Here’s something fun to kick off your weekend. It’s a travel-themed picture puzzle. You just have to tie the photos together to make words. For example, a photo of an eye, combined with a photo of a full glass of water would be eye + full = Eiffel. Get it? (For another example, check out last week’s puzzle.)
This week’s puzzle is two words (one per line) and represents a famous landmark.
Once you think you know the answer, post it below. You have until Monday, March 18, at 11:59 p.m. ET to post your response. We’ll keep all comments private until then. On Tuesday morning we’ll choose one winner at random to receive an IndependentTraveler.com travel mug. Note: Although all are welcome to play, we can only ship prizes to the Continental U.S.
Editor’s Note: This contest has ended. The winner is Kerry Hansen, who correctly guessed that the pictogram spelled “Chichen Itza.” Kerry has won an IndependentTraveler.com travel mug. Congratulations! Stay tuned for further opportunities to win.
A cocktail, a sandwich, a set of headphones, maybe some Wi-Fi … most in-flight purchases aren’t exactly weighty or expensive decisions. But if China’s Spring Airlines has its way, travelers could be pondering a much larger purchase on an upcoming flight: a new car.
Bloomberg reports that Spring Airlines could begin selling automobiles on flights next month, at prices starting around $16,000. The Shanghai-based discount airline flies largely within China, with some international service to Japan. The car sales would be introduced on flights from Shanghai.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not sold on the concept. Sure, sitting on a plane gives you plenty of time to pore over the various features of one car or another. But 35,000 feet isn’t exactly a prime spot for a test drive. And I can’t help but feel badly for the flight attendants, whom Bloomberg notes “will be trained on the car details.” They probably didn’t know when they signed up to hand out drinks and keep the cabin safe that they’d also end up shilling cars.
So what’s next for in-flight commerce? Perhaps flight attendants should become certified realtors and sell us our next house as well.
Here’s something fun to kick off your weekend. It’s a travel-themed picture puzzle. You just have to tie the photos together to make words. For example, a photo of an eye, combined with a photo of a full glass of water would be eye + full = Eiffel. Get it? (For another example, check out last week’s puzzle.)
This week’s puzzle is three words (one per line) and represents a famous landmark.
Once you think you know the answer, post it below. You have until Monday, March 11, at 11:59 p.m. ET to post your response. We’ll keep all comments private until then. On Tuesday morning we’ll choose one winner at random to receive an IndependentTraveler.com travel mug. Note: Although all are welcome to play, we can only ship prizes to the Continental U.S.
Editor’s Note: This contest has ended. The winner is Jerry Carre, who correctly guessed that the pictogram spelled “Empire State Building.” He has won an IndependentTraveler.com travel mug. Congratulations! Stay tuned for further opportunities to win.
– written and created by Dori Saltzman and Sarah Schlichter
It’s the YouTube craze that’s swept the globe — and now it’s hit the skies. On a recent Frontier Airlines flight, an ultimate Frisbee team from Colorado College launched its own version of the Harlem Shake in the aisle of the plane, complete with someone rocking out in a banana costume. (Now how do you fit that into a carry-on?)
Though it seemed like it was all in good fun, the Federal Aviation Administration isn’t convinced. According to ABC’s “Good Morning America,” the agency is looking into the incident to make sure the students weren’t in violation of any safety regulations (such as interfering with flight attendants or standing during take-off/landing). The students claim they cleared their dance with the flight attendants first and waited until the seatbelt sign was off. A Frontier spokesperson says the plane’s safety was never in jeopardy.
There has been no shortage of screenplay-worthy travel stories in the past few weeks. Dennis Rodman’s holiday in Pyonyang with the reclusive dictator, Kim Jung-un? Lifetime should be on it. The Carnival Triumph cruise fire? Bet on it being retold in a three-part epic on ABC Family. The sequester’s impact on air travel? That one’s still under discussion, but there’s no doubt the right network will make it work. Here are three would-be plots.
The TV Movie Version, “Mr. Worm Goes to Pyongyang”: An American basketball star (retired), hair dye aficionado, pro wrestler and self-proclaimed “bad boy” travels to North Korea to secure a peace treaty with the country’s ruthless supreme leader, Kim. Like his piercings and tattoos, the Worm’s methods are unconventional — and pooh-poohed by stiff-collared American foreign service elites. But with the help of the Harlem Globetrotters’ feather-on-your-funny-bone brand of non-verbal hijinks, coupled with all-you-can-drink of apple soju-tinis, he succeeds in melting the dictator’s heart. (Kim’s favorite gag: Player pretends he’s pregnant with a basketball.) Choking back guffaws and sobs, the glorious ruler reveals that he feels ostracized by the West; all the tiny, tracksuit-wearing tyrant really wants is to hear the smooth baritone of the American supreme leader. Worm and Kim embrace during a moment filmed by a cell phone, and the video goes viral. Having proven the cynics back home wrong, the Worm earns the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Thomas Jefferson Star for Foreign Service and, due to a clerical error, the Distinguished Honor Award from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
The TV Movie Version, “Triumph Over Adversity”: The vacation of a lifetime, a four-night voyage on a 14-year-old Carnival ship, becomes a cruel Darwinian experiment when an engine room fire leaves the ship without power in the Gulf of Mexico. Raw sewage sloshes around the decks, the now-infamous red bags for toxic waste are dispensed and essential supplies quickly dwindle. Despite food and medicine shortages and a growing intolerance toward poop jokes, a perky cruise director tries to keep the mood upbeat. But after only 24 hours adrift, hungry passengers have formed into splinter groups, with a maniacal Texan leading a powerful sect of pseudo-religious cannibals. Their first victim: the chipper cruise director. Screaming headlines (procured from a handful of surviving cruisers who managed to salvage cell phone batteries) and a CNN helicopter that surveys the scene from a safe distance tell the story to the world. Even as tug boats manage to reach the ship and slowly pull it to Mobile, the carnage continues.
When it seems that all hope is lost, President Obama reaches for the red phone and dials. A voice can be heard over the receiver: “I was wondering when you’d call.”
“We need your help, Dennis Rodman,” the president says.
The TV Movie Version, “Sequestration, the Movie”: With the U.S. government unable to agree on some sort of budget by some sort of date, $85 billion in spending cuts are initiated. Services the American public depends on may be ravaged. Most importantly, lines at airports are getting dangerously long. “Get there 90 minutes before departure” becomes “get there three months early and rent a hibernation pod, a new for-fee option introduced by the airlines.” (First-class hibernation pod passengers get to board in Zone 1 in the unlikely event their planes take off.) It gets worse. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, played by Kathy Bates, announces that the TSA is sending out furlough notices to its workers. As TSA staff numbers dwindle, fewer and fewer bags make it onto planes and fliers grow increasingly confused by the lack of ineptitude, condescension and rude interactions. Republicans and Democrats refuse to budge on spending, despite a growing number of airport horror scenes captured on cell phones and streamed out on CNN. Travelers angrily refuse overtures from train companies, preferring to form angry mobs at airports instead. Is the president out of options? Not yet. Dennis Rodman, one of the most decorated non-military heroes in U.S. history, is called in to mediate.
Editor’s Note: IndependentTraveler.com is published by The Independent Traveler, Inc., a member of the TripAdvisor Media Network, which also owns Cruise Critic and Smarter Travel.
Here’s something fun to kick off your weekend. It’s a travel-themed picture puzzle. You just have to tie the photos together to make words. For example, a photo of an eye, combined with a photo of a full glass of water would be eye + full = Eiffel. Get it?
This week’s puzzle is two words and represents a bucket list attraction for many people.
Once you think you know the answer, post it below. You have until Monday, March 4, at 11:59 p.m. ET to post your response. We’ll keep all comments private until then. On Tuesday morning we’ll choose one winner at random to receive an IndependentTraveler.com travel mug.
Good luck!
Editor’s Note: This contest has ended. The winner is J Max Soos, who correctly guessed that the pictogram spelled “Taj Mahal.” He has won an IndependentTraveler.com travel mug. Congratulations! Stay tuned for further opportunities to win.
Micro Luggage might be the most fun you ever have schlepping your belongings from airport to hotel. It also might be the most impractical way to travel for anyone who is embarking on a trip longer than a weekend.
Micro, a Swiss company known for cutting-edge scooters and kickboards, has made the leap into travel gear, combining a carry-on-sized suitcase with a three-wheeled scooter. A YouTube video (watch it below) shows users gleefully gliding through airports aboard the foot-powered scooter, passing other luggage-dragging suckers stuck with standard rolling bags.
Intriguing? Sure.
Realistic? Not so much.
Having never set foot on a scooter in my life, I decided to try it in a safe — flat — environment first: the office. The carpet slowed my roll a bit, which was just fine for this beginner. I worked a little on turns, which was an intuitive process (lean left, turn left; lean right, turn right).
Feeling empowered, I decided to give it a true test: an eight-day work trip. Read on to learn how it fared — and find out how to win one for yourself.
The Bad
Micro Luggage is small — somewhere between the size of a rolling laptop case and a standard carry-on — so I needed to pack an additional suitcase, which meant I wouldn’t be able to use the actual scooter part until after I checked my bag at the airport (you can’t ride a scooter while pulling another bag). While the Micro Luggage pulls behind like a standard roller, it doesn’t roll smoothly or turn easily when using it in this manner. I found myself picking it up far too often because it was “skipping” as I pulled it.
Going through security, I made the mistake of placing the suitcase on the belt wheels down, which caused it to get caught going through the X-ray machine (to be fair, the instructions warned about that; I just didn’t thoroughly read them until I returned from my trip).
The interior has all sorts of neat pockets, but the functionality falls apart when it comes to packing efficiently. You must pay special attention to how you load it, placing heavy stuff in the back and light stuff in the front, to prevent it from tipping over when you’re riding it. The max weight allowed is only about 15 pounds. Also, the handle is large, so you can grip it like a scooter’s handles as you ride it, but this means you can’t slide another bag — such as a laptop bag — over the handle to pull them both at once. I was forced to shoulder my heavy laptop bag, which made my ride feel unbalanced.
It’s completely impractical to ride at full speed (never more than about six miles an hour, as per the instruction booklet) through a crowded airport, unless you want to do some serious damage to fellow passengers or suffer the wrath of security.
The Good
This thing is fun. The wheels glide so smoothly that you feel like you’re playing a game rather than slogging through an airport. It also gets you from Point A to Point B much more quickly than it would otherwise take. Once you get the turning down, it’s easy to maneuver. I didn’t actually use the brake, finding it easier to stop by putting my foot to the floor.
Micro Luggage is a great conversation starter. If you’re uncomfortable talking to strangers or getting weird looks, you shouldn’t ride a scooter/suitcase through a busy airport or hotel lobby. But if you’re not shy, you’ll make friends who ask about your sweet ride. At my hotel, the bellhops took turns trying it out, and a girl of about 6 boldly proclaimed it was her turn before I crushed her dream (yes, I felt awful, but “This product is not for children!!” according to the instructions).
It’s sturdy. It accommodated my husband (at 6’4″ and almost 200 pounds) as easily as it accommodated me (at 5’7″ and significantly less than 200 pounds). He had fun testing it out in a parking ramp, though we later discovered that’s another no-no, as Micro Luggage is intended to be used indoors only and on flat surfaces.
The Verdict
While Micro Luggage is a blast, it’s not suitable for heavy travel use. It’s too small and doesn’t accommodate enough weight to be useful for someone who needs to pack, say, a large laptop, a tablet, a camera and other carry-on essentials. The novelty of it is great, but at a retail price of $249, it needs to be more practical.
Want to try it out for yourself? We’re giving away our (gently used) suitcase! Just leave us a comment below by 11:59 p.m. ET on March 15, 2013. We’ll pick one winner at random to win the Micro Luggage. This giveaway is open only to residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia. To read the full contest rules, click here.
When you fly as often as we do here at IndependentTraveler.com, those in-flight safety demonstrations can get a little boring — so we always perk up when an airline decides to have fun with them. And nobody does that as well as Air New Zealand. Richard Simmons had us wishing we were in pink spandex, while a planeful of elves, wizards and hobbits had us longing for a Middle Earth getaway.
Now Bear Grylls, lately of “Man vs. Wild,” has us readying our fire starter kits and emergency rations. In the latest iteration of the “celebrity” safety briefings, Bear takes viewers on an adrenaline-filled romp through the New Zealand mountains while still buckling up for safety and heeding the flight attendants’ instructions. Take a look:
Do new twists on standard briefings make you any more likely to pay attention? Sound off in the comments below.
I love to globetrot, but I’m not the biggest fan of air travel — particularly because I get bored on flights longer than an hour (which, unfortunately, is most of them). Cue SkyMall, the infamous and ubiquitous mail-order catalog found in most seatback pockets. Targeting impulse buyers who have nothing better to do while soaring, it provides a means of procuring “Star Wars” plush toys, talking dog collars, gold-dipped roses and even Harry Potter’s wand. If those examples aren’t ridiculous enough, check out our list of the nine most head-scratching, money-wasting, dust-collecting products from the company’s early spring 2013 catalog.
Editor’s Note: Click on the thumbnail images for a larger view of each product.
9. SkyRest Travel Pillow: If you’ve ever fallen asleep on a flight and woken up with a stiff neck, this lap-based, wedge-shaped travel pillow appears to offer an affordable ($30) solution. Its cumbersome size may initially be a turn-off, but don’t worry — it’s inflatable, ensuring that you’ll thoroughly disturb the person in the seat next to you with all of the huffing and puffing required to blow it up.
8. Nano-UV Wand: Pack this $160 bad boy when you travel, and you can instantly kill dust mites and their eggs on pillows, bedding and carpets, according to the ad. Awesome — now you can sleep on dead bugs instead of bedbugs. If your sheets aren’t what’s worrying you, you can also pick up less expensive models for killing foodbourne bacteria ($60) or for sanitizing dinner plates and tap water while traveling ($100).
7. Bacon Throw and Pillow: Now bacon lovers of the world can do more than just eat it; they can sleep on it, too. This polyester pair is expensive at about $65 for both items, and apart from the hefty price, my question is simply: Why bacon? Why not eggs? Why not pancakes? I’d imagine the hash browns feel pretty left out too.
6. DermaTend: Talk about getting personal. With this handy-dandy tube of miracle cream, you can “safely remove your unwanted moles and skin tags at home.” Ranging in price from $40 to $100 (depending, of course, on how many moles you have), this product can be described in one word: gross.
5. Porch Potty: Has your pooch ever wanted his very own patch of synthetic grass on which to do his business? This wicker-enclosed 52″ x 6″ faux lawn — including a drain hose for outdoors, a catch basin for indoors and a scented fire hydrant — is certainly one step up from a Wee-Wee Pad, but at $260, it should be. For an extra $20, they’ll even throw in a sprinkler system to clean the Porch Potty. (After all, if you’re too lazy to take your dog outside in the first place, it’s likely you’ll also be too lazy to clean this darn thing.)
4. Tabletop Photo Studio: If you find yourself wanting to take professional photos on the go, be sure to pick up this portable 40-inch foldable photo studio ($200), which will give you the perfect shot … after you set up one of four backdrops, a tripod, two lights and whatever it is you’re hoping to photograph. For a smaller — but equally intricate and infuriating — experience, you can always try the 20-inch one instead ($100).
3. Bigfoot, the Garden Yeti: Pink flamingos are SO last-century. If you agree, show your disdain by snagging yourself one of these statues. It’s sure to be a conversation-starter at any garden party. (“Pssst! Did you SEE that thing? It’s so tacky!”) Ranging in height from 21″ to nearly 6 feet, medium ($90), large ($125) and life-size ($2,250) versions are available. Oh, and don’t forget to budget up to $200 extra for delivery charges.
2. Mounted Squirrel Head: Don’t hunt? Don’t worry! Pretend you do with this disturbing and not-at-all-lifelike squirrel head … and torso … and arms. Ew. This item is perfect for anyone interested in glorifying roadkill or a “Deliverance” revival. I beg you, spend your $25 elsewhere.
1. iGrow Hair Rejuvenation: If you’re in flight and really wishing you had more hair, this is one product you won’t want to pass up. Expose your scalp to 51 lasers and LED lights that will regrow what nature has taken away. This gadget, which will set you back a cool $695, looks like a cross between a space-age bicycle helmet and unnecessarily large headphones (for use with the built-in iPod interface, naturally). Whether you’re a male or a female, you’ll look stunning in this … contraption.
Today is Valentine’s Day, and travel sites will be filling your inbox with lists of romantic hotels and destinations. All will feature wonderful things for couples to do together, and dreamy suites with large bathtubs — including some shaped like hearts and filled with Champagne and chocolates.
But isn’t all of that a little … cliche? Wouldn’t it be more interesting to get an e-mail for Valentine’s Day recommending that you and your loved one visit the Parisian catacombs or tour a historic prison? We think so. We’ve put together a list of four destinations to visit that wouldn’t normally be associated with Valentine’s Day.
Feel free to add your own to the list!
The Parisian Catacombs: A romantic hangout for the “Twilight”-loving crowd it might be, but for most of us the 18th-century catacombs located beneath the streets of Paris are a bit creepy. Still, what better place to be if you want an excuse to cuddle really close to your loved one?
Alcatraz: Also referred to as “The Rock” (hmm, that seems appropriate for Valentine’s Day, actually), Alcatraz is a small island in San Francisco that housed an infamous federal prison from 1934 to 1963. Couples looking for an illicit thrill can give each other a peck on the lips in the (reportedly haunted) cell in which Al Capone once lived.
Verona, Italy: Actually not an unromantic destination at all, Verona is a city located in northeast Italy with an artistic heritage and Roman ruins. Alas, Verona also is known as the place Romeo and Juliet met their doomed end.
Intercourse, Pennsylvania: A rather appropriately named town for Valentine’s Day, don’t you think? This quaint tourist town in Amish Country was used during the filming of the Harrison Ford movie “Witness.” Visitors can check out the local crafts, take a buggy ride or visit the Quilt Museum.
A cocktail, a sandwich, a set of headphones, maybe some Wi-Fi … most in-flight purchases aren’t exactly weighty or expensive decisions. But if China’s Spring Airlines has its way, travelers could be pondering a much larger purchase on an upcoming flight: a new car.
There has been no shortage of screenplay-worthy travel stories in the past few weeks. Dennis Rodman’s holiday in Pyonyang with the reclusive dictator, Kim Jung-un? Lifetime should be on it. The Carnival Triumph cruise fire? Bet on it being retold in a three-part epic on ABC Family. The sequester’s impact on air travel? That one’s still under discussion, but there’s no doubt the right network will make it work. Here are three would-be plots.
Today is Valentine’s Day, and travel sites will be filling your inbox with lists of romantic hotels and destinations. All will feature wonderful things for couples to do together, and dreamy suites with large bathtubs — including some shaped like hearts and filled with Champagne and chocolates.