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Public Toilets Return To Times Square

November 26, 2008 at 8:45 AM | 0 Comments

Poor Joey Fatone. While his former bandmate in *NSYNC is moving into a fancy apartment in New York City with Jessica Biel, he's stuck doing a promotion for Charmin, and giving the nation a glimpse of what he looks like on... ahem... the throne.

Don't be mistaken, it's pretty great that Charmin stocks these too-nice-for-New-York restrooms in Times Square during the holidays. But if they really wanted to move the city, why not keep 'em open all year around? Then Fatone wouldn't have to strike this pose ever again.

Related Stories:
· Fatone In Space [Jaunted]
· Fantasy Tower Update: Maloof Hearts Fatone [HC]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: JustJared]

Won't Get Fooled Again?

September 14, 2006 at 9:30 AM | 0 Comments


Australia's a really big and really empty land, so getting lost is understandable. A 50-year-old Briton had this problem last week in a station a couple of miles north of Alice Springs where he went bushwalking without a hat or sunscreen and with hardly any water. Three days later, when he was still definitely lost, he called for help on his cell phone, and was located after an air search. A bit of a bill for taxpayers, a lot of sunburn, and a whole lot of embarrassment was the result.

What would you do next? Well, our friend here decided to take one last walk in the outback before flying home. The result? He got lost again. This time three helicopters were needed before he was found, and now he's resting in the hospital with dehydration.

To head out there twice, we think he must have really been looking for something. Perhaps one of those killer big bananas or the nightmarish giant koala? We highly recommend taking a more regular tourist route when you're in Oz, or at least remembering your hat and suncream.

[Image via faz./Flickr]

Related stories:
Outback Tourist Rescued Twice in a Week [Sydney Morning Herald]
Koalas: Cute When Small ... [Jaunted]
This is a Banana [Jaunted]

What About Juan Valdez?

September 8, 2006 at 10:15 AM | 0 Comments



Colombia: Fantastic tourist destination, or great place to get kidnapped? Obviously the Colombian government hopes people will start thinking of the country as the former, and they've just launched a $4 million ad campaign to win hearts, minds, and tourist bucks.

The tagline--Colombia is Passion--is innocuous enough. It certainly worked well enough on Lonely Planet, who picked it as a top ten destination for this year. It didn't quite do the trick on the reporter in the Guardian covering the story, though. In the "Fast Facts on Colombia" section of the article lifted from the BBC, the three most famous Colombians are listed as Gabriel Garcia Marquez (not a drug lord), Pablo Escobar (a drug lord) and Manuel Velez (leader of the FARC counter-insurgency).

Well, if nothing else, all three of those men are certainly passionate.

[Image via Pablo.../Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   Colombia launches tourism drive [Guardian]

Fleeing the Tourist Hordes of Florence

September 6, 2006 at 9:50 AM | 0 Comments


In New York City, it is said there are two rats for every resident. In Florence, the same ratio is applied to tourists and locals. The high season--which pretty much runs from January to December--clogs the streets with throngs of wide-eyed, camera-toting zombies, most of whom feign interest in Renaissance art just so they can fill the inboxes of their friends and family with blurry pictures of David's ass.

It seems impossible to escape them in the middle of the day, but in truth you only need to walk a few minutes north to Piazza San Marco. It's almost entirely devoid of sightseers.

Grab a panino from a nearby eatery and snag a bench in the relaxing park.  You'll usually find someone on his or her lunch break, or an 80 year old senora flipping through an Italian paper, but the square never gets full.  If the Tuscan sun is a little overwhelming, give Accademia, a tasty fusion restaurant along the Piazza, a try. While the chef's wife is hardly a native, hailing from the borough of Brooklyn, she's the one responsible for the clever twists on the dishes. No need to feign interest here.

[Image via mrfink/Flickr]

Ciao Bella Psychology

August 24, 2006 at 10:30 AM | 0 Comments



Italians--what's their deal? No, it's not the beginning of yet another Seinfeldian riff from these quarters, but the subject of a recent book by Corriere della Sera columnist Beppe Severigni. His recent volume, La Bella Figura, is all about Italians being Italians. For those who are unfamiliar with this concept, it's quite similar to Manny being Manny.

Apparently, you can gain a valuable insight in the differences between Italian and British culture solely on the basis of their flight attendants. While the British may be better at the whole pleasant and efficient service thing, Mr. Severigni posits, the Italians are better at cleaning up their spils and making you feel better about it. He calls it the "national talent for responding creatively to small crises".

What can you learn from American flight attendants, you ask? Why, that it's time to sit the hell back down and wait your turn for your snack box. At least the Italians are spilling a tasty meal on your lap.

[Image via kOAn/Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   La Bella Figura [NYT]

In My Country, There is Fermented Mare's Milk

August 22, 2006 at 9:42 AM | 0 Comments



New York Magazine reports this week that the Kazakhs are squabbling about how to deal with the issue of Borat. Within the Kazakh government, there is a divide between those that want to engage with the Borat situation--the movie comes out in a few months--and those who feel that muzzling him, including the recently shut down borat.kz web site, is too much like bad old days where free speech was suppressed.

Meanwhile, the government also wants to take the opportunity and point out that there are real, interesting things in Kazakhstan. Plans are in the works to buy TV time to show it. For what it's worth, here are some Kazakh facts:

--Almaty, which was the capital of the country from 1991-1998, is the 190th nicest city in the world, according to Lonely Planet. Right between Cayenne and Mombasa in the Cities book, it's "so European you'd think you were in a leafy part of London".

--Kazakhstan is where the original strain of domestic apple came from.

--Thirsty? Have a sip of fermented mare's milk, a drink popular in the whole region of stans and Mongolia. The drink is created by churning mare's milk in a horsehide container over several days; it emerges fizzy, slightly alcoholic, and very hard to digest.

There you go. Now you'll be the hit of cocktail parties throughout the fall, as long as you restrain yourself from reciting the dirtier parts of the film.

Send us your Kazakhstan travel tips, tales, & info.

Stay tuned.

Related Stories:
· Borat Coverage [Jaunted]
·Kazakh Elites Divided Over Borat [NYM]

Croatia's (Not So) Secret History

August 21, 2006 at 7:35 AM | 0 Comments



One of the problems with the fact that formerly war-torn countries are the new hotness is that they were, you know, war-torn. What a bummer, right? As David Farley points out in the Boston Globe today, most tourists either don't know, or skillfully ignore history when they visit places like Dubrovnik, in Croatia. Dubrovnik is more popular than ever, but most visitors remain focused on the wine and seafood.

As the search for far-flung, "undiscovered" destinations continues, the issue of history will become more prevalent, and one that will be harder to avoid. Dubrovnik may have been reconstructed beautifully after it was shelled by the Serbs, but Belgrade--next on everyone's hot list--is a dirtier and plainer, since it was more extensively pancaked during the 90s. Still, could learning about a little history during travel be any worse than another article cataloguing the nightclubs in one of these cities called "Life After Wartime"?

[Image via blprnt_van/Flick]

Related Stories:
·   Croatia's Seaside Beauty [Boston Globe]

Find Your Space (Unless You're a Fatty)

August 15, 2006 at 9:55 AM | 0 Comments


A region like Queensland's Sunshine Coast could almost leave all its marketing up to its appropriate name. Just the same, the tourist commission in this sunny part of Down Under launched a new campaign this week, called "Find Your Space".

The locals reckon their combination of beaches, waterfalls, rolling hinterlands and mountains are pretty attractive for us all to see. The video clip for the campaign shows people each finding their space for a towel or picnic blanket; being Australia, there's plenty of space to be found. Which makes the whole "Find Your Space" campaign really not much of a challenge. If you can't find your space in Oz, you're way too fat to travel.

[Image via Java Cafe/Flickr]

Related stories:
Coast Pins Future on Towel [Sunshine Coast Daily]
Old, Old Tortoise Dies on Sunshine Coast [Jaunted]

Can't Get You Out of My Head

August 10, 2006 at 9:20 AM | 0 Comments



If you think you're getting to Lady Liberty's head anytime soon, think again. The National Park Service, which was thinking of closing the staircase from the bottom of the Statue of Liberty to the top of her crown before 9/11, has declared that since the attacks, it's simply too unsafe and too much of a terrorist target to be opened ever again to the public. The assessment came last week in a letter from the National Park Service to Congress.

Naturally, this has been the cause of some serious grandstanding by members of Congress from New York State Rep. Anthony Weiner called it "the final victory of the terrorists on Sept. 11.'' Right. That could be the case, but if the Park Service was thinking of closing the stairway before September 11th, does that mean that they are the terrorists?

[Image via mihay/Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   Lady Liberty's Crown Remains Closed [Sun-Times]

Time Out Beirut Out of Time

July 25, 2006 at 9:31 AM | 0 Comments



What happens when tourism and politics are out of alignment? Beirut is what happens. Sure, it was one of Travel and Leisure's top ten cities to visit this year in the most recent issue of the magazine, but that's already outdated, thanks to the bombing that's taken place. An article in this week's New York talks with Ramsay Short, the editor of the months-old Time Out Beirut.

Understandably, he's quite sad about the recent turn of events, although he felt that Americans saw the city in the same way they did in the 80s. Mostly, though, there's a real sense of what has already been lost, no matter how Beirut may recover:

"Time Out is a magazine about arts and culture," Ramsay Short says. "But everything has been canceled and half my staff have left the country." Last year, he published A Hedonist's Guide to Beirut. "Maybe sales will go up," he says. "It'll almost be a collector's item of what was this high point, what now seems like a dream."
Maybe P.J. O'Rourke's article touring Lebanon during the civil war in the 80s will become the most useful guidebook to the region yet again. Let's hope not.

Related Stories:
·   Life in Beirut Before Wartime [NYM]
·   A Ramble Through the Rankings [Jaunted]
·   Beirut [Time Out]

Québec City's Tourist Hordes and Delicious Jellies

July 6, 2006 at 9:45 AM | 0 Comments


Québec City is undeniably impressive, an old walled city with scads of ancient (fine, 17th century and 18th century) buildings. It's also swarmed with tourists in the summer and full of little shops oriented entirely toward said tourists. And don't forget the artists drawing those grotesque caricatures of children, giving them oversize and frankly demonic smiling faces that barely resemble the people they purport to represent. You know what we're talking about here.


Thankfully, there are tons of great things to see in Québec City beyond the throngs of tourists. Outside of the old city walls, Rue Saint-Jean becomes alternately hip and crunchy, with vegetarian restaurants, two upscale ice cream shops, gay bars, and, best of all, actual residents enjoying the city.  

Québec City's farmers market is another find. During the summer, fresh farm loot includes honey, cheese, flowers, pickled vegetables, jellies, and fresh vegetables. We were especially taken by black current jellies and wines by Bernard Monna of St-Pierre de I'Île D'Orléans, close to Québec City.

At the farmers market and at specialty shops throughout the province of Québec, one gets a sense of the high quality of local artisanal food products as well as the high esteem in which they are held.

Slipped a Mikulov

June 9, 2006 at 9:45 AM | 0 Comments



Last night we attended an event for the Czech hamlet of Mikulov, a pristine Moravian village near the southern border with Austria. It looked rather picturesque--though we've never seen so many blue skies in all our time in the Czech Republic, so we suspect some Photoshop may have been involved.

Anyway, because that part of the Czech Republic is all about wine--despite having the highest consumption of beer per capita of any country, they do make wine there too--the organizers served wines from the region at the event. Not available in stores! We recommend the rosé, ourselves. Everything else was too sweet. Even the bartender gave us flak for drinking a girly wine, but it was still better dryer than the rest.

Keep an eye out for Mikulov, though. Austrian wines are just now beginning to get respect in the U.S., so maybe Czech wines could be next, and they've got a cute town as a selling point. In the meantime, though, keep that Pilsner Urquell coming.

[Image via Ondra_L/Flickr]