traveling

Why Travelers Reached Their Breaking Point This Summer

Christopher Elliot

Andy Abramson did it when American Airlines delayed his recent flight from Orlando to Las Vegas. When a representative told him he couldn't get on an earlier flight because he didn't have enough status, he said, "That was my breaking point."

Revenge Travel Was Sweet, but Travelers Should Exercise Caution

Christopher Elliot

So where's everyone going in the post-revenge travel era? I asked Peter Strebel.He says some areas are seeing strong post-revenge interest from travelers, including Florida's Space Coast, Charlotte, Austin, and Washington, D.C. But the economy perks up, Americans could spend like there's no tomorrow and head overseas. If not, we'll always have Orlando.

The Best and Worst Airlines of 2022 for Customer Service

Christopher Elliot

Dennis Shirshikov recalls a recent American Airlines flight from Mexico City to New York with his wife and three young children. As they boarded, a crew member ordered him to gate-check their stroller. Shirshikov, who runs a real estate investment firm in New York, says he balked because the stroller was regulation-size and he needed it to transport his kids. "They were very confrontational," he says. When he arrived at JFK, the stroller was gone. He finally found it in the lost and found.

And the Most Annoying Tourists Are…

Christopher Elliot

Why are travelers so loud? Yes, there's the joy of discovery. You can't help but gasp the first time you stand at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and stare into the abyss. Or when you catch a glimpse of the Alps, the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal. But there's more going on here. It feels almost as if everyone's hearing aid has a low battery, and they're yelling at each other. It's a uniquely touristy behavior, for which there's no rational explanation.

The Wonderful Unpredictability of Travel

Christopher Elliott

You can avoid surprises by doing your homework when you plan your trip. That’s what Linda Anderson, a retired saleswoman from Ellington, Conn., does. She checks the site Strike Informer to find out if any work stoppages could affect her trip. Another favorite resource is online newspapers for the country she’s about to visit. “There is at least one site that has the news in English,” she says. 

Have Passport, Will Travel: Notes From a Globetrotter

Andrew Lam

To travel, to really lose oneself in a new setting, is, after all, to subvert. In that C-130 full of refugees, I was moving not only across the ocean but also from one set of psyche to another. Yesterday my inheritance was simple -- the sacred rice fields and rivers, what once owned me, defining who I was. Today, Paris and Hanoi and New York are no longer fantasies but a matter of scheduling. My imagination, once bound by a singular sense of geography, expanded its reference points across the border toward a cosmopolitan possibility.

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