Sunday, May 28, 2006

Welcome to the Articles Archive page of www.cloudtravel.net.  Cloudtravel is a weblog with articles and the distillation of research and experience for travelers' reference and entertainment.  The site is non-commercial and expresses personal opinion only.  Sorry, no links are posted or exchanged if you are making money from the Internet.  To see if I have an article about your destination, please e-mail me, or just Google the name of your destination with the word, "cloudtravel." 2:40:52 PM

What's in Price Range for Summer 2006? For the budget traveler Europe seems to have moved further and further from reach over the last several summers.  The Dollar exchange rate against the Euro has been bad news for most of recent memory.  After lolling at about $1.22 for the first half of 2006, the month of May saw the Dollar lose ground and edge close to $1.30 against the Euro (120-day Dollar/Euro exchange rate graph).  To sour the financial picture a little more for would-be Europe travelers, credit card companies have amped up policies of charging a foreign exchange fee to change money to and from dollars.  These "conversion" fees are running about 2% on many cards.  Bankrate.com calls the fees "a complete gouge" (under policies like these you could buy a jacket in Paris, return it, but get charged credit card fees for currency exchange for both the purchase and the return).  You've got to read the small print to see if your card charges these fees.  In 2003 Visa and Mastercard were both court ordered to return these kinds of fees collected to customers without sufficient disclosure.  Reportedly, there are some holdouts, like Capital One, that don't charge this fee, but it is becoming the rule, not the exception Air fares offer very little consolation to those looking to travel to Europe this summer.  Even with seat occupancy at record highs (occupancy is at the highest levels since the 1940s) fuel costs are impacting everything.  A quick survey of fares for European destinations from New York on Kayak Buzz shows only London, Dublin, Manchester and (surprisingly) Rome under the $500 mark. Is there any relief?  The Baltic countries are being touted by some as undiscovered bargains, but travel to Latvia or Estonia isn't a simple equation like a western European jaunt.  (There are options, not necessarily inexpensive, for flying into Scandinavia and taking overnight ferries to the Baltic region.) From what I'm seeing it may be worth considering Australia and New Zealand for summer 2006.  Airfares to Sydney or Auckland can still be had for about $1,000, the same as three or four years ago.  Inverse to poor performance against the euro, the American dollar has gained against Australian and New Zealand currencies since May 2006.  If you haven't seen Australia and New Zealand, maybe this is the summer to consider it.  Here is a cloudtravel article that argues for making the trip.   Although the dollar has lost ground against the Mexican peso since March, some websites are touting Mexico as a good bargain prospect, particularly Merida on the Yucatan Peninsula.  Direct flights from New York to Merida are pricing in the $400 to $500 range. 1:39:34 PM

	Sunday, January 02, 2005

Something New All the Time In the month of January cloudtravel continues twice weekly weblogs about travel topics of interest.  Please check us out Tuesdays and Thursdays at www.cloudtravel.net and be sure to subscribe by RSS feed. 6:41:02 PM

	Friday, November 26, 2004

Music Worldwide in December For the month of December www.cloudtravel.net will be featuring articles on how technology and the Internet have made it possible for part-time musicians to record cds and distribute them worldwide.  On the web, in business and just by chance I run into people all the time who have underground musical projects.  So this month I have a different kind of travel tale that features two of my projects as examples that took to cyberspace this fall.  A popular music disc, "Parrot" is shown on left (here's the best price online), and a traditional, acoustic blues disc, "Eagle in Disguise," is shown on the right (best price). 8:55:26 AM

	Thursday, November 25, 2004

Happy Thanksgiving! After threats of a rain front and gusts of strong wind forecasted for the last third of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, we actually got sunshine breaking through. Here's Charlie Brown in hot pursuit of a football photographed Thanksgiving morning at West 53rd Street and Broadway. 11:40:41 AM

	Monday, October 25, 2004

Autumn and the Storm King The Fall foliage change is sweeping through New England with the brightest show of color in several years.  (Photographer's guide to New England foliage.)  Though the leaf change was still patchy in the Hudson Valley of New York the second week of October when this image was taken, it shows the mighty Storm King and layers of autumn cloudcover.  Henry Hudson and a crew of 20 sailed a ship called the Half Moon past this point in 1609 looking for a quick passage to China.  They did not find it.  But near West Point on the west bank of the Hudson River remains this 1,355 foot mountain.  Here's a site on Tales of the Storm King, including directions to lost mines. This site notes major viewing points for the Storm King. 10:11:21 PM

	Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Adirondack Park From the top of Whiteface Mountain in upstate New York (4,416 feet), visitors to the Adirondack Park take photographs with Lake Placid lying below.  Framed by the Canadian border and Lake Chamaplain, the Adirondacks are northerly enough that they are already seeing signs of fall color. Visit the new cloudtravel page on visiting Adirondack Park. 10:10:29 PM

	Wednesday, September 08, 2004

Mount Shasta This image, courtesy of Brett Bressler, an attorney in Winter Park Florida, depicts the northeast side of Mount Shasta in upstate California, 220 miles north of Sacrementao.  This is said to be the mountain face where the serious climbing is going on this time of year and this mountain has one of hte largest base-to-summit rises around.  At 14,162 feet it is the largest volcanic peak in the contiguous US.  There hasn't been a confirmed eruption of Mt. Shatsta in modern times, but the explorer La Perouse, while sailing in the Pacific, sighted an eruption in 1786 believed to have been Mt. Shasta. (USGS geologic survey of the Cascade Range of volcanoes.)  The region was once famed for its cedar trees, so populous at one point that even as late as 1970 half the wood pencils in the world were made from Shasta cedar.  Here's the Shastacam, with new views of the mountain every twenty seconds. 8:32:06 PM

	Friday, June 11, 2004

Summer in Europe With the beginning of June another summer of warm weather seems to be upon Europe.  France and England have already seen sunny days near 90 degrees.  This shot of Ewan, age 4, is from the French Alpine village of Bernin (population 2,902 - click here for local map and weather).  The picture shows the snows around the ski resort Chamonix and towering Mont Blanc (4,807 meters high) still evident on the mountains (Chamonix live web cam).  But summer travelers from America shouldn't expect all fun and sun, with air fares and exchange rates still topping out the highest they have been in years (Europe summer travel 2004 update). 6:12:05 AM

	Sunday, April 25, 2004

Queen Mary 2 The Queen Mary 2 arrived at New York City pier 92 on April 23 on its maiden transatlantic voyage.  The largest passenger ship ever constructed (three times the size of Titanic), QM2 will replcace the Cunard Line's Queen Elizabeth 2 on the transatlantic route.  New Yorkers turned out by the score to see QM2 depart New York on Sunday, April 25. 10:20:15 PM

	Monday, March 29, 2004

New York Approaches Spring Wow, what a winter in New York City.  The neighbor from Chicago just shakes his head and says it was easier going in his home city than Manhattan this winter.  With three days of snow in mid March it seems like spring will never make it, but the trees are beginning to bud, notably the gingkos, with their pencil-eraser buds bristling on every limb.  The visitors, however, aren't letting it get them down.  Midtown is swarmed with tourists.  Here are some great photographs of New York from an artful tourist's eye.  If you are thinking of making a trip, take a look at the cloudtravel introduction to New York City, and also the cloudtravel New York walking tour.   As ever, be sure to check in with the twice-weekly cloudtravel web log about travel issues, travel stories and the inspirations that makes us take to the road. 6:21:15 AM

	Sunday, March 21, 2004

Hits on the cloudtravel Normandy page are picking up as the first 60th D-Day Anniversary events are scheduled to begin in April.  Meanwhile, American travelers are frustrated by the expense of a European trip with the dollar at a record low against the euro and at an 11-year low agains the pound sterling.  3:03:24 PM

	Monday, January 26, 2004

D-Day 60th Anniversary This June Gerhard Schroeder will be the first German Chancellor to take part in a D-Day Anniversary event in Normandy, France.  There are 80 different events spread over Calvados country that will lead up to the formal memorial on June 6, 2004.  The cloudtravel page on visiting Normandy has been updated with special 60th Anniversary links.  8:22:11 AM

	Sunday, January 18, 2004

Mardi Gras Update Mardi Gras 2004 is on February 24, 2004.  The cloudtravel guide to visiting New Orleans doesn't have dedicated Mardi Gras resources, so stay tuned for an update page that will appear at www.cloudtravel.net on Tuesday, January 20. 11:42:03 AM

	Thursday, January 08, 2004

Quebec/Montreal Redux At right is Montreal's Basillique Notre Dame on a structure that dates from1642 and rebuilt in its present neo-Romanesque form in 1829.  It seemed like a good idea to edit the Quebec/Montreal page a little more today, including the addition of some photos.  (There was too much cold medication at play last night and today I saw mistakes all over the place.) 9:35:25 PM

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