Those of you who listen to the show know that I often use and recommend Hotwire.com as a good way to reserve a hotel room if you want a good rate and are flexible about which hotel you are willing to stay at. When you use Hotwire you prepay for the hotel room, so you need to be sure you are going on the trip. Well… I guess I did not realize that you need to be a little more flexible than I thought. My wife just got the following (edited) email:

Dear Joan,

This email is regarding your upcoming stay at the Four Points by
Sheraton Hotel and Suites Somewhere. The hotel has informed
us they are overbooked for the dates of your stay, your reservation has
been relocated to an alternate location. Your new hotel information is
listed below.

Ramada Inn Somewhere
phone
address
address
2.5 star hotel with pool, breakfast, and hi-speed internet

Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience this may cause
you. Our customers are very important to us, and we would like to ensure
that you are provided with the best possible experience.

Say what? Even with a pre-paid reservation apparently the hotel can reject it. Now it is clear why they did this since they will make more money but I was quite surprised that they are allowed to do this with their agreement with Hotwire. There are numerous stories about hotels that treat guests who have booked through discount booking sites differently (although my experiences have almost always been positive), but this is a new one for me.

According to an article from Gizmodo you may not be alone if you have ever had trouble getting a Visa. Even being a multi-billionaire apparently does not always help.

Bill Gates was recently visiting Africa, but needed a visa to travel to Nigeria. Getting a visa cannot be that much of a big deal if you are a multibillionaire, or so you would think.

The Nigerian government initially denied the Microsoft kingpin’s application on the premise that they required proof he would not reside in Nigeria indefinitely, causing a strain on social services and a general nuisance for immigration.

Dear Nigeria, he is not just there to collect welfare. The Vista launch did not go that badly.

A number of headlines from various sources caught my eye recently:

‘Kurd attack’ kills 12 in Turkey
Haleakala National Park Officials Call For Safety Summit For Bicyclists (In the past year, three bicyclists have died in Haleakala National Park while descending from the park’s summit).
Fall Into Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone Kills California Woman
FBI Assists With Maldives Blast Probe (U.S. authorities have sent FBI agents to the Maldives to aid with the investigation into a weekend bombing that injured 12 foreign tourists).
Women die in India train stampede (At least 14 women have been crushed to death in a stampede at a train station in northern India, officials say.)

What do these headlines have in common? They are all stories about some destination that I have recommended on the Amateur Traveler. So what can we say, is travel safe?

There certainly can be risk in travel and more risk in some parts of the world than in others. Of course there is also risk in staying home but it is not always clear how to calculate the difference. I know many people who are nervous about crime when going to Europe for instance but would think nothing of going to a major U.S. city where their chance of encountering violent crime is probably higher.

Of course part of the problem is that “plane arrives safely!” is not news. That alone should make us feel better about travel. There was some good news this week in a New York Times article “Fatal Airplane Crashes Drop 65%“:

After two infamous crashes in 1996 that together killed 375 people, a White House commission told the airline industry and its regulators to reduce the domestic rate of fatal accidents 80 percent over 10 years. That clock ended Sunday.

They have come close to reaching that goal. Barring a crash before midnight Sunday, the drop in the accident rate will be about 65 percent, to one fatal accident in about 4.5 million departures, from one in nearly 2 million in 1997.

Safety in some destinations can change very quickly. It was safe to travel to Myanmar until a few weeks ago but I would not recommend it now.

[Speaking of the violence in Myanmar, if you want to express your opinion to the Myanmar government about the situation in their contry you can find contact information here for the Myanmar Embassy in United States].

When traveling off the beaten path the U.S. Department of State provides timely International Travel Information which you should check out before you travel.

So here is what I know about traveling safely:

• I am safer when I keep my wits about me
• I am safer when I leave valuables at home
• I am safer when I don’t draw attention to myself
• Much of my safety is just luck, fate or providence
• It is worth it to me to consider my safety in planning any trip
• It is not worth it to me to worry so much about safety that I stay home

In a bit of irony, I am writing this blog entry from Los Angeles while a friend is driving though rush hour traffic. Writing this distracts me from how quickly the car in front of us stops from time to time. Is travel safe? I sure hope so.

Lonely Planet is known for its guidebooks which are carried by backpackers in some of the most remote places on the planet. The company boasts having a guidebook for every country in the world. But it seems the backpacking hippy image may be about to change as the BBC announced today that they have purchased the publishing company. The champions of solo travel have apparently decided that sometimes you don’t have to go it along in the corporate world.

The commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has acquired Lonely Planet, the travel information group founded in Australia in 1972, for an undisclosed sum.

Lonely Planet, which is famous for its international travel guides, is being sold to BBC Worldwide by founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler, and advertising magnate John Singleton who became a shareholder in 1999.

The Wheelers will retain a 25 per cent shareholding in the company.

I remember a day when people who get dressed up to fly. When I was a kid you would put on your suit before you boarded a plane. Of course, I also remember sweltering in Wisconsin for 2 days in my fancy clothes when they had lost my family’s luggage. Dress codes for flying have relaxed since those days but not for a customer service supervisor named Keith who works for Southwest airline in San Diego according to a story originally reported in the San Diego Union Tribune and later picked up by the USA Today.

USA Today:

Southwest is in the news in San Diego after a customer service supervisor apparently objected to the outfit worn by college student and Hooters waitress Kyla Ebbert. At least that’s the word from San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Gerry Braun, who writes that Ebbert was “escorted off a Southwest Airlines flight two months ago” for wearing “a white denim miniskirt, high-heel sandals, and a turquoise summer sweater over a tank top over a bra.” (Check out the Union-Tribune’s photo of the outfit Ebbert says she was wearing for the flight.) Ebbert says that after she had taken her seat, the supervisor asked her to come out into the jetway and asked her to change.

“I asked him what part of my outfit was offensive,” Ebbert says to Braun. “The shirt? The skirt? And he said, ‘The whole thing.’ ” Ebbert adds she was lightly dressed because she was taking a same-day trip to Tucson and back for a doctor’s appointment. The temperature in Tucson that day was forecast to be between 100 and 110. Ebbert says she was asked to go home and change and return for a later flight with a less-revealing outfit. She refused, and the airline eventually relented.

Was her outfit too revealing? You judge for your self. This picture shows the outfit she says she was wearing at the time. Some savy airline history buffs at airliners.net compared this picture to a vintage picture he found of Southwest Airlines flight attendants.