(00:00:00) We are going to be spending the rest of the hour with Katherine Watson the travel editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune Catherine. Welcome. It's always nice to have you on thank you. It's always nice to be here. I think the last time you were on you had just returned from sampling the bed and breakfasts in New York. Yes. That's true. Last winter. Yeah. Now where have you been since then around the world this spring and I have a have to do it in order if I'm going to say where the trip when I was in Belgium France Cameroon in West Africa, Kenya India, Nepal Tibet Bangkok Hong Kong China inner Mongolia in Hawaii. Wow over how long a period of time vote almost three months almost three months. That must have been just spectacular. It was great. Yeah. What did you like best about it where it would places were particularly appealing to you Tibet in an odd way. That was the main reason for taking the trip and it was not what I expected but a lot of things in travel aren't and once you kind of get used to the fact that it isn't like the dream then it becomes interesting. On its own what had you expected to find and what did you find that surprised you and made it so appealing at expected Ronald Colman in and Shangri-La. It turns out to be very much more like the rest of China than I'd expected. But the Tibetans themselves are delightful kind of ingenuous people. And the culture is still alive. Hmm, which was great. All right, and where are you planning to go in the future this afternoon? I'm leaving. In fact after the show is over. I'm leaving with three friends for Tulsa, Oklahoma and Route 66. We're going to drive to the coast. Oh, well actually be kind of fun. What are you expecting to see there? And then we'll find out after you get back what you actually felt what you expel. I think I'm expecting sort of real tacky hotels motels and road food stops. And at least one of the friends is expecting tacky miniature golf. That's his goal. I don't know what we'll find. Well I bet you'll find high temperatures Mmm Yeah. Well, all right, two two seven six thousand. That's the telephone number. If you want to chat with Katherine Watson about any travel questions you may have in the Minneapolis st. Paul area elsewhere within the state of Minnesota. We have a toll-free line available. That is 1-800-695-1418. If you're listening in one of the surrounding states in either of the Dakotas or Iowa, Wisconsin, whatever. You can call us directly in the Twin Cities at area code 612 2276 thousand. Let's before we know let's take some callers. Those lines are filling up real fast. Let's go to you first I there (00:02:33) and read about what Katherine Watson's approaches to travel up. There are two main concerns 1 the general principle of travel on your own independently or with a group. Well sounds like you have put together your own group for your trip to the coast but these package things sort of leave me cooled and I think that with most Americans because we are so neglectful of learning other languages. We tend not to strike out on our own and thereby we miss an awful lot. The second concern is In other countries, there are cultural things about introductions and I'm sure that she has pipelines into certain people in certain countries or that kind of thing, but for the independent traveler, you don't have letters of introduction things of that sort. But here in America, we communicate very easily but other cultures that think the third thing which is a brief one is that when you write about Paris, you have your own area away from the central touristy part of Paris that seems comfortable to you and then you live with the people who live there year-round and that's always intrigued me because here we don't know that with the Metro you can get to the main attractions very Quickly safely and rapidly and I'd appreciate your (00:04:20) comments. Okay, I agree with you that we missed a lot by not striking out on our own. I think the one of the great joys of travel is going around the corner from whatever it is that you've always read about and finding something better or at least more your own. So I'd encourage people to do that. You can do that. Even if you are taking a package to her. I think one of the mistakes that a lot of Travelers make is believing it since they've paid for all their meals and they paid for all of their various routings. They can't really leave the tour and you can do that quite easily. You can forfeit a meal or two and go have a meal in a restaurant somewhat sure really don't eat with the group. Oh that sounds like sacrilege. If you paid for something you're supposed to take advantage of it for crying out loud. That's what mother always taught us. Yep. I know it and it's real hard for minnesotans. I think we're by Nature Frugal. It's a hard to let go of those extra dollars, but you can you can get a much better experience sometimes for it also on the cultural things. If you've got if you belong to any sort of organization or group here find out whether it's got an international branch and right. To that branch in the cities are going to be visiting organizations here like rotary for example would be a natural things that you belong to our hobby groups that you're interested in find out whether there are hobbyists doing the same thing in the places. You're going to go to you don't necessarily have to have an introduction to an individual. But if you have an introduction to a group you can enrich your your contacts and meet people that way and if you have none of those things are no way of really following up on it contact the tourism offices for the various countries that have representatives in this u.s. In the u.s. They New York or Chicago are the main centers for this and ask them. If there are any means that they sponsor for Americans visiting people are meeting people in their homes. A number of countries do have setups an evening at home of a family and a particular capital city for example, and they can actually put you in touch with with that mechanism and on Paris on Paris. Yeah. I have a favorite area which is in the southwest corner of Paris, but you can really sort of pick any are you Like that, if you're away from that, the Heart Center of Tourism hotel prices are somewhat less people are less used to tourists and less resistant to them and the underground Subway. The Metropolitan will take you everywhere quickly. All right, let's move on to our next listener. Hello. Katherine Watson is listening. Yes. Hello. (00:06:33) Hello. We're planning a trip into southeast Asia this late fall and particularly in to Katmandu Nepal and we're interested in traveling into lhasa into the Forbidden City and possibly into Tibet tell me what type of travel is available in this area or is it still prohibited? (00:06:51) It's possible. That's the way we went in the catch. Is that the road that connects the International Bridge at code re it's the road that runs from common due to loss of but it's part of Nepal and part in Tibet. When you cross the border into Tibet you run smack into a landslide and a road building project. That isn't going very well and you have to do a lot of Overland climbing and takes the better part of two afternoons. And if you're not in superb health, I don't think it's a real hot way to do it. The other catch is that as of the end of May the Chinese refused to allow people going on that route to have bus service between In the top of the landslide and the the town that the next town which is 31 miles away. My feeling is since I came out that way after this ban went into effect that you can probably find plenty of people who'll take you but you'd have to wait until you got there to find out there are some small tourism companies in Nepal that were running over land tours in to lhasa up to this spring whether they're going to continue or not in the face of this this prohibition on the 31 miles of bus service is not really clear and what I'd recommend you do is if you're booking part of this trip through a travel agent here have the travel agent call or contact somehow travel agents in Nepal. There are lots of them and find out what they say about travel there. You could also check with the US state department in Washington, which has a it's the Citizens emergency center, but it issues travel advisories and it can advise on whether this this how disruptive this is to Overland travel Minneapolis Star Tribune travel editor Katherine Watson with us today. As we talked about people's travel desires and interests and Curiosities and your next hello there. (00:08:38) Yes, my question has to do with flying within the continental United States. If you're headed for a destination and you have to it's not a direct flight, you have to touch down and get on to another plane. How much time do you suggest that you give yourself between when you touch down and then when you pick up the next flight to go on I'll hang up and listen. Thank you. Okay, (00:09:02) it varies a lot. I think there is a minimum which I don't offhand remember if you are getting off one plane picking up your luggage and then going to another plane there is a set minimum and if there is not enough time between flights to transfer your luggage, the airline's won't book you on that flight. What usually happens though is that you've booked a flight that involves a plane change you get on the plane here, for example, and you get off in your ultimate goal is New York's a you book your you put your luggage through to New York and it just makes the plane change or doesn't it gets there eventually and you get off the plane walk over and get on the next plane. The best people who can advise you on amounts of time in between would be travel agents or the airline's themselves when you make the reservation What is going on with airline travel in this country? Heaven only knows I mean the prices have gone up which I suppose, you know, they were so doggone cheap there for a while and nobody's making any money. You can't really blame them for raising the prices some but the service has gotten so bad why I think it has to what everybody always blames is deregulation. And at least for the fare increases. I think that's true what they travel industry predicted when deregulation of Airlines allowing for more competition was first talked about was that we would see a lot of competition a drop in fares at first an increase in service and then a big shake down when Airlines found that they couldn't make it on the lower fares, we would end up with fewer carriers who could then raise the rates as they pleased? Yeah, but the rates are what kind of going into that although the rates are still a whole lot cheaper than they were like 15 years ago and in actual dollars and of course in terms of purchasing power, it's a lot cheaper but the delays and the crowning at the airport's you can't in the Twin Cities. You can't get a place to park out there. That is the the US government has been working on that. I think they called all major airlines in what this last spring was while I was going to discuss whether people whether the whether the airline's themselves could arrange a time range there times better because they were double scheduling themselves. Everybody would schedule all their flights into one area at the same time. So they could compete better all of them out at the same time, you know, the candle take off at 7:30. So the airlines are supposed to be working on that but part of the problem I think is that they weren't realistic about when they actually we're going to take off they listed a time that people went to the airport to catch the plane boy and that wasn't a realistic time at all. Well, maybe we'll hear some more about that from our callers as we continue here Katherine Watson was with us. We've got some folks on the line and some lines available as well in the Twin Cities 2276 thousand is the number two two seven six thousand in other parts of Minnesota the toll-free number one 865 to 9700 and your next go ahead please. (00:11:46) Hello. Yes. I'm wondering I would like to hear a little bit about your trip to Cameroon. I was wondering what cities did you visit did you find travel within the country pretty easy? And do you have any suggestions on cheap flights to Cameroon from us? I'll hang up and listen. Okay, thank you. (00:12:02) I was at a conference in douala and then went into a to the Northwest part of the country where a lot of crafts are are done and look primarily at small small town small villages. I found that the travel wasn't all that hard. It was very expensive. Bill on the on the rental car, which was three days with a charge per mile. And for the absolute standard stick shift model. It was six hundred and seventy dollars, which I think is a lot for three days for three days and developing country see so I don't really recommend renting a car and it's not really easy to get around in that country in most developing countries without one which is sort of a double bind. It's an it's an interesting country, but It suffers the way a lot of the rest of Africa does from high fairs. It's difficult to get to Africa cheaply. I would I would look for groups or any kind of package that allows you stopovers in a number of countries and West Africa is beginning to do more of that kind of packaging countries getting together to sort of put to combine their efforts so that they are not competing with each other for travelers this big round the world trip that you took in the spring nine and a half weeks worth did that was not a package deal you put that nail yourself. My travel agent did on something called a mileage fear which Loud allowed up to the last minute changes without a financial penalty it cost more it cost about thirty three hundred dollars for the air ticket, but we were free to make changes right to the if you could get another flight at another time. You could make changes to the last minute possible a lot of the Around the World Fair's which are much cheaper. You can get them for about 2,000 2100 have really stiff cancellation penalties. This is a trip. I intended to take about four months earlier and I had had a around the world fair on Pan Am for about 2199. I believe the cancellation penalty on that when the Tibet piece was canceled by a landslide was 500 some dollars. Hmm. It's about was about a quarter of the of the cost and that's that hurts. So I went with a slightly higher fare that gave me more flexibility. And did you have your hotel accommodations? Pretty much booked in advance every place day by day or did you leave yourself some leeway? I did it first because I had to get out of a We go into India and finally to Nepal on a very tight schedule and there were the connecting flights in many cases were once a week. So I couldn't afford to flex after after Tibet after we picked up that to her then I let the reservations be somewhat more flexible. I see. All right, let's take some more folks with questions here for Katherine Watson. Hi, you're on with her now. Hello? (00:14:39) Yes. Hello. My husband and I just returned from a two-week trip to France. And this was my second trip and his first one I was there in 84 also and I don't have questions so much as just a few comments that if you could respond to it would be interesting. First of all, the general culture there we noticed is a much gentler and quieter culture than it is over United States, even in the midst of great festivity. It seems that people are smiling gentle no pushing and shoving one aspect of it. We didn't see one hot car for instance the whole time we were over there even in It seems like there's a higher quality of life in France and we were both in Paris and in very very small towns many of them during this time and no hot cars no intrusive music. We never heard anybody walking down the street with a radio. We went to a crowded Park one time down in the prehistoric cave area, which is a very touristy area and sort of reluctantly went into this public park to have a picnic and sat. Well, you know, we might as well do it nothing. It was beautiful. No one was intrusive a bit. We heard no one and yet it was very crowded. It seems like they're the quality of life is more dependent on people's Communications with each other and just enjoying the preservation of their quality of life rather than so depending on socio-economic situations the way it seems to be in the United States people there regardless, apparently, I realize extremes when way the other would invalidate that but Are not so dependent on getting good food or being in beautiful surroundings as they seem to be here. Also, there was just a general attitude of friendliness among the French people that I felt from comments. I'd heard from other people that that was a fluke when I experienced it my first trip I've had several people say, oh I just hated the French people they were so rude and I said, well gee I didn't think so, but we're going again and I'll tell you how I feel this time and it was just reinforced this time. It was a very very nice culture (00:16:51) very interesting comments. Let's hear what Katherine has to say in reply to them. I agree with you I've found well, I guess I've had it both ways in France when I was first a student there and didn't speak much French. I found the French rude to but partly that's because I had different expectations for what I what kinds of reactions I wanted. If I ask them a question when I've been in the parts of Paris that terrorists don't go to very much and in outlying French towns and Villages. It's like traveling anywhere. Many people sort of take you as you are as long as you play by the rules which are quieter and gentler and less noisy and shove Ethan than were used to at home. I think that's true. I think as far as food goes what I've found that with the French is that they're extremely their standards are extremely high on food and they will pay more rather than take poor quality fruit and vegetables. We are willing to take less quality if we can save some money so we sort of differ there but Europe in general, I think puts a little more emphasis on quietness appreciating what's out there rather than looking for distractions. No, and then we tend to know boom boxes in public parks. What's the matter don't they have teenagers over there they do but the teenagers are they mind better I think maybe they go on vacation. When were there? I'm not sure maybe they behaved themselves like yeah, that's a possibility. Well, let's move on to some more folks. You're on with Katherine Watson. Oh (00:18:09) hello. Hello. My husband and I are thinking of planning a vacation in Britain sometime in the future with our two children, and we're not really Didn't staying in a hotel were wondering is it possible? Is there some kind of an organization that could help us arrange for swapping houses with someone there? (00:18:28) There are host whopping organizations one of the problems that midwesterners run into is that we aren't the top desirable area if somebody is coming from Europe and wants to swap a house. It's going to more likely be some place near Orlando where you can go to Disney World or the California coast or New York. It's harder at your number of choices diminishes. If you're from a more central part of the u.s. But there are how swapping organizations and there are also home rental places organizations that are active in Britain and you might look at that as well renting a house rather than an apartment or running running. I mean running a house or apartment rather than stay in a hotel you could talk to the British travel Association British tourist Authority. Excuse me. It's the BTA in Chicago and the phone book there would have information would have the number and ask them for So in both of those it is about half-past eleven as we talked with Katherine Watson about travel today. Hi, you're on with her now. (00:19:26) Hi. I have a friend who was recently denied access to Kenya because of quotas. Can you that was news to me? Can you elaborate on that and talk about traveling Africa in general? (00:19:38) I can't because I haven't done that much of it. I've been in Kenya and in Cameroon and I haven't been in the rest of Africa to my sorrow, I guess I would wonder what kind of visa she was applying for or your friend was applying for some countries will limit certain kinds of Visa we do for example, and others will limit other ones. Usually there's no real problem with tourism unless the terrorist is planning to stay a long time or looks as if the tourist is going to try and get a job. That's where we're our government objects to especially if people are coming from certain countries where our government believes they're coming here really to get a job not to see the sides. All right, and you're on next (00:20:17) tool. Hello. Yes. Yes, I recently was in Washington DC and Monday night. There was a first part of a kind of an expose on discount are prices, especially International and if it wasn't able to hear the second part and haven't heard from them yet, but apparently a lot of the empty seats are being sold to ethnic tourist agents of for example in California and in Chinatown for four trips to Tokyo and Japan China, but that now more and more agents are have access to these discount prices from the airlines, but they're not sharing them with the consumer and it was implied that there a lot of really dramatically reduced fares available and what I didn't hear was how you have access to them and I wondered if you had any knowledge in it. (00:21:05) It's a real broad question. There are lots of different kinds of discount are prices some of which are terrific and some of which have real severe drawbacks. A lot of space is sold through things called last minute Discount Travel clubs, where you Join the Discounters by paying a fee and they buy this space at that is unsold at the last minute before departure for tour group or Cruz and and that can have some very good good advantages for people if they're really willing to go at the last minute and are in the place of the story departs from the ethnic group travel does quite often produce really low fares. There are organizations that are usually nicknamed bucket shops that sell they rely on mass travel from ethnic groups like from Chinatown on the west coast to Hong Kong for example, where they know, they will be a steady flow of people going back to visit relatives or coming the other way to visit relatives. You see a lot of that in the Mediterranean countries as well and they're not exactly like Charters, but you can get some very low prices through those organizations. There are some other drawbacks like which airline you're going to fly and what kind of guarantees you have if you need to make a change in the in the flight at the last minute. Some people swear by going through Canada because the Canadian dollar's worth less than ours A lot of these things get trickier than they may actually be worth one one option and there's an agency Travel Agency in this part of the country that does this is to look for travel agencies that give that take less commission per per transaction and they pass that savings on again doing sort of a high-volume thing or two look for Charters, but it's really kind of a kind of a tricky mess. You have to do a lot of research. I'm intrigued by what you said about this last-minute these last-minute clubs. How much can you save typically and how last minute is last minute how much Advanced illness would you typically get if it's a world Cruise you can last minute is sometimes a couple of months and they know that space won't sell. Hmm, but hasn't sold by a certain point before departure if it's a package tour or a charter. It can be a day before three days before a week before you run into a couple of problems with that. They really do discount the space although the discounts range from about 15 percent to Fifty there's sometimes higher sometimes lower but but it's not it's not a gigantic Savings in many cases, but but it can be substantial and what happens is that if you buy it at or say to Europe out of New York and it departs next Wednesday, and it's cut in half for you know, all-expenses-paid you're going to pay half of what the regular price was and you want that that's fine. But getting from here to New York, you may have to do the travel within the minimum Advance purchase requirement period you also because you're within the usually within the cancellation period of of the tour you're taking if you cancel between now and next Wednesday having charge this to your Visa account or whatever account they'll take you don't get your money back because you are too close to the cancellation deadline. Hmm. So it sometimes Beyond it you can save some money but you got to understand what you're getting at and you have to really be able to go with was a lot of people figure they'll join a club like this and they'll have a full range of options to choose from you don't you have to choose from the space that nobody else wanted? And that tends to be real see agent seasonal the European Charters and packages in the summer and cruises and getaways in the winter. Yeah, I surveyed about six last-minute travel clubs last year and found that about 50% of all their offerings were cruises because cruises cruise ships right now have lots and lots of space. There are more ships in there are passengers right now. So there's some good buys there. Hmm. All right, let's move on to some more folks with travel questions for Katherine Watson Hi, how are you today? (00:24:47) That part of my tour but my agent is handling the airline and the cars and we can talk a little about insurance. I have not counting feeling and I'm not going to be able to make the trip. And if so, what do I do about getting at least part of something back? My agent indicates it so far. I can maybe 50% back that or ill. (00:25:09) Okay. Do you have insurance right now? Have you got Insurance right now. Okay about two months. Okay, the general advice on this is that you ought to get something called. It's variously called trip cancellation insurance or trip Interruption Insurance. Sometimes it has both names what it does and you have to read the fine print on the policies because they're not the same. I got burned on this by assuming that I was covered when my to that trip was canceled last fall covered for cancellation of the centerpiece of the tour which I wasn't and that surprised me because I had just finished writing a column saying read the fine print and I hadn't done it. I was kind of like with the big flood a lot of people thought. Oh, yeah sure. It's would cover the flood damage and it didn't rain damage. Right? So what you what you need is something that will cover you in case you for a valid reason could not go the reasons that that are acceptable so you haven't started the trip, you're going to cancel beforehand. Usually it's a medical emergency either involving yourself your traveling companion or a member of the families of the people who are going look for if you think that the tour itself might be canceled. This is what I did. Look for something that covers you and we'll get you your money back on the rest of the trip. If part of the trip is cancelled due to an act of God if that doesn't seem to apply. You don't have to worry too much about it. But that was the part. I wasn't covered for the other part of this kind of insurance covers you in case there's a medical problem or some other problem that happens during the trips. You have to cut it short and come home either because you're ill or your friend is ill or something has happened at home. If it's an illness a situation and on a wilderness camping trip of any sort. This is a real good idea to have what you want is something that will cover the cost of getting you out of wherever you are and home again. If you need full Medical Care during that evacuation process, if you're flying back from Tibet, for example, what you look at what you have to look at in terms of cost is the price usually minimum of four Airline seats, which is what it takes to put on a stretcher into a into a plane and it isn't for Coach seats. It's for first class. Whoo. Usually it's three seats for the stretcher and there's a requirement Somebody else go along. So you look at that to start and then if you need any additional care, you've got the salary of the the nurse or doctor who goes with you. So evacuation insurance is a real good thing to look at most people looking at Travel Insurance look at stuff to replace their luggage or cameras, if it's lost and that's cheap compared to the costs of a canceled trip or a trip that you've cut short or a trip that involves a medical emergency. When you have to get home give me some ballpark figures on cost estimates for for what it might cost you if you were stuck $15,000 to get home from no no, no the cost of the insurance the insurance. It's not real cheap. I think I paid $55 for about $1,000 worth of coverage on the Tibet true, but I wanted to ensure was the cost of coming home if I had to buy a one-way ticket home just for myself and that included some pretty hefty emergency medical stuff, but it didn't include what happened if what happened actually, yeah. It's not cheap but looking at Costs it's worth it. And if you have only one Insurance you want to buy by skip the baggage stuff and buy the stuff. It'll protect you or your investment. Okay, moving on to some more people with questions. Hello, you're on now. (00:28:24) Yes, my son left. My son left last week for India Pakistan Nepal Tibet and so forth and we're hoping that they would be able to get a visa for China as you as of yet. They did as of the time they left they have not received the Visa and I'm wondering if you have any information as to how to get a visa (00:28:47) on the road. It it varies with who you ask but you can get them you can get them depending on where you going in in places where an organization called cits, which is China international travel service where the it's the government of China's travel Branch where that organization has offices. You can you can apply for visas there. You can also apply it Chinese embassies we got into we got a Visa into Tibet By applying through a travel agent in Kathmandu Nepal and that's about the easiest way to do it. If you're going with a small group or a a group period into China and it's an organized trip getting visas is almost automatic because they don't do a great deal of checking on the group members the groups usually follow a fixed itinerary, which has already been approved by the Chinese government individual visas are harder to get but not impossible and sometimes if you've got all your documents in or you're simply wait and it can it can take a few days to a week. You can apply for those in Hong Kong is is another real popular place to do it, but you can apply in a number of cities outside the country. We are talking travel today with Katherine Watson travel editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune travel to exotic places and travel to places within the United States even within the 5 state area here 2276 thousands our phone number if you have a question for her or 1-800 652 9700 outside the Minneapolis st. Paul area. Go ahead, please you're next. (00:30:11) Hi. I have a question about a kind of a travel club that I've heard about. Not not the discount kind. I have relatives to live. - they belong to a group called Ambassador, which is they pay us a yearly membership. The the organization owns its own airplane. So I understand it and they the members then are entitled to tickets on very fairly reduced tickets on flights, which they have scheduled to a lot of different parts of the world also package tours. It seems to be very reasonable. I was wondering if Katherine was familiar with that kind of organization. And is there one in this area? It seems like a pretty good deal to me from what I've heard about it maybe friends used it. They do fly on (00:30:58) I'm not familiar. I've heard of these but I'm not familiar one operating in this area. It's sort of like a little corporation that you join their own shares in the planar or something like that. Most of the I can say a general thing about discount clubs and other things we have to pay a fee look real hard at the amount of the fee and at the amount of money you're normally spend on your vacation and if the fee is a lot and you don't normally see A great deal on your vacations your you may be paying for a deal that you are going to use a lot of I should know. This might be a good place to talk about travel scams, which is the sure hot hot problem. There are a lot of scams that involve telephone solicitations requests for you to give a Visa number specifically Visa over the phone in return for which will get discounted tickets or a certificate that entitles you to a free vacation. It's the free vacation or cheap ticket. Come on usually involving the phone sometimes mailer is real dangerous right now and it's real appealing to people because we've all been taught through the deregulation period that there really are lots more cheap fares out there than we can get our hands on. So if somebody comes forward and says for 30 bucks, I'll give you two tickets to Hawaii round trip. All you have to do is give us this your number and pay a fixed fee and booked the trip through us. Look real close at that because very often even if the trip is legitimate. It's going to cost you more than it would if you went through a regular travel agency and this sort of Club if you're like like the one you're talking about. Probably is fine this group that owns its own planes, but it how it glistens its members. I don't know and any time you get a solicitation that comes at you out of the blue is too good to be true look at it very skeptically if it's too good to be true. It probably is. All right. You're next. Go ahead, please Katherine Watson is (00:32:40) listening. Thank you Catherine, Bob. The Finger Lakes area of New York what last minute information could you give me about the bed-and-breakfast in the area? And would it be any use of this late date? (00:32:55) It might be fine there that area gets a fair amount of Tourism out of the out of New York and the various other Big East Coast cities and there should be plenty of bed and breakfasts there whether they have space at this time of year is the would be the big question. I'd have there are a number of good bed and breakfast books out. Probably two dozen of them. In fact, I'd check a bookstore between now and when you leave and see what you can find that covers that area and then you can call them in advance you can also Quoting Corbin home. You can call a day ahead of time and just see what what is available sometimes bed and breakfast in a particular town or region will refer people if they're closed. They're refer to somebody else in the in the neighborhood that they know of who has space. They do a fair amount of much more cooperating. I think than hotels do okay moving on to some more people with questions. Hello, you're on with Katherine (00:33:46) Watson know. Mine is a different question. Actually. I am trying to lead tours to Kenya and the two of my favorite places. I've lived in many parts of the world and I speak several languages, but the difficulty for me is how to advertise without incurring great cause because I'm doing it privately although I would use local travel agencies to get the air flight and and bonded agencies from the other side for land operation. So I was wondering if you had any suggestions as to other people like myself, you know independently doing this and how did they get themselves? No, (00:34:33) I think it's difficult. One thing you might want to look at is travel trade show, which the Star Tribune puts on a couple of year and other large newspapers also do that in different parts of the country where travel agents from an area. To the show to see what's new in the in the product Department. You'd be the product you can you can consider going that route because you'd meet a lot of the agents that would then be in a position to recommend you among other people among other options to people wanting to go to Africa in terms of advertising for clients that gets a little trickier in a lot more costly. I think one of the ways that independent leaders, I guess have done this is through educational organizations where a lot of a lot of independent group leaders are actually College professors or people who are taking study groups and that's one possibility to okay. Good luck with your little business there a lot of Entrepreneurship being shown in the in the traveled area these days, it's hot. Yeah and your next go ahead please Captain's (00:35:36) listening. Thank you. I'm I've done quite a bit of traveling throughout the United States and Europe also and I was interested. How did you enter into this career and are their career opportunities? Of people who are interested in travel and things like that (00:35:52) in travel generally. Yes, there are lots of career opportunities in travel writing. I always have a little trouble answering that because we are at the Star Tribune and all the other newspapers. I know of deluged with unsolicited freelance manuscripts that we can't use in many cases wouldn't because the writing isn't very good. So there's a lot of competition for travel writing jobs. I got into this by I had a journalism degree and work for the star interviewing for a long time in different capacities and had spent every nickel I ever earned on travel. So when we started to Travel section, I applied for the job and was a lucky lucky enough to get it so it's so that's the route that most people get into travel jobs by having been addicted2travel since they could walk. There are in travel agencies and related forms a great many jobs travel is growing and I think jobs are growing with him. Are you a one-person Department there actually were bigger. Now we have pieces of about four people. Hmm. I'm the I'm the full time person. Hmm and how many trips do you normally take per year on the company's nickel it varies a lot. Depending how big the Nicholas right then this this year. I've been gone about twice as long as I've been home. I think since the first of the year, I usually am gone on between a fourth and a third of the time depending on how much and it depends how far I'll go as the fiscal year wears on and we run out of money. I stay closer and closer to home. And when you have vacation time you travel to do stay at home both. I have a summer house in Illinois and I go there so it's travel but it's also home. Yeah, so you do take sort of a busman's holiday. Yeah and in fashion, but I bet you don't write about it. No, you'd leave that notebook at home and don't take a tape recorder or any of that other stuff. We have some more people who want to talk to Katherine Watson about travel and we'll put you on with your now hello there. (00:37:43) So I am planning a trip to West Africa and the first half of next year. Where can I find the most economical are round trip for from Minnesota to West Africa? Where do I apply for a Visa? And is there a better time in the first half of the year to do that traveling (00:38:06) I'm going to this was on the campaign the question. I think you probably should be setting this up through a travel agency. It would be a lot easier on you. Especially if you're visiting a number of countries, there are packages that include several countries and that will save you more money than if you tried to go independently to each one of them probably your airfare savings are going to be greatest on era freak, which is an organization of a number of it's an airline sponsored by a number of African countries. So it which Cuts some of their costs they don't all have to have their independent Airline. I would talk to a travel agent about what packages exist and the agent can handle visas. You will probably need a visa for each country in some You can take kind of a long time to get depending on on how each country's rules are the time but I travel agent working through one office with that agent. You can probably get all of your Visa questions questions answered efficiently. So you don't have to do the contacting of each embassy yourself. If you look in the Yellow Pages, you'll find I would guess Pages pages of travel agents. How do you find a good one? Audi find some is really going to do what you want. You have to do some comparison shopping two things. You can look for our initials American Society of travel agents Asta is the largest travel Trade Organization in the world and they have set standards for their members. They also have a Consumer Affairs office that will help Travelers who had problems with agents resolve them. Even if the agents aren't asked to members you can look for foreign agents and agency that it has asked as part of its logo also the CTC designation for certified travel counselor implies that the the agent in question. Has completed a two-year program of graduate study sort of essentially graduate study on top of about five years minimum experience in the field. Those are good tip offs for good agents. Also Word of Mouth they friends of yours have got an agent that they like or if you've used somebody who liked go back to that person the the longer, you know, an agent like the longer, you know, a broker and the longer they know you the better job they can do at meeting what what your needs might be and if you haven't have never used an agent and you haven't got any friends who can recommend one call several call large ones in this area a lot of people tend to read an ad for something out of California say and we'll book through California agent that is is listed that you have then got much less control. If something goes wrong. We have to make a change and doing a lot of long-distance phoning. It's better to go with somebody in your own Community. Who knows the area and is rather likely to be reachable if something does go wrong. Okay. Do you have a question for Katherine Watson, please? Go ahead. (00:40:39) Thank you, Catherine. Say how many years we have enjoyed reading your column. Thank you and are enjoying you hearing you this morning. We will be traveling in Italy the end of September for the last week of September. I believe in the first week of October maybe a little bit more into October and that is a new area for us for that time of the year. And I was just wondering for one thing about clothes. What would you recommend? We usually are pretty good Packers and you know, usually carry everything on to little shoulder bags that I take on the plane with me and so for that. All right, we'll do that. What would you recommend in particularly for my husband who is always a problem. (00:41:25) Thanks a lot. (00:41:27) Maybe you're the exception. I don't know. (00:41:30) So I think men have it so much easier because they can just work your jacket and slacks and be fine. I get all hung up on which kind of shoes to take and usually taken twice too many my I haven't traveled in Italy. That time of year, but I've traveled in late summer there it would be warm and dry most likely warmer than it would be the same time here a good good guidebook for the areas that you're going to be in would list the the normal temperatures. You can also call the Italian government tourist office in New York and asked them for specifics on temperature in the areas are going to be also travel agent. If you're using one can can probably help you there too. I would pack for a real warm fall in Minnesota will warm and dry you might want I doubt you'd even need a raincoat. I always take an umbrella just just because you always need one sooner or later. You have to lose something on something. Yeah. It's sort of like the you give that one up and maybe you can say the rest of your luggage. I'd take a warm sweater probably a cardigan that you can take on and off and then go with regular kind of late summer early fall fairly lightweight clothes that you could layer. Six minutes before the hour and we'll get some more people on with Katherine Watson including you. Hello there (00:42:38) suggestions about previous colors up. The one who is going to the Finger Lakes shouldn't Miss cribs restaurant in Skaneateles? We didn't know when we went that they were only open in the evening, but it's the best American food I've had in that part of the world and close by is the home of Ulysses S Grant and we visited there and enjoyed the afternoon and came back 2 KR e BS and I decry the loss of that section of the travel part of the Star Tribune where you probably just suggestions and the two that you used that I contributed were booked a Dell or a foe and other restaurant. Underneath the Ponte Vecchio. And then for that one. Yeah, and then to be in Kyoto at the time of the daimonji festival the Garen Italy better check out when it comes to religious and national holidays because when I got to Rome there were two of them back to back and you couldn't find a mop or anything else and nobody tells you these things but everything closes down because there's a special celebration. So I think the funnest part about travel is to pass along your experience and suggestions and I hope you would revive that contributions part of the Travel section and and encourage people to contribute (00:44:23) you were one of our best contributors what that was was a place where we said send in your travel tips on places restaurants playthings you think of The Travelers should know about And what happened was we got quite a few in the very beginning and then it faded almost immediately to maybe one every week or so and we finally didn't get enough to keep it going. I think that part of that might be might be the sort of reticence that middle westerners have to to sort of put themselves out in front we tend to hang back and not be more shy yeah. Well, that's anyway, but this caller was one of our best contributors. I remember both of those. All right well and thanks for the tips on things for those other people, too. All right, let's take your question next. Hello there. (00:45:02) Hello quick question this fall and I'd like to find out what the best prettiest time in the fall in France and Central Europe and Europeans. And also if you have time where is pretty November by examining a (00:45:17) business? Okay in Europe, I assume you mean I've liked Europe in the very late fall and early winter and Southern France is one of the nicest places I can think of for that time of year. There are fewer tourists there and it's warm by day and Cool by night and fairly dry. Also anything around the Mediterranean would be would be good at that time of year. All right, let's take some more here. You're on with Catherine now. Go ahead, (00:45:42) please. Okay, we're going to be a bicycling through Australia New Zealand for a couple months and we went to different bookstores looking for some maps blow up may have similar to the United States maps for each state were unable to locate any and also we're going to run into problems looking for my that Homestead think it's going to be the prime touring months down there what month better off to go leaving in January but off to be in the northern southern Islands. (00:46:07) Oh, I can't I can't tell you that between the between the two islands. I don't I think what you want to kind of avoid is the Christmas holidays. They that's when at least in New Zealand, I was there then and everybody's on vacation and lots of things close. I've had a camera breaking Auckland couldn't find a camera shop opened to fix it for something like a week and a half for maps and so on there are two new travel outfits in Will travel stores not bookstores but stores in Minneapolis that opened just in the last month or so one has an opinion. It's called The Adventure Travel Center on West Bank. Can I say he was running that I don't care. Okay. Okay. It's being offered through Midwest Mountaineering on Cedar Avenue. And the other is in store called latitudes at 38th and Grand I haven't been in those yet. I haven't had time yet, but they they are set up to provide Travelers with with maps. You might try there. We have a couple of minutes left will take one maybe two more questions. Hello. (00:47:06) Hello. Hi. Yes, go ahead. Much to see beyond their that you've not already seen elsewhere. Thank you. (00:47:38) I'm gonna answer the last one you'd probably better do some reading about it or talked to the Canadian travel Bureau, which the Canadian consulate runs and in Minneapolis that which can provide you information on all sorts of Canadian travel including that area. My concern I think would be that that is a pretty popular time of year and you might want to just make sure you've got reservations in in the places you want to stay in rather than winging it. But again the Canadian council could help you most well Catherine, we're just about down to the end of the time. Thank you very much for coming in and sharing your travel experiences with us. Well, thank you for always listening pleasure and fun to have you with us and you're going now down to Route 66, right? And how long will you be gone two weeks two weeks that should give you plenty of opportunity to sample all of the experiences that they're having and all the cheap hamburgers. And yeah and all the great Southwestern cooking and couple of the state's. I'm sure a joy as well Katherine Watson is the travel editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and I think her book travel Six is still available, isn't it? So if you enjoyed listening to her why you can read more of her work in the newspaper, and she has published a book as well weekend is made possible by Ecolab Incorporated providing products and services for household institutional and Industrial Cleaning worldwide the time coming up on 12 noon. This is Bob Potter speaking.