Foreign Perspectives » Travel

Isn’t packing to a hand-baggage only standard a pain?

Arnold — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:26:59 +0000

Not so long ago you were encouraged to put as much as you could into checked luggage so that the passenger area of the plane wasn’t cluttered with a whole heap of a little (often a lot) too large carry-on luggage.

Of course, it’s completely different now and they want you to do without checked luggage altogether if you can. Despite their normally over the top approach to charging even Ryanair has raised the carry-on allowances to a notional 10kg (Ryanair say “It should weigh no more than 10kg”). In practical terms, so long as you go for online checkin, there really isn’t a limit so long as you can actually carry it onto the plane and so long as it’s not too far off the 55x40x20 size.

Even the liquid limits don’t seem overly severe so long as you don’t try to bring drinks. Normal sized tubes of toothpaste might look big but they’re no more than the 100ml limit. You can even bring on drinks so long as you buy them after you’ve passed through security thus avoiding the ridiculous prices on the plane (though don’t be drinking too much on Ryanair as it’s £1 for the toilet).

Laughably these days you’re still not allowed to take “magnetised materials” onboard although that’s a rule that has been totally impractical to enforce since credit cards came on the scene not to mention the magnetic stripe on many tickets. I wonder when it’ll occur to IATA to revise this?

What is a real pain is getting everything into the one bag. As you read this I’ll be struggling to get a weeks worth of clothes plus assorted items for my OU summer school into a bag: white coat, big lump of a course book, computer, etc. I’m sure that there’s room for a “how to pack a carry-on bag” course!

Bookmark:

Realistically priced holidays for those with families

Arnold — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:57:47 +0000

When you’ve got a family it doesn’t take long for the price of couple-type holidays to get completely out of hand by the time you multiply the airfares by four or five, throw in the multiple rooms required and that’s before you even think about organising something that most of you will like most of the time. That’s where european holiday parks look very appealing.

The transport costs are considerably lower normally as you can just get in the car, over on the ferry and you’re there. In most cases you can do the door to door transport in much the same time as you’d be talking about with flights by the time you add in the couple of hours prior to the flight and all the messing about getting to and from the airport. Moreover you don’t have any of the hassles entailed in avoiding the excess baggage charges and, of course, you have your own car so you don’t need to budget for renting one.

The accommodation costs are massively less as you don’t have the multi-room problem (why can’t hotels allow for larger families?) and the food costs are a whole lot more controllable if you aren’t tied to hotel/restaurants all the time. In some cases you can get a weeks accommodation at one of the parks for less than you’d get a nights accommodation for a family in a hotel and that’s not requiring you to go downmarket to make savings like that either.

Once you’re there you’ll find activities laid on to suit just about everyone at every age and, of course, there’s the option to explore the local countryside too.

Bookmark:

Maritime festival in Belfast, Titanic town

Arnold — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 09:07:13 +0000

All being well, we’re heading off to the maritime festival in Belfast shortly.

It’s one of the original festivals (which include the summer carnival and autumn film festival) that were started before we began to get large numbers of tourists. In fact, the last time we were there was just before the big jump in the number of tourists so it’ll be interesting to see how they cope (not well if last year was anything to go by!).

It’s one of the natural festivals for Belfast in that there’s quite a substantial history of things naval including, of course, the construction of the Titanic. Last time we were at it, the kids wouldn’t go on the baby Titanic that was there as they were sure it would sink! Worth pencilling in is the opening of the major Titanic exhibition in 2012 (the hundredth anniversary of the sailing).

Anyway, must tootle on as we’ve several other things to do today as well as the festival.

Bookmark:

Would you book a summer holiday given the volcano chaos?

Arnold — Mon, 17 May 2010 10:47:27 +0000

Much as most people like their summer holidays and many of those expect to be flying to somewhere in Spain, there’s major uncertainty this year thanks to the Icelandic volcano.

So what should you do?

The most reliable approach is to forget about any holidays requiring air travel in the northern hemisphere. In practical terms that will limit the number of places that you can consider quite considerably unless you’re prepared to devote quite a lot of your holiday time to travelling. Typically, from England you wouldn’t be able to go much further south than northern Spain or much further east than Switzerland with two days travelling in each direction, drop that to one day and you’re largely limited to northern France, Belgium, Holland, Ireland, and, of course, somewhere in the UK.

If that doesn’t suit, and you really must go by air then assembling your own holiday by booking your flights and accommodation separately is going to require good holiday insurance that definitely covers volcano problems. Whilst the airlines might be required to be reasonable about paying for accommodation, those laws don’t extend to accommodation and you could easily find yourself paying for accommodation that you can’t get to. Alternatively, if you book a package deal you should be covered for problems. Either way, do bear in mind that a cancellation can leave you either stranded at home (less costly obviously) or at your destination and if it’s the latter you need to budget for a lot of potential extra expenses ie don’t aim to spend down to the last penny on your day of departure.

Of course, the biggest plus of booking a holiday involving flights is that it’s quite likely to be considerably cheaper all-round in that there should be a whole lot fewer people booking such holidays this year which means a lot of surplus accommodation.

Bookmark:

Isn’t it worrying how little responsibility people take for themselves these days?

Arnold — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 12:33:55 +0000

The cancellation of pretty much all air travel throughout Europe this week has shown up just how radically different people are when they need to take responsibility for themselves.

This was a pretty much unprecedented event. With 9/11 the flight cancellations were short and for a known period. This time around, they’re for a completely unknown period and the way that this period has been extended seems to almost have been designed to create the maximum amount of stress for all concerned. If it had been announced at the outset that flights were off for the next week then those affected could have reacted better. Being stuck in a foreign airport for a day isn’t an unknown experience but a week is a whole different ball game.

Thus, people have had to reach the point all by themselves where they needed to say that enough was enough and it was time for them to work out an alternative means of getting to where-ever they needed to be. That’s hard to do. Few people decided to search for that alternative right away and those that did seemed to end up doing crazy things like spending a thousand pounds or more on a taxi when clearly a train would have been cheaper and more practical. We’re seeing the effects on the ferries now for the second wave who have now decided that they really need to get home: early on the ferries could easily cope, now that’s not so much the case obviously.

However, I suspect that there are still considerable numbers of people waiting for “someone” to do “something” for them and get them home. That’s unlikely to happen. The majority of those stranded will have gotten to their destinations by way of a discount airline and one of the features of such airlines is that there is little or no slack in terms of staff. Even with the best will in the world, it seems unlikely that they could get everyone from what’s usually an isolated airport to another isolated airport: as we all know, the transport infrastructure around the airports that they use is almost non-existant.

So, how long will these people wait around? Will they still be there this time next week if the planes still aren’t flying? I suspect that quite a number will be if some of those on the phone-in programmes is anything to go by. For instance, during the week one distraught lady phoned in to complain that the airline wouldn’t fly her with her severely disabled daughter. She wanted the plane to take her regardless of any grounding: her reasoning seemed to be that since her daughter was severely disabled then she had the absolute right to get on the plane regardless of anything else. This was someone who was in Paris and who would have had no problem going by train if she’d just paused to think about it.

How many other people are thinking that this will go away in a week or two and are already booking their flights for the bank holidays in May? Quite a lot if the pricing on some routes is anything to go by: they’ve gone up almost ten fold in the last two weeks.

Bookmark:

Natural pollution stops play in northern Europe

Arnold — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:41:07 +0000

Isn’t it amazing at what a relatively small amount of natural pollution can do?

Whilst we all knew that Iceland was covered in ice, volcanoes and lava, very few people gave it much thought aside from when their banks all went bust. Why should they? After all, it’s a tiny place quite a long way from anywhere. However, now that just one of their volcanoes has erupted we find that northern Europe is basically set back 50 years in terms of travel and with no end in sight. Despite all the advances in modern technology (or rather because of them) there doesn’t seem to be any easy short term solution.

Will this make any difference to global warming? Yes, but probably not a whole lot but then this is just one volcano.

Listening to some people talk about how it’s affected them, it’s quite laughable how far they expect the airlines go in helping them. One lady on this morning was wailing about her severely disabled being stranded in Paris after a Eurodisney trip. The airline had provided accommodation for one night but said that was all they’d do. Presumably that one night was more than enough to sort out alternative travel arrangements: after all, Paris is pretty much the hub of the French travel system so there’s no shortage of means to get to and from it. The disability thing was stressed as medication was needed yet there’s no shortage of medicine, doctors or medical facilities in Paris. Granted, it’s a nuisance and a major one to be stranded like this but planes aren’t the only means of getting about and getting “stranded” in a major European city is hardly the disaster that some people make out.

Bookmark:

Surprisingly little change at Portrush

Arnold — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:19:22 +0000

When I was little the entire family including grandparents, aunts, uncles and all the associated children went to Portrush every Easter Monday but it’s been quite a long time since that procession set off and with the grandparents dead and most of the children having their own children what used to be three or four car loads of people was cut down to just one.

Quite surprisingly, for me anyway, the traffic wasn’t anywhere near as heavy as it had been when I was younger. In those days, whatever the weather, the end of the motorway signaled the start of the traffic buildup and there was always a tailback of several miles going into the town itself. Yesterday though there was relatively traffic the whole way and we were able to drive right into the town, parking just a few hundred yards from Barry’s, the amusement park.

For old times sake, we followed the traditional pilgrimage route from the car park, passing Barry’s before heading on down to the main street as far as The White House. The weather ruled out sandcastles on the beach but we had the usual session in Barry’s.

In these days of computer gaming everywhere, Barry’s has changed surprisingly little. The ghost train, dodgems and big dipper are still there and still in the same spot within the complex from the days when I was a child. If I could dig out an old photo of the place I suspect that the only way you’d be able to tell the difference would be from the clothing for little else seems to have changed. It’s the same for the town too. Not only the mix of the shops remains the same but the names of them too, or at least so far as I can remember.

Of course, that’s part of the reason for the lack of traffic jams. Sure, the kids loved Barry’s but, really, there was very little of interest for the adults. For a family resort, there needs to be attractions for all the family and that’s just not the case these days. Even worse, whilst the majority of the small shops don’t take cards, both the cash machines had run out of money by 11am.

Nice for a nostalgia trip, but it needs to do something if it wants to remain as a successful resort town.

Bookmark:

Picking up an RV at a sensible price

Arnold — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:00:24 +0000

If you’ve somewhere you can park it and you’re not too far from an area where RV vacations are suitable chances are that your thoughts have turned to the possibility of buying one at some point.

The problem that you’ll hit right away is that when you checking out the rv for sale adverts the money can seem totally crazy. Or at least it has done until recently.

Certainly the new RVs require some serious cash if you want to get a well equipped and reliable vehicle. But, with the economy still not doing too well existing owners are both putting their vehicles up for sale and trimming the prices too. That combination means that there’s a reasonable selection available and some decent vehicles for sale too which is a rare combination. Usually, RVs get sold when they’re pretty much at the end of their life which is obviously no good if you’re out to buy something that’ll last a fair number of years but at the moment you’ve the opportunity to pick up quite a bargain.

This chance won’t last too long so don’t be hanging about too long if you fancy an RV.

Bookmark:

More proactively promoting vacation rentals

Arnold — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:33:30 +0000

It’s nice to see that vacation rental accommodation is starting to attract higher profile vacation rental commercials these days. Sadly, many people miss out on this really excellent way of going on holiday through their habit of simply looking at hotels.

As the little video says, it’s quite often substantially cheaper to go on holiday in a vacation rental property (also known variously as villas, apartments, self-catering, cottages, and various other names) than it is to go to a hotel. To give you an idea of how substantial that difference can be, in our own holiday property we charged less than half the cost for an apartment when we rented it as a vacation rental compared to when we rented it as a hotel suite.

However, the cost is only part of the picture. Many of the properties listed on the likes of Vacation Rental.org are in idyllic spots that you’d never find a hotel and the accommodation is generally much, much larger than what you’d get in any kind of hotel regardless of the price you paid.

Anyway, here’s one of the first of what’ll hopefully be a series of high profile adverts for these properties:

Bookmark:

Stocking up in advance for the holidays

Arnold — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:24:54 +0000

Whilst we seem to be in the depths of winter if the weather over the last few days is anything to go by, this is also the very time of year that holiday planning needs doing if you want to pick up the best offers.

Some of those offers may turn out to be last minute deals though so it’s best to be prepared for those. Keeping a case packed with all the essentials really increases your opportunities though some items are pretty hard to come by this time of year. No problem with most snowgear of course but try finding a pair of Moda sunglasses and it’s a whole different matter.

Kind of crazy too as sunny holidays are a round the year deal these days. Even aside from the seriously long haul deals you can generally get to somewhere where you’re gonna need those sunglasses within a few hours flying time.

Bookmark: