Week End Wrap: Internet Takes to UK Streets; Nepal Conflict

Saturday April 22, 2006

^{The Week End Wrap is an editorial take on the week's student travel news and issues.}

Wifi-wanting travelers' theme song should be, "When will I be loved?" Soon, croons the UK. Scotland is bringing the love with new iKiosks, internet street stands with wifi; London already has spendy but handy internet phone booths. In other travel news this week, Bolivia has taken some action in the case of two recently scammed and killed backpackers in La Paz. Read on.

Aberdeen Introduces iKiosks

We've talked about these statistics before: 80 percent of student travelers carry a mobile phone and 21 percent are packing laptops -- that means a lot of wifi-hunting will be happening during this summer's backpacker exodus to Europe. Interactive kiosks, "said to be the most advanced in Europe," (The Scotsman.com) with touch screens enabling access to tourist info and wifi for mobiles, are now in place around Aberdeen, according to news reports today.

London sports internet phone booths near spots student travelers seek out anyway, like popular wallet-drainer Top Shop at right. Dublin, Amsterdam and Berlin are in on the internet-in-phone-booth action, too -- check out a JiWire link to Europe internet phone booth locations.

When will hostels board the wifi-as-amenity wagon? Reviews aimed at flashpackers this week suss out private rooms and wifi wherabouts in two London hostels and budget Regent Palace Hotel in Piccadilly Circus. Here's hoping wifi access hits more Europe hostels by summer. Please, sirs, may we have some more?

Bolivian Police -- Connection to Backpackers' Killers?

South American news reports this week claim a Bolivian Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) tie to the late winter scamming and murder of two Austrian backpackers in La Paz. Peter Rabitsch and Katharina Koller were apparently victims of a common taxi scam after getting off the Copacabana-La Paz bus; $15K was taken from their bank accounts, using the couple's ATM cards. Missing Spanish backpacker Rafael Hernandez Herran is now said to have been killed and his ATM card used by the same La Paz gang.

Koller's and Rabitsch's families and some travelers are signing a petition asking that street ATM daily withdrawal limits in some countries be set to the level of the country’s average weekly wage income to reduce the attraction of ATM card theft.

Don't be frightened off beautiful Bolivia, but remember to take care-- if you're headed that way, read last week's taxi safety tips.

Read petition
Read: "Bolivia Dissolves Judicial Police"
Read: "Backpacker Scams Afoot in Bolivia"

Eastern Europe Flood Woes; France, UK Issue Nepal Travel Warnings

In other world travel news, Eastern Europe travel expert Kerry Kubilius calls pictures of the flooding Danube "heartbreaking" but says residents elsewhere in Eastern Europe are gearing up for tourist season. And escalating conflicts in Nepal caused France and the UK to advise against tourist travel this week; the US government updated a Nepal travel warning on April 12; travel writer Tim Leffel wrote of Nepal this week, "If you want to hike the Himilayas, India is looking like a better bet these days…"

Let the Road Tripping Begin

As longer, sunnier days draw nigh, turn your travel attention to the open American road with some inaugural road trips, time honored (well, for a few decades) ways to get summer's motor running. You need no passport to visit some of this planet's greatest sites -- get some gallons in the tank and take yourself to the Great Smoky Mountains, the Southwest's Monument Valley (one of my personal sacred spots), or the California coast highway. What's near you? Flat land might offer more than you think: the seemingly barren-but-for-sagebrush landscape in northeast Utah hides incredible Echo Canyon in Dinosaur National Monument, for instance. Get your rig ready, assemble the maps and tunes and take a ride.

No one to travel with? Try Craigslist. No where to stay? Try Couchsurfing, and meet like-minded folks while you flop for free.