I’ve often wondered why so many Americans are obese when places like Wal-Mart and Target are so enormous that surely just walking from Electrical to Greeting Cards must burn off a few hundred calories.

And so I wasn’t particularly surprised when I read that some Las Vegas tourists--exhausted, evidently, by strolling from casino to buffet and back to casino again--are hiring motorized bikes to navigate the Strip.

Called “mobility scooters,” these controversial forms of transportation were originally intended for the elderly, infirm, or disabled--all people who should, without question, be able to use them to make their vacation a little easier. But for $40 a pop, perfectly able-bodied patrons are hiring their own mobility scooters to make that afternoon walk from the Luxor to the Bellagio, well, a drive.

Think of the popular travel writers publishing today and the names Bill Bryson and Pico Iyer come to mind. Soon enough, their books will sit on the shelves next to a new sort of travel book, written by a person who is wildly popular, but who does not actually exist.

Over the weekend, CNN reported that Borat, the fictional Kazakh reporter who recently made such a big hit at the box office, now has set his literary sights on dishing out travel advice. The book deal has already been signed with Flying Dolphin Press. Coming to the shelves in November, the book will be entitled "Borat: Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. and A." and "Borat: Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." That's two books in one. Nice!

We have to take this with a pinch of salt, of course, but reports surfaced earlier this week that Britney Spears--she of the bald-headed breakdowns--delayed a Miami-bound flight for almost an hour, after she threw a tantrum and stormed off.

The reason? The seats on the plane weren’t made of leather.

Like any kid, I couldn’t wait for school to be out and summer time to roll around. The average summer day in Texas meant sweltering heat and swimming pools, but the real treat was our weekly theme park visits.

What’s a trip to Australia without seeing a koala or a trek in Peru without a llama? Sure, there are zoos and animal parks that bring giraffes to the Bronx and hippos to Cleveland, but, to me, there’s nothing like seeing animals in their natural habitats.

Like a lot of people in the Bay Area, I’ve been following the story of the humpback whales that have lost their way out of their natural habitat and into the waters near Sacramento. Everyone I know is really rooting for them to make their way back through the Golden Gate and to the ocean. To have whales come in such close proximity to the Governator’s office is a novelty, and the rescue effort is drawing large crowds of both locals and tourists alike.

A few months ago I cashed in 50,000 miles for a trip to the UK, Ukraines, Russia and back. I have no complaints because the ticket saved me a pretty penny – and of course I actually got the flights on dates that I needed which is amazing in this day and age. But nonetheless as I scramble to prep and pack ahead of my trip across the pond today I started to ponder how an open skies agreement will change overseas airline prices. Those coveted International fares remain the priciest of tickets. In a way they're like the last frontier to be conquered but they're also the lucrative routes that have allowed the airlines a break from the brutal competitive marketplace. But now…everything changes.

The New York Times travel section said it well this weekend with their blurb about Zoom Airlines called Trans-Atlantic Bargains Begin. Can you imagine a flight to London for under $200? Seriously, Imagine!

As I fly to London tonight I'll be dreaming of my next trip – at that price what's going to stop me?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: flying domestically within the U.S. is like flying in a third world country.

In fact, it’s worse than flying in a third world country. I should know. Last fall, I made the trip from tiny Bagan, Myanmar (formerly Burma) to tiny Inle Lake, Myanmar on the modest Air Mandalay. Aside from the fact that I’d picked up some tropical parasite and felt like death warmed up for the full hour and a quarter, it was one of the most pleasant flights I’ve had. The aircraft was clean, new, and perfectly punctual, the crew was delightful--several flight attendants even offered me Ibuprofen when they saw I wasn’t well--and we were (gasp!) actually given food we didn’t have to pay for. Sure, the flight was announced by a man yelling through cupped hands, and the same woman took the payment for our ticket, checked us in, and--for all we know--even flew the plane, but the experience was still better than any I’ve had flying within the U.S.

Earlier this week, my mother took a 19-hour flight from San Francisco to Singapore. Before the shuttle came to pick her up, we sat down to a gargantuan breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon. In her carry-on bag, she packed a few roast beef sandwiches and a bag of licorice to tide her over. Her plan, she said, was to keep as full as possible for as long as possible.

So that’s where I get it from, I realized, casting back to all those foil-wrapped packages I’d tucked into tote bags before leaving the house for the airport. I’ve always brought my own food on the plane--whether taking a short hop from San Francisco to Las Vegas, a puddle-jumper from London to New York, or a 28-hour all-out affair from Charleston, South Carolina, to Bangkok, Thailand. My motto? Always have snacks.

Which begs the question, of course: what are the best snacks to take on an airplane?

As more and more destinations around the world emerge as gay-friendly, one thing is clear: the gay community is not only one of the most avid groups of travelers, but they’re also among the savviest and most adventurous. Community Marketing’s 11th Annual LGBT Travel Survey revealed that 71 percent of gay U.S. citizens hold a valid passport compared to only 24 to 30 percent of all adult U.S. citizens, and almost half of those surveyed used their passport to travel last year.

I was able to catch up with Tom Nibbio with the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association to get his thoughts on what’s hot in gay travel.

I’ve just returned from the U.S. Virgin Island of St. John after a week of sunset swimming and amateur snorkeling attempts. If you’re interested in that sort of thing—and in hiking, boating, sunbathing, and pina-colada drinking—then the good news is that, according to the Boston Globe, prices on Caribbean vacations and cruises are remaining refreshingly low for summer.

St. John is unique in that two-thirds of it is national park (so pristine!), and this extends under the sea to its rich coral gardens. On the island, just five minutes outside of Cruz Bay, each bend of the jungle road leads to another unspoiled beach, no two alike but all equally blessed with the fabled white sands and clear waters so touted in all the brochures.

Honestly I'm a little surprised it took this long, but it finally looks like soaring costs and an unfavorable exchange rate has started to soften demand for European travel this summer. That continent has always been a favorite for vacationing Americans and so it leaves many people wondering just where to go this summer. While some are taking advantage of places farther afield with better exchange rates on the ground (like India and China, for example) there are many who aren't prepared to go quite that far. For you I've come up with a list of places where you can go this summer instead of Europe. These are places that you can find many of the charms of Europe but a little closer to home and most certainly for less.

Where I come from--England, by way of Southeast Asia--barbecue means something entirely different from what it means in Charleston, South Carolina, where I moved right out of college. So when I invited my new Southern friends over for a barbecue shortly after hitting town, I was thinking hamburgers, hot dogs, and roasted marshmallows. They were thinking pulled pork, ribs, and sweet tomato-based barbecue sauce.

It was an interesting party.

This weekend I was in New Orleans for Jazz Fest – it was awesome. And New Orleans is definitely able to show tourists a grand ole time – just like before. Only, well, a little different. Katrina changed the people of New Orleans as much as it changed the foundation of the land. When everyone talks about the culture of New Orleans – the music and the food and the history – this storm is now a part of all of that. Everyone you talk to has a story.

It was my first trip back post Katrina. And I wanted to learn as much as I could about how things were now. I have to say that everything I've read and heard about New Orleans is true. New Orleans is very much ready for tourists to return. I stayed in the W on Poydras Street – just outside of the quarter. It was vandalized and set on fire after the storm. You'd never know. I walked along the warehouse district and Magazine street is thriving. The nearby Garden District's gorgeous homes are still standing proudly. And of course the French Quarter buzzes around the clock. Bourbon Street shows no signs of Katrina whatsoever. And yet, the city still needs help.

“Maybe,” said my Dad over the phone without a hint of irony, “during the hottest hours of the day you kids can come back inside like when you were little and do art projects.”

We were talking about an upcoming family trip to celebrate a milestone birthday for him, one in which he, my mother, two sisters, brother-in-law, and I are going to share a condo together on the Caribbean island of St. John. With the youngest of us being age 25, none of us even remotely qualify for the “kid” label anymore. Yet, judging by our hats in the photo I’ve posted above, things tend to, uh, regress a bit on the rare occasions when we all can get together as grown-ups.

It’s the word that all cell phone users loathe: roam. And nothing’s worse than opening that monthly phone bill expecting the normal $68 price tag and discovering that you owe a whopping 200 bucks. What! Did! I! Do?!

Well, I’ll tell you what I didn’t do. I didn’t take the time to thoroughly understand my cell phone plan, and it ended up costing me. My cell phone and I are inseparable. We dine together. We workout together. I even activated international calling, so we can travel together. I know that making a phone call from France or Mexico or Argentina costs me anywhere from 49 cents to a painful $1.50 per minute. Even sending and receiving text messages puts a dent in the bank account. Last month, I made the mistake of thinking that I had a North American cell phone plan through T-Mobile, so I used my phone as I normally would on a short trip to Vancouver. When I received my phone bill, I discovered that my plan only covered the U.S. and not our neighbors to the north as I thought. Ouch!

After reluctantly paying my monthly bill, I vowed (for my financial wellbeing!) to be a smarter international caller. (Check out this nine part feature on using cell phones abroad in The Travel Insider.) My cell phone and I are getting ready for a trip to Australia later this month, and I don’t want to be shocked by another outrageous phone bill!

I'm not a big hiker. To be honest, I'm not really a big exerciser. Sure, I drag myself to the gym every few days and walk 50 minutes roundtrip to and from work, but I only manage to do the former because it's in the lobby of my office building, and I certainly make up for the latter with supplementary trips to the candy bowl. (Supplementary to the candy I'm already eating, you understand. Because I need my strength with all that walking!)

And so this weekend when the mercury hit the high 70s in San Francisco and my boyfriend dragged me out of the house for some fresh air--some fresh hillside air--I wasn't too into it. Because although my single greatest achievement in life is the completion of a four-hour hike over the Great Wall of China in 90 degree heat and badly-fitting shoes, I only really did that by accident. (I thought we were going to a nice busy spot, where I could take a few pictures, wander around a little, and buy some postcards. I didn't know we'd be trekking from one remote spot to the other, with only a few hastily-made peanut butter sandwiches and a can of overpriced Pringles for sustenance.) In the end, the hike was fun, of course, but it was fun in the way that eating ten Snickers bars in a row is fun. Which is to say, I probably wouldn't want to do it again.

I swear this post is about the mountains, despite the apparent lack thereof in the picture. (If you squint really hard you can see them in the background I swear - but isn’t my dog cute?) Today is my one-year anniversary of having left my mountain town for the city, and while I have very few complaints about the relocation, I still desperately miss the mountains – particularly in the summertime. While the picture might not scream mountains, it reminds me of all the things I love about them in the warm weather months.