Hard to believe, I know, but my favorite hotel night this year was at The Great Wolf Lodge in Scotrun, PA. Hey, when the kids are happy, I'm happy.

by Wendy Perrin

It's time to wrap up 2007 by sharing my best and worst travel experiences of the year. Perhaps you can benefit by learning from both my good fortune and my worst mistakes.

BEST HOTEL NIGHT:
The Great Wolf Lodge, Pocono Mountains, PA.
Before kids, I wouldn't have come within ten feet of an indoor waterpark resort. For an exhausted mother of two inexhaustible young boys, however, it's what the doctor ordered. (That's Doug in the pic below.)  There are ten Great Wolf Lodges around the country; we chose the one closest. I could list the many child friendly touches such as the abundance of conscientious lifeguards, the bedtime stories in the lobby, the kids' buffet, and the childproof room design, but here's what really made it parent friendly: By day's end the boys were so worn out that they were asleep in bed by 8:00.  Now that's what I call vacation.

WORST HOTEL NIGHT:
The Pudi Boutique Hotel, Shanghai, China
At a brand-new five star property in a futuristic city where business is so booming it's practically on steroids, there is no excuse for rooms lacking WiFi.  Imagine my frustration when I arrived at 11:30 pm desperately needing to email a document from my laptop to my office, I plugged my universal plug adapter into the electrical outlet (the same adapter that worked in every other hotel room in China), and it blew out the power in my room, leaving me in total darkness with no electricity (meaning, no phone with which to call for help).  I walked down to the front desk, got the hotel engineer to come . . . and he managed to blow the fuse twice again. He eventually brought a different plug adapter, but that didn't solve the no-WiFi problem.  When I tried connecting by wire and still couldn't get on the Internet, the engineer wanted to go into my computer and change the IP address (if you're in Conde Nast's Tech Support Dept. you know what a disaster that would have been). I switched hotels the next morning ... to a little three-star inn nearby where my laptop connected just fine.

BEST DEVICE FOR STAYING CONNECTED:
Palm Treo with AT&T service
I could not have survived 2007 without wireless email in the palm of my hand.  I had it 24/7 -- whether I was on a train in China, at an ancient ruin in Algeria, on a ship hugging the coastline of Spain, or in the mountains of St. Lucia --  thanks to my Treo 650.  The 650 is a dinosaur, I know, but it fits like an old glove.  True, I could gripe about the phone sound -- which is often weak and unclear -- and the Internet access -- which is slow and incomplete. But that's why I also carry a SYNC by Samsung phone, also with AT&T service. I use it not for email but when I need strong, clear sound quality or need to get on the Web.  For some reason, even though the service provider for both is AT&T, there are a few spots around the world where the Treo works but the SYNC doesn't, or the SYNC works but the Treo doesn't. Between the two of them, though, I can always reach my kids to sing them their bedtime songs, no matter what time zone I'm in.

WORST TRAVEL SNAG:
When our Dream Trip winner's ship sank
Remember that ship that sank in Antarctica over Thanksgiving? That's the ship that Gene Pembroke, the winner of Conde Nast Traveler's Dream Trip Contest, was supposed to board this coming Friday for his Antarctic cruise. Since it's my job to make sure his $20,000 dream trip does indeed turn out to be a dream and not a nightmare, I had to scramble to get Gene and his girlfriend Arlene booked onto another ship sailing out of the same port around the same time -- no easy feat, considering that Antarctic cruises sell out a year in advance and that everyone else who was booked on the sunken ship was also looking for a replacement. Well, I got Gene and Arlene onto a great ship that sails out of Ushaia, Argentina, on Wednesday (yes, the day after tomorrow). Then the latest potential snag hit:  Argentina decided, at the last minute, to introduce daylight savings time starting yesterday. There have been a slew of international flight changes with little advance notice, including Gene's flight tomorrow from Rio to Buenos Aires. It's now leaving an hour early.  If he misses it, he'll miss the cruise!  So at this moment he's in Rio, celebrating New Year's Eve on Copacabana Beach, while I'm home spending New Year's Eve trying to reach him on his cell phone. Correction: MY cell phone. I leant him my SYNC for his trip, in case of emergencies like this one. God, I hope he gets my messages.
Update on Jan 1 at 12:30 pm: The SYNC saved the day!  Gene got my messages, and he and Arlene are happily en route from Rio to Buenos Aires on Aerolineas Argentinas. What a relief!  Starting next week, Gene will be guest blogging here, by the way, as he continues his dream trip traveling the length of South America from tip to toe.

More bests and worsts, after the jump.

Note from Wendy: Please join me in welcoming Barbara S. Peterson to the blog. Barbara is a senior correspondent here at Conde Nast Traveler and already a legend, thanks in part to her stint as an airport screener. Barbara, the blog is yours.

by Barbara S. Peterson

The demise of MAXjet did more than strand hundreds of passengers on both sides of the pond on Christmas Eve. It set off a holiday-size wave of hyperbole, with analysts seizing on this latest airline failure to forecast everything from the death of the independent all-business-class airline to a new wave of bankruptcies and mergers--at the end of which, it seems, two or three monster airlines will be left standing.    

This is nothing new, of course: Remember Regent Air? MGM Grand? Legend? All hewed to the oxymoronic "upscale upstart" model that MAXjet attempted on an international scale, and when they failed, the pundits also predicted that there would be no more of their ilk and that the big guys had won.

by Brook Wilkinson

Did you know that a motorized personal watercraft (a.k.a. a Jet Ski) creates as much pollution in one day as driving 100,000 miles in a car? Sure, it may be tons of fun to blast over the waves, but is it really worth that much damage to the environment?

In a Green Travel Handbook published in Conde Nast Traveler's December issue -- on newsstands now -- three ecotourism experts weighed in on the environmental toll of several popular leisure pursuits, from riding ATVs (acceptable in some situations) to big-game hunting (fine as long as done lawfully, and pursuing a species without natural predators). You'll only find this chart in the magazine, but you can read the rest of our Green Travel Handbook online.

Hero driver, on the track in an Aston Martin DB9.  For $5,000, this could be you.
Photo: Supercar Life

by Stephan Wilkinson

It's all very nice to rent a supercar from one of the proliferating upscale services such as Gotham Dream Cars, about which I blogged recently, but then what?  After you're through showing "your" temporary Ferrari or Aston Martin to the neighbors and wowing your sigother, you're out on the highway bound by the same speed limits, laws and simple commonsense that fetters every Toyota Corolla commuter.  Wouldn't it be nice if you had a race course where you could open up that whip legally, take it well into triple-digit speeds, corner on the limit and drive it like you stole it?

You, pal, need to talk to a new company called Supercar Life.  They own 10 of the world?s most exotic two-seaters -- Ferrari F430, Lamborghini Gallardo, Porsche 911 Turbo, Aston Martin DB9 and Mercedes-Benz CLK63 AMG Black Series, two of each -- and for $5,000, they?ll let you spend an entire day driving each of them on a track.  And that five grand includes luxury-hotel accommodations, meals, airport ground transfers, pro-driver instruction and an in-car video of you making like Michael Schumacher.  (Having been subjected to racetrack videos by various brothers and friends, I can tell you that if you have a DVD player at the office, the put-your-coworkers-to-sleep potential is enormous.)

Here's the deal:

That's me in front of Angkor Wat on Monday, December 3, 2007.

by Brook Wilkinson

While I was on assignment in Cambodia earlier this month, I learned about a great organization that is working to preserve that country's cultural treasures: Heritage Watch. Started by archaeologist Dougald O'Reilly, Heritage Watch has spent the past five years campaigning against antiquities looting -- and, more recently, for responsible tourism. I was struck by the lack of guidance at Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples -- there are few signs telling you where to go or not go, what to touch or not touch. But as Dr. O'Reilly told me, their unrestricted access is one of the charming things about the sites, and "the onus is on the people visiting to be responsible themselves."

How can you help preserve Cambodia's relics? Read on to find out.

Now that's a propeller (one of the two slow-turning
six-bladers on an Air New Zealand ATR 72-500).
Photo: ATR

by Stephan Wilkinson

You know what really gripes me? Passengers on a turboprop commuterliner who whine loudly about being stuck on "this little puddlejumper." I was aboard a big, powerful, well-designed Italian ATR 42 a while ago when some jerk boarded and loudly cell-phoned his wife to report that he'd be home in three days since he was on "some damn prop plane." The passengers who overheard him -- hard not to -- all laughed in sympathy.

What am I, chopped liver for having enjoyed piloting airplanes with propellers for 40 years? Please. Propellers work just fine. When you look into the front of a 747 engine as you're debarking and you see that big fanlike thing slowly twisting in the wind, clack-clack-clacking as the blades rattle in their housings, that's basically a propeller: The main difference is that it has lots of blades and is inside a duct, otherwise known as a nacelle.

The best of today's turboprop short-haul airplanes have the horsepower of World War II four-engine heavy bombers and twice their speed and altitude capability. Turboprops have real jet engines -- turboprop as in turbine -- though the power is used to spin enormous propellers rather than turning a fan and blasting hot gases out the exhaust nozzle.

But I'm about to have my revenge.

How best to see the Scottish Highlands? Susie Worthy knows.
Photo: Medioimages, Photodisc, Getty Images

by Brook Wilkinson

Question from reader Maxfratoddi:

"I have tried three times to get in touch with Susie Worthy of The Noteworthy Group, one of the travel planners on your annual list. I have gotten no response whatsoever. Do you have another recommendation for Scotland?"

When I saw this comment on the blog a few days ago, I was a bit worried. We expect the planners who we recommend to respond promptly to our readers. If they don't, they're taken off the list.

But every once in a while, the mysterious powers that rule the e-mail universe override the best intentions of a good planner. That's what happened in this case -- Susie tried to e-mail Maxfratoddi five times, but every time her e-mail was rejected by his service provider.

The solution? Include your phone number in your introductory e-mail to a travel planner. And if you don't hear back in a day or two, pick up the phone. We strongly recommend that you and the travel planner have a phone conversation early in your relationship anyway -- it's the only way that the planner can truly understand your personality and what you hope to get out of the trip. After that, much of the work can be done through e-mail.

This, in fact, is one of the seven tips that Wendy and I include with our list of top travel planners every year. For the rest of our advice on how best to utilize a planner, read on.

A cruise ship arriving in Istanbul, seen from the Dolmabahce Palace.
Photo: Brigitte Lacombe, Conde Nast Traveler

by Brook Wilkinson

Question from reader Mguyor:

"We are flying into Istanbul and out of Rome for a cruise. For both cities, can you tell me how far it is from the airport to the hotel district and from there to the seaport, and recommend a few four-star hotels and perhaps a tour operator for each?"

I sure can. For Istanbul, I'd suggest that you contact Karen Fedorko of Sea Song Tours, who's based in that city (fedorko@seasong.com). She tells me that the following four-star hotels are about 45 minutes from the airport, and 15 to 20 minutes from the port: the Marmara Pera in the Beyoglu district, the Nippon Hotel in Taxim, and the Lamartine in Taxim. Karen can arrange all sorts of things for your precruise stay. In fact, we wrote about the private dinner in the Topkapi Palace's Imperial Room -- which is normally reserved for the prime minister and his guests -- that Karen can set up in Conde Nast Traveler's 2007 Dream List, which you can find in our December issue.

Click below for advice on Italy.

Not a bad car. In fact, a very good car.
Photo: Chevrolet

by Stephan Wilkinson

The most controversial car in the country right now is the new Chevrolet Malibu.  Not because it's an arrogant, antisocial SUV or a pious, counterculture icon but because it's a straightforward, middle-of-the-road, midsize, economical, fairly basic, four-door, $19,995 sedan.  A Detroit sedan.

Detroit hasn't produced many of these recently.  There's a good Ford that too few people are aware of, since it was introduced with a small flurry as the Ford Five Hundred but then the marketing experts decided to rename it the Ford Taurus (wait, wasn't that the dreadful rental car?) and now we know it, if we do at all, as the "new Taurus."

We used to make sedans like the Malibu all the time. Every so many years, Dad went down to either the Chevy or Ford dealer, occasionally the Plymouth store, and bought the family a new Detroit sedan.  Those were the days when Mercedes-Benzes were sold as a sideline by Studebaker, Jaguars and BMWs were imported by the hundreds, and "made in Japan" was a joke. Detroit made Cars. The rest of the world made Morrises, Opels, Renaults and Toyopets.  Feh.

But why is the Malibu controversial?

Olga over the eastern tip of the Dominican Republic, Dec. 11, 2007.
Photo: NOAA Caribbean

by Wendy Perrin

Two cruise news items yesterday -- Subtropical Storm Olga's effect on ships in the Caribbean and the cruise-ship collision off Uruguay--highlight one of the big advantages, and at the same time one of the big drawbacks, of vacationing at sea: Ships often change their itineraries at the last minute. 

This is a good thing if it means you can easily skirt bad weather or unforeseen nasty situations in places along your itinerary. But it's a bad thing if you chose a cruise because you wanted to see specific places and then you find out midway through your trip that you won't be seeing them and you're owed nothing in the way of a refund.

Yesterday Norwegian Cruise Lines' Norwegian Dream collided with a barge in the harbor of Montevideo, Uruguay. As I read on Cruise Critic -- one of my favorite sources of cruise info -- this stranded both the Norwegian Dream and Celebrity Cruises' Infinity in Montevideo harbor, and it halted Orient Lines' Marco Polo outside the entrance to the harbor. So far, two of the three ships had to change their itinerary: The Marco Polo skipped Montevideo, heading straight to Buenos Aires, and the Norwegian Dream canceled stops at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands and Puerto Madryn in Argentina. Norwegian Cruise Line gave its passengers a $150 shipboard credit to make up for the two missed ports. That's nice, I guess -- given that cruise lines are not obligated to compensate passengers for skipped ports -- but if I were on a cruise around Cape Horn and had to miss both the Falkland Islands and Argentine Patagonia, it would take a helluva lot more than $150 worth of shipboard margaritas to make me feel whole again.

Don't try to get souvenirs made from endangered plants or animals past these guys.
Photo: Gerald Nino, U.S. Customs and Border Protection

by Brook Wilkinson

Buying local crafts is a great way for travelers to support the local economy. But there's one big catch: Some objects that are legal for sale in foreign countries are in fact illegal here in the U.S., often because they're made from endangered animals or plants. Here's a list of souvenirs that could earn you a hefty fine -- or even jail time -- based on an article written by Sallie Brady in Conde Nast Traveler's October 2007 issue.

Asia
Don't buy ivory carvings, shahtoosh shawls (which are made from the endangered Tibetan antelope), butterflies, coral, reptile skins, or traditional medicines or aphrodisiacs that contain animal products.

China: The export of cultural property without proper documentation and permits is prohibited.

Indonesia: Don't buy products made from green or hawksbill turtles.

Thailand: Don't buy looted Tibetan artifacts and Cambodian Khmer tomb sculptures commonly sold in Bangkok.

For no-fly souvenir lists from the rest of the world, read on.

Should we turn EMTs into vigilantes?

by Stephan Wilkinson

No fooling, there is actually an academic journal called Homeland Security Affairs, published by the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. (Does anybody else out there think that lame word "homeland" suggests we're guarding some gated condo development?) A scholarly paper in a recent issue discusses the suggestion that the government use emergency medical service personnel--paramedics, EMTs, and first responders--as "intelligence sensors." The paper also calls EMS personnel potential "information collectors" and a variety of other euphemisms for what might seem to mean unsworn deputy sheriffs.

I'm an EMS volunteer in a small semi-rural New York community, so somebody forwarded the paper to me, suggesting that those of us manning our town's three ambulances 24 hours a day could soon be asked to add "amateur cop" to our job descriptions.

Why on earth do the homeland defenders think we'd be any good at that?

By Guy Martin

A few days ago, as we reached cruising altitude en route to a destination that I shan't reveal, aboard a major carrier I also won't identify, from a major American hub I'd really rather not name, the flight crew had just taken off the seat belt sign. I jumped up to grab a book. The book lay deep in my rucksack and took some grubbing around to extract. There was a mess of other stuff down in there--papers, batteries, tape recorder, notebooks. As we know, the first rule of carry-ons is no matter how allegedly convenient or well packed they are, whatever you want is by definition at the bottom. 

Still, when I yanked the book free, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that--like a snowplow--it was pushing a wave of objects before it: a notepad, a few pens and pencils . . . and my Swiss Army knife. I caught the knife as it popped into the air, stuffed it back in, zipped the rucksack, and sat down.   

Holy crap!

Bet you don't know what this little icon
is trying to tell you.

by Stephan Wilkinson

One of the newer "forward this email to everybody you know or the sky will fall" virals taking up all too much bandwidth on the Internet is this piece of advice: The little gas pump icon that denotes the fuel gauge on your car's dashboard has hidden meaning.

Huh?

The icon is in the shape of a gas-station pump, with a hose and nozzle snaking out of one side. It of course indicates which of your instruments is the gas gauge, and on most modern cars, an identical one lights up orange somewhere on the dashboard when you're low on fuel.

But wait, there's more.

Our Dream Trip winner's Antarctic cruise, coming up in January, will now be on the 110-passenger Ioffe (pictured above) rather than the Explorer (God rest its soul).
Photo: Polar Cruises

by Wendy Perrin

Okay, you know that ship that sank in Antarctica over Thanksgiving weekend? That's the ship that Gene Pembroke, the winner of Conde Nast Traveler's Dream Trip Contest, was supposed to board in January for his Dream Trip.

Everybody in the office found the irony hilarious . . . except me. That's because I'm the one who had to scramble to get Gene and his girlfriend Arlene booked onto a new ship leaving from the same port (Ushaia, Argentina) circa the same date, even though most of this winter's Antarctic cruises sold out months ago and everybody else who was booked on the Explorer is looking for a replacement ship.

A few weeks ago when I was in China I posted this photo, inviting all of you to guess where I was standing when I shot it.

by Wendy Perrin

Looks like I've finally stumped the "Where's Wendy?" crew. Remember a month ago when I challenged you to guess which section of the Great Wall this is? Nobody -- not even "Where's Wendy?" contest winners like Tracker1312 and LoriB -- got it. It's the Shuiguan section of the Wall that sits about a 20-minute hike above the hotel known as the Commune by the Great Wall. The hotel, about an hour and a half from downtown, is actually a group of villas, each different than the next, designed by 12 contemporary Asian architects.

One of the villas, Cantilever House, sits about a 20-minute hike below the spot where I shot the photo. See the Great Wall up there on the mountain ridge?
Photo: Commune by the Great Wall

It's nice to have a private section of the Great Wall all to yourself, but it's also an accident waiting to happen.

Just look at all the loose rocks where the Wall meets the hotel path.

During the Beijing Olympics next year, some of the athletes will be staying at the Commune so they can breathe air much fresher than what they'll find in the city.  I hope they bring the right trail shoes.

Can you be an ethical luxury traveler in Morocco?
Photo: Cathrine Wessel, Conde Nast Traveler

by Brook Wilkinson

A few months ago, Conde Nast Traveler sent reporter G. Jeffrey MacDonald to Morocco to see if luxury travel can be done ethically with respect to local people. Jeff came back having done some things right, and others wrong. Here are the lessons he learned, which apply to travel anywhere in the developing world:

* Consider using an agent who specializes in luxury travel to your destination. With ample local knowledge, such an advisor can factor in ethical criteria. You can find Wendy's annual list of the world's best travel specialists in our August issue or online.

* Prepare by reading ethical-travel guidebooks and Web sites, such as Conde Nast Traveler's own makeadifference.travel, which flags things to seek out or avoid.

* Before booking a room, ask hotel managers what they do for their employees and the environment. Open-ended questions can yield more-telling answers than asking, say, "Do you recycle?" in a country where the concept is a foreign one.

* Ask locals what they wish tourists wouldn't do. They know the social problems that visitors exacerbate and can tell you how to set a better example.

* Let people spoil you -- then tip well. Men and boys were often eager to carry Jeff's bags from taxi to hotel or to take him to a hard-to-find address. By indulging in these makeshift services, he got a little luxury and they got a boost for their enterprise.

Read on for a list of "don'ts."

Enough, already!

by Stephan Wilkinson

My wife and I used to be huge mail order shoppers. I even bought an airplane (yes, a real one, not a model) by mail order. As catalogs increasingly flooded our post office box, partly as a result of our patronage but far more so because mail order companies routinely sell each other their customer lists, we rented a bigger box to hold them all.

We kept the catalogs that interested us and threw out the rest -- dozens and dozens of glossy, expensive mini-magazines into the trash. Friends thought me goofy because I actually filed our catalogs in separate little magazine racks: "aviation and automotive," "bicycling and fitness," "books," "tools and hardware," "kitchen and housewares" and "clothing" among them.

It got out of hand, especially now that I'm an Internet shopper and can look up anything I need electronically rather than paging through a batch of catalogs. But thanks to The New York Times, I've found a fabulous solution to our catalog glut.