As of 2pm, the National Weather Service had issued a hurricane watch for the North Carolina coast. The state is currently evacuating visitors from Hatteras Island and the rest of the Outer Banks.
Virginia and the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware, and the Jersey Shore (batten down the Situation!) are all under hurricane warnings, and small craft advisories extend into New England, and all the way south to the Florida Keys.
Mashable.com | Delta Air Lines has launched The Delta Ticket Window, a Facebook (Facebook) application that lets members find, book and share flights via the “Book a Trip” tab on the airline’s Facebook Page.
Delta aims to reach travelers with Facebook-happy trigger fingers when it comes to travel booking. The application was built to keep the user on Delta’s Facebook Page for the duration of the booking process, as well as give them the opportunity to share their booked flight with friends.
One of China’s latest innovations—something being called the “straddling bus” (or as my friend says, "the bus that eats cars")—will help alleviate the heavy traffic issues found in major cities.
Part bus, part traffic tunnel, the invention—of which the renderings more resemble a monorail than a bus—not only rides right alongside street traffic, but on top of it as well. Crazy, right? (The video above shows how it works. Though it's in Chinese, you’ll get the gist.)
We just revealed our annual World's Best Awards this morning, and we're happy to see that our winners are already celebrating! Virgin America, which was voted Best Domestic Airline for the third year in a row, is throwing a "Three-Peat" sale today. Fares start as low as $33, but hurry, because the sale ends at 5 P.M. PDT this evening.
Have you ever had that sinking feeling when you're standing by the carousel at the airport, watching suitcase after suitcase pass by—none of them yours—until finally, the carousel, now empty, turns off? It's a wretched feeling, especially at the start of a vacation.
One way to avoid this situation altogether is to ship your belongings ahead of time. The UPS Store just announced its new Luggage Boxes—and the cost is pretty reasonable. Shipping between NYC and L.A. costs about $66 for the small box or about $92 for the large. Just be sure to ship far enough in advance, and give your hotel the heads up! For a price comparison, here are the checked bag fees from five major domestic airlines:
Here, a selection of useful hints at the start of another holiday weekend:
1. Go to Tsa.gov. For up-to-date travel information, check with the Transportation Security Administration. Though airport and airline measures vary, the TSA is still the best resource.
2. Be prepared. Security lines will be longer than usual, so arrive extra early. For international travel, that means getting to the airport at least three hours before your departure time. Don't forget to check-in online: not only will you bypass the lines at check-in, you'll also pay less for checked baggage.
3. Stay organized. Security check points are guaranteed to be hectic. Avoid wearing lots of jewelry, opt for slip-on shoes, and be thoughtful when packing your carry-on.
4. Expect the unexpected. To avoid potential threats, airline staffers are purposefully trying to confuse the public. Be relaxed and understanding—these security measures are for your safety, after all.
For more on the new security rules and procedures, watch T+L's features editor, Nilou Motamed, on NBC's Today show.
Sarah Kantrowitz is an associate editor at Travel + Leisure.
If one person’s “wow” is another person’s ludicrous, Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas will have some people loving it and others scratching their heads.
The world’s largest ship—which previewed on a two-day cruise to nowhere for press and agents from Fort Lauderdale on Nov. 20—is certainly lively and action-packed, big, brash and different—a mass-market resort-like experience with a whole bunch of cruise industry firsts.
Maybe it's a holdover from Communist days, when Soviet citizens patiently queued up to buy meat, vegetables, and other necessities of life from poorly stocked groceries, but lines seem to be part of Russian culture. The trick is knowing how to avoid them—and I recently learned how to avoid one of the most infamous: the line for tickets to St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum. I’ve heard horror stories of people waiting in the ticket line for two or three hours during peak summer times, but even when I visited, on an Icy November day, the line was hundreds of people long by the time the museum opened its doors. But I was able to go straight in because I had already purchased my ticket, more than a week in advance, from the museum’s official website.
