We've been following Matt Gross on his Grand Tour across Europe this summer, barely keeping our jealousy contained as he partied in Rome and volunteered at an organic farm in southern France.
But we were eager to ask him if travel through the unaffordable continent is really that great. And how the hell was he getting by on just €100 ($155) a day?
To find out, we called him up on Skype and recorded our video chat. Check it after the jump.
The Frugal Traveling Matt Gross is five weeks into his 12-week Grand Tour, and so far he's hit a number of classic vacation spots in Western Europe. But as he moves east, he's wondering what there might be worth doing near Lithuania.
So, since it's 2008, he's asking for The Internet's help in planning his Week 10. It sounds pretty gonzo:
I'm letting you, the readers, pick where I'll go in Week 10 of my 12-week Grand Tour. A Baltic beach town in Poland? A vineyard in Slovenia? Anything is possible. Well, almost.
It's not just the destination you'll pick--I want you to map out my entire week: How will I get there? What will I do? Where will I sleep? Where will I eat?
We'd be remiss if we didn't mention our own "Tell a guy where to go" crowdsourcing. The latest Jaunted Contest is underway, and your good ideas for airport layovers could net you a three-day Caribbean vacation. You can enter our contest here.
Las Vegas dining is ruled by big-name chefs like Wolfgang Puck, Joël Robuchon and Daniel Boulud. But the restaurants from the famous types are usually more expensive and less well reviewed than their New York and Paris counterparts--and are sometimes set in fake New York or fake Paris.
The New York Times has word this week, though, on a genuine ethnic neighborhood in Sin City--the makeshift Chinatown that has sprung up over the last decade. This being Las Vegas, even Chinatown is set in a mall:
Ask any Chinese tourist and you'll find that Las Vegas' Chinatown is high on their checklist. Tour buses regularly motor a mile off the Strip to stop at Chinatown Plaza, an open-air mall founded in 1994 ...
"Everyone in China knows about Chinatown here," one woman said. "They go to the Strip, and then they go to Chinatown."
Like so many other Chinatowns, Vegas' has a great restaurant scene, with everything from Sichuan to Korean on offer. And, yes, there's plenty of karaoke.
On his blog, the Andy Rooney of travel, Arthur Frommer, frequently gripes about the pricey experiences sometimes covered in The New York Times' Sunday travel section. (Recently he was half-mystified, half-offended that the Times would report on The Plaza hotel, where rooms go for $875 a night.) But in his most recent rant--about this mention of a one-day, £345 Orient-Express train trip, Frommer has gone from crotchety complainer to conspiracy theorist:
The New York Times travel section has now plumbed such depths of absurdity that I, for one, have concluded that this senselessness can't be accidental. The decision to sprinkle the pages of a travel section with references to sky-high travel offerings can only have come about from a directive from on high to do so.
It must be part of an effort to attract advertising from the producers of luxury goods ... In writing as they do, I am now convinced that the travel writers and junior travel editors of the New York Times are attempting to execute a policy consciously set down by the Times.
Sounds bad! And it would be--if Frommer's suspicions had any basis in reality.
Last we heard, naked vacations were the newest hotness. Now The New York Times says at least one beach town isn't getting in on the latest vacation "trend." So if the idea of cavorting nekkid with other tourists isn't your idea of fun, perhaps you'll be more comfortable in Long Beach, New Jersey.
The beach town has just passed an ordinance outlawing:
The change of clothes in any public area or public street unless within a permanent enclosed structure.
Doesn't sound too draconian, really, until you realize that just about everyone in town--locals and visitors alike--hit the beach as often as possible. And since wet suits and swim trunks don't mix, that means, yep, some people change on the beach.
Locals are split on the new rule, as it satisfies some tourists (the prudes) while causing headaches for others (the surfers). But while other people have mixed feelings on the ordinance, Surfrider Foundation manager John Weber has his mind made up on how important it is:
I'd like to fight the polluters and doers of evil, but we've got to fight about people changing their wet suits.
Our favorite frugal traveler Matt Gross seems to like our style because we mentioned the beauty of Kyoto last week. In this weekend's New York Times, Matt gave us some insights into a few more enticing parts of this stunning Japanese city, and we've got to admit, it still sounds good.
For example, at the Nanzenji Temple Matt found swarms of tourists at the front--but kept walking to find one of those quiet, soul-searching shrines that give you a sense of the real Japan. He also recommended the Nijo Castle and Arashiyama as good sightseeing destinations, overpopulation with tourists notwithstanding.
The best part was that Matt managed his weekend in Kyoto frugally--because like much of Japan, it ain't cheap. Big tip: Hit the bottom floor of department stores where food halls offer heaps of free samples, saving you the cost of a meal.
It's a well-known fact that the minute you mention a "secret" anything in the travel media, people lap it up. So we couldn't help but be taken by Seth Kugel's latest piece in The New York Times that reveals some of the little-seen and, yep, "hidden" treasures in NYC's museums.
At MoMA, the playful "Water Tower" high above the museum's sculpture garden is the thing to watch for. An official explains its appeal:
The water towers of New York are proverbial, they're vernacular, they're on every building, it seems. Casting it in this translucent resin, it's as if the wooden parts of the water tower have fallen away and what you have is an almost icelike object. For me it truly became a magical piece when I saw the sun coming through it; it really glows.
We don't know if that one piece is worth the $20 admission charge, so if you're feeling cheap, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (with its "suggested admission") is the place to go for secret art.
The South Asian galleries there are rarely visited, Kugel says, because they're so hard to find. Following his excellent directions, though, you'll suss 'em out and enjoy an uncrowded journey through the entire artistic history of the region. No wonder we all love secrets.
We're willing to look past the fact that you still haven't gotten to the greens in Vietnam. But the, ahem, forefront of the golf scene is no longer Southeast Asia. To truly impress your buddies, book those clubs through to Kashmir.
There are already four courses in the region, and a fifth is set to open this year. Says The New York Times:
The golf-loving chief minister of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad, has spoken of his desire to see the region become an "international golfing hub."
"There is a need to mobilize golfers across the world to come and play the game here," he told reporters recently, in something of an understatement.
It would probably help if the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office didn't warn "against all travel to, or through rural areas of Jammu and Kashmir other than Ladakh." After all, says the Director of Tourism for Kashmir:
People are going to Sri Lanka. People are going to Israel and Lebanon. But why not Kashmir? It's safer here than New York...In 18 years of trouble, we have had only 25 tourist victims.
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by pbb
