06.19.07
The ultimate travel experience
How cool is it that you can watch TV from outer space on your computer? Hope you all are following space shuttle Atlantis on NASA TV!
06.08.07
Sale on Rick Steves Luggage
The new Rick Steves updates are here, and we’re clearing out the last of the previous models. We’re offering the old models, while supplies last, at 10% off–combinable with our Buyer’s Bonus plan, for you local folks who are enrolled. What a deal!
As of today, we have two black 24″ Roll-Abouts and several colors of 21″ Roll-Aboards; Avanti Flight Bags; a couple of Veloce and Civita Shoulder Bags; 7″ and 9″ Toiletry Kits; and Rick’s Guidebook Organizers.
Come on in or give us a call!
06.06.07
2007 Geography Trivia Quiz: How Did You Do?
Here are the answers to last week’s quiz–prepare to be surprised at some of the answers!
1. Mexico is home to more US expats.
2. The Netherlands invented the Big Brother TV show.
3. St. Basil’s is in Moscow.
4. The film set in Italy was Don’t Look Now.
5. Brazil has the largest expat Japanese community.
6. Iraq’s currency is the dinar.
7. The Hagia Sophia is in Istanbul. Extra points if you added that it was commissioned by Emperor Justinian I in 537 AD!
8. You’ll find the Big Prawn, Banana, and Pineapple in Australia (put ‘em all on the barbie, please…)
9. Buenos Aires, Argentina, has the most psychoanalysts per capita.
10. The words bungalow, jungle, and cummerbund come from India. (Hindi, specifically–bonus if you knew that.)
11. Japan is the world’s biggest zipper manufacturer.
12. The most famous zocalo is in Mexico City (bonus: formally known as the Plaza de la Constitucion).
Winners at our Season Final event got five questions right. How about you?
06.01.07
Special June Events!
Normally Wide World Books & Maps takes a summer break from hosting events. Both our customers and the staff are out and about locally, nationally, internationally taking advantage of the Northern Hemisphere’s summer. But this month two, count ‘em two, authors are passing through Seattle and we couldn’t just say no. And, as fate would have it, they are in town on the same weekend. Please join us to meet these interesting travel folks, we’re sure you’ll be pleased with what they have to offer.
Meet The Man! Tony Wheeler, director and co-founder of Lonely Planet is in town to celebrate two new publications; Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil covers his recent travels in Afghanistan, Albania, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia and Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story, co-written with his wife Maureen Wheeler, tells of their journey from their first hand collated and staples guide to becoming the largest independent travel publisher in the world. Along with his talk about these books Tony will be available for questions and comments, and we are sure, travel talk in general.
On Sunday, June 17th from 4-5:30pm Wide World invites each of you to this special event. It will be held off-site at the Mosaic Coffee House, 4401 2nd Ave NE – directly behind Dick’s Drive-In on 45th. Entrance is between 2nd & 3rd NE on 44th. Free parking is available in the church parking lot. Mosaic Coffee House will have beverages and treats available for attendees to purchase.
Admission is free, but please RSVP via phone, 206-634-3453, or online at travel@speakeasy.net, so we have an idea of how many of you will there.
Jillian Robinson On June 16th at 1:30pm Wide World Books & Maps welcomes author and award-winning travel documentary filmmaker Jillian Robinson in to sign copies of her recent book Change Your Life Through Travel: Inspiring Tales and Tips for Richer, Fuller, More Adventurous Living. Jillian’s travel documents have appeared in PBS, The Discovery Channel and in more than 45 nations worldwide. She follows in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway, Isak Dinesen and other writers, plus meets contemporary travelers who travel at a very conscious level. Change Your Life Through Travel is packed with ideas for taking charge of the pleasurable, spiritual, and life-enriching aspects of travel. Whether you are vacationing in your hometown, across the States, or are planning your lifelong dreamed about trip, you’ll find her insights and appreciations will add riches to any holiday.
On Environmentally Responsible Travel
A few days ago, I participated in a panel discussion, “Eco-Tourism/ Environmentally Responsible Travel” at the Northwest Folklife Festival, Seattle’s fun and funky annual first-hurrah of summer. Also on the panel were folks from Crooked Trails and Go South Adventures, two Seattle-based tour companies that specialize in small group adventures which minimize their impact on their destinations’ environments and maximize their customers’ travel experiences.
Our discussion ranged across the wide variety of implications, issues, and conundrums associated with eco-tourism. A few people in the audience asked how they can travel in an ecologically conscious way or find resources to do so. On my way home, I realized that most of my thoughts on this boil down to three principles:
1. Go small. If you travel on a group tour or ship, choose a small one. If you stay in a hotel, choose a small, family-run hotel, B&B, or pensione. In general, small means more personal attention, greater possibility for individual participation and care, and more decisions made by people you’ll meet rather than by investors and corporations.
2. Go light. This applies to both luggage and spirit! Both can require a certain amount of discipline. Light luggage gets me in the habit of living with economy and as little waste as possible. A light spirit keeps my eyes and ears and heart open, and helps me be a better ambassador of my country and culture. That’s not to say that I skip through killing fields and Holocaust memorials. A light spirit doesn’t have to conflict with compassion, curiosity, or gravity. Just look at the Dalai Lama; he laughs all the time.
3. Ask questions. As travelers, we are consumers, too, so we have the opportunity to be smart ones. Does this tour company employ and contribute to the communities they visit? What is my impact here? Can I use this hotel towel a second or (gasp!) third time? How do the benefits to me weigh against benefits to the local people and environment? Does my travel choice spoil the fragile uniqueness of the Galapagos, or afford me a personal connection so I want to preserve it and other places? Sometimes there isn’t a single answer, but I believe that asking the question helps us make more conscientious choices. And it can be an engaging topic of conversation with the locals!
It’s a fascinating subject, and I could on and on. Carbon emissions footprint, “green-washing,” social justice, and more. But I’ve got to start reading Tony Wheeler’s new book—I’m meeting Tony, the man who gave us Lonely Planet guidebooks, at our store event on June 17. If you’re in Seattle, you can meet him, too! I want to get his thoughts on eco-tourism…
A few resources for environmentally responsible travel:
The Ethical Travel Guide: Your Passport to Exciting Alternative Holidays, $22.50
Green Volunteers: The World Guide to Voluntary Work in Nature Conservation, $14.95 (includes access to constantly updated database)
State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future, $18.95, an annually published analysis by the Worldwatch Institute
Green Places To Stay, $21.95, from Alastair Sawday’s Special Places To Stay series
Code Green: Trips of a Lifetime That Won’t Cost the Earth, $19.99, Lonely Planet’s new annual compendium of eco-friendly experiences; new edition due in September
Specialty Travel Index, a quarterly magazine of specialty tours and companies, vetted and categorized
To locate eco-friendly or eco-themed tours, try contacting your favorite conservation organization, like Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, or the zoo. Many of them now offer travel programs to their members, often led by naturalists and noted experts in their fields.
–Misch
Trip Planning… Two Weeks in Hawaii
I’ve been to Hawaii many times and usually don’t have much of a problem with my trip planning; take a month and stay a week or more on the one or two islands you want to visit. This year that was not the case. You see I’m traveling with my husband (ah, romance) and my 94-year-old mother (maybe not much romance). Islands were discussed, Maui for Mom to revisit places she’d enjoyed 30 years ago and wanted to share with us, the Big Island for me where we would visit our good friends as well as Hilo for Stan because he loves that side of the island. We also wanted to spend a few days in Honolulu before the Asian Studies conference Stan needed to attend. But the best laid plans began to crumble as other obligations started to nibble time away. One month turned into two weeks and two days (which is really two weeks since there are two travel days). So instead of a week here and a week there it’s a few days here and a few days there. Oh, how this complicates planning and increases expenses. Auto rentals are no longer by the week. Condo’s are out of the question because of 7 day minimums. What to do??
This trip is now going to cost the same as what we had budgeted for a month but we have still managed to save a little money along the way by using guide books, advice from friends, websites, airlines, and local travel agents. We did not want to give up any of the places we planned to visit (actually we even added an island Lanai which complicated our trip even more).
First I called Northwest Airlines www.nwa.com (we have frequent flyer miles on Northwest) to find out about multi-stop fares for three people. This is difficult to do on most airline websites as not all options are shown, so the direct route of actually taking to someone saves time. Working with the airline we found multi-stop tickets of direct flights from Seattle – Maui – Big Island – Honolulu – Seattle for a little more than a regular single-stop round-trip ticket. And this saved us from having to book inter-island tickets separately. We did have to pay an additional $10 per ticket for this personal service but I feel it was well worth it for getting the flights on the days and times that we wanted.
Maui was a new island for me. I used the new Maui Moon Handbook 8th Edition ($19.95) that just came out. It gave us a great run down on what we could reasonably accomplish in our time.
Here is where I complicated things. I knew there was a ferry from Lahaina to Lanai and thought is would be fun to go there – a new place for us. There are two very large, very expensive resorts on Lanai that start at over $400 per day per person which some Lanai websites would have you believe are your only options on the island. Those prices are simply out of the question for us. But the Maui Handbook mentioned the Hotel Lanai and their 11 guest rooms in Lanai City. Built by Dole it is a historic landmark and its plantation style rooms are moderately priced. I checked out their website www.hotellanai.com, read some travelers’ reviews and decided to give them a call. They wouldn’t happen to have two rooms available on the days we could travel? Yes, they would, so we took them. Even with figuring in the expense of the ferry ride, a rental car and a shuttle bus, the costs for the three of us are less that one person for one night in one of the fancy resorts and we’ll have access to the same beaches, roads, and sights. We’ve reduced our time on Maui and added another island; are we nuts or what? The reality of the compromises have set in; no long ride to beautiful Hana (which might have been tough on Mom anyway), and only three full days with which to explore West Maui. Oh well, Stan & I will be going back there again some day and Mom is excited about seeing Lahaina again plus visiting a new island.
Now what were we to do with the rest of our limited time in Maui. We need accommodation for three nights in Maui before our side trip to Lanai and one night after before we fly to Kona to visit our friends on Hawaii, the Big Island. This is when advice from friends, family and customers helped us decide to base ourselves is Lahaina. Not the first choice in the guide books but its location is central to West Maui and is where one leaves from to get to Lanai. We’re staying at the Plantation Inn after consultation with guides, reviews from friends, and visiting their website www.theplantationinn.com . Two rooms would be too expensive but could we consider their suites for the three of us, why yes we could. We’ve booked a one bedroom suite with comfortable fold out couch in the living room for a lot less than two individual rooms. (Mom is small and is really comfortable on a couch – truly.) We decided to stay at the Plantation Inn for our night back in Maui before heading on to Hawaii as well. They have free parking and we can leave our rental car there while we are on Lanai. Oh, by the way, it was cheaper to get the rental car for the entire 6 day period than to rent one for three days and rent another for a single day. 
I’m taking with me:
Maui Moon Handbook $19.95
Maui Molokai & Lanai Top 10 Eyewitness Guide $10.00
Maui Franko’s Map $6.00
Maui University of Hawaii Map $4.95
Rental Cars
From experience I’ve found that through www.Priceline.com, I find the best deals for cars. I don’t like them for hotels because you don’t really know which hotel you are getting and location is very important to me. This time remarkably, I got full sized rental cars for Maui and Hawaii for $16 a day plus taxes. This much less than any published prices and the cars are roomy enough for Mom to see everything as she is chauffeured around by us.
The Big Island
Our vacation from our vacation will be 6 days spent with our friends in Kona. We’ll see the King Kamahamaha parade on June 9th and maybe buy some Kona Coffee and Hawaiian Chocolate. Perhaps we’ll drive over to Hilo, our favorite town where we’ll eat at Ken’s Pancake House, staying at the Dolphin Bay Hotel. This is the part we’ve kept open using our friends and previous experiences plus the Big Island Moon Handbook $19.95 for guidance. I also have my favorite maps: Franko’s Big Island map $6.00 (great for information about all the beaches) and the University of Hawaii Big Island map $4.95 for the roads.
Last Stop Honolulu
There are so many choices for Honolulu it is hard to decide where to stay even for experienced Hawaii travelers like my husband and myself. It helps when you know the many areas along Waikiki and can picture where you want to stay. We really like the beach at the Hilton Hawaiian Village (HHV); we like to stay near there so we can walk through the grounds admiring the wonderful plantings and exotic birds located throughout the complex. One year we watched the hatching of an Egyptian Ibis from its shell, what a remarkable event. A branch of the Bishop Museum is on the grounds as well. My mom says, “We stay near all the nicest places.” We also like the Wailana Coffee House just across the street from HHV. It is open 24 hours a day, has a hundreds of reasonably priced options, and the waitresses that have been there for decades.
I contacted the Hawaii General Store www.hawaiigeneralstore.net here in Seattle for their help. In addition to selling all things Hawaiian in their shop, they make travel arrangements and have good contacts on all the islands. KC at Hawaii General Store found for us two studios at the recently remodeled Aqua Waikiki Palms Hotel on Ala Moana Boulevard just steps away from the Wailana Coffee House and across the street from HHV.
Mom and I are set. Every morning around 8AM we’ll wander across the road through the grounds of HHV admiring the birds till we get to our favorite part of the beach and take our morning dip. Stan will come along with a book or magazine to read while we swim. Waikiki is truly one of the world’s great beaches but I make a habit of swimming before 10AM or after 6PM because I’m interested in the swimming experience not being out in the sun. It is amazing how empty that long, long beach is in the mornings and evenings. 
During the day we’ll visit Honolulu’s China Town, take a day to go to the North Shore and visit with friends. Mom and I will return on June 15th, Stan stays on for his conference and comes back on the 18th.
We’re taking with us:
Oahu Moon Handbook $19.95
Oahu Franko’s Map $6.00
