Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
42
program that offers such services as a dedi-
cated 24-hour toll-fr ee number (
&
888/
879-4273
) for customers with special
Also check out the quar terly magazine
Emerging H orizons
(www .emerging
horizons.com); and
Open W orld
maga-
zine, published by SATH.
travel needs; special car featur es such as
swivel seats, spinner knobs, and hand con-
trols; and accessible bus ser vice.
Organizations that offer assistance to
disabled trav elers include
MossRehab
(www.mossresourcenet.org), the
Ameri-
can F oundation for the B lind
(
AFB;
&
800/232-5463;
www .afb.org), and
SATH
(
Society for A ccessible Travel &
Hospitality;
&
212/447-7284;
www.sath.
org).
AirAmbulanceCard.com
is no w
partnered with SA TH and allo ws y ou to
preselect top-notch hospitals in case of an
emergency.
TRAVELING WITH PETS
Fortunately, many S an F rancisco hotels
accept pets, although in some cases these
are limited to one cat or dog (and in, at
least a few hotels, just dogs). With beauti-
ful open spaces like C rissy F ield and
Golden G ate P ark, y ou'll find plenty of
places to take F ido. J ust be ware of S an
Francisco's leash laws: at some par ks, you
may notice all the dogs off-leash. Depend-
ing on where you are, that may be techni-
cally illegal and the moment y ou take off
your dog 's leash, an irate par ent may let
you know just where to put that leash.
8
STAYING CONNECTED
2
INTERNET ACCESS AWAY
FROM HOME
Without Your Computer
It's har d no wadays to find a city that
doesn't
hav e a fe w cyber cafes. Although
there's no definitive directory for cyberca-
fes, two places to star t looking ar e
www.
cybercaptive.com
and
www.cybercafe.
com
. S an F rancisco doesn 't hav e many
cybercafes, but most of its
public libraries
offer fr ee I nternet access. I n addition,
FedEx K inko's
and similar businesses
(www.t-mobile.com/hotspot) ser ves up
wireless connections at mor e than 1,000
Starbucks coffee shops nationwide.
Boingo
(www.boingo.com) and
Wayport
(www .
wayport.com) hav e set up networ ks in
airports and high-class hotel lobbies. IPass
providers (www .ipass.com) also giv e y ou
access to a fe w hundr ed wir eless hotel
lobby setups. Best of all, you don't need to
be staying at the F our Seasons to use the
hotel's networ k; just set y ourself up on a
nice couch in the lobb y. The companies'
pricing policies can be b yzantine, with a
variety of monthly , per-connection, and
per-minute plans, but in general y ou pay
around $30 a month for limited access—
and as more and more companies jump on
the wir eless bandwagon, prices ar e likely
to get even more competitive.
Wi-Fi is available throughout San Fran-
cisco, and most of its hotels also offer
dataports for laptop modems, and a fe w
thousand hotels in the U.S. and E urope
now offer fr ee high-speed I nternet access
using an Ethernet network cable. (You can
bring y our o wn cables, but most hotels
offer Internet access for a fee. A void
hotel
business centers
and
I nternet kiosks,
such as in most major airpor ts, unless
you're willing to pay exorbitant rates.
With Your Own Computer
Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) is the buzzword in
computer access, and mor e and mor e
hotels, cafes, and retailers are signing on as
wireless “hotspots” from where you can get
high-speed connection without cable
wires, networ king har dware, or a phone
line (see belo
w).
T-Mobile H otspot
