54 - 91 - 214 - 91 - 45

54 - Percent increase in long-distance travel over Thanksgiving, compared with the rest of the year.

91 - Percentage of these trips taken by car.

214 - Average number of miles per trip.

91 - Percentage of kids ages 5 to 13 who say they enjoy family trips because of the extra time they have with their parents.

45 - Percentage who won’t go without an MP3 player.

Source: Health, November, 2006

Tags: Thanksgiving, interesting trivia, travel

We’re Baaaaaack….

Well, Pugly and I made it home all in one piece.  My parents are at my house and my aunt and her husband are back to their lives.  I’d say everything went well.

Pugly was a very good boy at Auntie J’s.  He had two oopsies but both were easily handled.  He even got along well weith Auntie J’s parot.  In fact, the parot and Pugly didn’t seem interested in each other at all, much to the disappointment of everyone — I think the lack of feathers and fur flying was something of a let down all around.

Pugly was a bit anxious most of the trip about any possibility of being separated from me.  He didn’t like the idea that I might go off and leave him with anyone but he sure liked all of the attention from the other four adults worshiping his cute pugliness and oh, did they worship at his altar of cuteness.  There were games of chase and tug-of-war and fetch.  There were clandestine treats and confessions of feeding him pizza that upset his tummy.  There were car rides with the boys and a long walk in the neighborhood — not to mention the trip to Niagra Falls.

Then there was the cut up bits of chicken strip from Friendly’s and the saved bacon from breakfast…extra plates to lick, extra laps to sit in, extra hugs to get…and if one person tires out, well, there’s just more people in reserve.

Just so long as Mama is nearby, of course.

You know, those seem like they’d be good mottos to live by if we could all get away with them:

• Clandestine treats from people who love you are the best.
• Car rides and long walks with no purpose are always good fun.
• Extra people to cuddle with is always a good thing.
• Chase, tug-of-war, and fetch are great exercise.
• As long as Mama is nearby, nothing bad can happen.

Tags: travel, the puppy

Pugly & I Will Be Trippin’

O.K. So, Pugly and I are hopefully leaving this afternoon/evening via U.S. Airways for Ohio to go meet up with my parents and see my Aunt and gramma.  I say hopefully because the carrier I ordered from online that fit the U.S. Airways measurments was too small for Pugly.  Seriously, there was no way he was going in it.  Since there had been all kinds of problems getting it and it finally arrived on Monday…I had to buy another rather expensive one on Tuesday in desperation.  This one does not meet the measurements.

I am prepared to start crying in the airport should they either insist on putting him in the cargo hold or insist he can’t come.  And trust me…when I cry, it’s not pretty but generally I get my way.

It’s possible that I can take out part of the metal frame of the carrier to make it a little more squishy to fit under the seat, which will be part of my argument.  I’m hoping there aren’t many people flying tonight.

Also, Pugly just keeps having set backs in house training and I’m all worried about what he might do at my Aunt’s because she’s been very vocal about that.  So, yesterday, Pugly got some pee-wee pants.  I keep trying to tell him how handsome he looks in them but he wasn’t feeling well last night and I don’t think he bought it.  I’ll try to get a picture when my camera isn’t packed.

And then there’s that.  Pugly isn’t feeling well.  His stomach is all upset.  He didn’t even eat yesterday.  Last night he had horrible gas.  I know this because he slept next to me with his butt in my face on my pillow legs up and askew.  We had to get up and go outside a couple of times for emergency poo-poos but there wasn’t anything that same out.  He didn’t eat breakfast either.  I don’t know if he sees the luggage and there was all the house cleaning and he’s worried he’s going to get left somewhere again.

Anyway, hopefully we’ll be on a plane tonight and visiting with family over the next few days.  I’m not taking a computer and I don’t know what my Internet access will be, if any, so don’t expect any reports until next week.  I’ve gone ahead and set up some quote of the days for you to keep you entertained while we’re gone though.

But if you hear about a red-headed woman and a pug terrorist pair being arrested in Portland today…call us a lawyer — it was just dog treats and Diet Coke.

Tags: U.S. Airways, Pug, the puppy, travel

And Away I Go…

Tags: travel, photo

N’s Random Travel Tips & Tricks

• The “Things You Should Know While I’m Traveling” Document — I created a document to carry in my purse and leave with my parents and give to my hosts in case of an emergency actually which includes
  • my flight information, including flight numbers, dates and times
  • contact information for my hosts, including address, email and phone numbers
  • all hotel information, including addresses and phone numbers
  • emergency contact information
  • contact information for my doctor
  • what medications I am taking, including dosages
  • who is taking care of my pets
  • contact information for the vet
• Tupperware sells these Classic Sheer Midgets containers that are perfect for packing little things like rings, nose rings, and earings and other tiny things that like to get lost along the way. They also make good pill bottles for carrying your daily dosage on a day tour when you’re going to be away from the hotel all day.
• While I do take a backpack laptop case on the plane with me, that’s not what I want to hoist on my back my whole vacation. Mock me all you like but I’m not one of those young college students anymore and I’m not an old fogey like my mother. I’m not about to haul around an overstuffed backpack or a canvas bookbag with some witty saying on the side. Fortunately JanSport has a backpack just the right size in their half-pint back packs (though I wouldn’t pick pink, you know) — and it folds down nicely and fits into your suitcase well. Just right for a travel book and some brocures and maybe some Twizzlers…
• Those of you who sew, cross-stitch, or knit know how difficult it has been since 9-11 to deal with thread or yarn and enjoy your hobby while vacationing or journeying in airports. Clover Needlecrafts has a convenient and charming answer. My mother gave me the Clover Cutter Pendant as a birthday present after 9-11 but now you can also get the Yarn Cutter Pendant too. You just slide them on a chain and wear them right on the plane and really there’s no fear of them being used to hijack a plane. Trust me, even I can’t cut myself on them and I’ve managed to go to the ER for all sorts of self-induced accidental cuts.

Tags: travel, Tupperware, Clover Cutter Pendant

Getting From Here To There: What’s In Your Flight Kit?

Coincidentally peskyapostrophe is planning an international vacation of her own this year and she happened to post today about what she takes with her on the airplane. She had some things on her list I hadn’t thought about taking with me.

The idea of a flight kit is to put in not just what you are going to need like any medicines you might need to take during the journey but also what things you are going to need to keep you sane on the journey.  For example, I can’t make it through a flight without music and if my iPod runs out of juice prior to landing, I’m just a little screwed. ;)  Heck, I’ve been known to try to charge my iPod from my laptop battery on the plane in the air…  And, yes, that was probably me sitting next to the oddly placed outlet in the airport with my palm and my cell phone plugged in but only if I was actually talking on the cell phone at the time….otherwise I’d have had the laptop plugged in.
I’ve been putting together my own “flight kit” as I’ve been packing the last few days and here’s what I’m planning on taking:

• my laptop with some dvds and some game cds
• my iPod mini, fully charged
• my Palm Z22 (sadly, you can only play backgammon so long before it’ll die…)
• a few Women’s Day magazines I’ve been saving
• 1 or 2 books
• soy nuts, Twizzlers, a bottle of diet soda
• my toothbrush & toothpaste (thanks to peskyapostrophe)
• eye drops
• squishy travel pillow I bought at Brookstone in the Atlanta airport
• my medications (thanks to Delta almost losing my luggage between Boston and El Paso that time)

So, here’s the question…what do you put in your flight kit?  What helps get you from here to there?

Tags: travel

World Power

No, not that kind of world power…

O.K. First, I gotta thank Big Dog. Last night I checked my HP power adapter that came with the laptop and it does read 110-220, so I’m good there. I don’t need a power converter, just a plug adapter since it’s a 3-prong.

Now, I’m trying to decide if I want to invest in the Kensington 33117 International Plug Adapter but Meg and Peter seem to be recommending this EuroSurge Volt Surge Protector from Voltage Valet. Meg says I should be able to get it at an Electronic Boutique or something at the mall. I’ll have to check, I guess. If I only need the plug adapter, the later is the better choice, I think. I wish I could find something suitable at Amazon.com or BestBuy or even Radio Shack. Why does this have to be so difficult? Why can’t there be a simple guide somewhere that’s easy to Google?

Anyway, I also have to thank SQ for sending me a link she found useful when she went to Austrailia last year on vacation: World Electric Guide — its a table that summarizes information on the electrical systems used in most countries around the world, including which adaptors you’re going to need, the voltage, and frequency. There’s also some notes on where which plugs are more prevailant. There are also links on the website to useful things like mobile phones on world travel and International dialing codes.

Tags: electricity, travel, UK, England

Why Outsourcing To Foreign Countries Is Bad

Me to HP tech support: I’m going on a trip in a few weeks to the UK and I would like to be sure that when I go that I have the correct equipment to be able to plug in my HP laptop while I’m there. Is the current power supply that came with the notebook enough or do I need to purchase some converter?

Tech Support (with Indian accent): So is the problem that when you turn it on, you are not seeing anything at all?

I’m not making this up. This is exactly how the conversation went with the HP tech support. I still do not know what I need to do to use my HP Pavillion safely while in the UK at the end of the month. I tried searching their website. I was at one point told I could buy at travel kit for some $200 but no one could tell me what it would do for me — and besides, that was out of stock anyway.
Eventually I hung up while on hold for over 20 minutes after being on the phone for over an hour — 20 minutes of that was spent trying to wade through their phone system to find a human being on the other end.
All that means is now I still have to call back and do it all over again.

Tags: HP, UK, travel, England, outsourcing

In Search of the Art of Travelling

I’ve talked before about my fear of flying and how I hate to travel. I suppose the anxiety I feel about travel is really porportional to the distance and time and effort involved. Personally, I’m not particularly fond of going anywhere. I prefer to stay home; though I don’t mind being at work.

But really, there’s a lot of stress involved in going anywhere in particular. There’s the matter of dressing appropriately, make-up or no make-up, making sure you leave enough time to get ready before you must leave your house to drive somewhere…there’s more stress if you’re going somewhere you’re unfamiliar with and quite frankly that’s often true now that I’m in Maine. There’s the stress of making sure you arrive on time. There’s more stress if you’re the first one there. There’s different stress if you aren’t the first one there. Then there’s the stress of having to converse with people while worrying about saying the wrong thing or trying to be funny and when is it appropriate to leave — wouldn’t want to leave too early or stay too long.

And that’s just the stress of going somewhere social.

Taking a trip is a big ball of anxiety-ridden stress for me. First you have to make the travel arrangements, whether it be airplanes, trains, buses, or automobiles. Personally, I feel better if I have the tickets bought and paid for as early as possible. The fact that the bus station doesn’t do reservations is making my stomach hurt as I type.

Then there’s the packing — what if you pack wrong for the weather or don’t have the right clothes for an unexpected social event? What if you don’t really want to read that book you packed once you get there? What if you change your mind about your jewelry after you leave? And what will the security guy think when he searches your luggage — really, once I had a security guy comment on what was in my suitcase which was half-filled with WWery snacks. I kind of wonder what they’ll think of my copy of The Dark History of Christianity and my Paranoia magazine this year.

I started packing on Sunday for this trip. All I have left theoretically is the bath stuff.

But the real anxiety starts the day before the trip. I start feeling like I should be leaving and getting to the first stop of the trip. I just want to get there, wherever there is. I just want the whole thing over.

If it’s a 2 hour trip to Boston, I have to keep myself from leaving four hours early. I begin to worry about being late and not finding the place or something happening.

If it’s something bigger like a multi-leg trip across the country, I just want to get to each stop as quickly as possible. I start worrying about missing flights or buses overbooked or not finding the right terminal or being in the bathroom when they announce boarding of my plane. The whole time I’m travelling, I’m checking and double-checking and tripple-checking my tickets and itenery, I’m going over what needs to be done in my head, and I’m growing anxious that I can’t get to the next step because I’m waiting for the plane to land or waiting for the plane to board or waiting for the time to leave my house.

Add in that fear of flying, that feeling that one should not be flinging oneself through the air in a big metal box, and it’s just a stomach-wrenching, acid-churning, migraine-inducing event that I want over as quickly as possible and it doesn’t end until I have my luggage safely back in my possession and am comfortly installed in my hotel or at my friend’s or family’s house…

And then the whole time I’m on the vacation/trip, in the back of my mind, I’m already going through the list of things I’ll have to do on the journey back home — what time do I need to leave where I’m staying, what time does the plane/bus/train leave, how long will I have between stops to get to the next terminal…and on and on and on.

Some people seem to enjoy travelling. Those people always seemed so relaxed. They have brought DVDs to watch and books to read and don’t appear to be in a whole lot of hurry. They can nap without worrying that they won’t wake up when the plane lands or the bus arrives at the terminal. They chat with strangers without concern or paranoia.

I envy them.

I have 13 hours and 26 minutes until I need to leave my house for the bus station.

Tags: fear of flying, stress, anxiety, travel

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like A Tight Wallet Christmas

I’ve been trying for weeks to schedule my trip to visit my family in New Mexico over Christmas but I feel like I’m banging my head against a brick wall…maybe because I’m too cheap. I really think I should only have to pay about $400 for tickets, if that, but for the most part, the tickets I’m seeing are more than $500 and as great as $715.

To complicate things, Delta stopped flying in and out of Portland this September and after today, Southwest won’t be flying in and out of Boston, if I understand the error message I get on their website when I try to schedule a flight from there.

I have tried using Orbitz, Travelocity, Hotwire, Priceline.com, CheapTickets, and Expedia.com. Hotwire was the most useless waste of time as every button I clicked ended saying “not available”. Priceline kept giving me the airfares for other airports, not the ones I selected in the search. Expedia turned out to be the most expensive.

Basically, I just want to go from Portland to El Paso or Tuscon. I’m willing to leave from Boston and very possibly Manchester, NH, depending. I can ride round trip on a bus to Boston for $40 or to Manchester for $116 and with Manchester, I’d have to have a flight that leaves after 9am and arrives back before 7pm; there’s more leeway with Boston. Obviously, I’d prefer to fly out of Portland and come back the same way.

I have tried all sorts combinations with leaving 12/21 to 12/23 and arriving back 12/27 or 12/28. I’ve tried starting in Portland, Boston, and Manchester and arriving in El Paso or Tuscon. I’ve even tried using Independence Air to fly to Atlanta or Las Vegas and then use another airline for the rest of the trip. Absolutely no go.

So far the cheapest I’ve been able to find is $471, including taxes and fees, on Continental Airlines. By the way, if you buy direct from them, you can save yourself the $5 - $10 processing fee of those ticket comparison websites.

I even tried naming my own price at Priceline.com but of course, they kept trying to have me flying out of Rhode Island or Manchester and the difference of the ticket price for Manchester was not worth the $116 bus price.

I want to see my family, gosh darnit! I want it to be at Christmas!

I don’t know how people travel more than once a year and still afford to pay their bills.

Update: I finally broke down and bought tickets for Delta on Priceline.com, using the name your price option. I’ll be leaving out of Boston and visiting many cities along the way…so It’s $405 plus the $40 bus fare…plus I’ll need to take a taxi to and from the bus station in Portland…unless I make friends with someone before then who will be kind enough to pick me up and drop me off. Oh, it’s so complex and what a long, long day the travel days will be…

Tags: travel