In the past two months, I’ve flown four times, and on each flight I was assigned boarding group “four.” In every case, my seat was in the rear of the plane. Also in each case, those seated in the front rows of the plane boarded first. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that airplanes should be boarding from the rear forward, so passengers in rows 20+ can get on before passengers in rows 10-20. While there was plenty of overhead space around me, as few people in my area had yet boarded, I found myself waiting in line at the front of the plane for the 10-20 row passengers to get situated and get their bags into the overhead compartment. Not surprisingly, this caused a big backup and thus took longer for all passengers to board the plane.

Airlines are huge multi-billion dollar businesses. Surely they must have conducted studies of the quickest boarding methods. My online research however, shows that the boarding procedure used by most airlines today is the least efficient method of boarding. I ask myself “how hard is it really for a huge corporation to try a more effective method of boarding, that will get more planes out of the gate on time?” Apparently, pretty hard.

I must confess, I rely heavily upon my electronics. I simply cannot go an entire evening without waking my computer to check something on the internet. Maybe it’s my email, maybe it’s one of the blogs I like to follow, or maybe I even get the computer going, and then can’t remember what I was looking for. But that is another story. Whatever the reason, I’m addicted.

This doesn’t change when I travel. In fact, I rely more on my iPhone when I’m away than when I’m at home. One of my all time favorite iPhone applications is Yelp, the local business directory and review site. Yelp makes it easy to find anything from the nearest gas station or drugstore, to, as you may have guessed in my case, the best place to eat good food nearby. I’ve looked up cupcakes, coffee, bars, hamburger joints, and more when visiting cities all over the country. I use Yelp to find out how close these places are, to see what other foodies are saying and then to map the quickest way to get there from my current location. It could not be easier.

On our recent trip to Southern California, we successfully used Yelp to find fantastic cheap eats throughout the greater Los Angeles area. Thanks to other Yelp reviewers, we ate delicious bread pudding and flan from Crème Caramella at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market, crazy good ooey gooey cheesy and garlicky fries and a siracha candy bar from the Chego food truck in Culver City, dynamite spicy basil eggplant with chicken at Wot Dong Moon Lek Noodle House in LA’s Silver Lake neighborhood and the best clam chowder I have ever had at Splash in Pismo Beach.

To be truthful, Yelp has let me down a time or two. Although I try to pick restaurants that have a large number of reviews (the Chego food truck had over 1000) and have a rating of at least four out of five stars, I have been steered wrong on occasion. On this same trip we stopped in Sacramento for dinner at Maalouf’s, a Lebanese restaurant that had four and a half stars on Yelp. The food looked and smelled great, but turned out to be amazingly bland, and when a pale, blonde belly dancer who looked like she hadn’t been dancing for long started swaying through the isles, we could not get the check quickly enough.

An interesting note: The claim has been made that Yelp reviews are not as unbiased as advertised, but overall my experience with Yelp has been very positive, and I’ll continue using it when I travel.

Our spring break trip to Southern California was not our first choice of vacations. Our plans to chew on cocoa leaves while hiking the Inca Trail did not work out, so our expectations, with Los Angeles as a last minute stand-in, were not set too high. It turns out we sold LA short. We spent a week in So Cal, where the entire family had a great time, and it was delightfully easy on the pocketbook as well!

Three weeks before we left, I looked into tickets for television show tapings online. We were fortunate enough to score seats for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (minimum age 16), and the girls got tickets to a taping of So You Think You Can Dance Los Angeles Auditions. Both events were interesting, entertaining and FREE!

We dropped the girls off at the Orpheum Theater downtown for the So You Think You Can Dance taping, and the “show” began immediately as the line for audience members ran parallel to the line for dancers. Hopeful hip-hoppers, ballerinas and ballroom partners went through their warm-ups, many in carefully chosen costumes (full body gold lamé, chicken suits, you name it), right out on the sidewalk.

The guest judge for the day was Jesse Tyler Ferguson who plays Mitchell on Modern Family, and the auditions lasted about two hours. Lucky dancers were welcomed on the spot to the next round (and, yes, the chicken suit dancer made it) and the others were thanked for their time and efforts and sent packing.

The next day it was on to Jay Leno. The Tonight Show tapes at 4:30 in the afternoon at NBC studios in Burbank. As seats are not guaranteed, folks arrive early. We got in line at 1:30 and there were already about 100 people ahead of us, then we were all let into the studio at about 3:45. The guests for the show were actress Kristin Chenoweth and “singer” Josh Groban. Audience members under 25 years of age are seated in the front rows of the theater (perhaps it helps Jay seem younger if viewers assume his audience is younger?) so needless to say, we were seated in the back. Although we’re not really fans of either guest—actually I’m being polite here, we’re not even remotely fans of Josh Groban—we did enjoy the show. But it was quite a bit more interesting to see what happens behind the scenes of a television taping; the band, the cameras, the make-up crew, the personal attendants for Jay and each of his guests, and the crazy guy warming up the audience.

By far, the most entertaining 90 minutes on the trip however was an improv comedy show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Their 95-seat theater offers multiple shows a night, for only $5 each. The show we attended, called “Facebook”, was absolutely hilarious. Three comedians brought two audience members on stage, opened their Facebook accounts on a projector for all to see, and then proceeded to make up a number of fabulously entertaining skits based on what they found. It was really, really good, incredibly funny, and the talented performers were spot on. All shows at the UCB Theater are open to all ages, although some might find it inappropriate for young children.

On the spur of the moment, we bought tickets ($49 each) to a tour of Warner Brothers Studios. Our youngest daughter was really pushing for this one, while I was a bit skeptical, but it turns out we made the right decision and once again we all really enjoyed the 2+ hour tour. A tram and tour guide took eight of us all over the huge Warner lot, where we saw current TV show sets (and a couple of actors too, but sadly I didn’t recognize their names, nor their tv shows), the 10-million-item props department, backlot “streets” and more. As is the case in many things in LaLa land, all is not as it seems, and this was evident when we saw fake buildings, fake cars, fake neighborhoods, fake credit card signs, and lots and lots of fun stories on how they all come together (or don’t in some cases) to make movies.

Another fun and practically free highlight of our trip was a visit to the Getty Center. Other than a $15 fee to park, this outstanding museum, with stunning art, sublime architecture and gorgeous views (when the smog clears), is free. The Getty Center also provides a free iPod Touch to each and every visitor, which offers audio details on almost every item in the entire museum. We spent a long and enjoyable morning, but saw only a fraction of what the Getty has to offer. One of my favorite parts was the Central Garden (see the photo above!)—it is just beautiful and definitely gets a “don’t miss it” designation. I was very impressed by what the Getty offers, by how well the Center is run, and by the fact that other than parking, everything is free.

One final highlight of our trip to LA was a visit to the Sunday Farmer’s Market in Hollywood. When traveling, a visit to a farmer’s market always makes me feel more like a local. I get to sample local produce and cuisine, and the people watching is always fun too. The Hollywood market is the biggest in the area, and we ate our way up and down every aisle. The fresh squeezed juices, goat cheese tamales, coffees, oranges, pastries, crepes, and shave ice were all top quality treats, and the musicians, poetry writers, and entertainers were all a delight to behold.

There are a lot of ways to attempt to live like a local when traveling abroad. You can rent an apartment and shop for groceries at local markets. You can hang your laundry out to dry on a line strung across a small balcony. You can take public transportation, and walk neighborhoods outside of the main touristy drags. But what you can’t see is how the locals really live. I was reminded of this when looking at the photos Bob took from our travels in Italy last summer, when he focused our camera on door after door, down quiet neighborhood streets in Verona, Venice and the Cinque Terra.

What are the people doing behind those doors? What are they serving for dinner? Do their young kids watch television in the afternoon when their mothers can’t take just one more minute of them running around the house? (Actually, I may be channeling my earlier days of parenting here.) Are they whipping up a delicious homemade pasta dish with fresh crab for dinner? Do they sit in their backyards or on their back terraces and drink a glass of prosecco in the late afternoon while listening to an Italian opera on the radio?

Those beautiful and intriguing doors, letterboxes and doorknockers make me imagine all sorts of happenings going on behind them. Surely their lives are far more cultured than mine. Maybe it’s best that I don’t see behind them, and instead leave their stories to my imagination. I’m certain no Italian mother has ever served her children tater tots and frozen peas. (In my defense I was really busy that day, and my kids actually like tater tots and frozen peas.)

I’ve watched a lot of soccer in my life. For someone who’s not a huge fan, I know waayyyy too much about yellow cards and red cards, offside traps and corner kicks.

It all started in college, when I began dating a man who had played soccer since he was a young lad, and continues to play as an adult. I spent many a cold Sunday afternoon in the Bay Area watching him kick a ball up and down a field with his mates. Often I was the team’s only fan (what a dedicated girlfriend I was, right?).

I’ve watched lots of “important” soccer games on television too. There was the 1994 World Cup (Brazil v. Italy), watched in a small Ashland apartment with about 20 fans. (I was pregnant with our first child, and delighted that Emilio Delgado, Luis on Sesame Street was also there.) Then there was the 1998 World Cup (Brazil v. France) that we watched at a French friend’s home. Our family came with French flags painted on our faces. The best game I’ve ever seen on tv however, has to be the European Champions Cup semi-final (Germany v. Italy) that I watched at an outdoor restaurant in Verona last summer.

You see, while the soccer itself interests me somewhat, it’s the things that surround soccer that I find far more fascinating (the Emilio Delgados and the face painting for example). So I was happy to keep one eye on the game, being broadcast on a large flat screen tv perched in a window, and the other on the Italians watching the game around me. Those Italians take their soccer seriously. I nearly laughed out loud when the woman behind me started muttering “Die, Mario, die” to Italian player Mario Balotelli, as he would run up the field with the ball. (I later learned that “dai” means “come on” in Italian.) Then she would yell “Bravo, Mario, bravo.” (This one I knew.) She would also mutter “mamma mia” over and over, almost as if she were praying the words.

Look closely and you’ll see the television cable snaking from the red apartment along the cobblestone and into the restaurant!

I also enjoyed watched the table next to me, an Italian man and his two Italian women, one surely his teenage daughter and the other his…..wife? Mistress? Companion? I’m not sure of her title, but she wasn’t much older than the teenager, and both young women were dressed and made up in true Italian style. The man wasn’t looking too shabby either.

By the end of the game, when Italy won 2-1 and advanced to the finals, there was a large crowd standing around the outdoor restaurant, watching the final minutes and cheering for their national team. Even the waiters and cooks quit working and came outside to watch the finish. As we walked back to our apartment, cars honked their way through the streets, and fans waived Italian flags out the windows of their cars and apartments. The restaurant proprietor Pierro said he didn’t care what happened in the final. It was enough to beat Germany. Bravo, Italy, bravo.

There’s no doubt that our society is addicted to electronic devices. No matter where I am in the world, I always see oodles and oodles of people talking on their phone, texting on their phone, playing games on their phone, etc., etc. While at times this drives me a little crazy (my teenage daughters know what I’m talking about here), I realize that phones are very helpful, particularly when traveling. In addition to buying world calling plans and text messaging plans to communicate with the folks back home, or even to call your hotel and let them know you’ll be arriving later than intended, smartphones have even more benefits that make them a necessity when I’m on the road. First off, I always purchase a world calling plan (about $4 for a month with AT&T) just in case. You never know when you might have an emergency, and it’s worth the $4 to get significant discounts on potential per minute phone charges. Since I have an iPhone, I also have the worldwide web at my fingertips, but I’ve learned (the hard way) to turn off roaming, and only use the internet when I can get wireless service.

But even older phones have more benefits for travel than you might realize. Most cell phones have an alarm, thus allowing you to leave your travel alarm clock at home, and use your cell phone to wake up in the morning. If like me, you don’t like wearing a watch, you can also use it as a time keeping device, important for catching trains or meeting up with traveling companions.

Perhaps it’s time we let go of the notion that being completely “checked out” from our electronic devices is the most stress free way to travel. Instead, maybe our electronic devices are just the ticket to de-stressing our lives.

by Nancy Bestor

Have you ever been undercharged? Maybe you’ve bought groceries then returned home and looked over your receipt to see that you paid .50 cents for something that was supposed to be $5.00. Or maybe you ate out at a restaurant and discovered that your bill didn’t include a round of drinks. Do you tell the business? Or just count your blessings? What if you’ve been undercharged not by a small business but by a large corporation? Does that make it any different?

I recently read a story about a woman who booked an obviously incorrect fare ($595 one way from Myanmar to Canada, in first class) on Expedia’s website, then when it was cancelled by Expedia a few days before her flight, wanted Expedia and/or the airline to compensate her. The traveler admits to knowing that the fare was incorrect when she booked it. Consumer advocate Christopher Elliott says this is stealing, and not cool.

Was this stealing? Is it okay to book a flight you know for a fact is wrong? Is it like Robin Hood stealing from the “rich” to give to the “poor”? I’d like to think if I discovered this fare I would say to myself that this is “too good to be true” and take the high road and call the company to confirm the fare before trying to book it. But the truth is, I’ve never been in this situation, so I can’t say with 100% certainty that this is what I would do. Hmmmm…..what would you do?

by Nancy Bestor

Sometimes life doesn’t go the way we plan. That goes for traveling too. You can plan things to the very last detail, and wham!, you get blindsided by something that you never saw coming. That’s what happened to us last week regarding our upcoming spring break vacation. Last May we booked four tickets to Lima, Peru, and then on to Cusco, with plans for a four-day trek on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with SAS Travel. We purchased our United Airlines tickets with miles and a little money, our plane tickets from Lima to Cusco on LAN airlines with money ($1400), and we made a $1000 deposit with SAS using our credit card. Recently we’d been hiking and exercising as a family to get ready for the 28-mile hike on the Inca Trail, at elevations ranging from 9,000 to 14,000 feet. We’d gotten prescriptions for altitude sickness medicine, had a packing list going, and had even bought a few pieces of travel clothing (like this great lightweight but warm Storm Logic Jacket from ExOfficio) specifically for the journey.

But this is a story about getting blindsided: so here’s the bad news. The US State Department on February 13th issued a travel warning for Americans, stating that they had received credible information that a criminal organization may attempt to kidnap Americans in Cusco and Machu Picchu. On further research we found that a source stated that US intelligence had intercepted this information from the Shining Path guerillas, a group that last April kidnapped 36 oil and gas workers in Peru. All 36 workers were later freed, but several police and guerillas were killed in the release of the hostages. According to the un-named source, the Shining Path said they would begin after the rainy season, which ends in late March & early April. We planned to arrive on March 25. The State Department warning went on to say that US embassy employees are currently prohibited from personal travel to the region, and official travel has been “severely restricted.”

Well, you can imagine how Bob and I felt. We were planning to travel with our 16 and 18 year old daughters. We’re not travel chickens by any means, but this information certainly had us reconsidering our plans. After contemplating it for several days (with a few nights of tossing and turning thrown in for good measure) we were leaning towards canceling, but wanted to get Sarah and Emily’s opinions on the matter. Sarah immediately told us there was “no way” she was going, and Emily, after a few minutes of quiet reflection said “I agree with Sarah.” I can’t say I was surprised, as that’s what I thought too.

The truth is, this warning from the State Department could be an exaggeration. I feel fairly confident that Americans traveling to Machu Picchu next month will be safe. But we’re simply not willing to take chances, certainly not with our kids. And I’m not sure we would have been able to enjoy ourselves either. So we cancelled.

Over the weekend we started the process of trying to get refunds. I spoke to United Airlines twice last week, and both agents told me they could put the 320,000 miles and $300 in taxes back into our account, but it would cost $600. After charging us the $600, they said we could petition United Airlines, to try and get the $600 back. But, as is often the case with United, I called a third time and got a kinder customer service agent, who as it turns out, is also the mother to two teenage girls. She immediately put the miles back into our account, credited us for the $300 in taxes, and waived the charges. I liked her. A lot.

LAN airlines was also immediately willing to refund the entire $1400, although I had to wait on hold for 45 minutes for them to do it. The LAN representative I spoke to said she was sad for her country of Peru.

The $1000 deposit to SAS Travel is another matter. The first couple of emails from SAS in response to our request were “pre-recorded” answers, saying there were no reasons to fear and the US State Department has “blown this out of proportion.” But since we are diligent, especially when it comes to our money, they finally have responded with a personal answer. Our deposit has been used to purchase hiking permits, and permits to enter Machu Picchu. Those permits are non-transferable. We’ve also paid for the porters/guides permits. So our hope is to get back that amount that is not for permits, alas, about $200. As for our spring break plans now, it turns out last minute travel bookings are very expensive. We’re checking out all our options, but not really sure what exactly will turn up.

So yes, we got blindsided, but in the grand scheme of things….

A friend of mine recently made three separate calls to United Airlines customer service in an attempt to change an airline ticket from one weekend to the next, and got three completely different answers regarding the cost of the change. During the first call she was told that she could not make any changes to her tickets, at any price. According to this representative, she had to use the tickets for the weekend she purchased them, or lose them.

So my smart friend hung up, and called United right back. On the second call, she was told she could change her tickets by paying a $100 per ticket change fee. Unfortunately, she wasn’t ready to make the change at that time, as she had to confirm the availability of her lodging.

When she called back a third time, ready to change the tickets, the United customer service representative quoted her a price $650 to make the changes. When she told this representative that 20 minutes prior she had spoken to a United agent who had given her different (and much better) information, this United employee told her there was “no such thing as a $100 change fee.” So she asked to speak to a supervisor, and after waiting an hour on the phone, was given the $100 per ticket change fee that previously “didn’t exist.”

This has happened to me as well. It doesn’t seem like an airline’s fee policies are set in stone and one just needs to talk to the “right” person in order to have changes made in your favor. On two occasions I’ve arrived early to the San Francisco airport for flights to Medford, Oregon, and have been able to catch an earlier flight home. In both cases I was told that the “fee” to change my ticket and catch the earlier flight is $100, but both times the gate agent waived the fee. Other times I’ve tried the same thing, insisting very nicely that the gate agent let me on an earlier flight that has seats available, only to be told in no uncertain terms that they would happily put me on the earlier flight, as long as I was willing to pay $100.

While the end result most often works in a consumer’s favor, this policy (or lack thereof), still seems wrong. Not all consumers know not to take no for an answer when it comes to airline fees, and not all consumers have the time to spend hours on the phone talking to different representatives. Some people are paying one price, while others are paying another.

The lessons I have learned are two-fold. If a deal sounds too good to be true, take it—immediately! Because if you hesitate even a little, it will likely be gone before you know it. My second lesson is to be tenacious, and ask as many different airline employees as you possibly can the same question. There’s a good chance you might get the answer you’re looking for. There was the one time however, that I didn’t like the answer I got from a United telephone representative, so I hung up and called United right back. Can you believe I got the exact same representative on the phone again? And, not surprisingly, he gave me the same answer he gave me before, and since he knew it was me calling again, a little angrily this time. No worries though, I just hung up and tried again.

Emily and I took a quick trip to Seattle in January for a visit to Seattle University. It was the weekend before her finals, so we didn’t have a lot of time to dawdle, but because we are who we are, we managed to cram a few delicious bites of Seattle and Portland into our packed 36 hours.  That is, of course, how we roll.

We left Ashland around 2pm on a Friday afternoon, and stopped in Portland to gas up and grab some dinner to go at Cedo’s Falafel on NE MLK Jr. Blvd. We split a falafel and gyro. One came with a salad, and the other with delicious Cedo’s potatoes, for about $15. The food was outstanding. Cedo’s doesn’t have many offerings besides falafels and gyros on its menu, but why bother with other items when the ones you do have are so delicious?

We pulled in to our hotel in downtown Seattle about 9:30pm, the Crown Plaza on 6th Street. I booked it on hotwire.com for $79. It was a steal. The hotel was excellent, and in a fabulous location, just a short walk from Pike’s Place Market. If pressed I would have paid the $40 to park our car in the hotel garage overnight, but as luck would have it, we found free street parking just half a block from the hotel. Since we were in the “big city” and it was only 9:30 on a Friday night, we decided to walk to Cupcake Royale for treats and then walk down to Pike’s Place Market, even though it was closed, and check out the scene. I am so glad we did. We’ve visited Seattle and Pike’s Place Market several times before, but always in the middle of the day when it feels like there are thousands of people bustling and bumping into us. The streets around the market gave off an eerie vibe that night, and even with shuttered stalls and shops, it was great to walk around.

We strolled around again the next morning, about 7:30am, when Pike Place Fish, the spot famous for throwing fish, was just putting out its offerings, and the vegetable stand its beautifully colored produce. The aromas escaping the bakeries were delightful, as fresh loaves and pastries were popping out of the ovens. We had time for a light breakfast at The Crumpet Shop at Pike’s Place Market, on 1st Avenue. The Crumpet Shop first opened 37 years ago, and is now run by the original owners’ friendly son. Emily had a crumpet with pesto, ham and ricotta cheese on top, while mine sported pesto, tomato and parmesan. It was the perfect amount of food, and delicious to boot.

Emily spent the day in sessions at Seattle University (so sad, too bad), but I had time to shop around the city, and naturally, eat more food. Lunch was with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Ballard, La Isla Seattle . I ate a large portion of the Pernil Special, a yummy slow-roasted and marinated pork shoulder. After lunch we headed for cupcakes at yet another Cupcake Royale shop, but on their recommendation, I saved the little room in my stomach for a cupcake at Trophy Cupcakes, which I visited later in the afternoon. I much prefer Trophy Cupcakes to Cupcake Royale, but I am, of course, a cupcake snob.

Portland was our next culinary stop. We pulled out of Seattle at about 5pm, and headed straight for Natural Selection, a vegetarian and mostly vegan restaurant recently featured in Sunset magazine. Our 8pm reservations were perfect, as we were hungry and ready for culinary deliciousness. We each ordered the four-course price fixe menu, for $40. Chef Aaron Woo changes the menu every two weeks, and offers two options for each of four courses.  We were very happy to eat half of each one, then trade. My favorite may have been the Roasted Beet Carpaccio, with blood oranges and sunchoke cream. It may also have been the Chickpea and Delicata Ratatouille, with turnips, brussel sprouts and coconut lentils. While I’m not sure of my favorite, I am sure that our meal was delicious, and neither of us missed any beef, chicken or fish.

We intended to head after dinner to the Salt & Straw, a handmade ice cream shop just down the street. We were surprisingly full from our vegetarian feast however, and the line at the highly recommended ice cream shop was out the door. Instead we drove to our hotel, the Marriott Waterfront, which I booked on Priceline.com for $70. Once again the parking gods were with us, as we found a free street spot right next to the hotel. We rolled our full selves (and our suitcases) into our room, crawled into our beds, and passed out in a food coma.