Tripipedia: Guidebook trounces tech gadgets in travel challenge

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, May 29, 2009 | by Ann Tatko-Peterson

Tech trounced in showdown

Don't relegate those old-fashioned guidebooks to the dust piles of eight-tracks and Beta tapes just yet.

Conde Nast Traveler magazine recently sent three reporters to Moscow to undertake the typical tourist activities of finding a hotel, restaurant and attractions. One had an iPhone, another the BlackBerry Bold and the third a paper guidebook.

The writer using "Eyewitness Guide to Moscow" prevailed. Blame that on Moscow's slow data network, which made downloading information excruciating and drained batteries so the devices were essentially useless.

While the guidebook writer needed only 45 minutes to find a hotel for less than $300 a night with no reservation, the BlackBerry user took two hours and the iPhone user required more than three hours.

Details: www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/500791.

Caught on camera

Urinating in the great outdoors just got two seasonal workers at Yellowstone National Park fired. A live webcam caught the employees relieving themselves in the Old Faithful geyser, which was not erupting at the time.

A 23-year-old man was fined $750, placed on three years of unsupervised probation and banned from Yellowstone for two years. The other employee's case is pending.

A more appropriate punishment should have involved a few hundred portable potties and a scrub brush.

Nerve-racking landings

The world's 10 scariest runaways, according to Travel Leisure.

1. Paro Airport, Bhutan

2. Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Maarten (pictured)

3. Reagan National Airport, Washington, D.C.

4. Gibraltar Airport, Gibraltar

5. Matekane Airstrip, Lesotho

6. Barra Airport, Scotland

7. Toncontin Airport, Tegucigalpa, Honduras

8. John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York

9. Madeira Airport, Funchal

10. Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Saba, Netherlands Antilles

Breathe easy

This just in: A scientific study has found that shark-cage dive tours on Oahu's North Shore are safe. Good to know -- eight years after the tours started operating.

-- Ann Tatko-Peterson