Looking for a place to rest your head in North Seattle? We think it might be a good idea to avoid one block in particular. That would be the 12000 block of North Seattle’s N. Aurora Ave., where not one, but two motels have been shut down by the Washington State Health Department in the last week.

Inspectors reportedly first found mold and unsanitary conditions at the Orion Motel and shut it down last week. Next on the chopping block? The Seattle Motor Inn, where health inspectors apparently discovered vanities concealing buckets of “dark brown, fetid water,” mattresses with exposed wires, contaminated water in the pool and inoperable smoke detectors. Eww!

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.

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.)

Virgin America, perhaps the only airline that I actually look forward to flying, is having a Valentine’s Day fare sale. And unlike some other airlines who shall remain nameless but bombard my inbox with fare “sales” that aren’t really sales no less than once a month, Virgin is actually offering some good deals. Like Washington, DC, to Los Angeles for $248 roundtrip and San Diego to San Francisco for $78 roundtrip. Fare sale runs through Feb. 8, 2008 for travel through May 9, 2008.

Looking for a last-minute Pacific Northwest getaway near Oregon’s Mt. Bachelor this weekend or next? I ran across what I think is a great deal this morning while perusing the last-minute offerings on VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner), a site that allows property owners to rent homes and condos directly to travelers. I’ve used it many times in the past and, each time, had good results. It’s a great resource when you have a large group that wants to stay in the same location, especially near beaches and ski resorts. Here’s the deal:

Sunriver Vacation Rental A 3,500-square-foot five-bedroom, four-bath house with sleeping arrangements perfect for five couples or two families with kids in Sunriver, Ore. for $300/night ($200 cleaning fee will be added for stays shorter than 7 days), though the listing says last-minute deals are available, so make sure to ask about rate reductions for this weekend if you call.

The house offers a slew of amenities. A few:

- 55″ big screen TV and 48″ big screen TV

- Deck with hot tub

- Stainless steel BBQ grill

- Garage game room with air-hockey, ping pong table and foosball

- DVD, CD, TIVO, VCR, Playstation 2, central sound system with controls throughout the house

- Sub-zero fridge, gas range, double oven

Not bad for a last-minute Superbowl weekend escape in Oregon, eh? Spend Saturday on the slopes at Mt. Bachelor, Sunday taking in the game with plenty of room for food prep and plenty of diversion for those who aren’t as keen on watching the pigskin.

Virgin America is having a pretty good fare sale that runs through Friday. Good news if you live in one of the cities that the new-ish airline flies to (San Francisco, Las Vegas, San Diego, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington, DC). You’ll need to book travel by Jan. 11th and fly by March 12th.

Wondering what’s so friggin’ great about Virgin America? Check out the TravelPost.com Insider’s adventure on the airline:

A Virgin Flight with Virgin America

We like to follow smoking bans as they take effect around the world because they affect travelers in such significant ways. Smokers who are visiting a new city can find themselves navigating rules and regulations that don’t apply where they live, and non-smokers in new cities can find relief or irritation from public smoking depending on the local laws. Yesterday, a page one story in the Wall Street Journal contemplates the new smoking ban in Anchorage, Alaska and what the combination of severe cold and a sudden dearth of smoker-friendly venues will mean for those who want to light up in the nation’s northernmost state.

Smoking Ban Leaves Alaskans Out in the Cold

If you’re a smoker who is traveling, check out TravelPost.com’s Definitive Guide to Airport Smoking Lounges.

Alaska Airlines has announced plans to bring in-flight wireless Internet access to its fleet next year. YES. Oh wait, I never fly Alaska. CRAP. But anyway, the airline is partnering with a company called Row 44 to use its satellite-based broadband technology on one Boeing 737 to start out. And that plane will - we hope - be followed by the rest of the airline’s planes later next year. I don’t even need to tell you what this means. When fully functional, the service will allow passengers to work the entire time they travel. YES. Wait, do I really want to be able to do that? Of course, it might mean I would actually have time to update my MySpace page, invite everyone I know to join me on LinkedIn and delete the 1,000 extraneous emails in my inbox.

If you’re traveling on Horizon Air between today and Sept. 24, you’ll want to check to see if your flight has been canceled. The airline has reconfigured its schedule during this time period to accommodate mandatory inspections on around 10 percent of its planes. Most passengers affected by the cancellations should have already been contacted by the airline, but anyone who needs to reschedule and hasn’t already can do so free of charge by calling the airline (1-800-547-9308)You can view the list of canceled flights at the link below.

Horizon Air Modified Schedule Information

Northwest’s CEO Doug Steenland had to pull a JetBlue apology yesterday in the wake of his airline’s many cancellations:

Northwest Promised to Fix Cancellation Problems