It’s been a busy week of travel, and I’ve had a lot of my plate this week, but I still found some good travel posts to share with you.  Enjoy your afternoon with this variety of travel information:
Luxuo introduces us to a new type of architecture, a house built out of the iconic Louis Vuitton brown and gold print.  It’s rumored to be located in Mexicali.  I wonder how many tourists stop by for a look.
LA Times Travel lures us with exotic details of a cruise to Antarctica.  I would love to be able to afford a trip to …read more

It’s been a busy week of travel for me, with overnights in Vancouver BC and Chicago, but I still managed to find some great travel posts to share with you this weekend.
Velvet Escape tackles the weighty topic of. . . refrigerator magnet.  I love them!  And now, I think I’ll start a collection of my own.
The Paris Traveler shares a whiff of the Paris exotic with information about how to get your very own custom French fragrance.  What a delightful, and practical memory of a great vacation.
The Trends explain about a sort of reverse pick-pocketing going on in London.  Instead …read more

Ah, vacation!  It conjures up all sorts of wonderful day dreams, grabs our attention and “forces” us to spend countless hours doing “research” on the internet at great travel blogs like Flyaway Cafe.    We pick up guidebooks, go to the library, we talk to friends.  Sometimes the planning is a great deal of the fun in arranging vacation plans.  Still, do you always find yourself going to the same old places and doing the same old thing?!
Maybe what you need to do to get out of your rut is to look at vacation through a different lens, and …read more

I write about travel because I know, love, and can’t get enough of travel.  Sometimes my adventures wind up here on the pages of Flyaway Cafe, as do stories (often disguised) from my work as a Flight Attendant.  I enjoy sharing my travels with readers, whether it’s a trip to Miami Beach (I’m leaving in the morning), or just what’s going on around my home town of Seattle (tonight is opening night of Grease at the 5th Avenue Theatre).
If you want to know more about where I’m going and what I’m doing, you can follow me on Twitter.  I’m …read more

Time for a new poll, and the topic evolved out of some conversations with some other travel bloggers:
What kind of traveler do you consider yourself to be?
 

Expert – My bag is always packed, I can be at the airport in half an hour, and will figure out plans on the fly.
Advanced – It takes me awhile to figure out what I need to do, but I can manage planning, packing and the airport with minimal stress.
Intermediate – It’s going to take some doing, but I’ll manage.
Novice – I don’t travel that often, so it takes me awhile.
Inexperienced – I need …read more

With all the tools available for booking travel online, more and more people choose to do it themselves rather than use the services of a travel agent.
I think the ability to research, sleuth out the best and perfect deal, and make reservations yourself is a wonderful thing.  BUT – it also means that you have to take responsibility for those reservations, including the mistakes that you make.
One mistake that I’m seeing on a regular basis, is travelers not allowing sufficient time to make a connection.  This can have unintended consequence that can wind up costing you money.
Here are a few …read more

Looking back seems to be the thing to do this time of year.  So it’s time to take a look back at how I did with all the resolutions that I made for 2008.  How did I do?
Here’s a recap:

Visit two new countries – I can check this one off with my visit to Italy and Vatican City. 
Visit two new states – Ooops, a big zero here.  Some plans fell through at the last minute, and never did get rescheduled.
Visit four new cities in countries or states that I have already visited – I’ve been back to Guadalajara …read more

Q.  What do you do when you have a delay and are stuck at an airport?
A.  What a great question!
No one likes a delay, least of all your flight crew, but they are rarely within our control.  So, we’re pretty much in the same boat as everyone else.
What I do depends on when the delay occurs.
If we’re already boarded and ready to go, we hang out along with you guys.  Generally speaking, in this situation the delay is what we call a “creeping delay.”  This means that every ten minutes or so we’re supposed to get an update.  It …read more

Today’s Matchbook Monday comes from best gal pal Anita, and is from a trip to Germany a few years back.
The Gerbermuehle Hotel (click on the English version) in Frankfurt (60594 Frankfurt Main) is a designer hotel, located on the banks of the Main River.  It was a former flour mill, and its evolution from mill to hotel is the story of the love of literary great, Goethe.
Providing a mix of old and new, both quaint and contemporary, the hotel has all the modern features that a traveler could want.  One unique summertime feature is a 500-seat garden, consisting …read more

If you’re leaving your hotel room a little bleary-eyed from too much partying the night before, you may not be seeing straight.  Or maybe you’ve lost a contact, or forgotten your glasses.  Or maybe you’re in a country where you don’t understand the floor numbering.
Don’t worry!  You can always get back to ground level, usually the location of the hotel lobby and front desk, by looking for the star sign. 
The star sign is universal elevator-speak for ground floor.  And that piece of information can help keep you grounded.
 
Photo credit:  flickr
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