Travel&Vacation

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Underpriced and on-the-rise European destinations

Lisbon and environs, Portugal

The Croatian Islands

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Riga, Latvia

The slow upward creep of airfares over the last decade has made summer travel to Europe a pricier endeavor. Add a strong euro to the equation, and suddenly travelers looking for good value are priced out of many of the most traditionally popular European destinations. But there are still plenty of cities and regions offering that winning combination of good value, beautiful surroundings, and interesting reasons to visit.

Montenegro

Once a destination for the rich and famous, tiny Montenegro has only recently begun a comeback after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia drove it off the tourism map more than a decade ago. June 3
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The first time the Houskas vacationed at Kona Village on the Big Island of Hawaii, Judy Houska was pregnant with her first child. The next year, they celebrated Joe Houska’s 40th birthday. Then it was Joe and Judy’s 10th anniversary.

“We finally admitted that we would go every year because it was where we wanted to be with our family more than any place in the world,” said Joe, who lives in Berkeley, California, and has now been vacationing at Kona Village for more than 20 years.

Consider yourself extremely lucky if you have such a special vacation place in your life. Maybe it’s a small resort on Cape Cod. Maybe it’s a Minnesota lakefront, a certain ski town, or a favorite camping spot. Maybe it’s a place where you vacationed as a child and that you now share with your kids.

While
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Five travel dilemmas and how to cope with them

If you get sick on your trip

If your hotel is overbooked

If you lose your luggage

If you miss your flight connection

Vacation. It’s supposed to be a few days of carefree bliss, but when something goes wrong, things can quickly go from relaxing to downright stressful. Even if you suffer a setback while traveling, though, it doesn’t mean your vacation’s ruined. Lost passport? Missed connection? No problem. Here’s how to deal with big travel headaches.

If your passport is lost or stolen

“My passport was stolen while I was sleeping on a night train from Lyon to Lourdes, France,” says Molly Feltner, an associate editor here at SmarterTravel.com. Luckily, she knew just what to do. Upon arriving in Paris, she
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It never fails.

No matter where we’re going, no matter how well I’ve planned, I turn into a witch the night before a trip.

“Chill!” the kids beg. But I can’t.

I’m a packing worrywart, and my family hates it. I worry we’ll forget an essential duffel. (We once arrived in Cape Cod without one daughter’s suitcase.) I worry we’ll forget essentials (like the time we got to Colorado without another daughter’s ski parka). I worry we’ll need the one item in the first-aid kit that I neglected to buy. (When one child fell into some jumping cacti at Joshua Tree National Park in California, we discovered we’d forgotten the entire first-aid kit.)

I worry so much about what I think we might need that I end up overpacking. My husband takes things out of the bags as quickly as I put them in. And
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American Airlines’ new website design is the biggest improvement in online frequent flyer booking I’ve seen in quite a while. Although it doesn’t answer all of the questions you might have, it takes much of the guesswork and hassle out of finding and booking frequent flyer seats. Let’s hope the other big airlines copy it ASAP.

For a look, log onto American’s website, click on “AAdvantage,” next on “redeem miles,” then enter your trip details and click “dates flexible.” The site then displays two 29-day calendars, centered on the departure and return dates you entered, and including 14 days before and after your selected dates. The display highlights all the dates on which frequent flyer seats are available.

The default display shows availability for the low-mileage “MileSaver” award
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To some, researching and booking a cruise is a fun and stress-free experience, complete with happy memories and even new friendships. If this concept sounds utterly foreign to you, you’ve probably been spending too much time searching the Web and puzzling over pricing. What you need is a travel agent.

It’s a common misperception that travel agents can’t get the same low prices you can find yourself on the Internet. That’s true—at least in some cases—when you’re talking about airfare, but when it comes to booking a cruise, travel agents can often find better pricing and provide more personal service than any website. The secret to their success? Cruise lines are actively courting them.

A good travel agent understands the complicated cruise booking process and can direct
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I receive quite a few questions about local sightseeing—especially how to arrange it and how to keep the costs low. I recently dealt with shore excursions, and I have a few follow-up questions there, but some of you are more concerned with local sightseeing or independent travel or package tours.

Locating the tour

One reader asked about finding local tours in Egypt, starting from a base in Cairo. Whether for half-day sightseeing or overnight excursions, I have four general suggestions for finding local tours in major cities overseas:

Check after you arrive. Whether you’re in Cairo, London, Tokyo, or just about anywhere else, you’ll find lots of opportunities to arrange tours and excursions. Travel agencies in and around the main visitor centers almost always highlight their
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