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Winter 1999 Webzine
In this issue: Baglady Boarding Pass | Monthly Travelite Tip| Overseas Carry-On Travails | Tech Review | Web Site Review
The Baglady Boarding Pass
by Lani Teshima
Hurry! If you order $150 worth of merchandise (excluding sales tax and shipping) from TravelSmith's web site, TravelSmith will send you a gift certificate good for $25 off your second purchase made through January 31, 1999. Looks like there are no restrictions on what you can buy, and it does not appear that you have a minimum required purchase for the gift certificate.
Have your made your plans for New Year's Eve? Heard about those $10,000 tickets for Barbra Streisand and other preposterously sky-high prices, or contemplating cocooning at home in anticipation of catastrophic Y2K failures?
If you haven't made any plans for New Year's because of the hype, you're not alone. Whether it was because they raised prices ten-fold or because people are worried about crashing planes, it looks like the travel industry over-estimated demand for New Year's Eve activities. Many events are not sold out, and companies like the Carnival Cruise Line are offering substantial discounts for cabins on New Year's Eve cruises.
While I wouldn't cast all caution to the wind, you might want to consider preparing for the new year by doing a few common-sense things at home, and then take advantage of special rates to enjoy the special year-end celebrations.
[Standard disclaimer: Yes, I realize we aren't truly going into the new millenium, but what the heck.]
There are a number of Y2K-preparedness web sites. Many of them are cautious, although a few of them are pretty hysterical. Cut through the hype, and some good tips will reveal themselves:
- Gather all of your important papers, such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, social security cards, passports, deeds, and perhaps even stock certificates. If you don't have a passport because you've never traveled overseas, this is a good time to get one before the end of the year. This is the single internationally recognized document for your citizenship. Make copies of those documents you are allowed to photocopy, and keep it with you. In particular, you want to have copies of the parts that show various unique identifying numbers. The rest can go in a safety deposit box in a bank.
- Make sure you have a small transistor radio at home, with ample batteries. Some places like the C. Crane Company sell wind-up radios that don't require batteries at all. If the electricity goes out, your sole source of information will be the radio. Sorry, but chances are, you won't be able to get your info online unless you have a laptop with numerously charged batteries.
- Lots and lots of spare batteries. I finally gave in and bought rechargeables, and it has worked out great!
- A comfortable supply of food in your pantry that you can cook with minimal heat. While some Y2K suppliers tell you to fill your entire home with a year's worth of dehydrated food, for most emergencies you really only need enough to last you a week at most.
Providing the very basics will help you be better prepared for various winter emergencies that may or may not be related to Y2K, such as power outages. You know, I'm going to wonder how often normal, winter weather-related power outages will be blamed on Y2K...
A friend of mine works at a major national bank, and told me about the bank's Y2K plan, which the bank apparently presented to its employees some months ago. If most banks are that well prepared, I am pretty impressed and I don't mind leaving my money with my bank. In addition to ensuring that every single piece of hardware and software on premises is Y2K-compliant (even going so far as to require non-compliant older hardware to be physically disallowed on property), this particular bank has a special Y2K team that will be stationed throughout the country, Y2k-ready walkie talkies in hand, in case the phone system goes down. These aren't your ordinary Radio Shack walkie talkies, by the way. These have a 200-mile+ range. And yes, they are going to have people stationed across the country in 200-mile points in case any part of the system goes down. Wow.
So assuming that most of the major catastrophic dead-will-rise-from-the-grave stuff won't happen, what else can we do if you decide to hit the road over New Year's?
Have you ever gone away for the holidays, then gotten stuck at the airport for three days while the snow let up? First of all, try to work really hard to limit yourself to just a carry-on even though it will be colder in the Northern Hemisphere, and you'll have thicker clothing. If room allows, take a bath towel with you, so you have a spot to sit in if you get stuck at the airport. Those of you with an expensive sleeping bag that rolls in to the size of a cigarette pack may wish to take it with you.
Double-check all of your reservations by phone for confirmation. Don't lose your confirmation numbers. You might ask them to mail or fax you the itinerary so you have it in writing as well.
If you normally rely on credit cards, you might want to instead take traveler's checks with you. So many places use instant online credit card processing, that I wonder if any of them still have the old clunky credit card imprint machines. And even if they had these machines, you will not be guaranteed to have your credit card even accepted for use, since the merchants might be wary of approving the purchase without an approval code.
The same thing goes with ATM cards. Recently, a large hurricane off of the East Coast caused massive evacuations, including a building housing the operations of a company that processes ATM transactions. Even though this office was on the East Coast, tens of thousands of ATMs across the country were inoperable as the company shut down its servers in preparation for Hurricane Floyd. What if you had decided to depend on ATMs to get your cash while on the road?
Don't forget that auto clubs such as AAA will sell traveler's checks without a fee.
I myself have been invited to a New Year's Eve overnight party by some friends of mine. It will involve driving for several hours, so I'm planning on topping off my car, buying traveler's checks, and packing my sleeping bag and cooler in my trunk. A party with your good friends may indeed be a good alternative if you haven't made plans already. Have a safe New Year's, so you can continue traveling!
Happy travels.
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