Business travel bloggers begin to feel the power

I'm quoted briefly in today's New York Times in this story about business travel blogs: Blogs About Business Travel Begin to Feel the Power.

Vcarious: a community-authored travel guide

Just came across Vcarious, a new, nicely designed, open, community-authored travel guide. "We're hoping to give travelers a place to share their experiences and provide a free source for first-hand travel info," says the site's Andrew Price.

The travel journal site allows travelers to integrate their journal posts with Google maps and with Flickr-style photo uploads. Nice.

Political videos on YouTube

Daily Kos: Political videos on YouTube.

Tripmates launches

Interesting: Tripmates, an interactive Web 2.0 ommunity that connects people from all over the world through a social network with a travel twist, launched earlier this month.

'Survivor': Photos from the real Guatemala

I've been meaning for a few weeks now to post photos of my trip to Guatemala a few years ago to Flickr, so here's a set of 15 of my favorite shots.

I'll admit to watching CBS's Survivor: Guatemala, chiefly for the setting rather than the contrived dramatic elements of the "reality TV" series.

Here's the story I wrote (published on the front page of several major newspapers' travel sections) about my travels through the heart of Guatemala, from Lake Atitlan to the Mayan highlands. I like being a traveler, not a tourist. Of all the exotic vacations I've taken over the years, Guatemala remains the most memorable.

Secret to averting Southwest's C lane

I'm blogging from the Portland International Airport. Got here in plenty of time, so figured there'd be no problem in avoiding the dreaded C lane boarding pass. But it was not to be. (You wind up in a middle seat and your carry-on bags are sent to be checked in.)

Frustrated, I went up to the Southwest ticket counter and discovered that you can check in online, beginning at a minute after midnight on the day of your flight.

So, you could be 500 miles away and your flight could be taking off in 10 hours, but you can "check in" at Southwest.com without being anywhere near the airport. OK. Next time I'll know. See you in the A line.

A vacation in the cards

From Sunday's San Jose Mercury News Travel section: A vacation in the cards. Poker novices test their skills against pros at fantasy camp.

I've played poker since I was a kid -- friendly house games. Fun times.

Greece photo gallery

I love Greece. Mary and I spent our honeymoon there a few years ago, and we spent nearly two weeks cruising the Greek islands of Crete, Santorini and Naxos as well as taking in Athens.

So we're excited that, starting a week from tonight with the opening ceremonies, Greece will play host to the 2004 Summer Olympics. It gives us a chance to revisit old memories and revel again in the spirit of the Greek people. (One of my friends at the Sacramento Bee, Larry Haralambakis, was a native of Greece.)

This gave me the motivation to do something I've been meaning to do for months: post some of my Greek photos on a TypePad photo album. So here goes: Enjoy the wonders of the Greek isles.

Meantime, the New York Times offers six photographers' portraits of Greece.

And in today's San Jose Merc, Charlie McCollum has this: NBC set to blanket U.S. with Olympics coverage.

In the history of television, there has never been an undertaking quite like NBC's coverage of the summer Olympics from Athens.

Starting with a USA-Greece women's soccer game Wednesday, two days before the Olympics' opening ceremony, the network will produce 1,210 hours of coverage over 18 days, not just on NBC but also on the Spanish-language network Telemundo, NBC cable channels MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and USA, and the HDTV signal of NBC's local affiliate stations.

That's three times the hours that were devoted to the Sydney Summer Games in 2000 and 77 hours more than TV coverage of the past five summer Olympics combined.

A travel home for 27 California writers

Just launched: MyCaliforniaProject.org, the online home of My California: Journeys by Great Writers, a collection of narrative travel and adventure stories by 27 California authors and journalists. All of the contributors donated their work so that proceeds from this special book can benefit the California Arts Council and school writing programs statewide. Visit the site here or pre-order your copy here.

Beachcomer Virtual Tour

I miss Fiji.