Are You Ready to Share a Hotel Room with Alexa?

Earlier this summer, I decided to do something totally unoriginal—I joined the hordes of Americans working remotely from Lisbon. I had a wedding in Tuscany to attend, and my flight home on TAP offered me a free stopover for up to 10 nights. I decided I'd stay a week and get a taste of life in Portugal. How could I resist?

Are lengthy tarmac delays happening more often? It certainly feels that way, with several frustrating incidents having gone viral in recent times in which passengers were stuck on planes for hours before their flights were eventually canceled.

Low-cost airline Avelo is getting ready for fall travel with a major sale on September travel. It's recently announced «Fares Fall into Fall with 50% Off All September Flights» promotion offers flights for half off throughout the month when booked before Aug. 8. Travelers must enter the promotional code “Sept50” during the booking process on Avelo’s website to take advantage of the sale.

Low-cost carrier Avelo Airlines will launch flights to Puerto Rico this fall, marking the airline’s first-ever Caribbean destination and its latest expansion plans.

When thinking of city breaks in Hungary, Romania and Greece, certain places will instantly spring to mind: Budapest, Bucharest and Athens, the much-admired capitals. But in 2023, it’s time to make space on your travel wish list for some up-and-coming urban hotspots in these countries: the European Capitals of Culture 2023. This year, why not get under the skin of a secret city that's rich with art, history, gastronomy and vibrant local communities? Step forward Veszprém, Timișoara, and Elefsina: it’s your time to shine.

Planning a road trip this summer? For the sake of safety and peace of mind, your own and others’, add this to the pre-departure to-do list: a review of your driving habits. After all, while there’s nothing you can do to change other drivers’ bad habits, you are at least in control of your own.

Enter the United Airlines “Billion Mile Giveaway” sweepstakes by September 30, 2016, for a chance to win one of 100 grand prizes of 1 million United MileagePlus miles, plus $750 to cover taxes, each. Runner-up prizes include smaller numbers of miles. In total, 1 billion miles will be given away.

The traditional taxi business is far from dead, but the ever-burgeoning popularity of rideshare services like Uber and Lyft is a clear threat to the survival of the yellow cabs that for decades have been a mainstay of big-city transportation. It’s fair to say that the rise of Uber and its ilk have led to the erosion of taxis, and could eventually lead to their outright demise (or, perhaps, their radical transformation).

Researchers in Connecticut are warning that tick populations are on the rise this year, so you need to be especially vigilant—not just at home, but also while traveling. If your trips take you anywhere within North America, Europe, or Asia, you could be at risk for ticks and the many diseases they cause.

Vacations are good for you. They’re psychologically restorative. They broaden your outlook. They promote physical vitality and good health. And, lest we dismiss them as petty indulgences, they increase workplace productivity.

As if traveling and exploring a new place weren’t exciting enough, Pokemon Go is adding a whole new dimension of discovery. Taking the world by storm, the mobile app allows you to use your phone to hunt for digital monsters in an “augmented reality.”

Say you reserve at a hotel that looks nice in its online display, but when you arrive, you find a surly receptionist, inoperative AC, and cockroaches. And say that you report what you experienced, accurately and honestly, on TripAdvisor. Would you then be shocked to receive a $500 credit card charge as a “penalty” for violating the hotel’s contract prohibiting bad reviews? That’s actually happened to a few travelers, but it won’t happen any longer after the Consumer Review Fairness Act outlaws “no bad reviews” language in consumer contracts.