Please join us in welcoming Chef David Shalleck to The Window Seat. He is the author of Mediterranean Summer, a new travel memoir. His guest blog tells you how to shop local farmers' markets like an expert.

One of the greatest things about traveling is to taste something that is truly local. A locality has a flavor, and the best place to find this is in open-air markets and neighborhood shops. Markets are also wonderful destinations for people watching, hearing the sounds of a foreign language, smelling fresh produce or chicken roasting in a rotisserie, and with permission from the vendor and a light touch, feeling ripeness. You can learn a lot this way, and the experiences create seductive and lasting memories.

Photo courtesy of Paul Moore.

Last week was my first time. I was a little nervous at first, but the purple lighting and house music quickly got me in the mood. As I sunk into leather, strapped myself in, and got ready for a long ride, a safety video showed me that this could be easy, even fun, and relaxed me for what would be the rest of my cross-country flight with California-based airline Virgin America.

Now I’ve been with a lot of airlines in my day, but Virgin America does it different. From the aforementioned mood lighting to gate-agent-led games before boarding to the interactive chatting feature in-flight, I stayed busy from start to finish. Like JetBlue, each seat onboard in economy class gets its own TV screen and channels to surf, but Virgin America goes much further, offering an in-flight entertainment system called “Red,” with a choice of movies, games, music videos, radio stations, and even on-demand menu options—plus I had my own remote control!

Mood-lighting photo courtesy of Virgin America.

Renowned for its gargantuan statues and mysterious 18th-century population implosion, Easter Island is possibly one of the most fascinating vacation destinations in the world. Each year, tens of thousands of tourists head to this remote island--an impressive statistic, considering it’s located over 2,000 miles from the coast of Chile (its governing country), and is only about three times the size of Manhattan.

The island’s allure, though, is proportionate to its mystery, and perhaps even further amplified by its extreme remoteness. Like Stonehenge and the Lost City of Atlantis, Easter Island is a symbol of the arcane. Everyone from anthropologists and amateur history buffs to supernatural and extraterrestrial enthusiasts seems to have a different theory as to why its once-thriving people built such huge, peculiar statues (known as Moai)--and then suddenly vanished.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member WAE.

This morning I was on NBC’s TODAY Show talking about how to save on your summer vacation. Although summer prices are higher than ever with flights averaging more than 13% higher fares than last summer don’t give just yet. Now is the time to try harder and use every trick in the book to search for your summer savings. You can salvage that summer trip yet.

In T-minus four months, I'm getting married. When I got engaged I promised myself that I wouldn't be that bride-to-be: no talking about my wedding all the time (obviously failing at that), no obsessing over silly details, and no crash diets to fit into my dress.

But I'm here to tell you that wedding dress shopping is a humbling event. Those ornate gowns are altered to fit like a glove--and if you aren't in top physical form, it will show every single buckle and bulge.

That's why I was intrigued when my friend Carly indulged in a "shapecation" with her bridesmaids. In fact, millions of people were probably intrigued because Good Morning America followed her on her journey. Check out the video here.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member joyvoyager.

For anyone watching any of the Euro 2008 Cup, I don’t need to explain how exciting some of the games have been. From Turkey’s monumental upset over the Czechs, Croatia’s win over Germany, or the Russian ouster of the Dutch in the quarterfinals, the tournament has been compelling. I really don’t know what it is about international football (referred to as ‘soccer’ from here on out. Sorry, old habits…), but I love it. I have great memories of watching World Cup play since Maradona’s Hand of God, but this particular Euro Cup has been amazing, despite England’s embarrassing absence. With no team to root for outright, I’ve been able to just sit back and watch, celebrating good play and pulling for the underdog.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member onesundaymorning

Checked bag fees – they weren’t the first fees, but they were the most publicized. One by one, each of the major carriers began charging $25 to check a second piece of luggage, and the traveling public wondered just how far these fees would go. When American Airlines announced a $15 first-checked-bag fee and United Airlines and US Airways followed, most thought fees had reached the limit. But when US Airways announced on August 1, they would begin charging $2 for non-alcoholic beverages, air travelers started to sense this wasn’t the end of the fees, but just the beginning.

So pack light and avoid the checked-bag-charge and bring your own post-security-purchased beverage on board the plane, but it’s time to come to terms with the fact that a la carte pricing is the new reality. Whatever your thoughts on this flurry of fees – necessity due to the soaring price of jet fuel or sneaky nickel-and-diming – consider that for some travelers some of the time, some of these new fees may actually be worth paying, if just for a bit more comfort when we take to the skies.

More legroom
It’s not always possible to snag the exit-row seat or the bulkhead. For passengers of a certain height, a few more inches of legroom makes a flight much more pleasant. JetBlue offers the option to purchase seats with 38 inches of legroom – up from the typical 34 – for $10 - $30, depending on the flight distance.

United Airline’s “Economy Plus” lets passengers pay up for more legroom – $14 on short-haul flights and more for longer routes. AirTran charges a $20 each-way fee for reserving an exit-row seat with more legroom.

Two years ago I suffered a bit of an identity crisis. I’ve always thought of myself as, first of foremost, a traveler, and I had a decent collection of stamps in two passports to prove it. But I realized there was one place I’d never really seen, despite having spent a lot of time there: America. All those stamps suddenly looked completely inadequate and sort of misguided.

Somewhere between my adolescent rush to Europe, my collegiate youth-hostel tours, and my post-college steps further abroad, I’d neglected to see much of my own country. I’d oohed and aahed at the Alps without ever having seen the Rockies, and omissions like that one had left me ignorant about the world’s most beautiful places closest to home.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo Member Philly_Girl

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.

It's no secret that flying today often ranks somewhere between getting a root canal and slamming your finger in the car door, but a few months ago, I posted about the surprisingly excellent customer service I received---apparently apropos of nothing---on Alaska Airlines. The entire incident, in fact, served to restore my faith in current-day air travel and reminded me of how little we passengers actually need to feel understood and taken care of.

And then, of course, it was back to the usual delays and---hurrah!---a whole new host of fees.

Last week, however, I flew with Air Berlin, and was absolutely bowled over by the superior customer service, the calm and pre-emptive professionalism, and the (utterly novel!) way each passenger was treated like a human being rather than a warm body in a seat.

Lake Powell, a summertime hotspot that straddles the Utah-Arizona boarder, has lured vacationers for decades with its golden cliffs, hanging gardens and blue waters. But the lake is mostly known as a place where houseboats dock during the summer, a tradition that has been somewhat hampered by low water levels and the closing of Castle Rock Cut, a 12-mile shortcut on Lake Powell.

Yesterday Lake Powell Resorts & Marinas announced that The Cut has opened for the first time in five years because of rising water levels attributed to the heaviest winter snowpack in the past eight years, reports the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Lake levels at Lake Powell have been rising approximately one foot per day since mid-May, and the Reclamation projects lake levels to reach an expected peak of roughly 3,638 feet by July. According to the Reclamation’s most recent analysis, the Castle Rock Cut is expected to remain open indefinitely.

Photo Courtesy of ARAMARK / Lake Powell Resorts & Marinas.

Bookmark this handy baggage fee chart to keep tabs on how much it will cost you to check your luggage.

American Airlines announced in May that beginning June 15, 2008, most economy-class passengers would have to pay $15 for their first piece of checked luggage. Travelers waited and hoped that no other airlines would follow, and American would be forced to drop the charge. No such luck. United Airlines and US Airways announced similar policies for tickets purchased on or after June 13 and July 9, respectively. Passengers on those airlines will have to pay $15 for a first piece of checked luggage.
Northwest Airlines became the fourth major carrier to implement this new charge for tickets purchased on or after July 10 for travel on or after August 28 and smaller carrier Hawaiian Airlines added a $15 for a first checked bag on flights between the mainland and Hawaii for tickets purchased after August 1 for travel starting October 1. Most recently, Continental Airlines and Frontier Airlines announced they would also charge passengers $15 for the first piece of checked luggage.

At the same time US Airways announced the new $15 charge, it announced several other new charges -- the most interesting of which (at least for the media) was the $2 charge for non-alcoholic beverages. JetBlue no longer gives out free headsets to watch the in-flight entertainment (the headsets now cost $1).

So how did it come to this? Though airlines have been cracking down in recent years on existing charges for overweight / oversized bags, the real frenzy on charges began when US Airways announced a $25 second-checked-bag fee, and this $25 fee quickly snowballed into an industry-wide trend. The six major airlines – American Airlines, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and US Airways – all charge passengers to check a second bag; $25 on every aforementioned carrier excluding Delta, and United, which now charge $50. Several smaller carriers – Alaska Air, Air Tran, and JetBlue among them – have enacted similar policies.

Travelocity’s FAQ page is constantly updated with the details of each policy.

Please join us in welcoming Catherine Sanderson to The Window Seat. She is the author of Petite Anglaise, a popular blog and new memoir of the same name. Her guest blog gives you an insider's look at a special Paris neighborhood off the beaten path.

It’s easy to do, but I am rooted in the mindset of saving as many of my vacation days as possible, either to go on an annual family vacation or to take a heap of long weekends in the summer. Even with more days than most with which to work, I find myself longing for a six-month sabbatical. With no summer home to head to when the temperature soars, I have to look to other ways to checkout. Taking a page out of Cameron’s book, I jumped at a chance to get out of the city for a day, even if it didn’t mean a long weekend. Last Thursday, I woke up far too early, drove down to Jersey City to pick up my old college buddy, Kam, and drove north to Pine Plains, NY.

Each year I take an annual “Girls Weekend” retreat to Amelia Island in Florida. Turns out, I’m not alone as 33% of the traveling public takes an annual vacation each year and women are even more likely than men to do this kind of a trip, according to the Travelocity Forecast poll for 2008. According to the research, women tend toward beach vacations though they like shopping and spa. My group of women, about 14 in all, do the same thing year after year.

We love the beach and the rolling sound of the waves, though we habitually sit by the pool where we can overlook the ocean and catch the magnificent breeze but remain close to the bathroom, food, and a power outlet should we be in need. (Yes, blackberries abound at this weekend retreat for professional women.)

US Airways is the third major carrier to begin charging $15 for a first piece of checked luggage. United Airlines announced a similar policy on Thursday. American Airlines was the first to announce this new fee last month.

In addition to charging $15 for a the first piece of checked luggage, US Airways will be the first major carrier to charge for non-alcoholic beverages in flight. The cost for soda, juice, coffee and bottled water will be $2. This comes on the heels of an announcement from the airline that they will no longer serve free pretzels in-flight.

The carrier has also announced it will assess a fee to travelers redeeming frequent flier miles. The fee will be $25 for domestic (excluding Hawaii) and Canada flights; $35 for flights to Mexico and the Caribbean; and $50 on flights to Hawaii and international destinations outside of North America.

The airline will also eliminate jobs and capacity in an effort to control fuel costs. US Airways plans capacity reductions of up to eight percent in the fourth quarter. The airline will eliminate roughly 1,700 jobs.

According to the US Airways, the cost of jet fuel has increased more than 90 percent over the last 12 months and more than 200 percent since 2000. Most major carriers, including Continental, American, and Delta have announced capacity reductions and job eliminations in recent weeks, citing the high cost of jet fuel.

In May, all six major carriers along with several smaller carriers, announced they would charge passengers $25 to check a second piece of luggage. Elite members of the individual carrier's frequent-flyer programs are generally exempt from this charge, as are passengers with plans to travel outside of North America.

Have you ever seen a sea turtle in the wild? Me neither. Although they’ve been around for tens of millions of years, sea turtle populations have dwindled rapidly since the 1600s, making the creatures among the world’s most critically endangered species. Their Caribbean population alone has declined by over 99%.

Although many causes of the decline, such as turtle hunting and harmful fishing techniques, have been curtailed over the past 50 years, sea turtle populations still struggle to regain earlier numbers. Even if you’re a nature lover, you could be negatively impacting their numbers: As human population and tourism have augmented, so has development in turtles’ traditional nesting areas. They have increasingly fewer places to lay their eggs.

Photo courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton, Cancun.

Here it comes, the dreaded matching that I hoped wouldn't happen, has. But today United Airlines (the second largest US Carrier) said it would follow American Airlines (the first largest carrier) in imposing a fee for the first checked bag.

That's right. Starting tomorrow it's going to cost you to check a bag, any bag!, on United Arlines for travel booked after August 18th. The fee is $15 for the first bag and $25, now somewhat of an industry standard, for the second checked bag.

Does this mean we can expect to see charges on most airlines for that first bag? I'm afraid it often follows this theme.

What's next?! you say? I can't say for sure but it's no wonder the Derrie-Air spoof has gotten so much attention.

Ahh, the Holy Grail of leisure time: the affordable European vacation. If you're anything like me, the sight of a castle makes you swoon, the whiff of fine cheese makes your mouth water, but the price tags of London, Paris, and even Prague make you nearly keel over. Fear not. There is an answer: Bordeaux.

When most Americans hear this word, one thing and one thing alone comes to mind: expensive red wine. And for good reason. Some of the world's finest vintages hail from this region of France, including Château Lafite Rothschild. Yes, as in that Rothschild.

This picture is of Château La Rivière. Two-person stays start at 110E a night, with breakfast included.

Allow me to channel Andy Rooney as I attempt my first Window Seat rant. I’ve paid for my share of snack packs, shelled out for movie headsets, and purchased a glass of wine on an international flight with nary a complaint. But when I heard a couple weeks ago that I’d have to pay for checking my first bag--my only bag--well, I got miffed.

Now I understand that the airlines face gas prices that are 77% higher than they were a year ago, so system-wide fare increases are a necessary answer to keeping the airlines in business. I don’t like it, but that totally makes sense to me. But what I don’t get is trying to recoup losses in a fashion that discriminates against certain customers, which is what a checked-baggage fee essentially does.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member Raymond Longaray.

As I’ve confessed before, I’m an Olympics-news freak. So last week, I was very excited to learn which four cities cleared the first hurdle in the long-distance race to the 2016 Summer Olympics: Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro. Officially, of course, I’m backing Chicago: it’s home turf for the American team, a world-class city, and close enough to New York that I can dream about attending. Unofficially, it was sweet to see Rio on the list, as I fell in love with the place earlier this year and had the privilege of chatting with one of the city’s Olympics-bid organizers on my trip there.

Photo courtesy of IgoUgo member ttrllvr

Please join us in welcoming Liza Monroy to The Window Seat. She is the author of Mexican High, a new novel about Mexico City that goes on sale today.

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

For many, Cancun is as synonymous with the inebriated high jinks of college-age “spring break” crowds as Las Vegas, Miami, and South Padre Island. Last week, though, I spent an intoxicating four days sprawling and swooning in the Cancun sun--and I was pleasantly surprised by its mature, relaxed atmosphere.

True, late May/early June isn’t Cancun’s biggest tourist season. Also, I had the pleasure of staying at the luxuriant Ritz-Carlton, which, as the world’s only AAA Triple Five Diamond oceanfront resort, is hardly a hotspot for underage pranksters. And yet, I couldn’t help but feel that this rich, dynamic destination has in many ways outgrown its wild reputation.

It's not fun. It's not pretty. And it's certainly not easy to deal with.

We're talking jetlag: scourge of the frequent (or infrequent) traveler, enemy of the energetic globetrotter, bane of the life of anyone who's tried to take a flight through even one time zone. It makes you tired, it makes you irritated, it can cause the delicately-euphemistic condition known as, um, gastric distress, and it really just isn't the best way to start (or even end) a trip.

You can find countless tips and ideas for dealing with jetlag all over the Internet, but the following is what I try to stick to every time. And I just got off an 18-hour flight from Singapore and am currently dealing with a 15-hour time change, so trust me, I know what you're going through.

I got this message in response to an article in Newsweek where I was quoted as saying that the airlines have an opportunity to improve service and hospitality. I stand by that statement but of course the background that I had given the reporter about the crisis that US airlines are collectively facing given the sky-rocketing fuel costs were not added into my quote.

In any case, this response is so potent as it reminds me of how many airline workers are really struggling over the concessions they've been asked to make so that we, the traveling public, can keep flying. Today, given the recent announcements by United and others to cut capacity and of course rising fares it's relevant to remember the human face on all of this.

This summer, I’m visiting local TV stations to raise awareness of a looming generational crisis: nature-deficit disorder. A term coined by Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, this “disorder” isn’t a medical diagnosis, but a description of the “human costs of alienation from nature,” he writes. In his book, he recalls fond memories of being outdoors: hiking deep into the woods where he climbed trees and felt the exhilaration of nature swarm around him. In one powerful statement he divulged that “nature was my Ritalin.”

Do you have a vacation spot that has been a constant in your life? A place that you’ve returned to again and again at different ages and vantage points?

For me, my vacation constant was always Bethany Beach, Delaware. When I was little, my family went there every summer in August, for vacations filled with magic sandcastles and holes to China, fireflies and glowsticks, outdoor crab feasts and locally-made blueberry cobbler served up hot in the salty air. Each summer, I'd let the sun turn my hair nearly white while my face became a fireworks display of freckles.

Photo courtesy of Samantha Berg.

At least according to a recent Travel Industry of America survey which claims that 41 million trips have been avoided in the past year, delivering a $26.5 billion dollar blow to the nations economy, the reason sited: air travel hassles.

The statistics are grave. The highlites say that 28% of air travelers avoided at least one trip over the past year due to problems with air travel. The break down of the missed trips is largely leisure at 29 million compared to 12 million skipped for business travelers.

Photo thanks to IgoUgo memberMsDABerger