Chris Owen

Summer travel season traditionally starts on Memorial Day then ends on Labor Day. Nothing new there. This year though, there are solid signs that the summer travel season could very well be back up to pre-recession levels with Americans traveling more than ever before.

Helped by a dip in gas prices in many areas, Memorial Day weekend travel should start the summer off with a bang as 34.8 million Americans are expected to travel 50 or more miles from home between Friday and Monday. But even in places where the price of gasoline is higher, summer travel is a big priority.

"High debt burdens, gasoline prices, and uncertainties regarding the strength of the current economic recovery have not deterred Californians from holiday travel," said AAA spokesperson Cynthia Harris in the Newark Patch. "But many consumers intend to cut back on the distance they travel, as well on entertainment expenses, to compensate for reduced travel budgets."

To make those cutbacks, travelers may book less expensive budget hotels rather than a resort-style property. Best Western International told Gadling that advance summer bookings at the chain's hotels are up 21 percent this summer compared to summer 2011.

For cities and towns that want to be a home port for cruise ships, it would make sense to be set up to handle them first. Ensuring that today's giant ships can dock, that there will be shore-side services available and figuring out the logistics of it all are checklist items one might consider mandatory. But there's a big difference between being "ready" and having a $100 million cruise terminal sitting empty with no ships scheduled to call.

That seems to be right where Houston Texas is today; all dressed up and with no place to go as the would-be cruise port can't find cruise lines that want to sail from their bright, shiny terminal.

"I'm convinced that no cruise line is going to come. They may as well forget about using it as a cruise terminal," Texas Judge Ed Emmett told ABCNews.

Worse yet, the losses keep growing. In the last year, the port has spent another $4.7 million just maintaining the cruise terminal. The ABCNews report notes that some of the money was spent to improve the gangways for cruise passengers that may never use them.

"Seeing Everest from any perspective is a thrill," JOURNEYS International founder Dr. Will Weber said in his blog recently, outlining 6 strategies for a personal Everest encounter.

1. Trek to the Everest base camp in Nepal. Takes eight days of hiking to reach the pinnacle viewpoint of the peak from an 18,200-foot, non-climbing vantage point.

2. Drive to the north slope of Everest in Tibet. Drive from Lhasa to Kathmandu in five days.

3. Trek to the Arun Valley of East Nepal. 12 days takes travelers to a high ridge between Everest and Kangchenjunga where they will have breathtaking views of four of the five highest mountains in the world.

4. Fly the Everest Flightseeing trip from Kathmandu. A comfortable pressurized aircraft virtually guarantees a peak-level view of Everest.

Summer can mean a trip to one of America's national parks for many. These adventure-packed and history-rich destinations offer travelers a wide variety of vacation options at hundreds of locations. To promote America's national parks and help with planning a summer park vacation, the Travel Channel has joined with the National Park Foundation (NPF) in a summer-long partnership of initiatives.

"Through this summer partnership, the National Park Foundation and Travel Channel, will provide the Network's passionate viewers with the best tools and information to plan the perfect national park adventures," said Neil Mulholland, president and CEO of the National Park Foundation, the official charity of America's national parks.

Inspiring viewers to visit our 397 national parks as well as encourage volunteerism and monetary donations to NPF, the Travel Channel will support the NPF partnership via the network's "Destination Summer" campaign.

Thirty hours of programming on America's national parks will include celebrating "Get Outdoors Day" on Saturday, June 9.

Often, planning a trip can call for using a travel agent. Venturing to unknown lands armed with the advice of someone who has been there before is always a good idea. Now, one travel organization is making it possible to take their agents along with you on your trip.

Commercial space travel, well on its way to replacing traditional space exploration, took a step back Saturday, aborting a mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Just a little step back though – the launch is set to try again early Tuesday after swapping out a faulty part.

SpaceX scrubbed Saturday's mission less than a second before liftoff after high temperatures were detected in one of the rocket's engines.

After Tuesday's re-launch, SpaceX will fly its Dragon capsule to the ISS to test sensors and propulsion systems, both of which have never before operated in space. If all systems are go, the unmanned capsule will practice docking at the ISS.

Saturday's scrubbed launch is a good example of why America's space program is headed in this "commercial" direction. Hours after the scrub, SpaceX had the solution to the problem in place and had moved on to planning for Tuesday's re-launch. Run the old NASA way, detailed systems engineering, computer simulations and time-consuming analysis would have taken much longer and cost much more.

This Photo of the Day was taken in Monument Valley, Utah, and comes from Gadling Flickr pool member oilfighter. It is titled "Drama Over Cowboy Land."

"I've been to Monument Valley a few times, but the sky was usually cloudless," says oilfighter. "Boy, what a sunset. The clouds broke, and the wind sent them flying. The last light of the day gave the sky a pastel pink hue."

Upload your best shots to the Gadling Group Pool on Flickr. Several times a week we choose our favorite images from the pool as Photos of the Day.

Tips for getting featured: in your Flickr account check "Privacy and Permissions," and check "yes" on "Allow others to share your stuff." Adding information about your image does not hurt your chances either.

Along with "Drama Over Cowboy Land," oilfighter tells us, "I used a 2 stop graduated ND filter to balance the exposure, and thus bring out the colors in the clouds. What a beauty!"

Iceland's Thrihnukagigur volcano has been dormant for 4,000 years but will open up next month for escorted adventures deep within the volcano. It promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for both skilled and novice hikers.

"It's been over four decades ago since the first man set foot on the moon. But it's only now that humans are offered the chance to see what a volcano looks like on the inside," says Inside The Volcano, a website operated by 3H Travel, a licensed tour operator in Iceland.

After a short hike across lava fields and a safety briefing, participants will descend 400 feet via a cable car, deep into Thrihnukagigur volcano. Veteran mountain climbing and trekking guides insure safety as the tour group spends about an hour of the 5-6 hour tour on the floor of the magma chamber.

"The distance from top to bottom is a little short of three NYC's Statue[s] of liberty planted on top of each other. The beauty of the crater lies in its enormous and, to some extent, intimidating size," says 3H Travel.

Returning to the surface via a cable lift, participants are served a traditional Icelandic Meat Soup before being returned to their hotel in Reykjavik.

Get an idea of what it is like in this video:

The price? ISK 37,000 (about $300).

To many cruise travelers, "cruising" means "Caribbean" and a growing number have sailed to and around the warm blue waters there many times. Tiring of the same ports, those travelers want variety but don't want to travel internationally. Cruise lines answer the call by literally "building" new destinations that add variety and help out local economies as well.

This week, Carnival Corporation, parent to a number of cruise lines, broke ground on the Amber Cove Cruise Center, a new $65 million facility in the Dominican Republic to be built exclusively for cruise ships.

"With this cruise terminal, tourism and economic activity in Puerto Plata and the north region will rise to occupy a pre-eminent regional position in the entire Caribbean," said Dominican Republic president Leonel Fernandez Reyna in an article for Breaking Travel News.

The new two-berth Amber Cove Cruise Center will be able to accommodate up to 8,000 cruise passengers and 2,000 crew members daily. The facility is expected to host more than 250,000 cruise passengers in its first year of operation.

Amber Cove will feature a welcome center with a variety of retail offerings, including a marketplace for locally sourced Dominican crafts and souvenirs, as well as a wide range of themed restaurants and bars, water attractions and a transportation hub allowing visitors easy access by land and sea to the surrounding destinations and attractions.