Mexico Cruise Prices Plunge Despite Low Risks

The Swine Flu has yet to claim many victims - in fact it now appears likely that the casualties from regular flu will be *hundreds of times greater* than from Swine Flu. Yet the outbreak appears to be having a chilling effect on travel, especially to Mexico.

Obviously individuals perceptions and tolerances for risk vary, but this is probably one of the best times *in your lifetime* to take Cruise trip to Mexico if you can overcome the anxiety you might have worrying about the small chance you'd pick up the flu during your trip. Keep in mind that precautions are so high now my personal guess is that people are actually *less likely* to get sick on a cruise now than before the Swine Flu outbreak.

As with lightning strikes on a golf course we tend to exaggerate the likelihood of dramatica or catastrophic risks and underestimate the likelihood of minor or mundane risks.

Although the Centers for Disease Control caution that this outbreak could become worse, I think most scientists would agree that people should not avoid travel as a result of the Swine Flu and perhaps more importantly would agree that you can reduce your death risk much more substantially by avoiding or cutting back on other "more risky than flu" behaviors such as driving, bicycling, drinking, smoking, etc, etc.

Here's the AA Cruise link that got me thinking about this. This is NOT an subsidized endorsement and there may be other great deals out there.

Britain by Train

Over at the Times Online you can follow the UK Transportation Minister in his whirlwind tour of Britain by train. He'll be travelling thousands of miles on about 40 different trains over a 70 hour period to survey the services and the landscapes, and I can't think of a better way to introduce the public and tourists to the joys of train travel.

Trains offer a slower and more relaxed way to see a country and get a feel for the land and people, and I'm a big fan of this approach. Last year on the China Trip I took two major train routes across about 1800 miles of China. This gave me a chance to quietly reflect on the trip as I took in a ground level view from Hong Kong to Shanghai and Shanghai to Beijing.

I would have to say that train travel can become boring at times even on interesting routes. Our family trip from Portland Oregon to Minneapolis, MN was enjoyable but I probably wouldn't be inclined to do that often as it's a long haul with minimal services in route. Amtrak, as well as the China trains, fail to provide enough entertainment along the way. This is surprising as I think opening the dining car into a lounge-like atmosphere for 24 hours would probably result in a lot more food and beverage sales, as well as potential tips for servers.

Whl.Travel - local voices about local travel

The Whl Travel Network bills itself as one of the largest collections of locally run travel websites, where your information and transactions are handled at the local level rather than by massive consolidators like Expedia, Priceline, Orbitz, etc.

I'm not clear how much of the network is truly the voice of locals but this is a great idea and a good source for potentially "less biased" information than you will tend to find on the large sites or even local destination promotion websites.

One of the great challenges of planning trips online is that there is a huge incentive for many sites to showcase their areas very favorably. This is likely true at Whl.Travel as well, but at least you are less likely to be led only to the hotels and attractions that have the best ROI ratios for marketing agencies.

Ten Twitter Travel Tips

Rob at St Cristopher's Inn's blog has a nice post about Twitter and Travel where he gives some tips on how to use Twitter - the explosively popular "microblogging" service now used by almost 8 million worldwide - to make your travel easier and cheaper.

Here is the story

My favorite tip was to use the Twitter version of Britain's Rail Service to find great deals on train routes:

The tip offs about when super cheap advance ticket are going to go live online are a thing of beauty too! Did you know for example that you can travel from London to Newcastle and back for as little as £28, just by cruising nationalexpresseastcoast.com and chatting with their discount reps at any staffed station? Crazy good times. Check out twitter.com/nationalexpress

As Travel and History / Online Highways expands to include socializing and social media we'll be talking a lot more about using social media during your travels.

Got Rocks?

If you like Rock Climbing you'll enjoy Rachel's "Crag Baby" blog where she's documenting her travels all over the world, finding great places to climb.

I'm not sure how she manages to work 2 / climb 5 days per week but it seems to be working out well for her!

Around the World in 8 Days with Richard Branson

Virgin Atlantic's Richard Branson always seems to be having a grand time, and March was no exception as he video blogged his circumnavigation-in-style on Virgin Atlantic.

Google Street Views for UK

The BBC reports that Google is launching their amazing "street view" mapping service for the UK. Google's maps and street view offer an amazing way to visualize cities and travel routes on your computer screen as if you were actually in a car in the distant location:

From the BBC:

Street scenes in 25 UK cities from Aberdeen to Southampton can be viewed using the service.

The Netherlands version of the service also launched on Thursday, bringing the number of countries covered to nine.

The imagery available comprises video taken along 22,369 miles of UK streets by customised camera cars.

Google Maps users can zoom in to a given location and then drag the "Pegman" icon above the zoom bar on to a given street.

Google UK Street View

Google Maps