The World's Best Vacation Tip
A Secret To Knowing The Truth
July 11, 2008
I had several stories in mind for today, but in trying to decide which story was the most important to tell, a thought came to me. Perhaps the most important thing I can tell you has nothing at all to do with cruising, and yet, it has everything to do with cruising.
Just as you have come here, time and time again, to see where the latest foul has unfolded, to assist you in choosing your perfect trip, perhaps what I need to tell you is how to determine which alternative to cruising is best for you.
While I am sure you have some set criteria for determining how your family can get the most joy for the money you are willing to spend, there are other issues of importance, such as crime.
There are a couple ways to weed out the really bad destinations. First, you can cruise on over to City-Data.com . This site has the goods on every town in America. You can check by state, by city and by county.
The statistics will give weather information and demographics such as median age, ancestry, median income, and even crime statistics usually broken down into everything from murder to sex crimes to petty crimes over a period of several years. It is good place to start.
If you have narrowed it down to handful of potential destination, this will be the most important tip I can give you. You need to get a Google alert for the town.
I have Google alerts for a half dozen towns, for various reasons. There are four that are about the same size, around 10,000 people, mostly middle to upper middle class, are not major destinations, and yet have a nice moderate flow of tourists at some particular time in the year. I watch the towns for crime trends and news of interest.
Town #1, is 40 miles off a major interstate. It is between nowhere and nowhere. The crime in that town is brisk. There are murders, rapes, thefts, armed robberies, drug dealers and manufacturers and a never ending flow of homes and businesses that are broken into, or have items stolen from their parked cars, lots, front yards or backyards. There is crime in the news every day and alot of drunk driving. Gas stations are routinely robbed and have been for several years. Recently the owner of one, and his wife were robbed and stabbed. It has two pawn shops, and lots of the stolen items end up there. Domestic violence is a daily event, the odds of having your vehicle license plate stolen are pretty good and it is quite possible you will witness a shopping lifting incident in any given week.
Town #2 is off the beaten bath, and has basically seasonal petty crime, mostly in the spring and fall. There is almost never a drug bust, a murder, a sexual assault, petty theft, armed robbery or any other violent crime. The last major crime was a baby stolen from a hospital hundreds of miles away and brought to this town, where police caught up with the baby and returned her to the parents. Domestic violence is rare and drunk driving is almost non-existence. The people are not generally friendly, but unemployment is very low, they are hard workers and earn a nice living. The town is lovely to look at, traffic is not unbearable, and people still stop to enjoy the view from a park bench, while chatting with their neighbors.
Town #3's worst problem is bickering among the residents. The people in this town can not agree on anything, other than the fact that they hate their neighbors. There is a lot of back-biting in this town, politics are in constant turmoil, and the latest problem was deciding to put in parking meters to make the poor pay for parking in front of business having a hard time competing with the new Home Depot and Walmart that moved in a few miles away. There were arguments that lead to trumped up charges against a business owner, because he was making more money than other businesses in town, and thus created a lot of enemies. The people are mean spirited, but their town is pretty safe. The last crime I remember was a man posing as a police officer, pulling women over late at night. They never caught him, though it went on for many months. It is not a happy town, one that has been crossed off my list.
Town #4, is my favorite. It has nothing really special to brag about, with the exception of crime. I can read the news for months on end and not see a single crime. The big crime related news in a recent month, was somebody found a wallet. The crime rate is pretty much non-existent, it too is only a minor tourist destination, not one many would travel the two days to get there, that I am going to drive later this year. You can walk the streets at midnight and not get robbed, raped or kidnapped, get some of the best coffee in the world, if you love gourmet coffee, and it has a fabulous view, if you find the right accommodations.
While the town itself doesn't have a lot to offer, other than peace and harmony, the sister town, a mile away offers four times what this town offers, without all the hustle and bustle. It is close enough to be an easy shopping trip, but not close enough to bring the crime from that town into the neighboring safe community. It is like an invisible, protective barrier protects this wonderful town. I call it Utopia, and no I will not tell you where it is. It is the equivalent of a cruise from the northeast USA into Canada, safe, calm and mostly uneventful, if you don't get caught up in the ship-to-shore tender madness. It is an easy drive to the home port of the only cruise ship you'll see me on.
Not only have I learned about these towns from past visits, I stay in tune with Google alerts, Google Earth, Google Satellite Maps and Google Street View. It has enabled me to see the progress in the towns, and how the trends of a weak economy has change the faces of the landscape and the people. I can watch housing prices, gasoline prices, jobs, business ads, new development, and who is coming to town to perform. I can browse the grocery store flyers, department store flyers and learn whatever I need to know, in order to decide if my $4 a gallon is worth the drive.
The sad report is on town #5. Town #5 used to be my heaven on earth. In the past year, crime has skyrocketed. The daily news alerts are full of violent crime, something that was not a problem two years ago. From the elderly man found dead stuffed in the trunk of his car, to the woman's body wrapped in a blanket and dumped on the side of a main highway (where it stayed for three days before anyone noticed), to the serial hit and run drunk driver business owner who mowed down people crossing the street, the town has gone downhill. Two years ago, all the news was good, there was rarely crime reported.
People are getting pushed off hotel balcony's, robbed in the hotel, murdered in their hotel or apartment, beaten and robbed in corner stores. Children can not swim in the resort pools without some pervert exposing himself to the little girls. The Home Depot has become a prime crime spot at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon, with people beaten and robbed in the parking lot, on more than one occasion. They have have had gas wars with the price of gas one day this month below a buck a gallon in order to lure people to this beach community.
They have raised taxes so they could fight a legal battle to keep biker groups from cruising to their town in the spring, and have had home insurance rates increase as much as 25% due to the federal guidelines on flood prevention. The real estate industry is reeling, with the condos and time shares not moving at all. In short, it has become a cesspool, a town that has become popular as a place to hide out, if the law is looking for you for a murder committed in another state. It has become the land-based equivalent of a Caribbean cruise aboard a ship from that one dreaded cruise line.
These are the things you can learn from Google alerts. Go to Google, get a alert for the name of a few towns and then watch them for a few months. Then you will be able to decide where to take the perfect vacation, without spending a dime.
I prefer to avoid the blogs, just get the news. If the town is large, the number of blogs can be overwhelming and mostly they just recap the news you get in the other alerts.
If you a find a great town, and through Google Alerts learn that it is ready to be your next Utopia, don't tell me. Keep it a well-guarded secret, don't put your photographs on Photo Bucket or your videos on YouTube. That is how town #5 came to be flooded with all the wrong people, in just two short years.
