SALON

Donald D. Groff

Thursday, May 4, 2000 4:00 PM UTC

Land ho!

Our expert weighs in: Ships from over 60 nations tour the Eastern Seaboard; lighthouses offer beds to travelers; plus he's got the goods on Mount Rushmore.

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Land ho!

We’ve heard about the big/tall ship events coming to the East Coast this summer. When exactly will the fleet be in each of the cities on the tour?

Nothing quite stirs the blood like a parade of tall ships — vessels such as the Bounty, the Mary Rose, the Sir Francis Drake and the Unicorn. This huge party-under-sail will visit eight U.S. ports over two months this summer.

Starting in late May, tall ships from more than 60 nations will take part in Operation Sail 2000. The first stop will be San Juan, Puerto Rico, on May 25-29, then the fleet will continue north to Miami, June 7-10, and up the East Coast to Norfolk, Va., June 16-20; Baltimore, June 23-29; Philadelphia, June 23-29; New York, July 3-9; New London, Conn., July 12-15; and finally to Portland, Maine, July 28-31.

Each port plans dozens of related events. Expect to see beaucoup music, dancing and fireworks — all framed by soaring masts and sails. OpSail’s biggest bang will be in New York, where it arrives in time for the 224th Independence Day observance. Organizers expect the ship’s week there to attract more than 40,000 spectator vessels to New York Harbor and help draw about four million people into the city.

The same organizers are touting the tall-ship parade there as the longest such parade ever. Navy and Coast Guard ships will line 10 miles of New York Harbor, and President Clinton and other dignitaries will review the ships from the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Get details on itineraries and related events through the OpSail 2000 site, and through sites of the individual ports, including San Juan, Miami, Norfolk, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New London.

Quite a few of the tall ships have Web sites, too, listed on the OpSail resources page. You can also expect various ships to make appearances in other coastal cities this summer, some involved in an international contest called the Tall Ships 2000 Race Series. Those ships will cross from Europe to Bermuda to Boston, where at least 25 “class A” ships will visit July 11-14 during Sail Boston 2000. The ships will continue to Halifax, Nova Scotia, before starting the final leg to Cadiz, Spain.

We like the idea of staying in a lighthouse. Where can we find lighthouses that have been converted into B&Bs or other lodging?

“American Lighthouses: A Comprehensive Guide,” by Bruce Roberts and Ray Jones (Globe Pequot Press, 1998), describes and depicts more than 300 lighthouses, including directions for reaching the lights. The book also notes which ones take guests, although only a relative handful of lighthouses and keepers’ houses nationwide are equipped to do so. Among them:

  • East Brother Light, near Richmond, Calif., in the straits that separate San Francisco and San Pablo bays, operates as the five-bedroom East Brother Light Station B&B, phone (510) 233-2385.

  • In Michigan on Lake Superior, the Big Bay Point Lighthouse has seven rooms overlooking the bay; phone (908) 345-9957

  • In Maine, the keeper’s house at the old Robinson Point Light at Isle au Haut is a B&B open from May through October. Contact the Keeper’s House, Box 26, Isle au Haut, Maine 04645; phone (207) 367-2261.

  • In West Dennis, Mass., on Cape Cod, five rooms are in the keeper’s house at The Lighthouse Inn, open mid-May to mid-October. Phone (508) 398-2244.

  • The two keeper’s bedrooms at Rose Island Lighthouse in Narragansett Bay, R.I., become available for overnight guests after the lighthouse museum closes each day. Phone (401) 847-4242.

    At least three youth hostels are located at lighthouses: Pigeon Point, 50 miles south of San Francisco; Point Montara, 25 miles south of San Francisco; and Tibbetts Point Lighthouse, on Lake Ontario near Cape Vincent, N.Y. These can be found at the Hostelling International-American Youth Hostels site. Lighthouse buffs can also check out the Lighthouses Around the World pages.

    We’re planning a family trip to Mount Rushmore this summer. What other nearby attractions would appeal to children?

    Mount Rushmore is only the most prominent attraction in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Here are a few of the others:

  • Custer State Park, which has its own herd of buffalo.

  • Deadwood, a town best known as the place where Wild Bill Hickock was shot while playing cards. It’s now a gambling mecca, but still has many Wild West attractions, including Boot Hill and gold mining tours.

  • The Crazy Horse Monument, a huge Indian memorial being carved into a mountainside not far from Rushmore.

  • The Museum of Geology and Dinosaur Park, both in Rapid City, S.D.

  • The Needles Highway winds through some amazing peaks and scenery, great for climbing and sightseeing. East of Mount Rushmore and worth at least a drive-through is Badlands National Park, with eerie formations. For information, contact Mount Rushmore National Monument, Box 268, Keystone, S.D. 57751; phone (605) 574-2523. For a state tourism guide, contact the South Dakota Department of Tourism; phone (800) 732-5682.

    Families with children ages 6 to 12 can consider the Children’s Fun Pass, which offers free admission to almost 70 South Dakota attractions, including 39 in the Black Hills area. The pass costs $15 per child. Among attractions are Bear Country USA, Big Thunder Gold Mine, Black Hills Maze, Black Hills Passion Play, Flintstones Bedrock City, The Journey and Stagebarn Crystal Cave. Call (800) 873-5864. AAA members receive a discount on the pass.

    • Thursday, Jun 8, 2000 7:00 PM UTC

    Little boat, big whale

    How to kayak with the biggest fish, hunker down on the California coast and make it up the Northeast Corridor in one piece.

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    My partner and I are traveling to Orcas Island in September for our best friend’s wedding. We are hoping to do some sea kayaking and would like to do so with the whales. How we can go about organizing such a kayaking trip and get other information for planning the visit?

    September, especially after Labor Day weekend when the summer hordes are gone, is a great time to visit Orcas Island. Orcas is considered the most scenic of the San Juan Islands, located north of Seattle in the straits between Washington state and Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

    You’ll definitely be able to kayak, though frolicking with the whales is less certain. First, Orcas Island is not the best place for whale watching. “The vast majority of whales are seen off the west side of San Juan Island,” according to Tom Carter of Shearwater Adventures on Orcas. Secondly, the best time to see the whales is late May to mid-July, and you’ll be there outside that peak period.

    Still, if you’re set on giving it a try, it’s fairly easy to take an inter-island ferry from Orcas to San Juan Island and hook up with a kayaking company there. Shearwater (phone 360/376-4699) can help direct you. If you stay on Orcas, the company offers three-hour trips, day trips and multi-day trips, as well as classes for all skill levels.

    An excellent source for planning your trip is the recently revised “Best Places San Juan and Gulf Islands,” edited by Jan Halliday (Sasquatch Books, second edition, 2000).

    From Seattle, most visitors drive 90 minutes north of the city to the ferry at Anacortes. For ferry schedules and prices, check the site for Washington State Ferries or call (206) 464-6400.

    You also can fly to Orcas, either from Sea-Tac International Airport or by seaplane from Seattle’s Lake Union. Harbor Airlines, phone (800) 359-3220, makes the trip from Sea-Tac, and Kenmore Air, phone (800) 543-9595, flies from Lake Union.

    Check out the Orcas Island Organizations site for links to the chamber of commerce and accommodations. The island has a good selection of B&Bs and resorts.

    While on vacation in California, we plan to drive from Los Angeles up the coast to San Francisco. Where can we find out about inns along the way?

    California is an inn-rich state, and you can plan your lodging using “A California Directory to Bed & Breakfast Inns,” published by the nonprofit California Association of Bed and Breakfast Inns. The directory covers more than 360 B&Bs and is organized by five geographic regions; the areas you’ll be driving in are Southern California and the Central Coast, and dozens of inns are described for those parts of the state. There’s also contact information for the local tourist bureaus.

    To get a copy of the directory, send $7 to CABBI Directory Request, 2715 Porter St., Soquel, CA 95073. At the CABBI site you can find the same information, including a map on which you can click any area and get a list of local B&Bs. Many of the inns have their own Web sites, and you can locate and link to them through the CABBI site.

    Is I-95 North the best choice for driving from the Southeast to New York in summer?

    Interstate 95 is the most common route into the Northeast Corridor from the southeast part of the country. It’s “good” in the sense that it’s a direct route; it’s not so good if you happen to hit its busiest parts, around big cities and between Washington and Boston, during rush hours or peak periods.

    You can avoid those backups by staying away from the trouble zones during morning and afternoon rush hours. Beware the days around Memorial Day, July 4 and Labor Day, too.

    The distance on I-95 from Miami to New York is about 1,300 miles, about 1,536 miles to Boston.

    Construction is the other main type of delay on I-95, and you can get information on big projects through a publication called the “Northeast Travelers Alert,” published by the I-95 Corridor Coalition. The map shows bottlenecks and areas of I-95 where work projects are underway, along with the estimated length and dates of the projects. The Travelers Alert covers the I-95 states from Maine to Virginia and is available at interstate rest stops once you reach Virginia; an Acrobat Reader version is also available at the Web site.

    A guide that can help you plan — and describes all the rest stops — is the “I-95 Interstate Exit Guide,” available for $9.95 from Starsystems, 447 Old Henniker Road, Hopkinton, NH 03229, or order by calling (603) 746-3010. A related Web site, the I-95 Exit Information Guide Online, has an order form, as well as tips and construction alerts for I-95 travel.

    When it’s time to hit the road, you can get traffic information for the areas around Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston through SmarTraveler, a service giving real-time road and mass transit conditions in those and about a dozen other cities around the country.

    You also may be interested in “A Field Guide to Interstate 95: The Travelers Companion to the History, Geography and Trivia That Lie Beneath the Nation’s Busiest Highway,” by John Cribb (Rowman & Littlefield, 1989).

    Revisiting a previous Travel Advisor Q&A:

    A recent column on visiting coastal South Carolina brought this enthusiastic comment from a reader:

    You must tell that reader about Hunting Island State Park, in South Carolina, about 20 miles from Beaufort. It is the only completely protected, pristine South Carolina coast island. It has five miles of uninhabited beaches and a state park campground located in a grove of tall pines right at the water’s edge. For anyone interested in camping, paddling, walking moonlit beaches, it is an undiscovered treasure. Go at sea-turtle nesting season.

    “Forrest Gump’s” Vietnam scenes were filmed there — it is that wild and tropical — and the Bubba Gump shrimp dock scenes were filmed at a real shrimp dock about a mile away, on Frogmore island (home of Gullah culture). [There] you can buy shrimp caught that day to take back and cook at your campsite. It is also the scene of many of Pat Conroy’s novels, and the bays are filled with dolphins. I want to go back.

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    Thursday, Jun 1, 2000 7:00 PM UTC

    Digging for dinosaurs

    Our expert offers tips on family-oriented dino sites, historic Route 66 and Welsh bardic tourneys.

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    Digging for dinosaurs

    We just visited a dinosaur exhibit, and our son was particularly interested in the sand and bone pit they had erected for children to chisel in the rocks. Are there real dinosaur sites that one can visit to help excavate? Is there an age limit for participants?

    The release of the movie “Dinosaur” and the unveiling of Sue the T-Rex at Chicago’s Field Museum are just the latest logs thrown on the fire of dino adoration, and children, of course, are at the forefront of the frenzy. While professional digs are geared to adults, the public’s fascination with the topic has prompted quite a few communities, many in the West, to cultivate their dinosaur assets. And that includes hands-on excavations for kids.

    Among the possibilities:

  • Thermopolis, Wyo., home of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, with guided tours of dinosaur excavation sites and a large museum complex. You can “dig for a day” or string together days at a discounted rate. Thermopolis is in central Wyoming. The Dinosaur Center’s phone numbers are (800) 455-3466 and (307) 864-2997.

  • Grand Junction, Colo., and its environs are known locally as Dinosaur Valley. Attractions include the Dinosaur Valley Museum, which offers day digs and longer expeditions, plus Riggs Hill, where the first known brachiosaur was discovered in 1900, and Dinosaur Hill, where the apatosaurus now in Chicago’s Field Museum was found. There’s also the Rabbit Valley “Trail Through Time,” a self-guided one-and-a-half-mile walking trail through an area with lots of dinosaur remains. For information on the area, call the Grand Junction Visitor Bureau at (800) 962-2547 or (970) 244-1480.

  • In Rocky Hill, Conn., Dinosaur State Park has hundreds of dinosaur tracks from which visitors can make plaster casts. Information: (860) 529-8423.

    For a guide to all sorts of dinosaur sites and programs, check out the book “Dinosaur Digs” by Blake Edgar (Discovery Travel Adventures, 1999). A good site for learning about dinosaurs, dig programs and excerpts from that book can be found at Discovery.com’s Fossil Zone.

    Another helpful book is “Dino Safari: Fun Places for Adults and Children to Learn About Dinosaurs” (An American Safari Guide) by R.L. Jones (Cumberland House, 1999).

    Somewhere down the road, I’d like to drive all or a big piece of old U.S. Route 66. Can you suggest sources for planning such a trip?

    U.S. Route 66 was built in the late 1920s and early ’30s and became the nation’s first cross-country highway, stretching from Chicago to Los Angeles. Although it has been replaced by the interstate highway system, 90 percent of its original 2,448 miles are said to remain intact.

    While it’s no longer a primary highway, its place in the national consciousness remains secure, and for those who want to follow it there is plenty of help. Among the sources:

  • The recently revised “Route 66 Traveler’s Guide and Roadside Companion” by Tom Snyder (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000, paperback), supplies maps of the old road and descriptions of towns and cities along the way. Snyder details places to visit, places to avoid and places of historical interest.

  • “Route 66: The Mother Road” by Michael Wallis (St. Martin’s Press, 1992) is a bestselling, well-illustrated examination of the route, great for background and capturing the spirit of the road.

  • “A Guide Book to Highway 66″ by Jack Rittenhouse is a classic, first published in 1946 and now reprinted by the University of New Mexico Press.

    Each of the eight states through which Route 66 runs — Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California — also has state associations. Information on those associations can be found through various Web sites, including Historic Route 66.

    Another source is the National Historic Route 66 Federation.

    There are also associations devoted to Route 66 in Canada, Holland and Norway.

    Where can we get information on the Eisteddfod Festival in Wales?

    Hundreds of eisteddfodau — contests of music, literature and other arts — are held all over Wales during the summer, leading up to the Royal National Eisteddfod held annually in early August at a location that changes each year.

    The event attracts 150,000 visitors and about 6,000 competitors. This year’s dates are Aug. 5-12; the location is the Millennium Coast Park in Llanelli, South Wales, just northwest of Swansea.

    Be forewarned that the language of the competition is Welsh. However, a simultaneous-translation facility is provided free of charge for activities within the main pavilion, and an English-language audio guide can be obtained free of charge from the festival’s information center. A booking form is available through the Web site.

    According to the Welsh tourism office, the Eisteddfod — which means “sitting together” or “gathering” — evolved from ancient bardic tournaments in which apprentice poets and musicians would compete against each other for a seat of honor in the households of noblemen. Winning such a tournament was akin to securing a contract of employment, for poets depended on the patronage of wealthy noblemen and landowners for their livelihood.

    Today the stakes have shifted, but the competitors still relish the cheers of the audience.

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    Thursday, May 18, 2000 4:00 PM UTC

    Carolina on our minds

    Dive in South Carolina, drive to South America and zip over to Venice without intimidation: Travel tips from our expert.

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    Carolina on our minds

    A friend and I plan to drive to South Carolina, camping in the coastal areas. We may do some shipwreck dives as well. We don’t have much information — we just plan to jump in the car and go. Any travel tips for South Carolina islands?

    For your planning purposes, consider “The Charleston, Savannah & Coastal Islands Book” by Cecily McMillan (Berkshire House, 3rd edition, 1999) and “Touring the Coastal South Carolina Backroads” by Nancy Rhyne (John Blair, 1992). Also, check out the official South Carolina tourism site.

    The McMillan book has a section on camping, and you also can look at the Wildernet South Carolina Camping Guide.

    There’s also a Coastal Guide site with links to nine South Carolina coastal communities.

    You can locate dive shops in South Carolina — and elsewhere in the U.S. — through Charternet.com. Such shops will have information on local diving destinations and conditions. Another resource is “Shipwrecks, Pirates & Privateers: Sunken Treasures of the Upper South Carolina Coast, 1521-1865″ by Edward L. Spence (Sandlapper Publishing, 1996).

    While you’re on the coast, check out the Gullah people, who have long been a low-key part of tourism near Hilton Head Island, S.C. The Gullah are descendants of freed slaves who speak Gullah, a Creole language combining African dialect, Caribbean cadence and English words. They live on the Sea Islands between Charleston, S.C., and Savannah, Ga. In recent years they have gained more widespread attention, and in 1997 Hilton Head hosted its first Native Islander Gullah Celebration. For Gullah history, visit Beaufort.com.

    Where can one find information about driving from the United States into South America on the Pan American Highway? Are there any books or other sources on traveling that fabled route?

    The authority on that route is South American Explorers, a club that monitors conditions along the Pan American Highway as well as all over Latin America. Among other things, the club knows where the gaps and ferries are — and tells all in a 200-page packet available to members and nonmembers alike.

    The “Driving Packet” contains updated trip reports from club members who have driven the route. It’s a valuable source of information on how to get around Central and South America, including road conditions and the latest in meeting and overcoming the unexpected. The club also offers a quarterly journal and a catalog that contains one of the most complete order lists of books on that part of the world.

    The Driving Packet is available for $25 to members, $30 to nonmembers. Order from the address below, or at the Web site. (Click on the online catalog, then, under special interest, “driving through Latin America.”) Also available through the club site is Chris Yelland’s book “Driving Through Latin America: USA to Argentina.”

    Annual membership costs $40 per person, $70 per couple. Join by contacting South American Explorers Club, 126 Indian Creek Rd., Ithaca, NY 14850; phone (607) 277-0488. A subscription to the quarterly journal is $22 for nonmembers.

    Another resource is the book “Driving the Pan-American Highway to Mexico and Central America” by Raymond and Audrey Pritchard (Costa Rica Books, 6th edition, 1997, order from (800) 365-2342). Anyone bound for such a road trip might enjoy the book “Obsessions Die Hard: Motorcycling the Pan-American Highway’s Jungle Gap” by Ed Culberson (Whitehorse Press, 2nd edition, 1996).

    We’re planning our first trip to Italy for the Biennale in Venice in the summer of 2001. Most of our friends are experienced Italy travelers and it’s like pulling teeth to get useful first-timer information out of them. What are some good sources for preparing for our trip?

    Fortunately for you and every other first-timer — and all of us have been in that spot — many guidebooks are written with the inexperienced visitor in mind. You’ve got many sources to choose from, including the digestible “Eyewitness Travel Guide: Italy” by Deni Bown (Dorling Kindersley, 1998); “Knopf Guides Italy (1988)”; “Rick Steves’ Italy” (John Muir, 2000); “Insight Guides Italy (1998)” and the Cadogan series Italy guide, by Dana Facaros and Michael Pauls (Globe Pequot, 1999).

    Each of those publishers also offers a guide that focuses solely on Venice.

    Venice is the perfect walking destination, so you may want to arm yourself with “Venicewalks” by Chas Carner and Allessandro Giannatasio (Henry Holt, 1991). An audiocassette version also is available.

    Your dining experience may be easier if you’re armed with a pocket guide such as “Eating & Drinking in Italy” (Capra Press, 1999). It offers insights into Italian cuisine and a two-way dictionary of food and food-related terms.

    The Web has become a hotbed of Italian help, with some sites far more helpful than others. Several seem convinced that readers want to hear Italian music while browsing; someone should tell them the truth. An excellent site to start with is In Italy Online. An official site is Piy Italia. A site with many links is the Venice Italy Index.

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    Thursday, May 11, 2000 4:00 PM UTC

    Pay to cross

    Expert advice on getting to Prince Edward Island, checking out the Santa Fe Trail and boning up on the Baltics.

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    Pay to cross

    May 11, 2000

    What are some sources for planning a vacation on Prince Edward Island, and how much does it cost to cross the new bridge from New Brunswick?

    The bridge opened in 1997 — this will be the fourth summer that getting to Prince Edward Island will not require a three-hour ferry ride for motorists coming from New Brunswick. The drive on the two-lane bridge takes about 12 minutes.

    The span is called the Confederation Bridge, and it stretches about nine miles from Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick, to Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island. You don’t pay a toll on the way in, but leaving the island there’s a round-trip toll of $36.25 Canadian — about U.S.$24.28. Credit cards are accepted.

    While the bridge is good news for the road-weary, the jury is still out on whether easier access is affecting the island’s atmosphere. Part of the island’s charm, of course, was its isolation, and critics of the bridge fear that in time some of that charm will be lost as the bridge increases tourism and commerce.

    The ferry from New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island was discontinued after the bridge opened, but another ferry route still operates between Caribou, Nova Scotia, and Wood Island on Prince Edward Island.

    For a PEI tourism booklet, check out the Prince Edward Island site or call (888) 734-7529.

    Prince Edward Island is included in the guidebook “The Maritime Provinces,” by Trudy Fong, part of the “Off the Beaten Path” series published by the Globe Pequot Press (1999). PEI also is included in the “Adventure Guide to Canada’s Atlantic Provinces,” by Barbara Radcliffe Rogers and Stillman Rogers (Hunter Publishing, 1999).

    For a drive in the West this summer, where can I get information on the old Santa Fe Trail and what towns it passed through, as well as any events that are scheduled?

    The Santa Fe Trail began in Franklin, Mo., 110 miles east of what is now Kansas City, Mo., and ran for 900 miles to Santa Fe, N.M. More than half of the trail is in Kansas, and many signs of the trail remain, including wagon ruts, battle locations, burial sites and remnants of trading posts, campgrounds and forts.
    You can find the latest on trail matters at the Santa Fe Trail Homepage, including a link to the Santa Fe Trail Association.

    A good printed source for planning is a book called “The Santa Fe Trail Revisited,” by Gregory M. Franzwa (Patrice Press, 1989), though it’s reportedly out of print and you may have to excavate it from a library or used book store. It describes how to locate the trail and what to see along it, as well as offering practical advice on when to go, what to wear and other reference sources. Franzwa was a member of the National Park Service team that surveyed the trail early in 1988.

    The National Frontier Trails Center in Independence, Mo., is an interpretive center with archives for the Santa Fe, Oregon and California trails. Phone (816) 325-7575.

    I’ll be taking a cruise of the Baltic region this fall and would like to get some perspective on the region and its citizens. Do you have any reading suggestions?

    For an insightful look at recent Baltic history, check out “The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence” by Anatol Lieven (Yale University Press, 1994).

    Among others:

  • Estonian writer Jaan Kross’ best-known works are historical novels, “Professor Marten’s Departure” (New Press, 1995) and “The Czar’s Madman.”

  • “‘Come into My Time’: Lithuania in Prose Fiction, 1970-90,” edited by Violeta Kelertas (University of Illinois, 1992).

  • Check out the Baltic Reading List, at the Lonely Planet site.

    You may also want to stop by the Baltic Media Centre, which has links to many Baltic media outlets, universities and other resources.

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    Friday, Apr 28, 2000 4:00 PM UTC

    Avast!

    Tips on spotting Alaska's great leviathan, choosing a mileage-earning credit card and renting a car in Europe.

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    Avast!

    During a cruise of Alaska’s Inside Passage, can we expect to see whales?

    The Alaskan cruise season runs from mid-May into September, and you have a good
    chance of seeing whales at any time during that period, especially humpback and
    killer whales, also known as orcas.

    In her authoritative book, “Alaska’s Inside Passage Traveler” (Windham Bay Press,
    1998), Ellen Searby notes that humpbacks “tend to congregate in May and June near
    Juneau, Auke Bay and near the south end of Douglas Island. You can usually see
    them July through September in Lower Stephens Passage. Orcas are less predictable
    in southeast Alaska — you may find them anywhere, especially if there are salmon
    runs or groups of seals nearby.”

    An outstanding primer to looking for whales is “The Whale Watcher’s Guide:
    Whale-Watching Trips in North America,” by Patricia Corrigan (NorthWord Press,
    1999). It includes a month-by-month guide to where whales can be spotted. In
    June, for instance, you can find fin whales, humpbacks, minke whales and orcas in
    Alaskan waters.

    The guide also directs readers to companies and institutions that sponsor
    whale-watching trips, including multiday whale-watching expeditions and shorter
    excursions.

    Some whale movements are noted on the Alaska Division of
    Tourism     site.

    Links to many Alaskan whale-watch operations can be found through the Helsinki
    Institute of Physics     site.

    I’m looking for a Visa card that earns frequent flier mileage, preferably one
    with no annual fee. Where can I find out what’s available?

    For a list of companies offering airline affinity cards, visit the CardTrak online site. Click on
    “reward” and you’ll get a chart that includes cards affiliated with airlines. It
    also shows interest rates and other features for easy comparison. Through this
    site you also can track down no-annual-fee and low-interest credit cards.

    Another source of information is the WebFlyer site, which compares airline frequent
    flier programs.

    Many credit cards offer tie-ins with airline frequent flier programs, but most
    charge annual fees. In the past, some have waived the first year’s fee as a
    promotion, but it’s now more common for them to offer mileage bonuses for signing
    up.

    Usually you’ll be charged $25 to $75 a year for each card, depending on the type
    of card and benefits. Consumer credit experts recommend cards without annual
    fees, of course.

    But if you rack up 25,000 mileage points a year using a credit card, you can,
    theoretically, take a reward flight that would cost hundreds of dollars, making
    the annual fee a worthwhile investment.

    All the top U.S. airlines offer mileage-accruing cards, as do many banks. Pick an
    airline whose route system is suited to your flying patterns. You can locate
    airline program numbers by calling the airlines’ toll-free reservation numbers.

    We’re planning a summer trip to Ireland and plan to rent a car. Is it better
    to rent from home, or wait until we’re in Ireland?

    It’s almost always better — and less expensive — to arrange car rental before
    you leave home. Overseas rentals are among the most problem-prone aspects of
    travel, and you’re in a better position to shop around and deal with the details
    when you’re still at home.

    Contact these rental companies for quotes:

    * Europe by Car, phone
    (800) 223-1516

    * Kemwel, phone (800) 678-0678.

    * Auto Europe, phone (888)
    223-5555.

    * Hertz, phone (800) 654-3001.

    * Avis, phone (800) 331-1084.

    The Web site of the Irish
    Tourist Board     lists dozens of car rental companies in Ireland. For
    comparison’s sake, go to “getting around,” then “car hire.” To reach the board by
    phone, call (800) 223-6470.

    Revisiting a previous Travel Advisor Q&A

    A recent column item about information
    sources for planning a trip to Prague, Czech Republic, drew this note from a
    Prague-based Web site company:

    “Globopolis.com is a
    network of online city guides that offer lifestyle, leisure, travel and tourism
    content and commerce services in multiple languages. We currently cover Prague,
    Budapest, Bratislava, Warsaw, Krakow, Berlin and Vienna, with many more cities to
    follow in the coming months.

    The site offers comprehensive lists of restaurants, museums, galleries, clubs,
    bars, theaters, cinemas and so forth, and extensive information on visiting
    Prague (when to go, where to stay, what to see). We upload new content daily
    (the what’s happening “Today in Prague,” which you find on the opening page of our Prague city site).”

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