Overrated Travel Sites Still on My Bucket List

Graduate-degreed people dis world sites that I still want to see

I live in Boulder, Colorado, which has again been named the "smartest city in America" -- most recently by The DailyBeast and previously by Forbes. I sometimes think that I am virtually only person in town over the age of 25 without a master's degree -- or more. Now a website called OnlineMasters has come up with the six most overrated historical sites in the world.

Click on the link above to read their reasons, but here's the list:

1. Stonehenge
2. The Colosseum
3. The Alamo
4. Machu Picchu
5. Petra
6. Angkor

The only one I've ever seen is the Colsseum, and that was during a long-ago European tour that included a lot of capitals, including Rome. I've seen other, smaller more remote stone circles in the British Isle but never Stonehenge. I would like to visit San Antonio, and if/when I do, I will certainly go to the Alamo.

Boulder's token dolt that I am, without a master's degree -- online or otherwise -- Machu Picchu, Petra and Angkor are still I my bucket list.

Airline Shake-Up at Newark Airport

Southwest adds EWR Its schedule as Continental and United prepare to merge

When I lived in New York and then New Jersey, I used Newark International Airport (EWR) more than any other. Only when flying internationally did I trek to and from John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), which for a long time was the only metropolitan airport that really merited "International" as its middle name.

Even then (and this was in the '70s and '80s), I avoided LaGuardia with its congested terminals and rare on-time flights. Back then I was fanatically loyal to Continental, which hubbed at Newark. I stayed faithful after I moved to Colorado, because Continental also hubbed in Denver. But the airline betrayed my trust and let me down when Denver International Airport replaced the old Stapleton, and my formerly favorite airline pared its Denver service to just a few daily flights to a handful of cities.

Since moving to Colorado in 1988, I have been going back to the New York now and again. Over the years, I have used both LaGuardia and Newark, and flown Continental, United and occasionally Frontier when New York-bound -- depending on the schedules, the fares and whether I was heading for the East or West Side of Manhattan. Come March, I'll bet EWR and I will be good friends again.

United and Continental due to merge on October 1, making room for another carrier at EWR -- and Southwest is poised to fill the gap, initially with 18 daily flights, hopefully including non-stop service from Denver. While the merger is predicted to raise fares in general (hello-o-o-o Justice Department!), some industry experts have predicted that EWR fares will buck the trend and actually drop, perhaps by 20 to 25 percent, when Southwest enters the market.

Expedition Cruise Ship Stuck on an Arctic Rock

Passengers ferried to land, but ship is still stuck

The "Clipper Adventurer," a small eco-tourism expedition ship operated Ontario-based Adventure Canada ran aground on an "unmarked rock" in Arctic waters, according to a CNN report. The ship was "exploring" the Northwest Passage when the incident occurred. It was first reported on Friday, and crew was able to free the ship during high tide on Saturday, providing the 128 passengers and 69 crew members with more adventure than they planned on. Two days after the ship got stuck, the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker icebreaker "Amundsen" was ferrying passengers first to Kugluktuk, a small town on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, and from there, they are expected to fly to Edmonton.

The ice-strengthened "Clipper Adventurer" was  built by the Soviets in 1976 and called the "Alla Tarasova." The ship may be stuck but she appears stable, resting with a slight list, according to Adventure Canada, whose website described the current situation. The company is also issuing updated info. While waiting to be taken off the ship, the company issued a statement to the effect that "Weather remains favourable as passengers continue to enjoy onboard programming and hospitality."

Climate change notwithstanding, sea ice begins to form in the Arctic Ocean in mid-September, and the company is sure anxious to get the ship off the rock well before.

Dreamliner Test Engine Blows Apart

Another nightmare for the Dreamliner, Boeing's latest airliner

The Boeing Company pushed delivery of its first 787 to the middle of the first quarter 2011. It seems that a Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 test engine blew apart recently while being run on a ground-test stand at the engine plant in Derby, England, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. According to Bloomberg News, which has also been tracking the Dreamliner's chain of problems, Rolls-Royce spokesman Josh Rosenstock said that "limited debris [was] released into the test facility." which was then shut down for "minor repairs."

Neither Boeing nor Rolls appears to have sent out a press release or reached out to the media on this.Did they think no one would notice? Flight International, a weekly aviation trade publication in England, broke the story. Bottom line is that Boeing needs the engine for the aircraft's planned final test flight scheduled before year's end. No engine? No test flight -- and a further delivery delay.

"An uncontained failure in flight could potentially bring down an airplane," wrote LA Times reporter Dominic Gates, using almost military language. The first aircraft was originally supposed to be delivered in May 2008. Now, the final rest flight will mot likely be in February 2011. Bloomberg ticked off six delays, counting this, one on the delivery of the Dreamliner.The most recent mega-problem, before the engine issue, was "poor workmanship" the 787's horizontal tails built by Alenia of Italy that pushed delivery into early 2011. I'm not a buy-American fanatic, but perhaps outsourcing components of such a complicated aircraft to overseas "partners" wasn't such a great idea after all.

Groundbreaking Today for Denver-DIA Rail Line

At last, the first shovel of earth to turn for future rail link between Denver to its great airport

I know this is a travel blog, and I do try to be regional, national and global in my posts, but I'm as provincial as anyone else, and since my travels start in Colorado, often via Denver International Airport, I pay special attention to news that affects people traveling to and from this state.

My husband and I am going to Germany in October. Whenever I fly alone, I like to take RTD's SkyRide bus directly to the airport terminal, but when we fly together, we tend to drive and will probably do so. That means driving to DIA, parking at an outlying lot and riding a shuttle to the terminal. When we arrive in Frankfurt, we will go to the Deutsche Bundesbahn railroad station connected to the terminal and take an express train to Baden Baden and overnight in a nice hotel right at the railroad station there.

A (relaitvely) comparable experince should be available to DIA passengers in 2016 with the completion of RTD's 22.8-mile East Corridor between the airport and Union Station -- a "mere" 21 years after the airport opened. If rail had been done concurrently with the airport, the train would be old enough to drink legally by then.

Of course, I know how differently things were done in the expansionist 19th century and the cautious, litigenous 21st, but I cannot help but think of the first transcontinental railroad. In 1862, Congress approved it. In 1869, the ceremonial Golden Spike was driven into a bit of Utah track where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines met. This feat was accomplished, with the work done largely by hard-working immigrant laborers, despite such distractions as the Civil War and the understandably hostile actions of Native Americans who did not take kindly to the roadbeds, rails and temporary labor camps rocketing across their land.

The cars, like those in RTD's digitually manipulated image (above right), will be electric commuter rail cars, heavier than those used on current RTD lighrail routes but heavier than Amtrak-style standard gauge. They will ride on modified Union Pacific trackage. Today's first shovel full of dirt is symbolic, and "real" construction is slated to begin in 2011.

Still, I'm encouraged by the Denver area's embracing alternative transportation after decades of being enraptured by automobiles. You'll be able to see the groundbreaking ceremony on the evening news. When completed, the line will be wonderful for locals (both travelers and airport workers) and visitors to have options -- and the East Corridor is one.

Travel Babel Named One of the Top 25 Awesome Travel Blogs

Latest recognition is awesome and then some from fellow travel blogger

What a thrill to get an E-mail from Chelsea (whose last name I don't know), letting me know that she selected this blog as one of the Top 25 Awesome Travel Blogs on her Cheap Hotels site, that she describes as "a travel blog covering hotel deals, travel information and reviews of some of the top hotels in the world along with a little fun." In describing her 25 faves, she wrote of Travel Babel, "Award-winning writer Claire Walter’s blog 'Travel Babel' provides comical relief about serious travel matters and showcases interesting information regarding the best vacation deals." Seems as if she and I are soulmates in the world of travel blogging.

A few months back, Awarding the Web picked Travel Babel as one of the Top 50 Travel Blogs of 2010, and it won third place in the Society of American Travel Writers' Western Chapter writing award this first year that there has been a blogging category.

Thanks, Chelsea for this honor. It truly means a lot.

Mexicana Airlines' Future Brighter But Still Uncertain

Mexican flag carrier has new investors but its flight remains bumpy

Weather-casters occasion forecast "partly sunny with a chance of rain." And this pretty much the forecast for Mexicana Airlines, which along with Aeromexico is one of the two flag carriers of our neighbor to the south. I haven't written posts about all of its complicated problems that hit the boiling point over the last few months, though my Mexico City-based travel writer colleague Jimm Budd has done so im increasingly dispiriting posts. His latest Mexicogram report is finally somewhat more optimistic, so I share it here in  its entirety:

"A group of Mexican investors organized under the name Tendora K has acquired 95 percent of Nuevo Grupo Aeronautica, the heavily-indebted holding company controlling bankrupt Mexicana Airlines and its two affiliates, Click and Link. The pilots union acquired the rest. Purchase price is reported to have been a “token amount.” Previously, the airline had been owned by the Posadas de México (Fiesta Americana and other hotels) plus some other investors.

"If the airline is to survive, debts must be paid, additional investments made and operating costs substantially reduced. In recent weeks, Mexicana has been obliged to reduce its frequencies of service to the United States from 50 each week to 38. Under current conditions, these Mexicana can restore these, but only if it uses the same equipment. The FAA will allow no other Mexican airline to take over these routes until Mexico improves air safety inspections."

Future Gringo James took the photo (above left) during an unplanned layover which he describes as "some sort of unnamed security issue causing us to deplane on the tarmac at MEX far far from the terminal and get bused around the airport. (Fun adventure)." I have no crystal ball as to wether Mexicana will succumb or rise Phoenix-like from the ashes of hard times, crushing debt, mismanagement and lesser problems, any one of which alone could kill any airline. Until Mexico solves its safety and other aviation issues to the satisfaction of US and Canadian regulators, good sense might dictate flying an American carrier. Stay tuned.