After starring at an amateur talent show, Big Al Ernst has built a career as a cruise ship comedian on Carnival.
My new favorite Starbucks is in Berlin, Germany. Twice in a week of January I sipped morning coffee and picked at a chocolate chip muffin in front of a big picture window facing the Brandenburg Gate. In the mornings, before 9, the Gate was mine. The morning sun lighted the Quadriga atop the city’s famed…
With all the news about U.S. airlines charging a fee for your checked luggage, it may come as a surprise to you that many flyers don't pay a nickle for that service. They check their bag — or bags — for free, sometimes even luggage that is over the 50-pound limit. You don't think that…
I am in Houston for the annual convention of the Society of American Travel Writers. SATW is a group of writers, editors, photographers, and audio and video folks who travel the world, relaying their reports to other travelers, as well as many readers and viewers who seldom leave their armchairs. I have been writing about…
For anyone living east of the Mississippi, Port Townsend is a long way to go for ice cream. This laid back seaside community on Washington's Olympic Peninsula — a ferry ride and a 75-minute drive from Seattle — is a popular vacation and retirement area for folks who like their lives casual and outdoors. The…
If you are lucky enough to be traveling in Stockholm, Sweden, through July 20, stop for few laughs in the downtown public square called Kungstradgarden. The snickers are coming from Doug Lansky's Signspotting Project as thousands of locals and travelers pass his outdoor exhibit each day. Lansky, 38, at right in Stockholm, is an American…
I am a jet setter, one of the most traveled travel bloggers on the Internet. So says Jetsetter, a new interactive program on Facebook that keeps track of how many miles you travel each year and supervises distance competitions among friends. I logged each of my trips. Jetsetter added them up. In a contest among…
Our van of volunteers arrived in New Orleans’ old Treme neighborhood on a cool April morning made for manual labor. We were assigned hammers and paint brushes at 2030 St. Ann Street, called a shotgun house because rooms follow one after the other from front to back without a hallway or unnecessary walls that would…
New Orleans can play tricks on the conscience. In the classic best-of-times, worst-of-times, two different cities sit here, though visitors can explore one city without ever touching the other. One New Orleans contains the residential areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and they are mere skeletons of their days before August 2005, though in some neighborhoods,…
Learned a lesson on a recent road trip to Washington, D.C. Keep a copy of your auto insurance card — with the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) — in your wallet. If your car has never had its locks changed, an auto dealer can issue you a new key. The insurance card was essential when I…