Vote on new Travel Channel shows

Here's the bad idea of the day, from AP/Yahoo.com: "A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing a liter (two pints) of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new carry-on rules, police said Wednesday. The incident occurred at the Nuremberg [Germany] airport on Tuesday, where the 64-year-old man was switching planes on his way home to Dresden from a holiday in Egypt." The report says he's at a clinic. Here's hoping he'll recover.

Unlike airplanes, airships are lighter-than-air vehicles—similar to blimps but faster. Airships wouldn't need airports for takeoff and landing, allowing them a wider range of places to pick up and drop off passengers. Airships also have the potential to be less damaging to the environment than airplanes and cars, although this hasn't been proven yet. In October, a company called Aeros began developing a working prototype, using funding from the military's research agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Here's a simulation of what it would look like: Unfortunately, airships are unlikely to be a budget travel option, at least not at first. Current designs require costly equipment, and Aeros is pitching their first airship as a vehicle to transport executives, most likely between the U.S. and Europe.

A new website, TaxiwayEcho.com, is forecasting new nonstop domestic routes that have "high likelihoods of being established." The site says that in tests it has successfully predicted new routes by major airlines about three out of four times. But its guesses about small, regional carrier routes have been worse than flipping a coin. Here are some of its predictions for nonstop routes: For Boston: Omaha, Sacramento, San Antonio, and Tucson. For Chicago's Midway: Jacksonville, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Richmond, and Rochester. For Columbus: Buffalo, Houston, Norfolk, Oklahoma City, and Providence. For Dallas: Akron, Buffalo, Sarasota, Tallahassee, and White Plains. For Denver: Albany, Buffalo, Long Beach, and Richmond. For Detroit: Chattanooga, Huntington, Lynchburg, Sarasota, and Wichita. For Fort Myers: Las Vegas, Nashville, Phoenix, Raleigh/Durham, and Washington (Dulles). For Houston (Intercontinental): Madison, Moline, and Springfield. For Indianapolis: Austin, Houston, Portland (Ore.), Salt Lake City, and San Diego. For Las Vegas: Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Richmond, and Sarasota. For Minneapolis/St. Paul: Akron, Birmingham, Pensacola, Sarasota, and Syracuse. For Louisville: Fort Lauderdale, Houston (Lobby), Los Angeles, and Washington (Dulles). For New Orleans: Columbus, Milwaukee, Norfolk, and Oakland. For Omaha: Fort Lauderdale, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Tampa. For Philadelphia: Albuquerque, Grand Rapids, Little Rock, and Oklahoma City. For Reno: Baltimore/Washington, Minneapolis, Orlando, and San Antonio. For Salt Lake City: Houston, Indianapolis, and Wichita. For Saint Louis: Buffalo, Oakland, Providence, and White Plains. For other cities, visit TaxiwayEcho.

A new website, BestTripChoices.com, claims it can profile your "travel personality" based on a short questionnaire. I recently gave the site a whirl. I answered a 15-question quiz, and the website concluded I was a "centric venturer," one of six personality profiles. Other personalities include "authentics," who tend to opt for familiar and well-established tourist destinations, and "venturers," who enjoy spontaneous, adventuresome trips to unique or barely charted locales. Most travelers fall somewhere in the middle, leaning slightly toward one extreme. However skeptical I might have been, the description for my personality was, for the most part, fairly accurate. It recognized that, although I may think of myself as an adventuresome traveler (and who doesn't?), I still look forward the assurance of a warm bed at the end of a long day. While centric venturers visit exotic destinations and mix modes of transportation, they tend to return to a trusted, favorite vacation spot every few years. Interestingly, centric venturers move on once an area has become overly touristy or commercialized: "When over-commercialization sets in, signified by many souvenir shops, the intrusion of fast food outlets, and the diesel smell from too many tourist buses, you will move on to some other place that has not yet lost its qualities of freshness and uniqueness." The quiz makes bold predictions about where travelers with your personality like to visit. It even offers travel suggestions, such as "you might visit smaller towns and enjoy leisurely drives through the countryside." If you take the quiz here, please tell us if you think the results accurately portray your travel personality.—Liz McKenzie MORE BY LIZ MCKENZIE It's a Texas Yamboree!.