Last month, I spent three days at the Sydney Airport’s International Terminal. I was flying “stand by” and there were no empty seats. During this time, I began to think about my past 40 years of flying stand by. As an airline employee and now as a retiree, I have been able to fly all over the world. The only catch has been that I have to wait until minutes before the aircraft door is shut to find out if I’ll be called onto the plane or not. Hope and …

It was a sincere pleasure to participate in the BlogTrip09, sponsored by Turisme de Catalunya. My role on the blog trip was to have a great time, enjoy a remarkable Catalunya experience and then blog about it on Brilliant Tips from BrilliantTrips.com. Our group consisted of nine travel bloggers, including myself, as well as our hosts Leticia from Bloguzz and Amaia from Turisme de Catalunya.
One of the highlights of the trip was a walking tour around the famous La Boqueria market. While there, we followed our guide who explained how …

Although I’ve been fortunate enough to travel my entire life, I had never gone on a cruise until this past week. I’ve been on some pretty big overnight ferries like the one from Split, Croatia to Ancona, Italy, but never the week long Love Boat kind of deal. A while back, Princess Cruises contacted us about being a part of the first ever Twitter press trip they were planning. The deal was simple: experience a cruise of the western Caribbean free of charge and tweet the entire experience to our …

As a self-proclaimed airplane geek, it was quite a thrill for me to fly from Dubai to New York on an Emirates Airbus A380 this past week. The plane is absolutely enormous with a wingspan of over 261 feet which is longer than the overall length at just over 238 feet. At first glance, the ginormous wing assembly is what stuck out to me. Instead of the wings being attached directly to the fuselage, there is an additional mounting bracket that wraps around the bottom of the plane to which …

The dreaded middle seat. No matter how hard you try to avoid it if you’re a frequent traveler, you’re bound to end up sitting in the middle seat on occasion. This past weekend my dad was in town for a visit and got stuck with a middle seat on his way here. In my life, there have been times when I’ve been happy to have a middle seat (or any open seat really) and times when it has made for a miserable trip. No matter which type of seat I …

It was a very busy Saturday at the Javits Center in New York City as travel suppliers from around the globe presented their best for the upcoming year at the New York Times Travel Show. After collecting my badge, I headed to the southeast corner of the floor and jumped right in.
My first notable stop was the Context Travel booth. I was first introduced to Context Travel during Benji Lanyado’s TwiTrip to Paris (a trip based entirely on live tweeted tips and suggestions), but I didn’t realize what they offered. …