Car Rental part two

So I am now checking car rentals for two foreign trips.  The first one is easy, the same price at three different sites:  Direct from the car rental, plus American Airlines and Triple A.  All the same price.

The second trip is not so easy.  So to simplify, let's use the same car rental company rented from the same airport (not downtown).  Same length of rental AND same car.  So I try the same three  sites I just mentioned, then I searched from the local airport, a different airline (not flying AA this time) and then instead of the dot.com (US website) I used the countries website. 

Now the websites wanted me to cookie them so they know I was inquiring about costs from the US.  But long story short, rates were are random AND if I booked via the local site using their currency, the costs were 30% higher!  Again there are a bunch of added fees like CDW and such, but I was just looking for the base price plus taxes and airport fees.

There are benefits to prepaying as opposed to paying at the desk.  And I don't mind prepaying IF there is a chance to get a refund should something happen.

So for my first trip I will probably wait a bit and just book direct with the car rental company.

For the second trip .... I just don't know but need to do something since the summer travel time may reduce supply.

Happy shopping.

Oh yeah, I blogged about this back in March.  And a shot of the car I dinged in Martinique.  Same style of car, but this shot is in Switzerland.

Virtual Tourism

What is your favorite site to visit prior to a trip? The Anticipation Phase of the Recreation Experience is important.

It provides a "virtual view" of the anticipated destination and someone may change their behavior based on what they discover. See some thoughts at this link.

Anticipation Phase of the Recreation Experience

Yep, as I said yesterday in class, as soon as I come home from one trip and I am thinking about the next. I re-read Chilkoot Pass, the Most Famous Trail in the North over the break. Where I can virtually live the experience of that famous trail.

I like reading those kinds of books. Think about your "Anticipation Phase or Stage" on a leisure experience.

Remember when you last used a travel Agent?

About ten years ago I gave a paper at the 8th International Symposium on Society & Resource Management (Western Washington University) titled Eliminating Boundaries for Tourism Using the Internet.

It dealt with the growing movement away from using a travel agent to book travel to using the Internet. Remember the uncertainty you may have felt when you booked a flight online? I do!

Anyway, internet travel sites blossomed in the in the new decade. Orbitz was one of the first, but from the start, I simply used that site to get some basic information since the search engine was not exclusive. Next came Smarter Living (now Smarter Travel). And next came Kayak.

Well, at the doctor's office waiting room yesterday, I discovered Hipmunk. Perhaps the best site for flights at least. I did a local search from my local airport (BDL) as well as one around the world (HKG to BKI) and I like it.

The graphic is an advertisement from the period warning people against using the unknown search engine called the Internet to book travel.

Anticipation Stage of the Recreation Experience

Three months to go until we head south to Martinique for the conference, sponsored, in part by the Commission on the Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Global Change of the International Geographical Union.

So like any good geographer, I am studying maps, using Google Earth, and reading books on this island. Ahhhh, an arm chair geographer sitting in front of a computer!

Maps besides small scale ones, are hard to come by. I found some available on Amazon and am searching for GIS layers so I can at least create some maps.

I have also used google.fr to help find information, since google.com doesn't provide as much French language information.

Airport and Airline rating

My recreation geography class is working on the last lab assignment now, where they get to plan an overseas trip somewhere in the world next winter break. The lucky ones got a place near the equator since New England can be quite cold that time of the year.

So anyway, this site (http://www.airlinequality.com/) lets you assess the quality of airlines around the world. It also rate airports! Check it out to learn the best around and which ones to avoid!

ISSRM in Malaysia June 2011 !

Just found out that the International Symposium on Society and Resource Management will be held at the Sutera Harbour in Malaysia next June 2011. Time to start with the Anticipation Phase of the Recreation Experience and do my "virtual tourism" stuff. I have gone to this conference since my grad school days in 1988. I have probably attended the conference a dozen times both in the States, but also abroad in 4 different countries.

Gotta' start thinking how to Budget it. Whew, current exchange rate is about $1US to 3.2 MYR (Malaysia Ringgets), and air from BOS to BWN for this summer (not next year) starts at $3700US. Whew again.

And I still need to come up with a research paper topic. Oh well. Do a Google Earth search on the region to get psyched!