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By A P Newton on 21 Jun, 2009 - 10:25 UTC

Arthur Frommer isn't happy with the press his latest book has been getting.  Reviews, though positive, seem to have left out the most important points.  "Ask Arthur Frommer: & Travel Better, Cheaper, Smarter," is, according to the author, a survey of his political and ethical views of what travel should be, as well as a practical guide to travel savvy.  So he's written an essay, an unabashed self-review, outlining what all the book reviewers have missed.

 

Here are Frommer's top 10, very good arguments:

 

(1) The urgent need for longer American vacations, guaranteed by law. We are the only prosperous country to lack such humane requirements, and the book pleads with the public to support congressional action to mandate at least - at least - three weeks per year of paid leave for every person.

 

(2) The right to travel, in peacetime, to wherever we wish. The book argues that travel is a First Amendment right, a learning activity; that the federal government has no more right to prohibit travel to a particular country than it has to stop us from attending a lecture or reading a book.

 

(3) The right of a travel writer to criticize travel establishments without being sued for libel. Several disquieting court actions in other countries are frightening examples of what could happen here.

 

(4) The immense expansion of Amtrak. To reduce our dependence on foreign oil, to improve our quality of life, we need a broad network of speedy trains. The recent allotments of economic-stimulus monies to high-speed rail is a start that must be duplicated by still more appropriations in the years to come.

 

(5) Greatly increased support for our National Parks, which are now suffering from inadequate financing in previous years. Fierce opposition to commercialization of the parks (Coca-Cola signs at the entrance to Yellowstone?).

 

(6) A limitation on the unnecessary operation of corporate jets, placing burdens on our already-overcrowded skies.

 

(7) An Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights, preventing airlines from stranding passengers on the tarmac for four hours and more.

 

(8) A start on assisting travel and tourism for the poor, including low-income-based reductions of the cost of Amtrak tickets and admission to public museums.

 

(9) An end to the mistreatment of foreign tourists to the United States, eliminating thoughtless and unnecessary barriers to incoming travel and discourteous treatment of such visitors by our customs officials.

 

(10) Correcting the failure by the Department of Transportation to devote adequate resources to dealing with deceptive advertising of travel (omission of key expenses and fees) by airlines, tour operators and others.

 

 

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Here's a fun example of large-scale recycling: After being decontaminated, a WWII Warship was intentionally sunk in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Florida officials hope the sinking of the WWII troop ship, the General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, will attract coral, other marine life and divers thus boosting Florida's sagging economy.

Why do we travel? There are entire books devoted to answering the question. One of the answers, "to meet new people and see different cultures," would be well-served by a homestay in one of India's thousands of small villages.

IHT: "We chatted about our families in a pidgin of English, Hindi and Nepali as Pushpa brought up a tray of biscuits with tea plucked from the nearby Darjeeling hills. Pushpa and her family belong to the tenth of humanity who live in India's villages. The other nine-tenths hardly ever visit. Good excuses are getting harder to come by, as cheap guestrooms have opened up in dozens of villages, almost all with the help of local charitable agencies or, more recently, the Indian government and the United Nations Development Program.

"The look and feel of these places is very different from a five-star hotel," Leena Nandan, an official in the tourism ministry, told me after my trip, a delicate way of saying that guests wanting a shower will often find themselves presented with a bucket of hot water. "Once that understanding and appreciation is there, I think visitors like going under and getting to know the people. People are at the heart of this."'
Leo Hickman of The Guardian reviews The Carbon Friendly Flight Finder, "a collaborative effort by The Carbon Consultancy, Global Travel Market and FlySmart.org."

Basically the Carbon Friendly Flight Finder combines the concept of the airfare search engine, with which we're all familiar, with a carbon ranking system for all flights whose airfare it compares. Sounds like a good idea on the surface, but Hickman is underwhelmed:

"However, it also tells you that the Air France flight has a "carbon ranking" of "3", compared to, say, KLM ("7) or Virgin Atlantic ("1"), with "1" being the best and "10" the worst. The Carbon Consultancy says that the carbon rankings for each airline are not based on the actual emissions of that particular flight, but on an assessment based on a wide range of factors. You can read its a detailed explanation. But I'll save you the hassle: all it is saying that the carbon ranking it gives to each airline is little more than an educated guestimate.

Rather than being given a rather vague ranking out of 10, I would prefer to see the actual listings of grams of CO2 per passenger kilometre travelled. And, further still, see this compared against, where they exist, other travel options such as trains, ferries, and coaches. I would also like to see the airline's carbon rankings accurately reflect the fact that the carbon dioxide they emit is done at high altitude which has a significantly greater impact on the climate – the so-called radiative forcing multiplier - than emissions down on the ground. It is only by making such comparisons that an accurate picture can be painted of the various "carbon rankings" of the choices that lay before us."

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