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November 2005 issue

Whittle while you wait

What do you do to pass the time in an airport waiting for a flight? Have any suggestions to make the interval more pleasant? ITN asked readers those questions and printed some of their responses in the May ‘05 issue. More ideas have come in and we are presenting them here.

If you have any tips to contribute (photos with captions welcome), write to Whittle While You Wait, c/o ITN, 2116 28th St., Sacramentro, CA 95818, or e-mail editor@intltravelnews.com (please include the address at which you receive ITN).

I was very surprised to read the “Whittle While You Wait” letters in...

March 2006 issue

To help clothes dry

To limit luggage to “carry-on” only when traveling over an extended period, I pack three shirts, three sets of underwear and three pairs of socks and wash soiled items nightly. Washing is easy, but wringing sufficient water from my wash has been a problem. I now extract water using a lettuce spinner. This method removes sufficient water to eliminate dripping when I hang the clothes to dry.

A lettuce spinner in one’s suitcase doesn’t present a space problem, as it can be filled with small items and thus uses very little more space than the small items by themselves.

One note...

October 2006 issue

Germany’s night watchmen

Many German towns have night watchmen. In Dinkelsbühl in June ’05, we joined a group following the costumed Jakob Hamerslag as he made his evening rounds from one restaurant to the next. At each one he tooted his horn, sang his song and was offered a glass of white or red Franconian wine by a smiling waitress.

This nightly medieval ritual was free. And there was a bonus: at later stops, the large wine glass was passed among his followers. One toot of the horn meant he wanted wine; two toots signified apple juice. Fortunately for us, Hamerslag was on a “one-toot” patrol.

A...

December 2006 issue

Sweet Confections: Kopinko, Hopjes and Chocolate

Kopinko in SE Asia

A wonderful and intense-flavored coffee drop named Kopinko is made in Indonesia but is available in Thailand as well as Vietnam. We bought as much as we could carry in January ’05. A fellow traveler who had lived in Thailand clued us in.

The deep flavor is not to be believed. A 150-gram bag cost about 70¢ in Vietnam; larger bags were a better value.

SKIP SIEGEL West Bloomfield, MI

Dutch Hopjes

Although we have found wonderful chocolates in various places in Europe and even at a chocolate factory in Vladivostok in the Russian Far...

September 2005 issue

Driving in Italy

For a November ’04 trip in Italy (July ’05, pg. 55), we short-leased (this is different from a rental) a brand-new Peugeot 407 from Auto France (Wood-Ridge, NJ; 800/572-9655 or www.autofrance.net) for a total cost of $1,329 for 18 days, and that cost was comparable to a straight rental. The cost would have been $310 less had we picked up the car in France, but it included all insurance and all the warranties that we would have gotten with a rental.

It was delivered to us at Milan’s Malpensa Airport when we arrived, and we returned it to the airport the day we departed. We had leased...

June 2006 issue

Learning tango in BA

Tango in its various forms became a focal point of our December ’04 journey to Buenos Aires, Argentina. We have always enjoyed watching tango dancers and listening to tango music. We sought out tango lessons and tango salons, tango in the streets and tango in theater performances. And we never got our fill, as there are so many varieties. We decided that we did not want to do the usual tourist thing — a dinner show with professional tango dancers — but wanted to seek out Porteños (B.A. residents) dancing.

The second evening we were there, we read in Time Out Buenos Aires that we...

November 2006 issue

London walking tours

Besides walking a great deal on our own, on a June visit to London we took two guided walks with The Original London Walks (P.O. Box 1708, London, NW6 4LW, U.K.; phone 020 7624 3978 or 020 7794 1764 or visit www.walks.com. Recorded info at 020 7624 9255). They have an extensive list of all types of walks plus a list of the guides and descriptions of their backgrounds.

To go on a walk, just go to the designated underground stop, meet your guide and pay £6 (or £5 for those 65-plus). Walks generally take two hours. We took the “Along the Thames Pub Walk” and “Secret London.” I was...

October 2006 issue

On pins and needles

In traveling, I have found it useful to use a string of safety pins and diaper pins in my travel purse to keep track of small items like keys and nail clippers and for many emergency uses.

On a March ’06 flight leaving Flores, Guatemala, where all hand luggage was hand inspected (no x-ray), the young woman pulled out the pins. Opening one, she poked her hand and shook her head “no.” She would not allow even small safety pins in my hand luggage!

In Guatemala City, another member of our group had her small sewing kit taken, not because of the safety pins or scissors but because...