Hello all,

Your team at Global Traveler is attending the NBTA conference in Los Angeles. At the conference, the newest and best business and first class seats will be on display - this will greatly aid me as I write our annual Business and First Class Survey, which is to appear in the September issue.

The opening kickoff party was held at the still-to-be-completed LA Live, and ended with a concert by Cyndi Lauper in the Nokia Theater. It was a great introduction to LA, the opening to the conference and it kept your Global Traveler bloggers - Kim Krol, Alex Young and Courtney Centeno - dancing in the aisles!

More to report next week!

-Fran Gallagher, publisher and CEO

This is my 108th blog here, and my last. I’ve been providing your weekend reading for the last 13 months, and if I’ve given you anything to think about, enlighten you, or make you smile, I’m glad.

A couple of months ago I was reading the farewell blog of a writer for Techcrunch who was moving on to greener pastures, and he did a great roundup of the favorite tech sites he’d covered during his tenure. I thought about doing something like that, but I’ve already explained how I’d answer the question “What’s Your Favorite Place?” And I told my favorite travel anecdote in my very first blog.

Looking back over the last year, I suppose I wish I’d used this bully pulpit to discuss a bit more the issues that handicapped travelers face. I addressed it early on, in The Elephant Parade, but like most handicapped travelers it’s actually such a small part of who we are overall that it just doesn’t usually pop into mind.

In my experience, kudos need to go to American airports in general for dealing with travelers who need wheelchairs. This is often people like me who can walk, but can’t walk far. Unlike me, they are often elderly. At most U.S. airports, porters who most often handle luggage are also the ones who push the chairs. Since this is America, capitalism rules, and like waiters the good ones–which in my experience is most of them–work hard for a good tip. The airports where I’ve felt the most like left luggage are those run by the British Airport Authority in the U.K., and I had a good four hours in Gatwick recently to explore why. It seems to be a budgetary issue; the B.A.A. hires subcontractors and there are simply nowhere near enough porters, or chairs. I’ve been left sitting on planes, in gates, and in various hallways for up to an hour while they scramble to find someone to push–at Heathrow, at Gatwick, at Manchester. This is no particular airline’s fault, but there’s also not much we can do except to complain (nicely) and write letters to both the airlines and the B.A.A. Plus, if England isn’t your destination, I can strongly suggest that if you need a wheelchair, find another country in which to change planes.

I hate to leave you on a down note, so I’m going to leave you with some nice pictures instead. I recently stayed at the Jan III Sobienski Hotel in Warsaw, which will be the subject of the review in the July 30 edition of eFlyer, and here are some images from that trip.

Bon voyage, and au revoir,

- Mary Hunt, editor (through July 30), eFlyer

I’m always scanning the travel news, and this week I came across two items that I’d have to call “Extreme Adventure Travel.”

One of them was about a group of Danish tourists visiting the glaciers in Uummannaq, on Greenland’s western coast. While they were taking pictures, some big chunks of ice fell of the glaciers into the water, creating a wave so big that two of the tourists drowned.

My condolences to the two men’s families, but–hello! Global warming anyone? Seeing the glaciers before they disappear could be a noble adventure, but wasn’t the proximity to open water a clue? I mean, I live in Florida on the Gulf coast and after Katrina most of us keep life vests just in case. Adventure travel usually means a certain amount of risk; we can’t just run around the planet without taking some care.

And talk about a noble effort: I just read an article about tourism to Afghanistan’s Grand Canyon, which comprises that country’s first national park. It takes “eight bone-shaking hours” to drive there from Kabul, but it’s a popular picnic spot for Afghanis, and you can even tour the lake by swan boat for $8. The views are breathtaking, as is the serenity - which is notable because there are so few people. That’s attributed to the “deteriorating security situation in the surrounding provinces.” As the author says, “This beautiful and peaceful part of a violent country has huge potential to make Afghanistan a lot of money, but only when the majority of foreign visitors here aren’t carrying guns.”

That’s an understatement. There’s a big difference between being an intrepid traveler and being a foolish one. If there’s an advantage to our foreign policy of recent years, it’s that news coverage has conveyed the fact that the world is not an especially safe place right alongside the fact that Americans aren’t totally welcome and beloved everywhere. Caution is warranted, and adventure requires a certain amount of common sense.

I applaud the fact that people don’t let their fears get in the way of their travels. By all means, go off the beaten path. But before you go to a war zone, or a place in the process of being reclaimed by the sea, think about going in a context where you can be an instrument of change rather than another strain on the infrastructure. As the saying goes, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

- Mary Hunt, editor, eFlyer

All I have been reading about recently is the incredible influx of European tourists visiting the US this year. It was covered again today on MSNBC and a little over a week ago in Global Traveler’s electronic newsletter, eFlyer.

A recent report released from the U.S. Department of Commerce is reporting that approximately 15 million international visitors traveled to the US in the first half of 2008. This is a significant increase from 2007. Most of the visitors are traveling from Western Europe and between January and April 2008, 1.4 million Brits have made the journey across the pond.

It seems there is a good side and a bad side to this recent development - the good news, tourism to the US is back on track and on the rise since the events of 9/11, but the bad news, the strength of the dollar is so weak, the travel from the US to abroad is not reciprocated. And the suspected reason for all the European travelers? The US is cheap, cheap, cheap for them. Most visitors are flocking to New York City, an expensive spot to visit for most of us, but an affordable destination to those used to the Pound (1 pound = $1.99) and the Euro (1 euro = $1.58). For almost half of what they would normally pay, international visitors can shop, sightsee and be constantly entertained on a vacation to the Big Apple. From coast to coast, there is a lot to see and do here.

The boost in tourism and the $11.6 billion spent by tourists in the US (just in the month of April), can only help job stability and the economy here in the States. Hopefully, someday soon, as many Americans will have the chance to travel abroad and enjoy the sights Europe has to offer. Although America has a lot to offer, so it wouldn’t hurt if we all took some time to get to know our country, too!

-Kim Krol, circulation and public relations executive

Plucking banjos, sullen cellos, vibrating violins, harmonizing guitars and energetic mandolins. Bluegrass is the only music genre that can coerce me to clap my hands and stomp my feet like a moron. Last night, my roommate and I saw the Punch Brothers, featuring Chris Thile, perform as part of New York’s free River to River Festival, hosted by American Express. Due to the threat of inclement weather, the concert was moved from Rockefeller Park on the Hudson to the high school auditorium of Stuyvesant High School on Chambers Street. As a fan of Chris Thile since my early teenage years, I found myself in a passive-aggressive, competitive “speed walk race” to the front door with fellow bluegrass girl fans an hour before the doors opened. He is the reason why I, and probably many others, have a mandolin sitting in my closet, collecting dust. The show being held in the high school actually made for a far more intimate performance with a better sound quality.

The Punch Brothers bluegrass band, named after a Mark Twain story and founded by Chris Thile, consists of the banjo, cello, guitar, violin and mandolin. Thile, literally a mandolin prodigy, was originally part of the pop acoustic band Nickel Creek. After pursuing a few solo albums, Thile began touring and collaborating with the Punch Brothers. I started listening to Thile when I was 14 and will never forget the excitement I felt going to a Nickel Creek concert at the Calvin Theater in Northampton, Massachusetts during my senior year in high school. Since then, Chris Thile has, without question, moved from the innocent and harmonious folk music to a real innovative approach to a transformed bluegrass genre. The result is a thought-provoking combination of classical and folk.

The Punch Brothers and Chris Thile are currently best known for their 40-minute, 4-part suite, composed by Thile and performed by the band. The suite is titled “The Blind Leaving the Blind” and it is a bluegrass mini symphony. The song shifts from complicated, at some times seemingly broken, to complex and then breathtakingly melodious and harmonious. In February, NPR hosted a great analysis of the suite and the performers on All Things Considered: Bluegrass Suite Packs a Progressive ‘Punch’. The suite and interview are audible on the NPR website and the Punch Brother’s website.

In the end, the free show was spectacular, leaving my roommate and I feeling a little ‘blue’ because it was over and neither of us was married to Chris Thile. Maybe one day I’ll take that dusty mandolin out of my closet.

-Courtney Centeno, account executive