Wanna get away? With all apologies to Southwest Airlines, it's not looking like the travel industry is going to get a boost from Bush's economic stimulus package: Only one in five of approximately 1,000 respondents to a recent USA Today/Gallup Poll said they were likely to use part or all of their rebates for vacation or travel, and 64% said they were not at all likely to do so.

That's not stopping hotels across the country from trying to tempt Americans to stimulate the economy by indulging their wanderlust. Until May 13, travelers who book a vacation package to cities like New Orleans, New York, Vegas and Nashville through Expedia's Explore America can save up to 30% on hotel stays. But you've gotta go between May 23 and Sept. 5.

If you're looking for lodgings by the beach, a slew of Virginia Beach hotels are offering their own economic stimulus packages. Among these are a "Romantic Weekend Getaway" at the Cavalier Hotel, where for $159-$319 per night through June 19, couples can get a room and indulge in complimentary champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries, then take a free one-hour bike ride to work it all off.

If your vacation is more of a family affair, get thee to the Clarion Resort Beach Quarters Resort for its "Virginia Beach Break-Away Package": two nights' stay, tickets to the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center, tickets to the Virginia Zoo and dinner at Pi-zzeria for $399 through June.

If you are among the lucky few who can take advantage of these deals, I enviously wish you bon voyage. I'll be thinking of you as I'm using my rebate to pay for past credit indiscretions and thumbing hungrily through old vacation photos from my boom years.

A few years back, in the hazy, mythical days of 2004, my wife and I took a trip to Eastern Europe. The dollar was strong then, and an underpaid English instructor and his bookstore-staffer girlfriend could travel like royalty on the other side of the former Iron curtain.

We wandered all over, reveling in the grotesque history of the area and its rich, potato-based cuisine. Finally, we drifted into Brno, eager to see the city's famed freeze-dried Capuchin monks. Unfortunately, the monastery was closed for the winter, but we vowed that someday, somehow, we would venture back and revel in the wonder of dead, shriveled monks.

About a year after we came back to the U.S., Gelitin, a Vienna-based art collective, unveiled what may be the coolest public art project since England's Cerne Abbas chalk sculpture. Gelitin's "Rabbit" is a 200-foot long pink bunny that is sprawled across a hill in Italy's Piedmont region. Filled with straw, the stuffed animal is made of soft cloth and features "guts" that are artfully strewn around it. Visitors are encouraged to crawl all over the bunny, reveling in its weird texture and grotesque design.

Last weekend, my wife and I went to Roosevelt Island, which we had never visited before. While checking out the ruins of a former smallpox hospital and the gorgeous cherry blossoms that line the shore, we also happened to look over at the U.N. headquarters. We were horrified to discover just how dingy and nasty the structures were. While the U.N. has always been a little strange looking, it was starting to get downright grubby. The beautiful blue Secretariat tower looked grayish, and the General Assembly building, which was once gleaming white, now resembled a scuffed sneaker.

Apparently, the interior is also showing its age. Constructed in the early 1950's, the buildings have exposed asbestos insulation, dripping pipes, leaks, and lead paint. Although the U.N. is on international territory, and is thus not required to comply with New York City safety codes, it racked up an amazing 866 violations during a courtesy inspection last year. After years of spirited debate, the headquarters has finally been scheduled to undergo a massive, $1.9 billion renovation, which is expected to take five years.

Rather than find short-term housing elsewhere, the United Nations has decided to construct a gargantuan pre-fab building on the North Lawn of the complex. Ultimately, the U.N. hopes to return the North Lawn to its current, empty, state, so the new home has been designed to be "intentionally ugly," in the same style as "a Costco or a Wal-Mart." The cost of dismantling the eyesore has been factored into the overall project budget. Hopefully, this will ensure that the temporary building will be just that: temporary.

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. Having spent much of his childhood in "temporary" classrooms constructed from trailers, he hails the U.N.'s decision.

For under $2,000, you can buy a brand-new vehicle that will get 100 mpg, and can be parked almost anywhere. With gas at $4 and heading up, perhaps it's time we took another look at the world's answer to cheap transportation, the scooter.

I'm not suggesting the old-style two-stroke, high polluting pieces of crap, but modern, high-quality machines from manufacturers such as Honda.

For example, check out the--

Honda Metropolitan, $1,899. Honda matches classic scooter styling with a 49 cc. four stroke liquid-cooled engine for a ride capable of carrying you 100 miles or so on a gallon of petrol. Talk about cutting down the cost of transportation.

Yamaha Vino, $1,949. This scoot features a comparable engine to the Honda, and gets around 110 mpg. It too has classic European styling and Yamaha quality.

Vespa still has plenty of dogs in this hunt, including the Piaggio Fly50, a 50 cc. four-stroke selling for $1,849. It also captures the scooter cache with handsome styling.

Of course, scooters have limitations, primarily weather. Riding them in traffic takes some practice and skill, and taking a motorcycle training course from the Motorcycle Safety Institute would greatly improve your skills. But with gas going nowhere but up, a little two-wheeled fun might help keep your budget from running out of gas.

Good news for frequent flyers, especially frequently delayed flyers; the government just doubled payments for getting bumped due to overbooking. Starting May 19th consumers who are delayed 1-4 hours by being bumped will be eligible to receive up to $400 and travelers on international flights delayed more than 4 hours can receive up to $800. These new amounts would replace a voucher many airlines give out during overbookings.

These new rules may be just the kick in the rear that airlines need to stop overbooking on so many flights. Hitting the wallet of a company has long proved to be the impetus needed for change. Unfortunately these increased penalties for overbooking may have a negative affect. Cash strapped airlines may go out of business if they have to start shelling out double for overbooking. If we loose too many competitors then decreased competition coupled with high oil prices could relegate air travel back to the elite!

I'm certainly not advocating for airlines to get off scott free. I have spent a fair share of time stuck in O'hare airport due to cancellations and overbookings. If I am traveling alone or not in a hurry I would definitely sit for several more hours for a couple hundred bucks, provided I can find a power outlet and wifi. Now if only the Department of Transportation could work out a passenger bill of rights.

Gina Henry-Cook is a speaker, writer and tour-guide, who makes the rounds of community schools teaching a one-evening program on traveling free. She covers everything from the obvious -- saving money on airline tickets and hotels -- to funding your travel with air courier flights, teaching, writing and mystery shopping. I bought her booklet, "Free Vacations" and it's one of the very few things that I go back to over and over again, plotting my eventual travels. Published by GoGlobal, Inc., the booklet is stuffed with real information and hundreds of website addresses.

Henry-Cook advises using one airline credit card (every $1 charged equals one mile) purchasing everything from big ticket items to things you normally buy -- groceries, restaurant bills, gas, clothes, stamps, etc.) on that credit card. This tip is only for those of you who can trust yourself. She rotates the card annually to get the free miles on sign-up (with no annual free, of course). Another suggestion -- dress like a business or first-class traveler and be first at the gate, in search of a free upgrade to Business or First-class. Improve your chances of getting "bumped" (for a future free air ticket) -- an offer you can make at the same time you let the attendant at the gate know that you're looking for the free upgrade.

The booklet also covers Mystery Shopping assignments (getting paid to evaluate services, cleanliness and quality at hotels, restaurants and other businesses) which can mean free meals, flights, hotels stays, car rentals and merchandise -- and contact information for mystery shopping companies.

As I've mentioned before, I used to teach college. Although I still gripe from time to time about the downsides of teaching -- the poor pay, the administration, the poor pay, the push for political correctness, the poor pay -- I have to admit that there were a few bright aspects. I loved working with students, I enjoyed having a big office, and I really, really appreciated the health care.

Working for a state-supported university in Virginia, my health care was very cheap. In return for a premium of less than $100 a month, my wife, daughter, and I all received medical and dental benefits that, in retrospect, were pretty outstanding. To give you an idea, my daughter's birth cost my wife and I less than $300; taking into account all the prenatal visits and whatnot, I think it still came out to under $500.

Recently, I've been having some dental work done. Now that I am no longer employed by the state, I have come to realize just how great my deal was. As a further lesson, my sister has been in and out of the hospital for the past few months with a chronic liver problem that she has had since she was a baby. As an artist, she makes very little money, but, luckily, Pennsylvania's Medicaid is outstanding, as are the programs at the Geisinger Clinic, the hospital that is treating her. Otherwise, she would probably be in debt for the rest of her life.

The airline industry is clearly in a crisis situation, thanks to the high oil prices. Several have filed bankruptcy. Others are talking about merging with others. All of them are hiking fees and fares, but it may not be enough to save them. How many airlines will be left standing in the next year or two? No one seems to know.

American Airlines is reportedly losing $3 million a day, and that can't go on indefinitely. Experts say that the industry just can't survive if oil is going to cost $120 per barrel. They say passengers won't pay the kinds of fares it would take to keep the airlines profitable with fuel that expensive. There is a certain amount of fuel that must be used in the airplanes currently flying, and that amount of fuel means flights can't be profitable.

Even mergers, which typically can help beat-up companies as they are able to collectively cut costs by eliminating duplicated jobs and services post-merger, might not help. And even though the concept of airlines losing money isn't a new one (haven't most of them been losing money for years on end?) they're now in a unique position: Most cost-cutting measures have been taken and there is little else to cut.

I moan a lot about how poorly the airlines treat their customers. And with the addition of all sorts of fees for everything from a drink of water to bringing two suitcases on your trip, the race is on to see which airline can treat its customers worst.

UK company Thompson Solutions has created a better airline seat they call the "The Cozy Suite." I already know what you're thinking. First class doesn't need another perk on their trip. But these seats – believe it or not – are made specifically for coach travelers.

The key to comfort for these seats is their staggered design. Three people are no longer crammed directly next to each other. Each passenger is slightly in front of or behind the person next to them, giving the illusion of more room. The seats even add seating capacity to some flights (depending on the configuration the airline chooses) which should make them more appealing to airline management. If airlines choose the configuration that does not add capacity, the seats then end up being two-inches wider than a normal coach seat. Yahoo!!!

A lot of design time went into these seats, with the most important part of the process... watching passengers to see how they sat and slept while on flights. Wired reports that Delta is the first airline that will be using the seats. They're scheduled to install them in 100 airplanes used for transatlantic flights, beginning in 2010. I'm all in favor of anything that will offer some level of comfort on flights!

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

Over the weekend, Consumerist posted a story about a family that got "kicked off" a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. It cost the Cortes family $3,000 to get home afterward. Shame on the ship, right? Wrong.

The ship did the right thing, and some of the details are here. The situation was simple: Zoie Cortes, seven months old, got sick on the ship and was vomiting and had diarrhea. The family took her to the ship's doctor, who said she was dehydrated and should receive treatment at a hospital.

The ship was leaving port in 10 minutes, so they had to move quickly to get their things and get off the ship to go to the hospital. The Cortes family went to a hospital in Nassau, and the staff diagnosed the baby with a cold. Not serious at all. The family was then in a position where they had to get themselves to the next port to meet the ship or go home. Had they purchased travel insurance, those costs would have been covered. They did not purchase travel insurance, so the cost is their own.

This idea could go places.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that sometime in mid-May, SmartBike DC, a bicycle-sharing program, is going to get moving.

Metal racks are appearing throughout the city, enough for 120 red three-speed bicycles. For $40 bucks a year, bikes can be rented as many times as a person wants--though each rental can last no longer than three hours, and the hours are restricted from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. (If you don't bring it back within three hours, you're charged $200.)

Are you one of those rare individuals who takes travel video that is interesting, well composed, and coherant? If you, you may be able to offset part of your vacation costs by selling your video to LonelyPlanet.tv. The internet travel video site pays $500 for those inspiring, unusual or transcendent video experiences.

Samples of previously purchased videos are available on its web site. You'll note the common attributes; excellent narrator, arresting pictures, personality and out-of-the-mainstream subjects. Niagara Falls probably won't suit the bill, unless you happen to fall in and keep the camera rolling on your way down.

Thanks Gadling

This post is part of a series about real-life signs we're in a recession.

It was all set. Family friends in New York had invited us to come out and visit, and my two kids and I were all on board. In theory. Our plans were set at a reunion the previous summer. Fares are cheap! I told them. We'll all be out!

But that was before things got a little tighter. March came and went. I emailed my friends with the bad news: Sorry guys; the money's just not in the budget anymore. Can't justify the expense. They totally understood. They were hard up, too. Maybe next year, we imagined.

But maybe not. Seems a lot of people are canceling or dramatically altering discretionary travel these days.

Reuters is reporting that the 24th richest man in the world is planning on spending $150 million starting a magazine, web site and TV station called -- get ready -- Snob.

Snob has slightly a different meaning in Russia. They think of a snob as someone who has made a lot of money in life and is entitled to brag about it if they want. In America, of course, we see a snob as someone who looks down on others who aren't as rich or as classy, and thus, the rest of us tend to look down on snobs. At any rate, Andrei Shmarov, one of the billionaire creating Snob, told Reuters, "It's for people who are successful and those who want to be successful."

The web site will be out in June, the magazine in July, and it will focus on lifestyle, business and travel articles. The cable channel will follow shortly after that.

The bad news for the airlines just keeps coming, doesn't it? Today, Delta announced a loss of over $6 billion for last quarter. Northwest announced a loss of over $4 billion for last quarter. And the two want to combine to make a double-digit billions per quarter loser of an airline.

Fuel costs are killing the airline industry, although I don't think many would disagree that for several years now, the management of most of the airlines has been sketchy. The airlines have simply had cost structures that made it hard to consistently make money.

As airlines go out of business, file for bankruptcy protection but continue operations, or try to combine to form more powerful companies, the consumers are the big losers. Never mind how much shareholders of the airlines stand to lose. Consumers are the ones who feel the direct pinch of airline industry problems.