Travel Security
by Reena Ganga (RSS feed) (1 day ago)
When I meet people who tell me they've never flown on an airplane or stepped foot outside their home state, I'm always a little taken aback. In this day and age when travel is so accessible, affordable and commonplace, it's amazing that there are still so many travel ...
by Chris Owen (RSS feed) (11 days ago)
Carnival Triumph was nearing the end of a four-night cruise when an engine room fire stopped the ship, about 150 miles off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Without propulsion and running on only backup generator power, Carnival Triumph will be towed to closest port where ...
by Reena Ganga (RSS feed) (15 days ago)
News of the death of an American woman vacationing in Turkey made headlines across the country, but her tragic death also raises an important question because the mother of two – who was missing for nearly two weeks before police found her body over the weekend – ...
by Laurel Miller (RSS feed) (19 days ago)
Last week's arrest of diaper-wearing cocaine smugglers at JFK proved more laughable than horrifying to those not directly involved. Drug busts are in the media so often, we rarely pay attention to them. They're certainly not something I care about.
Yet, I've recently ...
by Chris Owen (RSS feed) (26 days ago)
Browse, Book and Start Making Friends are the three steps needed to use WeHostels, a new iPhone travel app that is about as easy as it gets to book a no-frills place to sleep for the night. Like a HotelTonight for hostels, WeHostels has some unique features worth a look.
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by Reena Ganga (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Greek authorities have been cracking down on illegal immigrants to the country but a number of tourists have been detained as part of the sweep. Some of the travelers have even been beaten so badly by police that they ended up in the hospital, according to the BBC.
Greek ...
by Chris Owen (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Costa Concordia sailed aground off the coast of Italy one year ago this Sunday. Today, the ship sits off the coast of Italy where it ran aground on Friday, January 13, 2012, taking the lives of 32 passengers in the process. Ongoing work is underway to remove the grounded ...
by McLean Robbins (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
If you were making a list of things to take with you on a plane, chances are a World War II-era bazooka round would not be one of them. The TSA would like to keep it that way.
The security agency periodically issues memos to travelers via its blog about items found during ...
by McLean Robbins (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
New data show good news for panicky travelers: commercial flights in 2012 were safer than ever before. The Wall Street Journal published a large article detailing advances in flight safety and analyzing crash data, which shows that commercial flying is the safest it has been ...
by Chris Owen (RSS feed) (2 months ago)
Travel via cruise ship has a number of advantages. For one example, you can unpack once but visit multiple destinations on a floating hotel. Doing so safely is another, causing cruise lines to constantly consider life as it is at ports of call around the world. What was ...
by Chris Owen (RSS feed) (2 months ago)
Cutting down on the hassle of flying internationally, the No-Hassle Flying Act of 2012 aims to eliminate excessive security screening of connecting baggage at U.S. airports. Currently, checked baggage on all inbound international flights has to be re-screened before being ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (2 months ago)
Will Iraq become the next big adventure travel destination?
Short answer: Not yet.
Long answer:
At the moment most of Iraq is closed to solo travel. The Iraqi government has authorized only a few group tour companies such as Hinterland Travel and Babel Tours. ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (2 months ago)
I am alone in Baghdad. After a farewell dinner and a visit to an Iraqi amusement park my travel companions have left for the airport. Our guards from the Interior Ministry have gone off to other duties and I'm staying unguarded in my hotel. I don't fly out until tomorrow. ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (2 months ago)
Families out for an evening stroll, friends sipping coffee at sidewalk cafes, tourists seeing the sights without a police escort – am I still in Iraq?
Sort of.
I'm in Kurdistan, an autonomous region made up of Iraq's three northernmost provinces. The Kurds ...
by Chris Owen (RSS feed) (2 months ago)
Troubled with crime, Mexico has been on the bad list of places to visit for quite some time. But the situation is improving. Murders of U.S. citizens are down. Drug-related violence seems limited to isolated areas of the country. But a new warning issued by the U.S. ...
by Chris Owen (RSS feed) (2 months ago)
Safety and security tips for travelers often include common sense advice like not carrying a lot of cash, protecting valuable documents and not wearing expensive jewelry in public. But while taking precautions is good, knowing what scams or traps are set and waiting for ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
We'd been on the road in Iraq for a week, and after inhaling ten pounds of desert sand each, we really needed a beer. Luckily we were in Basra, and our tour leader Geoff knew a good place to buy liquor under the counter. So after a day of seeing the historic quarter and ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
One of the first things you notice when traveling in Iraq are the blast walls. These giant concrete barriers are everywhere – in front of government buildings, schools, mosques and dividing Shia from Sunni neighborhoods. They remind me of the "peace walls" put up in ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
We heard our first gunshots a week into our trip. We were resting after a long drive in our Baghdad hotel when shots crackled through the night. Anyone who was sleeping immediately got up. Nothing wakes you up quicker than gunshots in Iraq.
Insurgency? Sectarian ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (3 months ago)
All I wanted was to buy an Iraq National Football Team uniform for my son, a perfectly normal thing for a father to do on his first day in Baghdad. The problem is, doing something normal in Baghdad can land you in serious trouble.
We were in one of the city's many ...
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