To Travel or Not to Travel? That is the Question

Do tourists help or hinder reforms in dictatorial states or impact on human rights abuses?

The Society of American Travel Writers' 2009 convention is scheduled for Beijing, setting off a debate on whether SATW's presence is de facto support of a regime whose human rights abuses in general and policies toward Tibet in particular many members find abhorrent. For a specific take on China, a recent essay in Newsweek's international edition called "Tibet Through Chinese Eyes" merits reading. Not only SATW, but many travelers in general, often wrestle with these questions when a place they want to see, like China, conflicts with their principles.

Susan Hack wrote a Concierge.com piece called "Should You Stay or Should You Go?" weighing the pros and cons of such travel. She wrote:

"Picture this: You excitedly tell your friends you're heading to China for
the Olympics, and they start lecturing you about Darfur, human rights, and the Dalai Lama.

"'But what about Shanghai, and the terra cotta warriors, and all those cool
new stadiums?' Stony silence. There goes your summer vacation.

"To some people, boycotting the Games — and China as a whole — is a way of protesting its government's policies.

"But does that mean those who visit condone repression — and even help
underwrite it? Must travelers body-swerve countries with flagrant human-rights
abuses altogether?"

For my part, I say: Go! Whatever reforms occurred behind what was once called the Bamboo Curtain happened after Nixon "opened" China, trade and talks started, and American and other Western tourists began to visit. Countries that were once locked behind the Iron Curtain are now not only on the tourist trail ("Gladys, I can't wait to see the Kremlin!"), and former Soviet satellites are booming, some now as part of the economically powerful euro zone. Americans visit Vietnam, where some 55,000 US servicemen perished in a previous undeclared war. While China and Viernam are still Communist, so is Cuba, where a decades-long embargo on American travel certainly did not to close the long-running Fidel Castro show. Only age and infirmity caused him to hand power over to his brother Raul, and perhaps normalization won't be too far off, and American visitors will easily be able to join Canadians, Eruopeans and Mexicans who travel without difficulty to the nation that lies just 90 miles from Key West.

Hack tackled the questions of visiting a baker's dozen places where all is not roses and lollipops: China, Syria, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Tunisia, Myanmar (Burma), Israel and the Occupied Territories, Russia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Iran, Venezuela. Some are currently such hotspots that only for the likes of Robert Young Pelton, author of travel books about "the world's most dangerous places" and whose website is called Come Back Alive. Others don't really want outsiders at all. Consider Myanmar, which is shutting out most relief workers who want to help the country's cyclone victims. Others only reluctantly let in any outsiders. In a recent CNN special, Christiane Amanpour reported on the New York Philharmonic to Pyongyang's (hopefully) ice-breaking concert last February. It was the first-ever performance by an American orchestra in the secretive People's Republic of Korea.

I haven't been to any hot war zones, nor do I have desire to do so, but years ago, I did visit East Berlin in the days of Checkpoint Charlie and spent time in Budapest when the Soviet shadow covered eastern Europe. I once crossed the former Czechoslovakia by train and had to get a visa in advance, even though I was not getting off the train, which surprised me, because in western Europe, it was easy to travel from country to country. And yes, I have been to China. Three times. And I want to go again.

Perhaps I am being naive, but in my opinion, travelers with open minds, open eyes and yes, open wallets are, on balance, a good thing. And I do wonder what happens when the proverbial shoe is on the other foot. For many visitors from overseas, the US is currently a travel bargain. Yet we photograph and fingerprint our foreign "guests" at our airports like suspects taken to jail. I wonder how many foreign visitors don't want to come here and be treated like crooks -- or who don't want to spend their money in a country responsible for Gantanamo, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition or state-sanctioned torture to interrogate prisoners in our undeclared and ongoing "war on terrorism."

So read Susan Hack's piece and decide for yourself what's on your to-visit list and what isn't. For now.

Mileage Plus Tightens Credits

Wave bye-bye to 500-mile minimum credit for segments flown on United

Those short commuter hops on United, Ted or regional affiliates will no longer deposit 500 miles into your Mileage Plus account. Here's the latest salvo from the self-proclaimed "Friendly Skies" airline:

"To ensure that Mileage Plus miles earned toward elite status and award
travel on United are aligned with actual miles flown, we are revising our base
accrual policy. Beginning July 1, 2008, for flights of less than 500 miles,
passengers will earn redeemable miles equal to the actual miles flown. Elite
Qualifying Miles (EQM) will also be awarded based on actual miles. Elite
Qualifying Segments (EQS) are not affected.

"This new mileage accrual structure will apply to travel on or after July
1, 2008, regardless of when the travel was ticketed. Flights of less than 500
miles flown on or before June 30, 2008, will accrue Mileage Plus miles under the
previous policy of a minimum mileage accrual per individual segment flown."

Should you want "complete details," you can read them here. Interestingly, while United launched the policy of charging most passengers $25 extra for a second checked bag, US Airways was the first to tighten its frequent flyer mileage credits for short flights.

Austrian "Prison House" on Horror Highway

Voyeuristic visitors flock to see where the latest twisted family tragedy took place

Some people travel to look at places where bad things happened -- some large-scale and public, and others once private: Pearl Harbor and the watery grave of the battleship 'Arizona,' the site of the World Trade Center in New York that became known as Ground Zero, concentration camps in Germany and Poland, New Orleans' still-devastated lower Ninth Ward, the Federal Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, the Texas School Book Depository and Dealey Plaza in Dallas where JFK was assassinated, plus assorted decommissioned prisons, jails and dungeons all over the globe all come to mind, as do the creepiest, bloodiest displays in wax museums. The latest tourist stop on the horror highway showing man's inhumanity is the house (left) in Amstetten, Austria, where Josef Fritzl imprisoned his daughter in a cellar and kept her as an incestuous sex slave for nearly a quarter of a century.

"Two weeks ago the small town of Amstetten, with a population of 23,000,
was a tranquil place where little of note ever happened," the Telegraph reported.

"But the town, formerly known only for its apple wine production, has been
suddenly put into the spotlight after it was revealed that one of its respected
citizens, the retired engineer and property developer Josef Fritzl, 73, had
imprisoned his own daughter Elisabeth, in 1984 and kept her as a sex slave,
producing seven children with her.

"Two weeks after the story broke, residents are now complaining about the
"ghoulish tourism" that is developing around the Fritzl family house in 40
Ybbstrasse. People are travelling from neighbouring countries such as Germany
and Hungary to visit the street and have their picture taken in front of the
house. According to reports, the three-storey house facing one of Amstetten’s
main roads has also been put on the route of a sightseeing bus tour which now
routinely stops in front of it.

"'It is bad enough that journalists and TV crews have beleaguered our town,
but now there is this ghoulish tourism with people coming to Amstetten just to
see the house in Ybbstrasse. It is appalling, we just want to be left in
peace,'" said one Amstetten resident.

"The house is guarded by police around the clock as over 40 forensic
experts are investigating its interior. One of the officers on duty outside the
house said: 'People are coming especially to have their picture taken in front
of the house. It has become a sort of pilgrimage site.'"

The idealistic side of me would like to think that people come to pay their respect and to memorialize victims of horror and tragedy, but the realist in me knows that, sadly, much of it is prurient interest at best and titillation at worst.

Airline Gains and Losses for Denver

Southwest to add more Denver Flights; Lufthansa to cut back

Good news for travelers to, from and through Denver International Airport is that Southwest Airlines is again adding more flights. Southwest Airlines is adding five new nonstop flights to Sacramento, Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood, New Orleans and Phoenix beginning August 4. From just 13 daily flights a bit over two years ago, the low-fare airline currently operates 61 daily flights and will be shortly adding those above.

Elsewhere in the Rockies, Frontier Airlines' new routes connect Denver with Colorado Springs, Aspen, Durango and Grand Junction, CO; and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Missoula, Montana; Fargo, North Dakota; and Bozeman, Montana. Some routes are already being served; the last will be Bozeman's Gallatin Field on May 22. Republic Air and Lynx Aviation, a Frontier subsidiary, are flying these regional routes.

Meanwhile, Lufthansa has announced what it currently is calling seasonal suspension of its Denver-Munich non-stop late in October. It is planning to resume service in March. I am not sure how many Coloradans or other Westerners would be traveling to Germany in winter 2009-09, but given the strong euro and anemic dollar, I imagine that many European skiers will be traveling to Rocky Mountain powder -- and for them, the loss of this service is unfortunate.

DIA, the State of Colorado and the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation provided a $2 million "incentive package" for Lufthansa to inaugurate Munich-Denver service, which started only last year. I don't know what contractual strings we might have attached to the German airline's presence here, but I guess it wasn't enough. Meanwhile, demand for service between Germany and Asia is accelerating, which trumped our incentive payments.

Innovative Service for Internet Addicts Like Me

Service offers combination of connectivity and mobility for travelers

Shortly before I left for Britain, I learned about RoVair, a service that offers wireless mobile broadband (WMB) access. I have no idea just what aircards, datacards and evdo cards are, but as one who now drags her laptop around the globe, I do know what a hassle and/or expense it can be to find WiFi or Ethernet connections while traveling. I have struggled with Internet access at sea, because many cruise ships seem to have Internet centers with painfully slowly service via satellite at dial-up speed. I have paid through the nose in fancy hotels, where you would think that WiFi would be as much an included amenity as it is in many mid-range properties. My laptop and I have camped in hotel lobbies where that was the only place with WiFi service. I have driven for miles and paid usurious per-hour WiFi fees and otherwise sacrificed time and comfort to check E-mails or do some timely blog posting.

Therefore, RoVair's explanation that it is available anywhere there is a cellular signal seemed like a traveler's dream innovation ("hundreds of thousands if not millions of hotspots," the company says). As I understand it, you get a datacard and then use a "day pass" that is activated all the time -- or maybe the datacard and the day pass are the same thing. There are all sorts of other bells and whistles (including a price break for multiple cards and the ability to "light up" other devices elsewhere, which I probably don't need but might be useful for people traveling on company business).

Currently, you order your day pass for a certain number of days with a three-day minimum and return it to the company in provided packaging when the time is up -- sort of like NetFlix. "Soon," RovAir says, "day passes will be available from handy kiosks at airports, hotels, train terminals, shopping malls and other convenient locations."

In any case, card rental starts at $5.95 a day with a multi-day purchase, which made RoVair sound really, really, REALLY good. I was ready to sign up. Unfortunately for me this time, the service is currently available only in the US and perhaps Canada, but not in Europe or Asia.

To read about our trip, see my postings between April 26 and May 7. If RoVair had been in Britain, I could have dealt more easily or inexpensively with these specific situations:

• Lack of Internet access on trains, which was a bit frustrating, because there was an outlet and a table a each seat, which would have made good use of travel time
• The Famous Wild Boar Hotel in the Lake District has no Internet service. We didn't have a car, so took a taxi (£6 each way) to Bowness, where I found a cafe with Internet access at £3 for 30 minutes. We took advantage of being there to wander around Bowness and stay for dinner, but we did have to lug the laptop around.
• In Carlisle, one of the two hotels we stayed at had WiFi only in the lobby at a cost of £5 per hour. The second hotel had no Internet service at all.
• In Edinburgh, we lucked out at a B&B that had free WiFi in the rooms -- the only one of the five places we stayed with such an amenity.
• At the Sheraton Skyline near Heathrow Airport, Internet service was available in the rooms for £5 per hour or £15 for 24 hours. Gulp!

Therefore, I cheer: Go RoVair! I look forward to trying it in the US next time I am on the road, but more significantly, I hope the service is available in Europe next time I go overseas -- which, come to think of it, might be a long time coming given the state of the dollar.

And for anyone who has not yet navigated the rocky shoals of traveling with a laptop but wants to, the Independent Traveler website recently published a primer of what's out there, what you can expect and what you should take with you.

2008 is the Year of the Volcano in Chile

Two major volcanoes eruptions since January impact national parks and resort towns

In January, the central Chilean volcano called Llaima began breathing fire, sporadically emitting lava flows that turned the snow that covered upper slopes into steam and sending an ash column more than 10,000 feet into the sky, as was dramatically captured in filmed reports from National Geographic and CNN. The 10,252-foot volcano is reportedly one of the country's most active, having erupted as recently as 1994. It is some 422 miles south of the capital of Santiago. The nearest town, Melipueco, was evacuated, as were visitors and rangers in Conguillio National Park.

Chaiten, some 400 miles farther south near the Chile-Argentina border has been erupting since May 2, forcing evacuations first from the nearby eponymous town of Chaiten, then the larger and then more distant community of Futaleufo and even moving out military personnel. This was far more surprising. "The long dormant 3,280-foot (1,000-meter) Chaiten volcano began erupting on Friday for the first time in thousands of years, and the huge plume of volcanic ash is clearly visible on satellite images cutting a swathe across South America's southern tip," according to a Reuters report. Airlines have canceled flights to southern Patagonia, because of the potential danger of volcanic ash being sucked into jet engines.

Chaiten's eruption is still going strong (NASA satellite, photo right). It is located in what vulcanologists refer to as the Andean Arc that stretches from Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. "It is home to 2,000 volcanoes, 500 of which experts say are potentially active. Around 60 have erupted over the past 450 years," Reuters noted. While Argentina is not usually listed as part of the arc, ash has been reported in the Argentine resort of Bariloche in Nahuel Huapi National Park and even as far away as the capital of Buenos Aires. The region is famous not only for skiing at Bariloche but also for Tahoe-blue mountain lakes. As ash, which soared into the stratosphere, continues to fall over a wide region, it could impact the ski season that begins in June, and the lakes might no longer be so pristine.

Britain Travel WrapUp

Northern England and Scotland, on a budget but home with an emptier wallet

I've been a negligent travel blogger. I actually started this wrapup of our week a bit in Britain at the Sheraton Skyline at Heathrow Airport, but I didn't get a chance to finish -- but now I am. We took full advantage of the flexibility of our BritRail passes. Our only pre-planned time was in the Lake District, and after that, we tried to go where the rain wasn't. This was easy call, because it rained and rained and rained in most of the British Isles during our time. We had lots of clouds and a few sprinkles and one true sunny day in Edinburgh.

Here's where we went and what we did -- some of which I have posted here or on my Nordic Walking blog and on my food/dining blog:

Windermere/Lake District - April 23 (afternoon) to April 26 (morning)

Walked private trail on property belonging the the Famous Wild Boar Hotel.
Hiked from Ambleside to Troutbeck over a mountain called Wansfell with extremely limited bus service from Troutbeck to the highway at Troutbeck Bridge, we walk an additional 2 1/2 miles down a lovely country road to catch the bus back to Windermere, from where we walked an additional 1 1/2 miles or so back to Bowness.
In the process, explored the towns of Windermere and Bowness -- and a bit of Ambleside.


Carlisle - April 26 (afternoon) to April 28 (morning)

Guild Hall
Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery
Carlisle Cathedral - evensong rehearsal in progress when we visited
Hiked along Hadrian's Wall


Edinburgh - April 28 (afternon) to April 30 (morning)

Edinburgh Castle, including the Honours of Scotland (Scottish crown jewels), National War Museum, the Royal Scots Regimental Museum and
Museum on the Mound (Royal Bank of Scotland museum)
National Museum of Scotland
St. Giles Cathedral
City Art Centre
Ad hoc sightseeing bus ride (public bus, not tourist bus) that including a good look at the Royal Yacht Britannia, albeit from a distance
Sir Walter Scott monument and
The Royal Mile

We spent the last night at an airport hotel, the four-star Sheraton Skyline, which we booked at a good rate via priceline.com ($125 plus assorted taxes and fees). This American-style hotel is complete with expansive lobby, conference facility, swimming pool in a covered atrium, over-priced restaurant and somewhat less overpriced sports bar -- from which we watched Liverpool and Chelsea duke it out to face Manchester United in the upcoming European Football Championship. The Sheraton was the only hotel we stayed at that did not include breakfast. The add-ons: 24 hours of Internet service for £15 (that's almost $30) and airport shuttle for £4 per person (£8 for the two of us -- or more than $15.

Bottom line is that our trip was more expen$ive than we had anticipated. We tried to be thrifty, but due to the dismal state of the dollar, even thrift was not enough. We had a fine time and saw a lot that neither of us had seen before. We're glad we went, but we'll have to think out our destinations more carefully until the dollar begins to rebound against other currencies.