Tip: Bring a power cord to share

More than 60 readers have written in with their picks for most notable tourism slogans. Robert asks about Australia's doozy of a slogan: "Where the bloody hell are you?" That one certainly gained some free P.R., but not always positive, as it was banned in some countries. Kristine writes in about her home state, whose current slogan is: "Kansas, As big as you think." I live here and I have no idea what that means! Most people have no idea where we are except "somewhere in the middle?" How would they know how big (or not) Kansas really is?? Sure wouldn't make me want to come here. Jerry offers a current classic: "I Feel Slovenia." This tourism slogan is slightly less hilarious if you boldface the "love" part of "Slovenia"—but not much. It's a shame. The awkward slogan makes Slovenia—beautiful country, lovely people—sound something like "Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry." [Editor's note: See our earlier post on Molvania.] Cristina adds: Top on my list is Alaska's ad campaign on billboards that said B4UDIE, as in "see Alaska—BEFORE YOU DIE!" Also, my country's is awful (Chile): All Ways Surprising. Thankfully they're changing it next year. Dale had this to say about Santa Fe, NM's slogan "The City Different""The City Different" is the slogan lousy. See the full list by reading the comments on our blog post "Careful with those tourism slogans!"

Rewind: We published the following blog post last spring on how airports worldwide are reacting to the threat of swine flu (H1N1 virus). Worth a second look as local TV news stations nationwide hype the use of fever scanners overseas. April 30: Hong Kong's main airport may be the world's most aggressive when it comes to flu prevention methods. Since 2003, arriving passengers have had to walk through "fever scanners." The body-heat sensors, which look like metal detectors, scan to see if a passenger is feverish. If the body temperature is 100 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, a red image shows up on a computer screen. Officials then pull the passenger aside for secondary screening (such as a throat examination, etc.), in case he or she might be a carrier of a contagious flu or a virus that may cause a potentially fatally pneumonia. Passengers with a confirmed fever are detained and sent to a clinic for additional observation. If doctors find symptoms of a respiratory illness and the traveler has passed through a city with a confirmed swine-flu outbreak, the traveler will be quarantined at a hospital for two or three days until tests could confirm the presence of the flu. Australia is rushing to add the body-heat scanners to their airports. A handful of other international airports also use the fever screening machines, including Indonesia's, Malaysia's, and Taiwan's main international airports. But are the $50,000 body-heat scanners worthwhile? French researchers recently tried to find out. They ran a study on the accuracy of the fever detectors on more than 2,000 people, comparing their temperature readings at a distance with the use of the standard thermometer. The scanners only detected one out of six people who had fevers and illnesses. That's an awful lot of people slipping through the system. The body-heat machines also falsely reported lots of people as having fevers who turned out not to have fevers, inconveniencing them at the airport checkpoints. In an interview with a New York Times article, Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said: When Hong Kong was hit with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, "increased border screening on entry and exit was not an effective way of identifying cases or preventing transmission." One reason is that passenger screening might not work with swine flu because the symptoms often show up two to seven days after the person has become contagious. But some of the ideas that Hong Kong airport workers have seem pretty smart to me. They're putting up "fresh sheets of plastic film over elevator buttons so that any sick people pressing the buttons would not share their germs with too many people who pressed the same buttons later," reports the New York Times. Every little measure like that has got to help slow the spread of an illness.

My favorite e-mail newsletter for travel news (besides Budget Travel's very own newsletters, which you should sign up for if you haven't already), is David Rowell's The Travel Insider. I like it because he always speaks from the heart and because he is an especially insightful advocate for passengers facing awful customer service. Plus, he has a running series called "This Week's Security Horror Story," which is always worth a read. Anyway, Rowell recently shared with us a tip on how he stays electronically connected while he's on the road: When I travel overseas, I often carry my iphone, another international phone not to mention my computer and various other gadgets. Obviously all these devices require different chargers, so instead of lugging around each individual one, I take the Fueltank from Callpod. It is a universal charger so instead of stressing out about each individual charger, I can fulfill the needs in one device. Upgraded versions of the Fueltank from Callpod debuted a couple of weeks ago. I see it today for $40 at BestBuy.com. (By the way, Rowell is an impartial reviewer. He pays his own way, disclosing any freebies he may receive from manufacturers.) EARLIER Cruises: Tech tips from a pro Hiking: Tips from pro Andrew Skurka Top alternatives to famous attractions Meet a "travel ninja" Introducing the Cranky Concierge