Each month, we’ll highlight one new trip review submitted by an IndependentTraveler.com reader. If your review is featured, you’ll win an IndependentTraveler.com logo item!
In this month’s featured review, reader Lara G writes about a half-day spent cruising along China‘s scenic Li River. “The 83-km-long waterway from Guilin to Yangshuo is like an artist’s masterpiece,” Lara wrote. “The landscape is decorated with rolling hills, steep cliffs, fantastic caves.
“Once in a while we [passed] by little villages, where women were washing clothes in the river; water buffalo wandered in the greenery; sometimes ducks — entire families with little baby ducks were gracefully crossing the river from the one bank to another; flocks of cormorant birds were resting (or fishing?) on the floating wooden pieces; little fishermen boats or bamboo rafts were scurrying around doing their business as usual…”
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.
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
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.
Each month, we’ll highlight one new trip review submitted by an IndependentTraveler.com reader. If your review is featured, you’ll win an IndependentTraveler.com logo item!
In this month’s featured review, reader Amelia Hesson spends three days exploring Rome, the Eternal City. “We walked from our hotel to the king of Baroque churches called St. Ignatius. The Romans call this the 3D church because the artist Pozzo painted a fake dome which looks very much like a dome if you are standing in the proper place to see it. It’s very cool — moving through the church you see it become distorted and even then it is something to behold. This church is painted very much like the Sistine Chapel with biblical scenes rising up the walls and onto the roof of the church. Don’t forget to turn on the lights of the dome, they really illuminate it well and it only costs one euro.”
Read the rest of Amelia’s review here: Roma, Roma, Roma. Amelia has won an IndependentTraveler.com duffel bag.
We’ve all heard the old saw about lemons and lemonade, and nowhere is it more apt than travel. Maybe you’ve parlayed getting lost into an unexpectedly rewarding detour, or an hours-long flight delay into the opportunity to chat with friendly fellow travelers. But even when your trip is spiraling down into a fiasco of epic proportions, you can almost always get one thing out of it: a good story to tell later.
In this week’s Friday Free for All, we’re looking for those stories. Tell us about a travel snafu that turned funny or entertaining — if only in retrospect. I’ll kick things off with my own anecdote, as documented in The Most Awkward Moments in Travel:
“My gate was set to close in 15 minutes. In my frantic dash through the airport, I attempted to breeze past an older woman on a moving walkway, but accidentally clipped her with my backpack. ‘Sorry!’ I called over my shoulder with an apologetic wave. ‘EXCUSE YOU!’ she hollered furiously at my retreating back.
“Seconds later, I was horrified to realize that I was actually running in the opposite direction from my gate. Cringing at the thought of turning tail and facing the woman I’d just ticked off, I took the coward’s way out and ducked into the nearest ladies’ room till the coast was clear.”
Comment below with your travel fiasco story by Tuesday, January 29, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Our favorite will win an IndependentTraveler.com travel mug!
Editor’s Note: This contest is now closed. Congratulations to Mike Crome, who has won an IndependentTraveler.com mug with the following hilarious tale. Thanks to everyone who submitted their stories.
Each month, we’ll highlight one new trip review submitted by an IndependentTraveler.com reader. If your review is featured, you’ll win an IndependentTraveler.com logo item!
In this month’s featured review, reader Dileep Bhandarkar goes penguin- and glacier-spotting on a cruise to Antarctica. “The weather could not be any better!” wrote Dileep. “With temperatures in the mid-40′s, we dropped our jackets on the rock near the beach and hiked up to see the gentoo penguin colony. We were within 100 feet from a large group of penguins. Some were still building their nests — stealing rocks from each other. Some had eggs they were protecting. We even got to see some mating activity! … This was our most favorite landing site!”
In last week’s Friday Free-for-All, we challenged our readers to pen a funny travel limerick. We got several responses — including a naughty few we couldn’t publish — and all made us smile and laugh. But two tickled our funny bone the most, and a hot debate over which should be our winner quickly spread through the IndependentTraveler.com office.
After the dust had settled, a winner did emerge … drumroll please.
The winner of IndependentTraveler.com’s Travel Limerick Contest is Bob Schantz, who has won an IndependentTraveler.com travel mug. His winning entry is:
The baby behind me is crying These seats make me feel like I’m dying My butt is so sore I can’t take anymore Next time I am driving not flying.
The runner-up is Kenneth A. O’Shaughnessy, who has won our eternal gratitude for making us laugh. His entry was:
Once a guy who had never gone Any farther away than his lawn Won a trip from online He liked travelling fine So he only returned home to spawn.
Beyond the experience of a trip itself, one of the true pleasures of traveling is looking back on your journeys, remembering your favorite moments, and sharing those memories with family and friends.
We’ve found a cool new way to do just that, and now we want to share it with you. Lightravels offers world and U.S. maps with illuminated light pegs that you can use to mark the countries and cities you’ve visited in a colorful, visual way. The framed maps, which weigh about 10 pounds and measure 33 x 22 x 3 inches, come with 60 light pegs in six different colors — perfect for showing which places you’ve visited on different journeys. Watch the video below to learn more:
The maps retail for $229.99 plus shipping, but Lightravels is giving one away for free to one lucky IndependentTraveler.com reader. To win, leave a comment below telling us which map you’re most interested in and why you want to win it. (You can see the selection of world maps here.)
You must enter by 11:59 p.m. ET on December 31, 2012. A winner will be chosen at random from all entries received. Be sure to include a valid e-mail address so we can contact you in case you win. This giveaway is only open to residents of the 48 contiguous United States or the District of Columbia. Please click here for the full contest rules.
If you’d like to purchase a map, Lightravels is offering our readers an exclusive 10 percent discount through March 31, 2013. To get the discount, call the company at 1-800-935-3410 and mention that you saw this post on IndependentTraveler.com. (If you buy a map and then win the free one, Lightravels will offer a refund.)
Editor’s Note: This contest has ended. June Ahmed of Dover, NH, is our winner. Congratulations to June! Please keep an eye on our latest blog posts at Have Tips, Will Travel for more chances to win great travel gear.
Each month, we’ll highlight one new trip review submitted by an IndependentTraveler.com reader. If your review is featured, you’ll win an IndependentTraveler.com logo item!
Each month, we’ll highlight one new 
We’ve all heard the old saw about lemons and lemonade, and nowhere is it more apt than travel. Maybe you’ve parlayed getting lost into an unexpectedly rewarding detour, or an hours-long flight delay into the opportunity to chat with friendly fellow travelers. But even when your trip is spiraling down into a fiasco of epic proportions, you can almost always get one thing out of it: a good story to tell later.
Each month, we’ll highlight one new 
In last week’s