Sherman's Travel

Once again, the holidays are upon us. Mailboxes are over brimming with holiday catalogs and in-boxes are jammed with travel gift ideas. As in past years, there are too many choices. And, as in past years, bad ones outnumber the good. Therefore, our family travel gift guide committee (me) has sprung into action, weeding through the many gadget, apparel, and accessory offerings out there so you don’t have to.

Here now are my favorite products, almost all of them new for 2012. And if they’re not, they simply deserve to be recommended once again.

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I’m overdue for a good SkyMall Tuesday rant. It’s not as easy as you think to find the positives in every single SkyMall product. It often takes a great deal of soul searching, probing, and alcohol. This week, however, I just don’t have the strength to put up the fight (also, drinking at the office is strongly discouraged). So, instead, I’m going to vent a bit. Here we go: pet strollers are idiotic. They’re mind-bogglingly insane. Dogs are living things. They are (in most instances) ambulatory when left to their own devices thanks to the propulsion created by what we in the science biz call legs. They happen to have four of them, which is double (or 100 percent more) than we have. THEY CAN WALK! They can run. They can jump. Why are people pushing able-bodied dogs around in strollers when these animals need exercise, enjoy going for walk, and even benefit from the occasional run? Because people are just terrible. And so is the Pet Gear Travel System. Read more

The animal kingdom must have a vendetta against the airline business. In October, a plane crash survivor blamed an escaped crocodile for a jet’s mysterious plummet from the skies above the Congo; that same month, officials at the Denver International Airport accused rascally rabbits of chomping on soy-based car parts in its Pikes Peak Shuttle parking lot; and yesterday, a Manchester Terrier who bit two people onboard a US Airways flight from Newark to Phoenix convinced the pilot to make an emergency pit stop in Pittsburgh.

The pooch – a 12-pound dog named Mandy, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – was let loose from her carrier mid-flight and bit one passenger and one flight attendant. Although the bites were minor, the pilot decided to land and find medical attention for the two victims.
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Dogs have been mans best friend for centuries, and they are finally starting to get some much-deserved love from the hotel industry. If your pooch needs a little R&R, book a room at the Hotel de Luxe in downtown Portland, OR. 

A trip back in time to the golden days of Hollywood, Hotel de Luxe is heavy on perks… for your pup. 

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