Taking off Travel blog

Last month, we added Thrifty Airport Parking (CHA) to our list of off airport parking facilities. Located near the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport, the Thrifty Airport offsite parking facility is secure and well lit, providing a complimentary shuttle service and car care.  Chattanooga Airport connects to major airports in Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Memphis, Orlando, Washington DC and Tampa, with services to Detroit scheduled to start in September 2010. Airport amenities include a business center and free Wi-Fi, a great advantage for business travelers. The airport is close to downtown Chattanooga, which is the fourth largest city in Tennessee. The city has been recognized many times as a great place to live and has also won awards for housing.

Railroad History

If you’re spending some time in the area, then there are several attractions you can check out. First on the list has to be the Chattanooga Choo Choo, made famous by Glenn Miller in the 1940s. This old station house is now a vacation destination, with lots to offer and plenty of history. Where else can you sleep in a historic train car while enjoying mod cons such as wireless internet? If you’re interested in the history of rail, you can also check out the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. Read more »

Soultravelers3’s response to my recent post on Memorial Day got me to thinking about something that travelers often experience – celebrating holidays that are important to them while in a country where people don’t even know they exist. Or, even if it’s a common holiday, creating that sense of home that makes the holiday special for you.

Christmas Abroad

Many moons ago, I was spending Christmas in Barcelona, far removed from my usual haunts, with a bunch of people who weren’t going home for the holidays – a couple of Australians, a Canadian girl and me. Rather than stay in France and mope, we’d decided to do something different and head to Spain to experience the holiday there. We bought some small gifts (we were poor students), a couple bottles of wine, some chocolates, a mini Christmas tree and some tinsel to decorate our room.  Before we settled in for the holiday, we walked around the city, which was blanketed in white (my first white Christmas) and absorbed the beauty and the atmosphere. Then we went back and talked about how we celebrated the holiday in our own homes. It didn’t make us less homesick, but it felt good to share. Read more »

As another ash cloud affects European air travel, the news is that train and boat companies are cleaning up (not unexpected, I admit). There’s no end date in sight for the eruption, causing many to choose a form of travel that they know won’t be disrupted – and who could blame them. In wondering if something similar could ever happen here, I checked the latest updates on US volcanoes, only to find that one was  on yellow alert, and another on orange. It’s hard to think of any geological situation which would close down all of our airspace, but I still wonder how long the chaos in Europe will continue to affect our global carriers. Call me a pessimist, but when airlines lose money, isn’t it the passenger who pays?

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How are you planning to celebrate the Memorial Day weekend? Celebrated this year from May 28-31 the three day holiday has both a serious and a fun side. The serious of course is about commemorating the war dead, a practice that first started in 1868 following the Civil War. It was then known as Decoration Day. Memorial Day itself, celebrated on the last Monday in May, became a national holiday in 1971.

Flags-In at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia

For those looking to adhere to the spirit of the holiday then one of the best places to start is with a trip to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Activities there include wreath laying, a remembrance ceremony and a concert. There is also the Flags-In ceremony which sees a flag placed in front of the gravestones of each service member buried there. The flags are placed just before the weekend and removed just after.

If you don’t happen to be near Virginia then there are lots of other memorials you can visit to commemorate the occasion. Many of these are in Washington DC but there are a few others in other parts of the country. Here’s a list of some of those memorials, courtesy of Wikipedia.

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Airport parking lots don’t feature in many people’s top travel snaps. In fact, most people think of  airport parking as a necessary evil and nothing worth remembering. Lucky for us, there are a few exceptions, showing how even the mundane can be made to look beautiful. Here are five airport parking photos that prove my point.

London City Airport (U-g-g-B-o-y-(-Photograph-World-Sense-) Read more »