Israel: "Walk in the footsteps of the Virgin Mary"

By Sean O'Neill
October 3, 2012
blog_nativitychurch_original.jpg
Courtesy <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/emeryjl/507851636/" target="_blank">emeryjl/Flickr</a>

Tourism officials in Israel now offer a free, do-it-yourself guide

to walking in the footsteps of Jesus's mother, says the Associated Press.

The booklet, which includes information on the historical sites, their operating hours, and

accessibility issues for the physically impaired, is being distributed to tourism wholesalers and tour operators. To get the booklet, go to the tourism ministry's special Catholic site: holyland-pilgrimage.org.

Download the 59-page PDF by clicking here. (Some web browsers may require you to download free Adobe Acrobat software to be able to read this free document.)

Each month, Israel tourism sends out an e-mail newsletter with updated travel news relevant to Christian pilgrims. Sign up by clicking here.

Last year, 3.45 million tourists visited Israel. More than two-thirds were Christian, with more than half Catholic. One of the most popular sites is Bethlehem's The Basilica of the Nativity. The church protects the cave that's said to be the where Jesus was born.

Many of the sites of historical significance are part of territory controlled by the Palestinian Authority. American visitors can pass to all of these sites using their visa to enter Israel.

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Travel Tips

Hotels: Choose your own room, for a fee

Some major hotels have a question: Would you pay a fee&mdash;say, $20&mdash;if you could pick your own room assignment? Here's the backstory: Today, you usually only book a "type of room." When you reserve, say, a "superior double," you don't know where in the hotel your room will be. But some hotels would like to change that. They want to show you online floor plans, with details about each room's size, amenities, and location. Based on that information, you could then pick the room you want, within 36 hours or so of check-in. The result: No more being placed next to the ice machine or above a noisy hotel bar. To help make your decision, you could check out the room's rating on an independent room review site. Is a room quiet? Is the hotel's WiFi signal strong from this room? if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('c73db9dc-5da3-49ea-8d5e-2b5e2686dd43');Get the Poll Creator Pro widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)Case in point: New review site, Room 77. It aims to show how previous guests have rated 425,000 rooms at "three-star and better" hotels in 16 cities. It also offers photos of the views from each room. But Room 77 doesn't allow booking of individual rooms&mdash;yet. The company is in talks with Starwood to let people book individual rooms, reports CNET. Hotels now want to do for rooms what airlines have long done with seats. Airlines, as you know, let all fliers pick their seat assignments. But they set aside their best seats for their most profitable customers. United charges extra for its Premium Economy seats, Spirit sells upgrades to its Big Front Seats at the gate (from $25), and Continental often holds its roomiest seats for elite members of its frequent flier program, Elite Access. Hotels have been slowly rolling out similar offerings for room assignments. Already, most Hilton Hotels let HHonors rewards members choose their room number ahead of arrival. Homewood Suites goes one better with its room-picking option. As the blog Tnooz has reported, anyone who completes an online profile can reserve an exact room. A guest makes a reservation and then, within 36 hours of their check-in, selects his or her suite. Guests pick up their key at the front desk. Demand will be high for the best rooms, of course. So, hotels are likely to start charging a fee for reserving them. As a rule, hotels can't simply raise the rates on these rooms up front. The problem is that they can never be sure until the last-minute how many rooms they have. Cancellations and other factors make things complicated. So room assignments are generally made at the eleventh-hour. A hotel wanting to charge extra for a premier room assignment would need to have a separate fee close to the check-in time. What are your thoughts? Would you pay a $20 fee if you could reserve a specific hotel room? Vote in our poll! (And assume you have TripAdvisor-style information about the room's quality from a site like Room 77.) (Special shout-out to reporter Dennis Schaal who has done more to report on the significance of Room 77 than any other reporter, for USA Today and Tnooz. This post borrows heavily from his reporting.) In the meantime, here are some Budget Travel tips on how to boost your chances of landing a hotel's best room at check-in. 1. Ask, and you may receive. At check-in, politely ask the front desk clerk. This works better late in the day or at an off-peak time, such as during a weekend at a hotel in a financial district. 2. Join loyalty programs. 3. Tip your way up. A spare $20, discreetly offered, may get you a better room. But don't get angry if you don't get the room you want. It's a tip in the hope of better service, not a guarantee. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL What's a guy gotta do to get a seat assignment around here? (35+ comments) Check out our new Cities pages, with hotel recommendations for Las Vegas, New York City, and more Budget Travel's best hotels coverage

Travel Tips

How to make a first-class sandwich for a flight

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Pretty soon, there will be no such thing as free pretzels on a flight, either. On March 1, Continental stopped giving free snacks to coach-class passengers on its domestic flights. Continental is copying the no-snacks policy of its merger partner, United. [This move was first reported by Cleveland's The Plain Dealer.] Delta, Southwest, and Frontier are among the last holdouts in offering snacks. So&hellip;what to eat? For flights of two hours or less, pack nuts. Walnuts and almonds are some of the high-protein, low-calorie options. For longer flights, try crackers and cheese sticks, or fruit and granola bars. What about making a sandwich? In 2007, Budget Travel checked in with the executive chef of New York City's popular sandwich chain 'Wichcraft for advice. Follow these tricks, and your sandwich will stay appetizing for hours. MAKE A FIRST-CLASS SANDWICH &bull; Go for thick bread. Bagels, baguettes, and ciabattas&mdash;soak up flavors without getting soggy. (If you're conscious of carbohydrates, use a whole wheat tortilla instead&mdash;but toast it first by holding it over your stovetop's flame until lightly brown.) &bull; Mustard travels well. It packs a lot of flavor, and it doesn't spoil. At your airport food court, grab a single-serve package for your flight. (Hate mustard? Try a dab of olive oil or pesto, instead, because either one will stay fresher longer than mayonnaise.) &bull; Skip the meat. It won't stay well. &bull; Go for romaine lettuce. It retains its crispness for hours on end. &bull; Use cheese. (Assuming you're not lactose intolerant, of course). Cheese&mdash;especially hard, aged cheese&mdash;can stay at room temperature for many hours. &bull; Wrap your sandwich in wax paper. Then cut it in half before you hit the road. &bull; Fruit can cleanse your palate. Pack sliced fruit, like watermelon, in a plastic food container. So, what are your tips for packing snacks and sandwiches for a flight? Please share 'em, by posting a comment below. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL How to Make a First-Class Sandwich 6 Places Germs Breed in a Plane How to Take Better Food Photos

Travel Tips

Bed bugs take to the skies

Just when you thought you had put bed bugs out of your mind, they show up again, in the most unlikely of places, most recently having made an appearance on a British Airways flight. As reported in the Daily Mail, British Airways fumigated one of its planes last month after a passenger complained of being badly bitten by bed bugs. The passenger, 28-year-old Zane Selkirk, created a website devoted to her ordeal, ba-bites.com, on which she writes that she had "two horrendous flights" in January and February on British Airways. "During the first, I turned on my light to find bugs crawling on my blanket and a bedbug-blood-spattered shirt. On the return journey, I left my 10-hour flight to find my body covered with 90 bug bites." (Be warned, she posted some pretty graphic photos of her bites!) According to the Daily Mail, BA confirmed that bugs had been found on one of the planes, which had flown from Los Angeles to Heathrow, and fumigated the aircraft before putting it back into service. BA did not confirm an infestation on Selkirk's second flight, from Bangalore to Heathrow. Last fall, the bed bug epidemic in New York spread from popular retail stores to movie theatres. And now with this latest news, it would appear that even our airspace isn't safe. As if reading into our (okay, my) collectively increasing paranoid consciousness, riding the subway the other day, I saw an advertisement for a new iPhone bed bug app&mdash;BedBugs 101, which purports to be a "comprehensive reference guide for locating and identifying bed bugs, loaded with information, images and detailed travel tips." And for those that want to further arm themselves with information and products, Budget Travel asked for reader's tips on the matter (there are some good ones) in a recent post. And in January, Budget Travel's Editor in Chief Nina Willdorf gave advice on packing a bed bug-free suitcase on NBC's the Today Show. More from Budget Travel: They Want to Suck Your Blood Should taxpayers fund the war against bedbugs? A Neat Freak's Guide to a Clean Suitcase

Travel Tips

What's the biggest phone bill you've ever been socked with after returning from a trip?

There are many enticing new travel apps to use while abroad, but beware, you may become afflicted with Bill Shock. "Bill shock" is the sudden, unexpected increase in your mobile phone bill from one month to the next. If you've experienced it, you're not alone. According to an FCC survey, 30 million people&mdash;or one in six&mdash;experienced "bill shock" in just two months in 2010. One of the biggest types of complaints the FCC received last year concerned international roaming charges consumers ran up while abroad without realizing it. We here at Budget Travel can attest to that: One of our editors returned from a trip to Turks &amp; Caicos with a homecoming gift of a $900 phone bill. These bills happen because if you aren't using Wi-Fi to check your email, Internet, or your QR code app, you are therefore using your data roaming, and are charged a pretty penny&mdash;or just over a penny to be exact&mdash;at $.0195 per kilobyte. So if you're downloading a five megapixel picture from an email, that's about 2 megabytes of data, or an expensive $40. (Here are some handy tips on how to avoid these crazy charges.) Of course we don't expect these services to be free while abroad, but do they have to be so much? According to the European Union, they don't. The EU has put an end to the "roaming rip-off" by creating blanket standards for all nations within the EU so Europeans who make calls or send texts can "experience the EU's single market without borders." There is a wholesale cap of &euro;1 per megabyte downloaded so as to lesson those pesky data roaming charges, and no roamed call in another EU country can cost more than &euro;0.43 per minute. Automatic alerts are now mandated when a consumer is about to approach the limits of their text, voice, and data plans, and when they are about to incur roaming charges. Hopefully soon the US will follow suit. The FCC has been investigating phone-billing practices for more than a year now and often mediates between consumers and their carriers, helping the consumer achieve compensation. (You can file your bill shock complaint here.) The FCC acknowledges that alerts when consumers are nearing their text, voice, and data limits could help avoid bill shock, but so far, no strict rules have been passed. The largest complaint the FCC received in the first half of 2010 was for $68,505! What's the biggest phone bill you've ever been socked with when you returned home? See more from Budget Travel The 10 Most Travel-Inspiring Films of the Year Take an Affordable Safari How to Survive 10 Travel Emergencies