Hole In The Donut Travels

I first learned about HotelPal from my friend Anil, who publishes the travel blog foXnoMad.com. This free application for the iPhone and iPod Touch allows users to search for accommodations at more than 100,000 hotels, inns, resorts, and B&B’s worldwide, making it’s among the most complete hotel databases available anywhere.
Immediately, I downloaded it and browsed [...]

This is no joke. TripAdvisor, one of the Internet’s most trusted sources for member reviews on attractions, accommodations, and restaurants, asked their members to reveal the cheapest, most comfortable lodgings around the world. The following is just a sampling:
The Shiva Hotel in Kathmandu, Nepal. Average price per night: $9. Member comment:
“The guesthouse is right in [...]

After dinner, I stopped in the lobby to arrange for a 7:30 a.m wake up call the following morning.
“We’ll be happy to do that, Ms. Weibel, and would you like a follow-up call 15 minutes later?” asked the woman behind the front desk.
My jaw dropped open. I have always wondered why hotels don’t offer this [...]

The seeds of my love affair with Chicago’s Palmer House were sown back in 1969. An anxious and giddy teenager, I was thrilled that the famous hotel had been chosen for my senior prom. I vividly recall stepping into the opulent lobby, with its Tiffany 24-karat gold chandeliers, majestic “Winged Angels” (the largest bronze statues [...]

The next  time you catch  the travel bug and want to “wake up someplace special,” check out the offerings at BnBFinder.com. This top rated Bed and Breakfast search engine, which has been in business more than 10 years (almost an eternity in Internet terms), lists thousands of B&B’s in the U.S. and around the world, [...]

Until I lived on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I thought vacation accommodations were limited to hotels, motels, and bed & breakfasts. When I arrived in Nags Head back in 1996, I noticed that virtually all the houses on the ocean side of the main highway displayed “for rent” signs. I needed a place [...]

Most people who travel a lot – especially budget travelers – have at one time or another invested in a guide book. Lonely Planet and Rough Guides are well known names in the genre; less well known are the Moon guide books. In fact, I had never before read a Moon guide until a copy [...]

Every cloud has a silver lining. In the case of our current economic woes, the silver lining is travel. With reservations down, absolutely awesome travel deals are being offered to anyone with the time and resources to take advantage of them. Two of the most popular destinations in the country, Las Vegas and Orlando, are [...]

I received the following email the other day:

“Hi, I just wanted to tell you about a new site that I am working on: http://www.recreationparks.net. Using USGS (United States Geological Survey) data, I’ve added records for over 60,000 parks. Here is the link for a national park you have written about: http://www.recreationparks.net/ME/hancock/acadia-national-park-southwest-harbor. If you like the [...]