With travel woes at a fever pitch lately, I'm finding that it's the perfect time to leave reality behind and revisit my most far-flung travel fantasies. Laugh if you like, but one of the things I love most about travel is the dreaming part: thinking about where I'd like to go, reading about new places, and imagining all the travel-friendly hobbies I'll someday take on and drift around the world to do (scuba diving is my latest). So when I saw this month's cover of Islands magazine, which touts the 2008 list of the 10 Best Islands to Live On, I was a goner.

Last week, my sister called me from the Texas Panhandle, where temperatures had climbed to a bone-dry 100+ degrees, with the region’s famously violent winds creating an effect akin to, as she put it, “a blast furnace.” Sounds terrible, right? Not to me. I sighed wistfully, missing that dry heat that defined the summers of my childhood, remembering those first gusts of hot wind that heralded the season’s arrival, recalling sizzling sidewalks under my bare feet so vividly that I unconsciously rose to my tip-toes to walk across my New York City apartment for a glass of water. Those were truly the summer sidewalks of lore, on which one could quite easily fry an egg. Here in the city, where even 80 degrees feels unbearable when delivered on a platter of New York’s special recipe for mugginess, you’d have more of a poached egg, or perhaps a runny scramble of yolks and cigarette butts and dirt. No disrespect to the city I choose to call home now, but I’ll take a dry 100 degrees over a sticky, filmy 80 degrees any day (and today, it’s a sticky, filmy 90 degrees at 11:30am). In fact, because of this, summer is the only time of year when I consistently miss my hometown.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member Jose Kevo

After a Memorial Day weekend road trip that reduced my companion and me to cheering at the sight of gas for less than $3.80/gallon, I’m acutely aware of the sting of rising gas prices. So I can only imagine the panic among major airlines over skyrocketing fuel prices on a much, much larger scale. Last week, American Airlines gave us some idea, with the announcement of reduced capacity and added fees—including a $15 charge for the first bag checked by each “low-fare customer.”

Travel mooching: many are guilty of it (I’m talking to those of you in the back, trying sheepishly to avoid eye contact). They take that trip to Prague with a friend whose brother lives there and can offer free accommodations; they show a keen interest in visiting those distant relatives with a house in the Hamptons; they call up that high-school classmate they ran into over the holidays to announce—surprise!—that they’re planning to visit the city, but man are hotels expensive. Sound familiar? Few of us have escaped: it’s hard to avoid the advances of a mooch.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member vondrejech

Every city has its characters. They’re the eccentric local fixtures whom everyone knows by name; they’re the self-appointed representatives of their cities’ imaginations; they amuse and sometimes frighten tourists; to encounter them anywhere outside their cities would be difficult, if not impossible, to imagine. In my eyes, they’re the lifeblood of a city’s local color—encountering them, knowing them, and occasionally spotting them around town make me feel more at home in a city than anything else.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member alex_nyc

Editors’ Note: To celebrate Earth Day on April 22, The Window Seat is devoting this week to exploring some of the world’s natural environments, hereby declaring this Nature Week. Through our Nature Week posts, we hope to inspire all travelers to get outside and interact with nature no matter where they happen to be. For more ideas, visit our collection of Children & Nature road trips and volunteer opportunities.

If New York City were a child, it would be one of those way-beyond-her-years kids who’s a total genius at some esoteric pursuit—calculus, poetry writing, playing the oboe—who speaks four languages thanks to carefully orchestrated childcare, and who’s shuttled every day after school to various lessons and practices that will someday contribute to a formidable college application. All impressive and enriching and wonderfully exciting, to be sure, but the poor kid is in desperate need of some fresh air. That’s where Scenic Hudson comes in. To kick off Nature Week at The Window Seat, I’m putting the spotlight on this fantastic environmental organization devoted to preserving the Hudson River Valley, which gives New Yorkers like me an easy, and much-needed, escape from the urban jungle.

If you’re an American who’s been tuned into the news lately, you’re probably finding it difficult to paint a picture of travel in 2008 that’s anything but bleak. You’ve seen the stack of travel-associated fees rise. You’ve been privy to the latest airline fiascos. You’re aware of the sobering decline of the dollar. And if you’re anything like me, you’re still trying to wrap your head around the series of crises related to the US economy. It’s all a virtual kick in the shins to the avid traveler, and I count myself among the injured ranks.

We all keep hearing that domestic travel is the way to go, and while I’m down with that—I’m a little embarrassed at how much of my home country I haven’t seen—I’ve found that staying even closer to home is a great way to get some instant relief. And the relief, it turns out, isn’t just temporary: a day trip done right can be a powerful cure for the ailing traveler.

Photo by IgoUgo member Constance

As anyone who has traveled with me (or is casually acquainted with me) can attest, the first travel-planning question I ask is not “Where should I stay?” or “What should I do?”, but rather, “What do I want to eat?” For me, a trip is defined by its meals. I’m all for amazing sights and sounds, but the smells and tastes of a place stick with me the longest and most profoundly. Likewise, when I decide where to go, it’s the promise of new flavors and textures that calls me to my chosen destination.

Last week's announcement of Fidel Castro's retirement has Americans abuzz about the fate of the long-standing US embargo against the island nation. What does it mean for travelers?

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member bnicolas007

You know those Facebook profiles that are absolutely cram-packed with applications: Wall, Super Wall, Fun Wall, quizzes, compare-your-friends tools, What Kind of Car Are You? assessment, and so on? They’re the visual equivalent of a noisy construction site, a virtual brain dump that doesn’t really tell you a lot about a person besides revealing their propensity for accepting every application invitation they receive. These junked-up online profiles are my latest pet peeve. But while I don’t really care which of my friends was voted #1 hottie or which Disney princess everyone is, I’ve long held that knowing how someone travels is an excellent indicator of personality.