Planning, booking a trip online: How one traveler does it

What are you going to do on your summer vacation? Today's Winging It column is personal, about how one traveler --me -- has planned and booked, online, a two-week European vacation that starts at the end of this month. How do you deal with the anxiety of knowing, or hoping, that you have paid the least in air fare for just the right itinerary? How do you find hotels that meet your needs? The column is at this link.

I plan to tell you more about the experiences from my trip later this summer, including what it's like today to ride the rails in Europe. There are good lessons there for leaders in this country who plan to spend billions of dollars in coming years to build new high-speed rail lines and improve those we have.