Sherman's Travel

We’ve all been through our fair share of airports. Generally, I’m either running through them or waiting impatiently for my zone on my next flight to be called. But, according to CheapFlight.com‘s recent list, we should be taking a few extra moments to step back and enjoy our airport’s offerings. Read on to find out the awesome services right around the corner from your gate and read our list of top 10 airports for shopping! Read more

Airports: Can’t live with ‘em, can’t fly to dazzling locations across the globe without ‘em. But recently, they’ve made headlines an awful lot. We’ve collected a few choice stories from the skies this week, from good samaritans to free Wi-Fi on flights.

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Any rom-com fan worth their salt knows about the “meet-cute.” For the uninitiated, a meet-cute is when the main couple meets for the first time in an entertaining or adorable way. Single travelers may fantasize about their own airport meet-cute – reaching for the same neck pillow at a duty-free shop, or realizing you’re carrying the same type of pocketknife on board. Now, instead of ineffectively making eyes at anyone in security screening, fliers can orchestrate their own meet-cutes through MeetingAtTheAirport.com.

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You’ve always talked about it, but now you’ve finally done it: you booked your dream vacation. You’ve spent months planning, orchestrating every miniscule detail, but as you touch down, it hits you: you have no way of getting from the airport to your hotel. You have no nearby friends or relatives to fetch you, and taking a taxi means putting a serious dent in your budget. Is your getaway over before it even started? Not to worry. A new feature within the GateGuru app, compatible with Apple and Android devices, ensures a smooth, easy ride.

The company’s partnership with the Avis-Budget Group is a big step in fulfilling GateGuru’s mission to reinvent travel. The latest version of the app, released in October, assists travelers in booking last-minute car rentals. Best of all, working directly with a single rental company allows GateGuru to offer the lowest available pricing. Users can get between 5 and 25 percent knocked off the price, with discounts increasing the closer the reservation is made to the day of travel. The company’s chief executive and co-founder Dan Gellert said the initiative was a result of, “thinking through the current airport rental car experience.”

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Recently, my friend and I took a girls’ getaway to St. Lucia. We were both excited to get away from the office for a week;  we planned on unwinding at the beach on Sunday – the day we left New York – then spending six days swimming, sunning, and sleeping.

Then we looked at our plane tickets. Yes, we were leaving Sunday morning and returning Friday night, but we actually had just four full days in St. Lucia – and eight hours in the San Juan airport in both directions. While more and more direct routes to smaller Caribbean islands are becoming available, the cheapest flights still require layovers, and often long ones, in the Puerto Rican capital. Read more

With the holiday only days away, airlines are making it easy to do last-minute tasks to alleviate pre-holiday stress. Virgin Atlantic is helping out holiday travelers by wrapping gifts. For $2, “Virgin Helpers” will wrap one carry on-sized gift while you’re waiting for your flight home for the holiday. Kiosks will be stationed in Terminal 4 of JFK Airport in New York, after you go through security (since the TSA discourages flyers from packing wrapped gifts). All of the proceeds will benefit the charity Virgin Unite.

At the Toronto-Pearson International Airport, you can arrange for a flyer to be greeted by carolers upon arrival. Through December 24, if you’re flying domestic into Toronto-Pearson, tweet @torontopearson with the person’s name, flight number, and flight date whom you’d like to surprise with some holiday cheer.

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With the cold weather already here and the holidays fast approaching, few things sound as nice as cozying up with your loved ones with hot beverages and warm blankets. Traveling, in contrast, starts to sound less and less appealing. Who wants to spend hours in airports away from family and friends? This holiday season Skype understands your need to connect, and is offering free Wi-Fi at participating airports so that you can video and voice call your loved ones for free, even in the midst of your travels.

From December 21 through the 27, you can get your free hour of Skype Wi-Fi in a snap – all you need is the latest version of Skype (for Macs, PCs, and iOS devices), then log on and search your wireless networks for a Skype hotspot. Over 50 airports are participating across the country, from JFK and LaGuardia to San Francisco. Things to note: The offer includes only video and voice calls to other Skype users, not calls to landlines or mobile phones, and free access is limited to one hour only. Happy calling!

Use our Travel Search price comparison tool to find the lowest rates on hotels, flights, vacation packages, and more travel deals.

There seems to be no shortage of TSA mishap stories these days, from spilled urostomy bags to abandoned body scanner radiation tests. (There are 540 scanners at over 100 airports. Check here to see if you’re traveling to one of them.) Although the TSA is moving toward shoes-on-security-lines, fewer pat-downs, and has even made scanner images less invasive, horror stories still abound.

Most recently, 84-year-old Lenore Zimmerman claims to have been strip searched after avoiding a body scanner she feared would interfere with her defibrillator. The TSA denies the claims, as strip searches are not part of TSA protocol, but the incident has compelled New York lawmakers Sen. Charles Schumer and Sen. Michael Gianaris to release a proposal that calls for a passenger advocate at every airport. This advocate would be available in person whenever a passenger feels that he or she is being inappropriately searched.

The TSA’s advocacy solution: a forthcoming (in January) hotline that passengers with disabilities or medical conditions can call before their flights for information and guidance.

Tell us what you think. Are passenger advocates necessary? Do you have any TSA horror stories? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Use our Travel Search price comparison tool to find the lowest rates on hotels, flights, vacation packages, and more travel deals.

We’ve all been there: Your plane has landed late and you have ten minutes to get to a connecting flight in an airport you’ve never been to. You have to get from the domestic flights to the international flights and you know there’s a shuttle, but you don’t know where it is. You haven’t got the time to wait in line at the information desk or to try and figure out where the “You Are Here” signs are. Enter Google Maps 6.0 with its new indoor maps, complete with floor plans and indoor search and navigation options. Google Maps can take you to whichever gate you need, no time wasted.

Or that’s the theory, at any rate. Currently, Google Maps 6.0 is available only for phones operating with Android OS 2.1 or above, and only in select locations, most of which are airports and department stores. It’s technically only in its beta stage, so it still has a few kinks to work out, as I learned while testing the new feature in the Herald Square Macy’s.

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On November 17, JetBlue threw two parties. The first was at JFK’s Terminal 5, just before 9am, with cupcakes, coffee, smoothies, and a three-man steel band. The second was six hours later in Liberia, Costa Rica, marking the airline’s inaugural flight to the capital of the Guanacaste province, JetBlue’s second Costa Rican destination and 68th overall. That party was co-hosted by the Costa Rican minister of tourism, and started with water cannons over the A320’s fuselage, followed by three men on a marimba, a woman feistily playing a donkey jaw, and six youthful dancers in national dress, featuring lots of flouncy skirts and sashes. To promote the new four-times-weekly flight, the only non-stop to Costa Rica from JFK, one-way fares through February 15 are $119 for tickets bought by November 30, and surfboard surcharges are waived through December 17. (Catching wind of JetBlue’s plans, Continental launched its own daily directs from Newark one week before, but without the donkey-jaw, dancing, or promotions.)

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