Tagged With "visitor numbers"
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Re: Waived Booking Fees on AA Award Travel
Really good news, because some of those partner flights are hard to book online even when you know they exist. This should make it easier to make connection to a number of areas in Europe without having to do Heathrow...
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Re: World's most attractive libraries
A followup to attractive libraries are great bookstores. Fodors just released 16 of their favorites in the USA, which you can find here . I've visited a number of these and enjoyed them. I would like to add two other stores that I know of. 1) Univ. of Washington bookstore. While mostly a student store aimed at textbooks and supplies and such, it has an excellent collection of fiction and non-fiction as well as frequent author readings and book signings. 2) Auntie's books in Spokane,...
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Re: Lost a US Passport Overseas? What I learned this trip.
The consulate was good about looking me up in the system from my social security number and date of birth, but having a copy of the passport has to be a positive.
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Re: All of Europes countries rated - Food for thought
I didn't feel the snark on this one. I liked that it wasn't just what was popular or trendy. Spain being number one is a great choice, although I would have chosen Italy. Rankings can be fun, and can start (hopefully) some dialog.
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Re: A Fall Visit to Krakow's Hala Targowa Market
Hi Samantha! The apples were a highlight of the market and we enjoyed them! Very sweet and juicy. I've heard of the Oak Glen Apple festival but never visited it. I regret I didn't. But I lived in Washington state for 8 years and as you know, apples are a big deal. There are a number of harvest festivals in that state featuring apples.
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Re: Around the World in 80 Airbnbs
It has made different numbers available on different days, but has not said what the total available might be. That seems a bit odd, the more so in view of the problems people have had in booking it, I learn. The piece below, from Fast Company, indicates that it is a bit like trying to book tickets for a hot concert, and that a number of people were charged but not accepted, or were charged multiple times. https://www.fastcompany.com/90...some-customers-angry Phineas Fogg appears to have had...
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Re: Art, Architecture, History and More in Fun Frederick, MD
One of our sister agencies called the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center was located in Fort Detrick in Frederick Maryland. I visited AFMIC a number of times and your photos of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine brought back memories. I have not toured Frederick village itself, but your story has prompted me to put it on my list of places to visit.
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Re: May 5, 2016: Liverpool Homes That Were "Saved" by World War II
Maybe it jumped in - hoping to save that sexy little number next door from drowning DrF ?
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Re: Has anyone used their Enhanced Drivers License to travel to Canada or Mexico?
Most of the people I know who have this license are those who don't want to travel internationally and who live near the Canada-US border. There are a number of town literally split by the border and people migrate across daily to visit friends or work. I think these licenses are intended for them. Same for the Mexico USA border. If you travel internationally and have a passport, no point paying extra for the license for most folks. Passports have become more sophisticated and if you read...
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Re: How do you buy your travel?
Hi TravelGirlJenn, I've used Expedia to buy tickets a number of times, only once or twice with Priceline, never with Kayak. The big advantage is that you get to see often hundreds of competitive prices, not just the few the airline sites directly show you. And often they are cheaper than directly buying from the airline. Whether or not you can pick your seat in advance is completely up to the airline, not to the online travel site (eg. Expedia). Some airlines (eg. United, Alaska) do let you...
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Re: How do you buy your travel?
A reminder I used to post on other sites...when you book through an agency, with OTA or brick-and-mortar, the next step is to ask them for the airline locator number (that 6-digit string that goes on your reservation). With that code, go to the airline's site and search for your reservation...doesn't matter if you didn't book it with them directly, you'll be able to find it with the code and your name. If not, call the airline! The reason for all this is to make sure that the agency did its...
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Re: How do you buy your travel?
There's been no mention, that I noticed, of consolidators for multi-segment air travel. I've had great success over the years using Airtreks and now, after a number of bookings, have a "relationship" with an agent there. The only job of a consolidator is to find their clients the cheapest fares point to point and string them together to make a unique personalized trip. They use airlines with which they have contracts for the lowest fares so, short of a spectacular sale, will, as far as I can...
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Re: Gumbo's Pic of the Day, October 24, 2015: Poppies -- Weeping Window at Woodhorn
I bought a Poppy in September this year from a Vietnam Vet in Easton MD. I commented on his cap with the dates on - and he removed his jacket to show me his T-shirt with his Division and Da Nang and a host of other cities where he fought. Had some amazing stories to tell. There should have been a crowd watching him, but just me. In 2015 a total of 888,246 hand made ceramic Poppy's were placed at Tower Bridge London to remember the number of men who fell in battle 1914 - 1918. The Poppy was...
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Re: The Nazca Lines, Peru (Where Gumbo Was #115)
I thought I'd add this as a footnote to the post. Japanese scientists believe they have discovered a number of new shapes in the Nazca lines. You can read more at this link .
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Re: Where in the World is TravelGumbo #209
Alright fellow mystery photo fanatics, today we have the final two clues with a number of hidden keys to the answer. One is that big red arrow telling you to turn left and the other is a long distance photo down the river where I used a big zoom lens from the mystery location. I know these clues will not be a Sunday stumper.
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Re: Britain's #1 attraction: The British Museum
Another "Best of Britain" survey that doesn't see beyond London. The Albert Dock in Liverpool has 6.3 Million visitors per annum - and not a mention. The Albert Dock is a UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE.
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Re: Signs of Halifax
Thanks for the comment, Garry. I do think Halifax is trying to rejuvenate itself, best seen along the waterfront. It really does have a lovely harbor and a number of fine restaurants and pubs. And the people are very friendly and helpful. As for "must see", I'd say 'no'. Much more important for a great travel experience is to visit the small coastal towns of the Maritime which will charm you to no end. But to get there most people would fly through Halifax, so definitely take a day or two to...
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Re: Have you a reservation, sir? Thailand considers selling tickets to country!
I consider it infinitely better to pay a relatively small fee to enter the country than to go through hoops & bother for a visa as we must for a number of Asian countries. Thailand was the first, and I think the only country, where I was required to stop at a booth to pay a departure tax upon leaving the country by air so what possible difference if we pay coming or going (or both?). And I actually prefer the idea of an up front fee rather than having it buried as taxes that can increase...
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Re: Where Gumbo Was #3 and #3.5: Vernon and Paris
This is turning into a rather scholarly discussion. I like that old etching, GarryRF! To the list of old bridges I'd like to add Pulteney Bridge in Bath, England, which I visited some time ago. Don't believe I have a photo of it. There are a number of modern bridges I've seen that have restaurants built into them, usually elevated (you have to take an elevator to get to them) and more for novelty and view than practicality of the entire thing (in the old days, at the Ponte Vecchio in...
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Re: Need help planning Morocco trip
I've traveled independently in Morocco a number of times now, it became my favorite destination from the first trip 15 years ago. You've made a good choice. Regarding your reading, literature aside, I have a number of guides and my first choice is still Lonely Planet, bought prior to my first visit and subsequent editions as the years have gone by. If you don't have one I suggest you get one. I won't suggest you not go in February but don't think because it's largely desert that it's...
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Re: Gumbo's Pic of the Day. September 10, 2013: African Penguins, Boulders Beach, South Africa.
Yes, think about what items would fit well for thumbnail images that people could use as avatars. We can create a bunch, and I do have a number of penguin photos that fit the bill.
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Re: Crater Lake — The Most Beautiful Lake In The World(!?)
Certainly is beautiful DrF !! Those snow capped mountains scare me off from wanting to dive into the lake. People do apply odd descriptions to wonderful things. My favourite is "It was breath-taking" The number of times I've applied the Heimlich manoeuvre to someone who's been choking on a magnificent vista. Please tell me - are the Canadians addicted to calling everything "Awesome" too ?
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Re: Want to buy great hand-made lace? Go to Sri Lanka!
Thanks PortMoresby! Gumbo is full of surprises, as we find out each week.... The women working at the lace center were very proud of their skill. Like most Sri Lankans, they're shy when you first meet them and start talking to them, but once the ice is broken you're rewarded with huge smiles and friendly conversation....and a chance to take photos like those you see in this post. The quality of the lace is excellent. I still have a number of pieces I bought here, including a large lace...
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Re: I get to Boomerang to Spain ! Cheap !
Thanks for pointing this out! By the way, it is also possible to take a free stopover on the international end. For example, a couple of years ago, we flew from NYC to Copenhagen (the routing) but with a week stopover in Stockholm along the way. We've used that kind of routing a number of times. Adding to your point about Britain: Many of AA's European cities are actually served by their closely-tied partners, British Air and Iberia. With a little persistence, you can find flights that don't...
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Re: I get to Boomerang to Spain ! Cheap !
Originally Posted by PortMoresby: .... can these stopovers be scheduled on the AA website or must you speak to an AAdvantage customer service person and pay the ($25?) fee? I scheduled my flights using the website. When you go to the AAdvantage booking site there are three choices: round-trip, one-way and multi-city. When you choose your flights you see boxes showing the number of miles per leg. The leg between Dallas and San Francisco showed no miles. There was also some kind of comment to...
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Re: I get to Boomerang to Spain ! Cheap !
Similar to WorkerBee's experience, I've done these bookings using the Multi-City function, which allows you to specify a date for each segment. It didn't require assistance. Actually I've never had to pay a fee for help when booking something that could not be done on line, but who knows these days. I've done these stopover trips a number of times (NY-Budapest/open jaw/Prague-London w/stopover and then back to NY, etc.) The AAdvantage desk agents, by the way, are some of their best and can...
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Re: Pesuta Shipwreck, Naikoon Provincial Park, Haida-Gwaii, British Columbia
These photos are evocative. Makes me very glad not to be a sailor back in the day. I have seen some of the many trees washed up on the beaches of the Pacific Northwest. Those are also very impressive. Did you find any glass floats ? I used to have a number of the ones used by Japanese fisherman to hold up their nets. You never know what will turn up.
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Re: Walking the Buffalo
Pheymont, it was the iconic landscape that attracted me to the area. The tulou in Fujian were the impetus for the trip and when I realized that the area I'd admired for so long, originally in scroll paintings, was relatively close to Xiamen and between there and another intended destination, the cross-border overnight train from Nanning to Hanoi, it was on. As you've likely surmised, my trips tend to be longer than the average tour-traveling visitor and my curiosity such that packages are...
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Re: Gumbo's Pic of the Day, Nov 2, 2013: BootHill Graveyard, Tombstone, Arizona
Ah great memories Dr. F! We had the pleasure of strolling round Boot Hill and then shaking hands with both Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp themselves! (Well, they were the real one's weren't they?). The tomb stones, or grave markers, in Boot Hill make great reading. Quite a number referring to folks being "legally hanged" (did that make any difference to the end result?). I particularly liked the tomb 'stone' (board) saying: "Here lies George Johnson, hanged by mistake 1882. He was right, we was...
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Re: "Eastern Airlines" to fly again!
And will they have Frank Borman and the "Wings of Man" slogan, I wonder? I don't know if they'll find that name so useful...it implies a regional service when most others have shed "local" identities for names that imply bigger or more abstract, and the number of people with fond memories of Eastern (which has been gone a quarter of a century) is probably not a strong factor for them.
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Re: Pittock Mansion, Portland, Oregon
I also enjoy house visits—especially to the homes of people more or less like me. Palaces tend to irritate me quickly when I think of how the people there treated people like me. Unfortunately, we don't always treasure and preserve homes like this...and while I've sort of resisted Portland, I think I'll have to go. For anyone visiting New York, by the way: the Brooklyn Museum's 5th floor has a collection of several 17th and 18th century houses (yes, whole houses!) and of rooms from a number...
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Re: Eiffel Tower: Tech at the Top Isn't New (Where Gumbo Was #58)
I had no clue either...and I can't even count the number of times I've been below it. Ha! Good one.
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Re: Yosemite National Park: A walk among Giants. Hiking in the Mariposa Grove
Thanks for all your comments. Followup: DrY. Yes, you and your family should see this sometime. You would love it! We need to plan out a trip to California for you that includes its best parks and some city sites. PHeymont. Yes, you must DO Yosemite. I recommend mid to late May as the best time to go as the waterfalls are brimming with meltwater. I like hikes of all types and can still do "moderate" hikes, though no longer take on "challenging" ones. But the Mariposa grove is doable by...
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Re: A Winter Visit to Dresden and Leipzig
The other church Janine refers to, the one associated with the big Monday demonstration of 1989 started is the Nikolaikirche, shown above. There were also mass vigils inside the church for a number of months.
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Re: Where Gumbo Watched the Sun Rise (Puzzle #20)
Acadia is one of the few "main" US National Parks I've yet to visit. A serious gap in my travel map.... Having just spent a large number of hours on an Air Canada flight to and from South America, I found it interesting to read the claim that Acadia sees the first USA Sunrise. The ads on the AirCanada video screens from Newfoundland made it very clear that if you want to see the first sunrise in North America, you need to go there instead. That is something I hope to do soon as well.
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Re: Gumbo's Pic of the Day, Mar. 16, 2014: Jardin Borda, Cuernavaca
Not surprising in a way... One of our gleanings on our recent trip to Andalucia is that for the first two centuries of Spanish rule in the Americas, most of the Spanish immigrants came from the south, where Seville had a monopoly on trade with the "New World." That certainly accounts for a number of aspects of Latin American Spanish (s rather than Castilian th, etc.) and probably for the persistence of architectural attitudes and details that survived the fall of Moorish power for a long...
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Re: The Ghan - an Australian rail journey of style and comfort
This looks like a fantastic trip and any reason to go by train is good one to me. Wondering if the place names (Adelaide, Alice, Katherine) recall days of too few settler women for the number of men?
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Re: SriLankan Airlines OneWorld Member
And OneWorld partner American Airlines is celebrating both SriLankan and TAM (Brazil) joining the alliance by a sweepstakes with multiple prizes of a pair of First Class tickets for anywhere OneWorld goes, and a Hasselblad camers. You can enter HERE . There doesn't appear to be a limit on the number of times you can enter...except how many times you are willing to fill out the entry form.
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Re: A Day at the Zoo: San Diego, California
Thanks IslandMan! Probably the rarest animal at the zoo is the California Condor. Only the San Diego and Los Angeles zoos exhibit these birds and were instrumental in saving them from extinction. With only a few dozen birds left in the wild, a controversial decision was made several decades ago to capture them all and place the remaining birds in these two zoos for a captive breeding program. They now number several hundred and are slowly being re-introduced into the wild, with limited...
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Re: $6 BILLION in bag and change fees!
I'm not sure if it's a great business model to make most of your profits by annoying your customers. I think many have gotten their heads around the baggage fee (note coincidentally the increase in the number and size of bags rolling onto a plane), but some of the airline change fees are obscene. I point to Southwest airlines as one that still does the right thing. You get to check one bag without a fee. And ff you can't make your flight, they give you a credit on the airfare good up to one...
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Re: Visitor Totals: The "Ears" Eat the "Apple"
Interesting piece, Paul. I believe that both are actually drawing more people than Paris (France) is as well. I don't see much of an overlap in the target populations these cities draw from. Orlando is very clearly family-oriented, with multiple theme parks. More of a budget destination, although with admissions at the parks being what they are, not that cheap anymore. New York City a big cosmopolitan attraction. Most folks would consider it too expensive for "family travel".
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Re: Visitor Totals: The "Ears" Eat the "Apple"
I think Orlando is a big pull for overseas travelers as well, which bodes well for them. Length of stay is an issue, especially, for New York; I think we get people on a shorter stay because of the cost. For overseas travelers, I think NY and Orlando are often both on the agenda, based on the questions I used to see on other boards!
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Re: Tourists love Florida!
Is there a breakdown of visitors by nationality ? I'm always surprised by the number of Canadian "Snowbirds" who come down for 3 months.
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Re: As if you didn't know: NY Gov calls NYC airports terrible
I'm going to have to agree with the Governor. One must acknowledge a problem before it can be fixed. I believe La Guardia is just about the worst airport I've had the misfortune to use in recent years. I include any number of developing nations in the assessment. Most countries try to encourage tourism by giving a good impression on arrival. Even in places where infrastructure as a whole is lacking, the airports are often clean and new. I sincerely hope the Governor succeeds in this.
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Re: Stockholm's Skansen Museum Park: Where Gumbo Was #27
We've also enjoyed a number of these "living history" museums, including Old Sturbridge Village and Plimoth Plantation in the U.S. Some, like those two, are focused on a single time and place; others, like Skansen are broader but less deep. But I think Skansen must beunique in its total mixture of edification and entertainment.
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All the Tea In...Charleston?
Tea gardens, as the farms are traditionally known, no matter the size, have been seducing me for over a decade. In Yunnan and Guangxi Provinces of China, Himachal Pradesh and Darjeeling in Himalayan India, in the Cameron Highlands of...
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Memphis, Tennessee: 1) Graceland
3764 Elvis Presley Blvd. It’s an address most Elvis fans know by heart because that’s where you’ll find Graceland . Graceland is THE place every Elvis must visit at least once in their lifetime. Not only was...
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Memphis, Tennessee 2) The King's chariots
Elvis loved cars and mechanical toys of all types, including motorcycles and airplanes. He had the money to indulge his passions, and you can see many of his favorites right across the street from Graceland . The Elvis...