Fewer free breakfasts, more Wi-Fi

Fewer hotels are offering free breakfasts, more are charging for late cancellation, and more are offering free in-room wireless Internet access. Ironically, though, the more you pay for your room, the less likely you are to get free Wi-Fi.

Those are some of the findings from a recent survey of 10,000 hotels conducted by Smith Travel Research for the American Hotel & Lodging Association.

Fifty-nine percent offer a complimentary breakfast, down 9 percentage points from 2006.

Visit your destination online

Free videos of all types of destinations are just a click or two away.

You can watch them on your computer or download to a Web-enabled phone or video iPod. Many are available for free at Apple’s iTunes store. Click on podcasts and then on the category “Society & Culture.” Scroll down the category list on the left to further limit your choices to the “Places & Travel” subcategory.

Before you download a show, look for the little icon of a TV set next to the name to figure out whether it’s a video or an audio-only podcast.

You’ll find everything from official videocasts from Disneyland about new attractions at the California theme park, to programs from travel guru Rick Steves with titles like “Hiking the Cinque Terre” and “Highlights of Prague.”

Other shows include two travel series from ON Networks. “Beautiful Places” offers profiles of national parks like Yosemite in California, Arches in Utah and Rocky Mountain in Colorado. “City by City” is a video travel guide to urban sightseeing, shopping, restaurants and accommodations, with the first season focusing on European cities: Dublin, Barcelona, Lisbon, Prague, Madrid, Milan, Vienna, Berlin and Zurich. If you prefer to bypass iTunes, you can also see the shows at http://www.CitybyCity.tv and http://www.beautifulplaces.tv.

Royal accommodations

Maybe you can’t live like a king, but you can vacation in a castle.

The TripAdvisor Web site is offering a top-10 list of castle hotels in Europe, based on rankings by travelers who contribute reviews to the Web site and TripAdvisor editors.

The list is topped by Glin Castle in Glin, Ireland, with a $491 average nightly rate, followed by Castle Stuart, Inverness, Scotland, $614; Thornbury Castle, Thornbury, England, $394; Domaine de la Tortiniere, Tours, France, $310; and Borthwick Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland, $273.

Next up on the list is the Chateau de Bagnols, Lyon, France, average nightly rate $1,335, followed by Castelletto di Montebenichi, Bucine, Italy, $242; Ashford Castle, Cong, Ireland, $527; Parador de Jaen, Jaen, Spain, $205; and the Hotel Castle Liebenstein, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, $173.