Travel: Letters to the editor

Camping’s pluses and minuses

Regarding “The Lighter Side of Hiking” by John Flinn, June 19: At $150 a night per adult and $87 for kids, Yosemite’s High Sierra Camps should be renamed “Yosemite’s High-Priced and Financially Out-of-Reach Sierra Camps.”

Barbara Correa

Laguna Niguel

Compliments to Flinn on his article. I enjoyed his accurate portrayal of what the High Sierra Camp experience is like, and my son and I enjoyed having him as a cabin mate at Sunrise camp one night last summer.

Bill Hessell

Ojai

Cash-only in German towns

Having just returned from traveling in Germany, I must alert future travelers not to expect to use their credit cards except in larger cities. We found no small hotels or restaurants that accepted them in the villages, and international ATM machines were few and far between.

We always travel with credit cards and ATM cards and found it extremely difficult. We have never felt it necessary to take cash before this, and we have traveled to many countries.

Patricia Hoffman

Santa Maria, Calif.

Editor’s note: Money experts suggest taking a small amount of cash, both American dollars and currency of the country you’re visiting, and perhaps traveler’s checks just to round out the monetary tool kit.

She’s had it with flying out of LAX

Security at LAX and bad seats on planes have stopped us from flying out of that airport and changed our travel habits dramatically. I am 5 feet 8 inches tall, and the seats, even in first class, are not designed for proper support of a female of my height. The vibrations of flying require good seats to protect the disks, and airline seats have failed me. After one two-hour flight on United, I had back pain so persistent that surgery was required. The airline’s response was denial of problems.

I’m also an amputee, but somehow the last security screener I saw at LAX failed to understand that a cosmetically acceptable limb could contain functional gears and levers. I did take the issue to the highest manager available at the time and was lucky to make that flight in time.

I wish we had trains equal to those in Europe, Japan, etc. Those tracks do not usually transmit vibration, the rails lines are well banked for turns and the seats are suitable for travel.

We are driving more, which means we spend less time at our destinations, but we can avoid the negatives of unsuitable treatment of the human body by institutions that no longer are interested in serving people.

Amy Davis

Anaheim