In the Old Quarter of Hanoi

So much information spins past us every day that it’s hard to take a break and process it, much less record it for later. So here are a few travel articles I wrote or I’m in that have appeared recently. Lots more to come as the year goes on, but I’ll continue to try to keep the broadcasting to a minimum.

Some of my recent travel writing

The Viator Blog published a piece I wrote on the Buda side of Budapest.

Global Traveler magazine published an article on my time in Hanoi this past summer with my family – Hanoi: Up to Speed

I also had one in there on Mexico City at Night and did a short web piece on the new Microsoft Windows tablets.

Over at Practical Travel Gear, where I’m editor, we all rounded up our picks for the best travel gear of the year in 2012.

Some shout-outs from others on The World’s Cheapest Destinations

Kara from The Vacation Gals was the first to put up a review of the new edition.

EuroCheapo asked me 4 Cheapo Travel Questions

This time last month I did an interview with Gadling on cheap travel destinations.

I had fun participating in this Round-the-world chat with Adam and Sean from BootnAll via Google+ and Twitter.

You can always keep up with me via the RSS feed here or by following me on Twitter – @TimLeffel.

If it’s your first time visiting a foreign city, you may want to pay close attention to where that flight is actually landing. In some world capitals, even the main airport is a long hike from the center, especially Narita for Tokyo and Seoul’s shiny airport, which is more than an hour away by bus or train, in Inchon.

The big problem though is when your flight to, say, Paris isn’t going to the Paris airport. Last month Budget Travel magazine ran an article on where some of those budget European flights land and how long it’s going to take you to get to the city center from them.

For example, that Air Berlin, RyanAir, or EasyJet flight to London will actually land 32 miles away at Stansted. The train to Liverpool Street station takes 45 minutes and will cost you 21 pounds—about $33.

A Wizz Air flight to Munich is actually touching down in Memmingen, 63 miles away. It’ll cost you almost 30 euros to take the express bus to the city.

Going to Barcelona? The budget airlines flights marked as such actually go to Girona, which is 62 miles away. The 75-minute bus ride after you get your luggage will cost 12 euros.

Most of Latin America is not developed enough that this is an issue—budget airlines are a rarity outside of Brazil and Mexico. The big one to watch out for though is Mexico City. Many airlines (including Spirit and similar Aerobus) fly to Toluca instead, which is an hour outside the city on a good day with not much traffic. The public transportation options are very limited too even if your Spanish is good.

Sometimes this extra hike can be worth it if the fare is low enough after factoring in all the extra fees. Or if you’re on some kind of package tour where you’re all piling into a vehicle together, then no worries. Otherwise, you’ll need to run the numbers with a calculator to see if the savings add up.

Have you gotten an unwanted surprise when traveling to a foreign city?

Zacatecas - older than Boston, and safer

There’s been a lot of news coverage about violence in Mexico, very little of it bothering to note that Mexico is a huge country with thirty-some states and that a) almost all of that violence is narco-related and b) you can count the number of tourists affected on one hand.

Meanwhile, according to the FBI, “An estimated 15,241 persons were murdered nationwide in 2009″ in the United States of America.

Officially, 111 U.S. citizens were killed in Mexico last year, a third in just two cities. Almost all of them were involved in illicit vocations, usually the trafficking of guns, drugs, or people across the border. This is 111 out of close to 8 million visitors, with nearly 1 million of those being part- or full-time residents choosing Mexico over the U.S. or Canada.

You know who else had 111 murders in one year recently? Boston. And Las Vegas. And Orlando. Are any tourists scared of going to those places?

Meanwhile, almost 1,000 U.S. citizens died in Puerto Rico. Nobody running the news desks cares about Puerto Rico or has an incentive to make people scared of Puerto Ricans (by nature, they can’t be “illegal immigrants”), so this isn’t widely reported.

Then there’s the U.S. proper, which can’t get a State Department travel alert because it’s, well, not a foreign country. How’s your city doing in comparison to Mexico when it comes to the annual numbers?

Atlanta  - city, 80 murders. Atlanta MSA (metropolitan statistical area), 325 murders
Baltimore – 238 city, 298 MSA
Boston – 50 city, 111 MSA
Dallas/Ft. Worth – 210 city, 310 MSA
Detroit – 365 city, 447 MSA
Houston – 287 city, 462 MSA
Indianapolis – 100 city, 111 MSA
Jacksonville, FL – 99 city, 120 MSA
Kansas City – 100 city, 163 MSA
Las Vegas – 111 city, 133 MSA
Los Angeles – 312 city, 768 MSA
Miami  - 59 city, 377 Miami to Boca Raton corridor
New Orleans – 174 city, 252 MSA
New York City – 471 city, 778 MSA
Orlando – 28 city, 111 MSA
Philadelphia – 302 city, 436 MSA
Phoenix – 122 city, 302 MSA
San Francisco – 45 city, 292 MSA
St. Louis – 143 city, 210 MSA
Washington, DC – 143 city, 325 MSA

To put things in perspective, the murder rate in the Yucatan state of Mexico is 2 per 100,000. That’s about the same as Fond du Lac, Wisconsin or Evansville, Indiana. Mexico City’s is 8 per 100,000. Despite being one of the most populated cities on the planet, that’s on par with Albuquerque, NM. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never felt scared in Albuquerque…

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