Fiji and Thailand, two popular destinations, each recently suffered a coup. What has the effect been on tourism?

Not a whole lot.

Read on to find out how you might actually benefit from a government in turmoil.

Would you flee at the first sign of instability? Today, a number of people are discovering that even a military coup is not going to ruin their vacation.

In Fiji, tourism wobbled slightly in the aftermath of a December coup. The discounts now? Up to 40% and nobody’s in trouble.

The Czech Republic was without a functioning government for almost a year, yet tourism numbers held steady.

And in Thailand, the number of visitors hit a record the same month that anti-government protests resulted …

Once just a fantasy of the Star Trek crowd, space travel for the masses has long seemed like a pipe dream.

But guess what’s coming down that pipe now? You guessed it — private spaceships.

A number of private companies are gearing up to offer travelers the chance to leave the Earth behind, with regularly scheduled suborbital space flights predicted to begin in 2009.

Of course, space has already seen its first paying tourists. In April 2001, New Yorker Dennis Tito became the first space tourist (though Tito prefers the term “independent researcher”) when he flew to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

For the privilege of his six-day journey, Tito paid about …

Dear Peter,

I loved the story [on your radio show the other day] about the fellow who found his camera that had been stolen from his checked luggage on eBay.

He commented that he was willing to write a letter to the corporate office as suggested by the customer service department, but he couldn’t get the name of a specific person to address the letter to.

You may remember this headline from Consumerist.com, about Delta passenger Charles M. who had his camera stolen from his checked baggage, then found it on Ebay, and tracked the thief down.

Originally, Delta refused to reimburse Charles for his ticket — and his troubles — however, find out what happened when Peter Greenberg got involved…

In August of 2005, Charles M. flew on Delta airlines from Newark, NJ to Springfield, Missouri, placing his $250 Fuji Digital Camera into his checked luggage. When he arrived, the camera was gone. Thinking he had simply left it at home, he enjoyed his vacation and then returned home to New York to find that the camera was …

Federal taxes, security taxes, baggage fees, airport landing fees — all of these are part of the costs of flying, but they’re rarely disclosed on your ticket price. But they add up. So what exactly are all these fees and taxes, and more importantly, how much are they going to cost you? For starters, there’s a 7.5% excise tax for all domestic tickets. There’s a 9/11 security fee of $2.50 per departure. Then there are ‘passenger facilities charges’, leveled by airports that can be up to $4.50 every time you land. On a cheap Southwest fare, for example, fees and taxes might equal one-third of the actual ticket cost. And that’s just domestic flights.

For international flights, some of those …

Dear Peter,

I loved your article on how to avoid lost luggage, especially the part about how airlines are losing or damaging more bags than ever.

I have to share an experience I had a little over a year ago on this subject.