The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival began this past Friday and I’m completely jealous of everyone who will be able to attend. The line-up includes the likes of Ludacris, Gillian Welch, and Harry Connick Jr., plus local favorites like Rebirth Brass Band, Galactic, and the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars (regarding the latter, I can say from experience: you’ve got to see it to believe). Also, Joss Stone plays, hosts a private event, and volunteers to build homes for musicians uprooted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Spring is my favorite season. I realize that I say this about every season when it's upon us as I'm always so ready for it – but with spring I mean it. It's my favorite. I love the smell of spring and the beautiful flowers a well earned prize after enduring the dull gray of winter. Which is why this business about vanishing bees has me stressed.
We need the bees to pollenate to make the pretty spring flowers which make me so happy each and every spring. I do understand that we need them for a whole lot more than just spring flowers – I read somewhere that Albert Einstein predicted if we lost our bees humans days would be numbered.

I’m all about taking surveys. I can’t get enough of answering questions. I actually arrive at the doctor’s office embarrassingly early so that I can devote as much time as I want to filling all the forms out. And so when Travel + Leisure magazine and CNN Headline News launch their America Favorite Cities survey on April 30, you can bet I’ll be at the head of the line waiting to take it.

Truth be told, there’s no way I’d travel with my two, big, drooling basset hounds, but pet travel is on the rise and has been for the past several years. Even pet travel to Hawaii, with its strict entrance policies, has risen 30 percent, according to an article this week in the Honolulu Advertiser.

Maybe pooch-toting celebs such as Paris with her teacup Chihuahua contributed to the craze. Whatever the reason, hotels have jumped on board with pet-pampering programs to lure guests. A couple of my favorite programs include: Kimpton’s VIP (Very Important Pet) program, which welcomes your pet with gourmet dog treats, bottled water, a dog bowl and chew toys. Also, W Hotels’ PAW program features doggie happy hour and a 4-legger menu.

Since today is Equal Pay Day, I thought it’d be a great chance to write about women’s travel, which has gone way beyond weekend-at-the-spa, shopping-extravaganza, sit-around-and-have-tea kind of travel (not that there’s anything wrong with any of those things). But more and more, we women are spending our hard-earned pay on some “me time” without the “he.” Do a Google search on “women’s adventure travel” and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

This morning I heard some disturbing news on the radio. The Coney Island amusement park (AKA the Astroland Amusment park) has been sold to a real estate developer, at least according to the NPR story I woke up to. Everything save the cyclone, an official landmark, will be torn down and made into…What exactly? That is the question.

When I first heard the news I was blurry with sleep but this got my blood pumping. It's sacrilege to tear down Coney Island! After all, I have yet to go on all the rides! I'm thinking what – more luxury rentals by the sea? Is there no one else who wants to see some things remain the same? Ugh, I feel old. It's an ugly thought this early in the morning. But what about preservation of an icon?

I’m just back from a trip to the Czech Republic and still suffering from some serious jetlag, so I’ll keep this short and sweet. On the way across the pond I read a stat in Vanity Fair’s Green issue that seriously bummed me out: the U.S. will likely emit 19% more greenhouse gases by 2020 than it did in 2000. Meanwhile, our friends over in the European Union have committed to cut those emissions by 20% by 2020 from 1990 levels. Ouch! I’m pretty sure I winced visibly at that one.

The staggering difference in priorities reflected by those numbers made me wonder if I would see a major difference in the day-to-day eco-consciousness in Europe in comparison to the U.S. To be fair, I was coming from one of our country’s greenest cities to a country led by a man who recently said that government spending on global warming studies were a waste of money and who has compared environmentalism to communism (which, if you know anything about the anti-communist sentiment that pervades the Czech Republic, is a pretty brawny statement). So perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me when recycling bins were nearly impossible to find, or that there was a shocking number of massive SUVs bumping over the cobblestones despite the tiny streets upon which they have to maneuver. I can only hope that a country which loves beer as much as this one does might find the effects that the current multi-year drought are having on their barley crops at least mildly concerning enough to consider that climate change might have something to do with it.

When I was traveling around Southeast Asia last fall, there was a t-shirt making the rounds in the markets of Bangkok. It featured a tree with a speech bubble over its branches reading “hug me,” and a man standing next to it saying “no.” I’m not sure exactly what it signified--for all I know, it could just have been poorly translated from the Thai--but I chose to believe that it had something to do with the fact that sometimes we just don’t make the right ethical, environmental, and moral choices when it comes to looking after the world.

With Earth Day upon us, it’s important, I think, to highlight the amazing natural wonders of the planet, whether it’s the ones we use up our vacation days going to visit, or the ones we pass by every day. And so it was with great delight that I stumbled across Neatorama’s list of the Top 10 Most Magnificent Trees in the World.

In an era where global warming is a hot topic, eco-conscious humans from Capitol Hill to the Bay Area encourage the use of energy efficient light bulbs, hybrid cars and recyclable materials. But an equally disturbing environmental threat (and one that doesn’t seem to get the press it deserves) is that of extinction. One endangered species is the leatherback turtle, and environmentalists are staging what is being called the Great Turtle Race to raise awareness and save these ocean dwellers before it’s too late.

Photo: Leatherback hatchling Copyright Noelle Rucinski.

Unlike Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good As It Gets, I don’t need a new bar of soap every time I wash my hands. Yet, over the course of my travels, I’ve probably abandoned hundreds of half-used hotel soaps and shampoo bottles, which is why I’m all for the new, more environmentally friendly trend of liquid shampoo and soap dispensers.

More and more, I’m seeing hotels asking guests to opt in to towel reuse programs, and I’m starting to see car rental companies add hybrid vehicles to their fleets. Some travel companies are greener than others, but it’s a refreshing new trend that many are incorporating green practices and technologies into their repertoire.

Earth Day is this coming Sunday, April 22nd and this blogging team thinks it's pretty important. Why? Because everything feels different this year since the US Government is finally recognizing what some have long argued: that everything we humans do indeed has an impact on the environment. As a result, we've decided to honor earth day by devoting an entire week of our blog topics to green travel stories.

A good introduction to this topic is my column on this topic.

Okay, so being tired at work isn’t exactly a brilliant career move--it might mean that you make a few mistakes in that report, of course, or call a co-worker by the wrong name in a meeting, but skipping a little shut-eye before work is hardly likely to cause you to kill a few hundred people the next day, is it?

Not so for air traffic controllers who, investigators revealed recently, are understaffed, overworked, and overtired--a (no pun intended) deadly combination that contributed to four aviation mishaps in recent years, and may even have been one of the reasons for last August’s Comair crash, in which 49 people died after the pilot turned down the wrong runway.

In the April issue of Condé Nast Traveler, Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, spoke about his personal travels; his humanitarian work efforts; and the perception of Americans around the world. During the interview, he was asked if travel was the best form of diplomacy. His answer, in my opinion, couldn’t have been a better one. Holbrooke’s response: “If you don't travel, you can forget that people in other parts of the world are human beings, too.”
Via World Hum.

I just read about an airline pilot who, reportedly, was screaming obscenities into his cell phone for all to hear just as passengers were boarding the plane. So many of the passengers found this experience unnerving that the airline actually removed the pilot from the plane and canceled the entire flight.

Was this an overreaction or the responsible thing to do?

So here's the thing, this whole notion of "slow travel" it's not new. There have been home stays and house swaps happening around the globe for years. In fact I lived like a local for the first time when I was 16. And I agree that living la vita local is a great way to immerse yourself in a different culture – in fact it's one of the very best. But I'm kind of peeved at claiming that this whole notion is new.

Let me be clear: I do not have anything against the concept of slow travel itself. It's just that it only has a catchy new name. But I suppose I should blame that on the marketers. And they are probably really psyched because this new name has garnered slow travel a fair amount of press. It took homestays and rentals and put them on the google search map. And thus travel's latest trend has been born.

One of the things I like best about flying is that I don’t have to talk to anyone if I don’t want to. I’ve spent 28-hour flights completely silent, aside from the requisite “chicken, please,” murmured in the direction of the flight attendant. Although I may panic about packing and planning before a trip, I give myself complete carte blanche once I’m on the plane to sit back and relax. And for me, that means snuggling into my sweater, getting stuck into a book, and eating as many Skittles as possible. I don’t want to be bothered. I don’t want to chat. I just want to sit in silence.

I’ve been to Las Vegas several times and for several different reasons: to celebrate my 21st birthday; to (unintentionally) gamble my life savings away; to sit in a conference room listening to various speakers talk tourism; and, of course, to experience the rockin’ Las Vegas shows and nightlife. It never occurred to me, however, to visit Sin City for its food.

Chef Wolfgang Puck started the trend (so they say), when he brought his famous food to the city, and big names have been following his lead ever since. During my most recent visit, I checked out a few places on the must-try Vegas foodie list. L'Atelier and Café Martorano were among my personal favorites, but as more and more celebrity chefs open kitchens, I may just have to make another trip to get more of this delicious destination!

Photo: La Ventreche (Lightly seared tuna belly with crispy onion rings) at L'Atelier.

Take a look around your home or work area, and how many vacation souvenirs do you see? Just glancing around my desk, I see a moose-head pencil, a bottle of Alaskan gold dust, a wooden box containing a cigar, butterfly wind chimes, a teensy stuffed koala bear holding the Australian flag, a magnet depicting tango dancers with what looks like the Washington Monument in the background, and a cruise-ship picture frame, just to name a few.

The souvenir is such a beloved staple of the travel experience.

The 2007 Airline Quality Report is out and the verdict is not really a surprise – wanna guess? Things aren't looking exactly rosy. The study found more lost baggage and an increase in passengers getting bumped and delayed. You've heard all of it before and if you've been flying you've experienced it. But this is the factual proof. And yet, we're all still waiting for the airlines to take some responsibility. Maybe this will make them change?