Lia and I do like Virgin America Airlines, despite their in-flight texting (personally not a fan) and other idiosyncrasies. They’ve taken innovative approaches to differentiating themselves in the marketplace, which I always appreciate. However, when I saw this on Virgin America’s Twitter feed, I was immediately annoyed. Look, I can appreciate attempting to green your [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Wary of the advice of others'
News Flash: Flying Isn’t Green
June 7th, 2010 · No Comments · Blog posts by Betty, Fail 'o' the Day, Wary of the advice of others
Tags:airlines·social media
News Flash Travel Sections: Read Seth’s Blog!
May 11th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Blog posts by Betty, Novelty, Wary of the advice of others
Seth Godin is very popular. He’s a best selling author, and a marketing guru. He introduced the notion of “permission marketing” which means to survive in today’s marketplace you can’t dumb down your audience and you must respect your customer base. Why am I talking about this? You thought you were on a travel blog, [...]
Fail ‘o’ the Day: Did You Know Non-Stops Are Faster?
May 9th, 2010 · No Comments · Fail 'o' the Day, Wary of the advice of others
The Seattle Times travel section is so bad, it’s embarrassing. We’ve already wondered aloud how Carol Pucci still has a job, but even in a Pucci-free Sunday travel section, the simplistic writing keeps on coming. Take this Q&A with Kristin Jackson: Will Europe fares go down? Q: My wife and I are taking a 21-day [...]
Tags:bad writing·Seattle Times
Go Ahead, Be the Boss of Us
May 7th, 2010 · No Comments · Wary of the advice of others
Tags:bossiness·travel writing
Culture Shock: A Reality or a Fabrication?
April 21st, 2010 · 3 Comments · Blog posts by Betty, Wary of the advice of others
Culture shock. I’ve always been fascinated with this term. Before I experienced it, the phrase always struck me as seriously clichéd. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I spent some time in La Mosquitia in Honduras a few years ago. It’s remote, and requires major effort to explore. Before this trip, I had traveled a lot, but never in [...]
Travel Conferences: The Ultimate Reason to Stay Home
March 21st, 2010 · No Comments · Blog posts by Lia, The point of travel, Wary of the advice of others
Earlier this month, another travel conference happened. An “eCommerce conference designed by the travel industry for the travel industry.” With a keynote by a Bearded Boomer Dude. Troy Thompson reviews it–via Tweets about the conference–over on Travel 2.0. Here’s one choice tweet that pretty much sums it up: Thank you @jeffhayzlett for reminding everyone at [...]
Tags:social media·travel
Why Hasn’t Social Media Replaced Our Guidebooks?
March 11th, 2010 · No Comments · Blog posts by Lia, Wary of the advice of others
I’ve attended a couple of social media conferences lately, and with South by Southwest (or for the too-cool-for-school, #sxsw) around the corner, I’ve been wondering: Why hasn’t social media created even more of a sea change as to how we travel? Why hasn’t it replaced my guidebook? I’m planning to go to Vught in the [...]
Fail ‘o’ the Day: New York Times Man-Crush Edition
March 9th, 2010 · 8 Comments · Blog posts by Lia, Fail 'o' the Day, The point of travel, Wary of the advice of others
It’s unclear to me exactly how the first “issue” of an online “magazine”–a.k.a., a blog–gets covered by the New York Times. But based on today’s review of Nowhere, the qualifications seem to be: An Andy-Spade-like preoccupation with pencil-scribbled notebooks Courier font An aversion to using paragraph breaks, or in other ways admitting you’re publishing on [...]
Tags:dreamscapes·hackery·obsession with fonts·pomposity·travel writing
Fail ‘o’ the Day: Time for the Gold Watch Edition
March 5th, 2010 · No Comments · Blog posts by Betty, Fail 'o' the Day, Wary of the advice of others
Growing up, my dream was to be a foreign correspondent. I didn’t really have any idea of what that meant, except it sounded sophisticated and extremely exotic. The notion of traveling overseas to report the truth consisted of wearing khaki, dodging bullets, and sleeping underneath mosquito netting. Now my travel for work has little, if [...]
Friday Fail: Fugly Reversible Poly-Lycra-Blend Travel Dress Edition
February 26th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Blog posts by Lia, Fail 'o' the Day, Wary of the advice of others
It’s embarrassing, but I’ll admit it. I’ve fallen for this idea: the Travel Dress.
On my first trip to Paris, a black/grey faux-side-tie Travelsmith dress seemed like a good idea.
Even though I would never wear a polyester wrap dress in my daily life, I felt like I needed one for my trip. A dress that touted its wicking properties, could be washed in the sink, and was reversible…even though I never need any of these things at home, and happen to live in a city there, too. Why I thought Parisian hoteliers would recognize–or care about–what I was wearing escapes me still.
In other words, I fell into the dreaded reversible travel dress trap.
