Hallelujah, Labor Day weekend has arrived! In honor of this amazing holiday in the United States, we've got a list of festivals and other funky times happening around the country, just in case you don't know what to do with all the extra free time:

· Seattle: The Bumbershoot Festival celebrates the arts with performances from Katy Perry, Jason Mraz, Modest Mouse, and several comedians.

· New York: "Beer Me" is the name of the game this weekend as the Big Apple brings in a big amount of beer for the Great World Beer Fest.]]> JetSetCD 2009-09-04T16:24:46-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/3/215012/6858

If you're spending Labor Day in Chicago, there's a number of ways you can say goodbye to the summer and celebrate before Oprah practically shuts down the place on Tuesday. Let us give you some last-minute options for your three-day-weekend itinerary. Let us share a few awesome ways to make Monday in The Windy City a Labor Day to remember... ]]> Jennifer Kester 2009-09-04T09:17:54-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/2/231124/2877

After Labor Day, summer will officially be over, and with it our list of Signature Summer Cocktails. It's been a good run, and to top off the glass so to speak, we'll finish with our tenth cocktail: Costa Rica's national drink the Cacique Guaro Sour.

Like the Pisco Sour in Peru, Cacique Guaro is to be found everything in Costa Rica. Heck, we saw (and drank) plenty of it on our recent Costa Rican Field Trip. It's an alcohol made from sugarcane, so expect the taste to be sweet but eye-widenly strong. In fact, it's an aguardiente, or "firewater" liquor between between 30 and 60% alcohol content. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-09-03T11:24:45-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/1/71721/86500

It seems like the airlines' current business plan, which as near as we've figured out goes something like "alienate our customers by repeatedly raising a bevy of opaque fees," has failed to reinvigorate air travel. They will still perhaps manage to fill up their planes this Labor Day, but only because they've also dramatically scaled back their fleets:

U.S. airlines will carry 16 million passengers during the eight-day Labor Day period, a 3.5 percent drop from a year earlier. And airlines already are offering discount fares for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's travel...While fewer people are flying, full planes will be more common because U.S. airlines pulled at least 500 aircraft from service since the start of 2008 to better match capacity with sagging sales.

Got big travel plans for Labor Day? We don't know about you, but this has been the summer of discovering places perfect for a quick daytrip or weekender, and according to the AAA, this trend of short-distance vacations will be hugely reflected with Labor Day.

By their estimates, 39.1 million people will travel "at least 50 miles from their homes between Thursday and Monday by car, plane or other means." Sounds like a whole crapload, doesn't it? It does until you realize that this number is a whole 6 million, or 13.3%, from last year's Labor Day traveler count. ]]> JetSetCD 2009-08-31T16:34:44-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/28/14411/2674

Another Labor Day, another annual National Buffalo Wing Festival. The Buffalo, NY event stretches back to 1992, when Wing King Drew Cerza was inspired to start it by Bill Murray's junk food addicted character in "Osmosis Jones." Over the years, it's grown from a small competitive eating spectacle to a full-blown convention--hosting over 400,000 total people, generating over $125,000 for New York charities, and even serving as the site of a wedding.

This year's gala promises to build on last year's gigantic festival, where more than 78,000 people consumed over 27 tons of wings.

Buffalo Wing Festival organizers are fond of describing the spectrum of sauces as stretching from the mild to the suicidal, with dozens upon dozens of stands serving their specialties. The "Official Wing Sauce of the National Buffalo Wing Festival," Frank's RedHot, will be given away from a booth at the festival. There are also a variety of eating contests, including one that involves bobbing for chicken wings in a vat of blue cheese. ]]> Omri 2009-08-28T16:59:42-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/27/81018/2003

If hot air balloons and chuck wagons aren’t in your plans for Labor Day, there’s still plenty of other ideas for you to waste away your holiday weekend.

One of the best festivals of the year is Bumbershoot 2009, and it’s conveniently taking place at Seattle Center from September 5-7. Film, theatre, arts, and of course music, will all be yours to enjoy. So grab a triple venti something or other and hit the festival running. ]]> kjb 2009-08-27T15:49:41-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/