Category: Advice

Travel Advice Advice

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Pet cats traveling in amphibious DeLorean name top six travel destinations

If your pet cat were riding in an amphibious version of a DeLorean automobile, what are the top six travel destinations it would prefer to visit?

That’s the question travel humor writer Bob Payne came away with after listening to Grant Martin, editor of the travel blog Gadling, speak to an audience of travel media professionals this week at the New York Times Travel Show.

Martin used the examples of cats and the unusual car as images that worked well at catching reader interest. “But it’s not something you can normally use for a travel blog,” he said.

But Payne, who is Editor in Chief and Pet Cat Travel Columnist for the travel blog BobCarriesOn.com, thought differently.

“I could not see if the amphibious DeLorean that Martin put on the screen had a cat riding in it, as I was way in the back of the room, having arrived late after walking the distance you would expect to from a $12 per day parking garage in New York City,” Payne said. “But it seemed to me that if there weren’t a cat riding in the DeLorean, then there ought to be, and that it would make a good travel story, especially for readers who typically rely on their pet cats for travel advice.”

So following the talk, Payne contacted some of the thousands of pet cats who are regular readers of BobCarriesOn.com and asked what travel destination they would like to visit if riding in an amphibious DeLorean —  which is a real, although one of a kind, car built by someone from, not surprisingly,  San Francisco.

Here are the pet cats’ top six choices:

Cat Island, Bahamas

Once thought to be the island where Christopher Columbus first landed in the new world, Cat Island is now best known as the site of Mount Alvernia (207 feet), the highest point in the Bahamas. It is easily climbed, even in an amphibious DeLorean, and is an excellent vantage point from which to keep an eye out for Bahamian curly-tailed lizards.

Ninety-Mile Beach, Australia

For pet cats who have had to endure the indignity of a cat box, this ninety-mile stretch of pure white sand is kitty litter heaven. And if you have an eye-catching car, like an amphibious DeLorean, it is a perfect place to cruise for chicks, and fledglings, and hatchlings.

Perdido Key, Florida

This sandy strand along the Florida Panhandle is small enough so that if a cat has a fast car, such as an amphibious DeLorean, the endemic Perdido Key beach mouse, whose endangered status has been vastly overstated, should be easy to pounce upon.

Pigeon Cove, Massachusetts

There’s nothing quite as soul satisfying for a pet cat as cruising along this New England shoreline in an amphibious DeLorean in the Fall, especially if the pigeons have grown tired of guarding their nests.

Catalina Island, California

Anyone can take the ferry, but the classic way to arrive at this refuge from the dog-eat-dog world of the Southern California mainland is in your own private transport, such as an amphibious DeLorean. There’s plenty to do, but don’t be mislead into visiting The Sandbox, which sells clothes for small humans.

Cataract Falls, Indiana

Not the highest waterfall in Indiana, but for pet cats who are adventure junkies it’s a real thrill to plunge over this cascade in an amphibious DeLorean, a thrill only heightened by the knowledge that ownership of the car cannot be traced back to you.

Travel humor writer Bob Payne owns the franchise to sell amphibious DeLoreans in Indiana, excluding Indianapolis.

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Honoring those we lost in 2012

Now that we are a few days into the New Year, frequent traveler Bob Payne is taking a brief time out to honor those we lost in 2012.

Black carry-on bag – No name tag, but purple Barney-like sock puppet tied to handle. I was made to gate-check it on an American flight from Dallas Fort Worth to JFK. The woman at Customer Service was nice, but said the airline had enough problems of its own without having to look for my bag, too.

Wing-tip shoe – Left foot, men’s brown and white, size 9 ½ D. I was half way to my Southwest flight at Phoenix Sky Harbor before I noticed it was missing, and by the time I got back to the bin at the security gate it was gone. Kudos to the TSA, though, for letting me borrow a woman’s espadrille, left foot, same size as mine, even though it wasn’t really my color.

Rental car – Once you misplace your car keys, which I think must have fallen out of my pocket when I was wading in the fountain at the Princess on New Year’s Eve, losing your car, too, is really not that hard, especially if you can’t remember the make, color, or company you rented it from.

Family members who called from the airport, but never showed up at the reunion – more evidence that relying entirely on a GPS for driving directions can turn out to be a very bad idea.

Right leg below the knee – I now know that when you are picnicking along a river bank in Australia and see a yellow caution sign showing the outline of a crocodile painted in black it is not there for comic effect. On the other hand, I now have more use for the single left wing-tip shoe.

In his spare time, travel humor writer Bob Payne does the obituary column for his home-town newspaper.

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No more abuse by the airlines, and other unrealistic resolutions for 2013

In recent years, airline passengers, more than most people, have found it necessary to make New Year’s resolutions. Here are a few that travel humor writer Bob Payne found it necssary to make for 2013, based on his behavior during 2012.

I will refuse to fly on any airline whose practices I consider abusive, unless the alternative is to go by train, bus, auto, or foot.

I will not complain if a child hits me in the ear with a stuffed animal. I will, however, return the stuffed animal with the head removed.

I will refrain from asking flight attendants if I can have a pillow, blanket, playing cards, junior pilot wings, or call button that works.  On certain occasions, though, I will ask for a flight attendant’s phone number. Those occasions will be if I’d like to know how they feel about being awakened in the middle of the night by somebody who tells them they have to put away all eclectonic devices.

If a late-arriving passenger crams his or her carry-on  in on top of mine, potentially damaging my laptop, I will not say anything. But after everyone is seated I will slip an alarm clock into the offending bag, set to go off ten minutes into the flight.

As I pass the cockpit door, I will not wave and say, “Hey, it’s me. From rehab.”

I will not pound on the lavatory door just because someone has been in there longer than I consider necessary. Instead I will calmly approach the nearest flight attendant and say,  “Do you smell smoke? Coming from the lavatory?”

I will not grouse about fees for talking to a live ticket agent, checking in at the airport, carrying on a bag, extra leg room,  or sitting closer to the front of the plane or with my family. But I will charge a $25 fee to get the beverage cart past my seat.

I will not secretly pull an assortment of  nuts and bolts out of my carry-on, show them to the annoying person sitting next to me,  and say, “I found these under your seat. I wonder if they’re important.”

I will not bring a roast turkey on board and then share it with only some of the other passengers in my vicinity. I will, however, give preference to those passengers who are sharing mashed potatoes and gravy.

I will not wear oversize cowboy hats on flights from Dallas-Fort Worth to Paris. This should be an easy resolution to keep because it is unlikey I will ever be on a flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Paris

 

 

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Budget travel group Arthur Frommer Rocks: 2013 Top Ten Places Not to Look For Free Rocks

Economy minded travelers have long known that one secret to staying within your travel budget is to limit your souvenirs to free rocks.

“In addition to the financial savings, the great thing about free rocks is that you can collect them almost anywhere, except of course Plymouth Rock and Ayres Rock, and probably Mount Rushmore, and the Grand Canyon, and the Petrified Forest, and Stonehenge” said Bob Payne, a spokesperson for the rock group Arthur Frommer Rocks.

“Adding to the popularity of collecting free rocks is that unless you employ a jack hammer the environmental impact is relatively small, and it is a low-risk activity, just as long as you don’t fill your pockets and then immediately take an over-water journey,” Payne said.

But recently a problem has arisen for rock-collecting travelers, the Arthur Frommer Rocks spokesperson said. “Unscrupulous tourism promoters have been bringing in rocks from China and trying to pass them off as local.

“Often, the only way you can tell a counterfeit rock is if it has the words ‘For Foreign Tourists’ stamped on it in Chinese characters,” Payne said. “And most vacation travelers are just not interested in exercising that level of scrutiny.”

So for several years now, Arthur Frommer Rocks has been helping those travelers by producing a Top Ten list of places where free rocks are not likely to be the genuine article. Here’s the list for 2013:

Rock City, Tennessee

Warning enough should be that the claim made that seven states can be seen from atop this natural tourist attraction’s well-known lookout point, Lover’s Leap, has been amended to read “seven states and the Great Wall of China.”

Hard Rock Café

Even if you do find a local rock here it is likely to have been chiseled into an arrowhead, which the entertainment chain’s current owner, Florida’s Seminole Indians, may well put a curse on you for removing.

Rocking Horse Ranch

The sight of rocks wearing saddles tells you all you need to know.

Rocky Mountains

Now that recreational use of marijuana has been legalized in Colorado many, visitors to the Rocky Mountains often have trouble distinguishing free rocks from a bag of Jalapeno Cheetos, to the delight of local dentists.

Rock of Gibraltar

The problem here is that there is only one rock, and it is 1,400 feet high, making it much too big to slip inconspicuously into a tote bag.

Rockefeller Plaza

The television comedy series 30 Rock, named after a Rockefeller Plaza address, is scheduled to air its final episode on January 31, 2013, so any authentic rocks that may have been lying around were long ago used as skit material by the show’s head writer, Tina Fey, who is said to be working now on a similar show for the Chinese, tentatively named 30 Lock.

Rock Resorts

Be careful at this group of seven luxury resorts because it’s the old story of the room rates being so high that the free rocks hardly matter

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

When rocks have their own hall of fame, expect poseurs, wannabes, and Chinese counterfeit artists to be everywhere. That said, even a fake Neil Diamond can sometimes make a nice collectible.

When not heading the budget travel group Arthur Frommer Rocks, travel humor writer Bob Payne is the editor in chief of BobCarriesOn.com

Dean Franklin/Wikipedia photo.

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Five top Black Friday travel gifts for when the romance is over

When you think of travel you often think of romance, especially if you are without a social life at home. But with the stress of enforced closeness, travel can often be the end of romance, too. That’s why some of this year’s top Black Friday travel gift ideas mean never having to say, “I’ll wait for you at the bar.”

No need to initial this

You’ve seen the bridges around the world that  couples new to their romance decorate with padlocks inscribed with two sets of initials? The locks are meant to depict a condition of the heart that is forever. But if it is forever you want to be untethered from, give the gift of a lock set that allows you to attach one end of an 18-inch length of high-tensile steel chain to the bridge and the other to a shackle that locks snugly around your former sweetheart’s ankle.

Almost as good as a strip search

Every traveler knows by now that you can’t get through airport security carrying bottles with a capacity of more than 3.4 oz. What almost no one but TSA agents can tell, however, is the difference between 3.4 and 4 ounces. The gift of a set of the larger size containers means that the one you loved will probably have the difference demonstrated to them during a cavity search while you go happily on your way. An optional upgrade is an extra bottle containing a suspicious white powder you can unobtrusively drop into his or her shoes just before the plastic bin containing them goes through the scanner.

His and hers (but not for long) sleeping bags

After having found ways to avoid it for years, you’re headed for that Alaska back-country fly fishing trip he’s always dreamed of despite your often wondering aloud why anyone would want to fish for something they could more easily dispatch with a fly swatter. To show where your heart is you surprise him with his and her sleeping bags. Yours is waterproof and guaranteed to keep you warm down to minus 20 degrees centigrade. His is dipped in bear attractant.

Who said anything about a hot tub?

It takes months to score a table at An Arm & A Leg, one of the few restaurants in the world where cannibalism is still part of the dining experience. But you’ve finally managed it, even figuring out how to measure him for a pot without his catching on, and now that special evening is here. As you take your time getting ready in the same leisurely manner that has made him so impatient for so long, he says, as you knew he would, that he’ll go on ahead, and wait for you at the bar.  Not a head for long, you think, not an arm, not a leg, either.

Because the shark diving position had already been filled, again

When you both know the romance is gone, but both consider yourselves rational adults, the best way to end it can be with one final special trip together. Ideal for this is travel to a remote atoll in the far reaches of the South Pacific. And if you offer to take care of everything how can she be anything but forever grateful? Even during the years as a coconut husker she arrived on the atoll to discover you had contracted her out for.

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In Dominican Republic, beer wears a wedding dress

 

When traveling, one of the pleasures of trying to translate local expressions into English is that the results sometimes turn otherwise ordinary words into poetry.  For instance, in Costa Rica (and some other Spanish-speaking countries) palomita, a word for popcorn, translates literally as “little doves,” which may be the most romantic way ever of describing popped kernels. And in the Dominican Republic, la Bandera not only means “the flag,” as travel writer Bob Payne discovered on a recent trip to Puerto Plata while on assignment for Endless Vacation magazine,  but also describes a dish of chicken, rice and beans, because it is served so pervasively that it is as much a national symbol as the Dominican flag.

Payne’s favorite new expression, though, and one he will from now on bring up whenever the beauty of language is discussed, especially if the discussion takes place over beers, is “con la vestida de novia.” It’s what the Dominicans say when you want your beer ice cold, as you almost always do in hot countries, and it translates into English as “With the wedding dress,” a reference, as Payne points out in his Endless Vacation story, to the bottle’s frosty coating.

Travel humor writer Bob Payne, who writes in tandem about destination weddings and beer more often than you might think, is the editor in chief of BobCarriesOn.com, a travel blog that has been sharing accurate travel news and advice since before Columbus landed at Plymouth Rock. His Endless Vacation piece in the Winter 2012 issue.

Among other places to read about Payne’s travels in the Dominican Republic are his on-location look at kite boarding for  Endless Vacation and in the September/October 2003 Islands magazine.

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