Should airports censor what you can read on WiFi?

This winter, the Caribbean island of St. Lucia changed the way it collects its departure tax. Up until now, you had to keep $26 in U.S. cash on hand during your trip to pay at the airport on your way out of the country. But now, when you buy a ticket, the tax is automatically added. (Note: For the handful of folks who bought tickets last year for travel this year, you still have to pay the tax at the airport on departure.) As you may know, many countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa expect you to pay a departure tax when you check in at their airports. Some countries insist that you pay in the local currency; others in U.S. dollars. Some let you pay at the check-in gate. Others, such as Argentina, require you to go to a separate counter and pay. I don't know about you, but I much prefer to pay a tax when I buy a ticket with a credit card. That way, I don't have to remember to save exact change in U.S. dollars to pay the tax at the end of my trip. I also prefer to have the total cost of the flights be clear up-front, to help me with my budgeting. Do you have any thoughts about travel taxes? Feel free to post a comment.

Airlines lower fares on different routes everyday without advertising the price cuts. A fare could be $400 today and $98 tomorrow. And then $500 the next day. To book the absolutely lowest possible fare, you have to look at fares on the routes you want to fly every single day for a few weeks, and then adjust your schedule to whenever the fare is lowest. That's what the folks at Airfarewatchdog.com try to do with their email newsletter. In a new feature, you can choose your city-to-city routes or departure cities and how often you'd like to be alerted to fare changes. The service is free. You have to hand over your email address, but the site promises not to sell or share email addresses, and hasn't done so in many years of operation. Another perk: It's the only airfares web site that tracks all airlines, including Southwest, as well as promo code airfares. The catch, of course, is that you have to have a trigger finger that's ready to book your ticket as soon as you see a good deal. Many of the deals that Airfarewatchdog finds are here-now-gone-an-hour-from-now. So be sure to act fast.

Responding to the growing interest in sustainable travel, the publisher has released a new book, Green Travel (recently $15 at Amazon.com), that reviews 120 ecolodges and environmentally friendly hotels around the world and advises people how to be more socially conscious on vacation. The guide describes the steps that each hotel has taken to be green: The Fairmont Chicago, for instance, has installed wind-powered computers and donates used bars of soap to homeless shelters.