Good news for anyone who’s wanted to join the Registered Traveler program: more participating airports and lower fees are on the horizon. Today the TSA announced that it has decided to lift a cap on the number of airports offering programs like Clear and Preferred Traveler. Before today, that cap kept the number of airports with registered traveler programs like Clear to a meager 20 spread around the nation.

What’s more, the TSA has decided to eliminate its $28 fee for the program. Travelers will still have to pay fees levied by the private sector service providers offering the programs, but the costs will now be significantly less. With the Clear program, for example, that brings the cost of a first-year membership down to $100 from $128 per person.

Summer festivals are a great way to enjoy a quick, last-minute getaway or day trip close to home - and many charge cheap admission (or none at all). Here are some (but certainly by no means all) of the many notable festivals, celebrations and wacky local events happening this weekend:

Music

Bear Valley Music Festival, Bear Valley, California

Pemberton Festival, Pemberton, British Columbia

Lowell Folk Festival, Lowell, Massachusetts (Free Admission)

RockyGrass, Lyons, Colorado

13th Annual Cape Fear Blues Festival, Wilmington, North Carolina

Connecticut Jazz Festival, Moodus, Connecticut

Lincoln Park Music Festival, Newark, New Jersey (FREE ADMISSION)

Mystic Garden Party 2008, Maui, Hawaii

Foodie Festivals

Gilroy Garlic Festival, Gilroy, California

Chincoteague Bluebrry Festival, Chincoteague, Virginia

Jazz & Rib Fest, Columbus, Ohio (FREE ADMISSION) (pictured)

Culture

Berkeley Kite Festival, Berkeley, California (FREE ADMISSION)

Ho’ike & Hawaiian Festival, Vancouver, Washington

Bele Chere, Asheville, North Carolina

Kenda BikeFest, Hancock, Massachusetts

AquaFest, Lake Stevens, Washington

GermanFest, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Arts & Entertainment

Flik Movie Festival, Oxon Hill, Maryland

Bellevue Festival of the Arts, Bellevue, Washington (FREE ADMISSION)

The Independent Features Film Festival 2008, New York, New York

Ingenuity Fest, Cleveland, Ohio

The good news: there are more TSA-friendly laptop bags in the works. The semi-bad news? They aren’t going to win any style awards. But then, there are plenty of travelers who would gladly carry a plain Jane bag as long it allows them to avoid the laptop shuffle at security checkpoints.

You don’t need us to tell you that paying in dollars while staying in a European hotel translates into a good deal for U.S. travelers this summer. But you may need us to tell you where to find such a deal:

The WorldHotels Stay in Europe - Pay in Dollars promo, good through August 31, 2008, allows visitors to Europe to pay published euro rates with dollars, which means a hefty savings. Some of the 52+ participating hotels include Prague’s Imperial Hotel (pictured above) and Hotel Leonardo, Paris’s Hotel Astor Saint-Honore, Milan’s Grand Visconti Palace, Brussels’ Stanhope Hotel and Barcelona’s Avenida Palace.

Yesterday, Midwest Airlines revealed the new, reduced route map and slew of schedule changes it plans to implement on Sept. 8th as part of its larger restructuring effort brought on by high fuel prices and the company’s decision to ground its MD-80 planes.

What’s changing? Gone is service to leisure-friendly cities like Ft. Lauderdale and San Diego, as are direct flights from Milwaukee to West Coast cities Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. To keep its core business customers flying, the airline has retained service to and from major business centers and its hubs, Milwaukee and Kansas City.

All told, the airline will still service 32 cities.

Every once in a while, I run across someone obsessed with Jelly Belly jelly beans, that special kind of person with staunch opinions on the merits of the highly controversial popcorn flavor, someone who can discern a blueberry bean from the strikingly similarly-hued plum bean in a moment’s notice, someone who refers to their assortment of beans as a “collection.”

This post goes out to anyone for whom the above rings true. In addition to its first-come, first-served free walking tours that have long been popular among visitors to Northern California, Jelly Belly is now offering a VIP bean immersion experience called the Jelly Belly University Tour, which treats groups of six or fewer bean-curious visitors to a private tour of the working Fairfield, CA factory and elucidates such mysteries as why it can take up to 21 days to make a single bean. And of course, tour participants will be able to taste beans fresh off the production line. At the end of the one-hour jaunt through the factory, t-shirts heralding participants’ new Degree in Beanology are awarded. The $47 tours are available on weekdays only and to ages six and up.

Kinda of brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, bean there, done that…

Fancy a panini on Rome’s Spanish Steps? Through October, locals and residents alike who loiter on the iconic stairway with snacks and beverages will be targets for Italian police, who are under orders to fine anyone littering or otherwise destroying the beauty of the city’s famous landmark. The ban also applies at other tourist hotspots like the Trevi Fountain, this CNN story reports.

Major carriers are launching a new money-making scheme that I approve of: ads on boarding passes. As the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, Delta has already added promotional messages, coupons and destination-based travel information like weather reports to some boarding passes and at least four other airlines (Continental, United, Northwest, US Airways) have partnered with the company producing the ads and expect to roll out the new boarding passes within the year.

Sure, some people will probably decry the presence of yet more advertising images in their everyday lives, but the airlines clearly need to find new revenue streams - and this one arguably benefits some travelers - and it certainly doesn’t take anything away.

Since it opened earlier this year, I’ve been keeping an eye on Cavallo Point, a new lodge built at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge across from San Francisco. Mainly, I’ve been wondering how I can justify a vacation to a place that’s just a few miles from my house.

I may have found the answer: Cavallo Point’s Adventures & Learning Vacations. The ongoing series of adventure, well-being, arts and culinary programs let guests hole up in this idyllic setting for a few days while exploring those topics with Northern California experts - among them, the art of handcrafted cheese with Cowgirl Creamery cheesemakers, animation with artist Packard Jennings, bootcamp fitness for women with Joanie Greggains and wine country cooking with Joanne Weir.

Through the end of the year, the programs come with free lodging when you and another person share a room and participate in the program together. Solo travelers will receive one night of free lodging at the inn.

Commercial air travel being what it is today makes this 120-pound personal jet suit by daring Swiss pilot Yves Rossy look like an attractive - though somewhat scary - alternative to conventional puddle jumping. Too bad it only carries enough fuel to stay airborne for 12 minutes, a record Rossy hopes to break when he attempts to cross the English Channel while wearing this homemade contraption later this year.