Perhaps you've come across this story of Michael Lee White, the American teacher at a business college in China who has been accused of being a spy involved with the CIA and having a role in the recent small scale war in Georgia. Those teachers. Just kidding. White doesn't seem much like spy material from the description in the AP article.

He wears T-shirts that say "Save The Whale," for example. And if he is a spy, I certainly hope he would have better digs somewhere else. He's cramped up in a small apartment without a lot of furniture. Where's the glamor? This doesn't sound very James Bond like.

The reason White is under scrutiny is that his passport was found in the basement of a house in Georgia along with other items belonging to soldiers who high-tailed it out of there.

According to Michael Lee White, he lost his passport on a flight from Russia to the U.S. October 2005. And, he has never been in Georgia. Besides that, when the war was happening, he was back in the U.S. taking care of his sick father. The CIA also says that White is not in the CIA.

It seems to me that White will be cleared, and this will be chocked up to a weird travel story snafu, but it does hammer home the point, guard that passport carefully.

I know people who have lost their passports and it has always caused a problem. The good thing is that with a lost passport, you can create a paper trail to back up claims about your whereabouts.

Here are the four situations people I know have lost their passports. White's is similar to number 1. The others were the result of robbery.

Just how popular is Couchsurfing these days? According to the site's most recent stats, sleeping on other people's couches is pretty darn popular: there are over 700,000 registered users and 622,000 successful "surfings" have taken place since the inception of the site four years ago. Couchsurfers live in approximately 47,000 cities and towns (wow!), and the most popular destinations are Paris, London, Montreal, and Berlin, respectively.

Couchsurfing reports that 51.4% of its users are male, 40.4% are female and the rest are unknown (or undecided). Couchsurfers can speak over 1,200 languages, with English, French, Spanish, and German being the most predominant. The least-spoken languages, in case you were wondering, are Ligurian, Manchu, and Sibe. I confess to not knowing what exactly those are.

Perhaps the most impressive Couchsurfing statistic is its rate of growth over the last four years. In July of 2004, 536 new Couchsurfers signed up for the site. Four years later, in July 2008, about 55,000 signed up in the same amount of time.

Haven't tried Couchsurfing yet? Head over to the site and see what all the fuss is about.

[link via the Freakonomics blog]

First off, Happy Labor Day weekend if you happen to be in the United States. For anyone else, happy weekend and don't work too hard. If you've read Gadling this week, perhaps you noticed posts on changes occurring , new additions to the travel field and what this means for travelers.

1. Josh, for example, talked about the upcoming opening of the Holiday Inn in Hanoi and what this signifies for the city. My first trip to Hanoi was in 1994 and I've been back four more times. As he noted,and what I've also noticed with each visit, the increased affluence has brought considerable change. Josh muses about the outcome.

2. If you're one of those people who have noticed how air travel just isn't what it used to be (how could you not notice) Scott's read "The top eight things I miss most about the current state of air travel" may seem familiar. Oh, how I long for the good old days, and I've never been on the Concorde.

3. Abha pointed us in the direction of a new travel guide resource called Trazzler.com that tailors recommendations to your location and the type of travel you are interested in such as culinary arts.

4. In case you're looking for the latest food snob trend, Jeffery found the answer at Forbes.com and added his two cents into the discussion. For all you backpackers who settle for cheese and bread while hopping on and off trains in Europe, you can go more upscale than those little triangles of cheese that doesn't need much refrigeration. Jeffery, is not a cheese wiz, but you might be able to convince him with a bottle of wine. (In case you missed it, I made a play on words. Cheese wiz = Cheez Whiz)

5. Here's a trend in weight saving that I, for one, don't hope other airlines start using. Grant wrote about how Jazz Airlines, a subsidiary of Air Canada is doing away with life vests. If the plane lands in water, passengers need to hold onto their seat cushions as flotation devices.

The Onion has just joined the long lineup of online city guides with their newest publication; Decider. Decider launched in beta mode with a guide for Chicago and covers everything from movie reviews to restaurant guides. If you visit the site expecting the usual amount of Onion humor, you'll be disappointed. The Decider is actually a serious site, with real reviews.

Of course, starting in Chicago is quite a challenge as they will be up against established sites like Metromix, Yelp and Citysearch. The advantage for the Onion is that they already have a large pool of journalists to use, and thousands of fans of their other work who might be interested in seeing how interesting an Onion publication is without satire.

The site currently lists over 5700 restaurants, but the vast majority have not yet been rated by readers, and I doubt that many people will be willing to sit down and post their reviews on this site if they already feel comfortable posting to Yelp or Metromix.

The site is also missing mobile access which is something they'll need to get up and running as soon as they can. Yelp already has a GPS enabled version of their site for the iPhone. Then again, the only mobile version on Citysearch is for Mobile,AL. The ability to search for a restaurant or store on the go is something that can make or break a site.

I'm sure that the guide will improve over time, but I can't help feel that it's all just a little more of the same. There is nothing really new on the site and it'll take a lot of user submitted reviews to become a truly useful resource.

When airlines (slowly) started introducing in-flight Internet access to their flights, they were very quick to point out that "VOIP calls" would not be possible. VOIP stands for "Voice over Internet Protocol", and basically means making phone calls over the Internet. All popular VOIP applications like Skype and Vonage have been blocked.

The airlines, and the provider behind the service obviously do not want a plane full of people chatting on the phone, yelling loudly about how they just made a fortune on the stock market. The other reason is of course because each flight only has a limited amount of data to share between all the passengers. If half the plane suddenly starts calling their aunts and uncles, regular web browsing would become impossible when all the bandwidth is sucked up by phone chatter.

Of course, when you tell people they can't do something, their natural response is to see how they can prove you wrong. It took a week, but the block on VOIP calls has been successfully bypassed. By using a web service called Phweet, passengers have been able to make phone calls to their friends. The system only works with people who have a Twitter account, but it's better than nothing. Of course, now this workaround has been published, it will only be a matter of time before the fun comes to an end, and the creative minds will have to find another working solution.

(Source: Wired)

If you can't decide where to go and you need some direction or original suggestions, you might want to check out travel website Trazzler. What makes you actually want to use this website is 1) Its simplicity 2) The fact that it tries to assess your "travel personality" before it makes suggestions.

Log on and it will give you short trip suggestions wherever you live. I logged on and immediately got 3 recommendations of trips around Madrid, so I'm assuming it picks up where you are logging in from and gives you ready information, (or it's a random coincidence). Likewise, you can ask for the same for any other destination, or if you want to narrow your search for a trip that (for example) will stimulate your taste buds, you can search under "culinary".

Then you can fill information about what sort of trips you have already been on, and where you'd like to go. This is partly how they capture some of your emotional qualities and recommend your trips accordingly. For the same purpose, there are also some travel pop-quizzes you can take.

It has a talented team behind it and like Tumblr and Twitter, it functions on an easy platform -- so it's no surprise that the co-founders of Twitter are the "Founding Advisors" (whatever that means) of Trazzler. It's quick, effortless, and worth a check out.

Our friends over at Engadget just let the world know that the mobile version of their site is now "iPhone friendler".

In addition to the existing m.enagdget.com link, iPhone and iPod Touch users can view the site in an optimized version for their device by pointing Safari to i.engadget.com. The good news is, that this works for any site in our family, including Gadling!

If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, and you'd like to keep up to date with the news posted on your favorite travel site when you are on the road (or in the bathroom), you can browse to i.gadling.com.

While this may seem a little unfair to all the other mobile users out there, Engadget posted the statistics of visitors to the current mobile site, and it turns out that a whopping 95.9% of all mobile browsers came to the site using an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Now you have no excuse for not keeping up to date with the latest articles posted here!

Several weeks ago, I reported that Delta Airlines was gearing up to offer the Aircell Gogo inflight Internet service, but it is American Airlines who beat them to the first operational service.

Aircell Gogo is now offered on select American Airlines Boeing 767-200 flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles and New York and Miami. This puts the total number of flights with the Gogo Internet service at 174 per week.

For just $12.95, passengers get unlimited access to the Internet, but Aircell points out that VOIP (Internet calling) and cell phone calls are not possible.

To use the service, you'll need a Wi-Fi capable laptop, PDA or smartphone, you can find a comprehensive list of supported devices on the Gogo site. If you plan to travel light, you'll be able to use your Wi-Fi enabled Blackberry, iPhone or iPod touch to get online, which should help keep you entertained for the duration of the flight.

Aircell is working on a very swift roll out of their service, in addition to American Airlines and the previously mentioned Delta rollout, they are also working to bring inflight Internet to Virgin America.

This service has all the key features of a successful product; it is affordable, it comes at a time where airlines are scrambling to generate some more revenue, and the market penetration of Wi-Fi enabled devices is larger than ever. My feeling is that it will be a huge success, and certainly more successful than previous attempts at airborne broadband.

Source (and image) from Gogo Inflight Internet

My daughter is approaching driving age. Gaad! Let's just say, I'm not thrilled. Dings and dents abound in Columbus. This is a city. It's not that people drive like maniacs, but there are many cars and many possibilities for an amiss to happen while navigating the roads. Dents and dings are the mildest forms of mishaps.

One day though, it's inevitable; my daughter will be driving. To get her ready for the day when she hits the road on her own, I've come across a guide that could come in handy. In July's Car&Travel: New York, a AAA publication, is a blurb on AAAStartSmart, a newsletter that is geared for teen driver education.

Developed in partnership with the National Institute of Health, the on-line newsletter, published every two weeks, covers topics such as driving at night, teen passengers' seat belt use and drivers' distractions. It gives tips to parents on how to set limits and what limits to set.

I can see how this newsletter might help illuminate the issues that occur with teen drivers to help parents know what to expect and how to prevent a problem before the problem ever has a chance to happen. For example, setting limits such as not letting a teen drive with other teens in the car since teens are a major distraction for teens.

To get the newsletter go to AAA.com/StartSmart and register.

If you're an rabid Olympic hawk like me--and there seems to be plenty of other people with almost as much free time on their hands--then you were probably incensed NBC didn't show the historic opening ceremony live last Friday.

To help you get around the 12-hour time gap, here's a quick run-down of how you can watch all your favorite events live.

First are the up and up options.

• NBC has the exclusive rights to broadcast in the US, which means you can't switch channels to ABC or CBS. Some of the events are broadcast live, notably swimming, but their online counterpart has some 3,000 hours of on-demand video and 4 live streams. Personally, I wasn't very impressed--had lots of difficulty in tracking down the stream for the epic USA-China basketball showdown.