Hamster Travel

As you may gather from my postings, this hamster is comfortable traveling near and far. There are hamsters who are less experienced and need care and assistance to ensure their comfort. Here are some travel tips from Petco about providing a smooth ride for our furry brethren:
To ensure your hamster has the best possible travel experience, remember to include her security items with the rest of her baggage. Pack her regular food and bedding as well as a comfortable travel cage if you're not able to bring her regular cage. If you keep life as normal as possible by providing familiar objects, her stress will be reduced.

Carrier

The most important item you'll need when traveling is a well-constructed, escape-proof carrier. A plastic carrier would be best.
Not all airlines will allow your hamster to travel as a carry-on pet in the passenger compartment. Be sure to check with your booking agent.
When you travel, you should avoid carriers with all-wire construction. These carriers do not provide the necessary seclusion and are also unacceptable for use in airline travel.
Avoid cardboard carriers as well. Cardboard carriers are designed strictly as a temporary item. They can be used for transporting a hamster home for the first time or for an emergency trip to the vet when a regular carrier is unavailable. They are not designed for long-term use.
Be sure to attach a label to the carrier with your hamster's name, your name, home address and telephone numbers, as well as a phone number and address at your destination and an additional number you know will be answered while you are away. Also, provide your veterinarian's phone number for emergency contact. The label should be firmly affixed to the carrier, along with feeding instructions. The information should be written in permanent ink and the label protected from moisture with clear packaging tape.

Food & Water
Keep your hamster on his/her normal diet. The less change you subject him to, the better. Pack an adequate supply of familiar food and treats to get hamster to his/her destination, and if you aren't positive you will be able to purchase the same brands where you are going, then pack along enough to last for the duration of your trip. It is also possible to have PETCO.com ship food to your destination.
Like humans, hamsters' stomachs can be upset by a change in water, so you should bring bottled water.

Food Dishes & Water Bottles
When serving foods, remember that you must clean all utensils and dishes thoroughly to keep your hamster in good health. To avoid trouble and potential danger, use disposable dishes and spoons. These are inexpensive and more convenient.

Medications To Bring
Bring any necessary medications as prescribed by the hamster's veterinarian. Also include cotton balls, cotton swabs and mineral oil for eye and ear cleanups. Packing a small supply of flea and tick powder or spray, suitable for hamsters, is a good idea as well.

Emergency Kit
Assemble an envelope containing emergency information. Include medical and vaccination records, which may be needed when crossing state lines as well as the name and phone number of your hamster's veterinarian, and the names and phone numbers of veterinarians en route and at your destination. Contact the American Animal Hospital Association, 1-800-252-2242, between 8 AM and 5 PM MST to find veterinarians in various locations.

Optional
A lint roller for cleaning up hamster hair from your hotel room and yourself can be very useful on the road as well as a sponge for cleanups. And most important, bring special treats to soothe his travel nerves.


Thank you Petco (www.petco.com) for a thoughtful and thorough article on treating your hamster well. The most important thing is to travel in first class where possible - you can then bring your hamster with you. Hamster especially enjoys Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa's Privatair, and Midwest Airlines. More on first class is coming up - you know how I enjoy tales. Soon to come is Ulrich, the flight attendant and his sky high hijinks. Check back for the update on Hamster's Amsterdam and my South American sojourn in Rio de Janeiro!

Air Hell

The travel industry has taken a beating with the loss of three U.S. airlines in one week: Skybus, Aloha Airlines, and ATA (American Trans Air). Us hamsters have placed bets on who would be next; I must confess I lost. Please support small air carriers - Frontier, Midwest, Cape Air, Gator Air to name a few.....otherwise I'll end up having to be shipped by UPS when I want to fly due to lack of competition and higher prices.

Speaking of higher prices, it is well worth the money to fly on Privatair - the Swiss all-business jet service which provides 737 planes for a mere 48 passengers! Many companies offer such services now, including Silverjet, EOS, probably Virgin Atlantic soon. I am partial to Lufthansa's Privatair service which I've flown twice. It felt nothing like the cages I'm used too. I though we were being grounded by a snowstorm because at 6:25pm my flight hadn't been announced (departure time 6:30pm). At 6:27 were were called to board from Newark's luxurious business lounge for Lufthansa, and by 6:32 pulling from the gate. Just 12 passengers on board and we were treated royally! The closest I've experienced is Grand Class on Austrian Airlines - featuring Ulrich the flight attendant. More on him shortly - he's currently enroute to Rio de Janeiro and we'll create some new adventures for you there.

Wind's Blowing in a Different Direction

Gentle reader, my plans have changed - Amsterdam will be my second trip after visiting Rio de Janeiro, Brasil!! The plans are still afoot and I will have much to tell you about it. I have been before and it's irresistible. I even have a small cage all my own there! Details to come shortly. I've not forgotten Amsterdam; I am small and my tale's longer than it should be. While I edit, I will tease you with some pics:

Boston or Bus(t)

I've taken the bus from New York to Boston twice. On on occasion, I was playing hooky from work (for a week). Working in a travel agency, I couldn't very well book a plane or train ticket or rent a car without risk of being caught. Pre-2oo1, the only questions from a bus company were "Destination?" and "Form of Payment?" In the second case, the trip was also last minute and the roundtrip bus fare was only $50. It was pretty fast, just 3 1/2 hours, including a stop in Hartford, CT and a rest stop at Wendy's. Similar time on the return. There was even a movie! More recently, bus services from New York's Chinatown (initially overcrowded vans) provided one way service for as little as $10 - $15. Beware - a well known expression among hamsters: "You get what you pay for!" The Chinatown services improved remarkably along with their popularity. Now you can get the same express service for as little as $2.50 roundtrip, including a movie! Megabus will offer this service beginning May 30th. Prices begin at $1 each way, when purchased in advance; the maximum one way cost is $14. The fee is 50 cents. Megabus (www.megabus.com) is a subsidiary of Coach USA: it also has low cost routes to Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Toronto, Las Vegas, Chicago, Kansas City, San Francisco, Memphis, etc. You can find similar bargain routes in the U.K. - London to Scotland for just 1 quid!....For less than the cost of a latte, you can go see the Red Sox, hear great music at the Middle East, go rowing on the Charles, shopping on Newbury, and see great architecture in one of our oldest cities. So when you read those daunting news reports that the dollar is worth nothing, you can point to this. My fur is standing on end!

P.S. My boss did discover I wasn’t really out sick during my first Boston trip. It was 81 degrees in Boston that March, so we went to Provincetown. I came back with a tan.

More is coming about Amsterdam, including Jason Priestley, Zelka the Bulgarian, and the Red Light District. Lastly, for a real “trip” to Amsterdam, if you’re in NYC you must go see the Broadway rock musical Passing Stange. Have a great weekend!

Amsterdam revisited - Part I

I got my first passport in 1991 for a trip to Aruba. Yes, I know hamsters don't normally live this long - but I know of a zebra finch currently in its 8th year, so anything is possible. I didn't need the passport for Aruba, but it was a good occasion to have one (now Americans need passports to go anywhere - like everyone else - rightly so!). My friend John and I were told how friendly and beautiful the Arubans would be by our travel agent Debbie, who seemed to go into a trance when reminiscing about her trip to the island. We guessed the locals were really friendly and really beautiful. She exaggerated. People were friendly enough and lovely enough, I guess I didn't meet the same people Debbie did. Aruba wasn't really lush and green - the beach was lovely, water clear blue, it was windy. I loved the food, and......actually, I'm completely digressing. I had no intention of writing about Aruba at all - you've probably already been there! How this started is I noted the Dutch architecture of some hotels, and in the capital Oranjestad, and it made me think of seeing the real thing: Amsterdam! With my new passport it seemed the likely place to go next. I returned to New York I went back to Debbie the travel agent who was pleased by my good reports of a great stay on Aruba. I gave her updates about the hotel, beaches and shops for her future clients to benefit from. She was disappointed I hadn't met Paulo the waiter, or Derk the concierge at the Palm Beach Resort. I'm not sure why. We started planning my trip to Amsterdam! Lucky Hamster I, the flights were confirmed on standby via the friends/family program of my friend Patrick, a reservationist with Air Canada. We would be flying on Martinair, a Dutch airline. Sounded perfect, arriving in Holland on a Dutch airline. The vacation would begin in the sky (clearly I was dreaming - we all know planes are busses in the sky). The fantasizing travel agent wanted Pat and me to stay at Hotel Pulitzer. Indeed it is an amazingly luxe hotel. I promptly went to check it out online before discovering the internet didn't really exist yet - I'm always getting ahead of myself. I had to wait for mail from the tourist board with a brochure of hotels. After much thought and weighing possibilities - exhausting Debbie who asked me to come back when I was ready for Curacao - I selected Hotel Vijaya in the heart of the red light district. It's a Dutch/Indian owned hotel I discovered. I regret choosing it only for the name - people tended to snicker when I told them where I was staying. And this was years before the word vijayjay had been coined on Oprah or Tyra (or was it The View?). Hotel booked, and flight on standby I needed only to wait for summer to end before my September trip commenced. In the meantime, I was enlightened by other hamsters who'd already been to Amsterdam about all the fun I would have: the great sex waiting for me, the drugs, the cool music, the sex, the sex, the drugs.....Not to sound naive, but I really planned this because of the architecture, and museums. I'd read The Embarrassment of Riches. I wasn't going for sex, drugs, and rock and roll - wasn't I already living in New Jersey? I don't even do drugs, although the other two....Needless to say, by end of summer, I was as randy as half the others boarding this Dutch flying bus to Amsterdam.