Happy Holidays 2013

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate. I am off enjoying family time today, but I wanted to bring you some photos from around town:

This is the most festive shark I've ever seen 

One of the trees at my favorite movie theater

Wine anyone?

How many of you buy or make a yule log?

Technically, this is from my Disney trip, but it is around a town :)

Infographic: What Do You Want From Hotels?

I always look at the inclusions when I plan my vacations. If I'm going to stay at an accommodation, it needs to at least have free Wi-Fi, otherwise, I feel like I'm getting a bad deal. I mean, internet is super-easy for hotels to supply to guests, but a lot of them must think that this is a great way to squeeze some more bucks out of us, instead of being a huge insult. It looks like I'm not the only one who has amenity standards for hotels. Hotels.com polled guests to find out what they want from where they stay. Where do you stand? And does it matter where you're going which amenities you'd rather have?

Super Useful Travel Links

Don't forget to enter our contest for a great pair of work + travel men's pants from Bluff Works.

The holidays are upon us, which means many of you are probably getting ready to travel for Christmas or New Year's. Holidays can bring out the best and worst in people when stressed out, so I've found some fun and helpful links for you this week. Also, if you want to get through airport security a little more quickly and less painfully, check out my last blog post.

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Everyone likes to get gifts, but what if you got a gift just for flying and telling the airline what was on your ultimate wish list? That's exactly what happened for some people on a WestJet flight. Kids and adults both had a great time coming up with things they would love to have and when they got off the plane, they were surprised with gift boxes with their names on it. Would you have loved to be on that flight? I know I would have.

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With ever-shrinking space on airplanes for passengers, it's hard to find more room to spread out. When people encroach on your personal space, you probably start to get a bit grouchy. When I'm busy reading or trying to do a crossword to pass the time, when someone uses my seatback as a handle or hogs the armrest, I can get a bit irritated. The worst though is the person who reclines their seat, giving you even less room to keep your drink or use your tablet. It seems I'm not the only one who wants to start wailing on that person for my extra three inches of space back. Soon, we may see an end to reclining seats, at least on domestic flights.

Ugh! Have you ever been woken up in the middle of a flight just for the flight attendant to ask if your seatbelt is fastened? I hate that! Soon, this may be a thing of the past, as some airlines are looking into getting a new electronic system that will show lights on the aisle when a seatbelt is locked. Thanks to Stuck at the Airport for bringing this story to us.

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Don't you love it when people think they are the only people who have somewhere to be on a holiday (or even on a normal day)? For some  reason, they think anything that goes wrong is a personal attack on them and that everyone should drop everything to make them happy, even if they are doing everything they can. Please don't ruin everyone else's day, like the rude lady on this guy's flight. While he may have taken it a bit far, his point was clear. Stop being a jerk. You may have to see the final outcome of his war against rudeness on Twitter, but it's worth it.

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When you travel, can you identify where you've been on a map? Apparently, that's a feat for some, which means they probably couldn't identify many countries or states that they haven't been to either. Buzzfeed asked Brits to label a map of the United States to see if they could name (correctly) all the states. You'll be surprised what their maps looked like.

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Do you travel alone and look back at your photos with sadness? I don't think many of us do, but blogger and photographer Keisuke Jinushi was so depressed about his lonesome travel pics that he decided to do something about it. By posing for "couples" photos with a non-existent girlfriend on his trips, he now looks back on his travel snaps with happiness. Apparently, he doesn't think back on all the time he wasted taking these pics. Personally, I think his solution to solo travel is rather sad, but you might find it genius. What do you think?

If you really want to make your travels more memorable, how about expanding your horizons by doing something new and throwing yourself into your destination's culture. I promise you'll look back on your trip with more fondness than you would if you had a bunch of fake girlfriend photos in an album.

I hope you took something away from this week's posts. If you found anything cool, unusual or helpful related to travel, leave the link in the comments so the rest can enjoy it too! Happy holiday travel!