June 2011

The hotel “meta-search” engine Trivago.com has an application that allows smartphone users to search the Internet for hotel rooms while on the road.

Ryanair, the low-cost airline based in Ireland, is allowing passengers to, for a fee, reserve seats in Rows 2 and the emergency exit rows 1, 16 and 17 on routes between Dublin and either Málaga or Gatwick. The seat reservation fee is £10/€10 per person, one way, paid at the time of booking online or by phone but not available for purchase at the airport.

The reserved seating includes “Priority Boarding,” which also can be purchased on its own for £4/€4 per person, one way, when booking the ticket or £5/€5 if purchased at the airport.

As ITN went to press, the State Department had travel warnings on 35 destinations: Syria, Uzbekistan, Mexico, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Iraq, Bahrain, Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria, Mauritania, Afghanistan, Yemen, Mali, Eritrea, Libya, Pakistan, Haiti, Central African Republic, Niger, Nepal, Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Chad, Guinea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, Burundi, Philippines, Iran, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Israel/West Bank/Gaza.

For details, call the State Department at 202/647-5225 or visit www.travel.state.gov.

The Department of State continues to urge all travelers to avoid Lebanon.

The United States ended the combat mission in Iraq on Aug. 31, 2010, and is scheduled to complete its withdrawal of military forces by the end of 2011.

The US government continues to receive information indicating terrorist groups may be planning attacks, possibly against US interests, in Uzbekistan. In the past, these groups have conducted kidnappings, assassinations and suicide bombings.

The areas of Uzbekistan bordering Afghanistan should be avoided for all but essential travel. Extreme caution should also be exercised in the Ferghana Valley bordering Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and there have been exchanges of gunfire across the Uzbek/Kyrgyz border.

by Randy Keck (Second of three parts, go to part one or part three)

My tour of Kenya and Tanzania in late February 2011 continued with my flying from the Masai Mara back to Nairobi, where I had lunch at the Carnivore Restaurant, known far and wide for its meat-on-a-spit selections which are hand carved at tables by roving waiters.

by Julie Skurdenis (First of two parts)

by Philip Wagenaar, M.D. (Part eight of a series)