Mobissimo

Travelfish.org is looking for travel writers for Vietnam and Laos.  This comes from a great Mobissimo friend Jen Leo and her great blog The Written Road.

Hey travelers, if you are already in Vietnam and Laos, and you'd like to get your feet wet trying some destination travel writing, check out Travelfish.org. They are building a site for travel to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. AND, they just happen to be looking for writers.

Jen is a travel writing veteran, her words having graced many pages over the years.  While you may think travel writing is all about romance, eating exquisite meals, and seeing incredible vistas, it's not all easy work.

The pay is low, but they do pay, so if you're a writer that usually gets your gigs from big glossy mags, this is probably not for you. However, if you're already over in SE Asia and need a few hundred extra to stay traveling longer, or maybe you're in need of something to do while you're on the road, check out their Travelfish Job Page.

So Jen points out the reality of travel writing, but if you're already over there and you feel Theroux-esque, give it a shot.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. - Travelers ranked JetBlue Airways Corp. their favorite low-cost carrier and Continental Airlines Inc. the best traditional full-service carrier, according to a survey released Thursday.

Flyers value easy check-in and friendly service over such factors as in-flight meals and other amenities, according to the survey conducted by J.D. Power & Associates in conjunction with Aviation Week magazine.

Nice. I've never flown JetBlue because flying to L.A., I'd actually like to fly to L.A., not Long Beach. And leather seats are no good because I keep sliding out of the seat. Props to JetBlue, which we search here on Mobissimo, in addition to many, many other low-cost carriers. In fact, we search over 70 globally, for that short hop domestically, intra-Europe, or any where else, Mobissimo has the low-cost carrier for you. Without the blue potato chips.

So I've flown many a mile in the sky and sampled the culinary delights of first, business, economy meals on over 50 different airlines. One thing they have in common is that the food is atrocious, regardless of class. This website has taken documenting airline food to a new level, posting pictures and reviews online. This chap obviously had too many pints:

June 25 . Airline meals 'better than pub food'

Airline food now beats the quality and service found in most British pubs, according to a top chef.

Standards on planes are "simply higher" than the "pathetic" offerings often found on the ground, Marcus Wareing said. The chef-patron of Michelin-starred Petrus restaurant in the Berkeley hotel, London, says airlines have either stopped serving cooked meals or "upped their game".

So I've never flown the Concorde, where meals were apparently passable, but I cannot imagine anyone thinking that airline food is edible. It's not even cooked, it's 'prepared' and while it's something to fill your stomach during the 16 hour haul to New Zealand, I'd rather pass on the sodium fat bomb placed on my tray table. My advice, buy food in the airport beforehand, your neighbours will envy you as you pull out your sushi combo from Ebisu (SFO).

Good timing, I actually just got back from Lake Como a few weeks ago. And yes, it is still as magical as everyone says it is. I hadn't been in over a decade, my modeling career takes me to Milan several times a year, but I've stayed away until this last trip, I had been unable to make the short trip to Como. Lake Como hasn't changed at all, it still brings back the memories of holding hands with ma chere, walks under a full moon along the shore in Tremezzo, picnics in the piazza in Bellagio. Sigh* This NY Times articles bring back all those memories, with the addition of George Clooney and Star Wars.

Lake Como has had its share of the spotlight recently. A phalanx of television crews drawn to rumors of celebrity weddings will do that. And perhaps you've heard that George Clooney also lives there.

But Lake Como — 30 miles long and 1,350 feet at its deepest — is more than the sum of its celebrity interlopers, reclusive Swiss billionaires and their bashful Italian mistresses. It is also home to some of the most impressive scenery and food in Italy. And thanks to strict laws against development and genetically modified tomatoes, there's little fear of that changing anytime soon.

Good for George Clooney, though unfortunately he comes a little late to the party. Bellagio now is a mob scene of people who only know the name from the hotel/casino in Vegas, Cernobbio is over-run with Clooney seekers, and Como itself is full of tour buses. But there is still reason to go, experience it for yourself. Airfare to Milan is only $890 from NYC, make it happen.

The magazine sent reporters "undercover" to 36 cities, in 35 countries, to measure courtesy. New York was the only American city on the list.

In a city with a reputation for being in-your-face, New Yorkers seem to be expressing themselves with a new one-finger salute: a raised pinkie. In fact, they seem to have even better manners than people in London, Toronto and Moscow.

Apparently New Yorkers are friendly, and that's not just post 9/11. So go visit NY, fares on Mobissimo are only $320 from SFO.

In the olden days, the backpacker (usually students) would schlepp around an amazingly huge packpack, carrying everything from hot and cold weather clothes to souvenirs for Aunt Jackie.  Often the object of derision from Parisans on the Metro, the backpacker, often smelly and poor, was not the most welcome tourist.  However, enter the Flashpacker, a savvy, hip, and not as penny-pinching as the previous incarnation.

Colm Hanratty, Dublin-based editor of Hostelworld.com, said the phrase "flashpacking" remains a novelty in the United Kingdom but the phenomenon is widespread. He noted that flashpackers seem to come in two distinct age groups — "the young type, still in college, who might have all the gadgets but not that much money, and someone in later life, late 20s and early 30s, who has more money to spend and carries an iPod and a digital camera."

The world of budget travelling has changed completely.  No more showing up in a city, opening the Let's Go, getting a handful of change, and calling hostels.  Now mobiles are everywhere, trains are an inconvenience (Mobissimo searches the most low-cost airlines), and internet access is a given.  The tools have changed, but the lines to the Accademia in Florence remain just as long as before.

This little gizmo will recharge you small electronics if you loose power in-flight using the audio plug in your arm rest. You know, the one you use to listen to Michael Bolten. Inflight claims the charger can be used for any number of electronic devices:

• Extend the in-flight use of Blackberrys, Ipods, music players and Game units
• Recharge cell phones while in-flight
• Works with existing USB charging cables
• Lightweight and compact, only a few ounces and stores easily
• Interchangeable - one unit for many devices

   Read more on the InFlightPower site.

Airlines, disappointed over delays in the much awaited Airbus 380, have taken action against Airbus. Major airlines Qantas, Singapore, and Emirates have demanded compensation for the delays and in Singapore's case, ordered planes from Airbus' rival Boeing.

They also raised questions about the European planemaker's management and strategy, and the future of the double-decker A380. Boeing is staking its bets on a smaller, more fuel-efficient model.

Singapore Airlines, one of the world's top carriers and the first to buy the A380, said it was unhappy with the delays Airbus announced Tuesday. It demanded compensation and, on Wednesday, worsened the blow by announcing it would buy 20 Boeing 787-9 aircraft worth $4.52 billion and take options on another 20 planes.

Seriously, having the Airbus project managed by the parent company European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co., was a mistake waiting to happen. Cost over-runs, poor management, and of course delays have plagued the EADS since the inception. But having Europeans build airplanes? It's like asking Americans to excel in soccer ... er ... football.

White collar? What exactly does that mean? Well, the article says managerial and salaried positions will be cut - 1,000 of them by end of year. So the hourly baggage handler is safe.

CHICAGO - United Airlines will eliminate at least 1,000 salaried and management jobs by the end of the year as part of its efforts to reduce costs, CEO Glenn Tilton said Wednesday.
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The employees to be laid off from the nation's second-largest airline represent about 11 percent of its 9,400 salaried workers and nearly 2 percent of the company's work force of approximately 57,000.

Good for United. Get rid of the middle management waste and focus more on super hot flight attendants.

Forget all those Brokeback vistas of rolling hills and men wearing chaps, the Pampas surrounding Buenos Aires are flat and full of beef - cattle that is.  Back at the turn of the century, these working ranches provided the beef for much of the world.  Now, still a bovine powerhouse, many of these estancias have been resurrected as luxury B&Bs.

The road to El Pedral, a remote hotel at the tip of a peninsula near the middle of Argentina's 3,000 miles of Atlantic coastline, is long and rough. If you drive it at night in the South American springtime, as our group of five did in October, it's also dark and dusty from weeks without rain.

What's waiting at the tip of Punta Ninfas (Nymphs Point), a stone's throw from the sea, is an old estancia , or ranch house, that has been converted into a luxury hotel seemingly at the windblown end of the earth -- equal parts "Evita" and "Night of the Iguana."

You're already following the crowds going to Argentina anyway, so you might as well splurge on a fancy B&B in the old country.  Flights to Buenos Aires from NYC run about $780 right now on Mobissimo.

I have a friend from Delaware who says that in Delaware ... there's really not much to do.  Unfortunately, he could not have been more wrong.  The First State, however, has plenty to offer both the casual visitor and the outdoor enthusiast.  Delaware is rife, yes, rife with historical landmarks to service your browsing lust.  Perhaps though, the big draw is the outdoor possibilities.

For a small state, Delaware has a lot of outdoor pursuits. Use the menu again to locate nature centers (more places for the kids), beaches, golf courses, trails to hike, fishing and race tracks. For rainy days, Delaware has antique emporiums and other places to shop — and no sales tax. For more ideas, browse "20 Reasons Why 'It's Good Being First.'"

Who would've known?  My first thought of Delaware is billing address for all my credit cards, so the association is not wholly positive.  Read more about Delaware tourism here.