Dunno about you, but I always like to know how big a hotel’s fitness room is before I arrive. That way I know if I need to pack running gear - I get depressed working out in pint-sized, dark and otherwise cramped fitness rooms. One TravelPoster was kind enough to post this photo of the fitness room at Marriott’s Waikiki Beach Resort & Spa. While it doesn’t hold a candle to the outdoor scenery surrounding the hotel, the fitness room obviously offers ample space and equipment for away from home workouts.

As I’m sure you can guess, there is a subtle message in this post! Upload your hotel photos from any hotel page on TravelPost.com. It’s just the right thing to do.

I always associate Mad River with canoes, but maybe I should start associating it with something else: fall colors. Vermont’s Mad River Valley is doing an autumnal jig it’s so excited about deciduous trees and that annual leaf-changing thing they do. Somebody in Vermont has decided that the leaves will reach their peak colors at precisely 10:10 am on Oct. 10, 2006. Not 10:09 or 10:11. Despite the fact that this one minute of fall bliss occurs on a Tuesday morning, the folks in the Mad River Valley are celebrating with gusto. In addition to leaves at their peak fall colors, the Peak Foliage Celebration features a plaid shirt contest (must be a Vermont thing…), fall display contest, an official “foliage gong” to mark the minute the clock hits 10:10am and other fun stuff like children’s activities…

Be There: Oct. 1o at 10:10am via Yahoo News

Vermont Hotels on TravelPost.com

What will they think of next? Stingy tippers who leave less than 17 percent and rude customers are being outed with increasing frequency at blogs run by waiters, including WaiterRant, which is probably the most popular blog of this ilk.

I kinda love it. I’m big on the 20 percent tip rule. Waiting tables at a low-rent country club in coastal Massachusetts two summers in a row sent me on a lifelong crusade to tip fairly.

The Tipping Point via McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Access Trips makes me really wish I had $2446. The adventure travel company’s Hike & Ride Boat Cruise combines riding the slopes in pristine Norwegian backcountry with nightly accommodations on a ship that ferries passengers to various destinations in the Arctic Circle. The 8-day program promises lots of powder and scenic views in a remote part of the world most of us couldn’t explore on our own, but also teaches backcountry safety skills and avalanche rescue techniques.

The trips aren’t cheap, but they will leave you with more than memories. All Access Trips programs combine outdoor adventure with new skills for beginners to advanced levels. Among the offerings are sea-kayaking trips along Mexico’s Baja coast, mountain biking through Cappadocia, surfing in Morocco and rock climbing Italy’s Dolomites mountain range.

Access Trips official site

I had the opportunity to test drive a Baggallini Bagg In A Pouch this weekend. As is often the case, I had accumulated an extra bag’s worth of belongings during my brief sojourn on the East Coast and needed an easy way to schlep everything back to Cali. Enter the Baggallini Bagg In A Pouch. If ever you’ve been looking for the perfect extra bag (or should I say bagg?) to stow in your luggage, this little puppy is it. It’s super lightweight, roomy and comes in a material that’s durable, but easy to clean. Best of all, the bag folds up into a pouch no larger than a piece of notebook paper.

Bag freaks will find many other cool ways to tote their junk on Baggellini’s web site. Among my favorites? The Two ‘N One Tote, the Garment Bagg In A Pouch and the Accordian Bagg.

The pre-packaged airport sandwich is more of a gamble than anything Las Vegas has to offer. You just never know how it’s going to taste or how well it will hold up from the point of sale through an hour in a crowded carry-on. And then there’s the mess factor. A delicious sandwich can become a nightmare of frightening proportions if it spewes onions and leaks dressing down your fingers when you attempt to dine hunched over your tray table. Another consideration is the smell factor. Strongly odoriferous foods can really annoy people sitting near you. I’ll never forget sitting next to a woman once who decided to slowly ingest homemade tuna fish salad that had been couped up in her backpack for god knows how long. She kept picking away at it for nearly an hour. It literally woke me from a sound sleep like someone had unleashed smelling salts beneath my nostrils. Relentless, I tell you.

Today, I found a pre-packaged sandwich that passed all of my tests: taste, mess and smell. The Wolfgang Puck Express chicken sandwich is the best pre-packaged airport sandwich I’ve ever had. I was skeptical going into the experience, but I found the foccacia to be light and fresh tasting, the chicken to be ample, the lettuce to be crisp and the pesto and caper seasoning to be flavorful, yet not overpowering. Almost no odor rose up from my sandwich when I released it from its carefully wrapped plastic packaging.

You can find Wolfgang Puck Express restaurants in many airports around the country, including Chicago O’Hare, Denver, Orange County, Los Angeles International and Seattle-Tacoma airports.

I’m not really one for programs like this, because I fly different airlines all the time, but American’s TrAAvel Perks Program did catch my eye when I read about it recently. If you fly American Airlines frequently and also purchase car rental, hotel stays, vacation packages or rounds of golf from time to time, the program might be worth a whirl. For $129 annually, members receive two companion flight vouchers, discounts on certain hotels, a 10 percent discount on vacation package airfare, savings on GolfNow tee times, car rental upgrades, discounts on various other partner items like Ticketmaster and theme park tickets and 2,500 AAdvantage miles.

My only suggestion: Kill the capital A’s in the title! Annoying to type.

Hawaii’s discount carrier go! has extended the deadline to purchase its $29 one-way interisland airfares until Oct. 1, 2006. These tickets are good for travel through the end of the year. The move prompted Aloha and Hawaii Airlines to match the offer. So get to island hopping!

Interisland $29 Airfares Extended Again

Ever since the days of Aloha, Mr. Hand, Sean Penn has been causing one ruckus after another pretty much everywhere he goes. His performance at a Toronto press conference, held at downtown’s Sutton Place Hotel, further solidified his reputation as Hollywood badass, but left the hotel facing a hefty fine. No, Penn didn’t pull a Crowe and coldcock a hotel employee. His crime? Smoking a cigarette. And I thought the Canadians were so liberal! The hotel is in trouble for letting Penn violate an Ontario law that bans smoking in public workplaces and enclosed public spaces. Penn, in true Hollywood fashion, got off scot-free.

Incidentally, the Sutton Place Hotel is quite glorious when you can see through the smoke. Guestrooms were upgraded in 2005 and offer souped-up beds with “chiropractic sleep systems” (whatever that means) and CD players.

Also incidentally, I love Sean Penn. What a legend.

Toronto to Penn: Butt Out via the Boston Herald

As a former whitewater nut, I was floored and amazed and pysched as hell to hear about the opening of the U.S. Whitewater Center in Charlotte, NC. After much anticipation and several delays, the center opened this week to what have been quite the raving reviews. In a nutshell, the center is really a huge re-circulating whitewater river set in 300 acres of woodlands along the Catawba River. In addition to providing training facilities for Olympic paddlers, the site offers the public whitewater instruction and group clinics, rock climbing, team-building challenge courses and tons of trails for mountain-biking and running. Experienced paddlers can purchases passes to run the class II - class IV rapids on their own, while others can take part in classes, private lessons and multi-day courses.

It just really sounds rad. I would love to get down there sometime soon to put the ‘ole paddle back in the water. For those who plan to visit this fall, the good news is that the prices and day rates are pretty reasonable ($125/m0nth pass - pretty good, eh?).

US National Whitewater Center