Several factors contribute to this: the rapidly-rising prices of airfare; the Chinese water torture of costs the airlines are adding to traveling by plane; and the never-ending hassle passengers encounter at the airport at the hands of the Disciples from Hell dressed in TSA costumes. Train travel is a little better but the railroads are trying their best to be as big a son-of-a-bitch as their quicker relatives from the travel industry. Traveling by motor vehicle with your loved ones offers many opportunities for bonding – or the final alienation of affection for those traveling with you. First the positives:

Manufacturers have stuffed a lot of entertainment technology in their vehicles that are made for families taking long trips. There are things like DVD players with a multitude of increasingly-larger video displays, video game machines and audio systems that give Carnegie Hall a run for its money. Some vehicles like Chrysler Minivans offer an optional table that can be used for card games, board games or just plain torture racks by kids sitting in the 2nd and 3rd rows while Mama listens to her iPod and Dad fantasizes being acquitted of mass murder by a jury of his peers. A lot of these devices are pleasant diversions from the decades-old question, “Are we there yet?”

Although a seemingly idyllic way to travel there are pitfalls in this mode that can equal a lifelong dream to spend the night with the most desirable Hollywood Hottie, only to wake up to her morning breath that smells like Mr. Ed’s stall after three weeks in a hot August sun. I’m of course referring to “bathroom breaks.” Sometimes these can be adventuresome, especially on a toll road where the plazas are the only places to stop. Generally (but not always) the restrooms are clean, there are food courts serving a variety of fast foods and afterwards there are always shops selling everything from shot glasses to “I ♥ Wherever The Hell You Are” T-shirts.

But what about the back to nature crowd who want to travel the rural highways and byways of America and avoid the commercial temptations described above? The odds of 4-6 people in one vehicle all having “bomber bladder” are longer than winning the Irish Sweepstakes. (Bomber bladder is a condition associated with flight crews of Air Combat Command who decide that disconnecting 10-12 hitches on an ejection seat, climbing down stairs to the lower floor of the aircraft, unzipping the lower tab of the flight suit, re-climbing the stairs and hooking up to an ejection seat again is not worth it so they’ll just hold it for 10-12 hours.) Somebody in your car is going to have to “expel urine” at some time or another. Then what?

In simpler and happier times the Porcelain Star of Bethlehem used to be a local gas station. They used to pride themselves in offering the use of clean and relatively-sanitary restrooms to their customers while they pumped the gas, checked the oil, washed and wiped the windows and checked the tires. All this for gas prices that were about 30-cents per gallon. By the time the family was ready to get on with their journey they were happy, their bladders were happy… and dog-gone it, people liked them. Skip ahead to modern times, however, and it’s an entirely different story.

You still want to drive down secondary and rural roads to show your family what the “real” America looks like. Almost immediately somebody starts bitching about having to “make pee pee or go poo.” Twenty minutes later you come across a Roy’s Gasoline and Feed Store. Little Lenny makes a bee-line for the restroom, only to discover he needs to get a key from the cashier. He runs in and is handed a bathroom key that’s connected to a front-end loader, so nobody will be inclined to walk off and forget to turn it back in.

As Lenny finally gets inside the bathroom and thanks whatever God he’s believing in that week for letting him make it without soiling his pants when what does he witness but the filthiest room that’s ever existed on the face of this – or any other earth. It smells so bad that soiling and messing his pants would be preferable to having to inhale whatever brown trout or undigested chili someone was kind enough to leave floating on the surface of the toilet. Even holding his breath, sitting down and getting the job done at record speed wouldn’t help because somebody wrote their name on the toilet seat in feces…and the name was a long, draw-out Greek one.

Like everything else in the modern world the one restroom a traveler could always count on has turned to shit. There is no pride in being a Lavatory Lieutenant anymore. I guess the station attendants feel if somebody has to go that bad they aren’t going to care what condition the facilities are in – they’re just grateful to be there. Wrong, Dr. Charmin! I offer the following solution to travel planning.

Just like there’s a “Mr. Skin” who can tell you every nude scene of every move ever made – and charges people viewing his website – so, too should there be a website totally devoted to bathroom conditions of those “cans” available on a driving route from Point A to Point B. For instance, let’s say you’re driving your family from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Wheeling, West Virginia. You can take the interstate highway…but for the most part it’s a pretty drive so you decide to take the long way there and let the family see and enjoy our country. You pay a set amount (via debit or credit card) to a firm we’ll call Truck’s Dumps, give them your routing and you’ll receive a complete printout of the location of every bathroom in every commercial venture along the route. Not only that, but there will be a link to another website that lists the cleanliness of these facilities and rates them on a scale ranging from “Lilac Trees” all the way down to “Jurassic Park’s Manure Collective.”

The point I’ve been trying to make for the past thousand words is that the good old days are gone…and we’re in an age where it’s everybody for themselves…and hygiene be damned. Creativity is going to be the only avenue of escape from such long-thought-dead diseases like bubonic plague, terminal dysentery and crippling crabs. Too many people are treating our world like an Oriental benjo ditch (a trough behind a house where a family’s waste is transported down a conveyer mechanism to the fields for use as fertilizer. Picture that scene the next time you bite into a yummy snap pea). How are we every going to clean up government waste if we can’t even do a good job cleaning up our own?

Al loves snap peas and loves to hit the open road. His column appears here every Monday.

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 However, as I got older and logged a few million miles I’d long since gotten as much information as I was going to get. By that point I probably knew the cities better than the tour guides did. (By the way…is there some Tour Guide Academy where these people go to learn to talk through their noses?) I occasionally will stroll through a city, buy a bottle of Yoo Hoo and sit on a bench in some pleasant park and listen to the conversations of those around me.

I’m especially interested in hearing the comments of people who are obvious tourists. It’s easy to spot them, and I’m not talking about their checkered pants, straw hats or their clothing that says, “My Daddy Went to Folsom and All I Got Was This T-Shirt.” They usually are sitting with an ice cream cone, looking at a city map.

Al Vinikour

Their conversations generally revolve around what a great city they’re in and how there’s so many neat things to see. They usually preface this comment with their complete surprise at how clean the city is.

That’s what got me to thinking about the “Spin Zone” these visitors have gotten themselves in. Granted, seeing the sheer natural beauty of San Francisco can be a breathtaking experience. However, walking after dark in the Tenderloin District of the same city can also be a breathtaking experience – literally. Or what a difference the Haight-Ashbury looks like at noon with all those “wonderful” flower children freely roaming the historic area, but witness the same corner at midnight when more drug deals are going on than pharmaceutical trades on Wall Street.

With the boon in reality shows that portray everything from people getting tattooed on their (not so) private parts to spending 30 minutes watching Kim Kardashian’s ass fill the screen (longer than 30 minutes if you record it) there seems to be no subject that’s not represented by some kind of 30-60 minute show. Why not develop bus tours that take visitors to the absolute seediest parts of major American cities and disclose these perceived beautiful places to visit on vacation?

Take Detroit, for instance (as if anybody really would). Any tour can show you how relatively pretty the city’s three casinos look like when they’re all lit up on a clear evening. Or even seeing the most commanding view of the city of Detroit – from the Windsor (Canada) side. People who come in for a convention or business conference and go directly to the casino hotel and stay there for a day or three are totally cloistered in the best Detroit has to offer. Great accommodations, fun surroundings and some of the best restaurants in the nation.

However, take a “Kicked in the Balls” tour on one of the city’s travel company buses at noon and you’ll have an entirely different – and probably vomitous impression of the same city you came to the night before. Pick a street…any street…and look at all the boarded up buildings.

Go to any neighborhood and see the homeless lounging around with their colleagues. Most are talking about what they’d do if they had the chance to be in charge. Sometimes it’s like listening to a potty-mouthed diatribe from Cliff Clavin.

Or go to the rail yards and witness demonstrations of culinary art practiced by some homegrown hoboes. A city like Detroit is the antithesis of the old saying about cockroaches: When the lights come on the cockroaches disappear. In Detroit’s case, the darker the sky gets the prettier the city looks.

Do you think any school groups would be allowed to travel to our nation’s capital if they had any clue as to how dangerous that city is (and I’m not just talking about when Congress is in session)? I wouldn’t let my kids within 500 miles of that place – especially at night. I don’t care how many chain guns a tour bus has. More than one law maker has been beaten and/or killed within walking distance of the Capitol Building and their homes. But the Fifth Grade class from Flint Lake Grade School in Valparaiso, Indiana, will never see those parts of the capital that constitute the real city. No, they’ll see Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, the Air & Space Smithsonian Museum, the National Art Gallery, the Kennedy Center, drive by the Watergate, see the buildings on K Street where most of the lobbyists work out of and maybe they’ll stop for a sumptuous lunch at the Roy Rogers in Crystal City, VA.  But they won’t drive around after dark and see all the whores prowling the street…or their pimp daddies hanging around the various “gentleman’s clubs” waiting for collection time.

 With all the stimulus money that hasn’t been spent I have a great idea for a travel business. At some point it’s inevitable that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will wind down and when they do there’s going to be a lot of heavily-armored vehicles wending their way back to the homeland. Some enterprising businessman could buy a huge fleet of these things, gut them, install bullet-proof windows and start giving late-night urban tours for those adventurous enough to want to see the real underbelly of America’s cities. A host of tours like these in cities like Detroit, New York, East Los Angeles, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta and Chicago would finally shut the pie holes of all those who tout Amsterdam as the world’s standard for “Sin Tours.” The first person to build up this kind of tourism would really put the P.T. in P.T. Barnum.

Al has toured more cities through a bomb scope than most people have visited — and he’s probably had his sites on your home at one time or another… and there were bombs in the bay. Think about it.

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Basically, heroine addicts and speed shooters may want to think twice before packing up a bunch of needles in their carry on bags (checked luggage is still game though).  The reason: TSA agents tend to become pricks when they come across a few needles and you don’t have a doctor’s note. Additionally, transporting illegal drugs is often frowned upon by law enforcement agencies.

Ever since the underwear bomber tried to inject his panties with a chemical to cause an explosion, security has been a little more wary of strung out passengers carrying syringes in their luggage. Before Christmas, apparently, it didn’t matter and any one could have loaded up a bag full of needles without question.

However, legitimate users of needles such as diabetics need not worry.

According to About.com here are a few tips to remember (Major League Baseball players have also endorsed this, though they tend to fly on chartered flights):

• Carry a copy of your prescriptions in your carry-on, purse, or wallet when you travel.
• If you are taking injectable medications you must have the medication along with you in order to carry empty syringes.
• Do not remove syringes or medicines from the original packaging with printed labels and manufacturer’s information. Packaging is a good way to help airport security identify your medicines.
  
• You can ask and are entitled to a private screening to maintain your confidentiality.
• In response to security issues at your departure site and destination site, travel restrictions can change often. Arrange 2 to 3 hours before your flight in order to pass through security in plenty of time.
• With recent security concerns, the amount of liquids you are allowed to carry-on is limited and in some cases prohibited. At the time of this printing, even liquid medicines are allowed only in limited quantities.
• In some cases, the airline may ask thA e on-board staff to store your medicines and syringes during flight. Keep your medicines, syringes, and supplies together in a carry-on case or travel case to make passing them to and from the flight staff easier with less chance of losing medications or supplies.
• If traveling abroad, become familiar with the laws, restrictions, and requirements of the countries you are traveling to. The US requires all passengers to declare medicines and syringes when traveling abroad.

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They were carpeted, heated and don’t smell of diesel fumes or urine. But for some, maybe a little down on their luck, spending all their money on black jack and whatnot, this wasn’t just a terminal, it was a room. Why pay exorbitant prices for a bed when that money could go toward gambling?

Perhaps that’s why there are signs posted all over the terminal saying the sleepers, slackers and general riff raff are not welcome.

However, you be the judge on how well this law is enforced?

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Tequila? Take it off the list; PCP, only on three-day weekends; 45 mph in a school zone? I’m sorry officer, this is a school zone?

A declaration used as a get out of jail free card isn’t really legally binding. Maybe you need to speed through the school zone because you’re trying to evade the cops looking for your PCP dealer.

I am currently breaking one of my own personal never agains, when I uttered, “As God as my witness, I’ll never take a bus again,” 14 years ago.

But here I am, heading south to Atlantic City aboard the Lucky Streak. And even if Greyhound is picking up the tab, I’m on the Lucky Streak, a special Greyhound Bus that shuttles people from NYC to AC. Actually the Lucky Streak leaves out of quite a few East Coast cities and is doing quite well, thank you very much. Partnered with eight resorts in Atlantic City, it’s a ride that is worthy the reconsideration.

The bus is sweeter than imagined. Leather (possibly pleather?) seats, footrests and actual leg room (eat that coach flights) are standard options. Some of the Lucky Streak buses have electric outlets plugs in each row and wifi connections, so you CAN leave work early, catch that phone conference and host net meeting without your boss knowing a thing.

So, rethink those “never” vows you may have and remember people change, companies change and new busses get bought.  And if you break the vow of drinking too much, then it’s better to leave the driving to them.

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Greyhound has been pressing to change the perception of its clientele — and really, it gets an undeservedly bad rep — all it’s been doing is getting people from point A to point B for decades. This bus, which has been gussied up for all of us bloggers on this particular junket, is pretty hip.

Big leather seats, a 110 V outlet for every passenger, a bathroom in the back and a married driver named Bachelor.

This particular route — the Lucky Streak (a $34.50 round trip from NYC to AC) — has been good for Greyhound. In 2009:

810,000 passengers rode from New York to Atlantic City.

Labor Day weekend, 12,000+ passengers hopped aboard.

And casinos should like Greyhound, as the bus company put 1.6 million people in the area, according to Greyhounds handy dandy press release handed out.

All photos taken by HipsterTravelGuide.com.

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Greyhound has been bragging about its new line from NYC to Atlantic City called Lucky Streak and invited us to tag along for roughly 30 hours to see how well things are running.

After watching MTV reruns, we couldn’t turn down a chance to hang on the Jersey Shore, in hopes of seeing The Situation and Snooki make out in hot tub. But turns out, they’re not going with us – though the president of Greyhound, Dave Leach, will be along for the ride as well as bunch of bloggers we have never met. (We don’t know if he ever made out with Snooki, but we can ask.)

Luck Streak is one of many city-to-city routes Greyhound offers, according to Annie Flowers. There’s the BoltBus, which serves Boston, Baltimore, Greenbelt, Cherry Hill and Philly. There’s also the NeonBus, which goes from New York City to Toronto with a couple of stops along the way.

But we’re here for the Lucky Streak – in a bus that was designed for people who want to go to the casinos but do not hold AARP cards of have an amber alert out for them.

The bus itself says high tech all the way – though we won’t see it until 2:30 p.m. when we head over to the Port Authority to board — being from Detroit, we’re not as worried about all of the hookers and whatnot milling about — plus, it’s just too cold to do much loitering.

This 45-foot bus comes with broadband Wifi and electrical outlets in every row – it a rolling blogger’s dream cruiser. (For the gearheads, there’s a Detroit Diesel pusher with 425 horsepower and 1,550 pound-feet of torque powering it for up to 1,400 miles on a single tank of fuel). Add a big spoiler and this would be so so sweet.

So if you have any questions, or want us to shoot any particular photos, drop us a note (scott@hipstertravelguide.com) or send us a tweet.

For the time being, we’re going to continue to pose in a Starbucks on 7^th Avenue just outside of Madison Square Garden. It’s frick’n freezing out there.

The only thing that can keep us warm? Ray’s pizza.

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