www.jacobsen.no / anders / blog / Travel Archives

March 22, 2006

Noise cancelling earplugs and hearing loss prevention

I use my Etymotic noise cancelling earplugs as often as I can when I travel. You don't notice how loud the background noise in passenger jets are until you've got noise cancellation! MORE...


March 20, 2006

Hotel Auditorium, Madrid - Europe's largest hotel

I guess the Hotel Auditorium provides enough space (quantity) and just enough quality for big, corporate gatherings, but I wouldn't recommend anyone to drop by there for a personal stay. MORE...


Madrid impressions

I'm just back from a couple of days in Madrid. Although it was raining, it's a nice city to visit, and here are my thoughts, bullet-pointed - as you'd expect from a consultant :-) MORE...


March 09, 2006

Ice-cool sink

Look twice - it really is a casserole :-) MORE...


November 24, 2005

Free Google Wifi @ Heathrow Airport, London

This bodes well for some competition against BT / T-Mobile's rather costly (by comparison) offerings... MORE...


September 20, 2005

British Airways dodgy arithmetics

Amusing screenshot from the BA booking process: 2 business class upgrades cost more than 1+1: [...] MORE...


April 29, 2005

Busy week

Busy week just past; Stavanger (Norway) in the weekend, London Sunday night, Amsterdam Monday morning, back to London on Tuesday, London-Lisbon-London on Thursday. Will chill in the weekend... MORE...


April 01, 2005

Do you need a passport when flying from England to Scotland?

Not an April fools' joke, someone came to this blog searching for information on do you need a passport from england to scotland flying: The answer is no, you don't need a passport for immigration reasons, but you may need one as ID for your airline [...] MORE...


March 30, 2005

Boracay

Back from an unexpectedly long trip to the Philippines. MORE...


January 27, 2005

More info on Travel Express / Soho vacations

Comment posted by C earlier today in reply to Mary's information about working at Sohovacations: If this and the previous comments are not enough to scare anyone away from doing business with these people, I don't know what is... MORE...


December 20, 2004

An idea for Nice (and Athens) taxis?

The number of times Southern French cabbies have tried to scam myself and colleagues is criminally high. Generally, if you are taking a cab from Nice Airport to either the city centre or westbound toward Antibes/Sophia Antipolis and if your accent is detectable when stuttering your destination in tourist-French, rest assured the driver will try his best to scam you [...] MORE...


November 22, 2004

Which information is contained on a machine readable passport?

One reader asks a question more people should ask themselves as machine readable passports are rapidly becoming the standard identification documents for international travel, and as remotely readable biometric information is becoming the standard for entry to the US very soon: what information is contained within machine readable passports? MORE...


September 17, 2004

London Open House 2004

Residents of and visitors to London should take note that this weekend is the annual 'Open House' weekend where a lot of usually closed properties are opened up for tours and visits. MORE...


September 06, 2004

Last minute tickets? Travelocity.fr is not the answer...

Lessons learned: DO NOT SHOP online with websites that are not fully automated (Travelocity falls in this category, and the friendly old man advertising for them leaves this out in his sales-talk).[...] MORE...


August 17, 2004

Rotterdam = Amsterdam?

Here is a funny ad for Basiq Air spotted in Norwegian newspaper dagbladet.no: they're adversiting flights to Rotterdam Airport as flights to Amsterdam! [...] MORE...


July 26, 2004

Hotel Despo

Probably only funny for Norwegians, where 'despo' is slang/shorthand for desperate... MORE...


July 17, 2004

Soho vacation - inside story

I have no guarantee that Mary is who she says she is - a Sohovacation employee - but then again I don't have very large doubts about her story. Here it is (unedited) for you to make up your own minds: ''I unfortuantly work for soho vacations. i did not realize what it was when i started they have an ad out for employee's they call it customer service representatives. i thought i would be dealing with cusotmers not selling a vacations package. but [...]'' MORE...


May 21, 2004

Yet another reason to love the W hotels

''Once a month, remix your Tuesday with iTunes® Day at W Hotels. This is your invitation to mix it up in a digital soundscape. Join other W Hotel guests and live DJs for this monthly event in select cities.'' MORE...


April 23, 2004

Sohovacation party on the blog

Several people have posted hearbreaking stories about how they were unable to get refunds for or profit from the vacation offers from Soho Vacations. ''Miraculously,'' however, last night three ''different'' people posted comments in rapid succession to the comments page: all 3 from the same IP (205.188.116.132), all praising the offer's genuinity, and telling me how fantastic the hotels and cruises were. [...] MORE...


March 23, 2004

Space invaders art

Seen in London & Paris: a distributed art project. Cool. MORE...


March 01, 2004

Sometimes, when you expect nothing...

Good things sometimes come when you least expect them. MORE...


February 11, 2004

Pittsburgh International Airport gets it!

''[...] The convenience of wireless access typically comes with a high price tag. But that's changing. Some airports and hotels have begun installing 802.11 Wi-Fi networks and letting travelers use them for free. [...] '' MORE...


February 02, 2004

Electricity and phone standards for travellers

A quick couple of bookmarks for anyone frequently on the road. MORE...


January 22, 2004

The sohovacation business idea

Caveat emptor! (Buyer beware!) On the Internet, there are many people who want your money... MORE...


January 16, 2004

Google Flight Tracking

Wow! Google for flight numbers for updated news on when your friends and family will arrive at an airport near you! MORE...


January 15, 2004

New US Immigration measures backfire

I just love how Brazil has started photographing and fingreprinting US citizens as a retaliation on the harsh new procedures for foreigners entering the States... Tasting their own medicine is not always pleasant for freedom-loving Americans [...] MORE...


January 08, 2004

Some people say...

[...] Returning from Norway to Nice in the beginning of January is an extreme sport by all definitions: it involves snow; high altitudes and stuff that needs to be perfectly timed. When flight #1 in a series of 3 is delayed, you know you're in for an entertaining afternoon ;-) [...] MORE...


November 14, 2003

Time off

This blog will take a break for a week or so while I take a break from London's fog & smog. I'll be back to delete the expected 50 spam comments that will arrive in the mean time. (Note to spammers, please don't bother, they will be deleted). Friends, subscribers, regular and random visitors, please take care. More blogging goodness coming in a week and a half or so... MORE...


October 23, 2003

Daylight savings time ends this weekend

Just a quick public service announcement; those on the northern hemisphere, remember to adjust your watches one hour during the night between Saturday and Sunday. [full posting includes history + extra DST info] MORE...


Free Internet access & frequent hotel guests

I split my nights between the Hiltons and the Starwood group to earn and maintain their respective top level statuses (Hilton Diamond VIP and Starwood Platinum) - if one of the chains had free internet I'd go only there (and that's quite a few thousand pounds going in some hotelier's direction just from one traveller alone *hint hint*). MORE...


October 21, 2003

British Airways launches extra checkin at Heathrow

Good news for BA Executive Club Gold/Silver members and anyone flying Business/First from Heathrow Terminal 1: BA opened a separate check-in area for us less than a week ago. MORE...


September 23, 2003

The Library Hotel, New York

How cool is this? Dewey decimal system room numbers!! MORE...


September 04, 2003

Sun setting over Old Nice

As the Sun was setting over old Nice, I took this shot between some of the old buildings. MORE...


The Girl from Veules Les Roses

This girl's eyes hide a secret... MORE...


August 28, 2003

Beach break

Some means of transportation parked along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France. MORE...


August 27, 2003

An evening at Promenade des Anglais, Nice

The Promenade des Anglais in Nice is a hub of sports and activities all day and all night... Some funky night shots of stunt-rollerbladers MORE...


August 25, 2003

St Pierre Church, Chartres

Reflected sunlight, coloured by the stained glass windows of the St. Pierre Church in Chartres, France. MORE...


August 15, 2003

Summer vacations!

I'm off for three weeks. Don't expect to see me in the office or answering email, but do expect the odd blog-posting :-) MORE...


July 28, 2003

NASA Johnson Space Center

Three of the International Space Station's modules are named Leonardo, Donatello and Raffaello... Who were they named after again...? (Funny story from real life) MORE...


July 21, 2003

Machine-readable passports 2.0: Bio-RFID

International technical standards and civil aviation organisations have confirmed that they are working on deploying passports containing details that enable the 'machine-assisted identification' of the passenger, which will be required by travellers visiting the US from October 2004. MORE...


July 17, 2003

Improving CRM at Zingo Taxi

Not having had any particular problems grabbing a cab off the street recently, I hadn't had any incentive to give Zingo taxi a chance. Until last Thursday. Disappointingly, I met an immature CRM system... MORE...


July 10, 2003

Frequently Travelling Bloggers?

Are there any bloggers out there that are reasonably frequent travellers? When travelling - do you write about your experiences (in a weblog, a discussion forum or similar?) before/during/after your trip(s)? MORE...


June 23, 2003

Electronic Information Exchange about travellers to US

In a recent rant about machine-readable passports, I mentioned the Big Brother aspect of facilitating data capture, storage and transfer of passenger data like this. It turns out all airlines flying to the US already have to do this via a UN/EDIFACT data API [read more...] MORE...


June 16, 2003

US Visa Waiver programme adds requirements

October 1st 2003 all travellers on the US Visa Waiver programme will have to provide a machine readable passport. Here is a bit of background on International travel document standardization (history stretches back over 80 years!) MORE...


June 13, 2003

Anders. Itinerant. v0.02

I've spoken with several people about my RTW (Round The World) itinerary, and have made adjustments to where I think I will be going. Still not finalized yet, though... MORE...


June 12, 2003

Anders. Itinerant.

I'm considering a 3 week round-the-world stint. NY, LA, some pacific islands, maybe, Tokyo or Hong Kong... your advice would be most welcome. Maybe I'll meet some bloggers along the way too??!! MORE...


June 11, 2003

America. Different.

Imperial-size bottles, warning labels, mph, drive-thru, ads... MORE...


June 09, 2003

Etymotic ER-6 Isolator Earphones: Tested and Reviewed

A fantastic product: I heard nothing of what people next to me were talking about, nor did I hear anything when the flight attendants asked me about drink- and meal-options. MORE...


June 08, 2003

Chicaco - urban jungle

Some shots from the week in Chicago. MORE...


June 02, 2003

Ice crystal formation in airplane windows

Some pictures taken 37 000 feet above Greenland yesterday afternoon... MORE...


May 29, 2003

7 days, 14800 km flights

Starting tomorrow, Friday, I'll be covering 14800 kilometres in 7 days: [...] MORE...


May 26, 2003

Why I will never fly RyanAir (and why you shouldn't either)

[...] After having wasted 120 pounds on lining Michael O'Leary's pockets, I had to return to London, and all I was left with was this experience I would like to share with you: DO NOT FLY RYAN AIR... [...] MORE...


May 22, 2003

It's soon weekend again

I'm off to Dublin for the weekend. MORE...


May 18, 2003

Tipping in France

Tipping in France is not compulsory but recommended. Relying on American tourists' notorious uncertainty when it comes to tipping percentage, some enterprising restauranteurs dodge the rule: While including the compulsory French ''Sce compris'' on the bill (== tips already included), they also added: ''TIPS NO INCLUDED'' in English, hinting to foreigners that a solid 10+% additional tip is expected. How cheeky is that? (see full post for pictures & background) MORE...


Snapshots: Cannes Film Festival 2003

As promised, here are some snaps from this weekend in Cannes... MORE...


May 14, 2003

Celeb-spotting this weekend

I'm going to the Cannes Film Festival with some friends this weekend. We've got tickets for some off-peak films, and I'll take some pictures and post here after. MORE...


May 12, 2003

VISA Fraud Detection Failure

The other day, I got to feel a potential problem with being a very frequent traveller that I had never thought about before: since I have an odd tendency to pop up in occationally ''random'' places and taking cash at an ATM using my VISA there without having paid my travel on the same card, it seems VISA's fraud detection mechanism didn't raise a red flag when some scamster recently took out a significant amound of money using a counterfeited copy of my card. MORE...


May 11, 2003

Noise cancelling headphones reviews

I have a couple of intercontinental flights lined up for the summer, and I am considering investing in a decent set of noise-cancelling earplugs / headphones to reduce travel fatigue and to have a more enjoyable musical experience on the flights. [...] MORE...


April 11, 2003

Happy Holidays!

I'm off for a week-and-a-bit of Easter vacations. I'm intending to spend quality, ''offline'' time with family & friends, and I hope you all will have some time off the next days. (see post for pant-wettingly funny cartoon ;-) MORE...


In which countries do they drive on the left side of the road?

Which side of the road people drive on around the world, and why :-) MORE...


April 10, 2003

Concorde retires

British Airways and Air France chiefs today signalled the end of the supersonic era in aviation by announcing that they were retiring their Concorde planes this autumn. MORE...


February 20, 2003

Long-weekend coming up

London-Montreal for the weekend :-) MORE...


February 02, 2003

Flying without ID

Worldwide, airlines are picky about passengers showing ID before checking in. Some American dude, ever proud of his ''God-given constitutional rights'', has pushed the envelope... MORE...


January 20, 2003

KUKUXUMUSU!

Kukuxumusu manufactures incredibly cool t-shirts, caps etc with very nice cartoony-style illustrations printed/embroidered. I bought a cap with their sheep-wolf-motive... MORE...


October 05, 2002

What money buys you at KLM

While money can buy you the entire first row in Business Class, it still can't buy decent service and politeness from KLM employees. MORE...


September 05, 2002

A Dutchman went to Norway...

A Dutch colleague of mine has returned from a family vacation in Norway and sent me this tragic yet humourous email about his experiences (and the changes he's noticed since he was there last time). MORE...