We get Peter Greenberg's radio show as a podcast via iTunes because there's no way we're getting up early on a Saturday to hear it. (Sorry, Peter!) But something strange happened yesterday when we checked our feeds: A not-quite-finished video snuck through with the mysterious description "This post is password protected." Obviously, we opened it immediately.
The 2-minute, 45-second pilot features a combative couple, "The Darlings," who are packing for a trip to the beach. Since all women pack too much (uh, right?), it's gonna take Peter's help to make sure they get things right. Now if only he could take care of that wooden acting!
The clip has openings for quick ads at the beginning and end, and the episode breaks in the middle for a 15-second commercial. No telling when or if we'll see these in production, but we hope the intern who accidentally leaked the pilot on iTunes gets to keep his or her job!
Post-Gonzo travel writer Thomas Kohnstamm showed up on Peter Greenberg's radio show this weekend, and the Today Show travel editor yukked it up with the author of Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?.
Peter cut right to the chase:
PG: We're talking about the incident in the restaurant...
TK: I went by the restaurant, as I was looking at doing a review, and I got into flirting with a waitress... I came back later on, a little after midnight... We had sex on a table in the back of the restaurant.
PG: I thought that was great, I wish I would've had that experience when I was in northeastern Brazil!
If our experience early this year at Sundance taught us anything, it's that film festivals can be more work than fun: After fighting for an overpriced hotel room, you'll have to claw your way up to the bar and elbow your way into screenings. So we're thrilled to see our pal Peter Greenberg promoting alternative film fests.
Peter loves the Maui Film Festival, where screenings are held on the beach under the stars. He also gives it up for the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, where the movies are for kids--and directed by kids. And the Palm Springs fest draws plenty of stars without the haughty atmosphere of, yep, Sundance.
After the jump, Peter hobnobs in Palm Springs with Brad Pitt, Kate Winslet and the late Sydney Pollack.
Apparently renting a house instead of paying for a hotel room is the new hotness, as both Conde Nast Traveler and Peter Greenberg have lately started hyping the vacation option. We have to agree that rentals are dope, and they can be a good way to save money if you're traveling with a big group.
We actually just got back from a villa rental trip, though "cottage" would probably more accurately describe our pad than "villa." Still, we learned a few things that we hope will make your own villa vacay better.
After last week's Congressional smackdown, all our planes are safe, right? Uh, how does "relatively" sound? And we thought James Oberstar, inset, would have this all handled by now!
Peter Greenberg just posted a recent back-and-forth he had with an FAA inspector in Chicago:
He said, "My assignment is to inspect all the planes flown by Mesa Airlines."
I said to him, "Well, don't you guys also inspect go! in Hawaii?"
He said "Yeah."
I said, "When was the last time you were in Hawaii?"
Blame Peter Greenberg. About a week ago, the travel guru wrote an article hyping Rule 240, which used to govern interline agreements on airlines. Basically it said that airlines couldn't keep you captive in the terminal if they cancelled your flight; they had to put you on the next one out. But the rule no longer exists in that form, as Greenberg himself admits in his story.
That didn't stop the piece from getting picked up elsewhere, with people claiming that "invoking Rule 240" would solve all your canceled-flight woes regardless of the airline you're on. Wrong. Your trip on any given airline is always governed by a contract--called the contract of carriage--and if you act like a jerk, there's no way you'll get anything more than what that document mandates.
So what's a flyer to do? Know your stuff before you get to the airport.
Long ago Fark's Drew Curtis hit the nail on the head when talking about the media's treatment of holiday travel:
Every single holiday, every local AAA chapter contacts their local Mass Media outlets to notify them that traffic will be bad. Here's a concept: Why not tell us when traffic won't be bad.
Of course, we all know that mass media, like the rest of us, doesn't really like to work during holiday time. Thus canned broadcast and newspaper stories are the rule rather than the exception, during times like these. Who do we really feel bad for on days like today? Guys like our boy Peter Greenberg, an absolute wealth of great travel information, who was in the ATL airport this morning answering silly travel questions from Today show viewers. However, the look you see on Peter's face in the above photo is not a reaction to a viewer question, it is a reaction to Today Show host Natalie Morales asking Peter to confirm that using a cell phone in-flight won't "bring down the plane". Yeah.
Peter eases Natalie's fears and tells us that cell phone usage is simply bad etiquette and WiFi is the direction airlines are going. However, WiFi on planes is also fraught with etiquette threats. Of course there is Skype, but does anyone remember the whole flying podcast thing?
The takeaway from all this? Air traffic and auto traffic is going to be heavy over the next couple of days and airline WiFi needs to take a movie theater approach to the uncouth. If you need more info, the story is now "breaking" on CNN.
Late last week we got a chance to sit down with Today Show travel editor Peter Greenberg to chat about airlines, hotels, Kyla and his new book, The Complete Travel Detective Bible. This is one serious travel tome: It appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list just one week after it went on sale. Peter's mission is to keep travelers from getting abused on the road, something we definitely wanted to know more about since, as he says, "There are about 47 different points of abuse from the time you decide to go somewhere until the time you limp back home."
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