Holiday travel up, could break a record

More than 107 million Americans are expected to travel from Saturday through Monday, Jan. 1 — a 3.1 percent increase from last year and the highest year-end travel volume on record, according to AAA projections.
                                         

The estimate, if accurate, would continue a year-over-year trend that has occurred for major holiday weekends in 2017 — Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, said Cindy Antrican, AAA public affairs manager.

This year marks the ninth consecutive year of rising year-end holiday travel. Since 2005, total year-end holiday travel volume has grown by 21.6 million, an increase of more than 25 percent. The majority of travelers - 97.4 million - will hit the road, a 3 percent year-over-year increase.

This December’s national average gasoline price is $2.47 per gallon (Dec. 1 to Dec. 13), which is 28 cents more than last December. AAA does expect the average to drop at least another five cents by year-end, saving motorists a few pennies at the pump.

Approximately 6.4 million will travel by air, a 4 percent increase and the fourth year of consecutive air travel volume increases. The increase comes as the Atlanta airport — one of the busiest airports in the world — recovers from a power outage that grounded all flights on Sunday.

Canceled flights at the Dayton International Airport included Delta Air Lines Flight 2337, supposed to leave at 6:33 p.m. and Delta Flight 1161, scheduled to depart at 2:18 p.m. for Atlanta, as well as Delta Flight 2337 from Atlanta to Dayton, scheduled to arrive at 5:53 p.m. according to the airport’s Flight Tracker.

Jay Ratliff, local aviation expert, said during the holidays airports are filled with travelers who only fly once or twice a year. That can cause delays through the security and boarding processes. He also advised that travelers make sure they have a seat assignment confirmation before arriving to the airport to ensure they won’t be put on standby. Airlines typically overbook flights.

Take the road less traveled with these European gems

Ski slopes without lift lines. Steaming thermal baths. Rich fireside meals. While most people flock to Europe in the summer, winter has its own charms — especially if you avoid the most popular destinations like France and Italy. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you’ll find: intricate architecture, alluring streets, free-flowing wine; in other words, everything you’d expect from Europe — but with fewer crowds and, in some cases, for half the price. This winter, here are three European destinations you should consider.
                                             

Start in the romantic city of Lisbon — and if you don’t mind hills, stay in the enchanting Alfama neighborhood, which has been inhabited since the fifth century.

Because of its relatively warm temperatures (in the 50s) and small crowds, Paula Oliveira, executive director of Turismo de Lisboa, calls winter “a perfect period to come for a short break.” She recommends visiting at Christmas or New Year’s, when you can sample specialty pastries and witness the city’s sparkling and festive city lights.

You could probably spend an entire week simply wandering Lisbon by foot or streetcar, but I recommend a food and wine walk with the tour group Inside Lisbon. On our three-hour excursion, we sampled pastel de nata and espresso, cheese and port, and bacalhau (salted cod) and green (referring to its age, not its color) wine, learning about the city’s culture and history with each bite. For more yummy eats, check out restaurant Ze da Mouraria and the Time Out Market.

When you’d like to escape the city, travel an hour northwest by train to Sintra. This small town, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is filled with castles. Among the most notable are the National Palace of Pena, a colorful 19th-century building that looks like it’s straight out of a Disney movie; the Castle of the Moors, a hilltop fortress with gorgeous views of the surrounding valley; and the Quinta de Regaleira, a Gothic mansion with expansive gardens.

The couple paid $200k a year to travel

Collette and Scott Stohler have what looks like the dream career. They travel the world for six months a year and are paid to post photos, videos, newsletters and blogs on their website and social media channels.
Their Instagram feed (@Roamaroo) is a brightly coloured montage of perfect moments – kayaking in turquoise waters, clinking glasses on balconies or snuggling on pristine beaches. But, Collette says, behind the scenes “it’s not as glamorous as you see in a feed. Just know that we’re on the beach only for a moment to take a photo.”
                                             

While the average cubicle-dweller may find it hard to sympathise, she says the life of an “influencer” requires relentless hard work: thousands are competing for the same marketing dollars.
The number of social media influencers – people like the Stohlers with huge audiences and companies eager to piggyback on their success – is growing, and the industry is evolving rapidly. But only a tiny minority are able to make a living doing so. Philip Trippenbach, head of influencer at marketing firm Edelman, says that while “the best” can command astronomical fees, “those who are merely pretty good, get nothing, essentially.” The cost of the average sponsored post, according to Adweek, is around $300.

The couple, previously an engineering manager and an ad producer, launched Roamaroo two years ago. They had come to the end of a seven-month, round-the-world trip they decided to take with money saved for a second home, after listening to a podcast about adventurous sabbaticals. Towards the end of their journey, they realised that their social media following had been growing, and decided to turn their nomadic lifestyle into a business.

Everything you need to know about travelling to South Africa

A number of readers have come forward in recent weeks having experienced difficulties travelling to South Africa with a child.
                                           

The latest letter came from Telegraph Travel reader, Joanne Caputo.

Joanne Caputo, writes:

In June my husband accompanied me to Gatwick Airport to travel to Cape Town via Dubai with our four-month-old son so I could visit my grandmother, who is 90, for a few days.

It’s too expensive to take the whole family to South Africa during the school holidays (I’m a teacher) so I bought a cheap off-season flight. I checked online what documents I needed (or thought I had) and knew I had to carry my son’s unabridged birth certificate. I had a letter of permission from my husband, and his passport.

Gill Charlton, consumer expert, replies:

You are the third person to contact me in as many weeks to say they’ve been refused travel to South Africa as a lone parent because they don’t have a parental consent affidavit.

An affidavit is a signed letter sworn under oath in person before a solicitor or a commissioner for oaths. It costs £5. This requirement has been in place since June 2015 when the South African Department of Home Affairs brought in new regulations to prevent child trafficking. All children under 18 must travel to South Africa with their unabridged birth certificate showing the names of their parents – even if travelling with them. If the child is accompanied by one parent, South African immigration requires consent – in the form of an affidavit – from whoever is registered as the parent on the birth certificate.

Your confirmation merely states that you should contact the visa agent CIBT to check entry requirements and that Travel Up is not liable for denied boarding due to invalid documents. Emirates could perhaps have flown you the following day as a goodwill gesture if you had booked direct with them, but it could not change an agency-issued ticket.

A handheld travel device helping millions to connect through language

Having recently completed a round-the-world-trip, I can tell you first hand that the translation functionality of your smartphone is a godsend. And I can also tell you firsthand that the associated app-jumping and the strain it puts on your poor phone’s battery life is anything but.
                                   

A personal voice translator device, Travis is capable of instantly translating between 80 of the world’s most common languages with the click of a button.

Travis (the device) was designed and created by Travis (the company), a small firm founded by Lennart van der Ziel and Nick NM Yap, which started with just those two and has since grown to now have teams working across three continents — North America, Europe and Asia.

The device is nicely pocket-sized, and uses advanced AI to recognise what language is being spoken, analyse and translate it, and then relay that translation in your chosen preferred language — all within the system itself, with no need to bounce between apps!

Travis is able to be used with headphones with a built in mic; so if you want to go on a tour, or attend a show, or even if you’re simply riding public transport, Travis will listen to the information being presented, and deliver it directly to your ear, without giving away your secret.

Even though the campaign has now long since finished, Travis was so popular he is now available InDemand, so patrons can still head over to Indiegogo and secure themselves a travel buddy, and with an estimated shipping date of September, he could make the perfect Christmas present.

SAS could one day travel through space to get to war zones in an hour

Special Forces troops could travel through space to get to war zones in future, the head of the American air force suggested yesterday.
Chief of Staff General David Goldfein raised the prospect of elite troops travelling on a mothership to anywhere in the planet within an hour.
                                                 

Speaking at an air power conference in London, he said the military needed to 'jump on' industry plans when it came to innovative technology.
He referred to Sir Richard Branson's company Virgin Galactic, which plans to make intercontinental space travel a reality.

The entrepreneur has announced plans to launch people into space in 2018, with the first test flights beginning this year.
He is convinced that eventually the costs of space flights will come down and the fuel savings on intercontinental flights using a low Earth orbit will make travel from one place to another commercially viable.

He said: 'The question for us is what does that mean if I take seven special operators, put them on this and then can get to any place on the planet in less than an hour?
'What does that do to us and what does that do for us in terms of all of the scenarios that we think our way through?
'This is the technology that commercial industry is now going for. With all of the challenges that we have talked about there is such opportunity for us if we can just jump on it and grab it.'
Also speaking at the conference, Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said young people needed to be reminded of the stories of Britain's 'great inventors and imagineers'.

Slump in travel to and from Qatar as thousands of airline bookings are cancelled

Airlines are cancelling a large number of passenger bookings to and from Qatar after four Arab countries severed diplomatic and economic links, endangering Doha’s hub status for international travel.
                                               

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut ties with Qatar on June 5, imposed a travel ban and imposed a no-fly zone over their air space for Qatar-registered airlines and aircraft.

The cancellations are for all dates, including forward bookings.

Arabian Gulf airlines, including Saudia, flydubai, Emirates, Air Arabia and Etihad, flew frequently to and from Doha before the ban. Rival Qatar Airways also had a number of flights heading to and from the four countries.

The travel ban has had a widespread impact on passenger demand, especially for Qatar Airways, and the longer it carries on, the worse it is expected to become for Gulf carriers, according to some analysts.

"For passengers, the ban has resulted in restricted travel choices and in many cases, people are cancelling travel plans altogether," said Saj Ahmad, the chief analyst at London-based StrategicAero Research. "The impact of cancellations would be far greater for Qatar Airways than any other Arabian Gulf carrier because the Doha-based airline is banned from flying to several countries."

Qatar Airways, which is part of the 15-member oneworld alliance, had built Doha into an international hub, competing with Dubai and Abu Dhabi for long-haul travel. The Doha-based carrier has amassed stakes in companies such as IAG, owner of British Airways, and Latam Airlines, Latin America’s largest carrier, to expand its global reach.

Young family with two kids sell everything they own to travel the world

A young family is selling everything they own so they can travel the world - because "life's too short".
                                           

Clare Fisher and husband Ian, from Wales, are taking their two children out of school and have warned their family they might never come back.

The couple, from Porthcawl, are saving every penny they can and have started getting rid of everything from the family car to handbags, Wales Online reports.

“There’s no limit on how long we go for. We have planned the first eight months location wise and then we will come back to see family and friends and then, potentially, we will be going on the second part of our trip.”

She added: “I would like to do the whole world and there is no definite plan on when we come back. The chances are we will settle in the place we love the most.”

Clare, 31, who is a business coach, and Ian, 28, who works for a media company, are saving every penny they can and have started selling belongings, everything from a car to handbags, to generate as much money as possible.

But if the money runs out during the trip, they might have to find work.

However the pair are investing in video and camera equipment so they can chronicle their adventure and share the stories via their own YouTube channel and Instagram and Facebook accounts.

Clare said they will also have to spend time schooling the children every day and hope to continue to follow the curriculum as well as potentially accessing a virtual school online.

After they have sold off all of their furniture they will leave their flat at Christmas and, after staying with family for the festive period, they will be off.

People who travel are more interesting, study suggests

If you’ve been in what feels like an endless rut and are unsure of what to do with yourself, think about turning to travel. According to a new survey, physically getting yourself out of your comfort zone may be the answer to widening your horizons and newfound self-confidence.

The survey from Booking.com asked more than 15,000 of its users in 20 different countries to share their stories and views relating to their first time traveling.

The most common answer was that their experiences helped them meet new people, at 40 percent. Other answers included: discovering new types of food (43 percent), learning a new language (29 percent), and becoming inspired to learn about other cultures (29 percent).

A high majority (61 percent) agreed that those who are better traveled tended to be more interesting as compared to those who had never gone abroad, and 45 percent saw globetrotters as more likely to be successful.

One in ten participants mentioned that a first-time travel experience led to either a new relationship or work opportunity, proving that those who stepped out of their comfort zone had the potential to be rewarded for the leap of faith.

You think you have a travel story from hell? Try this one: The inaugural flight from Berlin’s new international airport is almost five years late, and no one can say when it might take off.

The bill for Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt—most people call it BER—has more than doubled, to some €5 billion, since construction began in 2006. And the delayed opening has wounded local restaurants as well as airlines Air Berlin Plc and Deutsche Lufthansa AG, which had expected to expand routes from the capital. Instead, Germany’s biggest city has fewer overseas flights than Düsseldorf (with less than a quarter of Berlin’s population).

Travel: in the Maldives, life's a (glorious, white, deserted) beach

It feels surreal, this midnight half-hour speedboat ride through the darkness of the Indian Ocean, but here I am, riding through still black waters, leaving a frothy white wake in the warm seascape.
                                       

I've left the tiny city of Malé, capital of the Maldives and barely bigger than an airport landing strip. I'm headed for the isolated Club Med resort on Kani, one of the northern atolls of this nation, which is made up of more than a thousand coral islands, rests just south west of Sri Lanka, and is equidistant from Somalia to the west and Singapore to the east.

I've come to Club Med Kani to experience its "endless turquoise playground" but also to see what has become of Club Med as it attempts to re-stake its claim within the luxurious world of all-inclusive resorts.

Stepping off the water onto a lamp-lit jetty, I'm handed a warm towel and greeted by a slender Maldivian, the hotel chef de mission, named Barq. After a brief orientation and mild overnight battle with jet lag in my beachside bungalow, it is morning in paradise and I am among guests at an opulent buffet breakfast.

The official languages here are the local Dhivehi and English, but more often that not in this place I hear ni hao and bonsoir. It makes perfect sense. This is a destination mostly for Asia and Europe, and it is a French company.

Far from the 1980s cliché of gaudy getaways for singles and playful retreats for couples, Club Méditerranée was set up in postwar Europe in 1950 by a Belgian water polo champion, and was initially modest – straw huts on a beach in Majorca, Spain.

You might wonder about the environment, too. After all, the Maldives, like all low-lying island nations, is threatened by global warming and rising sea levels. Kani is one kilometre long and 400 metres wide but barely one metre above sea level at its highest point. Club Med acknowledges this, too. There are energy-efficient measures, including photovoltaic solar panels and the assiduous use of grey water, but it also addresses coral bleaching – and not just to maintain snorkelling as a resort attraction, but because the reef surrounding the island chain is all that keeps these little sandbars from being swamped by ocean waves.

Accor takes fight to Airbnb with Travel Keys deal

Hotel giant Accor – the largest operator in Australia – has beefed up its luxury holiday home rental business by acquiring Atlanta-based Travel Keys, a company that manages more than 5000 villas in the Caribbean, Mexico, the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa.
           

It is the third acquisition in the luxury serviced home market by Accor in less than a year after it paid $US168 million for London-based start-up Onefinestay in April last year, which offers a portfolio of more than 2600 luxury properties in London, Paris, Rome, New York and Los Angeles.

A year ago, Accor acquired a 49 per cent stake in Squarebreak, a digital platform offering private upscale properties in resort locations, primarily in France, Spain and Morocco.

Combined the three businesses will allow Accor to offer accommodation across 8500 addresses in the luxury private rental market.

"Travel Keys brings an impressive portfolio of premium properties to our existing activities. This acquisition further demonstrates our agility and dynamic approach to offer comprehensive services to our clients," said Sebastien Bazin, chairman and chief executive of AccorHotels.

Airbnb started out as a place for people to rent out a spare room in their homes, but has morphed more recently into a commercial-style accommodation platform where people rent entire homes, villas and apartments.

Its growing dominance of the informal or "shadow" accommodation market has sparked a string of new disruptive online start-ups looking to match its success, forcing hotel companies to adapt and disrupt themselves, or lose market share.

Accor has sought to differentiate itself from Airbnb's highly diverse offering by focusing on the luxury serviced holiday home market where properties are carefully chosen and offered with hotel-style trimmings.

Travel Keys was founded in 1991 and includes 24/7 concierge services. CEO Bobby Gibson said the company's objective was to offer "extraordinary experiences" to its guests, "that is the best homes in the best locations with the highest level of service".

The price Accor will pay For Travel Keys was not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017 after customary due diligence.

Qantas passengers stranded in Dubai

AROUND 72 hours after they were originally scheduled to return to Australia from Dubai, scores of disgruntled Qantas passengers are finally back in Sydney.
Due to a technical problem on one of their A380 Airbuses, 480 passengers were stuck in Dubai three days ago and their New Year’s Eve plans were thrown into disarray.
The final 80 passengers of the drama-hit QF2 flight were back in Australia early this afternoon.

“As the issue with the delayed aircraft had been resolved, it was placed back into service and operated this flight.

Engineers in Dubai worked on the A380 aircraft as affected Qantas customers were put up in hotels.
Some of those passengers due to travel on the problem flight were put on previous alternative Qantas services as well as on other airlines.

A technical problem caused the plane to be grounded at Dubai International Airport.
A statement issued by Qantas on the weekend read: “It’s expected that the 480 passengers delayed in Dubai will be on alternative services back to Australia within 24 hours. Passengers will continue to be put up in hotels at Qantas’ expense until they can be booked on another flight.”

Another wrote on Facebook: “4 hour delay now means spending New Years stuck on a plane. Cheers Emirates / Qantas. You better give me a free glass ... for my troubles. or better, an upgrade!”
Meanwhile, others searched for answers.
“You’ve put us up in a lovely hotel but we have no idea what time we’ll be leaving tomorrow. What time do we set our alarms for please? Help and communication would be great. Lots of uncertainty. Thanks,” Rob Voase wrote.
One person wrote on the Qantas Facebook page: “Hi Qantas, whats happening with your flights from Dubai? A friend is stranded there for days and may even miss NYE in Sydney.
Whats the story?”