Love to travel, yet hate to leave your pet? Pet boarding kennels have been amping up their services so you’ll both come back for more. Here’s how to find the right kennel for you and your best friend…

First, make sure the kennel is accredited by the American Boarding Kennel Association.

Then, sniff it out in person. Is it clean? Temperature controlled?

If your pet prefers to be footloose and leash free, Eureka Farm in Georgia keeps dogs inside a family home, so they can snuggle on the sofa and frolic in the garden.

Is Fido a diva in training? Try the celebrity-friendly L.A. Dogworks, which offers canine spa treatments.

And the Cozy Inn Pet Resort in Pennsylvania uses feng shui so …

Want to use a cell phone when you travel abroad, but don’t want to get hijacked by sky-high rates?

The good news is that cell phone technology is increasing exponentially, so there are plenty of viable options for leisure and business travelers.

But unless you’re keeping track of the technology, it can be hard to decide what works best for you.

Here’s the basic rundown of how it all works:

In the insular U.S., traditionally there hasn’t been a large demand for cell phones that work abroad, so we’ve developed our own digital cellular technology, called Code-Division Multiple Access (CDMA).

More than 200 other countries, however, use something called Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), the most …

After being evacuated from the chaos of Lebanon to the island of Cyprus last year, an American woman on her first vacation to the Mediterranean was asked what she thought about her involuntary place of refuge. “I think Cyprus is heaven,” she said unequivocally. “I should have come here in the first place.”

For more than three millennia, Hellenic wanderers, Egyptian Ptolemies, Crusading Knights and Ottoman Kings have regarded Cyprus as both paradise and playground.

Yet when it comes to travel, Cyprus often gets overlooked, which is a shame since this small (3,570 sq. mile), ethnically diverse (77% Greek Cypriot; 18% Turkish Cypriot) republic in the eastern Mediterranean offers a wealth of Roman history, …

Joining up with a Mercy Ship cruise may not be your typical vacation, but it could be a very rewarding one… Mercy Ships are cruise ships unlike any others.

They are non-profit floating hospitals that sail around the world providing free medical and emergency care to port residents. Once docked, Mercy Ship teams fan out into local communities to help with a variety of tasks.

If you’re not a doctor or nurse, this is where you come in.

Mercy Ships encourage volunteers to join the international crew to help out for periods of two weeks up to a year in any number of positions, from teaching English or computer skills to helping locals build wells and latrines.

In other words, there is a …

Air travel is way up again, with a record number of travelers expected by the end of the year, despite insane security lines and fuel prices.

However, so are the incidents of the airlines losing checked luggage; especially since last August, when a ban on carry-on liquids resulted in a 30 percent increase in checked bags.

In fact, nearly four million bags last year were either lost or damaged, making it the number three complaint by passengers, after flight delays and cancellations.

And while a few airlines are worse than others, this is a situation that is costing all of the airlines dearly — not just in claims, but also in installing new bag technology …

Travel website Expedia and Accor Hotels’ Sofitel chain have recently launched “Best Price Guarantees.” But does that mean you’re guaranteed to get the best price with them?

Expedia’s “Best Price Guarantee” sounds like a great deal: find a cheaper price on anything they sell within 24 hours of purchasing it from Expedia, and they’ll refund your money, plus give you a $50 credit.

But read the fine print — it’s riddled with exceptions, including: “Expedia reserves the right … to modify or discontinue the Guarantee or to restrict its availability to any person, at any time, for any or NO reason, and without prior notice or liability to you.”

With fine print like that, it could be impossible to actually claim that $50 …