When Flying, Nothing Like Home
How’s the view up there? United Airlines has found a favorite occupation of passengers is looking out of the window for a glimpse of their homes.
A Harris survey commissioned by United, which dealt with some of the less-than-burning issues facing air travelers, found that 45 percent of people who look out the window try to pick out their homes, but only 29 percent are successful.
Monkey business: Tracking monkeys and manatees in Costa Rica, searching for prehistoric rock images in Baja California, collecting plant samples in Brazil and frogs in Kenya are among the projects offered this year through the University Research Expedition Program at the University of California, Berkeley.
More than two dozen expeditions ranging in length from two to three weeks are offered in 1996; tax-deductible costs range from $800 to $1,900. For more information and a free catalog, call UREP at (510) 642-6586.
Checking ID: If you’re planning to use an airline ticket issued in someone else’s name, think again: The airlines are now requiring passengers to show a photo ID at check-in under tightened airport security rules. So if you are using someone else’s ticket and you must get to your destination, you might end up having to buy a far more costly ticket on the spot.
The ID rule is part of a security alert ordered by the FAA after the convictions in the New York bombing conspiracy trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine others, and in anticipation of possible terrorist trouble over Mideast peace accords and the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.
But the rule also plays into the hands of the airlines, which forbid using someone else’s ticket. Federal regulations also require people to fly under their own name.
Riding the rails: The American Orient Express, which begins its second year of transcontinental rail trips between Los Angeles and Washington in March, will add a series of eight-night national park excursions and an eight-night opera trip in the West.
The train, made up of coaches from the 1940s and 50s, has six sleepers, two dining cars, two club cars and the observation car New York, which served for 20 years on the 20th Century Limited.
Stops on the transcontinental trips include Charlottesville, Va., New Orleans, San Antonio, Santa Fe, N.M., and Flagstaff, Ariz. Lecturers travel with the train and discuss such highlights as the Shenandoah Valley, the Mississippi River and the Grand Canyon.
The national park excursions operate between Santa Fe and Denver and include stops at Grants, N.M., for visits to Acoma pueblo and El Morro National Monument; Flagstaff, with side trips to Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monuments; the Grand Canyon stop on the old Santa Fe spur line from Williams, Ariz.; Cedar City, Utah, for visits to Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks and Salt Lake City, for a side trip to the Golden Spike National Historic Site in Promontory, Utah. From Denver, passengers are taken by bus about 80 miles to Rocky Mountain National Park, and stay overnight nearby.
Fares for the transcontinental trips are $4,990 to $7,450 a person in double occupancy, including side trips and most meals. Fares for the national park excursions are $3,990 to $6,450. For information, call TCS Expeditions in Seattle at (800) 727-7477.