Where to eat and sleep in San Francisco?

Little of what I heard on cable TV news over the long weekend began to answer the question: How is the sour economy affecting Labor Day travel? Some TV analysts kept quoting an AAA survey that predicted road trips would be down 13 percent this past weekend compared with a year ago. But it was a mistake to compare against last year. Labor Day fell much later on this year's calendar than last year's. Most families already had their kids in school this year and couldn't whisk them away for an extended vacation as they often did last year. This Labor Day weekend was predicted to be the third busiest for road trips in a decade and the busiest holiday weekend of the year to date, according to the same AAA survey of 1,300 travelers. But the TV news shows always prefer the gloomiest view. If you got caught in any of the highway traffic bottlenecks, then you know that there was a lot of road-trippin' going on, especially considering that our economy is still sagging. Some possible reasons: Gas is about a buck cheaper than it was a year ago. The federal "cash-for-clunkers" program—putting aside whether it was good or bad policy—put an additional 700,000 vehicles on the road, and many travelers probably wanted to take them out for a long weekend. The weather was gorgeous in much of the country. My gut instinct is that when the final, actual numbers are tallied—instead of mere predictions—this past weekend will turn out to have been one of the busiest for budget travelers in a long time, all things being equal.

We've received a lot of comments on last week's article "8 Things an Airline Would Never Tell You." One of the points that sparked a lot of debate is this one: "We wouldn't tell you right away if there's an emergency." The FAA leaves it up to the airline to decide if the flight crew wants to tell passengers about an engine failure or other significant crisis. And many opt to keep their lips sealed. The reason? Flight crews don't want to scare passengers or say something they'll regret later. One of the most interesting responses came from reader Mathikat, who said that she really does want to know if there's a crisis on her flight. Here's what she had to say: I have over almost four and a half million miles on Delta and my husband has over six million miles. We also belong to FF programs on three other airlines. So we travel a lot for business and pleasure. I have been on planes that have been hit by lightning, had an engine go out (but restarted), have dropped unexpectedly in altitude, have gone through two crossing aircurrents and survived severe turbulence. I thank God for competent and skilled pilots who were able to land the planes successfully. My desire is that they stabilize the plane before coming on to tell us what happened. But make no mistake, I want to be told what happened and what the current situation is. Not knowing makes the imagination go wild. Flight attendants get a 95 percent rating from me. Only one did something that should never had happened. When we were hit by lightening I was in 1B and she was buckled in her seat. After it happened she said, loudly, "Oh my God, was that a bomb!" I reassured her that it wasn't a bomb and that it was lightning. She was scared but quickly recovered. Oh heck, we were all scared. In what seemed like a long time but was only a matter of a few minutes the pilot came on to tell us what had happened and that we were returning to Atlanta. Upon deboarding, the pilot, in person, walked through the group to let us know of our new gate assignment and to explain why he and the second officer would not be piloting the plane. What a class act. [Whether I want to be told about bad news depends on the situation, of course.] I compliment Continental for not telling the passengers that the pilot had died since the co-pilot was okay. I still feel that flying is the safest way to travel.

A woman buys an iPhone, goes to Europe, and unknowingly amasses a $500 bill after four days overseas. By the time she reaches AT&T;, the total is around $5,000. And yes, as she wrote in the Chicago Tribune, not a single phone call contributed to the hefty bill. Turns out that if you don't watch what you're doing, you can and will be charged an arm and a leg for sending photos, watching YouTube footage, surfing the Web, and checking e-mail. After contacting AT&T; and switching to a new global data plan retroactively, the writer was able to negate some of the charges. She also learned that when heading overseas, it's essential to turn the data-roaming feature off, and to use Wi-Fi instead of the 3G network for e-mail. She could have found out about all these pointers and more by reading our iPhone tips and tricks for budget travelers.