During your travel4seniors.com editor’s decade after retirement in the 1990s, I did Las Vegas four or five times a year. Hotel rooms were cheap or free, buffets cheap or free, entertainment cheap or free and round-trip flights cheap. That was then. This is now.

While my retirement income has gone up a total of only 10% in two decades, Las Vegas costs have increased considerably. Hotel rooms were $35, now $350. Buffets were $7, now $40. Shows were $25, now $200. Airfare to Las Vegas was $70, now $200.

Current tips, local taxes and other piled-on expenses greatly increase the already high cost of doing a Vegas vacation today. If you plan to gamble away your kids’ inheritances there, be prepared to pay a lot more. Or consider a day at a nearby Native American casino without all the inflated costs.

Your travel4seniors.com editor’s memories of the City By The Bay go way, way back to even before Tony Bennett memorialized it in song. During my WW2 Navy days, I roamed the beautiful streets while on troopship duty in the Pacific campaigns. It was a fantastic experience in every way.

However, these days we get frequent complaints from senior travelers that the city is now a dangerous and dirty place. Additionally, because of runaway inflation, prices for hotels, restaurants and everything else in town are insanely high. Worse, San Francisco’s formerly beautiful sidewalks are now crowded with squatting homeless people, along with their trash, pee and poop.

If your travel plans include this and any other big city, be aware of the conditions, and take steps to assure your personal safety and sanitary health.

A recent airport incident created passenger health challenges when their flight was delayed for more than three hours. Worse, the on-board air conditioning was turned off. Finally, the flight was cancelled after many passengers suffered severe heat exhaustion and required hospital care.

What should you do if long tarmac delays happen on your next flight? The best way to avoid problems is to keep calm, stay in your seat and restrict physical activities. Also sip water or juice to keep your mouth and throat lubricated. And if you’re religious, a silent prayer could help.

According to The London Sun, American Airlines is earning more than $500 million a year by reducing the size of on-board toilets, thus adding more seats in the already-jammed passenger compartments. As if sitting for hours squeezed into the tiny cheap seats isn’t uncomfortable enough. What’s next: straps hanging from the aircraft ceiling, so that the lowest-class passengers will have to stand throughout flights?