McCarren Airport in Las Vegas has announced that a new liquor store located in the baggage claim area will be open by fall of this year. This is an artist's rendering of how it will probably look.



I had never thought one way or the other about the need for a pick-me-up while waiting for my bags, or stocking up for the ride home, or having a refreshing beer in the cab going to the Strip, but why not? There is a Starbucks coffee in the baggage claim area, so this is no different.

To be honest, though, my initial thought was "Really? Why do we need that?" and I still feel that way. But I'm trying to be open-minded about it, and might get used to the idea of a nice pre-mixed cocktail in a can to speed the wait for my suitcase.

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Flying is miserable nowadays, but we can reduce some of the anxiety and misery through knowledge.

In case you've never tried it, I recommend the Seat Guru website powered by TravelAdvisor.

In addition to a lot of good general travel tips, they provide seat maps sorted by carrier for every type of airplane in each fleet.

Here are the categories of information provided: Airline, Aircraft with seatmap, Seat Pitch, Seat Width, Video Type, Laptop Power, Power Type, Wi-Fi available.

Seat pitch has to do with how far back the seat in front of you extends into your legroom area.

The seat map diagrams are very helpful, and you should look at them before selecting a seat online because you can hover the mouse over and find out the advantages and disadvantages of each seat type, for example which seats don't fully recline, or the ones that look good, but are in a spot where other passengers tend to congregate standing up during the flight.

For those of us who travel infrequently, this is an invaluable resource because we don't get out enough to have picked up this knowledge.

I use the ITA Software website to get a general idea of flights and airfares to my destinations, but have found that many domestic airlines do not show up in the searches, Southwest and Frontier airlines being two of them.

I've lived in Colorado most of my life, so was spoiled by the fact that Denver International is a hub airport. I am still surprised at how difficult and expensive it is to fly out of Las Vegas to just about anywhere. Direct flights are hard to find, and because of the three hour time difference from the east coast, departure times are uncivilized. The worst ones are the red-eyes that leave at 11 p.m. in Las Vegas and arrive in Washington DC as the sun comes up. Younger travelers than I am probably deal with it better than I do, and there are probably business people who appreciate not wasting daylight hours on travel.

I really dislike changing planes on a cross-country trip because sometimes the layovers are far too long, it increases the chance of losing my checked bags, and increases the chance of delays due to weather or equipment problems, or even missed connections. When I used to travel for business and had airplane changes, I never checked my bags. As a leisure traveler, I try to travel as light as possible, but I'm not dogmatic about it. It's nice to not have to struggle around with a roller bag for the entire airport experience, especially when traveling alone.