Is this a trip to help prevent piracy? Is it a trip where you can pay to hunt humans? This one scares me.

Paying Money to Murder: Russian Luxury Yachts Offer Pirate Hunting Cruises

In a brilliant–if deeply disturbing–stroke of entrepreneurial genius, Russian luxury yachts have begun to advertise adventure cruises where passengers pony up almost $6,000 USD per day to cruise from Djibouti to Mombasa in search of pirates.

The yachts trawl at a deliberately slow speed, hoping to attract pirates. If attacked, the cruise passengers are ready to respond with heavy machinery: machine guns and grenade and rocket launchers. And if they want to tack on an extra $8.00 a day, passengers can hoist their very own AK-47. Ammo, though, costs an extra $11.50.

And the best thing about getting services from ex-cons is that it will only cost you a pack of cigarettes. (OK I made that part up).

City’s ex-cons to help Naples tourist

Tourists in Naples are being welcomed by ex-convicts who help them cross the streets in the hair-raising traffic, offer information and even escort them through the city’s more dangerous alleyways under a initiative by the Campania region.

Wearing yellow jackets, caps and ID cards, around 70 former prisoners have been posted at points around the city including the port and the station.

Score one for the math nerds (yes I was one as a kid). Researchers think they know how to resync your body clock.

A Mathematics Cure For Jet Lag

Plagued by jet lag? If we can send a rocket to the moon why can’t we figure out how to fly to different time zones and still be fresh? Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the University of Michigan say they have developed a software program that prescribes a light exposure regimen for avoiding jet lag.

Sometimes truth is just much funnier than fiction.

New airline Pet Airways’ only passengers to be four-legged

Soon, pet owners who live in a handful of large U.S. cities will have the ability to do that. Pet Airways plans to begin service on July 14 as the USA’s first pets-only carrier — no human passengers allowed. The introductory fare: $149 each way. For that, pets will be flown in individual crates in lighted and pressurized plane cabins, with a human attendant checking them every 15 minutes. They’ll board, just like people, from their own airport lounges and get overnight lodging accommodations on long-haul flights. Their owners can track their whereabouts at all times online. They can even earn “pet points” as frequent fliers.

The only thing clear about the Clear program is that it is clearly over.

Clear Registered Travel Program Shuts Down

Clear, the biggest private-sector “registered traveler” program in the nation, shut down suddenly last night, and a quarter of a million customers are waiting to find out whether their cards will ever get them out of security-line hell again. (It’s not looking too good right now.) The biggest mystery is not why it failed, but why it hung on as long as it did given the open hostility to the venture displayed by both the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the airlines.

I am not sure if being associated with the criminal justice system is the legacy that Jackson wanted but…

Tourists flock to see 1,500 Philippine inmates perform Jackson tribute

More than 1,500 Philippine inmates at a maximum security prison on Saturday performed a Michael Jackson tribute for the public with a dance routine that has become a global Internet hit.

Hundreds of spectators arrived at the jail to see the convicts, including murderers and drug-traffickers, put on the show two days after the music icon collapsed and died.

Other stories that I thought were interesting:

• Royal Caribbean plans 11-night Arctic Circle cruise from Copenhagen
• First hybrid RV to hit the road this summer
• 2009 Airline In-Flight Entertainment Status Update

On a trip to Sydney, Australia we saw this sign with arrows pointing to famous world cities with the various distances. My kids loved it so they posed for this picture. I used this picture in both my daughter’s and son’s ad in their senior yearbook. It seemed like a pretty good way to describe them at the crossroads of their life.

Air New Zealand is trying a unique approach to get people to watch that safety video. In a video titled “Bare essentials of safety from Air New Zealand” they have Air New Zealand staff wearing only body paint and shot from strategic angles or behind props. The video thanks the crew for “going all out”. It will be interesting to see how other airlines will respond.

I shot this photo from the Royal Park resort on my recent travel blogger trip there. Cozumel has some very nice sunsets.

• Regular width (1280 x 1024)
• Widescreen (1920 × 1200)
• MacBook Pro (1440 x 900)

To use:
1. Click the link above to open wallpaper in your browser.
2. Right click and select “Use image as desktop picture” or similar

I found myself making acquaintance again today with the Mexico City airport and availing myself of the opportunity to again consume tacos al pastor. I was through this airport on a trip this previous February. I could not help but notice at this tie the differences between the circumstances of the two trips. The Amateur Traveler show has enabled both trips but in a very different fashion. In February I took some of the proceeds from the show and spent them on a trip to Mexico (Mexico City and Oaxaca). This trip was being sponsored by Royal Holiday. They flew me down to Cozumel to show me the Park Royal resort in the hope that I would have a good time and write about it.

I enjoyed both my trip to Mexico City and Cozumel though to be sure two trips had little in common besides the passport stamp.

Crime

Mexico City can be an intimidating city with regard to safety and crime. The U.S. state department actually has language in their recommendations on Mexico City travel to avoid hailing a taxi on the street unless you want to die or some frightening words to that effect. On the plane into Cozumel I met an American who works as a security consultant who was flying down to close on a house. Before purchasing the house he has done a lot of research and said that Cozumel has almost no crime. Sandra, who works for Park Royal, told the story of a woman who was picking up a rental jeep. She was told it was a blue jeep, was on such and such a street downtown and the keys were in the car. As it turns out there were two blue jeeps on that street with the keys in them and she took the wrong one, but no one bothered to tell her until she checked in the wrong jeep. They assumed correctly that her mistake was accidental.

Infrastructure

Mexico City is a massive city that some predict will someday succumb to its own demand for resources and to its own pollution (underestimating the Mexico City inhabitants according to many). Cozumel also has limited resources as an isolated island. For this reason hotels when they were rebuilt, after the near total devastation caused by hurricane WIlma in 2005, were required to build:

• desalination plants capable of meeting most of their water needs
• water treatment systems that could render such water potable
• sewage treatment systems
• systems for composting organic waste

Cultural Distance

While Mexico City can certainly be intimidating there is no doubt that it supports a vibrant culture. The distance between Mexico City and the US was heightened by avoiding the Zona Rosa district which has become somewhat of a tourist gheto.

Cozumel has an economy centered around tourism and thus often seems to have less distance between it and the United States which is one of its major customers. Cozumel seems to be a gateway to Mexico for those who are not ready to jump into Mexico with both feet. Cozumel is a place that will be very comfortable to Americans. It is a place where you do not need to speak Spanish and at times it seemed to me to be more like an extension of Florida rather than a foreign country. This will of course recommend it to some travelers and take it off the list for others.

Urban Jungle / Tropical Jungle

There is no mistaking from the moment that you fly over Mexico City the vastness of that city. Nor is there mistaking that you are on a tropical island as you fly in to Cozumel. The color of the water is strikingly beautiful in a way that I have only seen in the Caribbean. The landscape of the island seems only partly to be settled at all with much of the island still jungle. Almost all of the hotels are on the side of the island facing the other resort cities of the Mayan riviera. The far side of the island is more windswept, rugged and uninhabited. The Mayans believed that a woman should make a pilgrimage to Cozumel (to what we now know as San Gervasio) at least once as it was associated with fertility. I have no doubt that more than one honeymoon couple has found Cozumel to still have some claim on fertility.

So I find that I enjoyed both trips but in very different ways. Mexico City is a way to dive in deep into Mexico. It is challenging, exciting and bustling. Cozumel is welcoming, beautiful and relaxing. It is still Mexico, but not the one you have been seeing on the evening news. And speaking of the evening news, no so far as I have been able to learn there have not been cases of swine flu on Cozumel.