Some people seek out golf courses and gated communities for their retirement; others choose the ocean. That's exactly what Beatrice Muller, an 89 year-old widow from New Jersey, did. She's spent the last nine years living the life on the high seas, cruising around the world on the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2. Muller finds this much more pleasant than any old retirement home and she plans to keep up her worldly accommodations, except for one problem: the 41 year old QE2 is retiring in November. What is an old, sea-loving woman to do? Find another ship of course.

Muller says despite her preferred ship's retirement, she refuses to return to land. "What would I want to do that for?" she was quoted asking The Times. Her cabin costs about $7,000 a month, and according to her estimates, that's about the same as a retirement home in Florida, just "far more pleasant."

Actually living on the sea isn't as strange as it sounds. Magellan offers a Residential Cruise Line, where for $4 million and up you can buy your own on-board condo. The World is another "seagoing community" popular with the financially secure crowd.

We'll just have to wait and see what Muller chooses as her next home. As for the QE2, it's headed to Dubai to become a floating hotel.

From changing linens and towels daily to keeping the air conditioner in every room turned to 55 degrees in the summer, hotels have been coming under fire for a long time over their wasteful use of resources. With the environment in the spotlight as the 2008 US Presidential election approaches, hotels are beginning to take steps toward better environmental practices.

This morning, Sustainable Cards, maker of the United States' first wooden hotel keycards, announced that 70,000 biodegradable wooden keycards will be used in Denver hotels during next week's Democratic National Convention.

Wooden keycards have been used in European hotels for almost ten years. Sustainable Cards argues that these keys are just as durable as the plastic versions, but unlike plastic, wood is renewable and biodegradable. Right now, it is estimated that hotels in the US produce 1,300 tons of waste each year from plastic keycards alone.

If you are one of the first Americans to use these eco-friendly keycards in Denver, Sustainable Cards wants your feedback on their website. Of course, we want to hear about it, too. Leave your comments with us, and if you want more hotels to embrace these biodegradable keycards, let them know about it, too. Fill out comment cards when you stay or send suggestions via hotel websites.

Last Thursday evening I suddenly had the urge to take the family on a short trip for the weekend. We decided to avoid flying, and also to avoid heading North to the Wisconsin Dells like most people in Chicago do this time of year.

Instead, we loaded up the family truckster and drove 300 miles east to Frankenmuth Michigan.

Frankenmuth is often referred to as "Little Bavaria", and is the only city outside Germany that has been officially sanctioned by the city of Munich as an official Oktoberfest location.

The village is about 25 miles north of Flint, so you don't get the feeling you are completely isolated from civilization. Frankenmuth is home to several tourist attractions including Bronners Christmas Wonderland, the Bavarian Inn, the Bavarian Belle and the River Place shopping center.

Frankenmuth has several hotels, but to get the "real" Bavarian experience, you really need to stay at the Bavarian Inn Lodge. This 355 room hotel has grown from a modest motor lodge, into a large resort with multiple restaurants, 5 swimming pools, shops and a massive entertainment center with the "worlds largest Bavarian themed mini golf course".

Besides being a destination for people who like designer boutiques, tall buildings and overpriced restaurants, Dubai is on its way to becoming the best place in the world to find the perfect spa experience. The spa industry is growing by nearly 20% per year. By 2010, it is projected that Dubai will surpass other destinations with a total of 15 million visitors at its spas.

Everyone (including former Mrs. Kid Rock Pamela Anderson) is trying to get in on the hotel boom that the emirate is currently experiencing. And what's a luxury hotel without a spa? Themed spas are virtually required for any glitzy new inn.

Yes, Dubai is theme-happy. They have built housing developments that resemble palm trees and world maps. Spas are not immune from this fad. A few examples: The Ritz-Carlton's Balinese spa, Shangri-La's Chinese themed Spa, an the Indian spa at the Taj Palace.

Dubai has a leg up on, say, Scottsdale, in terms of luxury. But that is probably because it has to. The whole emirate is a luxurious version of an adult DisneyWorld, complete with Formula One racing and shopping malls.

Would people still be flocking to Dubai if it didn't have all those over-the-top elements?

Talk about mobile homes and all I think of is a caravan, and my newly discovered Mini-Motel. So when I came across this illustrative list of futuristic mobile homes, I was left slightly flabbergasted. You have:

• The "M-ch": A micro-compact home which is a little cube of a house you can take anywhere (but you would need a crane!). Suitable for 2 people, it's enough to sleep, work and cook in. Oh and slightly more expensive than a tent (Euro 34,000+).
• The SkiHaus: Built for exhausted skiers on high peaks, if you can organize for a helicopter with the snap of your fingers, you might want to look at the SkiHaus. It's a lightweight, all-aluminum structure that weighs only 315 kg.
• A Peak Lab: A cabin that can be hung outside a cliff.
• The Point Lookout: A beach-hut on a tripod.
• The M-Igloo: An mobile igloo style bedroom.
• The Orb: A holiday park home for the younger "style conscious" generation. Apparently these houses even float!
• The Lifepod: A green housing unit you can take anywhere as long as you have hauling power.
• The Walking House (see image): Definitely my favorite, yes it gets up and walks! However this one is still a prototype - but not for long, I hope!
  

And there are even more types of these things that include SUV's and shipping containers turned into homes and hotels. Have a look at the full list here.

Years ago, hotels would have women-only floors targeted at women traveling alone as a way of increasing their female clientele by promising safety through exclusivity by gender. Of course, that was thrown into obsolescence after being considered sexist and discriminatory.

However, hospitality marketing gurus have managed to swirl around the "women-only" floor idea into one of "women-friendly" floors. Some rooms on such floors have special items for women (a Victoria's Secret bathrobe, a blow dryer, vanity mirrors), and yoga stuff for women who want to work out, but, to avoid the sexist tag, the floors and facilities are not exclusive to women.

Hmmm...so what makes them special? Some facial creams and nail-polish that the other rooms don't have?

In other words, hotels are out of ideas to market their services, so they take an old idea, tweak it to sound like a new one when it's really not an idea at all. Then they sell it as a novel service for a niche audience and get some press.

Hotels such as the Crowne Plaza, the Hilton, and the Hampton Inn have been successful with this marketing gimmick, that too outside the Middle East -- so who am I to criticize it. Time will tell how much female customers succumb to this marketing ploy.

An ending note for hotels: your customers are smarter than you realize.

Perhaps you've noticed the gas-give-away promotions popping up at various locations in the U.S. this summer. As a boost to help folks pile into that family car for a vacation, several hotels are offering gas card rebates.

Steve Stephens, head of the travel section of the Columbus Dispatch, outlines several gas card deals in his column Ticket to Write. As he points out, one reason for the gas rebates is a psychological one to appeal to travelers looking to make ends meet when working out a monthly budget.

When you figure in the increase on gas prices to summer destinations, it may not be all that much, particularly if you're not going all that far. Knowing that it may cost you $20 more than it has in the past may keep you from getting behind the wheel. That rebate gets you to change your mind.

Here are deals that Stephens lists and suggestions for finding others.

• Park Inn hotels are offering a $20 rebate if you stay for two nights in a row. Check out www.parkinn.com
• www.Expedia.com is offering a rebate deal also if you book your hotel through the Web site. A two-night stay gets you $25 and a three-night or more stay gets you $50.
• At www.Hotels.com you can find a gas rebate as a prepaid MasterCard, as well, if you book for three or more nights.

Other deals can be found at www.BedandBreakfast.com and www.BnBFinder.com.

There are several deals in Ohio and the region including West Virginia. Check out Stephens' article to see what they are.

Las Vegas is feeling the pinch of slumping travel numbers. The amount of visitors who enter Sin City has dropped by nearly 5%, but the construction of new hotels has led to an increase in rooms. Who to fill them?

Once they get over criticizing themselves for lacking foresight, hotel execs have to find a way to hawk all those empty beds.

The obvious strategy, at least for the short term, is to lower prices until they reach a point where visitors won't mind shelling out a little extra for the flight because they are getting such a ridiculously cheap deal from the hotel.

How cheap is ridiculously cheap? According to MSNBC, over half the casino-owned hotels in the city are offering rates of $50 per night or below. Yes, that type of price is usually reserved for roadside motels where you can also choose to pay by the hour. Even high end, established names like Luxor and MGM Grand have rooms available for under $100 per night.

However, the famous ad campaign tag-line might be true of hotels as well. What happens in Vegas...isn't happening elsewhere just yet. Rooms in Chicago, New York and other major metro areas are still at full price. International tourists, convention-goers, and business travelers make up the bulk of New York's hotel customers. They have other bases to rely on as the number of US-based leisure travelers decline. That is not so in Las Vegas.

Source

Along with the tips for how to be a traveler that China would like to have back, the Hilton Hotels' be hospitableTraveler section also has a fun, interactive page that will give you a Chinese name. This is another way the hotel chain is helping people gear up for the Olympics in Beijing through its "be hospitable traveler" campaign.

It's simple. Fill in the boxes with your first name, last name, birth date-including year of birth, plus the quality you would like to bring to you, such as, wealth, or good character and, you'll be given your Chinese name.

The Chinese characters, the English spelling, and the meaning of your name are provided almost as soon as you hit the send button.

As the site points out, this is merely for fun. Acquiring an authentic Chinese name involves a more detailed process. Still, this is one way to while away some time.

The name I was given by the web site, Ran (surname) Ji Mao (first name) is sort of close to what my name was when I lived in Taiwan.

I was given a Chinese name where I worked in order to get paid.

In case you're wondering. Ji means: skill, ability, talent, and ingenuity. Mao means: thick, lush, dense and talented.

Dense?! Well, kind of.

Here is the link to the page that will give you your name. And here's a link to an article that lists the top 10 lucky symbols. The one in the picture means "blessing, good fortune and good luck."

A maid at the Hy-Way Motel near Fairfax City, Virginia, got quite a surprise recently when she discovered that several duffel bags that had been left in one of the motel's rooms were full of exotic snakes.

Twelve of the 17 snakes found were venomous; two had died, giving off an odor that attracted the maid's attention.

The Washington Post is reporting that the snakes belong to a man from Arlington County, Virginia, who was known to keep more than 100 exotic snakes in his home, but had been recently ordered by county authorities to remove them by the beginning of the month.

The man had apparently rented the Hy-Way Motel room for an entire week just to store some of his snakes there.

The man was not present when the snakes were discovered.