Inside Traveler @ National Geographic Traveler

May 11, 2006

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IT—Inside Traveler
By Jessie Johnston and Emily King

What is IT? Inside Traveler is the latest addition to our online domain, a "travelblogue" we'll update twice per week with frontline travel news from our staff, contributors, and savvy readers. We'll take you behind the scenes—into our in-boxes, staff meetings, and suitcases—to give you the minute-we-hear-it info that can't wait for the newsstand.

Hold IT Right There

During her ongoing exploration of the World Wide Web, Chief Researcher Marilyn Terrell happened upon a nifty piece of pseudo-science. Consumerist recently spent a week calling 15 major airlines once a day, and measuring how long it took for a living, breathing agent to pick up. The Time to Human experiment's loser (by a wide margin) was Midwest Airlines, which averaged a 17-minute wait and peaked one day at an apoplexy-inducing 22 minutes, 14 seconds. Looks like they take their slogan ("the best care in the air") a wee bit too literally. The promptest responders were AirTran (average 12 seconds), which placed in the top four all five days. Delta (27 seconds) and JetBlue (35 seconds) also seem to have done a good job explaining this new-fangled "telephone" technology to their employees.

If Consumerist's report doesn't shame Midwest and fellow poor performers like Alaska Airlines (five minutes, 16 seconds) and United (four minutes, 13 seconds) into increasing their call-center staffs (cuz, let's face it, according to the chart, Mellissa could really use a hand over there), IT hopes they'll at least take a page out of Air Canada's book. We recently spent more time than we would generally choose on hold with the Canadian carrier. To our utter astonishment, however, their soundtrack of Asian-infused electronica was genuinely catchy, and while speaking to a human would have been preferable, we must confess that grooving to the beat for five (or was it ten?) minutes was a not-unpleasant way to pass some time.

Test Drive a Steam Engine

Michael Shapiro, the writer of our May/June cover story about Wales, thinks the Guest Driver program is booked up for 2006, but if you contact the Ffestiniog Railway in northern Wales, they may let you sign up for 2007. You pick the locomotive and what kind of carriage you want to pull; they give you one-on-one instruction for a whole day. Up to six of your friends and family are welcome to ride on the train you drive; plus, they give you an Engineman's Lunch and a driving certificate at the end. IT suggests you take your tots, especially since the locomotives look just like Thomas the Tank Engine. And the conductor? We see a resemblance to Sir Topham Hatt. If you'd rather ride than drive the train yourself, the Ffestiniog Railway and the Welsh Highland Railway offer scenic trips.

From May 8, 2006:

Air Taxis

In the days of bankrupt airliners and crippling fuel prices, IT is happy to relay the news of airline enterprise. DayJet Corp. plans to launch a flying-taxi service between small cities in the Southeast. Many business travelers spend their lives on the road (how sad!), driving from 100 to 700 miles to reach various regional outposts. "DayJet's 'Per-seat, On Demand,' business jet service will turn hours of wasted travel time into valuable business and personal time," promises their website. "Just imagine," they continue, "having a productive breakfast meeting with your best client in one location, lunch with a new customer hundreds of miles away, and getting home in time for a dinner meeting, a concert, or your child's soccer game." DayJet will match-up and coordinate their clients' schedules so that each flight can carry a few people from different companies (think: an airport shuttle that picks up Joe before swinging by to pick you up). The downside, perhaps, is that you must be willing to share a small space with other passengers (a snoring Joe) and pay more than you would for your average flight. The company says a round-trip DayJet flight will be comparable in price to an overnight stay—which in their lexicon means round-trip airfare, one night in a hotel, and per diem expenses. Is your kid's soccer game really worth the price of a seat at this year's World Cup?

IT's All Happening at the Zoo

IT has mixed feelings about zoos. On the one paw, we do love getting a little face time with our fuzzy, be-tailed brethren. On the other, the bars always end up pulling focus from the bears, and we inevitably leave feeling a little like Tondalayo, the depressed Sumatran orangutan (only without a pet cat to cheer us up). This is probably why we have yet to make the 20-minute walk to visit Tai Shan, the National Zoo's no-longer-a-baby panda. Thanks to our fence phobia, we were thrilled to hear about the London Zoo's new "barrier free enclosure" for its squirrel monkeys.

Or should we say scoundrel monkeys? Once they moved into their new home, the monks found that "barrier free" goes both ways. Sure, it lets human visitors feel a closer connection with their fellow primates. But as far as the monkeys were concerned, the main perk was the opportunity to steal cell phones! Apparently the flashing and beeping devices were too much for the rascals to resist, and they were observed trying to snatch them from the hands of visitors holding them out take pictures. The zoo undertook a simple training exercise (cell phones covered in monkey-unfriendly sticky substances were put into the enclosure) that has nipped the creatures' klepto tendencies in the bud. Which is good. After all, aren't monkeys supposed to stand for honesty?

E-mail your feedback and tips to InsideTraveler@ngs.org.

Bookmark IT! www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/extras/blog/blog.html

Emily King, a native Utahn, is the Assistant to the Editor at Traveler. Her dirty little secret? She aspires to write an Insiders Disneyland. Jessie Johnston is a researcher at the magazine. A Canadian expat, she acts as Traveler's tenuous link to the French-speaking world, and go-to gal for staff chocoholics.

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