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

It is not as uncommon as you would hope that people go over the side of their cruise ship and are not heard from again. A man was recently saved after 3 hours in the water. How was it that you said he fell overboard again?

Man Overboard: Carnival Inspiration

According to reports, Larry Miller, 46, fell overboard from the cruise ship as it was returning to the Port of Tampa at 4 a.m. this morning. Fortunately for Miller, the crew of a pilot boat spotted him in the shipping channel near the Sunshine Skyway shortly before 7 a.m.

A spokesperson for Carnival Cruise Lines told Bay News 9 that, “Miller fell overboard when he climbed on a railing to get a better view of a boat as it passed by. He slipped, then fell overboard.”

Planes land safely everyday without making the news. What does make the news is when this happens after the pilot has died.

Pilot dies flying plane to the US

Nearly 250 airline passengers landed safely at their destination after the captain of the plane died mid-flight.

Losing your luggage is not uncommon these days with the airline industry. Losing your children should be.

2 girls put on wrong Continental Express flights

Continental Airlines said Tuesday it has taken steps to ensure that proper procedures are followed after two unaccompanied girls were placed on wrong Continental Express flights over the weekend.

An 8-year-old College Station girl erroneously ended up in Fayetteville, Ark., and a 10-year-old Massachusetts girl was mistakenly sent to Newark, N.J., after boarding planes operated by ExpressJet, which is under contract with Continental.

How much do you love your job and your employer. Do you love it enough to work there for free? If not, let’s hope you don’t work for British Airlines.

BA staff may be working for free

According to Bloomberg, British Airways recently asked its 40,000 employees to consider laboring for nothing for up to one month. “Colleagues are being urged to help the airline’s cash-saving drive by signing up for unpaid leave or unpaid work,” read an article in BA News, the carrier’s in-house newspaper. Chief executive Willie Walsh, who has pledged to forgo his $100,000 monthly salary in July, said the airline was caught in a “fight for survival”.

Other stories that caught my eye:

• Woman who missed Flight 447 is killed in car crash
• WHO declares swine flu pandemic
• Pilots and control towers, some real life exchanges

Next time you race to catch a train… try and make sure you get INSIDE the train.

Tourist Chad Vance clung to Ghan train for two hours

A YOUNG American tourist has survived a terrifying train ride in which he clung to the outside of the legendary Ghan in the freezing dark as it hit speeds up to 110km/h in the South Australian Outback.

Chad Vance, 19, frantically pursued The Ghan after missing it in Port Augusta, managing to climb on and squeeze himself into a tiny stairwell as the train raced for almost 200km through the night.

Ever since SARS, China has take quarantines seriously as the mayor of New Orleans learned this week.

New Orleans mayor quarantined in China for possible flu exposure

The mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana, has been quarantined in China after possible exposure to the H1N1 virus, his office said Sunday.

Mayor Ray Nagin, who traveled to China on an economic development trip, flew on a plane that carried a passenger being treated for symptoms suspected to be from the virus, commonly known as the swine flu virus, the mayor’s office said in a statement.

Want to take your 9mm pistol with you when you move? No problem, just get your roommate who works for the airline to help you sneak it on. Great idea… right?

FBI: Airline worker helped roommate get gun on jet

The FBI charged a US Airways employee with helping his roommate get a concealed, semiautomatic handgun onto a plane departing Philadelphia early Thursday.

Customer service agent Roshid Milledge switched black carry-on bags with passenger Damien Young at the gate so Young could board the 7 am flight to Phoenix with the unloaded 9 mm weapon, the FBI said in an affidavit.

Expect this study to spark a debate over how you should travel if you want to save the planet.

Train can be worse for climate than plane

True or false: taking the commuter train across Boston results in lower greenhouse gas emissions than travelling the same distance in a jumbo jet. Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is false.

A new study compares the “full life-cycle” emissions generated by 11 different modes of transportation in the US. Unlike previous studies on transport emissions, Mikhail Chester and Arpad Horvath of the University of California, Berkeley, looked beyond what is emitted by different types of car, train, bus or plane while their engines are running and includes emissions from building and maintaining the vehicles and their infrastructure, as well as generating the fuel to run them. (Table 1 on page 3 has a complete list of components that were considered).

But the bad news for the airlines:

World’s airlines set to lose $9 billion

The world’s airline will lose $9 billion this year on top of $10.4 billion lost in 2008, IATA has warned.

The airline body’s director general and CEO Giovanni Bisignani cautioned that a return of rising fuel prices was putting recovery from global recession at risk.

Airlines post 79% on-time rate in Apri

But some things have actually improved… of course it is easier to be on time when fewer passengers are getting on the plane.

U.S. airlines’ on-time performance improved in April compared to the previous month and the same month last year, according to a monthly federal report released Tuesday.

The 19 largest carriers recorded an overall on-time arrival rate of 79.1%, better than both the 77.7% of April 2008 and March 2009’s 78.4%, according the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight is considered on time if it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule.

Some other blog posts that I liked:

• Seven Ways to Immerse Yourself in Spanish at Home
• 9 of the Weirdest World Heritage Sites
• Traveler’s 101 - The Complete Travel Tip Post

Air France Flight 447 was lost in the ocean between Brazil and France this week.

Nuclear sub to join hunt for jet

A French nuclear submarine is being sent to help find an Air France plane which disappeared over the Atlantic. French Defence Minister Herve Morin said the submarine had sonar equipment that could help locate the airliner’s flight data recorders.

If you can’t think about going on vacation without fluffy (spot?) then SouthWest wants to get your business. They have a new policy to allow cats and dogs on flights.

Southwest Allows Pets

Q: What types of pets are allowed?
A: Southwest Airlines will only accept small cats and dogs in carriers that can be stowed under the Customer’s seat.

Q: How much will the Pet Fare be?
A: The Pet Fare will be $75 each way per pet carrier.

It is one thing to survive icebergs and shipwrecks, but old age gets us all eventually.

R.I.P. Millvina Dean, Titanic Survivor

The last survivor of the Titanic’s sinking has died at 97. Dean was just two months old when she was placed in one of the ship’s lifeboats with her mother and brother; she once said of her celebrity status: “Until the wreckage of the Titanic was found in 1985, nobody was interested in me. Who expects to become famous at that age?”

In addition to caps flying after graduation valedictorians may also be flying this year… if they live near Monterey.

Monterey County valedictorians fly free on Eureka

“High Honors” Flight seeing Tours allow class of 2009 high school Valedictorians to fly free on June 14 on half hour tours offered at 10 and 10:30 a.m. and the offer also allows all class of 2009 graduates to take a 1-hour flight seeing tour, for $99 when accompanied by a family member flying using a $375/person promotional fare; up to two additional family members may also fly with the graduate at the same limited-time $375/person rate.

So far I am not impressed so far with Microsoft’s Bing.

Microsoft Rolls Out Bing Travel

Microsoft on Thursday formally launched the travel section of its new Bing search engine.

In addition to search results, queries to Bing Travel yield direct links to tools that users can employ to book flights, hotel rooms, and other travel products. For instance, a search for “San Diego hotels” delivers property availability and pricing information.

When SouthWest’s unions returned the offer to management, do you think they got the rapping flight attendant to do it?

Southwest pilots reject new contract

Pilots at Southwest Airlines Co. have voted down a new contract that would have given them raises in the midst of a slump in the airline industry.

The vote was close, with less than 51% voting down the contract.

Other articles that caught my eye:

• How eight major U.S. carriers stack up in comfort for coach passengers
• Ten Signs of a Budget Traveler
• Top 10 Reasons to Take a Career Break…and Travel
• How to Travel Full-time Without Spending a Fortune
• Best card for foreign exchange?

Reminiscent of the man without out a country is this cruise ship without ports of call because of fears over swine flu.

Australia orders ’swine flu ship’ to remain at sea as more cases confirmed

Concern over an outbreak of swine flu on a cruise ship off the coast of Australia has prompted authorities to order the vessel to remain at sea through at least Saturday.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports P&O Cruises’ Pacific Dawn, which left Sydney Monday on a 10-night voyage, has been told not to dock in Port Douglas or Cairns over the next two days as scheduled because of worries passengers and crew could spread the illness into the local population. The “swine flu ship,” as some Australia media outlets are calling it, already has been steered away from one other port this week and has yet to touch land since leaving Sydney.

And the worst idea of the week award goes to…

Bird magnet? Trash depot near LaGuardia called bad idea

About 700 yards from the end of a runway at LaGuardia Airport, where thousands of planes take off and land, New York City officials want to build what could be the equivalent of a bird magnet: a very large garbage transfer station.

This just four months after a run-in with birds sent a jetliner full of people into the Hudson River separating New York and New Jersey.

Having trouble with the high cost of air travel? How do $9 tickets (plus fees) sound to you?

New low-cost airline targets smaller markets

Clearwater, Fla.-based JetAmerica said 34 nonstop passenger flights a week will start July 13 at Toledo, Ohio; South Bend, Ind.; Melbourne, Fla.; Newark, N.J.; Minneapolis and Lansing, Mich. Twenty-eight flights start or end at Newark Liberty International Airport. The carrier will add six more flights — from Toledo to Minneapolis — starting Aug. 14.

Prices will start at $9 a seat and top out at $199. The $9 price will apply to the first nine to 19 seats on each plane. Passengers will pay $15 to check a bag. Food, drinks and in-flight TV will also come at a cost.

Talk about taking your work with you on vacation…

Two vacationing San Jose cops subdue violent airline passenger

At 40,000 feet over the Pacific, the only thing vacationing San Jose police officers Luan Nguyen and Manny Vasquez wanted was to catch some Z’s, maybe see an action movie and finally hear the announcement: “Welcome to San Francisco International Airport.”

What they heard instead was the captain: “I have a situation on board. If there are any law enforcement officers on board, please identify yourselves to a flight attendant.”

The unarmed officers were soon battling a violent and possibly mentally ill man and holding him down for hours using seat belts, coffee cart straps and Vasquez’s black cowhide belt he got for a birthday.

Other articles that caught my eye:

• So Long, Coach: Get an Upgrade at the Airport
• Virtual Pilot - Lufthansa Destination Game
• Flying in comfort — or not