Almost every hour, at least one person emails me asking where they should go on their vacation and which destination will give them the best value. These days, you can pretty much go anywhere since almost the whole world is on sale, trying to ride out the recession. But one place that’s always a value is Asia (especially Southeast Asia). The most expensive part of your journey will be the flight over there but from then on, it’s savings galore. You will be amazed at how inexpensive hotels, food, transportation and souvenirs are. I’m in love with the Asian culture and would move to Hong Kong in a nanosecond! A great new website showcasing what Asia has to offer is DiscoverAsiaNow.com. It’s a group effort from the tourism boards of Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea,
Macau, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. They highlight incredible deals like Cathay Pacific’s All Asia Pass; roundtrip ticket between L.A, San Francisco or N.Y. to Hong Kong and up to four other Asian destinations for $1,499. Or a 14-day trip to see China and India including the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China for under $2,000 per person.
Most travelers love weather maps and I’m always looking for the best. The newest one on the Internet is iMapWeather and it’s billed as the first weather site to incorporate social media in a Google map display. Hence travelers can post and share photos, videos and tweets on the iMap. It’s weather and other information “by the people, for the people.” iMapWeather is really an eye-pleasing way to get five-day forecasts and current conditions, view radar and satellite images. You can even see real-time lightning strikes and get nautical information. It could be more user-friendly but bottom line: weather maps merged with Google Maps is genius.
TRAVEL PRODUCT OF THE WEEK by Kevin O'Connor, Travel Technology Correspondent
How would you like to own a digital movie player that allows you to not only watch first-run movies at home, but watch first-run movies on the road when you travel?
Do you hate paying big money for movies in your hotel room as much as I do? In these tough economic times, spending extra money for movies in a hotel room is difficult for any traveler. Well, I have found an incredibly portable, powerful little tool that just might be the solution. The Roku digital video player (also known as the Netflix Player by Roku) instantly streams high quality movies from Netflix and Amazon Video On-Demand from the Internet -- directly to your TV (at home or in your hotel room). This little box (5 x 5 x 1.75 inches and 11 ounces) can easily fit into your carry-on. The Roku player supports Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) with WEP, WPA, and WPA2 support as well as a 10/100 Ethernet (RJ-45) connection. What that means is that with your Internet connection, your Roku digital video player instantly connects your home or hotel television to over 40,000 choices from Amazon.com and also provides access to over 12,000 choices from Netflix (with more being added every week).
Amazon.com choices cost between 99 cents and $4.99 to rent for 24 hours, with no subscription fees required. Netflix choices are unlimited -- watch as many as you want, as frequently as you want -- with any Netflix unlimited membership (starting as low as $8.99 per month). The player comes complete with everything you need to get connected right away. It even includes the standard yellow, white and red cables (which will hook you to most hotel televisions) and a little remote control that is also very portable for travel. Priced at $99, you can buy it directly from Roku or on Amazon.com. Set-up is extremely easy and the quality of the video is excellent. The Roku Digital Video player is an excellent option for anyone who loves movies and loves to travel (Note: Roku doesn't work overseas...yet).
I mentioned Mark on AirTran’s website
last week and this week, one of his videos is making the airwaves. I’ve heard from flight attendants that sometimes when they’re bored, they do The Airplane Toilet Paper Experiment. Well, now you can see it done without wasting anymore paper.
