Travel safety
Today’s guest post is by Helen Nichols, whose website Well-BeingSecrets.com focuses on health issues. This post is adapted from a longer article on her site about the health benefits of travel. It’s a well-researched piece complete with links to a variety of insightful scientific studies, reports and other documentation.
By Helen Nichols
Traveling has the potential to make us healthier, both physically and psychologically.
We may not be actively aware of it, but traveling can bring about substantive positive changes, which can take effect both during the course of travel and over the longer term.
Boosts Your Immunity
Travel helps strengthen your immune responses to bacteria, viruses, and other foreign bodies.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that you should be careless about hygiene and sanitation while traveling or put yourself at direct risk of getting ill.
However, when you visit new places, you naturally give your body… Continue reading
Visits to Wyoming’s Grand Teton and other national parks may take a hit. Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
According to the National Travel and Tourism Office, there was a four percent decline in the number of international visitors to the U.S. during the first six months of 2017 compared to the first six months of 2016.
And according to a recent International Trade Report released by the Commerce Department, spending by international travelers to the U.S. decreased by 3.3 percent through November 2017 compared to November 2016. Total spending by international travelers to the U.S. came to $246 billion, according to figures from the U.S. Travel Association (USTA), a trade group representing travel industry members.
That 3.3 percent decrease translates to a $4.6 billion loss to the U.S. economy as well as 40,000 jobs in tourism-related industries (hotels, restaurants, transportation, stores, tour operators, travel agencies, etc.)
But the ripple effects… Continue reading
Taughannock Falls overlook is free to all. Photo from VisitIthaca.com
This concludes our four-part series containing 50 tips about How to Travel Cheaply. In today’s guest post, Jesse Miller looks at how you can save money on sightseeing and entertainment, how to manage your money while traveling, and adds some safety tips that can have financial ramifications as well.
Previous posts in the series offer tips on Planning Your Trip, Saving Money on Transportation, and Saving Money on Accommodations and Food.
By Jesse Miller
Sightseeing & Entertainment Tips
1. Be Picky.
Plan to visit your top two or three sites instead of taking a whirlwind tour of all the attractions your destination has to offer. By doing so, you can spend as much time as you’d like connecting with these areas while eliminating rushing around from one tourist spot to the next.
While at these locations,… Continue reading
This hostel in Nuremberg, Germany, is attached to a castle. Photo by Catharine Norton.
For baby boomers, saving money on accommodations can be tougher than for young travelers.
Dormitory-style hostels and CouchSurfing may have much less appeal than for those in their 20s or 30s.
Camping — at least the type (unlike “glamping” or glamorous camping) that leaves you trying to get a decent night’s sleep in a bag on the ground — can be tough on the back (with legitimate concerns that you might not be able to straighten up at all in the morning).
But, as guest poster Jesse Miller contends, “It’s still possible to enjoy a five-star housing experience without paying a five-star price.” The key, Miller says, “is to live like the locals do. This means avoiding more traditional options (such as pricey hotels and resorts) and immersing yourself in opportunities to interact with the… Continue reading
Before you fly, check out these tips to make things go more smoothly
Leading-edge baby boomers — those born in the late 1940s — are now edging into their 70s, and with that inevitably come new challenges when we travel, no matter how healthy we are.
Much as we may hate to admit it (and I’m a prime offender in this regard), we may walk a bit slower, require assistance from time to time, and need to take care of ourselves a bit more.
Flying and airports can be especially vexing, and so I was struck by this piece by Bay Area freelance journalist Scott Morris from the excellent website caring.com that’s filled with tips on how to make the flying and airport experience a bit smoother.
Here’s Scott on a topic of interest to anyone who flies, but especially to older travelers:
By Scott Morris
Flying can be difficult… Continue reading
Before you fly, make sure your medical condition won’t hold you back
Note: This is the fourth in a series of guest posts on traveling with a medical condition by British writer Laura Miller. In this post, Laura provides advice on flying with a medical condition and obtaining the right vaccinations and visas for your trip.
By Laura Miller
Flying with a medical condition
While traveling with many medical conditions is generally safe, airlines do have the right to deny passengers who could suffer complications in the air.
For those travelling by plane, the most common in-flight problems are:
• Neurologic events
• Cardiac events
• Respiratory events
• Gastrointestinal events
• Vasovagal syncope (fainting)
If you’re worried about the risk of being denied passage, it’s worth speaking to your doctor to ask for medical clearance. Consider if any of the following apply:
• You could compromise the safety of… Continue reading
Florence, Italy, is a generally safe destination choice for those traveling with certain medical conditions. Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
Note: This is the third in our series of Traveling with a Medical Condition, written by British journalist Laura Miller. Today Laura offers specific tips for traveling with cancer, a heart condition, or dementia.
By Laura Miller
Traveling with cancer
There’s no reason why a cancer diagnosis should limit your traveling. You’ll still want to see the world for the same reasons as everyone else and cancer shouldn’t be the barrier.
It’s not unusual for people with cancer to book up a holiday at the end of their treatment. On the other hand, others will have no qualms about leaving the country after being told the bad news.
However, it’s important to speak to your doctor and get their opinion before arranging a trip. You’ll then know the ins… Continue reading
Sit back, relax — but don’t get too comfy.
Unless you’ve been camping in the desert or just can’t face listening to the news lately, you’ve no doubt heard the story about the greatest PR disaster to befall an airline since, well, maybe ever.
And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer airline: United, or — as I fondly call them — Untied Airlines.
To briefly recap: On a recent flight scheduled from Chicago O’Hare to Louisville, Kentucky, United Airlines’ employees called in airport police to forcibly eject a 69-year-old baby boomer named David Dao, a physician who lives in Kentucky.
His crime? He refused to give up his seat and deplane when United decided that he and three other passengers picked “at random” had to leave to make room for an airline crew that needed to get to Louisville.
The punishment? The police officers literally dragged… Continue reading
When riding a camel, .I just wart to get there. Photo by Dennis Cox/WorldViews
Based on years of informal polling of friends and family, most everyone has pet peeves about words, phrases or expressions that leave them feeling like they’ve just heard chalk squeaking across a blackboard.
(I don’t know if teachers still employ chalk and blackboards, but baby boomers will remember.)
Words that irk. Phrases that irritate.
Many have to do with the workplace. For example, my daughter once had a friend who was a chef and couldn’t stand the word “meat.”
One of my brothers-in-law who works in business hates jargon-y business words like “parameters.”
My wife, a longtime magazine editor, is driven up a wall by nouns turned into verbs, such as “impact.”
A friend who is an avid cook despised the word “dollop,” to the point where he almost refused to serve sour cream… Continue reading
You can Bicycle the “World’s Deadliest Road” in Bolivia on this fun trip. Photo from Travel Supermarket
The infographic below from the UK-based TravelSupermarket.com came across my desk recently and I thought I would pass it along as a public service. It’s essentially a compendium of Extreme Adventures around the world that I can cross off my bucket list even before trying them.
Oh, I might try riding the Alpine rollercoaster in Austria or give the world’s fastest zip line in Wales a shot at pumping my adrenaline to warp speed.
But bungee jumping into a volcano in Chile, cliff camping in Colorado (yes, that means sleeping on the edge of the cliff), or riding a bike along Bolivia’s notorious Death Road?
Thanks, but I’ll leave those to another lifetime, which I would probably be starting soon if I succumbed to the temptation to try any of them, which… Continue reading
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