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Top 10 Travel Gadgets Under $50

In my romantic travel daydreams, I imagine myself marching off into the hills of Patagonia with nothing in my backpack but a change of underwear and a piece of flint. In reality, however, I — and most travelers today — bring gadgets. Lots of gadgets.

From iPods to noise-canceling headphones, from digital cameras to GPS trackers, they take up space, can consume electricity and distract us from actually enjoying the trip. Gadgets also tend to be expensive, small and easy-to-lose. But gadgets can be both useful and cheap — they can help even budget travelers make the most of their adventures. Here is a list of the 10 gadgets, all under $50, that I either own or have been lusting after.
Leatherman

1. Last summer, when I was hitchhiking across northern Cyprus, a British couple wanted to give me a ride from our hotel. The problem: Their car wouldn’t start. Luckily, I was carrying a Leatherman Skeletool CX, which has pliers, which I used to tighten the battery leads and get the car going. Now I don’t go anywhere without a multitool. I’ve used it to slice goat cheese in Monaco and reattach a suitcase wheel in Vilnius. This week, however, I’m planning to lay aside my Skeletool for the Leatherman Juice C2, which not only costs less ($31.99 at Amazon) but has more tools, including a corkscrew.
Fenix LD01

2. Caving in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Camping in Oregon. Reading a book on an overnight train from Istanbul to Bucharest. Couldn’t have done any of that without a flashlight. Now, forget about old-school incandescent bulbs — LEDs are the way to go, and from the reviews I’ve read, Cree brand LEDs are both more powerful and less expensive than other brands. The Fenix LD01 ($42 from Amazon) is ridiculously tiny but throws off 80 lumens from a single AAA-powered Cree bulb.
Memorex Money Clip Flash Drive

3. Pickpocketing is a major concern of travelers, whether they’re carrying loads of cash or 50 euros that need to last the next two weeks. My solution is to put aside the wallet, ofte

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gadgets travel

For High Line Visitors, Park Is a Railway Out of Manhattan
Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Visitors on the Gansevoort Street end of the High Line, a park on an elevated railway on the West Side of Manhattan.

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By DIANE CARDWELL
Published: July 21, 2009

The High Line is still under construction, with orange-vested workers busily adding last-minute touches. Yet the park, perched on an old elevated railway on the West Side of Manhattan, already seems like a permanent fixture, almost a small town in the air.
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Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

A High Line staircase above 10th Avenue, one of five access points to the elevated park, which opened its first stretch June 9.
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The High Line winds above Chelsea and the West Village.
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Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

The 20th street end of the park.

It has its own mobile skyline in the steady stream of heads (or, in the rain, umbrellas) bobbing above the trestle. It has its own economy, including the $15 High Line Picnic Baskets for sale at Friedman’s Lunch at the Chelsea Market (sandwich, cole slaw, pickle, chips, cookie, beverage). It has its own art scene, drawing students from Parsons sketching panoramas, and photographers armed with devices from cellphones to Leicas. It has its own neighborhoods and hot spots, shifting in feel throughout the day.

It even inspires crusty New Yorkers to behave as if they were strolling down Main Street in a small town rather than striding the walkway of a hyper-urban park — routinely smiling and nodding, even striking up conversations with strangers.

“Here people tend to be more friendly,” Kathy Roberson, who is retired but does volunteer work with the poor, said on Saturday. “Those same people, you mig

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travel nyc

Top 10 Travel Gadgets Under $50

In my romantic travel daydreams, I imagine myself marching off into the hills of Patagonia with nothing in my backpack but a change of underwear and a piece of flint. In reality, however, I — and most travelers today — bring gadgets. Lots of gadgets.

From iPods to noise-canceling headphones, from digital cameras to GPS trackers, they take up space, can consume electricity and distract us from actually enjoying the trip. Gadgets also tend to be expensive, small and easy-to-lose. But gadgets can be both useful and cheap — they can help even budget travelers make the most of their adventures. Here is a list of the 10 gadgets, all under $50, that I either own or have been lusting after.
Leatherman

1. Last summer, when I was hitchhiking across northern Cyprus, a British couple wanted to give me a ride from our hotel. The problem: Their car wouldn’t start. Luckily, I was carrying a Leatherman Skeletool CX, which has pliers, which I used to tighten the battery leads and get the car going. Now I don’t go anywhere without a multitool. I’ve used it to slice goat cheese in Monaco and reattach a suitcase wheel in Vilnius. This week, however, I’m planning to lay aside my Skeletool for the Leatherman Juice C2, which not only costs less ($31.99 at Amazon) but has more tools, including a corkscrew.
Fenix LD01

2. Caving in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Camping in Oregon. Reading a book on an overnight train from Istanbul to Bucharest. Couldn’t have done any of that without a flashlight. Now, forget about old-school incandescent bulbs — LEDs are the way to go, and from the reviews I’ve read, Cree brand LEDs are both more powerful and less expensive than other brands. The Fenix LD01 ($42 from Amazon) is ridiculously tiny but throws off 80 lumens from a single AAA-powered Cree bulb.
Memorex Money Clip Flash Drive

3. Pickpocketing is a major concern of travelers, whether they’re carrying loads of cash or 50 euros that need to last the next two weeks. My solution is to put aside the wallet, ofte

frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/...top-10-travel-gadgets-under-50 - Preview

gadgets travel

A Race to Provide Wi-Fi (but Not the Voice Part)
By JOE SHARKEY

THOUGH it is not yet clear how extensive the market is for in-flight Wi-Fi service, the competition to provide it is heating up. Row44, a California company whose in-flight Wi-Fi technology uses satellite connections, is emerging as an aggressive competitor to the market leader, Aircell, whose system uses ground-based stations.

Aircell said it had installed its system, called Gogo, on 460 airplanes, with technicians working night shifts at airline maintenance centers across the country. The company hopes to have as many as 1,000 domestic airplanes outfitted by the end of the year.

Two airlines, Virgin America and AirTran, now have Gogo on their entire fleets. Other carriers installing the Aircell system are Delta, American and United. Delta expects to have 90 percent of its domestic mainline fleet outfitted by the end of September.

Meanwhile, John Guidon, the chief executive and a co-founder of Row44, said the company was ready to begin installations, though it did not yet have a firm fleetwide contract. He estimated that Row44’s system would be installed on 500 to 1,000 airplanes worldwide by the end of 2010.

It would seem that Aircell is running so far ahead that competitors might be wary of entering the market. But Row44 is banking on making its domestic entry to the market aboard Southwest Airlines, which has been testing Row44 Wi-Fi on four of its more than 500 Boeing 737 aircraft.

Since June, after months of free trials on those planes, Southwest has been evaluating demand for the service at “various price points,” said a spokeswoman, Whitney Eichinger.

Alaska Airlines has also been testing the Row44 system on a single aircraft.

Southwest is not expected to make any firm decisions on whether to install Wi-Fi fleetwide until after the summer.

The big question about in-flight broadband service has always been whether enough passengers would pay for it, especially during a poor economic period.

“Right now, as we run these trials we’re se

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travel

In Summer Hideaway for the Rich, Slump Is Visiting, Too
Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

The sparsely filled boat basin on Nantucket on June 30. Reservations were around 80 percent for July and August for the marina, giving some hope to the island’s struggling businesses. More Photos >

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By GERALDINE FABRIKANT
Published: July 7, 2009

NANTUCKET, Mass. — On a winding road, down a white shell driveway, sits a rambling gray-shingled home with a view of the harbor, where beige lounge chairs ring an amoeba-shaped swimming pool and the living room is filled with pristinely white sofas, plumped, pillowed — ready for the next owners.
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This 7,500-square-foot Nantucket home will be sold at auction by its owner, Paul C. Steinfurth, who put it up for sale a year ago. More Photos »
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by Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

The RopeWalk, a restaurant owned by Joe Pantorno, is serving breakfast for the first time to try to lure more customers. More Photos >

The 7,500-square-foot house has been on the market for a year with no takers. “We had some good offers,” said the owner, Paul C. Steinfurth, who runs a Miami real estate business and bought the house for $5.4 million in 2004. “Then Lehman happened and they put their hands in their pockets.”

So Mr. Steinfurth is resorting to a risky tactic new to the real estate market here: next Tuesday he’ll offer the house at an “absolute auction.” The highest bidder wins, no matter how low the bid.

The sale is testimony to just how drastically the market has turned and how severely the economy has hurt even the country’s most exclusive enclaves.

Abo

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travel economics

Airlines Study Alternatives to Jets’ Black Boxes

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By CHRISTINE NEGRONI
Published: July 13, 2009

Modern communication technology allows even those with little important to say to transmit real-time information about where they are and what they are doing. But last month, when Airbus jets from Air France and Yemenia Airways crashed into the ocean, taking their black boxes into the deep with them, neither aircraft could send its data and cockpit voice recordings to a secure place on the ground.
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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

DRS Technologies makes flight data recorders that fly away from a plane after a crash; if it lands in water, the device floats. A transmitter signals its location.
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On July 2, the day that the missing recorders from Air France Flight 447 were presumed to have exhausted their 30-day battery and stopped emitting the pinging noise of the locator beacon, Airbus announced that it would look for new ways to reduce the chance of losing critical data.

“This is a worldwide industry issue, albeit a rare one,” said Mary Anne Greczyn, manager of communications for Airbus Americas. In an e-mail message, Ms. Greczyn said, “Recent accidents certainly made this a front-burner topic of discussion.”

What is known so far about the crash of Flight 447, in which 228 people died, comes from automatic messages sent from the airplane to Air France. Those messages are not intended to provide information for accident investigators but are routinely used by airlines for maintenance. When an airplane is crossing an ocean and out of radio range, only the most important information is sent, since communication must be by satellite and tra

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travel

I’m a Particle Physicist. Want to Chat?

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By MICHAEL TUTS
Published: July 13, 2009

I ALWAYS laugh when people say they don’t want to talk to their seatmates. I’m a friendly guy and, on occasion, I wouldn’t mind having a chat with a fellow passenger, especially if I’m not that busy with work.
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Howard Gordon

Michael Tuts, an experimental particle physicist at Columbia University, is an operations program manager for the Atlas project at CERN, the Geneva lab with the Large Hadron Collider.
Q. and A.

Q. How often do you fly?

A. I fly to Geneva about once every three weeks on average, and in between I sometimes have a few more trips.

Q. What’s your least favorite airport?

A. London Heathrow. Getting from one place to another involves way too much exercise, especially since I arrive there early in the morning.

Q. Of all the places you’ve been, what’s the best?

A. Tanzania. My wife and I went there on a two-week safari, and the Serengeti was amazing.

Q. What’s your secret airport vice?

A. I take Ambien, the sleep medication, so I can get some rest on the overnight flight to Geneva. It helps me be productive when I finally land.

But when my seatmates ask what I do for a living, the usual response is, “Oh” or “Oh, that sounds hard” or “Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that.”

I’m a physicist, and there’s a perception about physics that it’s somewhat of a remote discipline. People would probably love to talk to a musician or a doctor, but it’s a no-go when it comes to making small talk with me.

Which is kind of amusing. As a particle physicist, I could talk to you about black holes, alternate universes and even the so-called and unfortunately named “God particle,” which is really something called the

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socialnetworking travel

Company Closes Its Airport Screening Lines

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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 23, 2009

Verified Identity Pass, a company that promised to speed passengers through airport security checkpoints for an annual fee, has shut down. The move leaves some frequent fliers looking for options to avoid long screening lines and wondering what will happen to the personal information that they provided the company.

The company said it was not able to negotiate a deal with its creditors. Late Monday, its Clear fast-lane security check service stopped operations abruptly. Some members received e-mail messages about the closing, while others found out at the airport when they discovered Clear lanes were cordoned off.

Lois Easton, an education consultant from Boulder, Colo., was turned away by two security officials Tuesday morning from a Clear lane at Denver International Airport. She was headed on a 10-day business trip with stops in Newark and Tallahassee, Fla.

“I did buy a three-year membership, so I’m not very happy about all of this,” Ms. Easton said. Nearby, workers were dismantling three Clear screening machines.

“I travel a lot for business, often every week,” Ms. Easton added. “It’s in enough of the airports I’m in so it’s worth it. It saves me a lot of time, a lot of stress.”

Clear was founded in 2003 by Steven Brill, the businessman behind media ventures like CourtTV and American Lawyer magazine. It originated with a program set up by the Transportation Security Administration called Registered Traveler, intended to shrink swollen security lines in the wake of Sept. 11. Clear operated at about 20 airports and charged users $100 to $200 a year.

Mr. Brill, who left the company in February when a group of investors took control of th

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Gearing up
First their suits, then their earplugs
June 14, 2009

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Beach season is here, and all that watery fun can leave children with a serious case of swimmer's ear, an infection of the skin covering the outer ear canal caused by water trapped in the ears during swimming or bathing. It's uncomfortable and painful, two things you don't want to deal with on vacation.
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ClearEars earplugs can help parents avoid the problem. Made of an FDA-approved polymer that absorbs water from the ears, ClearEars provide relief in 5 to 10 minutes. More travel-friendly than ear drops, a package of five pairs costs about $7 at CVS and other drugstores, and online at www .clearears.com.

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gadgets travel

Germiest vacation spots? TripAdvisor's on the case
June 11, 2009 11:56 AM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

A Newton-based firm has created a list of the world's "germiest" destinations.

TripAdvisor LLC, which is best known for user-generated reviews of hotels and tourist attractions, picked the top five, tongue in cheek.

The world's germiest attractions, by TripAdvisor's lights:

1. Blarney Stone, Blarney, Ireland. blarneytripadvisor.jpg

(The photo of the Blarney Stone that appears with this post was included in TripAdvisor's press release.)

Up to 400,000 mouths from all over the world touch the stone each year.

2. Wall of Gum, Seattle, Wash.

A tradition at Seattle's Market Theatre in Post Alley has turned into a giant wall of gum. In the 1990s, visitors began sticking their gum to the wall while waiting in line.

3. Oscar Wilde's Tomb, Paris, France

"With a rainbow of hundreds of visible kiss marks adorning the grave, and countless more planted every year, one can't help but wonder...isn't there a cleaner way to show your literary appreciation?" TripAdvisor asked.

4. Foul Fowl: St. Mark's Square, Venice, Italy

"Be careful - these dirty fowl have been known to leave foul unexpected gifts on tourists," TripAdvisor warns.

5. Forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater (Handprints and Footprints), Hollywood, Calif.

"The forecourt to this historical Hollywood landmark features the hand and footprints of some of the biggest stars in history," TripAdvisor says. "But this intimate look at Hollywood's hands can get a bit grimy given that millions of fans place their fingers in the molds of their favorites.

To read a recent Globe story about TravelAdvisor, please click here.
(By Sean Sposito, Globe correspondent)

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travel

Americas group lifts suspension of Cuba
Move ends ban imposed in 1962
By Nestor Ikeda
Associated Press / June 4, 2009

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SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras - The Organization of American States voted by acclamation yesterday to revoke the 1962 measure suspending communist Cuba, overturning a landmark of the Cold War in the hemisphere.
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"The Cold War has ended this day in San Pedro Sula," said Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. "We begin a new era of fraternity and tolerance."

The action doesn't mean Cuba will return to the 34-member body that helps coordinate policies and mediates disputes throughout the Americas. Cuban officials have repeatedly insisted they have no interest in returning to an organization they consider a tool of the United States.

And if Cuba changes its mind, the agreement calls for "a process of dialogue" in line with OAS "practices, proposals, and principles" - a veiled allusion to agreements on human rights and democracy.

"This is a moment of rejoicing for all of Latin America," Ecuador's Foreign Minister Fander Falconi said.

The decision was taken by consensus, meaning the United States accepted it, though Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had lobbied personally for requiring Cuba to make democratic reforms and improve respect for human rights.

"The historic action taken today eliminates a distraction from the past and allows us to focus on the realities of today," State Department Deputy Spokesman Robert Wood said in Washington, D.C.

He said it would let officials "continue with the president's efforts to support the desire of the Cuban people to freely determine Cuba's future consistent with our core principles and those of the Americas."

Wood also portrayed the resolution's reference to OAS principles as a victory for US diplomacy, noting that most countries had favored automatically readmitting Cuba.

Only hours earlier, a State Department spokesman told reporters that f

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transit travel

Flying? Don’t Book Under a Nickname
By SUSAN STELLIN

The Transportation Security Administration is getting ready to take over responsibility from the airlines for checking passengers’ names against terrorist watch lists, and is advising travelers to start booking airline tickets using their full name as it appears on their driver’s license or passport.

Later this summer, the agency will also begin requiring airlines to ask passengers for their birth date and gender during the ticketing process, information the carriers will then transfer to the T.S.A. The goal is to help make the watch list matching process more accurate.

But it turns out that what’s in a name is more complicated than many reservation systems are currently prepared to handle. So the airlines are telling passengers not to worry if there is no place to enter a middle name when purchasing a ticket, or no field for a date of birth.

“I think the most important thing for passengers to know is that when their airline is ready to ask for that information, they’ll ask for it,” said Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American Airlines — advice that was echoed by other carriers.

While the T.S.A. has announced Aug. 15 as a target date for the airlines to begin asking for each passenger’s full name, gender and date of birth, and has already begun publicizing the program, called Secure Flight, the agency acknowledged that it would go into effect in phases as the airlines update their systems.

“What we’re trying to do is make the public aware that these changes are coming,” said Paul Leyh, the agency’s director for Secure Flight. “If your name is Jonathan Smith and you travel as John Smith and your license says Johnny Smith — get all those things aligned.”

The government’s aim is to streamline the process of checking travelers’ names against its watch lists — a task currently handled separately by each airline — and to collect more detailed information so passengers with names similar to those on the watch list are less likely to be mistakenly detained.

Asking

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travel

An Online Guide for Tourists, by Locals
By Brad Stone

There is nothing more dispiriting than traveling halfway around the world and following a guidebook’s recommendation to a remote, esoteric destination — only to find it packed with a hundred other tourists clutching the same book.

Now a new site called Nextstop is trying to solve that problem and unlock the authentic local gems of cities, the kind that are known only to the people who actually live there. The site, which officially debuts on Monday after a few months in beta, makes it simple for anyone to create any kind of guide to their hometown. There are tools that make it easy to pull in relevant photos and maps from Google, and to publish the guide to Nextstop, another blog or to Facebook or Twitter. People can vote if they like a guide, and the more votes a submission gets, the more prominent it becomes on the site.

So in San Francisco, for example, you’ll see a guide to “Hidden San Francisco” from a user named “Troy”, which includes the hard-to-find, rump-punishing concrete slides above the Castro, and the houseboats docked in Mission Bay Creek, which are almost directly underneath an elevated portion of Highway 280 and are otherwise invisible.

In another San Francisco guide called “Exploring the Mission,” a user named “JulieJ” sends visitors to the Mexican grill with the best salsa in the area and to a bookstore with an utterly distinctive hairless cat, along with the more predictable bars and ice cream parlors.

There are thousands of other other travel guides to 1,000 cities in 100 countries, and Nextstop is betting that a band of fanatical users will emerge to supply even more recommendations to a wide range of people.

Carl Sjogreen, a Nextstop co-founder and the former product manager of Google Calendar, is backing the company himself with co-founders Adrian Graham, who managed the Picasa photo project at Google, and Charles Lin. He says the startup wants to help travelers “go beyond the Top 10 tourist traps that are relatively easy to find,

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travel

A Vineyard primer for Obamas

By Madeleine Blais | June 1, 2009

MEMO TO the Obamas: If the rumor is true and you do end up on Martha's Vineyard this summer, here is an island primer.

Like all islands, Martha's Vineyard is a head case, mysterious, a unique coinage, cut off, stuck-up, a loner, a bit of a drama queen.

Newcomers often experience the island as snobby, and not just in the obvious terms of how much property you own and its value. The island sometimes feels like a club for which there are secret rules that no one appears all that eager to share. It can take years of island living to learn the location beyond which telephone poll lurks the world-class beach or to develop a dependable source of beach plum jam or to know who to call when the well goes dry and where to go to get the best bass bait.

The island is filled with hierarchies, an obvious one being the length of time you, and ideally your ancestors, have been coming to or living there. If you ever lived on the island year round, you have extra value. The more you can fold the names of defunct businesses (Feasts in Chilmark, Take It Easy Baby in Oak Bluffs, The Old Stone Bakery in Edgartown) and old-timers, deceased or otherwise, (George Mather, Henry Beetle Hough, Everett Poole, Bea Whiting, and anyone with the last name of Vanderhoop), the better.

The place names on the island are evocative in and of themselves: Squibnocket, Lobsterville, Tashmoo, Takemmy, East Chop, West Chop, Quenames, Moshup Trail. The names play games with your head, teasing fake definitions from the sounds themselves. Edgartown could be a scary theme park based on stories by Poe. . . Oak Bluffs a strategy in poker . . . Tisbury a quaint way to describe the inside of a pie. Menemsha is a word that people love to pronounce and to guess at its meaning. A guest once said she thought Menemsha sounded like a Jewish holiday, but according to my sister-in-law Maria it is a word that a woman, opening her blouse, might whisper to a man.

You have cachet if your phone number begin

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travel

About four hours after taking off and flying through the night over the mid-Atlantic, the pilots of the Air France Airbus reported that they had encountered an area of intense cumulonimbus activity, part of the massive thunderstorms that regularly batter the world's equatorial belt.

To avoid structural damage, both military and civilian pilots use standard onboard radar to maneuver around the thunderheads, which are characterized by electrical discharges, hail and high winds.

The mid-Atlantic region is where most hurricanes that hit the Western Hemisphere originate, and this is the beginning of the storm season. Thunderheads in the area can tower up to 60,000 feet (18,000 meters), making it impossible for airliners to climb over them and forcing them to make long diversions.

It remains unclear whether Flight 447 took evasive action to avoid the area of heavy turbulence.

Air France reported that the aircraft's ACARS (Aircraft Communications and Addressing System) -- a digital datalink that automatically transmits service messages from the aircraft to ground stations -- messaged the company's headquarters regarding a problem with the aircraft's electrical and pressurization systems.

Former NTSB chairman Jim Hall said that since the A330 is widely used in international travel it was vitally important to locate the black boxes as quickly as possible and analyze what happened to Flight 447.

"At this point accident investigators can't rule out anything," he said. "But these aircraft are designed to withstand almost any lightning strikes or any level of turbulence."

Although aviation experts stressed it was much too early to speculate about the causes of the disappearance, they noted that the incident was most likely caused by various factors that combined to cause a catastrophic chain of events.

"It sounds like something that evolved into a problem, not something that happened instantly," said Bill Voss, president and CEO of Flight Safety Foundation, in Alexandria, Virginia.

"It would appear that their systems

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travel

Charter Companies Flying to Cuba Thrive
By DAMIEN CAVE

MIAMI — The crowd of Cuban-Americans pressing against the airport ticket counter scorned those on the other side. Only a handful of American charter companies have landing rights in Cuba, and with the new White House policy letting Cuban-Americans visit relatives there as often as they want, ticket prices have become political.

“I paid $600 for a 45-minute flight,” said Carelis Sabatela, in loud Spanish, before checking in with a cart of heavy luggage. “It’s very high, super excessive.”

Like many in line, she called for more competition, but as the current boom in reservations shows, this is not a normal business. Who flies and how much they charge is intimately tied to the 50-year feud between Cuba and the United States. Experts describe these charter companies as byproducts of a dysfunctional back-and-forth that has not ended — and that now promises to provide millions of dollars in profit to a politically savvy few.

“The system exists solely because the relationship between Cuba and the United States doesn’t exist in its normal form,” said John S. Kavulich II, a senior policy adviser for the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a nonpartisan group that tracks trade activity in Cuba. “You have an abnormal service environment directly because of abnormal relations.”

Today’s charter companies began in the late 1970s during a period of warming relations, and most owners figured that their role would be temporary. The companies survived not just because Fidel Castro and the American embargo kept larger carriers out; many of the owners have also played both sides, deploying money and favors under the cover of dual identities that let them connect with Cuban leaders one minute, Americans the next.

John Cabanas, of C&T Charters, is perhaps the least known but the most powerful owner in a group that includes Vivian Mannerud, who followed her father into the business after he was convicted in the 1980s of “trading with the enemy,” in part for taking four Peps

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travel

Palm Beach is on sale - discreetly

By Drake Bennett and Rebecca Ulam Weiner, Globe Correspondent | May 17, 2009

PALM BEACH, Fla. - "There's no one here!" whined an intensely tanned older woman into her cellphone, as she waved her cigarette feebly at a persistent fly. It was breakfast time on the flowery terrace of Café Boulud, at the Brazilian Court hotel, where the ratio of servers to guests was a healthy 3 to 1. While her date yelled into his Blackberry, she paced in slow, irregular laps around the courtyard as her crème fraiche omelette congealed in the sun. Judging by their New York accents, the couple appeared to be snowbirds. They had arrived earlier in an old white Rolls Royce, declaring to the valet that they had decided to breakfast out.

She was right. The hotel was next to deserted on a late March weekend despite perfect weather, cheap airfare from the Northeast, and room discounts of up to 70 percent. Of course, those were the very reasons we were there - the island, long off-limits to hoi polloi like ourselves, was letting down its guard just a bit.

Perhaps because of its small size - the town, on a barrier island, is less than 4 square miles - Palm Beach has always been remarkable, even among enclaves of the extremely rich, for its concentration of opulence. Henry Flagler, the robber baron and Standard Oil cofounder who created modern Florida, built his vacation home in Palm Beach, and ever since the town has done its utmost to keep the spirit of the Gilded Age alive.

The island is ringed by resplendent waterfront mansions. Donald Trump sold his to a Russian fertilizer mogul for $95 million last summer. Italian supercars and sloop-sized English sedans prowl the streets, and sockless old men in loafers squire willowy young women in and out of the town's glittering luxury boutiques. In the 1942 Preston Sturges film "The Palm Beach Story," Claudette Colbert's character goes to Palm Beach to find a rich suitor, and presumably that's where she would head today.

But while she would have an easier t

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Boston.com THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
The Boston Globe
Rockefeller preserve has natural appeal

By Kari Bodnarchuk, Globe Correspondent | May 17, 2009

JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. - Tucked at the base of the imposing snaggletooth peaks of the Teton Range lies a patch of protected land that once served as a Rockefeller family retreat. Here, elk wander through sagebrush meadows, bald eagles fish for cutthroat trout, and marmots sunbathe on rocks alongside peaceful, meandering trails.

Laurance Rockefeller, the late conservationist and philanthropist, donated this land to Grand Teton National Park in 2001 to protect the idyllic setting for future generations. The 1,106-acre Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve now gives visitors access to new trails, pristine waterways, and seven distinct ecosystems in the southwestern corner of the park.

"It's one of the most wildlife-rich and ecologically rich areas of Grand Teton National Park because of the different types of habitats that mix with each other here," says Jackie Skaggs, public affairs officer for the park, which celebrates its 80th anniversary this year. "It also sits right in the heart of a really important wildlife corridor."

The new preserve has an eco-friendly visitors center with wonderful sensory exhibits and eight miles of walking trails that link to the national park's trail system, making the area more accessible than ever.

The property had been in the Rockefeller family for nearly 80 years, ever since Laurance's father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., purchased 35,000 acres throughout the Jackson Hole Valley in an attempt to protect the region's natural treasures. He donated most of this land to the National Park Service in the 1950s, but held onto 3,000 acres as a summer getaway spot. Over the years, members of the Rockefeller clan have come here to relax, hike, fly-fish, horseback ride, and even honeymoon.

Laurance Rockefeller eventually inherited the land and donated 2,000 acres of it to Grand Teton National Park in the 1990s. Before official

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Waterfront site must open to public
State fines owners of wharf building

By Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff | May 13, 2009

It was a secret jewel along the waterfront, providing a picturesque view of Boston Harbor and the city's skyline. But according to the state Department of Environmental Protection, the historic building at 470 Atlantic Ave. and its public viewing space wasn't supposed to be a secret at all.

The department has fined the owner of the plush Independence Wharf building, at the corner of Seaport Boulevard, more than $21,000 and also issued a series of compliance orders for holding out from the public its grand view of Boston and its harbor, on the site of one the country's largest acts of civil defiance, the Boston Tea Party.

"A renewed commitment on their part is necessary to open this site up to the general public, in a way that provides a public benefit for the city, its residents and our visitors," Glenn Haas, assistant commissioner of the agency, said in a statement.

In addition to the fines, the owner of the building - Independence Wharf LLC - must open up 2,856 square feet of space on the ground floor of the building as a public accommodation. The owner must post proper signage designating the 14th floor, with its observation deck and indoor viewing area, as public space.

The company must also post proper signage outside the building along the Harborwalk encouraging public patronage of the ground floor and viewing deck.

"The current property owners recognize they have a responsibility to provide, and in fact encourage, the general public to access this historic Boston site," Haas said in a statement.

A spokesman for the building's management company, Cushman & Wakefield, said yesterday that management would not comment on the settlement. Independence Wharf LLC is based in Connecticut.

The orders were based on a 2001 license the state granted Independence Wharf LLC allowing it to operate office space at the 14-story structure, which is built on the waterfront. Under state law cove

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Megabus builds up buses on busy route
Low-fare line will use double-deckers on Hub-to-New York runs

By Katie Johnston Chase, Globe Staff | May 13, 2009

Megabus, which offers free wireless Internet access and seats for as low as $1, is rolling out something new along the ultracompetitive Boston-to-New York route: double-decker buses.

Starting today, the company plans to switch all its buses on the route to double-deckers - 13 in all. They're not your typical open-air tour buses packed with sightseers. They seat 81 passengers - 25 more than a regular coach - and they're loaded with amenities that include Wi-Fi access, electronic outlets, and TVs. Some of the newer buses traveling to and from Boston will also have a 51-inch-wide glass ceiling.

The new double-deckers are only 18 inches taller than a regular bus, but this height difference means they can't maneuver inside South Station, where Megabus.com has been based for nearly a year, so the double-deckers will operate out of Back Bay Station. The 13-foot-1-inch buses drop off passengers at Penn Station in New York.

Double-deckers are common in Europe, but Megabus.com, a subsidiary of Coach USA, is the only North American company using them for city-to-city travel, said Dale Moser, chief operating officer. Megabus plans to convert its entire fleet, built by the Belgian company Van Hool, to double-deckers by September.

The change makes sense both economically and environmentally: The bigger buses carry more people, don't require additional drivers, and use less gas.

"It becomes a much more environmentally friendly vehicle," said Moser, who added the double-decker buses are four times more efficient than standard buses.

The buses can also be exciting for passengers, said New York University graduate student Denise Birkhofer, who rode a double-decker Megabus on the way back from a trip to Philadelphia to visit art museums last month. It sounded fun, she said, "like having a little piece of London." She sat on the top floor, and she wasn't disappointed.

Not

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