Intelligent Travel

A Sting More Painful than the Bad Exchange Rate

Just as we’re getting antsy to squish our bare feet into sunkissed, silky sand for some carefree lazing on the beach (anywhere! and soon!), the Economist had to go and dampen our summer pinings. Apparently, the painful sting of the euro’s exchange rate isn’t all you have to dread in the Mediterranean: An “unprecedented swarm of jellyfish” is heading to Europe.

We’ll let the Economist be the painful messenger:

The mauve stingers (also known as Pelagia noctiluca) have been breeding in the water throughout the winter, and are now ready for an assault on the beaches of Spain and the Mediterranean.

Masses of jellyfish are an increasingly common nuisance, not just in Spain, but all around the world. Spectacular blooms have been reported in Japan, Namibia, Alaska, Venezuela, Peru and Australia. And since 2000, the Gulf of Mexico has been suffering from an invasion of monster Australian spotted jellyfish (Phyllorhiza punctata), which are fouling fishing nets and upsetting the shrimpers.

Lucas Brotz, an oceanography graduate student at the University of British Columbia’s Fisheries Centre, says the increase in jellyfish populations means human encounters with the painful little blobs are bound to be more prevalent. Of course, this is hardly news. The Mediterranean has been on “jellyfish alert” for the past couple of years. Beaches on some of the region’s most popular resorts have even been forced to close. Most scientists blame higher sea temperatures brought on by global warming, as well as overfishing, for the jellyfish influx.

NYC with Teens

Traveling with tweens and teens to New York? Senior editor Norie Quintos shares some tips and tricks from a recent trip to the Big Apple with her 12- and 14-year-old sons.

Limit the number of museums and choose them carefully. Just because there are dozens of world-class museums in the city doesn’t mean you have to see them all. Whiny teens are worse than whiny toddlers. I’d read about a temporary exhibit at the Guggenheim by the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who worked with exploding gunpowder and cars hanging from the ceilings. Bingo. We hit the museum on Friday evening, when admission was pay what you want (I noticed most New Yorkers weren’t paying anything, so we didn’t either.)

Central Park is good for any age. Try to go with a plan, say, to catch the remote-controlled sailboats in the Conservatory Water or skate dancers in the Bandshell. Because my kids are Beatles fans, we went on a John Lennon pilgrimage to Strawberry Fields and the Imagine mosaic, then walked over to the Dakota building where the singer was shot. Plan your visit with the interactive map of Central Park.

Do something active. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, a leisurely 45-minute stroll. It’s one of the world’s most iconic spans and there is a separate path for walkers and bikers, so you aren’t inhaling car fumes. You can view the Statue of Liberty from here. Tips: To avoid constantly craning your neck looking back at the incomparable Manhattan skyline, take the subway to Brooklyn and walk towards Manhattan. Also, be sure to stay off the bikers’ lane, lest you get clipped or cursed at by speeding cyclists.

A Social Networking Site for Travelers

When it comes to taking a journey, half the fun can often be planning the trip: daydreaming about where you'll stay, the people, foods, and culture you'll encounter, and getting recommendations from everyone you know about the inside secrets.

That's why we're glad to have found Travbuddy, a new social networking site based exclusively around travel. As the name suggests, Travbuddy aims to put you in touch with fellow globetrotters to swap stories through photographs, forums, blogs, and interactive maps.

Hotel Confidential: Early Bird Special

Welcome to Traveler's newest column, Hotel Confidential. Traveler's Hotel Central editor, Susan O'Keefe, is just back from St. Petersburg, Fla., where she attended the Historic Hotels of America annual meeting at the salmon-colored Don CeSar Beach Resort on St. Pete's beach. You'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat the deal she found while she was there.

The Don has a wonderful incentive program to get people to check out of their hotel room early, especially great when you have to make those early morning flights anyway. The "Back to the Beach" program asks guests to vacate their room before 10 a.m. on the day of departure so housekeeping can get in there and clean it for the next guest (and who doesn't hate waiting around the hotel lobby for their room to be ready?).

Guests who depart before 10:00 a.m. can enter into a weekly contest to win a return two-night complimentary stay at the oceanfront resort. If you're a morning person, there's even more incentive to be an early riser: Early birds who check out before 8 a.m. receive three entries, before 9:00 a.m. receive two entries, by 10 and you receive one entry. One stay per week is given away. The return stay certificate is valid for two nights in a standard room (based on availability, valid Sunday through Thursday).

And while IT loves to sleep in, knowing that getting up early means you could be back for a return visit is enough incentive to set the alarm.

The Future of Travel

Lately, it seems everyone has been thinking about what travel will be like in the future. The lovable blokes behind the book (and phenomenon) Freakonomics posed the question about how things would look ten years from now to a series of industry bigwigs on their New York Times blog, and got some interesting responses:

• Brookings fellow Clifford Winston proposed charging airlines fees for every flight that is delayed, and suggested a "satellite-based air traffic control system that, among other things, would give pilots the freedom to choose the most efficient routing."

• Gary Topping, CEO of Topping Travel, foresaw the end of First Class, a renewed focus on happy airline employees (phew!), and the fabulous suggestion that "baggage will be electronically tagged, never to be lost again."

• Josh Marks, founder of MAXjet, spoke of increasing specialization for airlines based on traveler's spending preferences (evoking a 'there's room in the market for both Wal-Mart and Saks' theory); and warned that GPS and "data communications between aircraft and controllers must replace the antiquated radar-and-radio infrastructure that we have now outgrown."

Meanwhile over at Forbes, which just put out their very cool Future package, reporter Elizabeth Eaves makes some interesting predictions. Here's a quick sample:

Sustain and Entertain

Travel isn't just about taking in museums and historic sites, it's as much about mixing it up with the locals in their natural habitat. So what does that often entail? Nightlife. But it's hard to be thinking "green" when you're a few drinks in (which might explain the popularity of phrases like "trashed" or "wasted," no?). Thankfully, there is a nightclub that's already thought things through. Writer Matt Bloom reports from San Francisco that the new club Temple is working not only to sustain the party, but the planet:

A trip to San Francisco calls for two things: eating and drinking. Throw some hot sounds and a dance floor in the mix, and you've got the Zen Compound, where for the last two months, hungry ravers have been gathering for late-night eats and beats. It's a tough title to claim in a town that outlawed plastic bags, but the SoMa compound, comprised of Prana Restaurant and Temple nightclub, might be the most progressive testing ground for renewable energy in the city. For starters, the facility holds no-waste events: They don't use plastic (except water bottles), the cups are made of corn, every food scrap (and napkin) is composted, and every bottle is recycled. The Pan-Asian cuisine at Prana is almost exclusively local and organic. And the light displays, powered by energy-efficient LED and CFL bulbs, are projected to save the club thousands of dollars in resources each year.

Solar Decathlon Heats up D.C.

Today kicks off the third Solar Decathlon in D.C., where students from 20 universities swing into town and transform the National Mall into a solar village. Sponsored by the Department of Energy, the competition involves ten events which must "power all the home energy needs of a typical family using only the power of the sun." From their rulebook:

The homes must be attractive and easy to live in. They must maintain a comfortable temperature, provide attractive and adequate lighting, power household appliances for cooking and cleaning, power home electronics, and provide hot water. These houses must also power an electric vehicle to meet household transportation needs.

The homes will be on display on the National Mall from October 12 - 20. Tours of the team houses are available every day, except Wednesday, October 17, when they will close in order to measure their temperature  (see the full schedule here). Visit our friends over at Inhabitat for more photos of last year's event.

Photo: Stefano Paltera / Solar Decathlon

Exploring Queens

IT loves New York, but knows that there's a lot more to see of the city beyond the boundaries of Times Square. Negotiating the streets and subways can be tough, especially in the outer boroughs, where there aren't as many recognizable landmarks to help with navigation. That's when the knowledge of a neighborhood tour guide can be invaluable. IT editor Janelle Nanos recently wandered through Queens with Jack Eichenbaum, an urban geographer and tour guide, as he planned out an upcoming tour of Astoria. Dr. Eichenbaum, a professor at Hunter College, has been giving tours of Queens for 27 years, and his unique knowledge of geography influences the way he gives his tours.

In a piece in the New York Times, Janelle described his style:

There are no double-decker buses on Dr. Eichenbaum’s tours, no visits to Times Square. “This isn’t about tourists,” he said.

Buyer Beware: Carbon Offsets

A recent front page article in the Washington Post caught our eye because it tackled the sticky and oh-so-trendy issue of the carbon offset, calling it "among the most unusual of commodities":

Its substance is intangible, the absence of something. Some pollution would have existed, somewhere, sometime, the seller says, but now it won't.

This booming, unregulated market trades in outcomes that are hard to measure and, in some cases,  generates profits for companies while providing no real benefit to the environment. IT was troubled to learn that some consumers who purchased offsets were paying for nothing other than a "renewable energy certificate": i.e. a piece of paper claiming that their purchase led to the creation of clean energy. IT would condone this practice (especially if the certificate were delivered as a paper-saving PDF) if the certificate actually reflected positive change. However, since many such certificates are purchased after the energy is produced, many environmentalists fear the consumer is buying something that would have been produced anyway.

So, what's a traveler to do? The Post hints that more FTC regulation is coming. But for now, when offsetting your lifestyle or your next trip, think twice before investing in a company. Don't get out your checkbook for the first hit that comes up on a Google search. Ask the company if their results have been scientifically proven to create quality renewable energy, and make sure you know exactly where your money is going. It also helps if the company is certified by an independent organization. According to the folks at Sustainable Travel International, two of the most respected carbon offset certification groups include Green-e for domestic offsets and the CDM Gold Standard for international offset projects. Happy shopping!

Buy by Chapter

Nothing screams “seasoned traveler” louder than pulling a tattered guidebook out of your messenger bag. Even so, who hasn’t bemoaned shelling out $20 (at least) and dragging around an extra few pounds of wasted paper for a guidebook to South America when really you just needed the section on the Southern elephant seals that inhabit the islands off East Falkland?

Enter Lonely Planet’s new service, Pick & Mix. The Australian-based guidebook publisher is digitally chopping apart its books, giving consumers the chance to save paper (not to mention cash) by purchasing separate chapters as PDFs. So far, you can mix-and-match chapters from guidebooks on South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

Starting at $2 a crack, the tree-saving stunt appeals to IT’s wallet and eco-conscience.

Keeping IT Close to Home

Just uttering the word "vacation" conjures images of sandy white beaches, mountain treks, and nine-hour road trips. But, what if it meant staying home?

National Geographic's Green Guide recently featured a piece on vacationing carbon free in your own city. Instead of housework, chores, or to-do lists, seek out local adventures like searching for the best sangria in a Spanish neighborhood or the top sushi in Chinatown. Or, how about hitting up the farmers market to prepare an outdoor feast, or taking advantage of free art gallery admissions on a weekday morning when you're usually at work? If you hadn't noticed, IT has this policy down pat: Check out all of our backyard vacations!

From the Green Guide:

"Alan Durning, executive director of the environmental non-profit Sightline Institute, wanted to unload some of that [eco-]guilt when he embarked on a year of living car-lessly (and he continues to live that way, five months after his experiment ended). Despite being free of four wheels, he and his family worked in a few vacations, his favorite being a week spent...without traveling at all. Rather than taking a train or renting a car, they stayed at home and became tourists in their hometown of Seattle.

Pico Iyer Challenges First Class Flyers

In a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed aptly titled "Globalism at 35,000 feet" writer Pico Iyer asks, "How much would you pay to enjoy six hours away from your fellow humans, in a chair that reclines? $1,500 an hour—or even more?" Baffled by the ludicrous price of a business class flight, Iyer wonders why anyone would pay $9,600 for a business class ticket from New York to London when coach sets you back just $500. Here's the crux of his critical (and very amusing) article:

It begins with the inequity of prices. Those paying thousands for the upper deck of the jet effectively set up a gated community in the air, in which people from other classes are not even allowed to visit their restrooms. It continues with the startling inequality of services—and the unsurprising fact that the countries that often score highest for quality of life (Singapore, Australia, New Zealand) also are the ones that offer the most comfortable coach habitations in the sky.

Travel Responsibly

If you're working toward being eco-conscious but aren't ready to ditch the training wheels, U.K.-based responsibletravel.com has all the tools you need for vacationing carbon-free. We especially like their mission statement: "A responsible holiday gets you closer to the real country & supports local people & the environment." Sound familiar?

As on most travel booking sites, you can search by date and location, or if you're looking for ideas choose from cultural tours (a Cambodia Water and Moon Festival trip), honeymoon ideas (a Masai Mara luxury safari camp), volunteer travel (rescuing captive gibbons in Thailand), and more. You don't have to skimp on comfort to go "green": Check out their eco-luxury vacations in Egypt, Borneo, India, Kenya, and more.

Before you travel, responsibletravel.com suggests you:

- Plan your route to minimize carbon emissions—travel by train and bus wherever possible and minimize flight changes.

Sleeping Green

We're not exactly sure what "being green" means, but we associate it with Priuses, Whole Foods, and An Inconvenient Truth thanks to its use in a bombardment of marketing campaigns over the last two years.

The problem is that this undefined and overused buzzword has migrated unregulated to the hotel industry. Hotel owners can change a few lightbulbs, adopt a recycling plan, and call themselves "green" while still washing towels daily and using toxic cleaners on bathroom countertops.

In "How to Find a Hotel That’s Truly Fit for the Eco-Friendly," Washington Post writer Gary Lee interviews Glenn Hasek, editor and publisher of Green Lodging News, who has been working to define what "green" should really mean in the hotel industry. An excerpt for your consideration:

Gas Relief

Planning a summer road trip? If you've filled up your tank lately, you might be reconsidering with prices soaring above $3 per gallon. IT has tracked down some ways to minimize pains at the pump.

Hotels.com is offering $30 gas rebates on minimum two-night hotel stays between now and Sept. 9, 2007. Book your hotel by July 2 to get the deal and the money will appear on your credit card after your stay. You can also earn up to $50 in fuel credit if you book your vacation rental through ResortQuest. They throw in a road atlas and car cooler to sweeten the deal, available through November 1. In a similar promotion, Choice Hotels International is offering Choice Privileges members the opportunity to earn a $50 gas card after three separate stays in selected Choice brand hotels between June 1 and August 16. Participating hotels include Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality Inn, Sleep Inn, and Cambria Suites. Also check BedandBreakfast.com's free gas promotions for deals nationwide. For example, The Victorian Ladies B&B in Newport, Rhode Island, offers $50 or $100 gas discounts for two or three weeknight stays through September.

If, however, you've been reconsidering your road trip because you've been reading the news, do the eco thing and leave your car at home, avoiding the pump altogether. BedandBreakfast.com has a section on Eco Escapes with many B&Bs providing free airport pickup, a location within walking distance of area attractions, and bike/canoe rentals.

I Do… Take You as my Wedding Date

IT has experience with the expensive weekend wedding, as well as the task of convincing a boyfriend to come along. Emily (and date) recently returned from her brother's San Antonio soiree, only partially penniless thanks to the good graces of Southwest Airlines' Internet One-way fares and her parents, who footed the hotel bill. Writer Brett Ashley McKenzie faces a similar situation, but has discovered a more creative way to afford and enjoy her wedding engagements. She writes:

The wedding season is upon us, and yours truly has been invited to half a dozen between now and September. Seeing as how none of the weddings are in the same state, I'm in for a pretty pricey summer. I have a permanent date, which is half the battle. But how do you convince your boyfriend to join you at the weddings of people he hardly knows? And, once he says yes, how do you prevent the ceremonies, expenses, and travel arrangements from taking a toll on your own relationship? The answer: Don't let the weddings be the main event. Turn your wedding trips into weekend getaways that you both can get excited about without breaking the bank.

Ahead of the Pack, Part 2

In our endless and disheartening attempt to become more efficient packers (Emily just returned from a weekend trip with 13 unworn items), IT has stumbled upon another website (thanks Gadling) that promises to perfect our packing practice. One Bag, like its name suggests, teaches its readers how to pack everything into one bag, regardless of destination or duration. Written by an expert packer—the guy's actually attended seminars on packing techniques—this exhaustive (and nerdy) niche site, sometimes laughable in its detail, is sure to teach you something useful. IT's favorite tips:

To avoid wrinkles and creases in clothing, bundle wrap your clothing—that is, start with a core (a pouch filled with socks and undergarments) and wrap each of piece of clothing around one another into a "bundle." (NB: Jessie's mother has been packing this way for year, much to her family's amusement.)

Are We There Yet? Family Travel Tips from the Blogosphere

IT's recently taken a liking to Parent Hacks—the "collaborative weblog of practical parenting tips"—so we asked founder and editor Asha Dornfest to send IT her favorite family travel tactics. She writes:

We at Parent Hacks believe that travel is one of the greatest gifts a child can receive. Even if they are 'too young to appreciate it,' every kid beyond infancy will take away something from the experience—not necessarily full-formed memories, but a general awareness that the world is a vast and wondrous place. We also recognize the challenges inherent in traveling with little ones, so we've collected a number of real-world tips to smooth the road (or flight) ahead.

Boomerang IT

Having recently lost a camera while traveling, IT (namely Emily) is especially intrigued with BoomerangIt, a lost-and-found service that relies on a secure Internet database and numbered labels to facilitate the return of lost items to their rightful owners. The process is simple. After affixing one of BoomerangIt's "tamper-resistant" ID labels ($9.95 for the least expensive package) to a "valuable item" (defined on the website as anything from a cell phone to a chainsaw), the owner enters the item's label number as well as a description of the item into BoomerangIt's database. If and when the owner loses her, say, digital camera and if and when a Good Samaritan finds said camera, the finder can contact BoomerangIt via the toll-free number and/or Web address on the label. Since the website is readable in six different languages, if the owner loses her camera in, say, Germany, the Deutsch-speaking finder can easily report the missing item.

Beside the price of the initial investment (labels), the owner must also pay a $10 return fee, plus all shipping and handling costs, if their lost or stolen item is returned. As a reward to the finder, BoomerangIt sends them a pack of free labels. While the site doesn't offer any statistical evidence proving the success of their method, they do claim that "BoomerangIt is also a theft deterrent, as studies indicate that thieves are less likely to steal marked property due to resale difficulties." With this, IT was convinced, and has decorated a cell phone and camera with the labels we received for free (swag alert!) along with a press release.

I Need a VocationVacation

We here at IT love our jobs, but are vaguely aware that not all people feel the same way about their places of employment. Three years ago, Brian Kurth founded a company to help those in nightmare jobs (or even just not-exactly-fantasy jobs) try out the careers of their dreams. VocationVacations allows customers to spend their vacation shadowing a "mentor" in their dream field, combining travel with a little grown-up dress-up. And a contest this month will allow one person to try out the service for free.

VocationVacations can be as short as a day (the norm seems to be two or three), and cost upward of $349. The list of 100-plus current offerings starts with actor, alpaca farmer and animal therapist, moves through bootmaker, clock restorer, and meteorologist to finish up with wine sommelier and yoga studio owner. As yet it is not possible to shadow a zookeeper, but the company says this opportunity will be coming soon. Current destinations range across 33 states and a peek at the website's "Dream Job Search Finder" suggests the U.K. will soon be an option (at the moment no mentors come up when you run a U.K. search).

Extreme Italy: Naples and the Amalfi Coast

After stops in Milan, Venice, Florence, and the Cinque Terre, IT revisits the boot with a post from Genevieve Contey so saucy we're running it alone:

For many Americans, southern Italy conjures up emerald grottoes, cascading bougainvillea, capri pants, and Casanovas on every corner. It's all true. It's also true that Italians north and south are notorious for having made chaos cool, disorder fashionable and, as Italian journalist Beppe Severgnini discusses in his book, La Bella Figura, traffic lights negotiable. Many tourists never see this Italy from behind the rose-tinted tour bus windows. Guides, buses, and baggage handlers are their buffers against the unpleasant Italy.

To navigate southern Italy is to trek through a land of extreme opposites: Its geography, and its people, are as volcanic as they are disarmingly hospitable. It's the land of hot tempers and big hearts, of marathon meals and shapely figures, of reckless driving and languorous evening strolls.

Chill out in Vienna

As per usual, chief researcher Marilyn Terrell has led IT to yet another interesting locale and offers an alternative antidote to jet lag:

If you happen to be waiting around in the Vienna airport for a connecting flight and you don't have time to take the cool 16-minute nonstop City Airport Train into town, and it's 9 a.m. Austrian time and 3 a.m. your time, and you want to reset your internal clock as quickly as possible, here's a convenient place to sit in the sun and soak up those jet-lag-reducing rays.

Sleep Easy: Introducing the DreamSack

IT contributor Anne Marie Johnson is an avid traveler who struggles with a compulsion to be clean. Beyond always carrying Purell in her purse, she has one product she simply can't travel without:

Amongst other things, traveling is a departure from familiarity. This leap into the unknown is usually rewarding: the crunchy feel of salt from the Dead Sea, the taste of Burgundy in Burgundy, the vision of a sunset over the savanna. Yes, these are memories that remain visceral long after the end of a voyage. However, on the way to these magic moments of wanderlust, one can also be confronted with some less-than-savory realities. For this germophobe, a night or longer in a sketchy hostel, ratty roadside motel, or bedraggled B&B can take the lust right out of wandering.

Happily, there is a solution in the aptly named DreamSack. The original DreamSack is a portable silk sack, sewn on three sides, ensuring that you will never spend another sleepless night stiff with panic trying to avoid contact with a set of yellowed, less-than-hygienic sheets. It can also be used as a sleeping bag liner to add warmth on a cold night. The DreamSack is 34 inches (86 cm)wide, weighs less than a pound, and folds to fit into its six-by-three-and-a-half-inch (15 by nine cm) stuff-bag. Although made of silk, it's machine washable. The good people at DreamSack have also started to make pillow cases, because if the sheets don't seem clean…well, you get the idea. A DreamSack costs $62, which will probably end up saving you money; just think of all those $2-a-night hostels you can stay in—lice-free.

IT Voluntours

The combination of travel and service work, or voluntourism, is hitting the mainstream—catching the attention of college students, professionals, and, get ready for it…Travelocity. The online travel agency has recently launched Travel for Good, partnering with several nonprofit organizations to make it easier for travelers to access volunteer opportunities around the world.

Travelocity is a newby, though, in a field already populated by established nonprofits like Globe Aware, which offers volunteer vacations in Peru, Costa Rica, Thailand, Cuba, Nepal, Brazil, and other locations. The one-week trips have been called a "mini Peace Corps" and cost around $1,000. Closer to home, Take Pride in America is a clearinghouse of volunteer opportunities throughout the U.S. The site doesn't explicitly link volunteering to travel, but you can easily plan a trip around one or more of their service activities.

IT's All Relative

It's been a while since IT has shared a press release with our readers. And while this one is a bit silly, we applaud the idea—sorry Mom!—of ditching the family. We've opted to forgo commentary, as this pitch pretty much speaks for itself:

Have you ever been tempted to skip stressful, family holiday get-togethers but haven't had a good enough excuse? Wanted to escape the clutches of a controlling mother-in-law, and dreamed of a calm and peaceful getaway? You can control your own fate this holiday season with the 'Run From the Relatives' Package available at any of the four Omni Hotels in the West including San Diego, Los Angeles, Tucson, and Denver/Boulder.

The Accident-Prone Tourist

Emily King, assistant to Traveler's editor in chief, recently returned from a week abroad with a confession to make:

I thought I was a smart traveler. As a staff member at a well-regarded travel magazine, I figured I'd absorbed the savvy sense I read and write about daily. But no. I was sent into the field—Germany, to be exact—and I floundered. Here are three mistakes I made, and the lessons I learned from them:

Mistake 1: Subscribing to a faulty international calling service—

The Norway Way

National Geographic Traveler contributing editor Andrew Nelson dropped into Jessie's office last week with the summer issue of Nordic Reach magazine, folded open to a small item near the back called "Dos and don'ts for an American visiting Norway." We were fascinated, though by the end we didn't really know what we were supposed to think, about Norwegians or their opinions of Americans. So, we're posting some choice excerpts. Interpret as you like.

Do:

"Try not to walk on your toes, and if you're a woman: Walk like a man."

"Know when to use a backpack and when not to. If in doubt: Don't… The only absolutely safe time to wear one is (a) if you're going on a hiking trip in the mountains or (b) if you're a kid on your way to school."

IT's Restaurant Weakness

IT likes to eat. When we can, we like to eat well. But if gourmet's not an option we have no qualms admitting that we'll eat our fill of pretty much whatever you put in front of us. The week before last, though, we were delighted to have the opportunity to eat gourmet food in gourmand quantities. This worthy endeavor—which included dinner at Galileo followed the very next day by lunch at Vidalia—was brought within reach of our entry-level-salary-sized pocket books by the Washington, D.C. incarnation of Restaurant Week.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, restaurant weeks have sprung up in cities across North America as a way to boost business at top restaurants during otherwise slow periods (the dog days of summer, post-Christmas belt-tightening), generally by offering three-course prix-fixe lunches and dinners at deeply discounted, often cutesy, prices—lunch cost $20.06 in Boston this year, and $24.07 (24/7) in New York.

IT's Reader Roundup

As the most well traveled of any group of travel magazine subscribers, our readers have a fair amount of mileage under their collective belt. So it's only natural that they'd have fabulous and helpful recommendations to share with both us and you, their fellow travelers. This week, IT presents our first roundup of tips sent in by readers. Enjoy!

Subscriber Jill Colpak, of Concord, Massachusetts, tipped IT off on tasty Italian tours: "Bluone runs wonderful food and wine tours in Italy. They have scheduled trips, but they specialize in custom tours. The couple who own and run Bluone are caring and well-informed Bologna residents with long experience in travel and food. I have traveled with them twice, once to Emilia Romagna and once to Le Marche, and both were fantastic experiences of traveling with a small group that included cooking in a home kitchen, tasting wines at the vineyard, seeing how parmesan cheese is made, and learning how prosciutto is cured."

Ahead of the Pack

IT admits to frivolous packing. After all, who hasn't wound up in the Caribbean with a wool sweater and leather boots? But thanks to more restrictive baggage rules and Mass Transit Rule #6 in our manners post (don't carry huge bags on the subway), we feel the need to perfect our practice.

Good packing techniques can make the night before your trip less stressful and the trip itself more enjoyable. Thus we share words of wisdom from travel writer John Flinn, a six-pack version of his original list as published in the San Francisco Chronicle:

* The amount of stuff you think you need is directly related to the size of your luggage. Get a smaller bag and you'll make do with fewer things.

Manners Matter

New York Magazine recently published the Urban Etiquette Handbook, which lays the ground rules for public behavior in, well, New York. But with summer travelers crowding most places, from Jackson Hole to Savannah, IT thinks these tips apply everywhere. We've jotted down a few of our favorites.

On busy sidewalks, keep the following in mind:
1. Babies in strollers have the right-of-way.
2. Not everyone wants to pet your poodle.
3. Only little kids are allowed to bicycle on sidewalks.
4. Don't smoke. Secondhand smoke can kill pedestrians, too.

Weather Warranty

With the arrival of Alberto—the first named storm of the 2006 hurricane season—comes the realization (aha!) that summer travelers will have to face up to unexpected weather glitches. The Wall Street Journal leads us to a few travel companies that are "promising to compensate travelers for plans inconvenienced by bad weather."

Spirit Airlines—the leading low-fare carrier to the Caribbean—is offering a Hurricane Buster Protection Policy. Customers who hold tickets to/from an airport located in a hurricane watch zone will be allowed to change reservations without paying the usual $50 fee.

Chinatown Bus 101

By now most people have been touched by the media frenzy surrounding the phenomenon of so-called Chinatown buses. While awareness of these low-cost intercity coach lines has gone mainstream, many folks have yet to actually venture aboard a Chinatown bus, often because they don't know how to go about it.

IT to the rescue! While we can't claim to have been onboard since the trend's beginning, IT has been taking non-Greyhound buses up and down the East Coast for years, and has frequently initiated neophytes into the mysteries of the practice. We thought it was about time we shared those secrets with you.

Gifts for the Gobi

This week, IT's tentacles extend deeper into the National Geographic Society to snag a tip from Claire Griffin (whose husband John is the president of NG's magazine group). She sent us the following about the overland trip she and her sister recently took through Mongolia:

Hospitality is part of Mongolian culture, and needy travelers are never turned away from the traditional round felt tent called a ger. This offering of food and shelter provides an important safety net for all Mongols. Since travel here is unpredictable, everyone, including Westerners, should carry gifts to show appreciation for food, water, or an afternoon's nap on a soft bed waiting for a mechanic to perform mysterious vehicle repairs.

Reverse Gratuity: Maids Give Tips

IT generally hates press releases. Not only do they clutter our desks, but we feel guilty trashing them, contributing evermore to this country's paper waste problem. That said, when we do get something worthy of sharing with our readers (one in, say, 200), we are surprised and tickled. Here goes it:

Cleaning 101… National Trust Historic Hotels of America offers ideas on how to achieve a home you'll be proud of for all seasons. A tip or two from these professionals, who tackle hundreds of rooms every day, will ensure that you'll pass the white glove test every time.

Here are our favorites (and a few accompanying thoughts):