As more and more travelers opt for inexpensive getaways this year, they reserving spots at the nation’s campgrounds in record numbers.

Sure, camping is a cheap way to vacation. And yeah, I love the great outdoors. But hands down, one of my favorite parts of camping is cooking up some good grub after a day spent hiking, swimming and mucking around in the woods. But sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what to make. And all too often, I end up sticking to a menu of trusty favorites like pasta and pancakes.

During my most recent hunt for a cool camping spot to venture to this summer, I instead found myself perusing the Camping Club’s long list of camping recipes. Campfire pretzels? Who knew. Mountain meatloaf? Yes, please. Cowboy quiche? Yee haw. I’m bookmarking this list to pull out for inspiration when the time comes.

Some unsuspecting guests at Disney’s Pop Century Resort were recently bilked out of close to $11,000 after handing over their credit card numbers to phone callers pretending to be resort employees. Luckily for the guests, Disney refunded the money. But news of the scam is a reminder to travelers that - as the old adage goes - when something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If a person claiming to be a hotel employee calls your room and requests a credit card number for any reason, tell them you’ll be happy to clear up the matter in person with a visit to the front desk. There’s absolutely no reason a hotel employee should need to take your credit card number over the phone when you’re a current guest.

Credit Card Scam Hits Unsuspecting Walt Disney World Resort Guests

The TSA has begun testing family lanes at Denver International and Salt Lake City airports. While supporters of the experiment say this may help ease congestion at airport security gates, some call this kind of trial “the ghetto-ization” of anyone with children. I’m not sure how I’d feel if I was traveling with children, but I think I’d rather head through a security lane populated by other people with children than endure dirty looks and snide comments from a bunch of crabby, impatient travelers without kids. Of course, who knows? If everyone with children is routed through one security lane, then travelers with children might very well end up with the slower, inferior service - and that wouldn’t be fair. While the TSA is just testing the new procedure at the moment, the practice could spread to other airports if the trial proves successful.

TSA Tries Airport Security Lanes for Families

Traveling abroad as an exchange student can be a life-changing experience, but it can also be a harrowing one, especially when your home stay family’s cultural traditions and lifestyle differ drastically from your own. For most students, small traumas (like my friend who ended up sleeping in a room above the livestock in her Nepali host family’s home only to wake up one morning covered - head to toe - in itching bites courtesy of the bugs inhabiting the animals’ living space) build character and teach independence. When I was 14-year-old exchange student staying with a family in France, my personal traumas involved embarrassment over not understanding how to shower in the curtain-less bathroom without causing a flood and discovering I had unwittingly eaten gizzard one evening thanks to a gap in my vocabulary.

Unfortunately for one Maine teen, the experience of being a foreign exchange student involved real trauma. Jonathan McCullum, a 17-year-old student, reportedly dropped to a scant 97 pounds from his starting weight of 155 lbs when he ended up with a family that failed to feed him adequately. When McCullum returned home from his year living abroad in Egypt, his family was understandably shocked to find their son had lost one third of his bodyweight. Not the AFS organization is in hot water over the mess. As for the host family, their religious practices apparently involved a great deal of fasting. The story below also suggests that the host family balked at having to feed a strapping American boy, whose appetite exceeded that of the daughter they sent to the United States as part of the exchange program. Whatever the truth, it’s a sad story and a cautionary tale for anyone considering a study abroad home stay program.

Student Starved During Egypt Stay

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.

And while we’re talking travel mags….Fancy yourself a travel writer, photographer or magazine editor? Budget Travel’s 10th anniversary issue will be written and photographed by readers. They’re in the home stretch, but are still looking for:

- Foodies in the Southwestern United States who can recommend great spots to refuel

- Pet travel photographs (you know you’re hoarding some cute ones)

- Someone traveling abroad in the next two weeks who’ll pick up some items from a foreign supermarket

- Your best family travel tips (e.g. how to usher get ankle-biters through airport security)

- Feedback on any trips you’ve taken after reading about them in the magazine’s 40 Best Deals section

Last Chance! Our All-Reader 10th Anniversary Issue Needs Your Help!

Pop Quiz

Question: The greatest football team ever to roam the planet earth?
Answer: Daaaaaa Bears!

Question: The greatest coach ever to lead a football team to certain victory?
Answer: Ditka!

Question: It’s Ditka vs. Superman. Who would win?
Answer: Ditka!

Question: If Ditka fought the sun, who would win?
Answer: C,mon, ask me a tough one. Ditka!

Question: When was the last time you were seen in public wearing a coconut bra?
Answer: Ditka!!!!!

If you answered any of the above questions correctly, or have been known to eat brats while experiencing a mild heart attack, then we’ve got two vacation destinations for you: Mike Ditka’s Lighthouse Key Resort and Spa and the Runaway Beach Club, both in Orlando, FL.

Opening this weekend, the Lighthouse Key is the larger of the two resorts and offers villas with gourmet kitchens, washers and dryers and flat screen TVs. On the grounds, visitors will find two pools, a huge European spa, fitness facilities and a 50-seat movie theater. For a weekend in April, I found rates starting at $299/day for a two-bedroom suite.

Also, opening this weekend, The Runaway Beach Club Resort also offers villa accommodations with similar amenities, but has smaller grounds and fewer resort amenities, i.e. no grand European spa. But there are two pools and a fitness center. For a weekend in April, I found a one-bedroom villa starting at $149/night and a two-bedroom villa starting at $189/night.

Don’t forget to grow out that ’stache before you go!

Both resorts offer free shuttle service to Walk Disney World theme parks (both resorts are within 2.5 miles of the maingate).

At the risk of sounding like a traveling germ-phobic nutjob, I’ll admit I rarely get anywhere near an airport, bus or means of public transportation without fishing my trusty hand sanitizer out of my bag. And while I sometimes find myself wondering what happened to the free-spirited traveling self who would most certainly scoff at the more uptight version that exists today, I can say this: once you hit 30, getting sick starts to suck more. Way more.

While most hand sanitizers kill germs right when you apply them to your skin, SkinWear claims to continue killing pesky germs for hours and moisturize your skin at the same time (good for use during flights, when my skin starts to feel nigh on reptilian). The product is also non-toxic, biodegradable and vegetable-based. Once applied correctly, which requires rubbing the product into the skin for 60 seconds, SkinWear will do its thing through four rinses at the sink.

Not being scary germs ourselves, we can’t personally vouch for the product’s effectiveness. But not getting sick is good enough for me.

In honor of Presidents’ Day, we’ve rounded up our favorite tourist-friendly destinations dedicated to former U.S. presidents. The list includes historic homes, national parks and memorial sites open to the public.

Mount Vernon
President: George Washington
Location: Mount Vernon, VA
Don’t miss: The Pioneer Farmer Site, a four-acre farm featuring live demonstrations of 18th-century farming and cooking techniques.
Insider tip: On-leash dogs are allowed on the grounds.

Adams National Historical Park
Presidents: John Adams and John Quincy Adams
Location: Quincy, MA
Don’t miss: The Stone Library and its 14,000 volumes.
Insider tip: The park is open from April to November.

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace
President: Honest Abe
Location: Hodgenville, KY
Don’t miss: Lincoln: The Kentucky Years, a 30-minute film on the President’s early days.
Insider tip: The park has 18 picnic tables with accompanying grills.

Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park
President: Lyndon Johnson
Location: Johnson City, TX
Don’t miss: A guided tour of the LBJ Ranch
Insider tip: The park is actually composed of two separate visitor areas located 14 miles apart.

President Benjamin Harrison Home
President: Benjamin Harrison
Location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Don’t miss: Rotating exhibits on the home’s third floor.
Insider tip: The museum is closed on the day of the Indy 500 each year.

Wheatland
President: James Buchanan
Location: Lancaster, PA
Don’t miss: The sprawling, landscaped gardens surrounding the main house.
Insider tip: Special events like the September Arts & Sauerkraut Festival are big hits every year.

The Hermitage
President: Andrew Jackson
Location: Nashville, TN
Don’t miss: A half-hour tour of the grounds in a horse-drawn wagon.
Insider tip: Vouchers for discounted admission are offered by several nearby hotels.

Sherwood Forest Plantation
President: John Tyler
Location: Charles City, VA
Don’t miss: A visit to the plantation’s most famous tree, the oldest gingko tree in the United States.
Insider tip: Legend has it that a ghost known as the Gray Lady haunts the home’s Gray Room.

Montpelier
President: James Madison
Location: Montpelier Station, VA
Don’t miss: The Hands-on Restoration tent, where visitors can attempt to make bricks, saw logs and nail planks the way they did it back in the day.
Insider tip: Special themed tours are offered on weekends, April through October.

Polk Home
President: James K. Polk
Location: Columbia, TN
Don’t miss: Early photographs, including the first ever taken inside the White House, are on display inside the home.
Insider tip: The home sponsors a summer camp each year that teaches children the crafts and activities central to 19th century frontier living.

Ah, to be a college kid again. Students with big ideas about traveling the world - for free - stop day dreaming about the hottie across the hall and check this out. Each summer, STA Travel chooses one college-aged intern for its STA World Traveler Internship. The job? Oh, just spending the summer hopping from Europe to Asia to Australia to New Zealand to Buenos Aires to the freaking Galapagos Islands. Pretty rough. Along the way, the intern will share their adventures through photographs and video, interviews with fellow travelers, blogging and social networking through STA’s Student Travel Community. The whole idea is to show your impressionable peers how much fun you’re having and, in so doing, convince them to spend their next break following in your footsteps, preferably using plane tickets purchased from STA Travel. Applications are being accepted through March 1, 2008, so get cracking.

Here’s an example of the sort of travel video interns produce: