Taking off Travel blog

Suitcase.com has recently published its Consumer Luggage Report 2010. Among its key findings were:

57.4% are now packing lighter and using smaller travel bags, and 56.5% check fewer bags, due to increasing airline fees and restrictions.

72.3% most commonly use carry-on bags during air travel.

79.1% consider luggage size and dimensions the greatest influence on their decision to purchase, with luggage weight (69.3%) the second-most deciding factor.

44.2% prefer lightweight materials the most when purchasing luggage.

88.9% consider wheels the most important luggage feature, with retractable handles (71.4%) the second-most important feature.

The Taking Off Travel Blog talked to John Ebb, CEO of Suitcase.com, about the findings, especially related to business travel.

1. John, what can we learn about business travel behavior from your Luggage Trends survey?

Based on the survey results from those travelers who stated they fly for business more than 50% of the time (with the majority taking more than 10 trips a year) now use lighter, smaller suitcases (61.5%), and check fewer bags (53.8%) than in previous years. In addition, these business travelers use carry‐ons 79.4% of the time.

What are the latest luggage trends?

When purchasing luggage, these business travelers consider luggage size and weight (89.7%) the greatest influence on their luggage purchases, with specialized luggage features and functionality (73%) the second‐most important factor and luggage weight (71.7%) the third factor.

Many of these business travelers included in their responses that they seek the added features and functionality of durable wheels (91%) and retractable handles (71.7%), when purchasing luggage. Several responses also mentioned preferring to switch their airlines to one without baggage fees, such as Southwest Airlines, rather than bringing different luggage. Read more »

The treasure hunt is alive and well. Remember how much fun it was to bury items and then hunt for them, either on your own or with groups of friends? Some people have never tired of that thrill and there are a number of ways you can still enjoy finding buried treasure.

Letterboxing

With letterboxing small boxes are hidden various locations. They contain a unique stamp (which is often handmade) and a logbook. Those are the basics but they may include other things as well. The idea is that when you find a letterbox you use the stamp inside it to stamp your own personal logbook whilst using your own signature stamp to mark the logbook contained in the letterbox. In order to find the letterboxes all you need to do is follow the clues which are left on letterboxing community sites.

Hitchhikers

A twist on letterboxing is that sometimes a letterbox contains another letterbox which the finder must remove and take to another location, placing it inside a third letterbox. Read more »

I’m pleased to announce that the Taking Off Travel Blog is now open to guest posts. Here’s what you need to do if you want to guest post on this blog:

First, search the blog to check that we haven’t already covered the topic that you want to write about. If you’re taking a different angle on something we’ve already covered then that’s fine. Get in touch with me to discuss your idea.

If I like the idea, I’ll ask you to write and submit a guest post of at least 400 words, with a link to an appropriate public domain or creative Commons image to illustrate it. At the end of the post include a two sentence bio with a link to your blog.

Send the post to sharon at parkrideflyusa dot com. If I don’t acknowledge it within a couple of days, send me a tweet (@parkrideflyusa) to check that I’ve received it.

If I am happy with the final post, I will schedule it and let you know when it will appear. Please reply to any comments left on the post and feel free to add your social media promotion efforts to mine.

(Photo: Caveman 92223)

Our latest offer: Park for 3 or more days, and save 10%. Use the coupon code winter10 during the online reservation process. Valid through April 1, 2010.

There are some vehicles that just call your name. Just seeing them makes you want to hop in and take a ride or, even better, own one. Just for fun, I’ve put together my list of vehicles that did that for me. Here’s my list of five vehicles that make traveling cool.

5. Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Nymph submarine

Sir Richard Branson is always travelling in cool vehicles — and I’m not talking about Virgin planes. The Necker Nymph aero submarine is like an underwater plane and can glide on the surface of the water.

4. K.I.T.T.

I’m not the only one to think that KITT was the best thing about the Knight Rider series. A sleek, black, sporty vehicle that talked — and talked back to David Hasselhoff. I’ve always liked the idea of vehicles that could communicate, which is why this makes my list.

Read more »