New Site Seeks Your Tacky Travel Snapshots

A new Web site called Tacky Tourist Photos at (tackytouristphotos.com) is collecting shots of goofy sights, souvenirs, poses and people. Looks like fun.

What came immediately to my mind were the people bending over in front of the volcanic plumes at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and the giggling tourists of all nationalities at some strikingly anatomically shaped rocks in the Cappadocia region of Turkey. I’ll have to see if I can dig those up …

My Travel Insurance Odyssey Ends Well

I, travel blogger, screwed up by forgetting to book travel insurance after my husband and I bought tickets ($256 round-trip!) from Newalk to Honolulu for January. But I rescued myself with insuremytrip.com.

We buy travel insurance only under certain conditions, and in my husband’s view this trip met those conditions. I was kind of on the fence about it, but I agreed to buy a policy. Then I forgot to go to Travel Guard, where we usually get travel insurance, until 17 days after we bought the tickets. Trouble is, Travel Guard excludes some coverage, including financial default of the airline and medical problems related to pre-existing conditions, unless you buy the policy within 14 days of the initial trip deposit.

Uh-oh. So I went to insuremytrip.com, a site that compares travel insurance policies from various companies, and found a Travelex policy that imposes a 21-day limit. Whew.  (SquareMouth.com and QuoteWright.com also compare travel insurance.)

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TripAdvisor Reviews Under Attack

TripAdvisor has been posting advisories about attempts to manipulate reviews for hotels on its site, the Associated Press reports.

I’ve been following the dispute between Arthur Frommer, who I worship, and TripAdvisor, a site that I find quite useful. Frommer says the site is too easily manipulated by fake reviews and travelers should rely on evaluations from guidebooks and journalists. TripAdvisor, which is owned by Expedia, says it is actively rooting out fake reviews.

For my part, I use the site with the understanding that some reviewers are not writing in good faith. If there are only a few reviews, I don’t give them much weight, but if there are a hundred or more, I pay attention. I look for ratings in the middle, two to four stars instead of one or four, because there is usually little to learn from rave reviews or a complete trashing. The reviews in between are more nuanced, and tend to describe the good points and the bad.

Of course, I use guidebooks, too.

Where To Hunt For Travel Deals And Bargains

So there are travel bargains everywhere and despite all the economic fear and uncertainty, you want to take advantage of the deals. Where to start?

I recommend keeping your eye on three Web sites until the right deal turns up for you. There are many more, but these three will keep you very well informed.

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Good News From Airline Passengers

After being overwhelmed by responses when he asked for airline horror stories George Hobica at the Airfarewatchblog asked if anyone had positive stories to tell about their airline experiences. He got 50 responses, many of them quite heartwarming and a reminder that even in a very troubled industry, individual acts of kindness are both possible and very much appreciated.

Splash Landing, Peep Style

It’s that time of year: the Chicago Tribune is again collecting pictures of Easter peeps in scenarios arranged by its readers.

This depiction of US Airways Flight 1549 after it “splash landed” in the Hudson River is, in my opinion, brilliant. Please note not only the peeps on the wing of the plane, but also the peeps in the sky, representing (one assumes) the geese (at least the surviving ones) that menaced said airliner.

Of course peep art interpretation can be tricky, even for a connoisseur such as myself. But I think it safe to say the artists are drawing a clear distinction between the traditional yellow chick peeps in the sky and the multicolored bunny peeps on the wings.

Does this suggest a subtext of conflict between the traditional and the modern, the displaced and the replacements? The artists, Shelley Lurie and Jill Dubois, are thus far silent on the subject.

“We couldn’t resist,” was their coy comment on their masterpiece.

More peep art can be found at the Tribune’s Peeps on Parade site. 

Frommer Weighs In On Royal Caribbean Champions

Arthur Frommer has joined those who are questioning the value of user reviews and user-generated content in the wake of the Royal Caribbean Champions controversy.

Royal Caribbean sought out and rewarded people who posted positive commnts about their cruises on boards like Cruise Critic.

As Frommer points out:

… Cruise Critic is owned by Expedia, the giant, billion-dollar airfare search engine. Expedia also owns Trip Advisor. Did you know that? So Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor, far from being small entities run by idealistic travel commentators, are both parts of an immense, faceless, profit-making corporate entity …

While I don’t find corporate ownership utterly incompatible with honest handling of user reviews, I agree that this whole episode is very troubling.

Viral Marketing And The Wisdom Of Crowds

A few years ago I started to get requests when checking out of hotels to review the properties online, sometimes specifically on TripAdvisor.

The request might be printed on the receipt, or mentioned by the desk clerk, particularly if I offered praise for the hotel as I checked out. (I’m big on positive reinforcement.) These requests still trouble me a little, but not nearly as much as what some companies are doing to influence and reward people who review travel services positively.

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TripAdvisor, Kayak In Smackdown

TripAdvisor has come out with a flight metasearch engine, and Kayak is coming back with a big redesign of its TravelPost hotel review site, due by the end of March.

Way to step on each other’s turf.

Kayak’s CEO, Steve Hafner, has made no secret of wanting to turn TravelPost into a ”true competitor” to the much larger TripAdvisor on hotel reviews. TripAdvisor, part of the vast Expedia empire, is aiming its flight metasearch right at Kayak, the leader in that field.

Hafner is talking smack about TripAdvisor, which he says has “polluted the Web” with commercialization. Considering what else is already on the Web, that’s kind of harsh. Hafner’s point, though, is that TripAdvisor pushes Expedia brands along with reviews from travelers. He says TravelPost will be more independent.

Oh, and TravelZoo has joined the fray with a new flight search engine called fly.com.

Momondo: Great For Booking Off The Beaten Flight Path

I was reminded lately, when I was looking for fares to get my sister from Myanmar back to the United States, about the value of Momondo.

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