Public Restroom Art?
Originally uploaded by ericrichardson

When I saw this story I thought of the Mount Madonna Inn in Paso Robles, CA. My father’s boss went there with his (the boss’s) mother and his mother grabbed him and dragged him (again the boss) into the ladies room to show him the waterfall.

Best Public Restroom

We ask that question seriously. What makes the experience of using a public restroom something special? Is it style? Is it elegance? Is that restroom so clean you are almost ashamed to go home? Is it the view? All of these have been reasons cited for past nominees for the title of America’s Best Restroom Award, presented by Cintas.

Plane lands safely at McCarran after engine fire

A Southwest Airlines plane en route to New York was forced to turn around and make an emergency landing in Las Vegas today after an engine caught fire, officials said.

The twin-engine Boeing 737 was in the air just 19 minutes before the emergency landing at McCarran International Airport.

Remember I predicted this would happen on Travel to Cuba - Episode 170.

Travel Ban to Cuba Could End

Bill Delahunt, a Democratic representative of Massachusetts and eight additional cosponsors introduced the bill that has drawn praise from President Barack Obama. During Obama’s campaign, he openly encouraged a change in the United States’ diplomacy with Cuba.

I have not been to Japan so it would not currently be my favorite country. Turkey might be mine or Italy. What is your favorite country?

Japan Voted World’s Best Country - Wanderlust Magazine Announces 2009 Travel Awards

After years of jostling between New Zealand and Namibia, Japan has been named Top Country in the Wanderlust Travel Awards 2009. Not only has the country snatched the top spot, Kyoto is also runner up in the Top City sector. This is the first ever showing for Japan in the awards top ten, reflecting a surge in interest among adventurous travellers. Namibia and New Zealand were voted in second and third place respectively.

Fewer people are flying but that also seems to have produced some good news. The system worked better in 2008 than it did in 2007.

Airlines log fewer delays, lost bags, complaints

It’s not all doom and gloom for fliers these days, and we’re not just talking bargain fares. Passengers are arriving on time more often, losing fewer bags and filing fewer complaints, the government says.

U.S. airlines in November flew nearly 13% fewer passengers than in November 2007, the U.S. Dept. of Transportation (DOT) reported today. Nearly 25% of seats on an average flight went unclaimed, or 2.4% more than in November 2007. The upside: If you get bumped or miss a connection, you might actually land a seat on the next flight out.

Delays: More than 76% of flights by major airlines arrived on time last year, the best performance in three years. And fewer passengers faced long waits on the tarmac. Only 1,232 flights logged taxi-out times of three hours or more, the DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics said, down 25% from 2007.

The worst of the 32 major airports for taxi-out times was New York’s JFK, averaging nearly 35 minutes from gate departure to wheels off the ground; the best was Oakland (OAK), at 10 minutes. Los Angeles (LAX) averaged a respectable 15 minutes.

Baggage loss: The odds that your bag would get lost, stolen, delayed or damaged dropped by 25% last year on major airlines, based on DOT figures. Reports of mishandled baggage fell from 7.05 to 5.26 per 1,000 passengers between 2007 and 2008.

Other posts I liked:

• Ten IPod Applications: A Must For All Travelers

Sadly after more than a year in the United States with no airline fatalities (despite close calls like planes landing in rivers or with both engines on fire) we heard news today that this run of good luck has ended.

49 Killed After Continental Plane Crashes Into House Near Buffalo

A Continental flight from Newark to Buffalo crashed into a house about five miles from Buffalo Niagara International Airport on Thursday night, killing 49 people, officials said.

The plane carried 44 passengers and a crew of 4, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Ted Lopatkiewicz, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board. The Erie County executive, Chris Collins, later said at a news conference that 49 people, including one on the ground, were killed.

The recent cold snap in the east changed the itinerary for cruise ship passengers who were literally left out in the cold.

No worries on board ice-bound cruise ship

A cruise ship carrying nearly 400 people has been stuck in thick ice in the St. Lawrence River in Eastern Canada for over a day, but passengers are nonetheless having a “festive” time, the company that owns the vessel said Tuesday.

The ship, CTMA-Vacancier, chartered by a group traveling from Montreal to the Gaspe Peninsula for a cross-country skiing trip to celebrate the 475th anniversary of the region’s settlement, is now inching through the heavy ice, said Leonard Arsenault, a spokesman for MTMA Group.

He said the 300 passengers, along with a crew of nearly 100, were in no danger and that there was plenty of food on board.

But the cruise ship passengers were not the only ones stuck in the ice. The cold also trapped airline passengers in one of those stories that leaves you wondering if it is about time for those often talked about passenger’s rights.

Stunned by the day’s travel news — no really, stunned

Passengers on an AirTran flight from Columbus, Ohio, to Orlando were stuck in transit for 12 hours yesterday — many of them on a grounded plane. Flight 373 to Orlando had been scheduled to take off from Columbus, Ohio, at 8 a.m. But an overnight snow storm reportedly turned the parked plane into a popsicle. Ground crews used three truckloads of deicing fluid in a futile attempt to thaw the frozen plane. “We had no water, no air, they couldn’t turn the engine on,” one traveler said. The passengers were let off the aircraft for lunch, and AirTran offered them free roundtrip tickets for the trouble.

Speaking of dirty tricks, research has picked out one New York hotel as the dirtiest in the country. By the way, if you think bed bugs are bad… don’t look under the bed.

Behold The Nastiest, Foulest Hotel In America

Is this the dirtiest, foulest hotel in America? The voters on TripAdvisor.com think so, and the rating doesn’t seem to have come as a shock to the management of the hotel — the manager told NY1, “because they are a one star hotel, they have one star standards of cleanliness.” Well, ew.

What sort of crimes against hygeine are we talking about here? Well, according to the comments on TripAdviser, prepare yourself for “mice, roaches, Bed Bugs and crack heads all living at this Hell Hole! The hotel itself smells and is filthy from the disgusting bedspread to the filthy bathroom.” And there are also “outlets that hang out of walls” and “Built up hair clogged shower drains.” All this for only $122 a night.

Other stories I found interesting:

• 2009 Worldnomads.com Travel Podcast Scholarship
• How Well Do You Know the Middle East?
• London Pedestrian Routemap
• How to Move to Paris with No Money
• Win $50,000 Towards Your Dream Photography Assignment!
• Across the ocean in a pedal-powered submarine
• Win the best job in the world

The most interesting travel story of this week was definitely that more people will be paying attention from now on to that part of the safety demonstration where the flight attendant says “in the unlikely event of a water landing…” Kudos to the crew of US Airways Flight 1549.

US Airways Plane Lands in Hudson River

US Airways Flight 1549 descends on its way to an emergency landing on the Hudson River in New York Jan. 15, 2009. The Airbus A320 bound for Charlotte, N.C., had reportedly struck a flock of birds immediately after takeoff minutes earlier at LaGuardia Airport. The birds apparently disabled the engines. The pilot maneuvered the crippled jetliner over New York City and ditched it in the frigid Hudson River. All 155 onboard were pulled to safety as the plane slowly sank.)

This story caught my attention because on this week’s Amateur Traveler episode on Cuba (Travel to Cuba) I made the prediction that the restrictions on travel to Cuba would be lifted within the year. The next day I saw this story which is a step in that direction.

Clinton Says Obama Wants to Lift Travel Ban on Cuba

Sen. Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday the incoming Obama administration wanted to lift travel restrictions on families wishing to visit relatives in Cuba and urged Havana to make its own concessions.

Non-smoking travelers will rejoice that one more country has gone smoke free. In this case the country is Taiwan which is surprising given the smokey nature of countries in that area.

Taiwan bans smoking in hotels, restaurants, airports

Taiwanese authorities on Sunday banned smoking in all indoor public places in what anti-smoking activists say is a ‘milestone’ in turning Taiwan into a smoke-free island.

Smoking had previously been banned in public areas including hospitals, schools, theaters, libraries, office buildings and elevators.

Is this a new model for airlines? It is certainly an unusual one and it would be interesting to see if it catches on but I would bet against that.

Pay-As-You-Go Airline Charges by the Minute

Taking a cue from the cellphone industry, an upstart South African airline is selling flights by the minute and allowing customers to buy tickets and book flights via text message.

Airtime Airlines takes to the sky later this month, offering three flights a day from its base in Durban to Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Passengers purchase minutes much like they would for a prepaid cell phone and redeem them for a ticket. Fees are assessed according to the length of the flight — say, 75 minutes for the run from Durban to Johannesburg — and could save as much as half of what competing airlines charge.

If you stop the average man on the street and asked whether birts or yanks were more polite you would probably be told that the brits are more polite. Apparently if you take that poll on a sinking ship you would get the same results.

‘Polite’ Britons died on Titanic

More British passengers died on the Titanic because they queued politely for lifeboats, researchers believe.

A behavioural economist says data suggests Britons in that era were more inclined to be “gentlemanly” while Americans were more “individualist”.

Other Stories that caught my eye this week:

• Castro Praises Obama In Blog, Alludes To Waning Health
• Seven affordable, under-the-radar beach destinations
• Amazing US Air pilot saved 155 lives

There is always some danger of people getting sick when you pack people into a closed space like a cruise ship, but some ships get sicker than others.

At least 340 sickened on cruise ship in Brazil

Hundreds of passengers on a Swiss-owned cruise ship were stricken with severe vomiting and diarrhea caused by a mysterious ailment, Brazilian health officials said Thursday.

At least 340 victims have been sickened on the MSC Sinfonia, now docked in Salvador, Bahia, according to a spokeswoman for the National Agency for Sanitary Vigilance. She spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with department policy.

If you are afraid of flying then the next two stories are for you. Compare this to traveling by car.

2008 was one of the safest years on record

Last year was one of the aviation industry’s safest ever, despite continuing financial troubles.

Airline fatalities worldwide dropped 25 percent in 2008, according to the latest data from Ascend, which provides information to the global aerospace industry.

There were 539 reported passenger and crew fatalities in 2008, compared to 730 in 2007, Ascend said.

The only year in this decade with fewer fatalities was 2004, with 434.

Airlines go two years with no fatalities

For the first time since the dawn of the jet age, two consecutive years have passed without a single airline passenger death in a U.S. carrier crash.

No passengers died in accidents in 2007 and 2008, a period in which commercial airliners carried 1.5 billion passengers on scheduled airline flights, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal and industry data.

Many have been finding it too complicated to come to the United States because of post 9/11 security. New rules make it more complicated because you have to know that you need to fill out your paper work 3 days before you fly.

New travel rules to USA take effect Monday

New rules went into effect Monday requiring people traveling to the United States under the visa waiver program to register online in advance, instead of filling out paper forms in flight or at the airport.

The new program, designed to improve U.S. security, has been voluntary since August but became mandatory Monday. Travelers are being asked to fill out the forms at least 72 hours in advance of travel.

Other articles I enjoyed this week:

1. Prague has 7th largest foreign tourist number in Europe