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Tags: Halloween Travel / Animals / Fall Travel / Zoos / → All Tags

Get Your 'Boo' At The Zoo With The Top Halloween Zoo Events

If you’re looking to start off your Halloween celebrations a week early, then think about checking out your local zoo. Boo at the Zoo parties take place all across the country, and we’ve highlighted a few of them. They might be intended for kids, but whatever; we’re heading out to show off our Jon Gosselin and Lady Gaga costumes anyway.

· San Francisco Zoo
San Diego isn’t doing anything for the season, so we’ve made our way up to San Francisco for their Boo at the Zoo shindig. Things run this weekend on October 24 and 25 from 10am to 4pm. Kids will receive a dollar off their admission for attending in costume, but adults get no discount for arriving dressed up—and will probably be made fun of by the animals. Make sure you don’t wear rubber masks, because apparently they scare the animals—they probably don’t like those tiger Ed Hardy shirts either.


You’ll make your way around the zoo checking out the lions, tigers, and bears while stopping along the way to fill your bags with treats. Make sure you visit the pumpkin "chomp 'n stomp" stops where the critters get to enjoy their own snacks for the season. The Halloween stuff is included with your $15 daily admission.

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Tags: Fall Festivals / Fall Travel / Halloween Travel / Delaware Travel / → All Tags

Pay Your Last Respects To Your Pumpkin During 'Punkin Chunkin'

Halloween is a great time for pumpkins as they are the stars of the show. However, after their big day, things go down hill pretty quickly. One of the worst places for a pumpkin, as it's where the globe is forced to meet its fate, is at the annual Punkin Chunkin events in Delaware. Here, teams compete to launch pumpkins as far as possible. These aren’t just simple slingshots, but are pretty complicated pieces of machinery and engineering. There are air-powered cannons, medieval trebuchets, and trusty catapults. Kids are even welcome to participate, just make sure that Mom and Dad don’t do all the work.

The air cannons are the coolest and probably most dangerous. The current world record was set at last year’s festival as a pumpkin was chucked 4483.51 feet. The other pumpkin launches do pretty well too, and you won’t be disappointed as the orange orbs are launched well over 2,000 feet into an open field. If you can’t make it to this year festival, don’t worry; you’ll be able to watch a replay of the day’s events on Thanksgiving night on the Science Channel.

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Tags: Thanksgiving Alternatives / Thanksgiving Travel / Travel Deals / Fall Travel / Virgin / Virgin Vacations / Prague / Prague Travel / → All Tags

Six Nights In Prague Over Thanksgiving For $669? See Ya, America!

Are you a last-minute planner when it comes to big holiday travel times like Thanksgiving in Christmas? Yes, we are too, especially because everything looks so darn expensive and plain booked up. This year, it's either another Thanksgiving of ordering Chinese takeout or booking it out of the country for some autumn appeal overseas...like in Prague.

Remember that it's not Thanksgiving over in the Czech Republic, so that means no dinner reservations or pressure to eat cranberry sauce. Virgin Vacations seems to have the best deal we've seen for this, with a 6-night hotel, airfare, and daily breakfast starting at $669 per person. Sure they have other deals for Thanksgiving to Barcelona, London, Paris and Rome, but the Prague trip sounds like the most fall foliage and old school charm for the lowest price.

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Tags: Food Festivals / Fall Travel / Events / Food Travel / North Carolina Travel / → All Tags

North Carolina's Ready To Go Hog Wild For Its Barbecue Festival

There’s loads of food festivals dedicated to different kinds of snacks, fried things, and other goodies. However, the key to finding a good festival is to seek out the festival that best represents a famous foodstuff. That’s where Lexington, North Carolina comes in with its annual Barbeque Festival. No clever name here, it just is what it is, and it celebrates one thing—delicious smoked pork.

Annual festivities have been running for over a quarter century, and every year the town’s population swells as over 100,000 visitors hit the town to check out the latest and the greatest related to all things barbeque. The town is famous for their vinegar-based sauce; so don’t come here looking for some super-sweet ribs or brisket. They might have some other cuts of meat for out of towners, but it’s primarily going to be pork shoulder that you’ll be enjoying. Just make sure you save room for some of the area's unique coleslaw. It’s like regular slaw except you replace the mayonnaise dressing with one based on the almighty power of ketchup—don’t knock it until you try it.

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Tags: Cheap NYC / New York City / New York Travel / Travel Deals / Fall Travel / → All Tags

Jaunted's Four Favorite New York City Deals This Fall

New York's "NYC: The Real Deal" campaign promises major savings for tourists (and locals who don't mind putting on their tourist disguises) this fall. It's such an embarrassment of riches, you could feel a bit paralyzed looking at all the deals—but there are four we're definitely checking out:

Comix Comedy Club (353 W. 14th St.):
Apply your 15 percent ticket discount to "The Daily Show And Friends" October 28 (featuring your favorite correspondents trying out their too hot for TV stuff) or Craig Robinson of "The Office" (Nov. 19-21).

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Tags: Fall Travel / Fall Foliage Travel / Food Travel / Events / Festival Travel / Ohio Travel / → All Tags

This Is What A Fall Festival Looks (And Sounds) Like

Can't make it out of the city this autumn to experience one of our Top Three Town Festivals For Fall Foodies? Don't worry, we went to one for you this weekend, after trekking from our usual roost in New York City to Northwest Ohio for the Grand Rapids Apple Butter Fest.

The freshly-churned apple butter, piping hot apple dumplings, bean soup and buffalo burgers aside, fall festivals such as this are truly the epicenters of the culture surrounding autumn. We can go crunch the leaves in Central Park whenever, but being surrounded by crafters who do wrought-iron cornstalks and stalls selling candles scented like pumpkin vanilla is a concentrated fall experience. But it's not too late to head to one of these festivals on your own!

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The Top Three Town Festivals For Fall Foodies

Sure, you can go to Starbucks and buy a grande caramel apple cider and an apple fritter donut and pretend that you are surrounded by the colors of fall foliage and that the apples in those items are farm-fresh. In actuality however, nothing beats stepping into nature and heading to a real bastion of autumn for the freshest fall treats available: an apple orchard farmstand. As admitted devotees of this season, we love us some fresh apple cider, apple dumplings, apple pie...apple everything. But let's not forget about pecan pie and the nummyness of squash.

Whether you're road-tripping to see fall foliage or just craving a proper fall snack that's not retrieved from a coffeehouse baked goods case, we've got the best spots for you. Behold as we reveal The Top Three Town Festivals For Fall Foodies.

Hot apple cider, after the jump. >>

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Tags: Music Festivals / Events / Music Travel / Fall Travel / California Travel / → All Tags

Start The VW Camper Van And Get Going To Phish-Fest

Phish has been rocking out all summer long after announcing that they were back from retirement. Now they are looking to celebrate the season with Phish Festival 8, another installment of their sporadic get-togethers. The band, along with those who follow them around, are headed out to Indio, California from October 30 to November 1.

Think of this year’s festival as a sort of musical way to celebrate Halloween. The band is planning to cover a classic album in its entirety, but so far, their choice of album remains a secret. We’ll trust that they’ll pick something that their fans will enjoy—sorry Annie Lennox, this probably isn’t your year to be honored. Besides the cover concert, they will also be featuring an all-acoustic set on Sunday at noon. This concert brunch will also feature coffee and donuts for those with the munchies.

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Tags: Theme Parks / Amusement Parks / Halloween / Fall Travel / Ohio Travel / Roller Coasters / → All Tags

October Brings HalloWeekends To Cedar Point Theme Park

Welcome to October—it started today if you weren’t paying attention—and that means it’s time to really focus on the spookiest season of them all. Theme parks have been doing their best to get ready for Halloween, and one of those coaster kingdoms is Cedar Point. The coaster capital of the world has installed some orange light bulbs, added some pumpkins, and transformed the park into a scary adventure. HalloWeekends is yours to enjoy through November 1, and if you missed their rides during the summer, this is your last chance until 2010.

This is the 13th year that HalloWeekends have taken over the park, and it looks like they’ve really upped the scare quotient for this year. There’s two new haunted houses including Happy Jack’s Toy Factory. It sounds too creepy to us, we prefer when our toys don’t come alive. Along with the usual rides there will be plenty of scare zones between the different attractions in the park. Just pay attention and you’ll be safe, otherwise you may never make it to the park’s giga-coaster, Millennium Force.

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Tags: Marathons / Active Travel / Fall Travel / Sports Travel / Connecticut Travel / → All Tags

Run Through The Leaves At The Hartford Marathon

We love taking in the sights of the season from the comfort of the car. It’s nice to get out and breath in the cool crisp air, but usually it’s best to do that when stopping for lunch or refilling our cup holder with a pumpkin spice latte. However, we do recognize that there are a large number of citizens that enjoy the fresh air that the fall season brings. That’s why we’re suggesting the ING Hartford Marathon for a solid active travel option for the autumn season.

Connecticut’s capital city is pretty sleepy after the workday ends, so it’s population will swell when thousands of runners hit the streets on October 10. There’s even still time to register, just head out to packet pick-up on October 9, and they’ll be happy to sign you up. You’ll enjoy cool weather, peak foliage, and some nice scenery as you do your best to keep your pace along the banks of the Connecticut River. Overall the course is pretty flat as well, so you might just be able to reach that personal best. After all, this marathon can get you into the Boston one if you go fast enough.

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Tags: Food Festivals / Food Travel / Fall Travel / Wisconsin Travel / Events / → All Tags

Cran Fans Head For Mecca: Wisconsin's Cranberry Festival

Now that fall is officially here, our minds—and stomachs—start to yearn for the tastes of autumn. Pumpkins, apples, and even cranberries all start to take priority over corn-on-the-cob and baked beans. Although we are fans of cranberries, especially with a generous side of turkey, we have a lot to learn before this year’s Warrens Cranberry Festival in Wisconsin.

It’s the world’s largest cranberry festival and they want everyone to know about it. There’s over 1000 booths on display with people selling their arts and crafts, flea market finds, and probably just some junk from around the house. All together the vendors make up over three miles, so you probably want to fill your water bottle up with some Ocean Spray for a little extra energy. They are expecting over 100,000 fans of the cran this weekend as things run from September 25 to 27.

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Tags: Food Festivals / Food Travel / Fall Travel / Kentucky Travel / Events / → All Tags

Would You Eat 'Burgoo,' Let Alone Go To A Festival Celebrating It?

Here’s a food festival for the person who has seen and eaten everything already. It’s the Anderson County Burgoo Festival in Kentucky, and apparently, the county is also the burgoo capital of the world. In case you didn’t know—and we definitely didn’t—burgoo is a sort of stew like mixture kind of like gumbo or chili but also kind of not. It’s really popular in Kentucky and they love to throw all kinds of meat into it, whether it be pork, chicken, or mutton. We’re thinking if they had some other stuff around—like fresh opossum roadkill—that it probably could and has been included throughout the years.

At this year’s festival, we’re hoping that only the freshest ingredients are used to prepare the celebration’s namesake. This weekend from September 25 to 27, the streets come alive with the sights, smells, and sensations of the mighty burgoo. There will be plenty of music to entertain the crowds, pumpkin painting for the little burgoo fans, and a boniest knee contest. Sorry ladies, but the contest is apparently for gentleman only. So get a warm cup of the stew and grab a good spot for the tractor pull.

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