Black tie travel

You gotta love a site that combines entrep
reneurial spirit and a neat schtick. Tuxedo Travels has a good dose of both.

According to the site, "on April 1st, two fools who barely know each other will travel from Hong Kong to London in 4 months and 10 days, culminating in a black tie gala on August 11th."

Heath Beck and Douglas Campbell are the aforementioned fools and they'll be blogging from the road daily. We'll check back with them periodically to see if they've killed each other on the road.

Pole to pole

There are cruises I would not want to be caught dead on -- like a Disney cruise for instance. But I must say that the 66-day north to south pole luxury cruise being offered by GLP Worldwide Expedition Travel and Tours has definitely piqued my interest.

According to their web site here's what you can expect: "Departing from Reykjavik, Iceland, you will cruise the waters of the Arctic, Atlantic, Caribbean, Pacific, and South Pole, before completing your journey in Ushuaia, the port capital of Tierra del Fuego, in Argentina."

Wow. And imagine how your boss will react when you try to take 66 days off.

The boat is not too huge - which I think is a bonus. Those massive several-thousand-passenger-floating-legionnaire's-disease ships don't do much for me.

The world cruise starts as low as $11,800 CDN (price includes all on-board meals). Price does not include airfare.

Cruising Asia

There's interesting news coming from the Seatrade Cruise Shipping Conference last week. That's right -- I follow 'em all!

Forget the Caribbean and South America -- the next big thing in cruising is the Asia/Pacific region.

And really, for those who are a little intimidated by the, well, exoticness of the far east this might be a great way to experience something new.

First off some infrastructure changes need to be made. The Port of Shanghai is constructing a 300,000-square-foot terminal to handle three 80,000-gross-ton cruise ships, according to this Associated Press article. In addition, "two other ports in north China, Dalian and Qingdao, can hold large cruise ships, and both are set to have new cruise terminals within the next three years."