Opening day at Heathrow's Terminal 5: Wake me up when it's over.
Photo: The Associated Press

by Stephan Wilkinson

An airline's worst PR nightmare is a crash, of course, but running a close second must be opening an enormous new terminal at your home airport, shifting 100 percent of your line's operation to it, and finding that it doesn't work worth a damn.

At just before 5 a.m. on Thursday, March 27, British Airways began operations at London Heathrow Airport's fancy new Terminal 5, an $8.6 billion, high-tech passenger palace that is Britain's largest enclosed space. It wasn't long before the computerized baggage-handling system failed and flights were taking off without their passengers' luggage. Some incoming passengers waited two hours for their bags, and by five in the afternoon, traffic was so badly snarled that BA was refusing to check in any more luggage, and ultimately some 70 flights were canceled.

And that's not all. 

Photo: The Associated Press

By Guy Martin

Since my post re: last weekend's gunplay in the cockpit, the Associated Press released a photo of the damage. 

What's splendid about the US Airways pilot's explanation to police that he was stowing the gun as a bullet penetrated--and exited--the fuselage just below Flight 1536's portside cockpit window (according to the AP photographs of the bullet's entry and exit holes) is that he did not fire across anybody. That means that he was pointing it away from the other people in the cockpit. 

So until the other cockpit occupants give testimony, the gun bearer has demonstrated a modicum of gun control, and that's great. You point the gat away from where the people are, unless you want to shoot them.   

But two important gun-handling questions remain for the investigators. 

They are:
1) Why was this gun out during the flight? Asked another way, why does this firearm need to be stowed? No airborne gun bearer on civilian flights--including those of El Al--has their gun out during the flight, unless they intend to shoot somebody. 

2) In the process of stowing a handgun, it is not possible to chamber a round, cock the gun, and throw the safety off, unless you mean to do it. Ergo: These actions occurred at some point on this gun. When did they occur?

Planning to drive in Italy this year?  It can be pricier than you've banked on.
Photo: William Abranowicz, Conde Nast Traveler

by Wendy Perrin

Since a slew of Perrin Post readers seem to be heading off to Italy this spring and summer, I figure I should share a warning that's come in from a reliable source who spends much of her life there and knows it like the palm of her hand. Italian villa specialist Mara Solomon of Homebase Abroad writes:

"The Italian government has installed sensors and cameras on highways to clock road speed, capturing license plates so that they can remotely charge fines for speeding. Every time you trip the counter, you get a fine. You can get as many as six tickets between Tuscany and Naples. There are two stretches of the A1 in particular to watch out for: the Chianti stretch north of Chiusi toward Florence and the stretch between Naples and the Amalfi Coast. (The up side: The fines have slowed down drivers and reduced highway deaths in Italy.)

We've heard from three parties who traveled with Homebase Abroad last year and, several months later, were hit with charges on their credit-card statements that they did not recognize. The charges make their way onto the renter's credit-card bill via the car rental agency and appear to come in two parts: First, a paperwork processing fee of some 30 euros. Then a fine of 97 euros. These fines show up between one week and six months after a trip.  The Italian government is also cracking down on the fines within historic districts; these begin at 83 euros per infraction."

Good to know. Thank you, Mara, for sharing this information with us.

Sunset at Lapa Rios, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica.

by Brook Wilkinson

I've been changing locations so much over the last week that I can barely keep track of where I am. Maybe next time I should bring JSteele along to keep track of my schedule, because he's the winner of this WHERE'S BROOK? Contest! Reader Jason Steele culled clues from every corner of the photos I posted: a concrete curb told him I wasn't on an island, cloud build-up revealed the time of day, shadows indicated the cardinal directions. Way to go, Jason! Just shoot me an email with your address and we'll get your grand prize in the mail to you: a brand-new AT&T Samsung Blackjack cell phone and $500 in service. I can tell you from using Wendy's AT&T Samsung phone throughout this trip, they travel well!

Kudos also to LoriB, who kept Jason on his toes throughout the game and is our runner-up. She also was the first to correctly identify my last clue as SkyTrek's Arenal canopy tour, and my hint as the nearby Hanging Bridges (where a tree had recently fallen across the trail, easily bending the steel bridge). LoriB, Wendy and I owe you another lunch!  (LoriB was the runner-up in last summer's WHERE'S WENDY? Contest too.)

Stay tuned for more contests and great prizes in the coming months!

Where am I?

by Brook Wilkinson

You guys are amazing travel sleuths, but I think I've finally stumped you! No one has correctly guessed the location of my Round 6 photo yet -- though some of you are getting warm. So take a look at the picture above for a hint; this one was snapped on the same day. If you can figure out where I am in this photo (and maybe give a guess as to what's going on here?), you'll be one step closer to winning Round 6. Remember, the grand prize is an AT&T Samsung Blackjack phone with $500 in service, and runners-up will get to have lunch with Wendy and/or me at the restaurant of their choice!

Stewart International Airport, 60 miles north of New York City, wants to be the world's first carbon-negative airport.
Photo: Wikipedia.org

by Brook Wilkinson

An airport that actually removes greenhouse gases from the environment? Is that really possible? That's the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's goal for Stewart International Airport, which may one day be the fourth major airport of the New York metropolitan area. But it's as unlikely a goal as it sounds (contrary to what you'll read over at The Daily Green).

I grew up 15 minutes from Stewart, where my father kept a plane for many years. I'm all for a careful, thoughtful expansion of the airport -- including local businesses in the process, maintaining a good deal of the buffer zone around the airport that's currently available to bikers and hikers -- but not with this slap of greenwashing over it.

First of all, the carbon-negative goal is a bit misleading, because it includes only the activities on the ground, not the fuel used in flights to or from the airport. Second, the Port Authority plans to install some energy-efficiency measures in the airport, but much of the greenhouse gas savings will come from carbon offsets -- credits the airport can purchase to allow for trees to be planted or renewable energy projects funded, for instance, while still using fossil fuels to run the airport's daily operations.

By using a catchphrase like "carbon-negative," the Port Authority has hidden the real story: that Stewart will become a testing ground for new emissions-reducing technologies to be developed by students and faculty from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. If you're listening, Richard Branson, I'm sure they'd be happy to spend some of the $3 billion you've pledged to renewable energy research over the next decade.

By Guy Martin

A gun is a gun is a gun. Any right weapon is built to fulfill its mechanical mission absolutely, no matter who handles it. Even the most well-meaning professional shooters, those to whom we loan our civic mandate to bear arms, are fallible. It's normal. We're the humans in the equation. The guns are the machines.   

Now comes last Saturday's dispatch that a US Airways pilot--a yet-unidentified person who was part of the Transportation Security Administration's mandated Federal Flight Deck Officer training program--succeeded in letting his handgun discharge as he piloted Flight 1536 from the left seat in the cockpit, en route from Denver to the US Air hub in Charlotte, North Carolina.   

Happy Easter, everybody! 

I mean that. Clearly, the bunny--or Jesus, take your pick--held some special resurrection mojo over the 129 passengers and flight personnel of Flight 1536. Because the firearms facts are inexorable: if you jostle the trigger mechanism of a modern .40-caliber Heckler and Koch semiautomatic with a shell in the chamber and the safety off--the .40 cal. H&K being one of the TSA-approved handguns for cockpit use--the gun will make no situational judgment before it fires. It will do what it's built to do.   

Where am I?

by Brook Wilkinson

Kudos to JSteele for correctly guessing the location of my Round 5 photo. I was standing in the Finca Rosa Blanca's El Cafetal room; the mural over the bed mimics the view from the room, and is also printed on every bag of organic coffee that the hotel/coffee farm sells. This place has far and away more character than any other hotel I've stayed at in Costa Rica, and I highly recommend it for the first and/or last night of your Costa Rica trip, as it's only 30 minutes from the airport.

Now it's time for the final round of this WHERE'S BROOK? Contest. Take a gander at the photo above. Where am I? Please name the country, city, canopy tour operator, and cable number. And for extra credit, can you guess what was going through my mother's head at the moment this picture was taken?

Remember, the grand prize is an AT&T Samsung Blackjack cell phone and $500 in service. Wendy, your own cell phone was a lifesaver once again: I used it earlier today to call an editor and dictate some story changes over the phone when my Internet connection wasn't working. Thanks a million for letting me borrow it!

By Barbara S. Peterson

After the death of a woman aboard an American Airlines flight from Haiti to New York, media coverage stoked the fears all passengers have of getting ill at 35,000 feet. But it's for exactly that reason flight attendants typically spend at least a third of their training time on first aid and other emergency skills. The Federal Aviation Administration is currently investigating how well the American crew and equipment responded to that recent call for help, but meanwhile, it's worth asking what airlines tell their crews to do if you get sick. 

For some answers, I dug out a flight attendant manual for another airline that I'd picked up several years ago when I was researching airlines' flight attendant training schools for an article about how the job had evolved after 9/11. One of the main points of contention in the recent American Airlines case was whether the emergency equipment onboard the plane was in working order. But on the opening page of the "first aid" chapter, under policy, was the following line: "Flight attendants should check all emergency equipment before the initial flight of the day and anytime there is an aircraft change," and such equipment "must be checked to see if it operates properly." In fact, there were supposed to be a dozen POBS, or "portable oxygen bottles," aboard the American flight, so the odds that all would be empty or malfunctioning seem remote.

Where am I?

by Brook Wilkinson

Welcome back, puzzlers. While the rest of us were taking the weekend off, JSteele figured out the answers to Round 4, AND the extra credit: I was planeboarding in Costa Rica's Golfo Dulce, until a group of jellyfish started attacking.

This was my first time planeboarding, but I'd do it again in a second (preferably without the stinging jellies). You hold on to a half-moon-shaped wooden board that's dragged behind a boat, and you can dive by tipping the board down, cruise underwater by holding it flat, and come up for air by tipping it up. I've never felt so much like a fish, gliding 10 feet under the surface.

But now it's time for Round 5, shown above. Please name the country, city, and hotel room where I took this photo.

A smokin' view of the Arenal Volcano.

by Brook Wilkinson

While you all continue to battle it out over Round 4, it's time to reveal the answer to Round 3. Congrats to JSteele for nailing the airport and aircraft shown in my Round 3 photo. I threw you a curve ball: Though the nearest tourist attractions to that runway are the Arenal Volcano and the town of La Fortuna, the airport is officially named El Tanque, after the tiny village in which it's located.

LoriB bagged the extra credit for guessing that the Nature Air flight came from Liberia (not the West African nation, but the Costa Rican city).

They were onto me when they noticed the cone-shaped mountain obscured by clouds in the background. That's Arenal, one of Costa Rica's iconic attractions. I got my favorite shot of it, which you can see above, while having lunch at the Tabacon Resort's hot springs. This volcano is constantly active; you can watch rocks crash down the slopes by day and see red lava flowing at night.

Where am I and what in the world am I doing?

by Brook Wilkinson

Another day, another clue to my whereabouts: Check out the photo above. Please name the country, the body of water, and what on earth I'm doing! For extra credit, can you guess what finally drove me out of the water, beautiful though it may be?

Hazard a guess below for a shot at our grand prize -- an AT&T Samsung Blackjack cell phone and $500 in service. Runners-up get lunch with Wendy and/or me at the restaurant of their choice.

Wendy, surprisingly enough, your cell phone even worked out on the water! I love that it operates on the GSM system so I didn't have to switch out a SIM card or anything.

Name that runway.

by Brook Wilkinson

Calling all gamesters: Here's the third clue in the WHERE'S BROOK? contest. Please name the airport and the type of aircraft. For extra credit, tell us where this just-landed plane flew in from. Remember, the grand prize is an AT&T Samsung Blackjack cell phone and $500 in service!

Wendy, your AT&T Samsung phone's coming in handy. I snapped this photo with it, just before text messaging my boyfriend to tell him what a great trip he's missing!

by Brook Wilkinson

Kudos to LoriB, who whittled down the location of my Round 2 photo: The River Trail (or Sendero El Rio) in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve. The name of the river and the waterfall is Cuecha, though you'll find it misspelled on some Web sites as Cueda.

The magnificent creature you see here is a Resplendent Quetzal. Their feathers are iridescent; the same one can look absolutely blue from one angle, and green from another. They can be hard to spot, but my hawkeyed Monteverde guide, Danilo Brenes, found this male high up in the trees and set up his telescope so that I could take a photo through it.

Stay tuned for Round 3's clue, coming shortly!

Playa Espadilla in Manuel Antonio National Park.

by Brook Wilkinson

Congrats to JSteele, who was the first to figure out that my first snapshot was taken near Manuel Antonio National Park, in Costa Rica. JSteele, you've won the first round!

But nobody has yet named the hotel where I was sitting, so keep guessing to win extra credit on your way to our grand prize of an AT&T Samsung Blackjack cellphone and $500 in service. Runners-up will get lunch with Wendy and/or me at the restaurant of their choice.

Round 2 is still up for grabs as well -- we're looking for the name of the country, as well as the spot where I was standing.

Good luck!

by Brook Wilkinson

Okay, folks, good guesses for Round 1. Keep 'em coming.  I'll let you continue to ponder the last clue while I move on to my next location (see photo at left).

It's a good thing Wendy lent me one of her international cell phones for this trip (the same Samsung SYNC that she lent our Dream Trip contest winner Gene Pembroke, as well as our colleague John Oseid for the WHERE'S JOHN? game): When my digital-camera battery ran out, I was able to use the phone's camera as a back-up. My guide snapped this picture of me with it. What's really been critical in this country, though, is to have AT&T's global service; it means I can call my guide in-country to confirm our arrangements, as well as call home easily. No wonder Wendy insisted I take the phone.

So, where am I?  Please name the country and the spot where I'm standing.

Woe to those planning to climb Mount Everest this year.
Photo: wikipedia.org

by Brook Wilkinson

The Chinese government has shut down Mount Everest until May 10, throwing a wrench into the plans of thousands of climbers hoping to scale the world's highest peak this spring. The nominal reason: "increasing environmental pressures," according to a notice from the China Tibet Mountaineering Association. But given that country's track record on environmental issues, the assumed reason is to forestall protests when the Olympic flame is carried up Everest in early May.

Britain's Independent is reporting that Nepal has also agreed to shut down the south face routes that run through that country; Nepal receives a hefty amount of financial support from China, and recognizes Tibet as a part of China. Last week's protests in Lhasa were the largest in 20 years and spread to sympathetic cities around the world.

If the ban holds, the Olympic flame carriers may be the only people to top Everest this year. Prime summiting time runs for just a few weeks in May, before the monsoon season arrives.

Where on earth did I snap this photo? Make your guess by clicking on "comments" below.

by Brook Wilkinson

Wendy's sent me on the road again, which means it's time for another WHERE'S BROOK? contest. (The last one followed my move across the U.S. last year). Normally the winner and runners-up get lunch with Wendy and/or me at the restaurant of their choice, but this time we've added a grand prize: an AT&T Samsung BlackJack cell phone, plus $500 in service! So get your world maps out and take a good look at the photo above. Where in the world am I?  Please name the country and the spot where I'm sitting. (And, to read the contest rules, you can click here).

Where on earth is this?  To hazard a guess, click on "comments" below.

by Wendy Perrin

Okay, since nobody's figured out the location of yesterday's mystery cave (although there have been some terrific guesses!), I'm gonna cough up another clue. This is what you see when you look out from a vantage point very close to the cave. (At least, it's what my husband Tim saw on the rainy Sunday morning last month when he snapped this photo). Intriguing topography, huh?

You're reading my final drumroll for the WHERE'S BROOK? contest that starts tomorrow. Perrin Post contributor Brook Wilkinson will be posting daily photos and clues as to her whereabouts somewhere in the world. Whoever correctly guesses her location most often will WIN AN AT&T SAMSUNG BLACKJACK CELL PHONE AND $500 IN SERVICE!  Runners-up will get lunch with me and/or Brook at the restaurant of their choice.

Tip: The best way to prep for the game is to get a feel for how it's played by checking out the last WHERE'S WENDY? (when you click on the link, remember to scroll down and begin reading from the bottom).

Ready to play?

Rockin' in the USA.

Follow our 2007 Dream Trip Contest winner through South America and Antarctica. And don't forget to enter our 2008 Dream Trip Contest. The prize? A $25,000 trip (designed by Wendy) to the destination(s) of your dreams.

By Gene Pembroke

This is it.

I check out of La Floresta and pay cash, but I almost had to use my credit card...scary. There is no time for last-minute strolls or anything like that. The same motorcycle-hitting cabbie picks me up and takes me to the airport, which is outside of Caracas and right on the sea. At one point we are flying down the highway surrounded by the poor shantytowns on the outskirts of Caracas and then we enter a tunnel. When we exit, we are basically surrounded by green hills and seem to be in the country. Very strange.

Okay, fellow travelers, where in the world is this?  To hazard a guess, click on "Comments" below. 

by Wendy Perrin

Attention, gamesters:  On Tuesday Perrin Post contributor Brook Wilkinson will begin posting daily photos and clues from a trip she's taking somewhere in the world. Think you know her location? Post a guess. As in the last WHERE'S BROOK? contest, she'll be on the move, so each day you can guess anew. The first person to pinpoint Brook's whereabouts each day will win that day's round, and the person who aces the most rounds wins the game. The grand prize is an AT&T Samsung BlackJack cell phone and $500 in service!

To get you in the mood, can anyone guess where in the world my husband Tim snapped this photo last month?

A little taste of Venezuela, dashboard style.

Follow our 2007 Dream Trip Contest winner through South America and Antarctica. And don't forget to enter our 2008 Dream Trip Contest. The prize? A $25,000 trip (designed by Wendy) to the destination(s) of your dreams.

By Gene Pembroke

After a quick swim in the Caribbean, I say good-bye to Santa Fe and head down the coast of Venezuela. The bus to Puerto de la Cruz is driven by a guy sporting a yellow Magnum, P.I., T-shirt.

I see this kind of thing often around the world, especially in Africa. Basically, the shirts that the U.S. no longer wants get sent to poorer places. This is supposed to make us feel like we are doing something good, I guess, but in reality it usually destroys the local textile industries. It also provides a lot of entertainment when I'm on the road.

I remember having words with a Zambian cop wearing the legendary "I'm With Stupid" T-shirt. I also remember meeting his confused partner a while later and thinking how appropriate the attire was. I've seen 80-year-old women in "ALF" shirts lug firewood down from mountains and three-year-old boys ask me for pens in tops that stated "It's Better in Sycamaugus, Alabama" (which may be true, depending on what is meant by "it").

by Brook Wilkinson

Don't you hate it when you print out an itinerary or driving directions and the last page has nothing but a two-line URL on it? Now GreenPrint helps you avoid printing useless pages, saving both ink and paper.

Once you download the free World edition of GreenPrint, it will become your default printer setting. Then, each time you click on Print in your web browser, Word document, or other application, you'll get a preview with the pages that GreenPrint doesn't think you need highlighted in red. You can still print these pages or discard them, and you can also choose to remove images and banner ads from the pages, which will make your color ink cartridge last a little longer.

GreenPrint keeps track of how much ink, paper, and money you're saving -- and in addition to the trees that won't be harvested, you'll be saving energy and water that would otherwise be used in paper production and shipping.

Full disclosure: I haven't been able to actually test out GreenPrint, because they don't yet have a version for Macs (but one should be available by the end of the year). The free version includes an ad before every print preview, but the $35 Home Premium version doesn't. Any other downsides? If you Windows users decide to download the software, I'd love to hear what you think in a comment below!

Just this guy and me and the Caribbean Sea.

Follow our 2007 Dream Trip Contest winner through South America and Antarctica. And don't forget to enter our 2008 Dream Trip Contest. The prize? A $25,000 trip (designed by Wendy) to the destination(s) of your dreams.

By Gene Pembroke

For three days I hang out at the beach, doing beachy things. But first, I check out of my posada in Santa Fe after just one night because, come morning, they still haven't sorted out the water problem they were having the day I arrived. This town is filled with beach posadas, though, so I head down a few doors and check into a place called La Sierra, a great little joint run by a guy named Jose who spent 30 years in the TV business and studied at NYU in the 1950s.

We have coffee on the terrace and talk about film, television, and Jose's crazy youth. He spins some great yarns about smuggling goods into Peru, how his life was saved by penicillin that had to be flown in on island-hopping planes from California back in the day, and how he started the weird business of repatriating the ashes of dead Chinese immigrants with some pilot buddies of his. Cool stuff.

The Venezuelan coast near the fishing village of Santa Fe: We're not in New Mexico anymore.

Follow our 2007 Dream Trip Contest winner through South America and Antarctica. And don't forget to enter our 2008 Dream Trip Contest. The prize? A $25,000 trip (designed by Wendy) to the destination(s) of your dreams.

By Gene Pembroke

After another night at the Posada Don Carlos in Ciudad Bolivar, I get up at seven and hang out with the hotel's two pooches. I have decided to catch a bus. To where? After some thought on the fact that my dream trip is coming to an end soon, I decide to just go to the beach for a few days. So, after some toast, I head for the coast.

It may not be a fashion statement, but I still love my LowePro Factor Tote.

by Wendy Perrin

Attention, women who are trying to figure out how to get three carry-on items onboard the plane (wheelie, laptop case, and pocketbook) when we're allowed only two:  Some nifty combination laptop case/pocketbooks have crossed my desk lately. 

As a mom who must travel with tech gear on one arm and tots on the other, I'll never give up my LowePro Factor Tote (pictured at top), a lightweight bag -- with perfect-length, nonslip straps -- into which I can fit my MacBook, digital camera, Palm Treo, other tech paraphernalia, newspaper, T.S.A.-friendly zip-top bag holding my liquids and gels in three-ounce containers, and everything else from my purse.

But my tote now has some pretty stiff competition: bags that are similar in design -- they each have an interior zippered laptop compartment in the center, with more interior compartments on either side -- but are far more stylish.

Since two of these "business totes" have been eliciting oohs and aahs from my female coworkers who've spotted me comparing bags in my office and have stopped in to add their two cents (note the SOLO Signature Portfolio, for instance, pictured immediately above and at right), I figure I ought to share my findings with all you female business travelers out there (or your husbands who are seeking the right gift for your birthday):

Venezuela personified: Oddities abound in Ciudad Bolivar.

Follow our 2007 Dream Trip Contest winner through South America and Antarctica. And don't forget to enter our 2008 Dream Trip Contest. The prize? A $25,000 trip (designed by Wendy) to the destination(s) of your dreams.

By Gene Pembroke

On an early morning walk around Ciudad Bolivar, I am reminded that it is Chinese New Year when I see a large rat down near the Orinoco River. I also see some dolphins, which don't remind me of anything but are great to see. I walk into a cloud of thousands of gnats while strolling along the shore and this reminds me that this sucks.

I return to my hotel, the Posada Don Carlos, have coffee with the two house dogs, and then check out more of the collection of typewriters, radios, WWI shells, and masks that adorn the posada. There have been no takers for the Angel Falls trip, and to make the costs come down we need at least six people. Another walk around town and I start to ponder where else I could go. Along the way, I stop in a strange shop filled to the brim with plaster statues. Almost anyone you can imagine is available: Simon Bolivar, the Virgin Mary, apostles, Nazis, Buddhas, Charlie Chaplin, Indian chiefs, Hindu gods, and what looked like the Bee Gees are squeezed onto shelves among hundreds of other representations of historical figures in all sorts of colors and sizes.

The Angostura Bridge at Ciudad Bolivar was until 2006 the only bridge across the 1,500-mile Orinoco, which bisects Venezuela.

Follow our 2007 Dream Trip Contest winner through South America and Antarctica. And don't forget to enter our 2008 Dream Trip Contest. The prize? A $25,000 trip (designed by Wendy) to the destination(s) of your dreams.

By Gene Pembroke

The day begins with a surprise: When I check out of the Arte Dorado in El Callao, I discover that the hotel manager has already charged my credit card, which I left with him earlier for security. I'd assumed I would be able to pay with cash when I left. Mind you, the official Venezuelan bank rate for the dollar is about 2.2, but the black market rate in the street is about 4.5. That's a big difference.

So it is understandable that I am a bit frustrated and angry when the hotel manager refuses to cancel the transaction, even after I offer to throw another 20 percent onto my bill. I have the cash ready, but he will not budge. I email my bank, but they just say to work it out with him. Eventually I must head to the bus station to leave town, which I do, fuming over the fact that I have just spent $410 for my hotel instead of $200. The difference would have covered the rest of my time in the country.

If there is one recommendation I have for travel in Venezuela, it is to change money in the street with semi-official money changers. It is common and apparently safe, and it gives visitors access to what is basically a nationwide half-off sale. Good luck.