Travel often tops new-year resolution lists. Mine usually includes something grandiose that gets sidelined –mostly due to work schedules or lack of planning. So this year my husband and I are trying a new tactic to ensure travel. Rather than say (again) that we’re going to make it Tokyo, we’ve agreed to take smaller trips more often. Our goal is simple: one place, once a month. To keep it attainable, it can be near or far, any amount of time (even a quick weekend). Just so long as we go somewhere.

I’m off to a good start. I just booked tickets for a weekend in LA to visit a friend. I found some fun ideas in our Los Angeles travel guide of things to do but would love to hear from you! So tell me: In a Friday night to Sunday morning trip…what must I do/see/experience? (Thanks in advance!)

What are your travel resolutions?

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Change up your holiday destination this year. (…Or next year, and consider this just amazing pre-planning!)

The Global Grasshopper has some great suggestions for an alternative to your typical holiday destination. They include Edinburgh where lively Christmas celebrations continue through early January, Australia where December is the first month of summer, and more.

Take a peek at this fun and informative article for your own Christmas alternative trip ideas/inspiration or just a little old-fashioned day dreaming.

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Yes, I am already making my lists and have even purchased a few goodies for friends and family. I love this time of year and enjoy finding that perfect present.

I do plenty of online shopping but also peruse boutiques and local shops for unique gifts. One of the cities I enjoy for this is Vancouver, Canada. My husband and I live in Seattle and relish the 3-hour drive up north for Christmas shopping– so much so that it’s become an annual event for us. It’s as much about the weekend escape as it is about selecting gifts: I savor my first peppermint hot chocolate of the season, my husband happily snaps photos of the urban landscape, and Vancouver’s crisp air creates a lovely backdrop for the festive season.

Someday I’m going to hit New York for this annual “task”. Have you ever indulged in destination holiday shopping? Where are your favorite spots? Do tell!

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A trip through the trees

From the west coast to the east coast, take in the season with breathtaking fall foliage. Your neighborhood park makes a lovely backdrop for a brisk afternoon walk. Or how about make a weekend of it and visit somewhere further afield?

Here are just a few favorite leaf-peeping places:

• Mt. Rainier National Park, WA: Most roads are open through October with a variety of hiking trails to take in the lively colors.
• Yosemite National Park, CA: Even though it’s filled with many evergreens, this 1200-square-mile park boasts big-leaf maple, black oaks and other vibrantly hued deciduous trees.
• Rocky Mountain National Park, CO: Well-planned park roads offer plenty of visitor access to scenic vistas and lowland meadows.
• Acadia National Park, ME: Enjoy 47,000 stunning acres of wilderness — from shore to mountains.

And with our always low-priced last-minute deals, you can easily visit one of the above locales, or one discover of your own. Happy viewing!

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Last Minute Travel is giving away free hotel nights at popular locations across the country. To qualify, just follow @LMTTweets on Twitter and RT (re-tweet) the contest Tweets as instructed. Then, those who follow and RT will be entered into a random drawing for those free hotel nights. We’ll have a new RT promo about every two weeks, so be sure to check back for new hotel packages and additional chances to win.

Our next “Travel Temptation” is a 2 night stay at the South Beach Hotel located in the famed South Beach region of Miami? Do you still have that Don Johnson jacket in your closet, does reliving the movie Bird Cage rank high on your bucket list, or do you just like to sun in the day and party at night? Then you belong in South Beach.

While searching Last Minute Travel you’ll find that we also have a wide selection of Miami transportation and activities that you won’t find anywhere else.

Learn more about Miami and South Beach at our destination guide for the city.

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Kids and holiday travel are a fact of life. Sure it can be one of the less pleasant aspects of a vacation, but with a little planning and some useful tips, it can help you make family memories that will last a life time. I found this great list of tips on the Delicious Baby blog for making Thanksgiving Travel hassle-free (or as hassle-free as possible):

• Find a Pit Stop Playgrounds and public libraries (assuming you’re not driving on Thursday) always make great places to stop with kids. On Thanksgiving day, Barnes and Noble, many Starbucks locations, most zoos and many aquariums are open, and they also make great destinations for you and the kids to stretch your legs.
• Pack the Pillows Having familiar sleeptime items from home will help your kids settle down to sleep both in the car and at your destination.

Find more of these excellent tips back at Delicious Baby.

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The NY Times has an article up with what purports to be a true air passenger wish list. In it are things like clean restrooms, timely and correct flight arrival and departure information, and a safer better place to rest before or between flights. Those all seem like pretty good ideas. But here are a few of my suggestions for Airports that really want to make customers happy:

1) Redesign security check points so they are not a bottleneck. Frankly, I feel less secure waiting en mass to pass through a metal detector than I do on the otherside. So anything you can do to make that shorten that wait time and make it less like a group the better.

2) If you’re going to charge for parking how about offering proper lighting and regular patrols.

3) Vending machines at the Cell Phone waiting lots. I’m picking up someone whose flight is late, rather than running to Denny’s for a cup-o-joe, how about a vending machine or two and a restroom out at the cell phone waiting lot.

4) Better transportation options to and from your facility. I know the taxi lobby won’t want to read this, but Airports should be the champions for getting Light Rail stations right at the terminal with easy access from around the metropolitan area. No car, no fuss, makes for less stressed out passengers.

How about you, what should airports be doing better?

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SeaWorld Orlando’s Discovery Cove and Busch Gardens Tampa Bay both announced major new attractions this week. A new ground hugging Cheetah themed coaster is coming to Tampa and Orlando is getting an 875,000 gallon Saltwater Reef where you can swim with sharks and tropical fish. The Orlando Sentinel has details of the announcement.

A story in the Oregonian has a good lesson on how to make sure you’re eating sustainable fish even when you’re traveling. Check out the guidelines in the sidebars.

The LA Times has a good guide to Daytona Beach’s Daytona 500 Experience. And there’s a brief peak inside the new Queen Elizabeth cruise liner from Cunard.

For those looking for a little adventure with their Florida beach experience, the Miami Herald lists 5 great places to Canoe or Kayak in southern Florida.

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Here’s a short list of travel related stories I wasn’t able to write posts about this week. I hope you’ll explore the links on your own:

The San Diego Wild Animal Park is being renamed the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Safari is Swahili for “Journey of Mind and Soul” which the park claims better represents the current mission of the park.

The Oregonian has a beautiful guide to the state’s wineries. Make sure to take advantage of the ‘driving tour’ application. There is also a beautiful photo gallery of Crater Lake, one of the state’s best kept travel secrets and its only National Park.  (See also this description of a day at Crater Lake on 100Hikes.com)

Didn’t get to take a vacation this summer? NPR has a list of books to read that might put you in vacation mode even if you’re just in the living room.

Here’s a link I meant to include in my recent story on Las Vegas room nights increasing, the closure of the Liberace Museum. Even though the museum experienced an upgrade less than 10 years ago, today’s visitor numbers are less than a 10th of its peak attendance. Fame passes, even for someone as legendary as Liberace.  The Museum’s final day is October 18th.

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It is unlikely that any city in the US was hit as hard by the recession as Las Vegas. They experienced twin crashes in housing and tourism while still not being completely recovered from the downturn of the early 2000s. While housing may yet take a while to recover, signs of a recovery in the tourism industry are growing.

Numbers just released by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority say the city attracted 3,330,658 visitors in July, an increase of 4.7 percent from the same month a year ago.

According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, that is the largest single-month percentage growth in visitors to Las Vegas in almost five years.

Much of the growth can be attributed to great deals, an increase in convention business, and visits from those within driving distance to Levas. Airline passenger counts have yet to see much improvement.

“We’re encouraged and happy to see the continued increases in visitation,” says Kevin Bagger, senior director of marketing for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. “But we still know that people are cautious in their spending habits.”

Room rates for July were up 4.8 percent to an average of $91. Additionally, even though there are some 7,000 more hotel rooms than a year ago, citywide occupancy remained at 84 percent, essentially unchanged from a year ago.

Alas, not all the news is good. The Plaza Hotel downtown recently closed. However, they say they’re doing renovations and plan to re-open the property in the future.

Find Las Vegas deals so amazing, we can’t tell you the hotel name until after you book!

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