Join the Fun as Quebec City Turns 400!

Time to brush up on that high school French you've never had a chance to use. If you've never been to Quebec City in Canada, this is the year to go. Quebec City is celebrating its 400th birthday and is pulling out all the stops: a floating dance floor the size of Kansas, roaming costumed opera singers, fireworks, the World Hockey Championships, an 1,800-foot multimedia screen, more fireworks, and parades of giant characters with a grand finale from the always fabulous Cirque du Soleil.

Sometimes called the poor man's Paris, Quebec City evokes favorable comparisons to European cities with its narrow, twisting streets filled with eclectic shops. Horse-drawn carriages, open air markets, galleries, churches, centuries-old buildings, and quaint inns all give Quebec City a distinct Old World flavor. Walking through Quebec City, sampling the shops and restaurants tucked around each bend in the road is a delightful way to spend a day. Walking is the preferred mode of getting around in the city, but you may want to take the funiculars (cable-driven lifts) to navigate some of the steeper steps and slopes. Taxis abound, but try a carriage ride for a delightful visit to the past.

Special events are planned throughout the year, starting with the city's famous Winter Carnival from February 1-17 to the Cirque du Soleil grand finale on October 19. There will be so many amazing things to do and see in Quebec City this year, you may want to book more than one week in a nearby timeshare. If you plan to go for Winter Carnival, the Chalets la Falaise (above, left) are nestled in the mountains in the middle of downhill and cross-country ski country and just minutes from Quebec City. An all-season resort, Chalets la Falaise offer summer boating, whale-watching and are an easy trip to the St. Lawrence River spectacular, The Walking Road, planned for August 15.

No matter when you visit Quebec City this year, prepare to be dazzled. For a complete listing of timeshares available in the Quebec City area, click the post title.

Healthy Year Predicted for Leisure Travel Industry in 2008

Travel industry analysts are predicting a good year in 2008. Travel spending by Americans and foreign visitors is expected to reach $778.2 billion in 2008, an increase of 5.2% over the $740 billion 2007 spending projection. Domestic leisure trips will continue their modest upward trend through 2008. Rising 2.5% in 2007, domestic trips are expected to climb another 2% in 2008 to reach 1.6 billion trips. However, despite the healthy figures, leisure travel rates are still well below those of 2000, a watershed year in the travel industry.

Since 2000, when business travel seems to have peaked, leisure travel has increased by 19%. In the past couple of years, the public appears to have finally recovered from the travel fears generated by the events of 9/11 in 2001. For a few years the travel industry struggled through a significant drop-off in all areas while the public chose to stay close to home. Leisure travel is highly sensitive to the ebbs and flows of the U.S. economy and psyche. It rises during periods of strength and confidence, decreasing during times of consumer fear or doubt. Today, the success or failure of the lodging industry -- hotels, motels, timeshares, residential resorts -- is dependent on leisure travel.

"Even though we are seeing some stresses in U.S. economy such as declining house values and high debt levels, consumers remain quite confident and interested in travel," said Dr. Suzanne Cook, Senior VP of Research for the Travel Industry. "There is more pressure on consumer spending but the consumer is not expected to entrench."

Cook doesn't expect leisure travel patterns to change until gas prices pass $3.50 a gallon, an increasing possibility as competition for oil with China and India continues to drive up the price of crude. Even then, she doesn't expect consumers to give up leisure travel, just travel closer to home. "People value vacations and leisure travel and will do so regardless," she said, noting a subtle slowing of historical heritage tours and outdoor recreation.

The current economic crisis generated by the collapse of the subprime lending industry is not expected to affect the leisure travel industry. “Those that do travel have typically higher income, which is a predictor of travel behavior," said Peter Yesawich, Chairman and CEO of Ypartnership. "I personally think impact on travel business will be less than people think intuitively." Yesawich believes that the majority of consumers affected by the subprime fiasco will be concentrated in that sector of the public that seldom has the financial wherewith all for leisure travel. "Data will reveal that the higher concentration of people who have been adversely affected in subprime market will be among those no travel households,” Yesawich said.

Issues in the airline industry that began with 9/11 have also affected the U.S. leisure travel industry. Cutbacks in airline capacity since 9/11, long flight delays prevalent this summer, lengthy security procedures and rising ticket prices all affect leisure travel. More U.S. consumers are choosing to travel close to home rather than risk losing vacation time to long delays at airports or flight cancellations.

International travel to the U.S., including from Canada and Mexico, has declined 11% since 2000. While today's weak dollar is luring more tourists from overseas, particularly from Japan and Western Europe, leisure travel rates to America are still well below 2000's level. Small increases in leisure travel to the U.S. are projected for 2007 (5.1%) and 2008 (3.7%). U.S. hotels, timeshares and resorts will have to rely primarily on the leisure travel plans of American citizens who, these days, prefer to travel within their own borders.

Travel Logs Capture Precious Memories

Travel logs capture those special moments that make a trip memorable. Sometimes those isolated magical moments transcend the vacation. Unfortunately, the human memory being what it is, those precious memories are often lost if not recorded. But those who keep a travel log capture those moments for all time.

Over the centuries many venerable travelers have kept a journal of their travels. From the adventures of Marco Polo to the diaries of pioneer wives heading west, travel logs provide a window to a specific time and place in our world. They chronicle not just the places, people and activities of a time, but the thoughts and feelings of the people who lived then.

Travel logs come in many flavors. My uncle kept a movie journal of his travels with my aunt. After he retired, they travelled all over the world. He shot rolls and rolls of Super 8 film, then spent hours splicing them together into silent travelogues, complete with placards announcing each new site. Watching them is like travelling back in time. My uncle captured many historic moments and places, some of which no longer exist, like the giant Afghan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban. He and my aunt were on the first tour into China when it reopened to Westerners during the Nixon presidency. The changes in the world my uncle chronicled in his films are startling.

My cousin keeps a highly personal travel log. A writer and an artist, she takes an unlined journal with her on travels. She fills the pages with sketches of local scenes and people, interspersed with paragraphs of her thoughts and perceptions. Sometimes she's fanciful, creating a short story about people she sees or meets. Sometimes she is inspired to write poetry. Her journals are a very personal remembrance of her travels -- what she felt, what she thought, who she met.

A modern gal, my twenty-something niece captures memories of her trips with her digital camera. Since her junior high school band trip she has filled dozens of scrapbooks with snaps of her travels. She enjoys pasting in the pictures and using colorful markers to add captions and blurbs to describe special moments and crazy things that happened with her friends.

Perhaps the best reason to keep a travel log is to help you remember those magical, sometimes comical, sometimes poignant moments that occur during a trip that are, unfortunately, too often forgotten. Re-reading old travel logs brings back a rush of memories and with them the sense of wonder you first experienced.

New Service Lets You Leave Baby Gear at Home

Traveling parents often feel like pack mules lugging around all the gear needed to succor an infant. I've long thought that for such tiny beings, babies consume a disproportionate amount of the available space when a family travels. Strollers, highchairs, car seats, cribs, toys, clothes, diapers, food, bottles -- if you're traveling with an infant, you need them all.

Fortunately enterprising entrepreneurs have come to our rescue. You no longer have to pack half your home when traveling with little ones. Pack light and leave the heavy lifting to others. Vacationers can now rent all the essentials needed by their junior explorers, even toys!

While the market is currently dominated by two companies, the increasing number of traveling families makes this a growth market.

• Baby's Away has affiliates in more than 70 locations nationwide. Daily rental on a full-size crib is $12; and ExerSaucer, $6.


• The Traveling Baby Co. operates in several states with plans to expand. Daily rental on a high-end stroller is $18; a car seat, $8.

While prices might seem extravagant, in reality they're fairly cost effective for vacationers. Avis charges $10 per day for a car seat. Many airlines charge $80 per bag for bags over the free 2-bag limit. And there's no way to pack a crib, bouncy chair or the essential baby swing in a suitcase. However, you can rent just about anything a baby or young child needs from toys to bathtubs, monitors to nursing pillows.

Many savvy parents have started using the rental services when visiting grandparents, even when they live close enough to drive. "It's just easier and it cuts the clutter," said one young mother of two. "After you get two car seats in the back seat and a couple of suitcases and the diaper bag in the trunk, there's not a lot of room for anything else."