Travelling the world... places to be?
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I'd like to see the Northern or Southern lights, too.
so we are a group of three already
Yes, let's do subarctic or subantarctic lights tour.
yeah, we just need to find someone who's working in travel industry...
Thank's to COVID-19 there will be lots of airlines, planes and pilots looking for work. As soon as the restrictions on international travel are lifted, I reckon the it will be the best time in a lifetime to go on a big exciting journey.
I have a different prognosis but I hope you are right with yours.
Yes, I expect less capacity on the markets for airline travel due to several influences - at least for 2-3 years including 2020.
Less business travel due to online solutions (we all love video calls with business partners, don't we?!).
Fewer demand on touristic travel due to insecurity about being quarantined on arrival at destination or on arrival when returning, or getting the virus of course.
And there are economical reasons why people won't travel - the crisis costs jobs in almost every branch.
In my opinion this will lead to adjustments in capacities in commercial aviation.
But I could be wrong...
btw. whoever has good plane-spotting places... please share them too. 
All things being equal you can't build a strong relation with a customer over a communication app. I still remember the movie "Meet the parents" a lot of aviation industry people said it portrayed the industry problem in the pre-2001 market -overcapacity and bad service and this occurs every few years.
I am not in the industry so my thoughts maybe wrong but the turning point will be the vaccine and/or reliable cure. If either (or both) are available the market will rebound due to people willing to travel and enjoy things they don't have at home. The amount of money the EU government are pouring into the economy (I believe the amount is 750,000 million € ) has good chances to keep the EU demand side alive and business eager to help.
And the grounding of the MAX (one of the two short haul workhorses)may be a blessing in disguise with the airlines not having to pay for aircraft they don't have an immediate need. The current models of 737 are cheap to run thanks to the relative inexpensive fuel so airlines may use this opportunity to better use their fleet either to consolidate position in some markets or use government money to tackle new markets.
In the next few weeks we need to see how cases and load factors behave. And one final note how well companies use the "last-minute" fares to fill seats.
In private messaging i wrote to @DazzlingAnna about the one such notable location i personally know. When i wrote her i thought it was history: now redeveloped. Wrong. It’s. Still. There! So now i’ll share here with everyone. Pictures, followed by explanatory text (for everyone other than DazzlingAnna, who’s read it already).btw. whoever has good plane-spotting places... please share them too.
Pacific ocean to the left (west). LAX to the east. Note the purple pin location between.
A neighborhood with no houses remaining, but the streets and sidewalks are still there. Compare/contrast with the fully-intact housing developments to the north and south.
Closer look at what i recall as the main entrance to the development. Note the contrast between the original 1920s-1930s concrete streets of this housing development and the modern black asphalt road to the west.
Here’s what i wrote privately to DazzlingAnna, for further context:
***
Your photo of—i’ve forgotten where—that lovely beach setting with the airplane right above it reminded me of Playa Del Rey… or what i just now learned (on Wikipedia) was the southern half of that community and was called Surfridge. This section was a very nice residential neighborhood built out circa the 1920s-1930s right near the ocean… and in later years, immediately west of LAX. As you’ll read in the Wikipedia article if you go there, due to aircraft noise issues and future LAX expansion plans, decades ago the City of Los Angeles took the area over under eminent domain, leveling the houses. For many years all the streets, street lights, sidewalks, and palm street trees remained intact, with nothing other than empty dirt lots where the houses had been—not even foundations! It was eerie and strange to drive through there, which i occasionally did around sunset when the street lights would soon come on, sometimes in my parents’ 1965 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible with the top down and whatever i could get on the AM (medium wave) radio.
***
When i zoom all the way in on my Apple Map, i am not seeing any fences or other barricades to entry, so it looks like one can still drive in there, park, and gaze at the Pacific Ocean whilst commercial jets take off and land very close overhead (assuming suitable weather patterns for that flight path and sufficient air traffic). What does not show up on these maps is that there is an elevation rise from the ocean “up the hill” towards the airport, making being up there advantageous for a better ocean view (and all the closer to the bottoms of the planes).
If anyone on here lives closer and/or has been by there very recently, please correct any errors i’m making, esp. in terms of public access. Otherwise, if anyone from afar actually wants to go there, i’ll endeavor to drive over and in-person verify the status. The street lights are all gone as are most of the street trees now, but other than that it seems little different than my decades-ago experience.
One more share today….
I am not as well-traveled as most posting in this thread, though i was (am inactive?) a member of the Extra-Miler Club before my life went off the rails and any such pursuits became unsustainable. Mostly i know of places in California and the U.S. west.
My favorite mining ghost town is Bodie, California (Wikipedia article: recommended). Some mining communities never became ghost towns, and live on. Some others have been modified into theme-park-like fantasies. Many remain fully legit, but have disintegrated to basically nothing. When the State of California took over Bodie in 1962 making it a state historic park, they chose the path of what they call Arrested Decay—basically synonymous with “preserved ruin”. As explained in that article:
“At Bodie State Historic Park, the structures will be maintained, but only to the extent that they will not be allowed to fall over or otherwise deteriorate in a major way.
“Any building that was standing in 1962, when Bodie became a State Park, may be rebuilt or preserved as the photographs of 1962 showed them. By putting new roofs on the buildings, rebuilding foundations, and resealing glass that is in window frames, the State is able to keep buildings from naturally decaying.”
It’s as though one is walking through a town where everyone up and left not that long ago, even though things are decades old. When combined with its highly remote location from current-day communities, it’s almost like time travel. Yes if one looks a person can spot underground power runs to the homes being used for park administration and such, but they do all they can to hide modernity to keep the experience as authentic as possible. It’s legitimate, it’s real, and there’s a lot more remaining than most authentic ghost towns, due to the arrested decay preservation efforts.
Seeing this desolate community makes it difficult to imagine that long before many current communities were established, Bodie was a destination, not a rural obscurity as in recent decades. Not only that, it was freakin’ worldwide news high tech! From one of the references in the Wikipedia Bodie article (archived original here):
“Dynamo Pond was home to the first hydroelectric power plant in the Eastern Sierra which supplied power for Bodie, a then very famous gold mining town. Thomas Leggett, superintendent of the Standard Company, obtained James Cain’s backing and proceeded on his theory that electricity could be transmitted over wires from a distance. In 1892, Dynamo Pond and its powerhouse about a half mile below were built for hydroelectric power that could develop 6,600 volts and 130 horsepower. By November of 1892, hydroelectric power was generated and transmitted to the Standard Consolidated Mill at Bodie, a distance of 13 miles. Prior to this time, electric power had been used solely at its point of generation; this was the first time it had been transmitted any distance. The lines were installed in a straight line, as it was feared the electricity would not be able to turn corners. News of this engineering breakthrough spread clear around the world, and the engineers soon received requests to build similar hydroelectric plants from as far away as Rhodesia and Australia.”
Safe and Happy Travels!
I am not as well-traveled as most posting in this thread, though i was (am inactive?) a member of the Extra-Miler Club before my life went off the rails and any such pursuits became unsustainable. Mostly i know of places in California and the U.S. west.
My favorite mining ghost town is Bodie, California (Wikipedia article: recommended). Some mining communities never became ghost towns, and live on. Some others have been modified into theme-park-like fantasies. Many remain fully legit, but have disintegrated to basically nothing. When the State of California took over Bodie in 1962 making it a state historic park, they chose the path of what they call Arrested Decay—basically synonymous with “preserved ruin”. As explained in that article:
“At Bodie State Historic Park, the structures will be maintained, but only to the extent that they will not be allowed to fall over or otherwise deteriorate in a major way.
“Any building that was standing in 1962, when Bodie became a State Park, may be rebuilt or preserved as the photographs of 1962 showed them. By putting new roofs on the buildings, rebuilding foundations, and resealing glass that is in window frames, the State is able to keep buildings from naturally decaying.”
It’s as though one is walking through a town where everyone up and left not that long ago, even though things are decades old. When combined with its highly remote location from current-day communities, it’s almost like time travel. Yes if one looks a person can spot underground power runs to the homes being used for park administration and such, but they do all they can to hide modernity to keep the experience as authentic as possible. It’s legitimate, it’s real, and there’s a lot more remaining than most authentic ghost towns, due to the arrested decay preservation efforts.
Seeing this desolate community makes it difficult to imagine that long before many current communities were established, Bodie was a destination, not a rural obscurity as in recent decades. Not only that, it was freakin’ worldwide news high tech! From one of the references in the Wikipedia Bodie article (archived original here):
“Dynamo Pond was home to the first hydroelectric power plant in the Eastern Sierra which supplied power for Bodie, a then very famous gold mining town. Thomas Leggett, superintendent of the Standard Company, obtained James Cain’s backing and proceeded on his theory that electricity could be transmitted over wires from a distance. In 1892, Dynamo Pond and its powerhouse about a half mile below were built for hydroelectric power that could develop 6,600 volts and 130 horsepower. By November of 1892, hydroelectric power was generated and transmitted to the Standard Consolidated Mill at Bodie, a distance of 13 miles. Prior to this time, electric power had been used solely at its point of generation; this was the first time it had been transmitted any distance. The lines were installed in a straight line, as it was feared the electricity would not be able to turn corners. News of this engineering breakthrough spread clear around the world, and the engineers soon received requests to build similar hydroelectric plants from as far away as Rhodesia and Australia.”
Safe and Happy Travels!
Tad
Dimensions' loiterer
The runways of the San Francisco airport are built out into San Francisco Bay. The closest cluster of hotels to the airport are just across an inlet from the runways, and there is a lovely path along the shore with plenty of places to sit. It is maybe too far to be prime plane watching (a little over a kilometer, I think), but I did spend a pleasant evening there a few years back, just watching the amazing volume of planes taking off and landing on the two runways. You could pretty much set your watch to the interval between planes, it was so consistent.
As travel industry tries to recover from almost 3 month grounding first inner European travel restarted earlier this month.
And I will be going to Greece next Saturday, finally!
I am really looking forward to spend my vacation there. For my pleasure but also to support the people working in the industry there. For sure there will be restrictions like wearing a mask on a flight and public places - but that's life everywhere now. There are some more administrative issues at the moment.
A personal decision to travel right now. I can understand people who are not going on a plane right now. For me that's all worth it.
And last but not least I can finally try to fit in that B737/8 seat since I have gained some weight and people say my butt profited most from that weight gain
Aqw
***
You are both a smart women by writing the above statement and a funny one
Funtastic curves
Well-Known Member
My traveling experience includes the United States and Canada only. Growing up I always looked forward to summer vacation because we always went somewhere interesting. Tennessee, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, DC, Minnesota to name a few places of travel within the US. But having Canada minutes away ( living in Detroit) traveling there was nothing. I've had lots of weekend sleep overs there as a kid at a place called Wheels inn in Chatham, Canada.
As an adult I would take lots of girls/sisters weekend destinations. But it was more for the night life.
My favorite place to travel to is Toronto, Canada. Especially during the Caribbean Festival. I've always loved this place as a child and a adult.
Now that I am a parent I try to allow my daughter the same experience I had growing up traveling and seeing the world. Every year during spring break we plan a trip to wherever she chose. The goal is to create memories and experience different cultures along the way. Our summer vacation mostly are in Detroit and Texas but we find ourselves taking different stops in the between state. To see different attractions along the way.
My goal once this covid mess is a thing of the past, is to put lots of stamps in our passport.
My top 4must see must visit Fiji, Switzerland , Ireland and France.
As an adult I would take lots of girls/sisters weekend destinations. But it was more for the night life.
My favorite place to travel to is Toronto, Canada. Especially during the Caribbean Festival. I've always loved this place as a child and a adult.
Now that I am a parent I try to allow my daughter the same experience I had growing up traveling and seeing the world. Every year during spring break we plan a trip to wherever she chose. The goal is to create memories and experience different cultures along the way. Our summer vacation mostly are in Detroit and Texas but we find ourselves taking different stops in the between state. To see different attractions along the way.
My goal once this covid mess is a thing of the past, is to put lots of stamps in our passport.
My top 4must see must visit Fiji, Switzerland , Ireland and France.
As we discussed Corfu Airport /CFU / Kerkyra in Greece a few times earlier here... I recommended seats in back of aircraft on the right hand side... It happens that I recently sat on 31 F.As travel industry tries to recover from almost 3 month grounding first inner European travel restarted earlier this month.
And I will be going to Greece next Saturday, finally!
I am really looking forward to spend my vacation there. For my pleasure but also to support the people working in the industry there. For sure there will be restrictions like wearing a mask on a flight and public places - but that's life everywhere now. There are some more administrative issues at the moment.
A personal decision to travel right now. I can understand people who are not going on a plane right now. For me that's all worth it.
And last but not least I can finally try to fit in that B737/8 seat since I have gained some weight and people say my butt profited most from that weight gain
When you are lucky enough you can take pictures like that:
I also took a video of a pretty hard landing there
I've written about agreeing or disagreeing on traveling in times of a pandemic spreading over the planet.
It was my personal decision to do it recently. And I would like to share my impressions.
Arrival on an almost fully booked flight.
Wearing a mask was compulsory from leaving home to the airport, at the airport facilities and on board of the aircraft until arrival at destination. On transfer to the accommodation as well. Made a total of about 6-7 hrs wearing a mask. I took it off for eating or drinking only.
I thought it would bother me more than it actually did. Seriously, I got used to it.
People were trying to keep social distance. Funny enough they reduced distance where no markings have been put on the floor. I used to think these markings hadn't any use - it seems they do.
The hotel where I spent my vacations was working under restrictions and rules made by their government. This is quite a challenge for the staff as they don't work with full number of employees
In addition, processes at reception desk or for example at the restaurant had to be changed completely.
From an environmental point of view there have been some decisions that I think that could have been avoided.
For example they had packed the plates with fruit or every slice of bread under cling filled. And instead of tablecloths they used plastic coated paper for single use. A lot of additional rubbish every time at the restaurant.
I can understand why they are doing it - but it still is hard to see.
Due to social distancing rules the number of sunbeds at pool and beach had been reduced which was ok with low occupancy during the first days, it became more difficult to find a good place as more guests arrived at the hotel.
I knew before that there will be reduced services at the hotel. And I think they managed it pretty well to have a good holiday experience for their customers.
For me it was the best decision to travel. I will remember these vacations for various reasons for a long time.
I really hope that people stay reasonable and take care of themselves and others to let this business come back to kind of "different normal: here in Europe and elsewhere.
I am not sure if it really will work out.
But I am still hoping the best.
It was my personal decision to do it recently. And I would like to share my impressions.
Arrival on an almost fully booked flight.
Wearing a mask was compulsory from leaving home to the airport, at the airport facilities and on board of the aircraft until arrival at destination. On transfer to the accommodation as well. Made a total of about 6-7 hrs wearing a mask. I took it off for eating or drinking only.
I thought it would bother me more than it actually did. Seriously, I got used to it.
People were trying to keep social distance. Funny enough they reduced distance where no markings have been put on the floor. I used to think these markings hadn't any use - it seems they do.
The hotel where I spent my vacations was working under restrictions and rules made by their government. This is quite a challenge for the staff as they don't work with full number of employees
In addition, processes at reception desk or for example at the restaurant had to be changed completely.
From an environmental point of view there have been some decisions that I think that could have been avoided.
For example they had packed the plates with fruit or every slice of bread under cling filled. And instead of tablecloths they used plastic coated paper for single use. A lot of additional rubbish every time at the restaurant.
I can understand why they are doing it - but it still is hard to see.
Due to social distancing rules the number of sunbeds at pool and beach had been reduced which was ok with low occupancy during the first days, it became more difficult to find a good place as more guests arrived at the hotel.
I knew before that there will be reduced services at the hotel. And I think they managed it pretty well to have a good holiday experience for their customers.
For me it was the best decision to travel. I will remember these vacations for various reasons for a long time.
I really hope that people stay reasonable and take care of themselves and others to let this business come back to kind of "different normal: here in Europe and elsewhere.
I am not sure if it really will work out.
But I am still hoping the best.
