Summer Airfare Bargains
The current worldwide financial crisis has had a significant negative impact on all of the US air carriers. Declining numbers of vacation travelers and less business travel have left the airlines with a significant reduction in passengers and increasing revenue losses.
The coming summer travel season is normally the busy time for airlines. It is usually the time when they increase their fares. This summer will be different. Southwest Airlines, the largest discount air carrier in the USA, has published significant fare reductions through the summer travel season. Most other airlines have countered with matching fare reductions. It appears that we can expect an air-fare price war this summer.
This is great news for vacation travelers. It means that bargain air fares are currently available. You can now fly coast-to-coast from New York to Los Angeles for only $120. You can fly from New York to Orlando Florida for less than $100. Even the overseas prices have plummeted during this normally high-priced summer travel season. Air fares to Europe are nearer to $500 or $600 for a round trip instead of the normal $900 to $1000 during the summer.
Mexico Travel Alert
The US State Department has issued a travel alert for visitors entering Mexico. Tourists are warned to stay away from the drug and prostitution areas in Mexican border cities. Many cities along the Mexico/USA border such as Tijuana and Nogales have been experiencing escalating drug wars with the use of automatic weapons and grenades becoming common. In 2008, there were over 6,000 drug related killings in Mexico.
Visitors are not prohibited from visiting Mexico, they are just advised to stay within the tourist areas and do not venture into the drug and prostitution related areas.
Body Scanners at Airport Security
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that it will begin using body scanners in place of metal detectors for airport screening. Effective immediately, airport security screeners in Tulsa, Oklahoma will begin using these new machines on a test basis. Within a few months, the airport security screeners at San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, Albuquerque and Salt Lake City will join the test and also use body scanners.
The new scanners require passengers to stand in the machine and raise their arms. The scanners use micro short-wave radio signals to penetrate clothing and reveal both metalic and non-metallic objects. The process takes about 30 seconds.
Privacy advocates fear that the images are too revealing of personal body parts. The TSA claims that the machines block out passenger faces and reveal only indistinct images of body parts. Anyone that objects to use of these new scanner will be permitted to refuse, but they must then pass through a metal detector and undergo a manual pat down.
The future has arrived! Technological strip searches are becoming part of daily life.
Las Vegas Bargains
I just returned from a business trip to Las Vegas. I was suprised by the low number of tourists in Sin City. This economic downturn has had a severe negative impact on las Vegas.
The casinos are offering some really great bargains in order to attract more players. Flamingo, which is a bit older but still located in the heart of the most popular part of the Strip, was offering rooms for as low as $30 per night. Even Mandalay Bay, one of the newer an more expensive hotels, was offering its $250 rooms at a bargain price of $100 per night just to entice more visitors.
The restaurants were half empty. The popular show tickets, that are usually hard to get unless you reserve in advace, were readily available and even discounted in many cases, Taxis were lined up by the hundreds at every casino entrance waiting for the few tourists needing them. Worst of all, for the casinos, the gambling tables were more than half empty.
This is a great time to go to Las Vegas for a bargain vacation. The weather is still a bit cool, but I was able to walk outside in a short-sleeve shirt during the afternoon, although a sweater or jacket was essential after dark. You can easily find hotel rooms at bargain prices. You will have no wait at the top restaurants. You can see the best shows.
Severe Winter Weather
Bitter cold temperatures, heavy snow and high winds have combined to make the winter weather very unpleasant in most of the northern half of the United States and even in some of the southern areas normally immune from such harsh conditions.
All across the northern half of the USA, bitter cold and high winds have combined with snowfall to produce hazardous driving conditions. This is typical December weather for Montana and the Dakotas and is not uncommon in Chicago. It is, however, highly unusual for Seattle and the coastal cities to receive more than a bit of snow or to rarely achieve below-freezing temperatures. This week ,Seattle was blanketed with about 10 cm of snowfall and bitter cold temperatures. This band of cold, windy and snowy weather extends all the way to the East Coast where it plagues Boston and the New England states.
Even Las Vegas, in the low desert of Nevada where snow rarely falls, received more than ten centimeters of snow. Such unusual weather can be a nightmare for drivers. Cities that are acustomed to such weather like Chicago and Boston have adequate equipment and facilities to quickly clear snow from roads and airports. Cities like Las Vegas and Seattle, that seldom experience such conditions, have little snow handling equipment and few emergency vehicles to handle severe winter snowfalls. Both Seattle and Las Vegas were forced to close their airports and major highways for several days while they attempted to cope with this unusual weather, but they are now reopened.
Visa Waiver Travel Extended
President Bush recently announced that the visa waiver program, for travel to the USA without a visa, will be extended to seven more countries. There are currently 27 countries in the visa waiver program that allows its residents to visit the USA for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa. By mid November 2008, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, South Korea and Slovakia will join that list.
Residents from these seven countries will be able to visit the USA for up to 90 days without a visa as long as they posess a biometric passport and they register online through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).
This new online travel registration system is now fully active, and available for all visa waiver visitors to the USA. So far, it has been a voluntary convenience, but in January of 2009 it will become mandatory for all visa waiver visitors.
You can get information about ESTA in nine languages at this US Customs and Border Patrol webpage.
Visas for HIV Positive Travelers
The US Department of Homeland Security has finally issued a new set of rules governing the issuance of visas for travelers infected with the Human Immunodefficiency Virus (HIV). This new regulation streamlines the process of obtaining a short-term visitors visa to visit the USA.
Previously, persons infected with HIV were denied access to the USA unless they obtained a special individual waiver from the Department of Homeland Security. Now, anyone infected with HIV that meets all the other visitor qualifications, can obtain a visitor's visa from the US consulate in their home country. This should make the process much more convenient and rapid.
Texas Hurricane Damage
Last week, Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast near the port city of Galveston. This immense category 3 hurricane caused widespread damage to Galveston and nearby coastal communities with lesser damage to the city of Houston just 35 miles inland. Most other Texas cities were spared from serious damage.
For tourists traveling to Texas, it should not cause great inconvenience. The airport at Houston is open and the city is slowly cleaning up the debris, A few streets and roads will remain closed for a few days until the waters slowly recede. On the other hand, Galveston will be completely closed to visitors for some weeks while aid workers attempt to deal with the widespread destruction. The Houston NASA Space Center, which is situated near Galvaston, is temporarily closed to visitors.
Other Texas cities, such as Dallas, San Antonio and Austin have been little affected by Hurricane Ike.
Indian Village Flooded
The Havasupai Indian Tribe's acestral village of Supai is located within the Grand Canyon. It is one of the most inaccessible and most beautiful places in the USA. Supai is located over 8 miles (13 km) from the nearest road and over 3000 feet (1000 m) down into the Grand Canyon. You can reach it only by hiking into the canyon, by riding a mule or horse down the trail, or via helicopter. It is the only place in the USA where the daily mail is delivered by mules.
This ancestral home of the Havasupai Indian Tribe is incredibly beautiful. Canyon walls of red and pink sandstone tower several thousand feet on either side of the narrow gorge. Rivers of crystal clear water plummet over lofty waterfalls into brilliantly azure-tinted pools. It looks like the landscape was especially designed as a paradise for photographers.
Unfortunately, this paradise was flooded and the village of Supai severely damaged by a deluge from severe thunderstorms. Nearly 400 natives and a number of tourists had to be evacuated by helicopters last week as the waters rose in the narrow canyon. The rains have finally abated and the waters receded enough to allow some of the inhabitants to return to their damaged homes.
Now, they must begin the process of cleaning up and repairing all of the destruction. The trail into the village has been damaged and some of the bridges destroyed. It may take a while before this beautiful and nearly inaccessible attraction is once again open for tourists.
New Visa Waiver website
The new Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) is now active. If you live in a visa waiver country, and intend to visit the USA without a visa, you no longer need to fill out a I-94 form on the airplane. You can go online to the US Homeland Security webpage and obtain your entry authorization before you depart.
For now, this convenient method is optional. On January 1, 2009, it will be mandatory to obtain your entry authorization on line at least three days before you depart. Once you obtain an authorization, it will be valid for two years.