How Come Fewer and Fewer Americans Are Going Camping?

Hotel booking site Dayuse-Hotels.com is a one-trick pony, but it's an interesting trick. The year-old site allows guests to reserve rooms in boutique hotels for daytime sessions lasting about three to seven hours. Starting in February, Dayuse-Hotels will add upscale properties in New York City, its first U.S. destination, to its existing roster of properties in Paris and London, plus cities in Belgium, Luxeumbourg and Switzerland, according to a scoop by London's Daily Mail. There are a few reasons why people might want to rent a hotel room during the day for a few hours. Business meetings, maybe. Or naps. But Dayuse-Hotels isn't shy about admitting that most of its users are probably booking for a romantic tête-à-tête. The concept of love hotel in Japan and Brazil has been around for a while, and this website is simply upgrading the idea by applying it to posh hotels. The recent rough economic climate has apparently inspired many hoteliers to maximize use of rooms when they're often vacant, namely, during the day. We don't know yet which New York City hotels will be participating. But the list of hotels already available in Europe via the site could grace the pages of any classy travel magazine. Take, for instance, Hotel Athénée Paris, a luxury four-star designer hotel by Jacques Garcia. You can book one of its rooms decorated in homage to the operas La Traviata, Faust, and Don Giovanni (with bold red curtains and velvet-lined couches) for €150, or about $200, via the site. That's not cheap but it's more than a third off the rate for staying over for the night. What do you think about this news? Sound off by posting a comment. SEE MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL 5 Oddest Historical Replicas in the U.S. How the Most-Hated Airline Fee Became a Huge Success A Coffee Addict's Guide to the World

Many taxi cab drivers will try to rip off travelers. (Hey, sometimes the obvious thing needs to be said.) Getting nicked for a few bucks isn’t a big deal, but being conned by a cabbie can ruin one’s impression of a destination. No national or international organization tracks statistics on cab scams, and many drivers are surely honest. That said, we all know that each and every city in the world has its unscrupulous drivers. Case in point: In 2010, authorities in New York City had to arrest 59 cabdrivers who were busted ripping off passengers for more than 70,000 rides over the years, with up to 2,000 cabbies accused of intentionally conning customers at one time or another. To avoid getting “taken for a ride—literally—follow the following precautions. 1. Before you reach your destination, ballpark how much your airport cab ride should cost. Ask friends, check a guide book, or look at the lists of typical route rates on Taxi Prices or Price of Travel. 2. Before you leave the airport, get local currency in small bills and coins. A common ruse by cabbies is to claim they don’t have the change to break large bills, prompting you to overpay. 3. Download free apps to help you look up licensed cabs on the fly. For example, Taxi Magic works in more than 25 US cities (free, iPhone/iPad, Android, Blackberry, Palm; taximagic.com). 4. Only take licensed taxis. These are regulated and require drivers to show a license with a photo. The riskiest rides are with drivers who hang out at airports without official identification. Some of these have extorted passengers for hundreds of dollars, holding their luggage hostage. 5. Agree to a price before you get into the car. And make sure it includes your whole group and the cost of luggage, not per person. 6. Look at a map ahead of time if you're going somewhere complicated. When a driver has a wide choice of routes, he or she may be tempted to take you the long way around to puff up the fare. One way to avoid this ruse is to show the driver the route you would like to follow on a map. This move can be a polite way of showing that you know where you’re going and how long the trip should take without overtly antagonizing the cabbie. 7. Don’t insult the cabbie by accident. If you assume the worst from the start, you may insult the cabbie, which can create its own problems. Have tips of your own? Please share them with other readers by posting a comment! SEE MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL Quiz: Can You Spot the Travel Rip-off? New York City Launches a New Taxi Sharing Service\ So, What's That "Sale" Flight Really Going to Cost Me?

Soon, you won't have to ask that question, because airfare ads will have to include all mandatory taxes and fees. When does a $59 flight cost a lot more than $59? Pretty much always. By now, most travelers understand the annoying particulars of the typical airfare sale, in which prominently listed flight prices are followed by tiny asterisks. In the fine print below, it's inevitably revealed that all sorts of additional (and mandatory) taxes, fees, and surcharges aren't included in the featured prices. Figuring out exactly how the traveler actually has to pay out of pocket for such the flight requires a visit to a booking engine or the airline's website. In some cases, it turns out that the true cost of the flight is 10 percent, or even 20 percent more than what was advertised. All of this rigmarole should soon disappear, though. Starting on Jan. 26, 2012, the Department of Transportation states that all "carriers will be required, among other things, to include all government taxes and fees in every advertised fare." As a result, the prices travelers see in ads are the full prices, in their entirety, that travelers can expect to pay (provided availability). Hopefully, this will mean that fewer travelers feel like they've been subjected to a bait-and-switch, in which the fare that first attracted them to book is replaced by a flight that isn't quite as good a deal. In the months before the new rules take place, the DOT has gotten more aggressive in dealing with airlines that fail to properly information regarding fees and taxes. In early January, the DOT fined AirTran $60,000 because the airline's website listed routes and prices in one place, but failed to provide details regarding taxes and fees in the same spot. (To get that info, a customer had to scroll way down to the bottom of the page.) Likewise, in November, Spirit Airlines was fined $50,000 by the DOT for the way it advertised $9 fares on billboards and posters and made consumers jump through multiple hoops before revealing mandatory taxes and fees, along with the requirement that to qualify for such a fare, a round–trip purchase was necessary. Mind you, it's only the non–optional taxes and fees that must be included in advertised fares. A wide range of optional fees, including those for baggage, seat selection, in–flight entertainment and refreshments, won't be included in the fares you see. For some travelers, these fees will come as a most unpleasant surprise. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL: How the Most Hated Airline Fee Became a Huge Success Airlines Add "Carbon Fee" for Passengers Between U.S. and Europe Introducing the $450 Checked Baggage Fee

How's this for upsetting? Many airlines have been turning nonstop transatlantic flights into stopovers due to strong headwinds on the way from Europe. The Wall Street Journal had the scoop that Continental Airlines, owned by United, had to divert of 43 of 1,100 flights headed to Newark and Washington's Dulles Airport in December. That's a fairly large number, and about three times the rate of a year earlier. The trips all involved Boeing 757s, an aircraft that has a shorter range and holds less fuel than a larger Boeing 777. US Airways and American Airlines had to divert planes to Canada or Iceland, too, though they don't use as many of the aircraft (featuring only 170 to 220 seats) for routes across the Atlantic, reports USA Today. Flying a smaller aircraft across the ocean increases the chance of unscheduled stops because its fuel tanks aren't as large. If that's a concern for you, be sure to opt for flights on planes that are larger, like Boeing 777s or A380s. You can see jetliner information listed in the details of a flight before you buy a ticket. Picking a larger aircraft is one way to reduce the chance of an unscheduled pit stops in Canada on your way back from Europe or the Middle East. If you need to make a flight connection, that can be an important factor. Headwinds on flights returning to the US from Europe have been blowing more than average, or about 54 miles per hour, compared with the 28 mph typically, according to Bloomberg. United may googlenews_wsj" target="_blank">add auxiliary fuel tanks to its smaller panes jetliners, according to the Wall Street Journal. SEE MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL Airlines Add "Carbon Fee" for Passengers Between U.S. and Europe Tests Show FAA Should Relax Rules About Electronics on Planes Airlines: 4 Best Uses of Facebook and Twitter for Fliers in 2011