On msnbc.com’s new blog, the Overhead Bin, I posted a short note about a new contest designed to reward a “travel hero” who saved someone’s trip by doing a good deed or a random act of kindness.

Travel Guard, a travel insurance company that last year hosted the World’s Unluckiest Travel Contest, is back with World’s Unluckiest Traveler 2: The Rescue and asking people to send in their stories. The winning good-deed-doer gets a $10,000 vacation. The storyteller gets a pair of round-trip plane tickets to any destination in the U.S.

Find out more on the Overhead Bin.

Categories: Contests
No Comments »

Dick Tracy had a two-way wrist radio.

On the 60s TV show, Get Smart, Agent 86 had that infamous shoe phone.

Now there’s the M-Dress: a little black dress that the designers at CuteCircuit describe as a “functional soft electronics mobile phone.”

Here’s how they say it will work:

“The wearer inserts their usual SIM card in the small slot underneath the label and the dress is ready to be used, having the same phone number as your usual phone. When the dress rings, the simple gesture of bringing your hand to the ear will allow the sensor to open the call and when done talking the gesture of releasing the hand downwards will close the call.”

Sounds strange, but somewhat promising, especially if you’re hoping to travel light.

But don’t throw away your iPhone just yet: back in 2006, the same company now touting the M-Dress (“Coming Soon” says the website) invented a sensor-embedded shirt that lets people transmit hugs.

Time Magazine gave the shirt a Best Inventions of the Year award, but the hug shirt has yet to hit the market.

Categories: Fun Stuff, Technology
1 Comment »

Do you travel with your pooch?

If you take your dog to the airport, it’s good to know where the pet rest areas are located.

The folks at PetFriendlyTravel.com recently dropped me a note to let me know that they’ve updated their list of airline pet policies and the database listing the location of pet relief areas at airports.

And, just in time for summer, they’ve also updated the list of beaches that welcome dogs.

Photo via Flickr Commons

Categories: Air Travel, Pets
No Comments »

Each Sunday the focus here is on fun and offbeat stuff you can buy when you’re stuck at the airport.

This week, we take a look at some fun and offbeat stuff you can buy and take to the airport.

Air Wear, whose products are found on-line and in a shop at Los Angeles International Airport, has a fun line of travel bags, notebooks, coffee mugs and assorted travel accessories bearing logos for airport city codes around the world.

Right now the catalog includes logo-emblazoned items for airports in more than 130 cities. Included on the list are classics such as JFK, SFO and LAX, but GIG (Rio de Janeiro), MAD (Madrid), PEK (Peking) and SEX (Sembach, Germany) are also on the list.

Surprisingly, there’s nothing on the list from Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City Iowa, where the airport code is SUX. But that airport has its own line of SUX-memorabilia.

Don’t see your favorite airport on the Air Wear list? Don’t worry. For an extra design fee that’s a smidge less than $10 they’ll put the airport code of your choice on any of their stock items.

Curious about how airports get their codes?

Here’s a fun 300-second explanation from our buddy Kevin Maxwell:

Categories: Airports, Souvenir Sunday, Souvenirs, Stuck at the Airport
1 Comment »

Forget the backrub. There’s now a fish pedicure spa at London’s busy Stansted Airport.

In a new airport offering, travelers can put their bare feet into aquariums filled with Garra Rufa or ‘doctor fish’ and let the fish nibble away at the dead skin.

This is in the news because it’s the first fish spa at a London airport, but it’s not the first airport fish spa.

A branch of Refresh Bodyworks at Singapore’s Changi Airport also offers passengers the opportunity to have their feet “polished” by fish.

The nibbling fish aren’t the only animals being put to work at airports.

In Germany, bees will help monitor the air quality around the new Berlin Brandenburg International Airport (BBI), which is being built on the grounds of Schoenefeld Airport.

According to a statement from the airport, honey, honeycombs and bees belonging to beekeepers in the region will be monitored for signs of pollution caused by air traffic.

This isn’t the first airport to enlist bees. According to a June, 2010 article in the NYT, there are also bees on duty at Dusseldorf International and seven other German airports.

And while we’re buzzing about bees:

More than a dozen Fairmont Hotels in Canada, the US and other countries also have bees on duty.

Most have rooftop hives, but the Fairmont Vancouver Airport has 24 colonies at McDonald Beach Park, five minutes from the airport. The hotels use the harvested honey in everything from cocktails and special restaurant dishes to soap and honey sticks.

In my neck of the woods, the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle is just now getting five rooftop hives and the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C. is getting 10.

Sweet!

Categories: Air Travel, Airports, Fun Stuff, Spas
No Comments »