Travel

How do you wrap an adrenaline rush, put a bow on a mind-blowing experience or help your sweetheart check off something on their bucket list for Valentine's Day? Smartbox offers a solution -- and free shipping until February 14.

Cleverly packaged in a CD-like box, each Smartbox contains a gift card and a themed guide book of activities. Your recipient can choose one experience from the extensive list, and will have up to a year and a half to redeem it.

Themes are categorized with monikers such as, "Discovery," "Serenity," "Adventure," "Gourmet" and "Fun for All," Just reading the descriptions of things to do in California gets the imagination going: "Battle down whitewater rapids, hang ten on a surf board, defy gravity in a wind tunnel, build your endurance while rock climbing or simply kayak and discover the beautiful scenery that surrounds you." They had me at defy gravity.

All aboard! It was announced on January 28 that California, Florida, Illinois, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Washington have been given the green light to start construction on high-speed railways that will cut down travel time and make traveling from city-to-city, or even city-to-state, much more accessible -- in a fashion similar to the bullet trains in Japan and Europe.

"Through the Recovery Act, we are making the largest investment in infrastructure since the Interstate Highway System was created, putting Americans to work rebuilding our roads, bridges, and waterways for the future," said President Obama in a White House Statement.

Adventurer and airplane magnate Sir Richard Branson wants to take you on a pioneering underwater airplane ride. All you need is a swimsuit, an airplane ticket to his private island in the Caribbean, and $138,000.

For the price of a three-bedroom, two-bath home in Omaha, Neb., couples can take Branson's new Necker Nymph aero submarine for a test dive during a seven-day stay at his swanky getaway on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands. The price includes an $88,000 weekly charter fee for Necker Belle, a 105-foot catamaran which will act as the winged sub's launchpad.

Developed by Point Richmond, Calif.-based Hawkes Ocean Technologies, the three-passenger sub glides on the water's surface "like an aeroplane on a runway," according to a statement from Virgin Limited Edition, the luxury arm of Virgin hotels.

Disneyland may indeed be the happiest place on Earth. At least, that would help explain why the park's extremely expensive and exclusive Club 33 has managed to accrue a 14-year long waiting list -- in the middle of a recession.

Located behind a nondescript green door marked "33" in Disneyland's New Orleans Square, the members-only five-star restaurant was built by Walt Disney in 1967 as a place where he could privately entertain guests and dignitaries that visited the theme park. However, Walt passed away before he could enjoy the highly-rated food and the unique features that he had installed in the club, including talking chandeliers and a mechanical vulture who can participate in the dinner chit-chat.

It's the hottest new theme park opening in a decade: Universal Orlando Resort's Islands of Adventure park is putting the finishing touches on its feverishly anticipated The Wizarding World of Harry Potter section. This Sunday, Feb. 7, the world gets a sneak peek at the new 20-acre attraction when a top secret commercial airs during the Saints-Colts Super Bowl battle. Among the surprises: Daniel Radcliffe himself appears as Harry Potter to promote the opening, which was designed with the full cooperation and approval of series author J.K. Rowling. Guess what, Potterheads? WalletPop.com has an exclusive first online look at the entire spot.

Get out the barbells. It's time to do more lifting to prepare for heftier carry-on bags. That's because airline passengers may be hit with even more expensive baggage fees following a little-noticed recent development.

In a victory for cash-strapped airlines still struggling with lagging demand and high oil prices, the Internal Revenue Service ruled last week that the federal government cannot tax bag fees.

Speaking on behalf of the industry -- which is worried Congress will tax a bevy of additional fees that have angered already beleaguered travelers -- an unidentified carrier asked the IRS to rule on the matter.

People often complain that Disney's too expensive, and they have a point. But now and then, the company comes through for money-savers, as it did when it created the Value category of hotel room at its Florida resort. Now, perhaps spurred by the necessity of the recession, the company has just announced a cheaper version of its luxury-priced Adventures by Disney escorted tours.

They're called the Gateway Collection, and they're made less expensive because they strip out some of the activities that fill the itineraries of the more expensive versions, plus replace the top-line hotels with quite decent mid-line ones. There are currently three scaled-down tours on sale, and naturally, they're of the most popular destinations: Costa Rica, Italy, and a London/Paris combination.

Traveling with small children is a sherpa-like experience that tests not only strength, endurance and patience, but also creativity and negotiation skills. Nowadays, it has now also become expensive, thanks to the new baggage fees airlines are charging.

In the past, frazzled families checked luggage under the plane leaving "hands free" (haha) to tote diaper bags, backpacks of books and toys, 20-lb car seats, jackets, a purse, snacks -- and, oops, the kids! Amazing Race contestants have nothing on parents traveling with toddlers. But Thanks to ever increasing baggage fees, frugal families now have to carry on their luggage as well. It just adds to the hell of traveling with small children. What can you do?

Louise Stoll, a former Assistant Secretary within the Department of Transportation, and grandmother of nine, did something about it.

She remembers her "Aha moment" like this: "My daughter, Miriam, came to visit us and stepped off the plane carrying a 2-year-old toddler, a 20 pound car seat, a diaper bag, and she was 7-months pregnant! I thought there had to be a better way and I went home and started to draw pictures of what I though a child safety device designed for airplanes -- not cars -- ought to look like. My husband, an attorney, looked at the sketches and sent me to a patent attorney."

In the best spirit of, "If all you have is lemons, make lemonade", a Los Angeles group has launched tours of the local gang turf.

Tourists for whom "Cops" is just not real enough can visit the killing ground of the city's notorious drug and crime-infested area.

The bus tours of the city's notorious South Central section are led by guides from the area who know first-hand its history of crime and the gritty details of inner city life.

Among the many snazzy gizmos unveiled at the recent Consumer Electronics Show was a new electric-assist bicycle, the $2,300 Eneloop Hybrid.

The bike features a lithium-ion battery that, when engaged, can take a rider up to 46 miles on a single charge, and recharges as the rider brakes. In Auto mode, it recognizes when the rider is going uphill and delivers more power to compensate for it.

This and other electric-assist bicycles promise to bring the possibility of 2-wheeled commuting to a much wider population of couch potatoes. It also poses a threat to the fast-growing American network of bike paths and trails.

When federal funds are used to build a trail, electric bikes are not permitted unless state or local authorities permit it. Most states don't bother to define an electric-assist bike or put limits to their usage, and most don't require a license to operate.

Lots of people use YouTube and other video sharing sites to upload videos taken on their vacations. But when it comes to footage of your last trip to Disneyland, a park run by corporate masters who are famously vigilant in protecting their intellectual rights with lawsuits, you may want to keep those videos to yourself.

As it turns out, corporate lawyers for theme parks have every right to come down on you like a ton of bricks for posting videos of their client's lucrative creations, including banjo-playing bears or live versions of Beauty and the Beast. Indeed, you could theoretically get sued for posting a video of your daughter's first ride on Peter Pan's Flight and sharing it with everyone you know.

Port-au-Prince's airport terminal is shattered, electricity is off, and all services decimated, but there's still one way to get into Haiti: by sea. Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas is scheduled to call on the north coast three times next week, the first such visit since the quake. The port is undamaged, and the line would have returned on Friday, except it's waiting for the green light from the local government to resume its regular stops. (Update: USA Today reports the Independence of the Seas will visit Haiti as planned on Friday, and it's bringing relief supplies to be distributed by Food for the Poor.)

One of the most clever recent tactics of the cruise lines has been the creation of "private" islands and beaches scattered throughout the Caribbean. Disney Cruise Line's is in the Bahamas. Royal Caribbean, and its sister line Celebrity, have one in Haiti. It's not near the tattered capital, but on the north coast, far from the turmoil, protected by fences and cordoned off from the rest of the country by a curtain of mountains.

Ships dock on the scenic peninsula -- which Royal Caribbean has registered under the name Labadee -- in the morning at around 8 a.m., spend the day at the beach, and leave before dinner. Passengers, who are not given the papers that allow them to leave the grounds of the resort, have no contact with the surrounding country except within the tightly controlled zone around the ship. There, they make memories zip lining, para-sailing, and enjoying a newly-built aqua park.

This hermetically sealed, fantasy version of the Caribbean is secreted in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. This dichotomy has long irked some travelers as inauthentic and decadent, and the criticisms intensified by the on-board descriptions of the port, which often omitted its location in Haiti (the web-based itineraries are clear about it). But this week, this arrangement marks the only happy arrival of foreigners outside of aid workers and emergency services. Haiti needs it.

Hey, is the recession over or something? Must be, because the airlines have suddenly decided to go crazy, raising our baggage fees again. Continental started it, hiking its domestic rates a jaw-dropping $10, from $15 to $25 for the first bag. The second bag now costs $35, up from $25.

In the wake of the recent incident on a Northwest/Delta flight over the holidays, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been working to develop more comprehensive security scanners.

The hope is that these enhanced screenings will be able to detect explosives smuggled on the bodies of passengers.

To date, the TSA has deployed two types of scanning systems:

Millimeter wave technology, which uses low-level radio waves in the millimeter wave spectrum. Two rotating antennae cover the passenger from head to toe with low-level RF energy. The scan takes about 40 seconds, and produces a fuzzy negative-like image that will reveal anything that could be stashed under the passenger's clothes.

Living in a snowy, mountainous state, one quickly learns that it's essential to embrace the snow or risk a serious case of cabin fever. And that's why Vermonters, Coloradans and others living near ski slopes quickly pick up on the secrets of alpine resorts to avoid getting snowed by high rates and inaccurate snow coverage reports.

It's important to realize that, like shopping in general, one never has to pay the MSRP for lift tickets. Discounts are to be had, although it can take a bit of digging and planning to find them, according to SmartMoney magazine.