The worst case scenario in any travel adventure is that people can get hurt! Tourists wander around in a bubble, observing their new surroundings like visitors at an uncaged zoo, avoiding the water and washing their hands with alcohol wipes but never expecting that they can be just as vulnerable to accidents and injuries. And [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘In The Suitcase’
January 18, 2010
In the Suitcase: Volunteer vacations
Who hasn’t dreamt of living out of a hut in Kenya and playing with orphaned children, helping them read or put on clothes or singing songs together. I mean, what a great romantic cliche many 22-year-old college graduates think they’ll experience as they turn their tassles and march into the Real World (and I mean a [...]
January 5, 2010
In The Suitcase: Packing Light
My two sisters-in-law are headed to Israel this week for ten days and were handed a fairly ambiguous packing list with suggested items on it and then to pack for temperatures between 40 to 70 degrees. And for activities like hiking, swimming, and nice dinners. The girls are scrambling to make it all fit into [...]
December 7, 2009
In the Suitcase: Winter driving
This weekend Jon and I got into a bad accident in his SUV (note: the picture is NOT our accident. Ours really doesn’t look this bad). Fortunately and miraculously, everyone involved walked away unharmed. The Northeast got its first snowfall of the season and with it froze black ice on the I-95. We slipped, swerved and [...]
November 25, 2009
In the Suitcase: Last-minute travel
Jon and I are in the process of moving to Baltimore, which means that our current place in DC is a mess, our new place in Baltimore is a mess, and then there’s turkey to be had in Chicago. So, after several late-nights of painting, cleaning, packing and panicking, we sadly decided to skip the [...]
November 3, 2009
In The Suitcase: Travel agents
To begin: I am my best travel agent. I have never had a good experience with any other kind of travel agent.
Here’s where I will probably get stomped on by many an agent, whose job I would probably love to have, except then I’d have to deal with making people happy for a living, and [...]
October 28, 2009
In the Suitcase: Israel, for free!
My very, VERY lucky sister-in-law has been granted permission to join one of the many Israel birthright trips that whisks her and a group of other young adults overseas to the mystical land of Israel, for the grand total of – $0! (My other sister-in-law is on the waiting list, and sis #1 won’t go [...]
September 24, 2009
In the Suitcase: Reading the State Department warnings
If you’re ever feeling like your life in the United States is fairly dull and uneventful, and you wish yourself a more exotic version somewhere else in the world (and Baltimore isn’t even exciting and dangerous enough), here’s a suggestion.
Visit the U.S. State Department Consular Information Program page, which is filled with interesting summaries and tidbits about [...]
September 10, 2009
In the Suitcase: Dealing with TSA
While scanning the Internet I came across TSA’s tips to “SimpliFLY” your travel. Because, apparently, what used to be just a routine procedure involving sending your carry-on luggage (more than two!) and walking through the X-ray has become so complicated that TSA has to actually create an entire site with a clever headline to explain how [...]
September 2, 2009
In the Suitcase: Travel on Labor Day is truly laborious
It’s that time of year again – time to put away the white shoes and pants, longer work weeks and shorter daylight hours, fewer trips to the beach and hence, fewer hours spent sitting in traffic. Except this one last weekend, where millions of Americans will sit around in parking lots made out of highways, cursing [...]
