Arriving at your destination is wonderful. When you’re traveling and visiting a new place, getting your boots on the ground is a moment filled with excitement and relief. Getting there, however, can be hell. Traveling, and especially traveling abroad, is often fraught with worry, tension and inconvenience. From rushing to the airport to standing in the security lines to the physical discomfort of flying, it can be a drag. But the Internet offered up plenty of help this week. It begins with leaving your house and heading to the airport, which is often a moment when people wonder about whether or not they left the iron plugged in.
To help ease your concern, Jaunted provides a checklist of five things to do before you leave for the airport. And Huffington Post’s Suzy Strutner talks to Martha Stewart to get her secrets for packing for a trip.
Once you arrive at the airport, you’re standing in line – you can’t move, but you have anxiety about getting to your gate in time. You know what would help? Soothing lighting and comfortable couches. And a couple of airports are delivering. The Wall Street Journal’s Scott McCartney reports on the transformation of security lines into a place where you feel like you might want to hang out for a while. If you’re worried about the physical effects of the TSA’s full body scanners, or perhaps just modest, USA Today’s Chris Elliot tells you how to opt out of the full body scan. Of course, the tension often continues when you get onto the plane and a free-for-all breaks out over the overhead bins. The New York Times’ Martha White reports that one way to circumvent the battle for bins is to pay a little more – the airlines will gladly give preferential treatment to people who pay more.
In the developing world, malaria is a huge problem – 660,000 people die each from malaria and travelers know the need to get malaria shots before some trips. But here’s some good news on the battle against malaria – a new vaccine currently in clinical trials seems very promising; Medical News Today reports the World Health Organization is excited about the vaccine can protect young children for up to 18 months after being vaccinated.
OK, time for some fun stuff. CNN offers its take on the world’s most spectacular train stations. And the BBC lists the best waterfront cities around the world that you might want consider living in… or at least visiting.
Finally, there are some travelers who really don’t understand what they’re doing when they visit other parts of the world. They literally move through the world with virtually no understanding of their surroundings … and some of them then have the cajones to gripe about it. USA Today’s Jayne Clark has a hysterical list of stupid traveler complaints. My favorite – the couple that blames the hotel for the woman getting pregnant.
Image courtesy of Lafayette Online.
