Boarding Pass

Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 395th issue of your monthly overseas travel magazine.

Some of you are seeing ITN for the first time. Someone you know may have asked us to send you a free sample copy. Take a look at the many letters and articles in this issue, most written by ITN subscribers, themselves — people who love travel and want to share what they’ve found with others — and then consider participating. Write in with any helpful tricks of travel.

ITN also keeps its readers apprised of travel news, like the following.

The rate of violent crime is up throughout Ecuador. In response, police are setting up more checkpoints to be sure drivers each have a driver’s license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance, plus license plates on the car. Foreign visitors also need a passport.

Also, the US Embassy in Quito advises people to use ATMs that are in highly public areas like shopping malls, rather than dispensers on the street, and to not withdraw large amounts of money. Criminals have been going after people using ATMs at banks.

In France on Nov. 8, more than 160 TGV trains traveling between Paris, London, Brussels, southern France and Northern Europe were canceled or delayed because the power lines had been disabled by saboteurs. Iron bars had been placed on the overhead cables, neutralizing them, at four points near Paris.

Authorities said no group had claimed responsibility but that it was clearly a well-organized attack. The perpetrators knew that no one would be injured but thousands would be inconvenienced, making headlines.

The use of body-scanning machines — which allow airport security personnel to see through clothing and potentially spot weapons or wires — is catching on in the US, but the European Union’s Parliament has voted to hold off introducing the booths, for the time being.

Citing concerns over fundamental human rights to privacy, they recommended further assessment of the technology and its economic impact on the travel industry before allowing implementation.

Even if the EU accepts their use, Germany’s interior ministry says the scanners will never be installed in German airports. France, Netherlands and Britain currently are using or trialing the booths.

Will the US follow? Canada in September addressed a facet of flight delays by passing a passengers’ bill of rights.

Passengers on a flight that is delayed for four hours are to receive food vouchers, and those delayed eight hours can get hotel vouchers. Passengers who board a plane which then sits on the tarmac for 90 minutes can demand to get off.

On May 20, 2007, a fire aboard the 19th-century Cutty Sark, docked at Greenwich in southeast London, caused about $20 million in damage. An investigation has determined that the fire started because renovation workers left a vacuum cleaner running over a weekend. . . and two security guards did not patrol the ship properly.

This issue of ITN may be a “keeper” for independent travelers (not that all issues aren’t keepers).

ITN prints readers’ recommendations of hotels, B&Bs, apartments, etc., ranging from budget on up to luxury establishments. Most fall somewhere in the middle, of course.

Every once in a while a traveler writes in requesting that we print more readers’ comments on specific very low-cost hotels. When I answer, I ask that they suggest a few of their own from a recent trip or their next trip. I wish they would write back; they have just the type of information that other budget travelers want.

It occurred to me that I could do the next best thing for ITN readers and ask independent travelers to explain how they find a suitable room in a place they’ve never been to before. The results are in this issue, and the advice is detailed and inspiring.

It so happens that in this issue we also have part one of Contributing Editor Philip Wagenaar’s series on finding accommodations in France — again, quite thorough and instructive.

One thing Philip cautions — when paying for a room or sending a deposit via the Internet, do NOT send credit card information to an unsecured website. The same goes for e-mail, of course, which never is secure.

An ITN staffer, however, explained that she sometimes will send part of a credit card number and info in one e-mail and the rest of the number in a separate e-mail. This may foil any scammer out there who is skimming the Internet for credit card numbers by using an automated filter that searches for a certain number of digits.

Also, every time an e-mail is sent, it goes through a different chain of servers. Since there are millions of servers through which e-mails get routed, the route changes moment by moment. The chances that her two e-mails will take the same route, one being monitored by the skimmer, are extremely small.

We’re slowly adding to the ITN website. We have posted the feature articles and readers’ letters printed in every issue from the years 2005 through 2007. This is helping ITN to show up in the top eight results when people Google “travel news” or “international travel.”

Also, we’ve recently made the ITN Report Cards form a little more logical and focused, so no important info will be left out.

Jump onto the Message Board at any time to read (unedited) trip reports and post your own or to ask or answer travel questions. This forum is continually active.

And this year we will be posting the Tourist Office Directory online rather than in the January issue. This is the list of countries (excluding those in North America and the Caribbean) that have tourist offices in the US, with contact info for each office.

Those of you who are not online can have the directory mailed to you for $2.50, same as with article reprints and the ITN Reference Index (a summary of all articles, letters and news items in a year’s worth of issues).

A year and a half ago we introduced the ITN Visited All of Africa Award and the African Nations Award. However, unlike with the other ITN travel awards (Seven Continents, All South America, etc.), we have had very few applications for either of these certificates.

This month we’re making one of them more within reach, although it’s still no easy task. We’re ditching the African Nations Award, which required visiting three-fourths of the countries in Africa, and introducing the Half of Africa Award, which requires your setting foot on 27 of that continent’s countries before qualifying. Have you done it?

Lastly, I have this note from subscriber Anne Warburton of Yorba Linda, California: “I thought ITN might post the UNICEF address for those returning to the US with leftover foreign change in their pockets so that children throughout the world might benefit from it. We just received a ‘Thank you’ letter from them with a new address: Change For Good Program, US Fund for UNICEF, 125 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038.”

Don’t toss all your coins in the fountain. — David Tykol, Editor