Since I’ve got one book out on traveling to Mexico and Central America and another one called The World’s Cheapest Destinations , naturally I’m going to encourage people to fly somewhere far and go exploring. This summer though, I wouldn’t blame anyone who said, “Screw that” and decided to vacation close to home.
Which leads us to my MSNBC column this week, Traveling in Your Own Backyard .
This might be the year, however, when most people would be better off staying close to home. Besides the well-publicized airline woes, we’re also facing record-high gas prices for that family road trip, and hotel rates are hovering near record highs as well, especially in large cities.
I’m taking two far-flung family vacations this summer, but I’ll admit I hesitated a bit before hitting the purchase button on those airline tickets, anticipating the hassles that await us. I did stick with airlines I feel confident about though, which is a pretty short list in the U.S.
As Christopher Elliott noted last week, there’s a good chance we’ll see a new trend: that a lot of people are going to voluntarily put themselves on a no-fly list this summer travel season.
Now American Airlines is apparently trying to weasel out of compensating bumped passengers , as if they haven’t gotten enough bad press this past month for how they handled their maintenance crisis. United says it’s going to lay off 1,100 employees . At this point, where are they going to find 1,100 employees extra employees to let go? What are they going to do: eliminate checked luggage and put vending machines in coach?
Andy Rooney’s not going anywhere , but what about you? My fellow Americans, will you still fly this summer? Will you fly a foreign airline out of your home country, avoiding the sad domestic ones? Or will you figure out what’s within easy driving distance instead?
