Close User Name Password
Login Register
Travel alerts straight to your inbox:
 

See where your stuff gets made -- live!

Tags: / / / /

Zombies And Factories Just Go So Well Together, Especially In Columbus

October 30, 2009 at 4:04 PM | by egw | 0 Comments

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over.

In this year's surprise horror comedy hit "Zombieland," a college student attempts to find out if his parents in Columbus, Ohio are alive. If you find yourself in the position of having to flee from a zombie invasion, you may want to hide in these Columbus-area factories—so take the tours now, just in case.

more ›

Tags: / / / /

Take Some Louisiana Flavor Home From A Tabasco Sauce Factory

October 23, 2009 at 4:00 PM | by egw | 0 Comments

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over.

Put some spice in your next trip by seeing the forest preserve where the multi-plumed Tabasco bird romps and plays. Okay, that's not really how Tabasco sauce is made, but if you never visit its Louisiana factory, how will you know for sure? No wonder it made Travel and Leisure's list of the coolest factory tours in the world.

more ›

Tags: / / / / /

Tour The Boeing Factory And Enter The Largest Building In The World

October 15, 2009 at 1:14 PM | by egw | 1 Comment

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over.

We'll admit, today's featured factory tour may be more of our dream than yours. After all, you can ride in airplanes constantly without needing to know where they, so to speak, come from; it's that old saw about watching the sausage get made. But we've always wanted to go to the Future of Flight, and we envy the lucky travel writers who have already been to Boeing's pricey but exciting factory tour.

more ›

Tags: / / / /

Eat Your Olympic-Rejection Feelings At Eli's Cheesecake In Chicago

Where: 6701 W. Forest Preserve Dr. [map], Chicago, IL, United States
October 2, 2009 at 2:18 PM | by egw | 0 Comments

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over.

Sorry, Chicago, your fifteen minutes of fame are up now that you weren't chosen for the 2016 Summer Olympics. We made your senator a President and your talk show host queen, but it's time to go home. It's not you, it's us!

But on the bright side, you have Eli's Cheesecake World to comfort you in your hour of need. President Obama enjoyed a slice of a 500-pound cake at his inauguration in January; now maybe he and Oprah can split a pie together.

more ›

Tags: / / /

Hershey's Adds Make-Your-Own Chocolate Tour

Where: 63 W. Chocolate Ave. [map], Hershey, PA, United States
September 25, 2009 at 2:27 PM | by egw | 0 Comments

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over.

The branded town of Hershey, Pennsylvania already contains an amusement park and Hershey's Chocolate World, perhaps the closest analogue to Willy Wonka's factory after Cadbury World. But the American brand may have just pulled ahead with its newest attraction: Make your own chocolate!

Two new classes a day at the Hershey Chocolate Lab get visitors up close and personal with the company's tasty treats. Learn about the different varieties of cocoa beans and global tastes for the sweet stuff at "Planet Chocolate," or design your own blockbuster in "Build a Bar." (It's just like Build-a-Bear, but way more delicious.)

more ›

Tags: / / / / /

Head To Cape Cod To Crunch On Potato Chips Made In Town

Where: 10 Breeds Hill Rd. [map], Hyannis, MA, United States, 02601
September 18, 2009 at 4:43 PM | by egw | 0 Comments

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over.

Why settle for sitting at home on your couch eating chips when you could be out seeing where they come from? We'll spoil the ending of the Cape Cod Chips' factory tour and say that yes, it does end in a free bag of golden salty deliciousness—but consider making this a detour on your obligatory fall foliage tour.

The Cape Cod company was founded in the '80s with an eye to creating a healthier potato chip (Ed. note: hah!) by cooking in a shallow vat of oil instead of a giant tub like the big guys used. You can still see this process, producing what we call kettle chips, at the company's Hyannis factory, where it all began with a storefront for tourists and a guy who had taken a potato-chip-making class.

more ›

Tags: / / / /

Head To Atlanta For All The Coke You Dare To Ingest

Where: 121 Baker St. NW [map], Atlanta, GA, United States
September 11, 2009 at 3:28 PM | by egw | 0 Comments

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the Best Factory Tours the world over, and let us know if we missed any.

The World of Coca-Cola is probably the closest real equivalent to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, except you don't need a Golden Ticket to attend. The Atlanta tourist attraction re-opened in 2007 after the company dropped $97 million on a facelift, and even if you don't particularly enjoy its sweet ambrosia, it's worth a visit.

Originally invented as a medicinal tonic, Coke is now the biggest-selling soft drink ever, and the World of Coke is the golden altar to that success. Watch the bottling process, then check out antique Coke ads that reflected how the beverage was sold to us until we learned to love it. The international bottles display showing what the rest of the world is drinking (from Coca-Cola Inc.) and a "4-D" film will take you, no, not back in time, but on a jolting trip through distribution. To go back in time, check out the shrine to New Coke.

more ›

Tags: / / / /

Fore! Play Through The Home Of Ping Golf In Arizona

Where: 2201 West Desert Cove [map], Phoenix, AZ, United States
September 3, 2009 at 4:29 PM | by egw | 0 Comments

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the Best Factory Tours the world over, and let us know if we missed any.

Ever heard the urban legend about how peeling the top layer of a golf ball will cause it to explode? Us too! We expect a tour of Karsten Manufacturing, maker of Ping golf balls, to clear this mystery up for us.

Karsten Manufacturing founder Karsten Solheim got into golf as a young engineer when his coworkers at General Electric strong-armed him into joining their foursome; the putter he subsequently designed first made a big splash when a winner at a Phoenix PGA tournament used it. At Karsten in Phoenix, you can watch club heads being molded in a machine and later, real-life orders personalized for golfers around the world.

more ›

Tags: / / /

The Modern Birds' Nest: Take the Airbus Tour

Where: Rue Franz Joseph Strauss, Blagnac, France, 31700
May 6, 2009 at 12:52 PM | by egw | 0 Comments

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over. This week, go international!

Missed Airbus' periodic tours of its newest planes? Visit the birthplace—or as the natives say, crèche—of the A380 and other magnificent flying machines in Toulouse, France.

Aerophile visitors are taken in a bus around the Airbus compound, named for French air entrepreneur Jean Luc Lagardère, and shown the testing sites and runways where both parts and finished planes get the full quality assurance treatment.

Then, joy of joys, you get to play plane voyeur and watch the actual assembly process of one of these megaplanes from high above the assembly floor—acrophobics need not apply!

Tours are offered Monday through Saturday from 9am to 6pm, at €14 a head for the A380 tour (€11 for ages 6 to 18, free for kids under 6). You must however call them (+33 (0)5 34 39 42 00) and specifically request a schedule for tours in English, normally offered during the summer only; make sure to call at least 2 days before you plan to visit and be ready to offer up your full name, birthdate and nationality. Bring your passport, but leave the camera at home as photography while on the tour is not allowed—quelle merde.

Related Stories:
· Jean Luc Lagarde Tour: A380 Site [Taxiway.fr]
· Tour an Airbus A30 at JFK [Jaunted]
· Airbus A380 Flight To Nowhere: Peter Greenberg Addicted To Hot Tail Cam Action [Jaunted]

[Photo: flavio_ferrari]

Tags: / / /

The UK's 'Fun Chocolate Day Trip'

May 5, 2009 at 12:33 PM | by egw | 0 Comments

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over. This week, factory tours goes international.

Hershey Park is for amateurs. Going to Cadbury World doesn't make you a chocolate snob exactly, but it gives you bragging rights when you claim to have cultivated a taste for the across-the-pond fave with the purple wrappers. Actually, Hershey's makes all the Cadbury chocolate in the U.S., but the formula is different across the pond, and if that information doesn't boggle your mind, ever hear of Mexican Coke?

The Birmingham factory includes a man-made Aztec jungle representing the origins of chocolate, a "Willy Wonka"-style vat of melted chocolate (but no diving allowed, Gloop!) and a special exhibit of Cadbury advertising through the years, in case you think you can still remain immune to the charms of the choccie. There are plenty of samples, too, so make sure to pretend you don't understand what Fruit & Nut or Flake are.

Buy tickets online before your visit; they're £13.45 ($20) for adults, £10.10 ($15) for children. Follow the signs from Bournville Station if you're taking public transit to Birmingham.

Related Stories:
· Foodie Travel: Taste NYC With Sweet Walks' Chocolate Tours [Jaunted]
· Birmingham travel guide [HC]
· Chocolate Paris Bike Tour [Jaunted]

[Photo of a chocolate village: TDR1]

Tags: / / /

Aging Gracefully: Monastery Turned Cheese Factory

May 4, 2009 at 11:38 AM | by egw | 0 Comments

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over.

They always say you don't really want to know how your sausage is made, and we suspect the same might be true for cheese. But we'll try anything once, which is why we're making tracks for the Schaukaeserei Engelberg cheese factory in Switzerland, the first factory we've covered so far that comes complete with a bistro.

more ›

Tags: / /

Get the Scoop at Ben & Jerry's Vermont Factory

Where: 1281 Waterbury Stowe Rd. [map], Waterbury, VT, United States
May 1, 2009 at 9:16 AM | by egw | 1 Comment

Become an informed consumer while still on vacation! Check out Jaunted's newest series of the best factory tours the world over.

Summer's on its way and nothing says scorching-hot temperatures like a waffle cone the size of your head. Even if you missed Ben and Jerry's Free Cone Day last week, celebrate what's cool at the company factory in Vermont.

Famously begun by two hippies who took a correspondence course on how to make ice cream, Ben and Jerry's is now owned by multinational conglomerate Unilever, but the factory tour retains the tie-dyed kookiness of its founders. After watching the manufacturing process over the factory floor, waddle off to the FlavoRoom for the beloved free samples. When your appetite is whetted, take your cone from the scoop shop and walk to the flavor graveyard out by the parking lot to mourn discontinued flavors like Peanut Butter and Jelly and (irony!) 1987's Economic Crunch.

Tours run every day, every 30 minutes starting at 10AM (9AM in July). $3 gets you on a tour (free to kids 12 and under), but $21 gets you a package including a T-shirt and pint coupon.

Related Stories:
· Factory Tours [BenJerry.com]
· Air Canada Makes It All Better With Cookies and Ice Cream [Jaunted]
· Penguin Plunges Keep Burlington Fit [Jaunted]

[Photo: wenzday01]