Thousands of Cobras Enjoy Life Among the Villagers
I read a shiver-inducing feature today in the WSJ, it was about cobras who live in large numbers in the hot Bengali plains southwest of Calcutta. The snakes are revered by the Hindu faith, and no one except priests are allowed to touch them or harm them. One man said […]
Amusement is a Cocktail’s Real Line of Work
Oh what a trove of riches I was provided with this chilly morning in the WSJ. As Cindy and I watched the chickadees and cardinals feast on the feeder’s seeds, I read a wonderful piece by Eric Felten. His topic was ‘The Art of Drinking Well,’ and he describes the […]
The Sheik Finds a Way to Move Scrap to Market
It’s a brisk November morning and predictably, the cafe is quiet. Not dead, just quiet enough to give me a chance to sit in my favorite window seat, gaze out on the bright sun and deserted streets, and read the WSJ. I read a piece first about Iraq’s surfeit of […]
Arabs Have Not Done So and Thus Are To Blame
Jeff Robbins is a Boston lawyer who was a delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission during the Clinton Administration. He wrote a piece in the WSJ that was highlighted by the words, ‘but they did not do so’ and it made a strong case against the Arab world that […]
The Heads of Dell and HP Know that Energy Savings Mean Real Money
It never takes long to find something compelling in the WSJ. I read George Ander’s column and it hit a point I’ve been making for years: That the environment is becoming more of an economic than a social issue–and that is how we are going to truly solve this big […]
Driving In the Snow Is Fun in a 4×4 Truck
I got an early start today, joining Brad and Bo on their WHYN-am morning show offering my travel tips to their audience. I felt like I gave them some good advice…such as my old canard about bringing a surge suppressor to charge up electronic devices in foreign places. I pitched […]
Saying Goodbye to My Earliest Friend, Randy Miller
I’m sitting in the Orlando Airport Southwest terminal and thinking about Randy Miller. Randy passed away in June, and the last thing on this trip I had to do was to join his family and some of his friends at the lovely Veteran’s Memorial near the bridge over the Intercoastal […]
Osprey Eye View on the Indian River
We met this Osprey as we kayaked today on the Indian River. My guide was Kristen Beck, an expert paddler and naturalist who told me about the 400 species of birds that live here and that this is one of the world’s most diverse estuaries. Paddling was refreshing, there were […]
God I Wish I looked Like This Guy!
I met a man I wish I looked like. A silver haired, well-toned, tall, hotelier and restaurateur named Tom Collins owns a sprawling hospitality empire in Sebastian Florida, about eight miles up Rte 1. It’s called Captain Hiram’s and it’s right on the river, with a marina, hotel, sand bar, […]
The Ocean Grill is the Place To Be in Vero
I had an excellent night’s sleep in the comfy big bed here at the Caribbean court. Overhead a fan gently revolved, and an HDTV provided striking images as I fell asleep. Lori Burns, the Tourism board director, took me to a landmark restaurant known by everyone in Vero, the Ocean […]
‘Zero Beach’ No More on Florida’s East Coast
Boris Gonzalez was born in Cuba, raised in Spain, schooled in New England and now runs a hotel and many other businesses in Vero Beach Florida. He’s the son of winemakers in Spain, but after younger days of partying, eighteen years ago he gave up the drink, and now rents […]
Eos Airlines: It’s Not What You Add, But What You Take Away
Yesterday I stuffed my notebook full of interesting jottings from speakers on the center stage. With gigantic screens and state of the art audio, we heard from the heads of travel companies who talked about their brands and how they helped create them. Jack Williams, the CEO of Eos Airlines, […]
Google’s Tim Armstrong Cites the Wisdom of Crowds
It’s another exciting day surrounded by more than 1100 of the world’s travel business leaders. Tim Armstrong, Google’s head of advertising joked that if something disastrous happened in this room, “it would take out 10 percent of the world’s economy.” It’s true–I am gathered here with the leaders of the […]
Over Cocktails:It’s Where the Real Conversations Take Place
The best parts of a conference, inevitably, are the times when you gather by the pool for the cocktails. Then you loosen up, laugh a bit, and get the nerve up to corner that guy you saw earlier and noticed his badge, and wondered what his funny sounding company did. […]
Getting Down to Details about Travel Search
I am in a huge pavilion, a sort of giant tent, and a man up in front of us is speaking about his company called Hitwise. His company provides intelligence to on-line travel agencies about their competitors, they can tell you, for instance, where web surfers went after they left […]
"Blogger’s Summit" at PhoCusWright
I’m in a room full of bloggers. They all have their laptops open and we are constantly popping over to search engines and sites, sharing opinions and information about the world of travel blogs. It’s a heady time, it’s so much fun to be an established blogger who has a […]
TV Trip Shows You the View from Your Hotel Room
Part of the fun of this conference is the chance to have short meetings with new companies who are entering the on-line travel sphere. I sat with two young guys who have started a new company called TV Trip. It’s a cool concept–they provide a video look at thousands of […]