airbus A380 as it flew around LA airspace. Fun! His detailed report is here. Sweet. Not to be outdone, I hereby challenge Richard Branson to send this blogger to space on Virgin Galactic. Use the contact form, Richard. Top right of the sidebar.

Flight delayed? Sue!
A judge in India has ruled that passengers whose Go Air flight was canceled were due the equivalent of US$380 each because of the mental anguish they suffered. Is this a trend? Where can I sue for suffering through flight delays inside a regional jet?

Get on the bus
The American Bus Association wants you to feel green about hitting the road: They claim that buses — ahem, motorcoaches — are more environmentally friendly than passenger cars, trains, and planes. According to their numbers, a bus gets 184 passenger miles per gallon, while commuter rail comes in at 86 and planes only make 42. I’ve sat behind some black soot-spewing buses, and I find this claim hard to believe. And what about all the electric rail out there? Nonetheless, one thing is indisputable: Buses are more efficient than passenger cars.

Which airline has the healthiest snacks?
Domestically, it’s United and their $5 snackboxes according to Charles Stuart Platkin of dietdetective.com. See his post for the lowdown on the various airlines’ snacks.

Business class shootout!
Reader Gianugo has personally tested three of the all-business class airlines that cross the Atlantic. In his tests, Silverjet comes out on top, with L’Avion and Maxjet trailing. (No test of Eos Airlines, but they’re generally at a much higher price point.) The L’Avion review certainly jives with previous reports from the field (here and here). Read his detailed post for the breakdown of what makes these discounted business class airilnes tick.

No more being charged extra fees for returning your car with a full tank
Consumer victory! One of the very first posts on this blog — in its first week of inception, in fact — railed against Budget Rent-a-Car’s practice of levying a $9.50 charge if the odometer registered fewer than 75 miles upon return. This is one of those “what are they thinking” fees that gives the travel industry a bad name. I’m pleased to report that the Federal Trade Commission has clamped down and told Budget to stop. (via Consumerist)

Shameless self-promotion, part one
Chris Elliott, consumer advocate, National Geographic ombudsman, and general thorn in the travel industry’s side, compiled his list of the seven “most influential” travel bloggers. You’re reading one of them. Huzzah! The others: Paul Brady at Jaunted, Arthur Frommer, Holly Hegeman at PlaneBuzz, CondeNast’s Wendy Perrin, Ben Popken at Consumerist (where I’ve been a guest blogger on several occasions), and FareCompare’s Rick Seaney. Nice company to be in, to be sure, and a good starting point for your other blog-reading needs. There are seven runners-up, too, so go read the whole thing. Consider other blogs, like the Travvies winners from earlier this year. (Or heck, the finalists!) And peruse the blogroll in the pulldown in the right sidebar for more great blogs that I read regularly.

Shameless self-promotion, part deux
Upgrade: Travel Better goes audio: You can hear a few snippets of me commenting on recent frequent flyer mile devaluations on Marketplace, which aired this morning on public radio. If you didn’t wake up to the “dulcet tones” of my voice on your clock radio this morning, you can hear the clip and read the transcript here.

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File under “If life serves you lemons, make lemonade”… “Monsoon season” isn’t a phrase that typically elicits thoughts of awesome high-season holiday fun. But if the marketers behind India’s Kerala region have their way, you’ll be living the romantic high life in between spells of pouring rain.

Rain-soaked vacations — err, “monsoon holidays” — are the latest effort to sell a low-season destination at high-season prices. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for visiting places when the crowds are missing. “Shoulder” season? I’m a big fan. And I can see the appeal of the occasional rain.

But lousy weather at a beach destination is no value. So sales pitches like this one, encouraging you to “chase” the monsoon like a tornado wonk might try to capture video of an F5, seem like a stretch.

Am I missing something?

Thanks, Tyler!
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Upgraded: Hotel executives’ waste of shareholder funds
Hotel corporation annual meetings rarely reach the level of sublime self-indulgence, but InterContinental has raised the bar:

[InterContinental Hotels Group] Americas’ President Steve Porter kicked off [IHG’s national meeting] with the gusto of a rock star, directing a choir singing Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” A band, including CEO Cosslett on guitar, provided the thunderous chords while drummers drilled the song into the rafters of the Dallas Convention Center.

“Today we are at a crossroads,” Porter said. “Our relevance is at risk.”

Clearly, true. For real relevance, Porter would have conducted the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and London Symphony Orchestra in a complete performance of the Who’s “Tommy,” while discussing the prospects for expansion of the Hotel Indigo brand.

Upgraded: Airport health care
Why visit a doctor — or heck, a supermarket — when you can get your flu shots at the airport? Now injecting at gate C17!

Downgraded: New England fall foliage
One year’s weather or global warming? Either way, fall foliage in the northeast U.S. isn’t looking so great.

Upgraded: Eos adds more all-business flights
Eos Airlines, which currently flies from JFK to London-Stansted is expanding. New routes will include Newark to Stansted in the spring, and JFK to Paris in the fall.

Upgraded: Skybus adds flights from Greensboro
Late last month, I posted about Skybus‘ plans to expand to a new hub — or “focus city,” if you must use the proper nomenclature. Signs were pointing toward Greensboro, NC or Portsmouth, NH. Greensboro it is. Up to 11 flights a day coming soon.

Upgraded: A380 cinema verité
Video of the interior of the new Singapore Airbus A380. It’s pure, unadulterated Singapore Airlines and Airbus PR video. But it’s actually often rather unflattering, if you ask me, at least in coach. (Legroom looks good, but those colors are drab!) For those seeking some first class airline porn, voila.

(Thanks to reader Chris!)