The first non-stop flight from LAX to the Middle East touches down this September, when Emirates airlines plans to launch daily flights between the West Coast city and Dubai. The 16-hour flight will include a stop for plane changes, but will otherwise be direct.

At the moment, judging from a look this morning for flights from San Francisco and Dubai, a traveler would need to spend between 20 and 33 hours flying to reach Dubai from the West Coast, with connections in either Atlanta, Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich, Hong Kong, etc.

The addition of this new route certainly makes reach this part of the world faster and more convenient for travelers based on the West Coast.

Emirates to Make LAX its Third US Gateway

Upon perusing new-ish mapping site MapJack for the first time, I was pretty much blown away. Sure, the site only covers a bizarre coupling of cities right now - San Francisco and Chiang Mai, Thailand - but its imaging technology allows you to enter addresses or points of interest, locate them on high-resolution photographic maps and maneuver right up to the front of buildings, pan left and right, turn in circles, zoom in and out and easily switch to nearby vantage points marked on the maps by blue dots.

I was able to easily read building numbers, street signs and even the friggin’ credit card stickers on the doors of several local businesses. Not bad. It’s a cool tool on so many levels, but for travelers, it offers an easy way to view the area a particular hotel is in or the kinds of shops in a certain neighborhood you’re planning to visit on your next trip. It can also give armchair travelers a candid view of popular tourist destinations like Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco or Three Kings Square in Chiang Mai.

I’m not sure how often they update the images, but looking at several spots in San Francisco that I know well, they’re quite current despite not being in real time.

The company is working to make maps of the following destinations available soon:

* Lake Tahoe

* Yosemite National Park

* Pacifica

* Palo Alto

* San Jose

* Las Vegas

One word of caution: make sure you have a few minutes to spare before you start playing around with MapJack. I got sucked in and - bam - there went the morning.

Want a good value on your next vacation? Sure, we all do. Phoenix, shown here from atop Camelback Mountain, was recently rated one of the top places for good travel deals. According to the Hotwire Travel Value Index released yesterday, these are top U.S. cities for travelers to hit up when they’re looking to stretch their vacay dollars:

1. Phoenix

2. Dallas-Fort Worth

3. Orlando

4. Denver

5. Atlanta

6. Los Angeles

7. Washington, DC

8. Kansas City

9. Miami

10. Milwaukee

Frankly, I’m surprised to see L.A. and Miami on the list, as I was just last week hunting for decent deals on hotels in both cities and came up surprisingly short. I mean, yeah, you can stay somewhere cheap, but it often means staying somewhere really bland, really out of the way or really sketch. And that’s not what I call a “value.” In my mind, a good value is something a traveler can get excited about. Not just an inexpensive place to bunk in.

That said, the HTVI rates cities on more than just existing hotel rates. The range of activities in a city and availability of affordable entertainment also figure in. And both Miami and L.A. have plenty of affordable entertainment options (beaches, museums, landmarks). Then again, both cities also happen to have some of the country’s most expensive and exclusive restaurants, bars, retail shops and clubs. Really, in the end, whether or not you’ll get a good value in in any of the cities on the list depends heavily on what you enjoy doing when you travel.

Here’s a great little hotel deal for anyone fancying a midweek getaway to sunny Palm Springs. Relax at the plush Viceroy Palm Springs Resort for 25 percent off - but not just your room. Book the Breathe Easy Package on the hotel’s web site, and you’ll also save 25 percent off spa services, food and drinks. And you’ll receive access to complimentary wellness programs, bicycles and Internet access.

And what a time to head to this famous desert hotel. They’ve recently added the Ice Haus, a D.I.Y., open-air spa treatment room where you can slather yourself with clay mud followed by an ice exfoliation treatment and a spritz in the shower, complete with seaweed scrub bar. The on site spa is also offering evening massages held outdoors under the stars.

I just checked rates for a midweek stay in June and found them starting at $109/night for a king room. A King room with pool view was available for $142/night, while the luxe Sovereign Villa can be had for $389/night.

Further proving that all-business class flights are as popular as ever (despite the demise of MaxJet), Singapore Airlines has announced plans to convert its Airbus A340-500 planes into all-business class flights outfitted with 30-inch-wide seats that double as flat beds. When they take to the skies in between June and September of this year, the newly configured planes will fly the airline’s Singapore to New York and Singapore to LAX routes.

Singapore Airlines to Launch First All-Business Class Flights From USA to Asia

Today San Francisco celebrates the opening of its first newly built hotel in three years. With a location next to the Moscone Center, the 550-room InterContinental San Francisco will be prime stomping grounds for the hoards of convention-goers the center attracts each year. Leisure travelers will find themselves near popular SoMA attractions like Yerba Buena Gardens, the SF MoMA and the massive Westfield Centre shopping complex.

The hotel stands out for offering floors with just 22 rooms, floor-to-ceiling windows in every room and an indoor lap pool. Both the hotel’s Luce Restaurant and lobby-level Bar 888 have been getting a lot of hype in all the local foodie and drinkie publications, so we expect both venues to be pretty happening over the next few months.

Several stories I’ve read pegged the hotel’s rates at $200+, but I found a standard king available on a Saturday night in April for $170 with advance payment and $189 for a flexible reservation.

If you’re going to be in New York this weekend and you love travel, consider checking out the New York Times Travel Show, a veritable smorgasbord of travel information from resorts, hotels, spas, cruise lines, tour operators, tourist agencies and adventure travel companies from around the world. Along with vendor booths and live entertainment performances representing a vast array of cultures, the show features a Taste of the World Pavilion filled with international cuisine and cooking demonstrations, a Spa Pavilion offering sample treatments and discounted packages at spa resorts, travel author appearances and special travel deals offered to folks brave enough to book their next vacation on the spot. And with travel experts Rick Steves, Arthur Frommer, Ian Wright and Stephanie Abrams - among many others - leading seminars, the show offers a rare chance for face-to-face learning from leading peeps in the industry. Cost: $15.

While we humans groan at the thought of carrying a heavy pack, many dogs can’t wait to be put to work. Over the weekend, my husband and I invited a dog trainer friend over to evaluate our lovable, but somewhat neurotic pitbull mix. We were looking for pointers on helping her to become more relaxed in the many distracting situations that bombard a city dog each day, as well as friendly and confident around other dogs in potentially conflict-inducing places like other peoples’ houses, dog-friendly inns and hotels and the weekend getaway spots we often rent with our friends.

Our trainer’s solution? Well, there were many. But the one that I am most excited about is the doggie backpack. From now on, wherever she goes - on our daily walks, on hikes, on out-of-town weekend adventures - she’ll be dressed up like a canine mountaineer in Mountainsmith’s Dog Trippin’ Dog Backpack. I chose this model because it combines comfort features like padded, adjustable compression straps and a ventilated back (important for preventing hot spots) with its a set of dog travel accessories: two collapsible bowls, a fleece sleeping pad and a leash. I like the idea of her carrying her own supplies whenever we leave home, whether it’s for a 30-minute trek around our neighborhood or on the trip up the coast of Northern California we have planned for later this month.

Because I’m an unabashed Virgin America fan and admittedly a little Cali-centric, I’ll give the airline some extra love and announce a new flight route - something I don’t often do.

As of yesterday, you can now fly San Francisco to San Diego on Virgin America. Ray rah!

Virgin America Launches Service to San Diego

Yeah, last minute travel can be cool. But it can also leave you cash poor, especially when you’re talking high-season travel in major vacation destinations. But as with most things in life, a just little edumuhcation can go a long way. Case in point: Kayak.com’s Fare Alerts.

Create a Fare Alert (or 12) on Kayak.com or SideStep.com for the summer getaway(s) currently sequestered in your noggin by clicking on the “Get fare alerts for this trip” link on the top right-hand corner of the flight results page. You can track fares for specific dates, a flexible span of time (e.g. summer weekends or, say, the month of June) or an entire region (e.g. Europe). When your daily or weekly Fare Alert (you choose how often it arrives) touches down in your email inbox, you’ll be able to make informed travel decisions.

Depending on what you ask it to track (specific dates, flexible span of time or even top cities in a region), each Fare Alert can show you:

- How much the fare for specific dates has increased or decreased in dollars since the last alert

- The airfare history for your trip dates based on searches made by Kayakers over the past 90 days

- A snapshot of prices in Kayak.com’s matrix view, so you can quickly compare prices by carrier and number of stops

- The lowest fare available during a specific span of time (e.g. the next four weekends)

- The best fares available for popular destination cities in a region you want to visit (e.g. Africa)

Who knows, maybe you’ll still pay craptons to travel to the most expensive resort on the hottest island right in the middle of the high season. After all, it’s high season for a reason. But at least you’ll be pimping it out with full knowledge of your unbridled American excess. Just remember the wisdom of G.I. Joe.

(**Editor’s note: Yeah, Kayak.com owns us. You wanna make something of it? I’ll have you know I was surreptitiously using Fare Alerts to aid in making my personal travel plans long before Kayak.com bought our parent company SideStep.com in December. Nepotism, bias, blah, blah, blah. Fare Alerts just make good travel sense.)