Have travel, event, or motivational questions? Ask Russ! Russ is the man. He can answer any question you have related to work travel, events, and team motivation. Have a question that you would like considered for an article? Ask Russ! Recent Articles 04/30/10: Fun Factoids - How many did you know? I want to share some Fun Factoids with you all. I knew some of the these but I have to be honest many of them were news to me! take a look and enjoy. • More than 700,000 people work in London's banking industry - more than any other city in the world. • Rome is closer to Tunis than to Berne, Vienna or Belgrade. • Istanbul is the only city that resides on two continents; Europe and Asia. • The continents of Europe and Asia are not separate land masses, but they are divided by the Ural Mountains. • Tokyo has more neon signs than any than city in the world. • The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn in Polynesia with 1.75 sq. miles. • According to NASA - the U.S. has the most violent weather. In a typical year, the US can expect some 10,000 violent thunderstorms, 5000 floods, 1000 tornados and several hurricanes. • As strange as it may be, Antarctica is essentially a desert of snow and ice with a total annual precipitation of approximately only two inches. • Alaska has approximately 5,000 earthquakes a year, 20% of which measure more than 3.5 on the Richter Scale. • While the state of Minnesota is known for its 10,000 lakes, the country of Finland contains 187,888 lakes. • Although Hawaii is mainly known for its 6 major islands, namely: Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui, The Big Island and Lanai, the state actually comprises 132 islands, reefs and shoals. • There are some 81,000 islands off the coast of Finland, 20,000 of which comprise the Finland Archipelago. Read More... 12/09/09: Looking for a meal at 30,000 feet Dear Russ, I’m actually asking you this question from the DFW airport where I am changing planes. What is the official rule for brining food on to the plane? By this I mean can you bring food through security or do you have to pay the high prices inside the airport terminal? I just got off a flight where you had to buy all your food and they ran out of almost everything, such bad service. Any advice or tips? Thank you Hungry in 32A Dear Hungry in 32A, Great question! Especially for all those people who do not travel frequently. Here is the long and the short of it; as you may know the TSA has the 3-1-1 rule (3oz or less of liquid or gel, 1 quart size zip lock bag that everything must fit in and 1 zip lock back per person) and for this reason you can NOT bring a bottle of water, can of soda or any liquid that is more than 3 oz. and fits in your quart size zip lock bag. You can however bring food that is not liquid, like a sandwich, bag of chips, fresh fruit, snack bars, candy bars, cookies, etc. You will need to put these items inside your carry on luggage and they will need to go in to the X-ray machine at the security check point. If you have special dietary needs then it’s best to bring your own food and currently all domestic airlines will serve water, soda, juice, coffee and tea complimentary on board. When you purchase food within the secured area of the airport terminal, you will in most cases pay a higher amount then you would on the street. Some airports around the country have laws by where even airport vendors have to charge street prices, but they are few and far between. Once you get through security you are a capture audience and believe me they know it. Read More... 04/30/09: Freaked out and Stressed in Europe! Dear Russ I recently travelled to Europe with my family and even though we had a wonderful time together, we also felt very stressed throughout the trip because we were constantly dealing with when to cash our travelers checks. It became a daily task to find places that gave good exchange rates on our money. We also stressed about whether we should leave our passports in our hotel room or bring them with us while we were out on day tours. Our fear was that if we leave the passports in the hotel room safe, that when we checked out of the hotel we would forget them, alternatively if we brought them on our day tours and they got lost or stolen then we would be in a pickle. Do you have any advice as to how we can travel abroad and take some of this daily stress out of our vacation? Signed Daddy wants a stress free vacation Dear Daddy, You’ve got a few questions here and I will do my best to give you some direction. First is the issue about exchange rates and spending a part of your vacation day searching for good rates of exchange. My personal experience has been to use a bank or Cambio to get the lowest rate. I would not recommend exchanging money at a hotel unless it is just a small amount for taxi fares or tipping. Hotels tend to not have a good exchange rate as they are typically just providing a convenient service for hotel guest, so in turn you pay for that service. Read More...   rss | atom | powered by nucleus cms