Taking off Travel blog

What business travel gift will be in your stocking this Christmas?

Gadgets - don’t you just love ‘em? One of the great things about the holiday season is all the new gadgets that we’re hoping to get. If if you’re a frequent business traveler, anything that makes your life easier while on the road will be welcome so drop a hint to your nearest and dearest about these great stocking stuffers.

Boingo

The self styled world’s largest wireless network offers you easy access to a WiFi hotspot wherever you are for a reasonable monthly charge. Even better, you only have to remember one login, rather than coping with the intricacies of each hotel’s individual login system. It’s roaming without the high roaming charges and you can find a hotspot almost anywhere, as there are 100,000 to choose from. North American access is currently on special offer at $9.95 for three months, compared with a usual price of $21.95, while mobile access via your smartphone is $7.95 a month. For global access, it’s just $59 s month. Read more »

Entryway art for the new terminal by Joe C Nicholson

The new Indianapolis Airport opened in mid November. Here are ten things you should know about the new Indy Airport.

1. The new Indianapolis Airport has been planned for more than 30 years and cost $1.1 billion to build. No state or local tax dollars were used for this.
2. The terminal is 1.2 million square feet. You can see how it was built via the time lapse video here.
3. The airport is 16 minutes from downtown Indianapolis. The new address for the airport is 7800 Col. H. Weir Cook Memorial Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46241. Here’s a map.
4. The Indy Airport has special lanes in the security screening section for frequent flyers, travelers with special needs, families with young children and casual travelers. Once screened, you can move between concourses without needing to be rescreened. Here’s TSA’s guidance on technologies used at the new airport.
5. The Indy Airport was built with accessibility in mind to reduce climbing and walking distances.
6. There’s no need to park at the airport; valet parking is available for less just a short distance away at our Indy airport parking facility, Indy Park Ride and Fly.
7. It includes the first Indianapolis 500 Grill where you can eat and then shop for racing collectibles and clothes at Brickyard Authentics
8. The terminal has art by 15 artists - including local artists - showcasing a range of art forms and mediums. This includes poetry related to travel and flying. The original artwork cost almost $4 million
9. This is an environmentally friendly terminal, designed to reduce aircraft fuel use, use natural lighting where possible and promote recycling, with stations for glass, paper and aluminum throughout. There’s also no need for shuttles to rental cars.
10. Baggage handling is speedy, with bags checked in curbside screened and sent to the planes, and arriving baggage getting to the carousels within two minutes.  

 When doing some research for some recent posts on Indianapolis, I came across a resource that I think has great potential for business and other travelers. It’s called Offbeat Guides. Still in beta, the site offers you the chance to build your own travel guide for any one of 30,000 cities.

You can test the site without signing up, by inputting your name, location, desired travel dates and destination, then within seconds (which is quite impressive on my temperamental ADSL connection) you get a guide covering most things you would want to know about an area. You get an introduction to the destination, with a bit of history, as well as information about traveling to the city and getting around when you are there. Read more »