I'm here with Andrew Zimmern, the wildly popular host of Travel Channel's hit series, Bizarre Foods. He's a personality that needs no introduction--at least around the Gadling water cooler. You could even say he's our Paris Hilton.

His show--which is about what it sounds like--has just finished its second season, with episodes spanning the globe from Iceland and Bolivia to St. Petersberg and Delhi (check out our episode guides here). Beyond the tube, he's a celebrated food writer, dining critic, radio talk-show host, and chef. For more Andrew, check out his blog.

In this exclusive interview, Andrew dishes on everything from director Ang Lee's stinky tofu fetish to his NYC School of Hot Dog Consumption Theory.

What did you do after you got out of the restaurant business in 1997? How'd you end up on the Travel Channel?

After leaving daily restaurant operations, I started working for a local monthly glossy magazine and a local Fox news station, doing food stories for both. I began to work on several shows on HGTV as a part-time talent and just kept pushing tape everywhere I could. I began to develop a reputation and a following, and eventually started working with a local production company on show ideas. I have always wanted to be the food guy on the Travel Channel. It was my goal from the beginning and once they saw our tapes they commissioned some specials from us, and then those took off and the rest just happened thanks to the viewers. I am totally blessed and the luckiest guy in the world.

Theo Brandt-Sarif is a professional lecturer who gives seminars on booking luxury vacations and business trips. He's also author of Guerrilla Travel Tactics, a tell-all guide on how to get the best deals on flights, hotels, and vacation packages.

Are there shortcuts to getting business or first class air travel at less than street price?

By far the best way is to use frequent flyer miles. And with credit cards offering frequent flier miles in virtually any and every airline's programs, it's easier than ever to accrue a lot of miles, even if you do not fly very often. Go to freetravelreport.com. One of the free reports is titled "Simple Secrets to Getting First Class Airline Upgrades".

How about getting upgraded to a suite, oceanfront, or concierge floor?

One of my favorite hotel upgrade strategies is the "special event" strategy. All you need to do is contact the hotel reservations office 2-3 days ahead of arrival by fax, email or phone, explaining why your forthcoming visit is special. If it's your honeymoon-you are virtually guaranteed an upgrade. But wedding anniversaries, birthdays, graduation gifts, first visit to a country-they all count as "special events".

You will almost always get something you would not otherwise have received-an upgrade, free breakfast each day, champagne and fruit delivered to your room etc. Think about it from the hotel standpoint-it costs them virtually nothing to engender a very loyal customer.

I'm here with Andrew Zimmern, the wildly popular host of Travel Channel's hit series, Bizarre Foods. He's a personality that needs no introduction--at least around the Gadling water cooler. You could even say he's our Paris Hilton.

His show--which is about what it sounds like--has just finished its second season, with episodes spanning the globe from Iceland and Bolivia to St. Petersberg and Delhi (check out our episode guides here). Beyond the tube, he's a celebrated food writer, dining critic, radio talk-show host, and chef. For more Andrew, check out his blog.

In this exclusive interview, Andrew dishes on everything from director Ang Lee's stinky tofu fetish to his NYC School of Hot Dog Consumption Theory.

What are the top four worst foods you've sampled, ranked by terribleness?

• My aunt's meatloaf. Horrific. Each slice ringed with an orange pool of fat, spreading out on dirty plastic plates. I was six at the time and it traumatized me.
• Stinky tofu at Dai's Sisig in Angeles in the Philippines. It's a quick hash made with meat and cartilage from chopped pigs faces. It was really nasty.
• Raw pigs balls sliced and served with raw egg yolks. I ate it at a getemono bar in Tokyo, and texturally and aromatically, it was a real challenge to eat.
  
• And I guess to round out the list I would have to choose all the bad versions of dineguen, which is a Malaysian blood soup that I adore, but bad versions of it are just hideous.
  

I'm here with Andrew Zimmern, the wildly popular host of Travel Channel's hit series, Bizarre Foods. He's a personality that needs no introduction--at least around the Gadling water cooler. You could even say he's our Paris Hilton.

His show--which is about what it sounds like--has just finished its second season, with episodes spanning the globe from Iceland and Bolivia to St. Petersberg and Delhi (check out our episode guides here). Beyond the tube, he's a celebrated food writer, dining critic, radio talk-show host, and chef. For more Andrew, check out his blog.

In this exclusive interview, Andrew dishes on everything from director Ang Lee's stinky tofu fetish to his NYC School of Hot Dog Consumption Theory.

Before Bizarre Foods, how much jet-setting around the world did you get to do?

Plenty! I was lucky enough to come from a family that always traveled and placed a premium on pursuing singular experiences, eschewing resorts in favor of spending weeks skiing in Europe, driving ourselves around and eating in local restaurants and in homes with people we met along the way. I am a paler version of my Dad, the original "food freak" in the family, who introduced me to the concept of a tasting menu at Paul Bocuse in 1974. I am eternally grateful.

I'm here with Erik Buell, a former AMA racer and engineer for Harley-Davidson who now runs his own subsidiary, Buell Motorcycle Co, which produces the only sportbikes made in the US. He's also happens to be an avid road-tripper--of the two-wheeled variety--and has cruised almost all the back-roads of America.

What got you interested in motorcycles?

Freedom to explore and experience the world at low cost! I grew up out in the country on a farm, and although it gave me a great work ethic, it also gave me a great need to see more.

Is a cross-country roadtrip by motorcycle possible? How would the logistics of that work? I'm assuming step one is lose the suitcase.

Cross country trips on motorcycles are the very best. When you are inside your Hummer with tinted narrow windows, a big GPS screen, dashboard and controls, face it, you might as well be at home on the couch. On a motorcycle you roll through valleys and hills and your senses feel the changes in temperature, you smell new-mown hay, and as you idle through little towns you listen to kids playing and maybe get splashed by a sprinkler as you ride by. And you can either use a backpack to travel light or get saddlebags, top box and tank bag and have all the clothing you could want in case you want to go to a fancy restaurant in St. Louis, or go to a play in Seattle, or even pull out your backpack guitar and sit in with some guys jamming on the street corner.

I'm here with Rudy Maxa, PBS's "Savvy Traveler" and host of the awards-winning series Rudy Maxa's World. His sixth season is currently airing, featuring locales such as Estonia, Argentina, and Thailand (he's already done a whopping 65 episodes).

He began as an investigative journalist at the Washington Post and then became the "Savvy Traveler" 15 years ago for public radio. He's now a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler and his work has appeared in GQ, Travel & Leisure, LA Times, and Forbes, among other publications. If you're interested in more of what he has to say, check out his blog.

Read part 1 here.

What has been your greatest adventure?

"Adventure" is a big word. Watching the northern lights from a lodge in the countryside of Iceland was magical. Safari in Kenya really made me understand where in the food chain we rank-which is well below lions unless you're talking "zoo." Surfing in a wet suit down a white-water river in New Zealand--on my stomach with just a little board to keep me (mostly) upright--certainly got the heart pounding.

Worst travel experience?

Waiting before dawn in a tiny, freezing waiting room at what was then Leningrad's airport for a flight to the States. The room was cold, my fellow passengers were largely drunk, and we boarded the big, old, lumbering Soviet jet through the cargo belly. The plane had to make two refueling stop before it could make it to the East Coast.

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Dale Moss, the managing director of OpenSkies, the planet's newest airline flying between New York City and Paris. After test driving his airline out last week, I had a few questions about the airline and Mr. Moss was kind enough to call me personally. Here's what he had to say.

Gadling: For the lay person who's getting into the transatlantic market, what's the big difference between OpenSkies and a legacy carrier?

Dale Moss: Well, I think there is a whole load of difference. If we got into the market with the same offering as a legacy carrier, it certainly would have not have fulfilled the mission that we were given to by British Airways: to take advantage of new legislation called Open Skies that gives a company like British Airways an opportunity to fly directly, non stop from European cities to New York. So OpenSkies the airline is a manifestation of that mission. And we said to ourselves, "How do we want to be different?"

We want to be predominantly a premium kind of carrier. We're not going after the masses – we never want to be a large airline with huge airplanes, because that defies what our mission is. Our mission is to go after an intelligently priced product for customers who are discerning.

I'm here with Rudy Maxa, PBS's "Savvy Traveler" and host of the awards-winning series Rudy Maxa's World. His sixth season is currently airing, featuring locales such as Estonia, Argentina, and Thailand (he's already done a whopping 65 episodes).

He began as an investigative journalist at the Washington Post and then became the "Savvy Traveler" 15 years ago for public radio. He's now a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler and his work has appeared in GQ, Travel & Leisure, LA Times, and Forbes, among other publications. If you're interested in more of what he has to say, check out his blog.

How did you make the transition from investigative journalism to travel writing? Did you always have the travel bug?

The switch was gradual and unplanned. While a senior writer at Washingtonian, the monthly DC magazine, I was asked to do political commentary twice a week on a new, national public radio show called "Marketplace." I didn't want to do political commentary, but the producer of the show persisted. He asked if I had any hobbies, and I said, 'Well, I travel all the time, and I'm always surprised at how fellow travelers don't know how to read an airline ticket. Or don't know their rights when they arrive at a hotel with a reservation to find the hotel if filled."

So I suggested a segment on consumer travel issues. I asked my friend Peter Greenberg, then writing a column in the LA Times on travel called "The Savvy Traveler" if I could use that name for radio. He kindly consented. Over a couple of years, my Savvy Traveler segment grew in popularity. I began getting writing assignments on travel subjects for national magazines. Then the every-other-week radio commentary turned into a one-hour, weekend show on public radio, "The Savvy Traveler," that I hosted for four years. Then came the television series that I own as of this season, "Rudy Maxa's World."

John Lopinto is one of those savvy frequent fliers who always manages to yoink that last upgrade from you (he racks over 100,000+ miles each year). But he also happens to be a top flier guru who helps travelers make the airlines work for them through his award-winning site, ExpertFlyer.com, the #1 destination for frequent fliers. He's here to give some exclusive tips and insider info on getting the best deals on your next flight.

What Are the Most Effective Ways to Work the Upgrades Game?

The Holy Grail of air travel is flying in business or first class for the price of a cheap coach ticket. Short of "squatting" in a first class seat and hoping you won't get caught (you will, so don't try it), there are ways to use your frequent flier miles to score that seat in the front. If you are an "elite" status member in your favorite frequent flier program, you have a better chance than the average member, but if you are at the program's very highest elite level, you have more options and better odds at getting that upgrade that sometimes can be free.

For the rest of us, however, using miles to upgrade is usually the easiest and can be booked at the time of ticket purchase. They also offer a better value for the miles used compared to using miles to "purchase" a coach award ticket. But upgrade inventory is always limited so it is best to book as far in advance as possible and for mid-week travel if possible. But if you can't upgrade when purchasing your ticket, go on the wait-list. Most upgrades don't clear until days or hours before departure.

I'm here with Charles Veley, who's considered the person who has been to the most countries, territories, islands, protectorates (you get the picture) in the world. By one popular list, which is used by his global club for country collectors, he's been to 630 distinct places. Check out his travel history here for easy stalking. His blog can be found here.

I've read your dispatch for International Herald Tribune from Bouvet Island. Was that the most difficult place to get to?

Bouvet is definitely one of the most difficult places. Of course, the MOST difficult places should be by definition the ones I haven't been able to do yet. Most frustrating of this group include Paracel Islands and Nicobar Islands.

Any new territories / speck of land you've traveled to this year?

I was home for the first 5 months of the year, due to the arrival of our 3rd child under age 5 (Caroline Vanessa Veley), but did manage to land on Rockall in May. A short writeup of that trip is here. For the past couple of years, I've kept a very brief, high-level blog.