Let’s face it--Americans have always been about bigger and better, from 10-gallon hats to Big 10 universities. And who can blame us? We’ve always been a country of hardworking go-getters. We deserve high quality. Travel should be no exception to the rule.

One problem with this approach, though, is that the usual desired effects of travel--mental health, bonding, fond memories--are not always easily quantifiable. What we end up remembering as our “best” travel experiences are often spontaneous, and even mundane. You can’t predestine everything.

Like many of you, I'm thinking a lot about my New Year's resolutions. Every year I diligently make promises to myself that I intend to keep, but I always revert back to my coffee-swilling, bacon-eating, gym-phobic ways within a month or two.

What I need is some professional help to inspire me to make permanent changes in my life, but the program would have to be fun if I’m going to commit. That's why this year I'm contemplating indulging in a wellness regimen at a destination spa.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member Mandan Lynn.

Happy Holidays! Is it just me, or does it seem that New Year’s Eve tends to be a let down if only because the night is so hyped? There are always years when New Year’s is a little more of a rockin’ Eve than others. I know of some people who will be going to pretty amazing places, while I will be heading to a wedding in a city with a slightly less raucous reputation. That said, I am heading to a wedding which will combine all the best parts of New Year’s Eve—friends, dancing, and champagne—with the celebratory emphasis placed squarely where it should be: on the bride and groom.

The New Year symbolizes so much; January is named after the two-faced Roman god Janus, whose likeness was carved into doorways as a representation of coming and going, old and new. So, it makes sense, then, that now is the time to consider where one will travel. It is now when people decide to take a trip sometime over the next 12 months.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member stomps

As I’m swapping Christmas gifts today, I’m thinking more about my next caipirinha than my next eggnog; tonight I’ll pack my bags for Brazil, off to spend New Year’s in Rio de Janeiro on my first trip to South America.

This will also be my first New Year’s Eve in a distant locale, but I’ve always loved celebrating holidays in new places, so I’m banking on it being special. Among my favorites were two Easters in France (despite being stampeded by umbrella-wielding throngs outside Notre-Dame), and I’m always intrigued to hear about others’ holiday travels—windows into other cultures seem to be particularly clear on special days.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member Shaken_Bake

A blizzard tore through the Texas Panhandle this weekend. Wipe that disbelieving frown off your face; yes, it snows in Texas. I awoke on my second morning home for the holidays to see white gusts blowing sideways outside my window. We were house-bound, and the snow rendered the roads so impassable that an 80-car pileup slammed into I-40, just outside Amarillo (which is about 120 miles south of my hometown, Perryton). On the rural plains, there are no trees, no tall buildings, no blips on the flat surface of the landscape to break the winds and provide a buffer from the onslaught of winter weather. Not only does it snow in Texas, but the conditions snowstorms bring are fiercer and more violent here than I’ve ever experienced in my going-on-8-years in the Northeast.

With not much to keep me occupied (I taught my sister to play Scrabble, started a jigsaw puzzle, and read four cookbooks cover to cover) I began to think about the misconceptions that plague my not-so-humble home state. As travelers, we encounter misconceptions (others’ and our own) with the regularity of delayed flights; this single phenomenon encompasses one of travel’s greatest challenges and the root of its greatest rewards. And it’s because we understand this that it’s our duty to dispel misconceptions wherever and whenever we are qualified. As a born-and-bred Texan who is actually quite fond of her home state, but whose first impulse upon telling others of her origins is to assure them that she isn’t, I think it’s high time to set the record straight. Please take a moment to get the cowboys-and-guns jokes out of your system. Now, coming to you straight from the Lone Star State, here are the five things every Texan wishes others understood.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member bmwhd

Travel smarter and you can travel less next year. I know this is not exactly what you think you might hear from a girl who spends her time touting travel. But the truth is I don't think any of us have to travel more. I mean, sure, there are endless places I'd like to see and there is always something else out there to do. But the truth is there is so much time that is wasted. There is so much waste. It can depress me to think about it. But by making better choices we can reduce our overall footprint, save time, save money, and even enjoy our travels more fully when we do take off.

I'm one of those people who believes that the little things we do truly make up who we are. It's not the big, grand gestures (although sure, if I had Bill Gates' money or Warren Buffet's or Oprah's I would like to make a grand gesture with a massive pledge toward the science of reversing climate change) but seeing as I don't have that kind of cash, I have to make the little things I do matter.

Inspired by a piece in this morning’s USA Today and of course, the melancholy that comes with saying goodbye to one year and welcoming another, I decided to take a look back at the year in travel. Not my own travels, mind you, though I did have some wonderful trips – Hawaii, Thailand and France come to mind. No, I wanted to take a look at what changed in travel in 2007 – especially those things that will impact us in the year ahead.

If you read this blog (or a newspaper) with any regularity, you know this year was a record one for flight delays. The delays were particularly bad this summer, when one in four flights did not reach their destination on time. Passengers were beyond frustrated, and the federal government stepped in. President Bush told the airlines it was time for a change – and now, with flights being capped at JFK during peak hours starting in March of 2008, it appears change is on the way. How will flight caps help? Many industry experts say that over scheduling by the airlines is a major factor. For those of you who live outside of New York, this impacts you too – at one point this summer, 75 percent of delays can be traced to a New York-area airport, according to an article in New York Magazine.

Everywhere I go these days, people are asking me if I've finished my holiday shopping. The answer? A resounding no. I'm not doing all that badly though---as of this morning, I've only got one more present to buy. But since I've scoured every shop in San Francisco to find something suitable---and my Friday night flight home looms ever near---I'm gradually realizing that my only other option may just be to buy something at the airport.

Don't laugh! It's not what you're thinking, I promise. In fact, airport shopping has come a long way since the days of old, when you'd be lucky if you could scrounge up a tacky souvenir keyring and the latest issue of People magazine as an impromptu present. These days, you can actually find a remarkably nice holiday gift if you've got a half hour between check-in and boarding. Read on for the top five ideas.

As an American living in a post-9/11 world, it’s somewhat counterintuitive to abolish border checkpoints. Over the past few years, our government has heightened security measures and implemented new passport regulations. But in Europe, just the opposite is happening, as nine more countries will sign the EU agreement on Friday.

Traveling throughout Europe is much like traveling domestically from state to state. Europeans have enjoyed the freedoms of borderless travel since the founding countries (France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg) signed the so-called Schengen treaty in 1985. Since then, the EU has grown to include 15 countries.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member Vicho.

In the Beatles hit, a young Paul McCartney wondered, “will you still need me… when I’m 64.” The answer is increasingly, yes. The over-60 crowd is sharper and fitter than ever before, and they’re not about to fly into greener pastures with a golden watch on the wings of a forced early retirement.

This played itself out last week as congress, the senate, and then our commander-in-chief approved fast-tracked legislation to raise the mandatory retirement age for pilots from 60 to 65. The ease with which this legislation passed undermines a fierce debate about airline pilot age that’s been going on for decades.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member John Spreitz.

Every year I like to go some place I've never been before. It's part of my travelution regimen; that is my annual effort to set a travel resolution apart from all those other resolutions about diet, exercise and being a perfect person in the coming year. As I approach 2008 I feel that setting the same kind of goal as normal isn't quite enough. Maybe it's that I'm getting perilously close to 40 and I just have to change up my routine, well whatever it is, I decided to put together a list of wild and or wacky travel things to do. It's not a list that I can accomplish in a single year, but it will serve as a list for me to get to in the coming years (my own travel Bucket List) and I hope that perhaps it can provide some inspiration for you too.

Given my urban life I'm always interested in getting closer to nature. How about feeding a giraffe with your bare hands? It's how I learned about Giraffe Manor as I only had an afternoon in Karen, Kenya (just outside Nairobi) and visited the feeding area down the road from the beautiful hotel. The Giraffes would lope down a maze of trees and disappear. They are totally free to roam on the property of the Giraffe Manor hotel. Guests there are frequently awed by the playful Giraffes who often poke their heads into the inn to say hello.

Last year, I spent Christmas Eve getting packages in order, chattering excitedly about the big day ahead, and drifting off to sleep way past my bedtime. Come Christmas Day, though, you wouldn’t find me opening presents by a tree or singing carols with the folks. Instead, I boarded a plane with four friends and spent the holidays in Paris, thousands of miles away.

Although I wasn’t contemplating it while catching snowflakes underneath the spires of Notre-Dame, my choice of holiday was more typical of gay men and lesbians of my age and economic status than I had imagined. Google “gay Christmas travel”, and you’ll be inundated with ads pitching everything from Vegas getaways to tropical cruises. There’s a huge market catering to those of us who are often disinclined to spend the holidays with family--indeed, to those of us who often can’t.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member kwasiak.

This week an Associated Press article highlighted the global race among airlines to add more lie-flat seats to airplane cabins. From United Airlines being the first U.S.-based carrier to offer sleeper seats to talk of Singapore Airlines's new mini-suites with double beds, it seems that snoozing at cruising altitudes may soon be easier.

Sleeping on an airplane is often my number one priority, but achieving REM can be difficult or even downright embarrassing. Everyone has their own airplane sleep technique but none really work. Here are a few I've noticed:

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member quinius

A winter ice storm affecting the Midwest may be the first glimpse of what's in store for the busy weeks ahead. Officials in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma have declared states of emergency, according to the Associated Press. Travelers to Denver and the Colorado Rockies may also be affected. In response to today's storm, the following airlines have waived change fees to re-accommodate passengers; please check individual airline websites for more details.
American Airlines
Continental Airlines
Delta
Frontier Airlines
Midwest Airlines
United Airlines
US Airways

For this week’s post, I’m inspired by the recent return of a fellow IgoUgo employee who ventured off on a two-week trip to Yemen. Despite the warnings from the State Department—and pleas from his mother—our friend ventured into a land that is (was) purported to have a high risk of kidnapping for westerners. Yet, he returned, replete with some of the more stunning photos of vast plains, spectral hilltop villages, and children just curious about the camera.

I am all for trying new and uncharted and even slightly dangerous waters, in fact, I think I would prefer them to the placid sea, but certainly some things that call themselves adventurous don’t seem as daring as other, more extreme choices. Of course, to each his or her own—to some, being daring can depend on your location.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member HELEN001

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I love nothing more than a good road trip. I’ll get on a bus to anywhere: Belfast, Ireland; Providence, Rhode Island; Stowe, Vermont; Dijon, France; and Pythagorio, Greece, are among the places I’ve first glimpsed through the windshield of a Peter Pan (or equivalent) coach.

But after reading the reactions of the first group of passengers to disembark from the London-to-Sydney OzBus—under the headline “End of the road for the OzBus after 84 days of mishaps and mayhem”—I have to wonder if a transcontinental-continental-continental bus ride is more terrifying than terrific.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member lcampbell

With the holiday season in full swing, gift shopping underway (well, almost), and my annual hometown pilgrimage upcoming, I’ve had one thing on my mind: family. It’s the time of year when travel means family travel: how to keep the kids entertained, the parents happy, the siblings living harmoniously, and yourself sane. It can take some serious maneuvering.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member C.Kowalczik

What do you wear on the plane? No, seriously, it's not a rhetorical question: what do you wear on the plane?

I ask only because there was a man on my most recent flight---and we're talking a grown man, one who likely pays taxes, has his driver's license, and is capable of growing a beard---wearing plaid flannel PJ bottoms. Granted, it was a long-ish flight, but really? Plaid pajamas on the plane? Oh, I'm sure they're comfy, but so are corduroys.

The travel industry may have found a way to improve security and go green at the same time. Continental Airlines and the Transportation Security Administration at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston are testing a new check-in procedure using cell phones instead of a paper boarding pass.

The technology involves using encrypted bar codes on mobile device screens, eliminating the chance of a traveler presenting a fraudulent boarding pass. During the three-month pilot program, Continental passengers can receive boarding passes electronically and a TSA officer will then scan the bar codes when the passenger goes through the security checkpoint.

If it’s true that you can attract more bees with honey, then can you attract more tourists with… aliens? That’s the crux of a controversy in the state of New Mexico right now, where they are considering the further release of a round of ads starring aliens to ratchet up tourism to the Land of Enchantment. No doubt, there’s an interest out there for UFOs and other unexplained mysteries--just ask Dennis Kucinich and Shirley MacLaine.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member jurko.