Gettin’ Carried Away

I’m pretty sure the cheapest flight I ever took cost me about $50 round trip via Ryan Air in Europe. But the Clearwater, Florida airline JetAmerica takes the cake when it comes to inexpensive flights!

By targeting smaller markets like Toledo (OH), Lansing (MI) and Newark (NJ), JetAmerica is single-handedly increasing the air traffic in 34 cities across the United States. Doing so allows the airline to sell cheaper flights. It’s basic supply and demand. Because there are a limited number of flights going in and out of these smaller cities, the cost to fly to them is rather expensive these days.

Beginning July 13, 28 flights will fly in/out of Newark, New Jersey to the aforementioned cities. JetAmerica will then add six more flights out of Toledo (to Minneapolis) starting August 14.

Prices start at $9, topping out at $199. But, of course, there are stipulations:

• The $9 fare only applies for the first 19 seats on the plane.
• Don’t forget to add the taxes/fees: $5 convenience fee, $10 fee if booked via telephone, $2.50 9/11 Security fee, etc.
• It costs $15 to check a bag.
• All food, drinks and in-flight TV can only be accessed for a small fee.

Even after all the fees and the charges for food,drink and TV, JetAmerica still offers a pretty good deal. Perhaps I’ll test it out this summer. My plan? Drive (get a ride) to South Bend, IN, only 75 miles from Chicago. Fly to Newark, NJ and take my $40 flat fee cab ride to my beloved NYC. I’ll let you know if it happens!

After living in New York City for awhile, I formed an opinion on all the major attractions that everyone wants to see when they visit Manhattan. If you asked me about Times Square, I’d tell you this…. “I’m not a fan.”

When you live in a big city, everything around you is fast-paced, including foot traffic. I found that most New Yorkers walk slightly faster than everyone else in the U.S., as they know exactly where they are going and they want to get there ASAP. I’ve adapted to that walking style and I even move at that pace when I travel. Sure, I’ll stop to snap a photo or to marvel at something I’ve never seen before, but I can’t stand taking baby steps at 1mph… like most tourists end up doing.

So many travelers frequent Times Square every day at any given time that New York City has bowed down and yielded to their lack of attention. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve seen someone dart across the street, dodging cars, simply because he/she wasn’t paying attention to traffic signals. And when one person flees, a whole flock of people runs across the street, completely ignoring the WALK/DON’T WALK signals.

What is Manhattan’s solution? Take away some of the vehicles, of course! A new pedestrian mall standing on Broadway spans from 42nd to 47th. Motorists are still allowed to cross Broadway, but they will be re-routed to a wider 7th Avenue to continue going North or South. The city is also going to set up a promenade between 33rd and 35th near Herald Square, where the Tony Awards will be broadcasted this year. Come December, New York will make the decision whethere or not this plan should be made permanent.

Any NYC drivers out there upset about this? This idea can only prevent pedestrian accidents. Safety first, I suppose! Here is my plea to all tourists out there–Pay attention to where you are walking. Don’t make any city feel responsible for your inability to be careful when crossing the street. That’s something mom and dad should have taught you YEARS ago!

While battling my old LG flip phone and its (lack of) Internet capabilities, I began to crave a better phone so I could do all my social networking on-the-go. My hunger to access Facebook, Twitter and Myspace as quickly as I could on my MacBook at home led me to purchase an iPhone.

While the iPhone is unable to send multimedia text messages (until June, I hear), you can upload pictures to all the hip social networking websites. And that’s the reason I got the phone in the first place. However, I didn’t realize how many useful travel applications are floating around in cyberspace. There are so many, I tend to spend at least an hour searching for travel apps to download to my iPhone.

~* Photo courtesy of Inked Up *~

My absolute favorite travel app so far is the one for Urban Spoon. First of all, it’s free. Second, it finds places for you to eat, no matter where you are in the world. Third, not only does the app tell you the name/location of the restaurant, but it also gives you the price. Here are the specs:

• Once the phone locates your city, you just give it a little shake. The columns then begin to shuffle, as if you were playing a slot machine in Vegas.
• Once it stops, you’ll see name of the restaurant on the bottom. Up top, you are given the neighborhood in which it’s located, the type of cuisine offered (American, Italian, etc.) and the price range ($ = affordable, $$$ = pricey).

The next travel app I love comes from the King (or Queen?) of online search engines, Google. Free Translator does, well, exactly what it says. You type in a phrase, let’s say, “Where is the bathroom?” in English. If you want it translated to Spanish, the app will tell you, “¿Dónde está el baño?” And, honestly, you could type a whole paragraph to be translated and this app will do the job!

• Translate from English into 1 of over 25 languages!
• While the results won’t make you sound like a fluent native, they will allow you to be understood by them.

Living in Chicago, I have yet to find a flawless app for the CTA. However, since I frequent London, England, I downloaded the TubeDeluxe app. Oh. My. Gosh! This application has it all!

• You will see the status of each Tube line.
• You may change the order that the list of Tube lines appear, putting the ones you frequent more at the top.
• There is an entire Tube map available, and you can pinch-zoom in and out like you normally would on a website in Safari on the iPhone.
• A built-in function for route planning? Check!

Keep in mind, your iPhone needs to access the Internet for many of the applications you download. However, it’s a lot easier than lugging around a bunch of heavy books, maps and magazines!