Government Shutdown: Time To Travel?

As for me, after my successful Groupon wine tour, I bought another flash travel deal that sounded too good to pass up. DealChicken offered a voucher: $49 for two nights at a hotel for up to four people. The catch? You don't know the name of the hotels or cities available until you have bought the voucher, sent an e-mail, gotten a phone number and called to book.

Pets must be inside carriers, and the carriers must be put under the seat in front of the passenger bringing the pet aboard. The fee ranges from $75 on a Southwest Airlines or AirTran Airways flight to $200 on a Delta Air Lines foreign flight. Unlike airlines, Amtrak prohibits pets on trains, according to spokeswoman Kimberly Woods. In May, Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., introduced a bill that would require Amtrak to designate at least one car where pets would be allowed.

And except for visitors being turned away from grand monuments and wildlife stations out west, the world of travel continues to turn. If there is a danger at this point, it is not from lack of competent screeners. It would be from faltering aircraft safety inspections and the inadequate manning of aircraft repair stations by government workers who have been furloughed from their positions as federal inspectors. Delta Air Lines CEO Richard H. Anderson told reporters last week that his airline has not seen any drop of impact from the impasse.

Real space travel much cooler than 'Gravity'

(CNN) -- Sometime around the mid-1990s, the reality show was born. Since then, the genre has taken the world by storm: Audiences continue to love these shows and they cost next to nothing to make (cheap video, cheap sets, amateur "actors," etc.). So the profit margins are huge.