What We're Reading: Rise of the Super Mosquitoes

Caroline Costello's travel accomplishments include surviving a 2 a.m. whitewater rafting excursion in the Canadian wilderness, successfully biking from Dusseldorf to Cologne without a map, and gaining access to a covert pizza speakeasy in New Orleans.

Caroline is an active member of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW). Her work has appeared on USA Today, the Boston Globe, AOL.com, MSNBC.com, ABC News, TODAY Travel, and CruiseCritic.com, among other publications.

See recent posts by Caroline Costello

Are super mosquitoes the new zombies? And will a blazer and some hair gel get you a free pass to first class? We reveal the answers to your most burning questions in this week’s round-up of new and interesting travel news.

Man-Eating Super Mosquitoes Cometh

My skin started to itch just reading this. Budget Travel reports that mosquito bites around the world are at an all-time high. Blame global climate change, perhaps? The World Health Organization says that “Increased rainfall in many parts of the world due to a warmer Pacific Ocean has boosted mosquito breeding” and—here’s where the super mosquitoes come in—some of the bugs are even becoming resistant to insecticide, according to Budget Travel.

But please, don’t stay home. We need travelers to read our site! Keep those tickets to Alaska (where the unofficial state bird is the majestic mosquito) and take steps to stay safe, like wearing long sleeves and carrying a loaded gun.

One Useful Tip on Getting an Upgrade

A “source report” on Gwyneth Paltrow’s website Goop reveals that a traveler caught a glimpse of top-secret instructions regarding whom should get free upgrades on an airline staff member’s computer. According to the report, “On a Virgin flight back to Heathrow, I spotted one of the staff’s monitors that read, ‘Look for well-dressed people to upgrade.’ The staff then began looking around for well-dressed people to upgrade.”

This is sort of shocking—but probably true. If airline staff are kicking passengers off planes because of perceived wardrobe blunders like too much cleavage, why wouldn’t they do the opposite and upgrade fashion-forward flyers?

Conan O’Brien Makes Fun of SkyMall

The SkyMall catalog is right up there with angry cats and Rick Astley in the things-that-are-forever-funny category. So thank you, Jaunted, for sharing this clip of Conan O’Brien poking fun at SkyMall. O’Brien reveals a new video game in which players use a credit card to snap up SkyMall items like a King Tut Tissue box. The SkyMall bit starts at about 2:10:

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