Gratitude lightens the load for our travelers
— -- In honor of Thanksgiving, USA TODAY's travel staffers each share one travel experience from 2011 for which they're grateful.
Fresh air breeds fresh perspective
Touring hotels all year long means that more often than not, I'm "stuck" indoors.
Now, don't get me wrong — some of the indoor spaces I've seen this year have been amazing. But thankfully, some of my recent hotel stays — even in cooler cities such as Chicago and New York— have involved exhilarating, fresh air.
One morning at the Park Hyatt Chicago in July, for example, I grabbed my laptop and set up shop at a table on the hotel's new seventh-floor rooftop deck before the lunch rush descended. Other favorite outdoor hotel experiences this year have been swimming in a rooftop pool in the middle of New York City at the Gansevoort Park, which has a direct view of the Empire State Building, and taking a Zumba exercise class on the 18th-floor helipad of the InterContental Century City hotel in Los Angeles.
Somehow, no matter where you are, fresh air can make a hotel experience all that much more memorable.
— Barbara De Lollis
Stingray medical trip ends without a sting
Medical treatment was the last thing on my mind as I headed for a beach vacation on Mexico's Caribbean coast. Yet I found myself contemplating it after I felt a searing pain in my foot less than a minute after stepping into the tropical waters near Puerto Morelos.
As the pain — perhaps the most intense of my life — continued to worsen, it was clear I needed medical attention.
My hotel summoned a taxi to whisk me to a physician's office in town. Off I went, with cacophonous fears playing in my head: Would the doctor speak English? Would I need to return home right away? How much would this cost?
Fortunately, Dr. Ramirez spoke nearly perfect English, confirmed my suspicion of a stingray sting and quickly neutralized it. And he charged a reasonable fee for my after-business-hours appointment.
So the traveler in me is thankful that an unexpected good foreign medical experience gave me a great story instead of a travel horror tale.
— Ben Mutzabaugh
Losing (weight) while cruising
The average person gains a pound a day on a cruise, or so the saying goes. In my case, the weight gain wasn't nearly as rapid — maybe just a pound or two a voyage. Still, as USA TODAY's full-time cruise writer — a job that lands me on a ship as often as once a month — I've watched the needle on my bathroom scale creep up.
Until this year, that is. As it turns out, cruise ships can be just as good at helping you lose weight. Think cruise ship salad bar. As a growing connoisseur of salad bars everywhere, I can tell you few are as elaborate as those at the typical ship buffet. Little tomatoes in every color, chopped up red peppers, broccoli crowns, arugula, spinach, chickpeas — all beckoning you to be good.
In less than a year, I've dropped nearly 30 pounds and am back to my pre-cruising weight of more than a decade ago. In fact, I'm even a few pounds below it — for which I'm grateful, indeed.
— Gene Sloan
Online bidding can mean winning
