May 2008

by Brita Bishop, Dallas, TX

Tell ITN about the funniest thing that ever happened to you while traveling in a foreign country. There are no restrictions on length. (ITN prints no info on destinations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean.) The ITN staff will choose each month’s winner, who will receive a free one-year subscription to ITN. Entries not chosen cannot be acknowledged.

This month’s winner is DAVID W. LOWE of Long Beach, California:

Many travelers are caught by surprise when the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) changes the rules about what can be carried aboard aircraft and what constitutes a “prohibited item.” I suggest that before you finish your packing for each trip, you consult the TSA webpage www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/prohibited/permitted-prohibited-items.shtm. You are able to sign up for e-mail notification for changes in several categories of interest, including the list of prohibited items.

Rome’s Termini is a rather lovely train station. Really! It once was awful, but now it’s rather fine.

I have another bit of information to add regarding using a 10-year visa in India (June ’07, pg. 14 & Sept. ’07, pg. 89).

My name is J. William. On my passport, my first name has always read “JWilliam.” This has been on several passports over about 50 years without any problems.

I read how you could get additional blank pages into inserted in your U.S. passport (termed a “passport amendment”) at a U.S. Embassy (Aug.’07, pg. 34). After several years of international travel, my wife and I were running out of blank passport pages. We didn’t like the thought of mailing our passports to the backlogged passport processors at the State Department and then waiting for several weeks, so an embassy visit sounded like a good idea. During our February ’08 visit to Italy we finally had our opportunity; Rome’s U.S. Embassy was only a 10-minute walk from our hotel.

by Richard Berner, San Diego, CA

Martha and I, like many travelers, are drawn to Paris and seem to return there more often than to any other European city. On a recent 3-week trip to France, we spent our first week in Paris.