Post Highlights: [5/31]
Should Obese Passengers Be Charged Extra?
My recent comments on the subject on Travel-Rants, suggesting that passengers be charged per seat generated some controversy. I??m going to explain why the obese should be charged per seat, and welcome your comments as well.
The Pros and Cons of Using Cash During The Various Stages Of Travel
What you lose in convenience you gain in security when using cash to pay for your trip, buy souvenirs, and leave tips for waiters. While credit and debit cards are useful if you get ripped off, using cash can prevent it from ever happening.
Sexiest Summer Travel Story Contest
The author of the sexiest summer travel post will win a $250 voucher for the airline of their choosing. The contest runs from May 1 through June 15, read on for details on how to submit your story and win.
Can You Match The Stewardess Uniform To The Airline?
Jezebel has created an entertaining quiz based on Cliff Muskiet’s collection.
Tourism Competitiveness Ratings Released, Switzerland At Top Chad Bringing Up Rear
The World Economic Forum has release their Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report for 2008 (some time ago, admittedly I’m a bit late). The rankings don’t measure how attractive a country is as a tourist destination, but rather the development of the travel industry there. Most of the countries at the top were in western Europe along with the US and Canada.
Most at the bottom of the list were African nations. Like I’ve said before, a tourism industry is a great boost to a 3rd world economy, since it doesn’t require much infrastructure and a weak local currency can attract tourists. You can view the entire report here [pdf], if you do you’ll notice that none of these up and coming destinations are on the list.
Get US Access To Websites While Abroad With Free Download: Hotspot Shield
Increase the security of your wireless connections and bypass international blocks of websites by downloading Hotspot Shield. The program connects you to the Hotspot Shield virtual private network (VPN) located in the US potentially getting you around regional blocks of popular websites.
Netflix for example doesn’t allow users to access their “play now” feature which lets you watch movies in your queue on your PC. A connection through the Hotspot Shield VPN will trick this and many other websites into thinking you’re located in the US.
This hack didn’t work for me each time and the connections were less than stable, but tolerable for the most part. Hotspot Shield also purports to give you “unbreakable” secure wireless access but doesn’t tell you how. If you’re connecting through a fairly reputable wireless connection (like an airport or T-Mobile hot spot) most of your important data like passwords will already be encrypted by the websites you visit.
Avoid any computer-to-computer networks and keep your online accounts safe at Internet cafes with these 12 applications you can run from a USB drive. The advertisement heavy Hotspot Shield is a free download, for both PC and Mac.
Thanks Felipe!
EDITED [5/31]: Hotspot Shield works for both PC and Mac and is Lifehacker’s featured download today.
