George Carlin takes on the absurdity of airline safety announcements

We gave Homewood Suites by Hilton an Extra Mile Award last year for its Suite Selection tool, which allows guests to choose their specific room when they check in electronically. (The tool includes floor plans showing where the elevators, ice machines, and local restaurant options are.) At the time, you could only access Suite Selection if you were a Gold or Diamond member of the Hilton HHonors program, but now anyone who has signed up as an HHonors member can use it. This is yet another good reason to always, always sign up for loyalty programs, even if you're not planning on using the company more than once.

In a happy story, the AP recently reported on I Found Your Camera, a website that since February has been posting "orphan pictures" culled from lost digital cameras and memory cards in hopes of getting them back to their owners. The founder of the site, Matt Preprost, was inspired by an entry on PostSecret about a camera found at Lollapalooza. So far, I Found Your Camera has had a high success rate—out of the 60 or so lost devices whose photos have been posted, 8 have been reunited with their owners. I Found Your Camera isn't the only site that's worth visiting if you've lost (or found) a camera. The forum site Camera Found is straightforward, with more in the way of camera descriptions and less in the way of random strangers posing in front of soon-to-be-misplaced lenses (this also makes it much less entertaining). Places like Craigslist probably remain the most popular place for attempting a reunion between people and their property. (Making sure that all electronics have a cell phone number or email address on them couldn't hurt either.) Of course, when it comes to the Internet and strangers, all bets are off. Back in 2006, "Judith," a woman who had lost her camera while on vacation in Hawaii, created a (now offline) blog that tried to re-create her shots using the many Hawaii photos uploaded onto Flickr. She got lots of press, and was even contacted by the Canadian family who had found the camera. Unfortunately, when push came to shove the finders showed themselves reluctant to actually return the lost property—they said that their 9-year-old son just loved it too much to part with it. The family, dubbed "the Bad Samaritans" by the website Boing-Boing, did return the expensive camera in the end, but only after the National Park Service and border control got involved. Goes to show that blogs can't solve every problem in the world, I suppose.

Like my fellow Englishmen, I always love to see Americans visit my country. But over the years, I've seen travelers (not just Americans, admittedly) make some "mistakes." [Please note that I use the word "mistakes" lightly. I don't mean to criticize—I like you! I'm just trying to help you have a better trip.] Here are 4 "mistakes" Americans often make when visiting the United Kingdom. 1. Rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off. Americans characteristically bring with them lists of cities to visit that are greater than the number of days they have to spare. Slow down! Remember to allow enough time to chill out. Better to see three cities in 3 days each than skim the surface of nine cities, with one rushed day in each. Or if you're only here for, say, four days, consider limiting yourself to visiting a few key sites. (And really, you ought to consider staying longer than three or four days. We're a wonderful country, and there's more to see here than London.) 2. Visiting Stonehenge. By all means, call in if you're passing, or head there if prehistory is your passion. But I’m always amazed that this disappointing collection of stones next to a highway is on visitors' must-see list when it wastes a whole day from London. As a child I walked amongst the stones, but now you can only view from behind a barrier. Visit Stratford upon Avon, Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, or York instead, there's so much more to see. 3. Taking suitcases on the Tube. As a London commuter, I've regularly seen tourists struggling up steps in the Underground with bags almost bigger than they are. As a general rule for traveling in Europe, pack light, and take a tube of travel wash instead of a different set of clothes for each week. Backpacks are pretty painless on trains or Underground, and for just walking down the street. Wheeled cases, of course, regularly have to be hauled up and down steps. And to avoid utter misery, don't bring big luggage on the Underground during rush hour, which covers a broader swaths of time than you may expect. 4. Pre-booking absolutely every activity and train ride. Stay flexible. When you're there, you may not feel like that fifteenth side trip in a row, after all! For all but long distances, affordable U.K. train tickets don’t need to be booked in advance, you can buy them on the day, and go where you feel like going that day. (See my earlier blog entry.) —Mark Smith, blogging for our Affordable Europe series. Editor's Note: We originally mistitled this post "6 travel mistakes to avoid." Our apologies; there are clearly only four.