Travel Maven Blog ...... David Molyneaux posts from TheTravelMavens.com

Rick Steves, Budget Travel magazine win top Lowell Thomas awards

WELLINGTON, New Zealand

Rick Steves, one of America’s best-known travelers as a guidebook writer, blogger, twitterer and TV/radio host, is the Journalist of the Year in the 2011 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition.

Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle win top honors as the best travel publications in North America.

National Geographic Traveler wins five awards, including best travel website and best cultural tourism article. Outside magazine also wins five awards, including best adventure travel and best investigative stories.

"Puss in Boots" is this week's Allure of the Seas

Passengers aboard Allure of the Seas are getting a sneak peek with their cruise this week at the new "Puss in Boots," an animated 3-D movie from DreamWorks that stars the voices of Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek.

Royal Caribbean has an early copy of the movie that debuts nationally on Oct. 28 and will be showing it all week to passengers who left on Allure on Sunday for a week’s voyage into the Caribbean.

A red carpet premiere of "Puss in Boots" was held Sunday aboard the massive Allure, world's largest cruise ship and Royal Caribbean’s newest vessel.

Celebrity Eclipse cruises on rescue mission

Celebrity Cruises newest ship, the Eclipse, has yet to be christened -- the official naming is Saturday in Southampton, England -- but already she is on a rescue mission.

The 2,850-passenger ship is loading Spanish travelers, trapped in England by the volcanic ash that has disrupted air traffic all over Europe, and delivering them to Bilbao, Spain, where some 2,000 stranded United Kingdom travelers await transport back to England on Thursday.

Top 10 tips for better vacation pictures

With digital cameras, it has never been easier or cheaper to take top quality vacation photos, says Bea Broda, a broadcast travel journalist. “However, there are still some things that travelers can do to help them come back with stunning images of their vacation.” 

Writers and photographers from the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) offer their tips on how to take great vacation photos,

Read about their top 10 photo tips at 

TheTravelMavens.com

Travel Maven chats on line at Poynter

David Molyneaux, editor of TheTravelMavens.com, is the featured guest today on the Poynter Institute's weekly media career chat with Colleen Eddy. 

The title: How a Veteran Reporter Became Editor of a Travel Web Site.

The live chat begins at 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 14 at:

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=77&aid=166595