Published my 800th post earlier today on Boardingarea.com! Thank you for journeying with me. There have been some extraordinarily wonderful years and some tough ones especially during the period my sister got ill and died. I love travel and have been blessed with plane flights to the four corners of the globe, train rides on every continent except Antarctica, visits to 190 large cities in 59 countries. Its great to have so many loyal readers who share that love of travel. Great to get your emails, shout outs and tips. I have to be honest and…
Burma (Myanmar) Bound
Off to my 59th country this week: Myanmar (Burma). We are following a fairly standard tourist trail. We fly into Mandalay in the North, then travel down to Bagan and then visit Yangon. It has been only fairly recently that travel has been opening up for tourists not travelling in tourist groups! So excited! Related Posts Any advice for Myanmar? My 58th country: Vietnam I visit my 57th country
South Korea Mourns its ferry passengers
My thoughts with the family and friends of all those involved in one of South Korea’s worst ever peacetime disasters. Of the 476 passengers on the ferry Sewol, 174 passengers were rescued in the immediate aftermath of the disaster last Wednesday. The time since has involved a difficult search for so many missing.
2 Grandmas fly for first time
This is an advertisement for a telephone company but I found it sweet, funny, poignant and touching. It is the story of two older women who fly for the first time. Ria Van den Brand, a 78-year-old grandma from the Netherlands prepared for flying by taking her first-ever roller coaster ride. That scene is priceless! Her late husband had a fear of heights so they never flew. An Bernaards, 71, also had a serious fear of flying. She says: “You wouldn’t get me in one of those for any amount of money. I will just take the…
Avoiding damaging the sights/sites
On a visit to Australia‘s Gloucester Tree, two tourists jumped as I barked at them. 350 plus years old and standing at 72 metres tall, this Karris is the second tallest fire lookout tree in the world. Over one million tourists have climbed the tree in Pemberton, Western Australia since 1947. These two tourists had decided that the tree needed their names carved into the tree and were engrossed in the task with a knife when chewed out by me . Furious at this intrusion into one of my favourite spots, I was determined to make…
Ranking US airlines by complaints
US airlines get about 10, 000 complaints a year reported to the US Department of Transport. The number of complaints rose until 2012, when they fell slightly. Last year, 643 million passengers were carried by US airlines, so the number of complaints in that perspective does not seem to me to be that high. Of course few of us take our frustration with an airline to the appropriate authorities, preferring to whine about it ourselves or post our experiences on Facebook! The report “Unfriendly Skies”, an analysis of five years of airline complaints by…
Mexicana Exits (at last)
The privately-operated Mexicana flew from 1921 to 2010 making it one of the oldest airlines in the world. It kept company with Australia’s Qantas, Colombia’s Avianca and KLM of the Netherlands. The airline was grounded before it made its 90th birthday, just months after joining the One World alliance. The grounding stranded passengers in 16 countries and impacted 8,500 employees. Mexico’s Federal Judiciary Council ordered an end to efforts to revive moribund airline through bankruptcy proceedings, saying no credible new investor had expressed interest in the carrier. The decision means an administrator will be appointed…
Spirit most complained about US airline
I have never had the delight of flying Spirit Airlines in the USA. The one time, I turned up for a Spirit flight, they cancelled it! In the mould of Ryanair, Spirit combines low fares and profitability and customer complaints. Over the last five years, Spirit has consistently received three times more complaints than any other airline and the number of complaints against the airline kept rising in that period. In a report compiled by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund based on Department of Transport statistics, Spirit managed to increase its customer complaints from 6.7 per…
Get your Rent a Car Costs down
I was talking to a friend yesterday who paid more to rent a car for three days than I would pay for a week! When I asked him why he had spent so much money, he told me he booked it from the airport counter and he always rented from the same rental company. I have written in detail about car rentals but some tips for saving money: Book in advance Use a comparison website eg Priceline, Vroomvroomvroom or expedia.com.au/Car-Hire Ditch loyalty – other companies have the same cars so I have joined more than one…
Signals akin to Black Box detected – MH370?
The towed pinger locator deployed from HMAS Ocean Shield (right) has detected signals consistent with those emitted by black boxes. It could mean searchers are close to the missing plane. Ocean Shield is one of two ships towing the pinger locators. The other is HMS Echo. Time is running out as the black box batteries only have a 30 day lifespan. Hard to believe ot has been already a month since the disappearance! Related Posts MH370 “Pings” detected?
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