Spendthrift Shoestring

March Budget Travel: Out of Sync

The March Budget Travel arrived in my mailbox yesterday. My favorite American travel magazine is paying lip service to the economic climate but could do a much better job capturing the Zeitgeist—at a time when it is better situated to do so than any other travel magazine around.

What am I talking about? The article by David Kaufman on Panama's Los Santos, for one. It's actually a great piece, but the focus on a guesthouse with rooms starting at $250 makes me itchy. $250?!? Really? Right now? (Actually, the cheapest rooms at said property come in at $375 in high season once taxes and service charges are considered. Your low season non-bargain: $281 per night.) Outrageous.

And then there's the Icehotel "dream trip" feature, written by Juliet Eilperin. The Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi (near Kiruna) starts at $400 per night. (According to my research, a double room can actually be had, at current exchange rates, for $300. This fact doesn't dilute my grievance.) True, there's a mention of the nearby Hotell Kebne ($100 per night as of publication date; thanks to a better exchange rate, down to $88 as of today) as a budget option, but I can't help but think that this might have not been the best time to include this article, even in a "dream trip" feature.

I should also acknowledge how happy the "Scale a Volcano in Ecuador" dream trip feature made me. Scott Hutchins writes about hiking up El Altar with his brother. The images are breathtaking, and, most pleasing to me at this budget-obsessed moment are the lodging recommendations, which top out at $15 per person per night.

I love the idea of a "dream trips" series. I just want more budget-friendliness. Some ideas: island-hopping through the Bahamas by mail boat; touring monasteries in the Balkans; finding perfect and deserted beaches in the Philippines, Brazil, or Peru, to name but three places with vast expanses of undeveloped coastline and many cheap places to stay. What about a road trip across Australia, a place currently very affordable for Americans?

This economic moment, which may be with us for a while, should provide an occasion for Budget Travel and other budget-oriented publications, travel and otherwise, to get really serious about helping their readers save money. A $100 credit at a $300/night resort, to give but one example, is useless to most Americans right now. BT should put together an issue or two dedicated to real budget travel: the best gîtes in France; an in-depth piece on couchsurfing; a review of good, simple guesthouses in places with low price indices, like the Caribbean coasts of Honduras and Costa Rica; rural tourism in Europe, and so on. This great article, which was updated last year, could serve as a departure point for at least a half-dozen features.

All the standard disclosures apply. I dig Budget Travel. It's an important publication. I just want to see articles that are able to convince the financially-stressed that travel right now is both doable and utterly and completely worth it. That a hotel room for $375 per night is antithetical to this goal shouldn't have to be articulated.

Just Hold It, or: Nobody's Shocked by This, Right?

Ryanair is considering a charge for toilet use. Right on, O'Leary!

Tip courtesy of B-Oss. (Cue to 2:55 for sighting. Orange shirt. Hostile demeanor.)

Slavonia: On the LCC Map

Flycheapo reports today that Ryanair will fly between Frankfurt Hahn and Osijek, in the Eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, from May on. Thus far, low-cost carriers have focused within Croatia almost exclusively on coastal cities and Zagreb. The choice of Osijek is interesting for at least two reasons. First off, Osijek is not currently a huge tourism draw, though it has enjoyed a steady stream of tourists in the past. Another score for that old Ryanair strategy of flying to little-known corners of Europe. The move is also interesting given the fact that route expansions involving airports previously outside of the airline's network have been rare for Ryanair over the last year or so. Is this the start of a counterintuitive recession era expansion strategy into heretofore unserved airports throughout Central and Eastern Europe? Probably not, but we can dream.

It's also occurred to me that there may be a new labor migration stream of Croatians in and around Osijek into Germany. Croatians can count on visa-free access to EU countries, after all. Anyone?

San Francisco: Weekend Trio

The aftermath at Just For You.

West Portal neon signage.

Ocean Beach streetlights and bonfire.

Sunset Magazine: Fresh February Blast

Nothing puts me into a California mood like sighting a copy of Sunset at the newsstand. Sunset, for the uninitiated, is a monthly magazine devoted to the Western lifestyle. The February issue I picked up in San Francisco last week is full of good, short, item-based features trumpeting new and interesting things across the western flank of North America. Highlights include LA Chinatown grub, Denver's buzzing RiNo district, and an ode to the Sonoran hot dog, which the editors fit into their "new Western essential" rubric. I also love the magazine's climate zone maps, which are keyed to planting and shopping suggestions. The Feb issue also has a wonderfully suggestive piece on lawn-free landscaping, as practiced by Sacramento landscape designer Roberta Walker.

Budget hotel hounds should pay attention to the issue's "20 Hidden Getaways" feature, which includes write-ups of 20 guesthouses with nightly rates of $250 or under. The best values: Blue Lake Ranch (near Durango), with rates starting at $90; Deetjen's Big Sur Inn, with rates starting at $80; and Hotel Cielo Rojo (San Francisco, Nayarit), with rates beginning at $75.

Check out Sunset's online travel blog here.

San Francisco: Some Fragments

Culture.

Commodities.

Streetlife.

Geek-Out Time: Naming Countries

Have ten minutes to spare? Take this quiz, which demands that you name all 192 UN-recognized countries on the clock. If that isn't challenging enough, try this one, which asks for 245 countries and territories—also on ten-minute clock. The latter, be forewarned, overwhelms with what feels like syntactical arbitrariness.

San Francisco: Americania Hotel

Joie de Vivre Hospitality is probably my favorite hotel group. For those unfamiliar with JDV, it's a California chain of boutique hotels that span the market from inexpensive to very pricey. The hotels are modern, attractive places, many of which have been retrofitted from very basic motel templates. There's an emphasis on green values at the hotels, and there are intermittently good deals as well. Each hotel has a specific psychological (or social or subcultural) imprint that appeals to a different market segment. Everytime I contemplate the JDV empire I wonder why a similar model hasn't been adapted more widely in other places.

Matt and I in San Francisco now for a few nights, staying at a JDV property, the Best Western Americania Hotel. We're paying $81 per night for our cute little room, which we found through Orbitz. Through April 15, JDV is running a special deal that waives hotel taxes.

Three from Nevis

morning in Gingerland.

St. Paul's Anglican Church, Charlestown.

Charlestown.

Nevis

I returned Saturday night from a four-night stay on Nevis. What a beautiful small island, so distinctive and green. I'm working on a story right now; for the time being, here's a morning view of Redonda between the foliage at Dasents Sugar Mill in Gingerland.