Category Archives: News And Views

Off To Chicago for TBEX

I’m off to Chicago to meet a long list of travel blogging friends in person (mostly for the first time) at TBEX in Chicago this coming Sunday including: Jamie from TravelSavvyMom, Mara from MotherOfAllTrips, hopefully a few of the fine gals from the TravelingMamas, Jessie from WanderingEducators and many more. It’s going to be a blast!

I’ve enjoyed reading about the exploits of some other Seattle-based travel bloggers on their road-trip from Seattle to Chicago at TBEX Road Trip, but now it’s my turn to hop on a plane and visit the Windy City (also for the first time). This time I’ll be traveling without my children and boy am I going to savor every moment of waiting, boarding and flying without the possibility of having juice or food spilled on me. It’s the little things people, they add up to wondrous treasures that you might not even notice

I’ve been checking out the fun things to see and do in Chicago using the City of Chicago’s Official Tourism Site – it’s a great resource for anyone planning a visit.

See ya when I get back folks!

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In Praise Of Single Moms Who Travel

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We interviewed many moms for the Traveling With Kids book, every one of whom had a unique story or perspective on traveling with children due to their own personal experiences. I remember being particularly moved by Karen H.’s story: she traveled through India alone with her two sons, then eight and ten. Having just returned from a trip to Mexico with my boys (my husband joined us mid-trip), I’m sure I thought “I bet I could do that”.

But this past week, my eyes were really opened to the practicalities of traveling alone with multiple children and I feel I should stop and take a moment to praise all the single moms who travel with kids or moms who, due to whatever circumstances, end up traveling alone with their children. You are my heroines.

For being patient with your early-rising child and still calm when your night owl doesn’t want to sleep yet.
For being willing and able to cherish your children even when they’re endlessly badgering you – and only you – all day long.
For working really, really hard to balance the interests of your oldest with the needs of your youngest.
For getting out there and navigating public transport while keeping your brood together.
For knowing when to have a day where all you do is stop at the playground and visit the ice-cream store (maybe even twice).
For managing long airport layovers necessitated by booking your flights with a limited budget.
For not flinching when one child starts vomiting but the others still want to play.
For accepting that the chances that you will get any time to yourself during your vacation are slim, but for choosing to travel nonetheless – and enjoying the time with your children away from the stresses of your daily life.

Long may you travel and if your path crosses mine, I promise to lend a hand if I can.

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Free Range Kids On The Road

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I read Lenore Skenazy’s blog Free Range Kids for the first time last month. Seriously, I cannot believe that I missed last year’s media furore when she let her then 9 year old son ride the New York subway home alone – but then again, I’m a working mom and I admit, there are days (weeks even) when don’t have time to either read the newspaper or listen to NPR.

At any rate, when I found Skenazy’s blog , I was excited. I mean truly, jumping-up-and-down excited. I’ve lived my parenting life in the U.S. where the shadow of being an outsider butts into my interactions with the moms of my children’s friends all too frequently. It’s not something that keeps me awake at night, but it’s an annoyance I struggle with since, like any mom, I appreciate that my kids want to fit in and my “no, I don’t like peanut butter and jelly” oddities are a distraction they’d rather not have to deal with and I’d rather not saddle upon them. On Free Range Kids I’ve found a group of people who, at least on one parental dimension (i.e. freedom and independence in childhood), think as I do and act as I do.

I grew up in a small Irish town. I don’t remember ever locking the door or turning on a house alarm (in fact, we didn’t have one). I do know that I and my younger siblings walked everywhere and were pretty darn self-sufficient from a very early age. Such were the practicalities of my life. We didn’t have scheduled playdates instead our friends just dropped by. We were regularly told to “go outside and don’t come back until…” (at which point I would usually take a book and go read in the garden).

Growing up in Seattle, my children have had a very different experience and frankly I have failed miserably at managing their social calendar. It’s like meal planning. Really, I want someone to show up at my house daily with an expertly prepared repast. Instead, I avoid thinking about dinner until I have to and then I regret not having planned in advance. I have the best of intentions in terms of scheduling playdates for both of my children, but by the time I remember to call it’s too late and Johnny or Jane or Jim is already doing something else. The net result of this is that I have two pleasant, but not very socially adept children. They don’t even realize it.

However, when it comes to travel, I think my kids are better prepared than most of their peers. This may seem counter-intuitive. I mean, you might think that a parent would be more rather than less protective of a child when traveling. And it’s true, I was – with my first child. He’s challenging in many ways, but not when we travel. He’ll sit by me in an airport and bemoan the fact that he’s leaving Seattle again, but he’s never wandered – unlike my younger son. I’ve never been in such good shape as I was the year BigB (the younger guy) turned two. I chased him everywhere we went. He doesn’t run any more, but he does have a streak of independence a mile wide and the self-confidence to pick himself up and go follow his interests -wherever we are. He’s not yet NINE people!

BigB has disappeared out of sight multiple times: in big cities and small towns, in airports and shopping malls, in the U.S. and in random other countries we’ve visited. When he was two, as we walked down a Parisian street, he decided he was hungry and found himself a cafe – we found him pretty quickly. At four, he insisted on riding the (admittedly beginner) ski lift with his brother but without parents. At six, with much cajoling, my older son (the cautious one) proudly ordered his own glace (ice cream) in a French cafe – while we waited outside. At the same age, my younger son explored the shops around the town square in Albufeira, Portugal while his dad and I ate lunch. I’d be lying if I said that I was totally calm every time he disappeared into a store but each time he reappeared, he confidently waved to us and ran to the next set of trinkets without a care in the world.

When we were in Rome last year, rather than insist that my boys sit quietly in a restaurant while their Dad and I finished dinner, they ran off to explore the Piazza Del Parthenon. With lights and music and street hawkers on every corner they were in kid heaven. They came looking for us before we had even left the restaurant. As I walked through the square after dinner, a Bangladeshi street hawker stopped me an congratulated me on my son’s bargaining skills (who knew?).

This may sound like my parenting is a little too “hands-off”, negligent even. That would be an incorrect assumption. We’ve developed a strategy which we use when we’re exploring a new place. We always carry cell phones and require that our children know the numbers – thankfully we both have phones which we can bring with us outside the U.S. and we subscribe to AT&T’s plan which allows us to make calls at reduced rates while traveling. We agree on a meeting place or a place where Mom and Dad will wait while the children explore. We insist that they stick together – and then we hope that they don’t have a sibling quarrel and part ways. So far that hasn’t happened.

All children are individuals and some are born with a desire to explore. As Lenore Skenazy suggests, it is worse to constrain a child like that than to let him (safely) roam. My son craves more and greater independence every day. My parenting decision was to recognize where my children’s respective personalities sit along the spectrum of independence and to provide the individual support needed – and then to encourage each of them to spread his wings – in whatever form that takes – based on the relevant individual starting point.

And if you travel, the opportunities to do so are endless.

Current Giveaways: Win a GoGoBabyz Infant Cruizer

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Pre-Teen Pre-Flight Commentary

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I think I’ve mentioned that my older son, CAM, is a reluctant traveler. But his inherent grumpiness about everything travel-related sometimes leads to some genuinely funny moments. Here’s a couple from our recent trip to Mexico.

On the shuttle from parking to the terminal

CAM (At the top of his voice): The only thing which could make my day worse, would be if we’re flying with Ryanair. Please tell me we’re not flying with Ryanair?

At the gate – as our boarding passes were being checked

CAM: Why aren’t we checking in any bags?
Me: Because Alaska started charging $25 per checked bag yesterday.
CAM: (Stopping hard, looking aghast) Alaska charges $25 for a checked bag!
(Gate attendant looks uncomfortable and – understandably – wishes we would quickly move into the jetway)
Me: Yes, Alaska charges for checked bags now. Can we please move?
CAM: I bet Virgin America doesn’t charge for checked bags. Why are we not flying Virgin?

So there you have it: the reality of chosing which airline to fly with from the perspective of a 12-year-old.

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How Online Travel Agencies Could Leverage Blog Content

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Earlier this month, I attended a travel industry networking event hosted by NerdsEyeView and Yapta.com here in Seattle. This event, the inaugural meeting of SCOOT far exceeded my initial expectations. What I thought was going to be a purely social meet-and-greet event was instead an in-depth discussion of the state of the online travel industry with a question-and-answer session moderated by Harriet Baskas of MSNBC.com’s “Well-Mannered Traveler”. Panel members included representatives from Alaska Airlines, Expedia.com, Farecast.live.com, Escapia.com, Google and Yapta.com.During the discussion, I heard the panelists repeat two phrases a number of times:
1. Providing “the Amazon.com experience” for customers using online travel agencies.
2. An acknowledgement that travel bloggers provide much better on-the-ground information for travelers than that offered by these websites.

What was meant by the reference to Amazon.com was never fully articulated, but as I listened to the rest of the discussion, I started thinking of what this could mean in terms of information available to me as a frequent user of online travel agency websites. Thus intrigued, during the audience Q&A, I asked the panel what their ideas were on how best to integrate blogger-provided information on their websites. Although each panelist considered the question thoughtfully and answered intelligently, no-one provided any ideas which excited me in any way. In fact, I walked away thinking that the industry participants didn’t quite “get” the ideas which were already buzzing in my head.

Disclaimer: I worked at Amazon.com for eight years and have thought about the structure, content and applications on an Amazon.com detail page probably more than most people on this planet – except, perhaps for the people I know who are still working there

A Blog Content Example
One of the most difficult things about planning and booking travel independently is finding accommodation which meets the buyer’s criteria for price, space, budget and quality. Providing better information on accommodation products is one example where I see an opportunity for integration between online travel agency websites and bloggers.

For an example, let’s review the information available for a small, independent hotel on Expedia.com as compared to the same hotel on a family travel blog. Let’s then consider how the different data could be integrated.

As my example I chose the Roche Harbor Resort, in Friday Harbor, for no reason other than that I’d had a really enjoyable weekend there a number of years ago when both my children were very little and it transpires that it fit the criteria perfectly. The goal of this experiment is to show that if an online travel agency were to integrate blogger information for properties such as the Roche Harbor Resort, this has the potential to provide significant benefit to their customers thereby increasing customer fealty and also increasing the probability of customer conversion – from window-shopper to purchaser of a travel product on that website (or “looker to booker” in online retail parlance).

Blog content providing detailed first-hand information about a property is generally superior to the information available on an online travel agency website since most travel bloggers aim to build loyal readers by sharing their experiences as a service to their readers.

The Expedia listing for this hotel is very sparse. By contrast, it took me all of two minutes searching on Google to find a thorough review of the property on TravelSavvyMom. Interestingly, the information on TripAdvisor (an Expedia subsidiary) for this hotel is much richer, but I find the TripAdvisor interface too busy to be useful – there’s too much on the page, especially if I’m researching a travel product such as a hotel and there is always the question of the quality of the reviews.

Integrating Blog Content
To recap, the detail page for the example hotel on the example online travel agency had very little information and I was able to find much more detailed information on a reputable travel blog very quickly. If I were the owner of the online travel agency platform, could I integrate blog-generated content inexpensively to provide added value to my customers? I think this is possible. If a ‘Blogged About’ information tab was added to the hotel detail page, using RSS feeds and a Google Search Appliance (or similar device) blog-sourced content about the hotel could be automatically added to the page. However, this model could end up being expensive to the online travel website in that the quality of blog-sourced content would have to be verified manually on a continual basis for millions of travel products.

Consider instead the model provided by the AmazonConnect service on Amazon.com. This service provides authors a way of interacting directly with readers and creating additional content on the detail pages of their books. Authors self-select to participate in this service and must have their identity verified independently – by the publisher or distributor – before any content generated on an Amazon.com-hosted blog or an externally-hosted blog is shown on the book detail page. For example, I can read information about James Patterson as provided by his publisher and on the detail pages for his books there are standard editorial reviews and posts from his blog – published via RSS. This is a model which online travel websites should consider for integrating blog content.

Key Features Of A Shared Content Program
Bloggers who are interested in participating in such a program could apply for membership. Suppliers, their agents and the online travel company could participate in the process to approve a blogger – including a quality review of material supplied by the blogger. RSS could be used as the content delivery mechanism. Searching or filtering of content would be necessary to direct only relevant posts to particular detail pages, but this could be done simply using content tagging. For the program to provide the best benefit for the travel agency customers, the user should be able to filter the categories of blog content which they are interested in seeing – for example, I am interested in family travel but not luxury travel. The addition to the blog content, providing independent reviews of a property from sources which are not affiliated with the supplier or the online travel agency, can only increase the customer’s trust in the information provided.

Benefits Of Sharing Content To The Blogger
You might ask why would a blogger be interested in such a program? Well, that would, of course, depend on the structure of the program but as a thought-experiment it seems to me that either potential increased traffic (from online travel agency websites to the blog) or a financial relationship such as the Amazon.com Associates program could provide incentives for the blogger.

In Summary…
I’m really glad I attended the SCOOT event, it gave me a good two weeks of percolating this idea which I’m excited to share out to readers of this blog, travel-blogging friends and now, the members of the online travel industry who I met at the event. Personally, I think this is a kick-ass idea and I’d be happy to discuss implementation details with anyone who’s interested. The online travel industry – search engines, agencies and supplier websites – excel in providing tools for customers to find and purchase travel products. Bloggers excel at providing in-depth content about those products. It’s about time someone found a better way to marry those two areas of expertise.

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Flight Cancelled!

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It’s been 10 years since I’ve experienced a cancelled flight so I must admit that I was flabbergasted when we arrived at SeaTac Airport this afternoon to see FLIGHT CANCELLED next to our flight number on the departures board. We had checked in the night before and had printed out our boarding passes. Busy at work all day, neither the WanderDad nor I had even thought to check the British Airways website for any flight-related information.

Before I start my rant about what happened next, I should explain that we’re loyal BA customers. In the 14 years since we moved to the U.S., we’ve chosen BA for 90% of the flights we’ve taken between the U.S. and Europe – and we fly frequently. We’ve calmly handled lost baggage (not fun when traveling with small children), flight delays, bizarre seating arrangements (a toddler seated alone away from parents for example) and the exorbidant taxes and fees for flying through Heathrow without complaint, but today I was appalled at the pitiful customer service BA displayed in resolving the situation at hand.

My specific complaints:

1. Total lack of communication. As I said, we had checked in online and printed our boarding passes. In doing so, I had provided BA with phone numbers, email addresses and even a back-up emergency contact phone number. Over 10 hours elapsed between when the outbound flight should have left Heathrow and the planned departure time of my flight. I fail to understand why BA did not contact me via email, text message or phone call to inform me of the cancellation.
2. On the screens above the check-in desk, a phone number was displayed for passengers to call for customer service assistance. The call wait time was 30 minutes – not much help in this scenario.
3. My biggest complaint about this whole experience: BA provided no explanation or apology for the cancellation.
4. The paltry compensation option provided to some ticketed passengers on the cancelled flight showed utter disregard for the disruption caused to all traveling passengers.

With no other choice for how to proceed, we lined up to speak to a check-in agent. When it was our turn at the check-in desk, the agent took our boarding passes and without apologizing for the cancellation, calmly said “Your flight’s been cancelled, so here’s what we’re going to do: we’ll re-book you on the 10:40pm flight to Heathrow tomorrow evening, OK?”‘ I was quite stunned. What I had expected was: “We’re sorry, your flight’s been cancelled. We’re going to try to accommodate your travel plans as best we can, but our options are fairly limited. Here’s what I can offer…”

I have to take a slight aside here and explain that under normal circumstances, we would have been fine with postponing our departure for 24 hours. However, there were two reasons why this was not an optimal solution. Firstly, our trip to the U.K. is only for seven days. With such a short trip, losing a day is non-trivial. Secondly, and more importantly, due to a school commitment which came up after I had booked our trip, CAM was not traveling with us. Coordinating the logistics of facilitiating this decision had been challenging, as had the actual act of saying goodbye to him (he’s only 12 and a week is a long time – possibly longer than he’s ever been away from either of us). Returning home just to repeat that again the following day was something I wanted to avoid. Back to the scene at the check-in desk…

Fighting to stay calm in the face of such blatant high-handedness, I explained my situation to the check-in agent, Siobhan. I asked about getting seats on the later flight (BA flies twice daily from Seattle to London) – it was already full. I asked if there was any other routing they could organize for us with another airline – not feasible. We refused the offer of overnight hotel accomodation and reluctantly decided to return home and wait. It’s interesting to note that BA was offering compensation in the form of hotel vouchers to passengers who needed accommodation, but nothing – not even an apology – to passengers who did not. We were only offered the hotel vouchers because Siobhan empathized with our situation and as a mom, understood the subtleties of our conundrum.

What followed next was a lucky (potty) break motivated by one mom trying to assist another. We’d been in the airport more than an hour at this point and BigB “needed to go”. WanderDad took him to the bathroom as I waited for Siobhan to change our booking. Once done, I stood within view of the check-in desks, waiting for the boys to return. Minutes later, Siobhan was waving me back to the desk excitedly. She had just learned that there were seats available on the SAS flight to Copenhagen, due to leave within the hour, would we be interested in taking those instead? No question! Talk about a diving save! Ever need a reason to remember that the ground staff you deal with when your flight is delayed, cancelled or otherwise interrupted is not responsible for the problem? Here you have it. They will work to help you if you work with them.

I’m writing this post on the flight to Copenhagen. I still don’t know why our flight to London was cancelled. I’m very glad I stayed calm and explained my full story to the (originally curt) check-in agent, and particularly thankful that she was able to help, but I’m still under-impressed with British Airways. Next time @britishairways, even a tweet would do

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More Ryanair Madness

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Today is Photo Friday and I should just post a travel-related photo, but I came across this news article this morning and it’s so nutty, I just had to blog about it.

Charging for using airplane toilets???
What utter insanity.

Not to mention that comparing this to coin-access toilets at bus or train stations is idiocy. The bus and train companies may charge for facilities at stations, but they don’t charge while on the bus or train. I don’t think I’d have a problem if toilets at airports were coin-access. But charging a captive audience for usage of conveniences while on the plane is ridiculous – I mean, it’s not as if you can go anywhere else if you need to go at 10,000 feet!

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Being a host rather than a traveler for Christmas guests

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wanderdad, zambia 1969

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WanderDad, Zambia 1969

Sometimes, for Photo Friday, I try to choose a photo which compliments the theme I’ve been following in my blog posts that week. Other times, a photo posted by another blogger participating in this fun weekly round-up of photos from all over the world influences my choice. And then there’s times when I find that I’ve been chasing my tail all week long and it’s all I can do to find just one decent photo to round out the week with some degree of finesse. I save the noteworthy photos from my (meager) collection for times like that.

I think this photo fits the bill: the WanderDad at not-quite-two, in rural Zambia with a mammoth snake. Stunning.

For more Photo Friday fun, check out Delicious Baby.

Related posts (more travel photos):
San Francisco For Thanksgiving
Street Art in Park City
Photos From Paros

WanderMom

Inspiration for where to travel with children

Category Archives: News And Views

Off To Chicago for TBEX

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In Praise Of Single Moms Who Travel

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Free Range Kids On The Road

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Pre-Teen Pre-Flight Commentary

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How Online Travel Agencies Could Leverage Blog Content

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Flight Cancelled!

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More Ryanair Madness

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Being a host rather than a traveler for Christmas guests

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wanderdad, zambia 1969

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from all the traveling moms

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