ABCDE
Travel
sunday, may 16, 2010
BED CHECK
Ben and me
A Philly hotel where the Founding Fathers get special treatment, too. F2
Well-documented Know your passport rules. F5 Get out of townThe lowdown on planes, trains and buses. F6
Hot spots update The latest on the oil spill, the floods, the ash and more. F7
CHAT 2 p.m. Monday at
washingtonpost.com/travel
IMPULSIVE TRAVELER
Shoot the moon
Do all those hotel package deals really hit the bull’s-eye? F8
YOUR 2010 TRAVEL GUIDE
F
How far do your dollars go in Europe?
That depends on where you convert them into euros
by Nancy Trejos
Figuring out the best way to convert
U.S. dollars into foreign currency is about as easy as predicting when the vol- cano in Iceland will stop spewing ash. The world of currency exchange is Byz- antine, with unfavorable exchange rates and fees that aren’t always transparent. Which is better: converting dollars at home or overseas? At a bank or a cur- rency exchange booth? At the airport or the hotel?
Or should we simply rely on plastic? “In the last few years, it’s all sort of got- ten hazy,” said Erik Torkells, an editor at TripAdvisor. Even the experts can’t agree. Some say you should convert at least a little bit of money in the United States so that you have enough for transportation when you get to your destination. But you’ll lose a lot in fees. Others say that you should wait until you get to the first ATM you see. But what if your bank cuts off your supply because you forgot to tell it
euros continued on F5
Apped to travel on the fly
Taking a three-day road trip by iPhone alone
by Ross Arbes
Special to The Washington Post
“All I really needed was my iPhone
and my passport.” That’s what the narrator in a TV com- mercial for the Apple iPhone and its apps says about his trip to Spain. Interesting, I thought when I first saw
it. I’d just spent several months re- searching travel apps as a business de- velopment intern for the Travel Chan- nel. A virtual tourist, I sat in a cubicle and played with all sorts of smartphone software: apps for language translation, apps for finding public transportation, apps for tracking flight delays and even apps that supposedly repel mosquitoes. So when I heard the claim in that ad, I decided to put the tagline to the test. On a recent cloudless Tuesday morn-
ing, I headed out on a three-day road trip to Pittsburgh armed with nothing but my iPhone and my wallet. In the spirit of the ad, I packed no change of clothes, no guidebooks and no direc- tions. I hadn’t made reservations, and I hadn’t done any planning. I picked Pitts-
iphone continued on F4
THE NAVIGATOR
Christopher Elliott
Frequent fliers who never get anywhere
C
all me a frequent-flier program skeptic. I take a dim view of any scheme
that promises you the world in exchange for all your business. Not that I don’t like sitting in first class, staying in a suite or being treated like a movie star. I mean, who doesn’t? Having covered the travel industry for most of my career, I just don’t believe in “win-win” propositions. I think there’s a steep and often hidden price to be paid when you collect miles. The game can easily turn into an obsession that disables your common sense, compelling you to make completely irrational purchasing decisions. Fact is, offers of “free” products, perks
and preferred status in exchange for racking up points through travel or credit-card purchases aren’t for everyone. They probably aren’t for you. I won’t suggest that loyalty programs are morally wrong and that they divide travelers into haves (the ones who get to board anytime on the red carpet) and have-nots (the unlucky schlubs wedged into the middle seats), even though I could probably write an entire column on that topic. When I say I don’t believe in
navigator continued on F2
Have fares left you behind?
by Carol Sottili
Special to The Washington Post
Suffering from airfare sticker shock? Join the club.
Domestic fares are out of sight, espe- cially for summer travel. The $219 round-trip fare on nonstop flights be- tween Washington Dulles and Los Ange- les, once routinely available on several airlines, now starts at $429. Remember paying $160 round trip nonstop to Seat- tle with a spring sale on United last year? This spring, United is charging $486. Europe is even worse. From Dulles to
London, a Virgin Atlantic flight that cost $637 round trip last year is $1,144. The $683 round-trip sale fare on Air France to Paris is nowhere to be seen: Try $1,507. Delta’s $546 round-trip fare from BWI Marshall to Zurich is now $1,190. At this time last year, airlines were pushing one another out of the way to announce fare sales, especially to Eu- rope. So far in 2010, the few sales that have taken place have been short-lived and heavily restricted to specific travel dates and days. Summer travel sales are
airfares continued on F7
TYPOGRAPHY AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY HUGH D’ANDRADE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
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