Many travelers are becoming more concerned of the environmental “footprint” their travel leaves, especially when they fly.

Many airlines and other travel service providers are offering choices for purchasing carbon offsets for their booked travel, and now Travelocity is making it even easier to help lesson your carbon footprint.  

By making conscious choices, travelers can make a difference and help promote sustainable travel in the marketplace. We can all do our part to help preserve a beautiful world for future generations.

Offset Your Carbon Footprint with Travelocity

To find out more about the specifics of carbon offset, check out The Skinny on Carbon Offsets.

And yet cowboys aren’t exactly known for their flowery prose. That’s probably why poetry has been a part of the cowboy lifestyle for as long as cowboys have been riding the range. 

Experience this hidden secret of the West firsthand at the Western Stars Cowboy Poetry Gathering on February 15-17, 2008 in Moab, Utah.

Cowboy poetry has always been a way for those who live and work in the west to express how they feel – think of it as a modified version of soldiers chanting as they march, with language that could only come from a life lived on the open range peppered throughout. The poetry has evolved to reflect the times — from early poems in the 1800s about whiskey or the open range to more contemporary poems that often reflect popular culture and modern cowboy life. In addition to poetry, the event will feature something for every age — from music to barrel racing, a cooking contest and square dancing, western art, vendors, workshops and lectures.

The event begins on Friday, February 15, 2008 with an opening evening performance featuring some of Utah’s best Western performers, like Ray Lashley, Peggy Malone and Paul Bliss. Saturday’s highlights include an opportunity to lunch with one of America’s most well known cowboy poets, performer Michael Martin Murphey. He is best known for his song “Wildfire” and is the author of New Mexico’s state ballad. He will also be performing at 7:30 p.m. at the Red Cliffs Lodge on Saturday night.  Sunday’s events include a Dutch oven cooking contest, where contestants will have two hours to prepare and cook their entry cowboy-style (using a Dutch oven) in one of three categories: entrée, side dish, or dessert. Participants must supply their own Dutch oven, cooking utensils, and ingredients – the contest organizers will provide the fire pans and charcoal. Judges will have 30 minutes to taste and judge each dish. Cooking begins at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, February 17. The evening wraps up with a Cowboy Campfire Concert at 7:00 p.m.

Make sure to buy your tickets early, as the small, intimate venues sell out quickly. A weekend pass, good for admission to all events held at the Moab Arts and Recreation Center (except for Michael Martin Murphey’s Saturday evening performance), is available for $75. Discounts are available for members of the Moab Arts and Recreation Center. Visit MoabWesternStars.com to purchase a weekend pass, tickets for individual events, or for more information on the 2008 Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

The Moab Information Center provides complete information on the events, activities and lodging available during President’s Weekend. Visit it online at DiscoverMoab.com. The Moab Area Travel Council maintains the website to provide visitors to the Moab area with the most current, up-to-date information on what to see, what to do, where to stay and what to know.

I thought it might be appropriate this Halloween to recount some scary tales The Traveler has had in the sale of some Hawaii Timeshare property.

Don’t worry, it does have a happy ending, but there is a cautionary tale in the process.

Our timeshares had served us well through most of the 1990’s and early “aughts”. We were able to regularly visit Hawaii, and take trips to Fiji, New Zealand, Trinidad & Tobago, as well as some great areas here in North America.

But as our travel adventures widened, we found we were using the timeshares, points, and exchanges less and less. Once we converted the “weeks” to “points” it became harder and harder to decipher the process (for me anyway), and the maintenance fees, it seemed to us, could just as easily be used to simply travel.

And so this year we decided to sell our timeshares, and this is where the cautionary tale comes in.

First, we went online and found numerous websites offering to list our properties for an up front fee. One such site is SellMyTimeShareNow.com

The website gave a good presentation. After filling out an online form, a representative got back to me the next day – and kept calling until I returned the call a day or two later.

He explained that since SellMyTimeShareNow is such a highly trafficked site, it is was likely – though certainly not guaranteed – that our properties would move. And once there was an interested buyer, they had a real estate agency “next door” (or some damn thing like that) to handle the closing. No extra charge.

After telling the rep what it is we had to sell, he suggested an asking price of $24,000. (What we had to sell was 9,255 annual points for Shell Vacation Club Hawaii and some leftover points from 2006 and 2007).

The cost to place an ad on the site? $600.

After I paid the fee (yes, I took the bait) I never heard from the rep again. Despite fully explaining we had points based on three different Hawaii properties, they got the ad wrong, which they did correct when I emailed them. Other than that, I never heard a thing. And no takers, not even a nibble. Certainly not for $24,000.

Lesson: Never pay an up front fee to sell a timeshare.

Next, we responded to a postcard we received from Timeshare Acquisitions. They would be in our area the very weekend we returned from Alaska, so we thought we’d sign up for the presentation. I admit I had hopes that we’d walk away with a deal for them to purchase our timeshares. Perhaps at a wholesale price, but that would be just fine.

After their presentation on what a boat anchor timeshare are, and how it would make our progeny poor and destitute, they said it would only cost us $2,500 for them to take our timeshares off our hands. And they were giving us a break because we owned multiple properties in Hawaii.

Lesson: Never, ever, EVER, pay anyone to “take your timeshare off your hands”. This is at best highly unethical.

I may be stupid, but I’m not that stupid. So I looked around some more for a solution to our timeshare problem. I found a real estate agent that deals in nothing but timeshares: Smartchoice Timeshare Realty

After discussing my situation, I was told by Judy at SmartChoice what I had already learned. The websites that take up front fees are more often than not worthless and a waste of money (at least for sellers, and given that I was allowed to list at a hugely inflated and unrealistic price, probably  for buyers as well), and companies like Timeshare Acquisitions that want us to pay them for the privilege of taking our assets off our hands are preying on ignorance and fear, and driving down the legitimate marketplace for timeshares.

So to make a long story not quite as long, I listed with Judy at just over $1 a point, and had a buyer within a couple of weeks. Judy will get her commission upon closing, but otherwise I have paid no up front fees, the buyer is willing to pay all transfer costs since I am willing to discount my asking price, and I am finally able to sell my timeshare property.

Lesson: Always deal with a reputable real estate agent when selling a timeshare. Don’t pay any up front fees. And don’t pay anyone thousands of dollars to take your property away from you.

And that’s my Halloween story on selling timeshares. Don’t make the mistakes I made. Be prepared to accept less than you originally paid, but don’t pay anyone anything until you have a closed sale.