Tag: featured

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Who is funny in travel, not counting the TSA?

What’s so funny about travel? That’s what we want you to tell us.  Who do you follow online, even if it’s just yourself, whose tweets, posts, and blogs about travel are  funny and insightful, and, we would hope, at least occasionally prompt readers to consider legal action?

Send their names to Bob Payne’s travel humor website BobCarriesOn.com, and, if you’ve got it handy, a link to an example of what they’ve done that makes you laugh. Based on your suggestions, we will put together a list of nominations for 2013 top ten creators of funniest travel tweets, posts, and blogs, and let the world vote.

Winners will be announced in January and recognized on BobCarriesOn.com with an example of their humor and a link that will lead you to more.

If the response is great enough, we’ll continue the recognition with a weekly favorite. So make us laugh by leaving your suggestions in a comment here, or leave a message at Facebook,  Google+, or  Twitter.

BigStock photo.

 

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Budget travel group Arthur Frommer Rocks: 2013 Top Ten Places Not to Look For Free Rocks

Economy minded travelers have long known that one secret to staying within your travel budget is to limit your souvenirs to free rocks.

“In addition to the financial savings, the great thing about free rocks is that you can collect them almost anywhere, except of course Plymouth Rock and Ayres Rock, and probably Mount Rushmore, and the Grand Canyon, and the Petrified Forest, and Stonehenge” said Bob Payne, a spokesperson for the rock group Arthur Frommer Rocks.

“Adding to the popularity of collecting free rocks is that unless you employ a jack hammer the environmental impact is relatively small, and it is a low-risk activity, just as long as you don’t fill your pockets and then immediately take an over-water journey,” Payne said.

But recently a problem has arisen for rock-collecting travelers, the Arthur Frommer Rocks spokesperson said. “Unscrupulous tourism promoters have been bringing in rocks from China and trying to pass them off as local.

“Often, the only way you can tell a counterfeit rock is if it has the words ‘For Foreign Tourists’ stamped on it in Chinese characters,” Payne said. “And most vacation travelers are just not interested in exercising that level of scrutiny.”

So for several years now, Arthur Frommer Rocks has been helping those travelers by producing a Top Ten list of places where free rocks are not likely to be the genuine article. Here’s the list for 2013:

Rock City, Tennessee

Warning enough should be that the claim made that seven states can be seen from atop this natural tourist attraction’s well-known lookout point, Lover’s Leap, has been amended to read “seven states and the Great Wall of China.”

Hard Rock Café

Even if you do find a local rock here it is likely to have been chiseled into an arrowhead, which the entertainment chain’s current owner, Florida’s Seminole Indians, may well put a curse on you for removing.

Rocking Horse Ranch

The sight of rocks wearing saddles tells you all you need to know.

Rocky Mountains

Now that recreational use of marijuana has been legalized in Colorado many, visitors to the Rocky Mountains often have trouble distinguishing free rocks from a bag of Jalapeno Cheetos, to the delight of local dentists.

Rock of Gibraltar

The problem here is that there is only one rock, and it is 1,400 feet high, making it much too big to slip inconspicuously into a tote bag.

Rockefeller Plaza

The television comedy series 30 Rock, named after a Rockefeller Plaza address, is scheduled to air its final episode on January 31, 2013, so any authentic rocks that may have been lying around were long ago used as skit material by the show’s head writer, Tina Fey, who is said to be working now on a similar show for the Chinese, tentatively named 30 Lock.

Rock Resorts

Be careful at this group of seven luxury resorts because it’s the old story of the room rates being so high that the free rocks hardly matter

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

When rocks have their own hall of fame, expect poseurs, wannabes, and Chinese counterfeit artists to be everywhere. That said, even a fake Neil Diamond can sometimes make a nice collectible.

When not heading the budget travel group Arthur Frommer Rocks, travel humor writer Bob Payne is the editor in chief of BobCarriesOn.com

Dean Franklin/Wikipedia photo.

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Costco to start own airline, allow passengers to buy tickets in bulk

Retail giant Costco, which has become one of America’s most successful companies by reacting adroitly to consumer trends, may be latching onto another commercial bonanza with its decision to start its own low-cost carrier, Kirkland Air.

“Airlines today don’t want to be in aviation, they want to be in high-volume merchandising, from snack foods to leg room; and who does that better than we do?” said Bob Payne, Costco’s newly appointed vice president for airline development.

Payne said that while airlines now recognize that flying is the least of it, they have not proven all that sophisticated, despite what the public might think, when it comes to squeezing charges out of customers for items they didn’t even know they needed, especially in oversize amounts.

“That’s where we have the competitive advantage,” Payne said. “For cost efficiencies we’ll be operating a fleet of our own Kirkland 425 jetliners, manufactured right at our corporate headquarters; but our main thrust will be in selling high-volume ancillary products that traditional airlines haven’t even considered, such as cabin oxygen.”

Payne said his research indicates that the flying public should react well to the Kirkland Air approach, especially when they learn that they can save substantially by buying single-destination tickets in quantities large enough to last an average-size family up to seven years.

“That should be enough to offset the backlash anticipated from the realization that in order to fly with us you’ll have to become a Kirkland Air Gold Star Club member, for an annual fee of $495,” Payne said.

Travel humor writer Bob Payne, who is editor in chief of BobCarriesOn.com, also works part time as an airline analyst for the snack food industry.

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Somebody went to the Vatican and all I got was this lousy papal dispensation

With a recession-pinched Vatican City short of ready cash and looking for ways to get tourists to contribute directly to the restoration of the famed Bernini colonnade surrounding St. Peter’s Square, it was only a matter of time before someone thought of t-shirts.

“We were already selling commemorative stamps, but hardly anyone uses stamps anymore, so we decided to try something our target audience would find more practical and could have a little fun with,” said Monsignor Bob Payne, who heads up all fundraising efforts for the Catholic Church that the Pope would rather not know about.

Payne said that after Rome saw how successful t-shirts were in the promotion of the Hard Rock Cafe brand, they thought they’d be a natural for the Vatican, especially because the church’s prohibition against bare shoulders in St. Peter’s Basilica means that visitors are always open to the idea of purchasing a cover-up, and are in no position to haggle over price.

Sales so far have been brisk, the monsignor said, with some of the best-selling ecclesiastically-inspired messages including these:

I rode the Papal bull.

What do you think of these eggs, Benedict?

Who are all these kids, and why do they keep calling me father?

Women should have the right to choose, the Pope.

It’s funnier in Latin.

Pray for beer.

Chastity, poverty, obedience? Where’s the train station?

The Catholic church is cautiously optimistic about the fund-raising potential of the t-shirt program, but wants to move carefully, Payne said.

“You may remember how well our “Wash away your sins with Pope-On-A-Rope” campaign started out and what a disaster that proved,” Payne said.

Although still available commercially, the figure of the Pope molded into a bar of soap that hangs from a string in the bathroom turned out to produce an extremely litigious reaction among people who were uncomfortable with the image of themselves sharing a shower with a cleric.

“We are still in the courts over that one,” Payne said.

Travel humor writer Bob Payne serves as a monsignor at the Vatican on weekends.

Bigstock photo.

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Full body scanners found to improve health of air travelers

In a startling study released today by the Travel Health Association of America, it has been found that while air travelers may complain about full body scanners, they may be benefitting from them, too.

“It appears that the fear of having one’s overweight, out-of-shape, naked body seen by anyone who can get a job at the TSA, or who has a friend who can, has encouraged air travelers to lose an average of 15 pounds since the machines were introduced in 2007,” said Travel Health Association spokesperson Bob Payne.

Adding support to the findings, Payne said, are that diet program and health club memberships among air travelers have increased “significantly” during the same period.

The results are so positive, Payne said, that the American Medical Association has suggested the TSA occasionally leak, or at least spread rumors that they might, an image of someone who could clearly benefit from losing a few pounds.

“The government will want to be careful, though,” Payne said, “because you remember the public relations disaster that resulted from trying to gain acceptance for the machines by having the images of all female passengers look like those of Brittany Spears.”

For readers who don’t recall, far too many agents, based on the results of the imaging, were attempting to propose to Spears, and Spears, in far too many cases, was accepting, slowing the already time-consuming screening process even further.

In one cautionary note, Payne warned that while very promising, the results of the study are not conclusive. “It could just be that the cancer-producing waves used in the imaging technology are suppressing appetite,” he said.

 

In addition to his duties at the Travel Health Association, travel humor writer Bob Payne works weekends for the TSA.

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Scientists discover Google Maps is wrong; Australia does not exist

 

Scientists who surprised the international community last week with word that a sizeable Pacific island shown on Google Maps is in fact imaginary, made an even more startling announcement today with the news that Australia does not exist.

“It’s something we’ve suspected for a long time,” said researcher Bob Payne, of the New Zealand School of Geographic Research, who said red flags were raised as far back as 1770, when James Cook, claiming the supposed land down under for Britain, insisted that natives he’d encountered really did show him something they called a didgeridoo.

“Recently, doubts increased even more when alleged Australians claimed to have dominance over New Zealand in rugby, clearly something not possible in the real world,” Payne said.

The New Zealand School spokesman said that after noticing that the supposed continent appeared on Google maps a scientific team went to investigate, but at the co-ordinates given found nothing but a sea of Fosters Lager bottles.

Contacted by Payne, Google’s only comment was: “If we made a mistake, we apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused.”

 

When not serving in his role as spokesman for The New Zealand School of Geographic Research, travel humor writer Bob Payne is the editor in chief of BobCarriesOn.com.

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