L6 SUNDAY, JANUARY 19, 2020 LATIMES.COM/TRAVEL THE CONCIERGE The Shan and the Karen are the two largest ethnic minor- ities in which South- east Asian country? * Laos * Thailand * Myanmar Answer below. Source: National Geographic Bee GEO QUIZ MEXICO and GUATEMALA Experience southern Mexi- co on a 10-day jungle river trip on the Rio Usumacinta, which has ruins of the Maya civilization tucked along its banks. Participants will float on the river, watch for wildlife and camp at the Maya cities of Yaxchilán, Mexico, and Piedras Negras, Guatemala, with a full day of exploration at each. The last several days include Class II and III whitewater rapids navigating the narrow San José and San Josecito canyons. Dates: Feb. 19-28, March 6-15 Price: $2,100 per person, double occupancy; $200 single supplement. Includes hotel accommodations in Villahermosa and Palenque, Mexico; tents; all meals on the river; rafting and safety gear; and professional guides. International airfare not included. Info: Far Flung Adventures, (800) 359-2627, farflung.com /rio-usumacinta — Anne Harnagel IDAHO Backcountry fun Add a little adventure to your life with an off-the-grid snowmobiling excursion in the backcountry near McCall, Idaho, a resort town known for its skiing and snowmobile terrain. The guided tour, which includes a picnic and a soak in the mineral waters of Burgdorf Hot Springs, is part of a two-night mini- vacation at Shore Lodge Resort in McCall, 100 miles north of Boise. Spa treat- ments and dinner are in- cluded. Dates: Winter months Price: From $2,750 for two for a two-night stay. In- cludes snowmobile rentals, some meals, activities and dinner at the Narrows Steakhouse. Info: Shore Lodge Resort, (800) 657-6464 , shorelodge .com — Rosemary McClure PANAMA CANAL From sea to sea Spend a week exploring the region on a new Pearl Seas Cruises itinerary that trav- els the length of the Panama Canal. The cruise makes port stops in Cartagena, Colombia, and Panama’s San Blas Islands, Gatún Lake, Panama City and Las Perlas Archipelago, known for the island of Contadora, a popular tourist destina- tion The cruise begins in Cartagena or Panama City, where participants can explore the Casco Viejo, the old city, built in the 1670s. Dates: Cruises begin Dec. 1. Prices: From $4,675 per person, double occupancy. Includes accommodations aboard the Pearl Mist, an all-balcony ship that holds 210 passengers, as well as meals and activities. Info: Pearl Seas Cruises, (800) 981-9146, bit.ly/ panamacanalcruise — Rosemary McClure TOURS & CRUISES Into the world of the Maya GEO QUIZ ANSWER: Myanmar My sister is 18 months old- er than I am, but I’m taller. It used to drive her crazy as we were growing up when people asked whether we were twins or, worse, if I was older. I thought it was obvious. She was friendly, confident and funny. I was proud to fol- low her. And follow her I did, from kindergarten all through high school. Our paths di- verged at college. She spent her junior year abroad in Syd- ney, Australia, and had friends all over Europe. A family medical emer- gency brought her back home after graduation, but she later found a way back to Europe. She spent a year in London studying interna- tional business and hopped to other countries on breaks; she picnicked at Versailles, France, and saw the north- ern lights in Norway. I finished college and stayed put in Pasadena. I loved hearing her stories and seeing her pictures. After her stint in the U.K., she settled in San Diego, but travel was never far from her heart. Early last year, she told me about a deal on plane tick- ets to London. She hadn’t been back in five years. I told her, half-jokingly, to book it, and she emailed me the flight confirmations for a 10-day trip — my 30th birthday pre- sent, she said. Well, then. We had visited London as children on a family summer vacation two decades ago. There was a lot of art I didn’t fully appreciate at age 10, long before I majored in history. I gave her a long list of things I had to see (Bucking- ham Palace; Kensington Palace; and such staples as the British Museum, the Na- tional Gallery and the Na- tional Portrait Gallery, and the Tate). Our biggest adventure was Chatsworth House, the seat of the Duke of Dev- onshire and home to the Cav- endish family since 1549. (It’s best recognized as Pember- ley in the Keira Knightley- starring “Pride and Preju- dice.”) We stayed at an inn on the Chatsworth property and, despite asking the front desk attendant for directions twice, still managed to get lost. A kind man helped us. Once we crossed the road, we were on our way. Walking through fields of sheep in the English countryside felt like a Jane Austen movie moment. My sister planned every- thing, from train tickets to the Airbnb where we stayed in Camden. She timed our entrances to museums and didn’t give me too much side- eye when, after touring a mu- seum for two hours, I spotted a postcard in the gift shop that showed a piece I had to see. Strangely enough, I think my favorites were the pieces I didn’t expect. Turning the corner at Hampton Court Palace and coming face to face with “Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (La Pittura),” by Artemisia Gen- tileschi, took my breath away. It wasn’t all museums. She showed me where she used to live and the pubs she frequented. I met her friends, matching names to faces, and imagined them as young adventurers, hungry to see the world. I marveled at how they hadn’t lost that sense of wonder. I think it was the most beautiful thing I saw on our trip. We also went to the exhib- it of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings at the Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace. One of my favorite quotes of his: “It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplish- ment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” Thank you, my adventur- ous big sister, for exemplify- ing this, for saying yes when it would have been easier to say no. All these years later, I’m still proud to follow you. I’ve already started an- other list of things I can’t wait to see with you. DEPARTURE POINTS My big sis led the way in traveling By Molly Underwood Cost of a ticket, Part 1 Let’s say I want to fly to Mel- bourne, Fla., which is a smaller airport that’s much more conven- ient than Orlando for many resort areas on the eastern coast. I would leave Feb. 3, a Monday, and return Feb. 10, also a Monday. I held my breath and found a fare of $202. I would have purchased it but for two things: It had flight times of almost 15 hours there and almost 21 hours back, and it was a basic econ- omy ticket. Only you can decide whether your money is worth the extra time, but a 15-hour trip that lands you in Melbourne, Fla., doesn’t promise the same rewards as a lengthy trip that lands you in Melbourne, Aus- tralia. Let’s say you don’t want to spend more time in an airport. The next best fare I found that would not consume my trip with layovers was $94 more, but it was still basic econ- omy. Basic economy has been the response by legacy airlines (such as United, Delta and American) to ultra-low-cost carriers, including Frontier, Allegiant and Spirit. As tempting as it is to believe that these low-cost carriers nickel and dime you to death, they also give you better fares in many cases if you understand the rules. The legacy carriers don’t play as much hardball as the ultra-lows (they don’t charge you to print a boarding pass, for instance), but even with a legacy basic fare, you don’t get as many opportunities to ensure your well-being. You don’t get to choose your seats in advance, and you’ll lose your fare if you can’t make the trip. On the other hand, said Seth Kaplan, a longtime transportation analyst, you get the same seatback entertainment, you get a carry-on bag for free (on American and Delta, not on United) and maybe even a snack. That’s why he and his family took a basic economy flight from the Washington, D.C., area to Montana, saving them about $200. The fact that you can’t choose your seat in advance? “As a family, we almost always get seated together,” he said. Would I pay $366 to fly to Mel- bourne, Fla., or I would I choose the $296 with a better schedule but still a basic fare? The question you need to ask your- self: What’s my pain point? Identify it and choose accordingly. Cost of a ticket, Part 2 As the year began, fuel prices were relatively stable and had been for some time. Then trouble erupted in the Middle East and fuel prices shot up overnight. Then they settled back down. It’s important to keep a watch on those prices. As Tom Spagnola, senior vice president of supplier relations for fare website CheapOair, has told me more than once, about 25% of the cost of a ticket is the cost of jet fuel. The International Air Transport Assn., an airline industry group, makes it easy for you to keep track. Check out its Jet Fuel Price Monitor at bit.ly/jetfuelmonitor. If you begin to see a steady, con- sistent increase, it’s best to buy now because it takes four to six months for those prices to cycle into the cost of a ticket, Kaplan and Spagnola said. “It’s not as though you can just introduce a price change the next day,” Kaplan said. The question you need to ask your- self: How is my risk tolerance? Do I dare buy a ticket this far out? Should I buy travel insurance? Cost to the environment Here’s great news for the airlines, courtesy of Spagnola: Nearly 4.75 billion passenger trips are expected worldwide this year. That would be a record, and an increase of 137% since 2004. That’s not necessarily great news for the environment. Although the airline industry isn’t the leading offender, it’s the growth in emissions from air travel that are at issue, William Wilkes wrote in a March Bloomberg article. “All of these forecasts are terrify- ing climate scientists and activists who say increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases are leading to rising temperatures, more extreme weather and higher death tolls from natural disasters caused at least in part by human activity,” Wilkes wrote. He then quoted Paul Fennel, a professor of clean energy at Imperial College in London, as saying, “We are all going to have to reduce the extent to which we fly.” Enter flight shaming, which means you are wringing your hands over your carbon footprint and de- ciding perhaps you won’t take that trip. The idea has been gaining mo- mentum since about 2017 and may be having an effect, according to the BBC. Domestic travel dropped 4% in Sweden in 2019, which the BBC cites as the country of origin for flygskam, or flight shaming. In July, KLM asked people to reduce their air travel, suggesting train travel in its place. That’s a concept that works in the Netherlands and most of Europe a little better than it does in the United States. You can get to Paris from London (about 300 miles) by Eu- roStar in a little more than two hours. If you took Amtrak’s Coast Starlight from L.A. to San Francisco (about 380 miles), you could leave L.A. at 10:10 a.m. and get to San Francisco about 10:30 p.m., with the last of the trip by bus. It’s not just that we don’t have high-speed trains; it’s the distances you must cover in this country if you’re headed for points east. If you fly, several airlines let you buy carbon offsets, including Delta, United and JetBlue. Or you could plant trees. In a study, 1st Move International calcu- lated how many trees you would need to plant to mitigate a trip from the United Kingdom to various places, then recalculated for LAX: to New York City (seven), to Tokyo (15), to London (16) and to Bangkok, Thailand (23). Should you fly? Not fly? Kaplan notes that even if you’re not on that flight, it will take off anyway — at least for now. Until we have clean-air jets, this is going to be an increasingly large issue. The question you need to ask your- self: Can I live with myself if I go? As a traveler, can I live with myself if I don’t? Have a travel dilemma, question or concern? Write to [email protected]. We regret we cannot answer every inquiry. Cat O’Neil For The Times ON THE SPOT CATHARINE HAMM 3 questions to ask before you fly again If you sometimes feel as though the world is conspiring against you and your flight plans, wonder no more. It is — but for different reasons, although all fall under the banner of the “state of the world.” ¶ First is the cost of a ticket. Second is the cost to the environment. ¶ Here are the questions you must ask yourself before you decide whether your trip is a no or a go in 2020.
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L6 SUNDAY, JANUARY 19, 2020 LATIMES.COM/TRAVEL
THE CONCIERGE
The Shan and theKaren are the twolargest ethnic minor-ities in which South-east Asian country?
* Laos
* Thailand
* MyanmarAnswer below. Source:National Geographic Bee
GEO QUIZ
MEXICO and
GUATEMALA
Experience southern Mexi-co on a 10-day jungle rivertrip on the Rio Usumacinta,which has ruins of the Mayacivilization tucked along itsbanks. Participants willfloat on the river, watch forwildlife and camp at theMaya cities of Yaxchilán,Mexico, and Piedras Negras,Guatemala, with a full dayof exploration at each. Thelast several days includeClass II and III whitewaterrapids navigating the narrow San José and SanJosecito canyons.
Dates: Feb. 19-28, March 6-15
Price: $2,100 per person,double occupancy; $200single supplement. Includeshotel accommodations inVillahermosa and Palenque,Mexico; tents; all meals onthe river; rafting and safetygear; and professionalguides. International airfarenot included.
Info: Far Flung Adventures,(800) 359-2627, farflung.com/rio-usumacinta
— Anne Harnagel
IDAHO
Backcountry fun
Add a little adventure toyour life with an off-the-gridsnowmobiling excursion inthe backcountry near McCall, Idaho, a resort townknown for its skiing andsnowmobile terrain. The guided tour, whichincludes a picnic and a soakin the mineral waters ofBurgdorf Hot Springs, ispart of a two-night mini-vacation at Shore LodgeResort in McCall, 100 milesnorth of Boise. Spa treat-ments and dinner are in-cluded.
Dates: Winter months
Price: From $2,750 for twofor a two-night stay. In-cludes snowmobile rentals,some meals, activities anddinner at the NarrowsSteakhouse.
Info: Shore Lodge Resort,(800) 657-6464 , shorelodge.com
— Rosemary McClure
PANAMA CANAL
From sea to sea
Spend a week exploring theregion on a new Pearl SeasCruises itinerary that trav-els the length of the PanamaCanal. The cruise makesport stops in Cartagena,Colombia, and Panama’sSan Blas Islands, GatúnLake, Panama City and LasPerlas Archipelago, knownfor the island of Contadora,a popular tourist destina-tion The cruise begins inCartagena or Panama City,where participants canexplore the Casco Viejo, theold city, built in the 1670s.
Dates: Cruises begin Dec. 1.
Prices: From $4,675 perperson, double occupancy.Includes accommodationsaboard the Pearl Mist, anall-balcony ship that holds210 passengers, as well asmeals and activities.
Info: Pearl Seas Cruises,(800) 981-9146, bit.ly/panamacanalcruise
— Rosemary McClure
TOURS &
CRUISES
Into theworld ofthe Maya
GEO QUIZ ANSWER:
Myanmar
My sister is 18 months old-er than I am, but I’m taller. Itused to drive her crazy as wewere growing up when peopleasked whether we were twinsor, worse, if I was older.
I thought it was obvious.She was friendly, confidentand funny. I was proud to fol-low her.
And follow her I did, fromkindergarten all throughhigh school. Our paths di-verged at college. She spenther junior year abroad in Syd-ney, Australia, and hadfriends all over Europe.
A family medical emer-gency brought her backhome after graduation, butshe later found a way back toEurope. She spent a year inLondon studying interna-tional business and hoppedto other countries on breaks;she picnicked at Versailles,France, and saw the north-ern lights in Norway.
I finished college andstayed put in Pasadena. Iloved hearing her stories andseeing her pictures.
After her stint in the U.K.,she settled in San Diego, buttravel was never far from herheart.
Early last year, she toldme about a deal on plane tick-ets to London. She hadn’tbeen back in five years. I toldher, half-jokingly, to book it,and she emailed me the flightconfirmations for a 10-daytrip — my 30th birthday pre-sent, she said.
Well, then.We had visited London as
children on a family summervacation two decades ago.There was a lot of art I didn’tfully appreciate at age 10, longbefore I majored in history.
I gave her a long list ofthings I had to see (Bucking-ham Palace; KensingtonPalace; and such staples asthe British Museum, the Na-tional Gallery and the Na-tional Portrait Gallery, andthe Tate).
Our biggest adventurewas Chatsworth House, theseat of the Duke of Dev-onshire and home to the Cav-endish family since 1549. (It’sbest recognized as Pember-ley in the Keira Knightley-starring “Pride and Preju-dice.”)
We stayed at an inn on theChatsworth property and,despite asking the front deskattendant for directionstwice, still managed to getlost.
A kind man helped us.Once we crossed the road, wewere on our way. Walkingthrough fields of sheep in theEnglish countryside felt like aJane Austen movie moment.
My sister planned every-thing, from train tickets tothe Airbnb where we stayedin Camden. She timed ourentrances to museums anddidn’t give me too much side-eye when, after touring a mu-seum for two hours, I spotteda postcard in the gift shopthat showed a piece I had tosee.
Strangely enough, I thinkmy favorites were the pieces Ididn’t expect. Turning thecorner at Hampton CourtPalace and coming face toface with “Self-Portrait as theAllegory of Painting (LaPittura),” by Artemisia Gen-tileschi, took my breath away.
It wasn’t all museums.She showed me where sheused to live and the pubs shefrequented. I met her friends,matching names to faces,and imagined them as youngadventurers, hungry to seethe world. I marveled at howthey hadn’t lost that sense ofwonder. I think it was themost beautiful thing I saw onour trip.
We also went to the exhib-it of Leonardo da Vinci’sdrawings at the Queen’sGallery in BuckinghamPalace. One of my favoritequotes of his: “It had longsince come to my attentionthat people of accomplish-ment rarely sat back and letthings happen to them. Theywent out and happened tothings.”
Thank you, my adventur-ous big sister, for exemplify-ing this, for saying yes when itwould have been easier to sayno.
All these years later, I’mstill proud to follow you.
I’ve already started an-other list of things I can’t waitto see with you.
DEPARTUREPOINTS
My big sisled the wayin traveling By Molly Underwood
Cost of a ticket, Part 1Let’s say I want to fly to Mel-
bourne, Fla., which is a smallerairport that’s much more conven-ient than Orlando for many resortareas on the eastern coast. I wouldleave Feb. 3, a Monday, and returnFeb. 10, also a Monday.
I held my breath and found a fareof $202.
I would have purchased it but fortwo things: It had flight times ofalmost 15 hours there and almost 21hours back, and it was a basic econ-omy ticket.
Only you can decide whetheryour money is worth the extra time,but a 15-hour trip that lands you inMelbourne, Fla., doesn’t promisethe same rewards as a lengthy tripthat lands you in Melbourne, Aus-tralia.
Let’s say you don’t want to spendmore time in an airport. The nextbest fare I found that would notconsume my trip with layovers was$94 more, but it was still basic econ-omy.
Basic economy has been theresponse by legacy airlines (such asUnited, Delta and American) toultra-low-cost carriers, includingFrontier, Allegiant and Spirit. Astempting as it is to believe thatthese low-cost carriers nickel anddime you to death, they also give youbetter fares in many cases if youunderstand the rules.
The legacy carriers don’t play asmuch hardball as the ultra-lows(they don’t charge you to print aboarding pass, for instance), buteven with a legacy basic fare, youdon’t get as many opportunities toensure your well-being. You don’tget to choose your seats in advance,and you’ll lose your fare if you can’tmake the trip.
On the other hand, said SethKaplan, a longtime transportationanalyst, you get the same seatbackentertainment, you get a carry-onbag for free (on American and Delta,not on United) and maybe even asnack. That’s why he and his familytook a basic economy flight from theWashington, D.C., area to Montana,saving them about $200. The factthat you can’t choose your seat inadvance? “As a family, we almostalways get seated together,” he said.
Would I pay $366 to fly to Mel-bourne, Fla., or I would I choose the
$296 with a better schedule but still abasic fare?
The question you need to ask your-self: What’s my pain point? Identifyit and choose accordingly.
Cost of a ticket, Part 2As the year began, fuel prices
were relatively stable and had beenfor some time. Then trouble eruptedin the Middle East and fuel pricesshot up overnight. Then they settledback down.
It’s important to keep a watch onthose prices. As Tom Spagnola,senior vice president of supplierrelations for fare website CheapOair,has told me more than once, about25% of the cost of a ticket is the costof jet fuel.
The International Air TransportAssn., an airline industry group,makes it easy for you to keep track.Check out its Jet Fuel Price Monitorat bit.ly/jetfuelmonitor.
If you begin to see a steady, con-sistent increase, it’s best to buy nowbecause it takes four to six monthsfor those prices to cycle into the costof a ticket, Kaplan and Spagnolasaid. “It’s not as though you can justintroduce a price change the nextday,” Kaplan said.
The question you need to ask your-self: How is my risk tolerance? Do Idare buy a ticket this far out? ShouldI buy travel insurance?
Cost to the environmentHere’s great news for the airlines,
courtesy of Spagnola: Nearly 4.75billion passenger trips are expectedworldwide this year. That would be arecord, and an increase of 137% since2004.
That’s not necessarily great newsfor the environment. Although theairline industry isn’t the leadingoffender, it’s the growth in emissionsfrom air travel that are at issue,William Wilkes wrote in a MarchBloomberg article.
“All of these forecasts are terrify-ing climate scientists and activistswho say increasing concentrationsof greenhouse gases are leading torising temperatures, more extremeweather and higher death tolls fromnatural disasters caused at least inpart by human activity,” Wilkeswrote.
He then quoted Paul Fennel, a
professor of clean energy at ImperialCollege in London, as saying, “We areall going to have to reduce the extentto which we fly.”
Enter flight shaming, whichmeans you are wringing your handsover your carbon footprint and de-ciding perhaps you won’t take thattrip.
The idea has been gaining mo-mentum since about 2017 and may behaving an effect, according to theBBC. Domestic travel dropped 4% inSweden in 2019, which the BBC citesas the country of origin for flygskam,or flight shaming.
In July, KLM asked people toreduce their air travel, suggestingtrain travel in its place.
That’s a concept that works in theNetherlands and most of Europe alittle better than it does in the UnitedStates. You can get to Paris fromLondon (about 300 miles) by Eu-roStar in a little more than twohours. If you took Amtrak’s CoastStarlight from L.A. to San Francisco(about 380 miles), you could leaveL.A. at 10:10 a.m. and get to SanFrancisco about 10:30 p.m., with thelast of the trip by bus.
It’s not just that we don’t havehigh-speed trains; it’s the distancesyou must cover in this country ifyou’re headed for points east.
If you fly, several airlines let youbuy carbon offsets, including Delta,United and JetBlue.
Or you could plant trees. In astudy, 1st Move International calcu-lated how many trees you wouldneed to plant to mitigate a trip fromthe United Kingdom to variousplaces, then recalculated for LAX: toNew York City (seven), to Tokyo (15),to London (16) and to Bangkok,Thailand (23).
Should you fly? Not fly? Kaplannotes that even if you’re not on thatflight, it will take off anyway — atleast for now.
Until we have clean-air jets, this isgoing to be an increasingly largeissue.
The question you need to ask your-self: Can I live with myself if I go? Asa traveler, can I live with myself if Idon’t?
Have a travel dilemma, question orconcern? Write [email protected]. We regret wecannot answer every inquiry.
Cat O’Neil For The Times
ON THE SPOT CATHARINE HAMM
3 questions to askbefore you fly againIf you sometimes feel as though the world is conspiring against you and your flight plans, wonder no more. It is — but
for different reasons, although all fall under the banner of the “state of the world.” ¶ First is the cost of a ticket.
Second is the cost to the environment. ¶ Here are the questions you must ask yourself before you decide whether
your trip is a no or a go in 2020.
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