Quite the most marvellous travel story ever

Thomas Kohnstamm, a writer for the Lonely Planet series, admits that he 'just made up' his guide to Colombia because he didn't want to go there.

And who can blame him? It sounds like a ghastly place. Well, as far as I can tell from this guide book I read....

Conveniently for Thomas, this media storm has blown up just before his book Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?, is published on April 22.

Lovely work Thomas.

Exciting travel-themed quiz

This terrific picture illustrates a tremendous travel-themed piece by Lester Haines over on The Register.

Now, without clicking on the link, can you guess what it's about?

Airline passengers 'gassed like badgers' shocker

Ok. I accept that you're in a sealed tube full of strangers' farts for a couple of hours, but you've all eaten the same vile microwaved concoction so any gases expelled should be effectively indistinguishable from your own.

Not in this case though.

Ghastly business. And just to think, every one of those passengers could have been at home instead, probably having a sandwich or something nice like that rather than having been trapped in a sealed aeroplane filled with a gas that - whatever its precise composition - must have been designed to kill something.

Don't bother listening to the 'Important Safety Demonstration'

You can forget the little laminated card too: The escape slides won't work if it ever comes to it, and the lifejacket's probably got a hole in.

Airlines are allowed to skimp on safety procedures, because the safety regulators are their pals. The passengers - not so much.

Still, there's a sweet little teddy bear in a flying jacket you can buy from the dog-eared duty free catalogue, so it's not all bad...

Baggage Handlers: They're having fun at your expense

So why not join in?

The Top 10 awful hotel experiences

Not some piffle I've made up for a book - oh no: These are real things that happened to real people in the real world. Or Rhyl.

This list has ten more reasons, as if you needed another one - to spend every night in your own home, in your own bed, irrespective of any mint-on-pillow shortfall.

Terminal 5 chaos? That's nothing!

This ouchy news story from the New York Post should encourage sexier readers from ever boarding a plane again:

March 28, 2008 -- It's bad enough that fliers have to remove their shoes at the airport, but an abundance of caution became uncomfortably bizarre when a Texas woman was ordered to take off her nipple ring - with pliers.

Mandi Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to pass through security to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when a handheld scanner being passed over her chest went wild.

A Transportation Security Administration agent ordered her to remove her nipple rings. One came off easily, but when the second got stuck, the TSA agent handed her the pliers. She yanked it out in tears.

"No one deserves to be treated this way," said Hamlin, who is considering a lawsuit.