No doubt you’ve heard stories about baggage handlers going through peoples luggage at the airport. I don’t know how often it happens, but zero is the right number of times as far as I’m concerned. Here’s an interesting little tidbit:

The rules allow you to pack a gun in your checked luggage. You just have to tell them about it. they give you a card to sign and they put the card in the suitcase. Then they give the suitcase to the TSA. They lock it, give you your key back. Then the bag gets special treatment all the way to your destination, and you can guarantee that no random airport employee is going to open your bag. In fact no one will open it except in your presence. This is nice to know if, say, you have a lot of expensive camera gear that you don’t want to get stolen.

Oh yes: The rules say that a starting pistol such as what they use to start a race counts as a gun, and you don’t have to register it. Look for a used one on ebay.

Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

The middle of no place, right? Maybe, but once a year this friendly little town is host to the largest experimental aircraft air show in the world. Well it’s the world’s largest gathering of airplane enthusiasts, which is about the same thing. Officially, it’s the largest civilian air show in the US. However you put it, you’re talking several hundred thousand people. They even have an inflatable movie screen for showing airplane movies.

It used to be called the The EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) Annual Convention and Fly-In, and it’s been in Oshkosh since the 70′s. The show is now a lot bigger than just experimental (read home-built) aircraft now, but the hobbyist is still a big part of the show.

This one might not exactly be a hobbyist plane...

All the motels within commuting distance fill up well in advance, so in typical small-town Wisconsin style, many folks open their homes to attendees, picking up a few bucks renting out the spare bedroom and making new friends along the way.

Here’s a link if you want to check it out: EAA AirVenture 2010.

Ever been there yourself? Tell us about it!

Any place can be a vacation destination. The key to a vacation is that it be a change in routine, and almost as important, a change in scene.

Delaware is 90 miles long and 12 wide at its narrowest, not a big target. But it has an art museum with an outstanding collection of Pre-Raphaelites, several community theaters, and world-class performances at the DuPont; a historic and scenic factory site that was the gunpowder manufacturing capital of the world, and historic towns and buildings galore. Not to mention a reasonable number of pretty good high-class  restaurants, some of them dating back to the 1700′s. If you care to drive out of town, you can relax on a nice ocean beach, Rehoboth, for example, and shop in all sorts of interesting shops in that very touristy part of the state. Are you a nature lover? Delaware boasts extensive wetlands and wilderness areas. Civil War buff? Try Pea Patch island, a short ferry ride across the Delaware River.

Aerial view of Fort Delaware on Pea Patch Island

And if you’re into the really unconventional, you can ride your motorcycle the length of the state 11 times in 24 hours to qualify for an Iron Butt Association Delaware Saddlesore 1000.

What suggestions do you have for an unlikely vacation spot? Tell us in the comments.

The New York Times recently posted a list of travel “tips.” The tips are a lot of work! In a way, it’s a good ad for the convenience of belonging to a travel club like Serenity Travel. In fact, if I may be so bold as to plug Serenity two posts in a row (I deliberately don’t plug Serenity Travel much even though this is their site), I’ll point out that this is the kind of effort you have to go through if you don’t have someone like a Serenity travel agent to do all this leg work for you.

So go take a look. You’ll decide (I hope) that having someone else do all this for you is a pretty good deal.

New York Times article.

[pundit mode on]

I think Serenity does better than either of these guys, what with Serenity’s personalized service and using real humans and all, but a new mutual admiration society in the travel industry is worth a mention as a good idea:

One site, Yapta, monitors airline fares to help you find the cheapest fare (ahem, if you’re doing this on your own and not using the services of someone like Serenity Travel. (end of shameless plug)) and Tripit, a site that helps you develop an itinerary, are joining forces, sort of. If you’re a Tripit user, you can now get your messages from Yapta directly in your Tripit account. This is particularly useful to frequent travelers,perhaps not so much for vacationers.

Seems to be an attempt to offer more value than all these new portable apps appearing in the travel planning space.

[pundit mode off]