My friend and fellow panelist at the L.A. Times Travel & Adventure Show, Jen Leo from the L.A. Times turned me on to this site.
With everyone talking about cutting back on long distance travel this year because of the gloomy economy, new sites are popping up to help
Americans budget better. CostToDrive.com gives drivers a guess-timate (some searches aren't that accurate) of how much your fuel will cost for a future trip.
Not only do users input their start and end points but they choose from a drop down menu what make, year and model their car is. It will then show total distance, drive time, gas stations along the way with current gas prices and even your carbon footprint. Note: If you’re traveling by yourself, it’s definitely not cheaper to drive than fly (depending on your distance). For example, my dad just asked me to get him a one-way, last-minute ticket from Palm Beach, Florida to Erie, Pennsylvania and I found a ticket (using JohnnyJet.com’s search engines, of course!) for $154. He asked me if that was a good deal. I said, “You tell me. How much will it cost you to drive?” He thought about gas, food, lodging and time, then said, “That’s a great deal!” You got that right, Daddy-o!
I find it so surprising when I travel around the country to speak, that most people (with the exception of road warriors) have never heard of
the granddaddy of seating charts:
SeatGuru.com. I’m sure you don’t fall into that category so I won’t go into
full detail but just in case,
they have dozens of airlines’ seating charts, for pretty much each carrier’s different type of aircraft. The most useful aspect is that they
show you which seats are the best (denoted in green) and which ones to avoid (in red). They also supply helpful information like if they have
power ports or if seats recline all the way.
Since you’re probably reading this and thinking, This is old news, Johnny! Give me something new, I’m throwing in these two other seating chart
websites. The second most popular is
SeatExpert.com. They offer information on just over 50 airlines and some foreign carriers that SeatGuru
doesn’t have and some of their advice is a bit different. I sometimes cross reference both. Then there’s
SeatPlans.com for those looking for
more detailed reviews (besides the ones we write about in our
Johnny Jet Travel Newsletter).
SeatPlans.com is brought to you by
Business Traveller
magazine (U.K. edition) and they use the same flight reviews as they put in their magazine. So there you have it
– and if I’m missing any, please email us so I can add them to our Johnny Jet portal, which has all three sites listed above.
BTW: Here’s the direct link.
I’m sure you’ve heard about the genius marketing ploy that Tourism Queensland (Australia) came up with to get some free press, which, incidentally,
has generated more than $70 million so far in publicity value. As we reported here a couple of months ago, they were offering a coveted ‘Island
Caretaker’ role for a salary of $100,000USD, for a six-month contract, to be based on Hamilton Island and explore the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.
The contest generated a whopping 34,684 applications (videos) and the short list of the top 50 candidates has just been released, which includes
folks from 22 countries. The top 50 videos are now online and the list will be narrowed down to a final 11. Those will all be flown to Hamilton
Island in early May to take part in the final selection process with the winner being announced on May 6. I watched several (not all) of the
one-minute videos and my personal favorites are from Mitchell (from Canada),
Julia (from Russia) and Cali (from Texas). I’m still not sure why
I didn’t apply!
