Travel News: Why You Need to Fly With Global Entry, Save on NYC Hotels in January, and the World’s Top 50 Beaches
From the best way to breeze through customs to the most perfect beaches on earth, plus unbeatable Big Apple hotel deals that kick off after the holidays, this week’s travel news is all about making 2019 your year to see more of the world.
WHY YOU NEED TO FLY WITH GLOBAL ENTRY
As much as we love international travel, one of the drawbacks has always been the return flight home and the subsequent lines at customs before we’re reunited with our luggage and friends and family. Global Entry, a program of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is perhaps the best solution, a bit like TSA PreCheck for those returning to the U.S. from overseas. If your application for Global Entry is approved, your time spent in line is cut to practically zero, and your reentry is expedited by a self-serve kiosk where you can easily scan necessary documents and head to the baggage carousel. To learn more and start the process of obtaining Global Entry status, which includes a background check and in-person interview, visit cbp.gov. And, as an added bonus, if you don’t already have TSA PreCheck, your approved Global Entry application will include that status as well.
SAVE ON NYC HOTELS IN JANUARY
Start booking your post-holiday getaways by jumping on New York City’s biggest hotel promotion, the eighth annual Hotel Week NYC, with savings of up to 30 percent for January 4 through 14, 2019 (hotelweeknyc.com). Search hotel options in all of the city’s five boroughs (The Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island), get details about design, food options, and room amenities, and filter properties by factors such neighborhood and price (rates for standard rooms are fixed at rates of $100, $200, $300, or $400, which is a big savings in a city where $500/night rates are normal at many properties). “Hotel Week is one of the best times of the year to explore New York. The crowds have dispersed, but the city is still a winter wonderland, and travelers have wonderful options to take advantage of low prices and luxurious hotel amenities,” says Hotel Week NYC founder Nancy J. Friedman. “It’s also a wonderful opportunity for locals to enjoy a staycation and relax after the stressful holiday season without causing a financial hangover.”
WORLD’S TOP 50 BEACHES
If you’re like us, this time of year always stokes a yearning for a warm beach, and our friends at Canada-based FlightNetwork (flightnetwork.com) have swooped in with their World’s Top 50 Beaches 2018, the result of a comprehensive polling of more than 1,200 travel writers, editors, and travel agents from around the world. The top beaches on this year’s list are a big far-flung for Budget Travelers: Shipwreck Beach, Greece, is no. 1 on the list, followed by Whitehaven Beach in the heart of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef region at no. 2. While we are personally big fans of both Shipwreck and Whitehaven, we were also glad to notice that a few Caribbean (read: closer-to-home) beaches ranked quite highly, including Tulum Beach, on Mexico’s Riviera Maya, at no. 5, and Grace Bay, in Turks and Caicos, at no. 6.