If you happen to be flying Northwest on or near a transatlantic (TATL) route in the near future, keep an eye out for the 757 with a UPS rudder. Looks like Northwest needed a replacement part and the only thing they could find was from a UPS jet. I guess if it comes to operating with a ridiculous looking plane for profit versus a broken plane with no profit you have to go with the money; but its also easy to see here how high of a priority aesthetics are.

A plane like this reminds of driving around in my hometown in West Michigan seeing the beat up junkers with off-color fenders and hoods. Heck, for a couple of years I even drove a '93 Ford Ranger that was tarp-blue with black quarter panels. And from my past experiences with these type of vehicles, well, it makes me kind of feel like this plane is kind of jerry-rigged.

But hey, it flies, right? Off the top of my head, the TATL 757 flies between Detroit, Hartford, Amsterdam and Dusseldorf, so if you're in those areas, stay alert. Here's another picture.

Believe it or not, there are other places to go on vacation besides Cabo San Lucas. Heresy! Heresy, I know, but give me time to redeem myself.

The three main factors in getting away for the weekend are budget, time and location. Sure you could get away for the weekend to Hoboken, but it really doesn't have the charm. And we'd all like to go to Fiji, but ticket prices aren't too competitive right now.

What Farecompare has done is created a tool that factors those two variables into one that displays the lowest price of tickets in a region against a Google map. It's called a Getaway Map; you know you want to get away at some point this fall, you know you've got three hundred bucks and you know you want to go somewhere in Central America. Plug in your hometown to the root Getaway Map page, click on the Central America page and you're set.

Friends of mine from New York who come to visit me in Los Angeles often express dismay and surprise at how early the city shuts down. Bars close at 2 a.m.?!??! There's no where to eat at 3 a.m.?!?!?

Well, that's not entirely true. Los Angeles does have its share of late night locations, but you really have to know where they hiding. Or, even easier, you can consult a recent LA Times article, Playing in the Dark, for a smattering of what the city has to offer; late night bowling, museum sleepovers, midnight movies, flower marts, dancing, casinos, and of course, restaurants.

So next time you visit LA, please don't complain that there is nothing to do in the wee hours of the night; it might not be as spectacular as New York City, but we do have our late night haunts, thank you very much!

Has Grant's alert about cheap fares to Guatemala got ya thinking about planning a spontaneous getaway? Or maybe you want to expand your travels beyond Guatemala City and the old capital of Antiqua and spend a week or more exploring the scenic wonders of this magical country?

Consider picking up a copy of Moon's guide to Guatemala to throw in your pack. The second edition of this handy guide has just hit bookstores. The first two places covered in the book are the ones mentioned here already, but it then goes on to provide equal attention to El Oriente and Izabal, Las Verapaces, Peten, the Western Highlands and the Pacific Coast regions. Special sections include background about the Mayan culture and tips for those who love bird-watching or adventure hiking.

The 480-page book was written by Al Argueta, a Texas-based photographer of Guatemalan decent who at one point lived in the country for two years and has explored much of the country. His passion for the joys of this nation can be sensed throughout the book. Be sure to check it out before making your own visit to discover Guatemala.

Did you know that there is an annual Rubik's Cube competition held every year in Budapest, Hungary, the hometown of Erno Rubik, the cube's inventor?

I know I didn't, which is why I was ecstatic to learn that the 2007 Rubik's Cube World Championship this past Sunday was won by Yu Nakajima of Japan. The 16 year old boy was able to solve the classic 3x3 cube, which has six sides of a different color with nine tiles on each side, in an average time of 12.46 seconds over five attempts.

Damn that's fast!

And, the craziest part was that unlike my friends and me, he was able to solve the cube without having to peel off and put back on the stickers.

For his unbelievable skill, honed prowess and somewhat absurd talent, young Nakajima was able to walk away with a prize package totaling €5,000, US$7,000 or roughly 840,000 yen.

If you find yourself in New York any time over the next month, take some time to stop by the SKY360 Lounge that Delta opened up last week. Occupying an expensive piece of real estate on 57th street and 6th avenue, this new storefront is supposed to showcase the new changes happening at Delta over the coming months.

Among the cadre of activities for the public to experience within you'll find:

• A (complimentary) coffee and soda bar, serving cocktails in the evening, with little pods in which to sit and enjoy them. Bring your laptop for free wifi as well.
  
• Samplings of the new, exotic menu items inspired by Delta's celebrity chef. As dear Catherine and I pointed out last week, this is becoming the hip thing to do among airlines.
  
• And my favorite, examples of the new leather coach and premium seats to be installed in the new 777 livery (pictured), integrated with the new Audio/Video On Demand (AVOD) system for your Sopranos fix.
  

Additionally, if you can manage to get your "friend in PR" to get you an invite, a variety of private events are happening in the evening, from an Esquire party to random hotties dropping in. I'm still trying to get there for a corporate event -- keep an eye out for me.

Recycled air, low humidity and close quarters -- all these factors make you 100 times more likely to catch a cold on a flight. So what can you do, save from wearing a surgical mask and rubber gloves?

Ed Hewitt on Msnbc.com offers some fairly common sense suggestions. For example, Hewitt's first tip is to stay hydrated. I know this, yet all that free booze on international flights makes an 8-hour trip so much more enjoyable. Drinking lots of water might help you after the flight, but sometimes it's the here and now that counts. It's a touch choice.

Hewitt also recommends washing your hands. I'm sort of appalled that he even needs to suggest this -- I'd like to think that most of us are washing our hands regularly. When I travel I also bring handi-wipes and hand sanitizer for convenience -- and no, I'm not a germaphobe. It's just easier to sanitize than wash, dry, use a paper towel to open the restroom door so you don't re-contaminate your hands, hold door with your leg while tossing the paper towel away, etc.

One unexpected tip is to use mouthwash to kill germs and add another layer of protection while also keeping your throat moist. Remember to carry nothing larger than a 3oz bottle.

How do you stay healthy on a flight?

I just saw this sign at the lounge of the Sagamore Hotel at Lake George this weekend: Well-behaved children are welcome. I guess it is a nice way of saying: Keep your brats out of this place whenever you can.

Don't all parents secretly believe that their children are well-behaved? Don't all other people always secretly think that they are not?

This might not come as a surprise to those of you with kids, but on the web there are tips for keeping your children well-behaved when traveling. The ones for air travel are especially entertaining, at least for those of us without kids. Here are my top 3:

1. Let your children feel that they're performing a useful role in making the flight happen by being well-behaved. (uh, ok)
2. Discuss the importance of stretching during air travel (that should keep them occupied for at least 5 seconds)
3. When the plane takes off, your children will be eager to look out of the window and watch the ground moving away below. This is a good way to introduce the concept of map making. (or the concept of life-long therapy, depending on how nerdy your kid is)

Can kids just be kids?

Home & Abroad; Matching People to Places is a rather cool website that will help build your vacation itinerary based upon your personality and likes.

Here's how it works. Pick from one of the nearly 100 locations featured and then plug in the dates of your trip and the number of days you will be traveling. Then choose an appropriate theme (Action/Adventure, Adult Escape, Artsy, Cupid, Family Time, Connoisseur, History Buff, Inner-Einstein, Local Culture, Musical Journey, Must See, On The Town, Outdoorsy, Take it Easy, Shop till you Drop, Sports Enthusiast, Where the Expert Goes, and World Scholar).

As a test, I settled on Berlin combined with the History Buff category. The site then provided me with 12 pages of places to visit and admission costs for each. After I picked the ones I was interested in, the site created an itinerary based upon average time spent at each location and their proximity to each other. The coolest thing is that each location was nicely plotted on a Google map as well. Unfortunately, the site does not provide information on transport to get there and estimated travel time between sites.

The final page is where the site makes its money. This is where one can order hotels, flights, car rentals, and other travel necessities.

Overall, I was rather impressed with the concept and site. The themes are varied enough to cover most travel desires and personalities and the final recommendations were robust enough to fill up most any schedule. Perhaps what I will use this most often for, however, is finding things to do in my own hometown depending upon the mood I'm in--be it cultural, musical, artsy, adventure or whatever else strikes my fancy.

In this week's creepy chapter of Big Brother Watching You, Google has just started supporting searches for airplanes. Not carriers websites or airplane photos, airplanes currently up in the sky.

I suppose the technology has been around for a while; flightaware has semi-accurate flight routes if you ever want to see how you got from point A to B. It's just that Google has now made checking the location of your boss over the Atlantic easier than checking your email.

All you have to do is search by the carrier and the number. In the above photo, I typed NW49 into Google and it gave me three options: Expedia, Travelocity and FBOweb as tracking agents. FBOweb supports tracking over Google Earth, which is pretty neat if you have it installed, but for the bulk of you who just want to know when you have to pick up your friend at the airport, the others should do just fine.

Happy stalking!

As our good friend Martha pointed out last month, renting an apartment while abroad is a great way to defer egregious hotel prices, experience some culture and cultivate a little bit of adventure in a normally mundane itinerary.

A great idea on paper, but many people are still hesitant to do the research and book an apartment. In my numerous conversations with people attempting to sell the idea to them, I think it distills down to comfort. Not relative comfort of the hotel, mind you, comfort in the booking and security of a hotel room. It's easy for one to amble up to hilton.com, plug in your destination and know that you'll have a minbus and driver waiting for you once you exit the arrivals gate at BCN.

There appears to be some squabbling for the Los Angeles -- Guatemala City (LAX-GUA) route today. Spirit, American Airlines, Taca and Mexicana all have been showing excellent fares between LA and the Latin capital, and I'm currently seeing a price of about 200$ on Taca starting this weekend through Q1 2008.

Usually, fares departing on such short notice are hard to come by. So if any of you left-coasters are free this weekend, surprise your significant other or mother with a trip down to Guatemala.

Don't even think about telling me that you think Guatemala is dangerous. I was there in March and got there and back just fine, even with a white girl in tow.

If you want to be super safe, the trick is to leave Guatemala City as soon as you touch down and head straight for Antigua, the old capital of Guatemala. Here you'll find an historic Central American village high in the mountains surrounded by volcanoes. Head out to see La Merced Church or stick around for a few weeks to attend spanish school.

There are a variety of activities in this safe, colonial town that will keep you busy for a long relaxing weekend without breaking the bank. And to put the safety issue in perspective, I ran into a guy from my home town, Ann Arbor as I was walking down the street one day; tourism is fairly common in Antigua.

If you get bored, you can pay a few pesos for a trip to Lake Atitlan or the top of one of the local volcanoes. I would recommend a tour in that case though, because things can get a little dicey outside of the Antigua bubble.

Use a flexible search engine such as Kayak to locate the best itineraries for your window. And as always, fare sales can disappear in the blink of an eye. If there's any question, book now and ask questions later.

High atop the 52-story Four Seasons in New York sits the city's most expensive hotel room: the Ty Warner Penthouse.

It takes a lot to earn such an accolade in this city, but thanks to the efforts of I.M. Pei and interior architect Peter Marino, lucky visitors to the Big Apple can now drop $30,000 a night for the privilege.

So what does 30 grand get you?

* 4,300 square feet
* 25-foot ceilings
* Chauffeured Rolls Royce
* 24-hour butler
* Private elevator
* Four balconies
* Fitness room
* Library
* Bösendorfer piano
* Zen garden
* Infinity edge bathtub
* Unlimited supply of Twinkies (um, just kidding)

Thanks to the crumbling dollar, the US is losing yet another transatlantic battle of the richest. According to The Guardian, it is no longer home to the world's most expensive shopping street. New York's Fifth Avenue was replaced by London's Old Bond Street, where annual rents per square foot are $1,400.

Bad news for the competitive New Yorkers. Good news for shopaholic Londoners, already booking their Christmas-shopping air tickets to New York.

One of my all time running highlights was winning second place for my age category in a 4th of July run in Middletown, Ohio. I ran almost a minute faster a mile than I normally did. (And yes, there were more than two people in my category.) When the first mile came and the time-keeper called out the time, I almost turned back to ask, "What did you say?" Instead, I ran like heck to the next mile marker for a confirmation. I was on fire. I think it had to do with: living in Albuquerque at the time, running a lot with a guy I was dating who taught me some running tips, and buzzing a bit from the two days drive to get to Middletown. Besides the fun of doing so well, being a part of a community event pulled me right into the milieu of Middletown. Man, was it glorious.

If you're a running type, here are some running events listed on the Web site Active.com to consider when thinking about where to travel for your running highs. My run in Middletown was impromptu. I didn't know the run existed until I showed up at my friend's friends' house. This list goes through March 2008.