A grand place on the North Shore of Lake Superior

GRAND MARAIS, Minn. — Sandwiched between the magnificence of Lake Superior and the Sawtooth Mountains, Grand Marais seems ho-hum. But don't let its disheveled downtown deceive. This is one of the best bases for exploring the North Shore. Stay in a hotel overlooking the lake, stroll to a gourmet dinner, shop at an art gallery or a classic five-and-dime, and explore the outdoors. The town may not have the charm of Lutsen's clapboard lodge or the flash of Naniboujou Lodge's painted dining room, but in the end it wows as much as the surrounding scenery.

THE BASICS:

Tucked against Lake Superior, Grand Marais, population 1,351, was once a sleepy fishing village. All that's changed, in part because it occupies one of the most scenic spots along the Arrowhead. At the edge of town, a windblown spit of land juts out into the lake, helping to form a big bay and a calm harbor, so the town looks embraced by Superior.

Get tourist information at http://www.grandmarais.com.

WHAT TO DO:

The Gunflint Trail — which cuts inland to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and where moose sometimes wander onto the road — begins its winding way in Grand Marais, but you don't really need to drive along that road to feel lost among the elements. Instead, take a walk along the bay beach to Artists' Point, the peninsula of rock and pine trees that juts out into Superior. It's the locals' go-to hike.

If you want more miles, not to mention views, of the lake, head just outside of town to Pincushion Mountain Trail System (www.pincushion trails.org). Or pop onto the Superior Hiking Trail (www.shta .org) from a number of entry points near Grand Marais.

Perhaps you'd rather hike from store to store downtown. The Sivertson Gallery (www.sivertson.com) offers warm tea for sipping while browsing its collection of works from Inuit, Alaskan and regional artists. The locally made jewelry is nice eye candy, too.

Joynes Ben Franklin Department Store can hook you up with everything from Uggs and Carhartts to Barbie dolls and Norwegian sweaters (joynesbenfranklin.com).

With its diminutive size and purple shutters next to the beach, Drury Lane Books looks like a fairytale house (www.drurylanebooks.com). That's appropriate given its small but spellbinding collection of books for children and adults.

Around the harbor bend from downtown is the North House Folk School, a collection of clapboard buildings where artisans preserve northern crafts by teaching hands-on classes (www.northhouse.org). Subjects include knitting, kayak-making and surprises such as "deer processing for carnivorous locavores." Visitors are welcome to explore the campus and stop by the gift shop.

HIDDEN TREASURE:

If you're in need of gear — or inspiration — check out Stone Harbor Wilderness Supply (www.stoneharborws.com) on the bay. The hot spot for outdoor sports opened in June 2010 and has been selling and renting essential supplies — and some unusual cool outdoor toys — ever since.

In the summer, there are kayaks, canoes and paddleboards. But when snow flies, this place becomes the cutting edge of winter fun. You can rent the usual cross-country skis and snowshoes. But you can also rent — or buy — Wintergreen clothing (beyond warm and pricey to own), Snowtrekker winter tents and the wood-burning stoves to keep them cozy, and Marquette skis, a sort of ski-snowshoe hybrid that lets you hike up a snowy trail and ski down the other side. Want some tips for your first time? Snow Harbor offers guided outings.

The place also sells nordic skates, which are specialized blades that attach to cross-country ski boots and are made for gliding over the bumps and cracks of frozen rivers and lakes. It's your route to explore the Boundary Waters by skate.

WHERE TO EAT:

Judi Barsness not only cooks exceptional meals at her sophisticated harborside restaurant, Chez Jude, she also teaches others how to do the same by offering cooking classes (www.chezjude.com; closed in November and April). At Crooked Spoon Cafe, inventive, delicious dinners include Lake Superior fish with cucumber-corn relish (www.crooked spooncafe.com; closed after today until Dec. 27). For live music and chili with a micro-brew beer, head to Gun Flint Tavern (www.gunflinttavern.com). Breakfasts are divine at the Pie Place (www.northshorepieplace.com); don't miss the maple sausage.

WHERE TO SLEEP:

Only in Grand Marais' website (www.grandmarais.com) offers links to a variety of lodging options, from cabins to B&Bs. I've enjoyed East Bay Suites, with luxury units that have sleek kitchens, stone fireplaces and expansive views of the lake just beyond the balcony (www.eastbaysuites.com).

GETTING THERE:

Grand Marais is northeast of Duluth, Minn., on Lake Superior, along Hwy. 61. The drive from the Minneapolis/ St. Paul takes about 4 12/2 hours.

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Stretching your miles isn't easy

Airlines and their partners, especially co-branded credit cards, lavish miles on you these days. The challenge isn't accumulating miles; it's in finding ways to use them. And getting full value can be tough.

This biggest barrier — this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone — is that scoring a frequent-flier seat, at the low or "saver" mileage value, where and when you want it is a challenge. IdeaWorks statistics show overall success ranges from a decent 50 to 60 percent for American, Continental and United to a dismal 25 percent or so for Delta and US Airways.

The situation is even worse in business class, said AlphaFlightGuru's Tim Gibson. He and I agree that the best use of frequent-flier miles is for international trips in business class, and here, he said, a typical traveler's initial success rate is less than 10 percent. His company (alphaflightguru.com) specializes in helping business travelers get the most from their miles, and he said his company ultimately can "help 80 percent of the people." But his agents really have to work at it, sometimes mixing and matching airlines within alliances or even using different alliances.

The strategy with the best odds of success, Gibson noted, is to wait to confirm seats until three to seven days before departure. That's the time when airlines finally decide how many seats they really aren't going to sell and release them for frequent fliers. Even when clients have to set firm travel dates well in advance, AlphaFlightGuru helps them by providing highly discounted consolidator tickets when the mileage awards don't become available.

My own experiences confirm Gibson's view, though I've often found even more trouble. Service at my home airport (Medford, Ore.) is almost entirely on regional airlines, so just about anywhere I want to fly requires at least one connection. Getting seats on a single flight is tough enough; getting seats on a decent connection is almost impossible. Right now, for example, Delta's online booking system shows no one-week trips on any dates through June from Medford to Paris at the lowest award level, in economy or business class.

Why is international business class the best use of miles? Because those awards give you the biggest return. Even at a sale price, a round-trip business-class ticket to Europe or Asia is likely to cost somewhere around $5,000. On most lines, that trip would require around 100,000 miles for a "saver" award, so your frequent-flier credit theoretically is worth about 5 cents a mile. By contrast, using 50,000 miles for an economy international ticket you could buy at a sale fare of $750 makes the miles worth a cent and a half. And at the other end of the scale, these days a long-haul domestic coach ticket generally costs less than $500, so if you can score a seat at the typical 25,000 miles, your credit is worth 2 cents a mile or less.

Of course, when you're trying to value your miles realistically, you have to apply a big discount factor to compensate for the difficulty in finding seats. "Get almost any seat" awards generally require at least twice the "saver" requirement — often more — which automatically devalues your miles by 50 percent.

How about using your miles for nontravel purchases, as some airlines now urge? The reason is simple: You realize even less value than using your miles for travel. In most of the programs I've examined, the purchase value is about a half-cent a mile, and I've never seen a deal valuing credit as high as even 1 cent a mile.

Given the problems of scoring seats, I believe that if you aren't interested in overseas business class, you're better off accumulating miles through one of those "bank buys a ticket" credit cards programs or even a straight cash-back card. These days, quite a few cards average around 2 cents for each dollar you charge, and that's usually enough to buy coach tickets without worrying about seat limitations.

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Pick the right international hub

If you're planning an overseas trip this spring or summer, you may well have to change planes at an airline "hub" somewhere. And the choice of where to change can have a big impact on how smooth your trip will be. Here are my suggestions for hubbing.

The best hub is no hub. If you can find a nonstop flight schedule at a reasonable fare, take it, even if it means a little extra driving to a bigger airport at either end. No matter how smooth the process, compared with a nonstop, changing planes adds a minimum of two hours to your flight time and more likely four or five hours. Changing planes also increases your chances of delay, missed connections, misdirected baggage, and other such ills.

These days, you can find plenty of nonstops for most big U.S. cities to most big European and Asia cities, and some nonstops from medium-sized U.S. cities to big overseas cities or from big U.S. cities to medium-size overseas spots. And the chances of finding nonstops will increase as airlines finally start taking delivery of the new 787s, which are designed for long-haul routes with insufficient traffic to support the biggest planes.

Hub to cut costs. Even on routes with nonstops, however, you can sometimes find a lower fare on connecting flights. I just received a press release from Finnair, for example, that promotes round-trips from its U.S. gateways to Moscow, via a Helsinki connection, that are about $200 less than round-trips from those same gateways just to Helsinki. For travel next spring, Polish airline LOT is currently pitching connections to a handful of major European cities through Warsaw that undercut nonstops by as much as $400. These cases illustrate a common situation on long-haul routes. Even though flying you nonstop costs the airline less than making you connect, airlines know that many of you will pay a premium for the convenience of a nonstop. The result: connecting fares that undercut nonstops. You see this quite often on long-haul trips within the U.S. and from the U.S. to Europe. The big airfare search engines are pretty good at posting these deals: On Expedia, for example, the summary box for any trip search often shows lower one-stop fares than nonstop fares.

Choose the most convenient hub. When you have a choice of hubs -- at roughly the same fares -- try to select the most convenient connecting itinerary.

-- Total flight time usually trumps other reasons for choosing a connecting itinerary. And, contrary to what you might think, the shortest distance usually isn't as big an influence as the connecting time. If you're flying from Chicago to Europe, for example, an Atlanta connection may involve more miles than a connection in New York, but a shorter connecting time may offset the mileage difference.

-- Try to avoid hubs with a bad history of delays. According to a recent trade report, the most delay-prone U.S. international connecting hubs are O'Hare, Miami, Newark, JFK, San Francisco, and Baltimore; the best are Charlotte, Houston Bush, Dulles, and Seattle-Tacoma.

-- Overseas, most travelers give high marks to the big Asian airports. In Europe, most travelers I know avoid London and Paris when they can and instead hub through Amsterdam, Munich, or Zurich. Helsinki is apparently an easy hub, as is Reykjavik on flights to/from Northern Europe. Try to avoid hubs with multiple and separated terminal buildings, especially if you have to connect between two different airlines. You may have to leave and re-enter security.

-- Avoid connecting at a U.S. hub on an inbound international itinerary. Typically, you have to claim your baggage, go through customs, leave the security area and re-enter the check-in system -- baggage and security. By contrast, most big international hubs outside the U.S. let connecting travelers remain in "transit" status without having to check in all over again.

Clearly, you often have limited choice of hubs. In those cases, just make sure you leave enough connecting time to compensate for the occasional delay or glitch.

Send e-mail to Ed Perkins at eperkins@mind.net. Perkins' new book for small business and independent professionals, "Business Travel When It's Your Money," is now available through www.mybusinesstravel.com or www.amazon.com

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Australia to create world's largest marine reserve in Coral Sea

By Associated Press

1:58 p.m. CST, November 25, 2011

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia says it will create the world's largest marine reserve in the Coral Sea.

The Environment Ministry says the area has shallow reefs that support tropical ecosystems with sharks, coral, sponges and many fish species. The proposal includes seas beyond the already protected Great Barrier Reef Marine Park off northeast Australia.

The reserve would cover almost 400,000 square miles (nearly 1 million square kilometers).

Fishing would be allowed in parts of the reserve. Some conservationists raised concern such exceptions would make management of the reserve more difficult.

The proposal announced in a ministry statement Friday is now open for a 90-day comment period.

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Help! My river cruise transfers are sunk

Q: My wife and I are booked on a Viking River Cruise. We plan to go from Washington to Moscow three days early, take the river cruise to St. Petersburg and remain there for three days before going on to a four-day stopover in Paris en route home. It is because of the diversions and deviation that Viking is attempting to set aside its responsibility to comply with what its literature apparently states.

The problem: Viking does not want to be responsible for the ground transfers in Moscow and St. Petersburg, despite the fact that we have purchased a Viking Air Package.

At the outset -- this trip was booked nearly a year ago -- Viking summarily denied any responsibility for transfers and stated that we must make transfer arrangements on our own, even though the cruise line's literature states that if air is not purchased from Viking, transfers may be purchased separately.

Furthermore, it has been difficult to get anyone on the phone at Viking at a level to discuss the matter further. Shouldn't Viking's literature mean what it says? -- Robert Brown, Silver Spring, Md.

A: If Viking includes ground transfers with its air packages, then you should have received them. But I'm not sure if it explicitly promises the transfers.

At the time you made your purchase (the language has since been modified, but I'll get to that in a moment) the promotional copy might have left you with the impression that transfers were included. But anyone with a working knowledge of the cruise industry, like a competent travel agent, would have known that's not necessarily the case.

A closer reading of Viking's terms would have revealed that transfers do not apply on non-embarkation days or dates that don't coincide with tour dates. Nor do they apply to non-Viking-related hotels, such as the properties you planned to visit in Russia.

You had two things in your favor: First, the vagueness of the promotional language, and second, the apparent difficulty you had getting a clear answer to your request.

I think this could have been avoided by reading Viking's terms closely or working with a qualified travel agent, who could have advised you about the transfers. In reviewing your correspondence, I see you spent a fair amount of time on the phone, too. When dealing with this type of request, it's usually best to make your request in writing. That way, you'll have a paper trail if there's ever any disagreement with the company.

I contacted Viking on your behalf. In addition to taking care of your transfers as "an exception" to its policy, a spokeswoman told me Viking is reviewing its terms and conditions as it applies to transfers and will "update it accordingly to ensure the verbiage is as clear as possible."

Christopher Elliott is the author of "Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals" (Wiley). He's also the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine and the co-founder of the Consumer Travel Alliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for travelers. Read more tips on his blog, elliott.org or e-mail him at chris@elliott.org. Christopher Elliott receives a great deal of reader mail, and though he answers them as quickly as possible, your story may not be published for several months because of a backlog of cases.

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