Good travel reads on the Internet:
Sources for travel expertise: Bob Jenkins, long-time travel editor and now Lifetimes editor for folks over 50 at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, explains how to plan that dream trip, including reliable tour operators, guide books and Websites such as our TravelMavens.net.
Cool beans and Turkish baths: National Geographic Traveler, one of the best travel magazines, publishes one of the best travel blogs, called Intelligent Travel. August brings blogs on a coffee shop named Cool Beans in Montgomery, Ala.; Russian and Turkish baths in Manhattan; and a link to another of the Internet's top travel Websites, World Hum. In response to the ballyhooed contest to determine the new Seven Wonders of the World, Hum's editors thoughtfully devised their own wonders to demonstrate how the planet is shrinking and cultures are colliding. Their wonder list included phenomena such as the California roll.
Passport limbo: Catharine Hamm, travel editor of the Los Angeles Times, has spent months in the same stew that has infuriated thousands of Americans trying to obtain new or updated passports for foreign travel. New U.S. travel rules require passports that were not required before. Writes Hamm: You buy your air ticket and book the hotel for that overseas vacation. Oh no -- your passport is about to expire. With processing delays lasting months, will you get it in time? It can happen to anyone, even the experts. Check out her passport diary.
Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net.
