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Travel Videos / Cheap NYC / High Line / New York City / Travel News / → All Tags

Surfin' the High Line: Opening Day At NYC's New Elevated Park

Nothing's cheaper than free, and in New York City, we take what we can get. Luckily, what's available beginning this summer is nothing short of awesome as the hotly-debated High Line Park opens to the public.

Built in the 1930s to transport freight through the warehouses of the west side of Manhattan, the High Line is an elevated rail track that stretches from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District up to West 34th Street. The last train traveled its scenic route in 1980, and since then proposals for its future have included everything from completely disassembling it to turning it into a mile-long lap pool.

The final decision to add nature and make it a pedestrian-friendly park couldn't have been more perfect for this year of staycations, and so we headed up a level yesterday in the first few hours of the High Line's public life to check out the greenery and scenery.

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Seattle Field Trip / Space Needle / Iconic Monuments / Travel Videos / → All Tags

Contemplating Space Noodle Pasta at the Space Needle

This week Jaunted editor Juliana will be sharing her experiences from a recent field trip to Seattle where she wasn't afraid to do all the touristy things in town. Any questions or tips? Let us know.

After a trip to the Pike Place Market in Seattle, your next big touristy stop is the Space Needle. Inspired by the TV Tower in Stuttgart and built in 1962 for the World Fair, the Space Needle is practically what put Seattle on the map--in the days before Nirvana and Starbucks, of course.

Today the monument is open pretty much from 9am-11pm everyday. Tickets cost $16 for a ride up to the top for adults and if you plan on seeing any of the other Seattle museums or the Seattle Aquarium on your trip, you can buy a ticket package. (Word is, you really only see savings if you plan on going to three or more of these.)

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Airline News / Food Travel / Hotels / Travel Videos / Lufthansa / → All Tags

Taste-Testing the New In-Flight Menu from Ritz-Carlton and Lufthansa

Yesterday evening, in a penthouse high above the dusky rooftops of Tribeca, Lufthansa Airlines and Ritz-Carlton Hotels launched their new "Star Chefs" partnership to once and for all banish bad airline food from the consciousness of Lufthansa passengers. Thankfully we were there, right in with the CEOs and the Executive Chefs themselves as scallops emerged alongside the reassurance that Lufthansa will stand by quality in the skies no matter what direction the economy may take.

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Bridget Marquardt / Interviews / Bridget's Sexiest Beaches / Television Travel / Travel Videos / → All Tags

Jaunted's Seven Minutes in Heaven with Bridget Marquardt

Ok, so technically it wasn't the Seven Minutes in Heaven game that you started playing with all your friends after watching "Teen Wolf," but Jaunted did get about seven minutes yesterday to talk with Bridget Marquardt about her Travel Channel show, "Bridget's Sexiest Beaches."

We've been doing weekly recaps of the show here every Friday (check out our take on Bridget's trip to Spain here) and we know that you have been dying to hear what Bridget had to say about filming her time on the sand.

Here's what Bridget told us about how the show came about, her traveling experience, her love of the beach and what happened behind the scenes. And if you're hoping to find Bridget on your next trip to Santa Monica, listen carefully around the 5:40 mark.

Travel Snapshot / DTW / Detroit / Northwest Airlines / Travel Videos / → All Tags

Detroit Metro Airport Might Be the Best Thing About Detroit

Is it spring yet? With snow beating down on the tarmac yesterday at Detroit Metro Airport, we're extremely sad to say that Punxsutawney Phil was right again. Nothing is more depressing than agreeing with a groundhog on the weather.

So instead we turned our focus onto the awesome interior of one of our favorite terminals, the inside of Northwest's sprawling Concourse A, which has a wingspan of some 78 gates.

Keep reading for our video of the concourse.

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Embedded Travel Guides / Jaunted in Montreal / Shira Lazar / Travel Videos / Old Montreal / → All Tags

Springtime in Montreal: Video Guide to Old Montreal

Can't swing a trip to Paris for the Spring? Jaunted Embed Shira Lazar gives us a tour of her home town of Montreal, a much cheaper but just as authentic French experience.

Telling people you’re from Montreal can be quite the conversation starter. That’s because whoever has been there tends to love the city, and people that haven’t been there, want to go there. What makes Montreal standout as the most unique city in the province of Quebec and in Canada entirely, is that it contains a melting pot of cultures, both English and French. Visiting or growing up there, is like experiencing a slice of Europe in the middle of North America.

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First-Person Flight Reviews / Air Asia X / LCCs / Air Asia / Travel Videos / → All Tags

Inside The No-Frills, Long-Haul Flight on Air Asia X

As regular Ryanair masochists can imagine, the world’s first long-haul, "no frills" flight is not a concept that particularly fills us with longing. But Air Asia X’s launch sent prices from London to the Far East plummeting when booking opened last November, so we were intrigued. Would people really put up with no frills on a 13 hour flight? We turned reluctant guinea pig to find out.

A quick admission to start with. We were originally told that this was the inaugural flight to KL. Except when we got to the Air Asia launch party the night before, we realised it wasn’t – the first flight was taking off as we listened to The Saturdays. However, with the glitches we experienced on day two, we’re kind of glad we didn’t catch the first one.

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Videos / Travel Videos / → All Tags

Summer Friday Fun: 24 Heures à New York

Short week. Summer. Friday. Yeah, we're about ready to start the weekend, too. But before we head out for some adventures, we're taking a little inspiration from this awesome "photo-romain" of New York City.

Meanwhile, for those of you dreading a Saturday and Sunday in front of the computer, have no fear: Weekend Editor Victor Ozols has a special something planned for the next couple days!

Related Stories:
· More Travel Videos [Jaunted]

Travel Videos / Train Travel / Olympic Torch / → All Tags

Adventures of Link: An Old-Fashioned Link Dump

We tried our damnedest to cook up a travel angle on the whole Miley Cyrus drama, but we just couldn't do it. So instead of stretching, we're gonna set you up with a classic travel news link dump to wrap up the day.

Europe--and Lonely Planet--wanna see your travel videos, and Tijuana is picking up the pieces after an insane gun battle. Protesters *won't* be greeting the Olympic Torch in Pyongyang. And, yes, everyone wants a piece of the Gossip Girl action. (Including us!)

Related Stories:
· Europe Wants Your Videos [Budget Travel]
· Mystery Surrounds Tijuana Drug Shootings [LAT]
· Torch Relay Map [Google Maps]
· Bretty Snyder's Travel Blogs to Watch [BNet]
· Congressman Hopping on Amtrak's Sunset Limited [Houston Chronicle]
· OMFG: "Live Like Gossip Girl" Package at The Franklin Hotel [HC]

[Photo from the Sunset Limited: Susansfh]

Delta / Videos / Travel Videos / Flight Attendants / → All Tags

Adventures of Link: True Love

That's Delta's new safety video above. It's been making the rounds on the Internets recently and stirring up quite the dedicated fan base for Katherine Lee, a.k.a. "Deltalina," the real-life Delta flight attendant featured in the clip. Yeah, she's cute.

As you can see, in today's airline industry, there is no more valuable an asset than a shiny-haired employee with a soothing voice. Both Deltalina and her comrade-in-spirit, Sir Chuck Ogilvie of Virgin America, have been pimped out by their respective employers, and with good reason. These two need to record a book on tape together--we'd buy, like, 1200 copies or more. SkyMall would sell out of them in record time.

Also, they belong together. In holy matrimony. Forever!

Related Stories:
· With a wag of the finger, Delta produces spunky safety video [AJC]
· Delta coverage [Jaunted]

Philadelphia-for-Geeks / Geeky Travel / Star Wars / Museums / Cult Travel / Videos / Travel Videos / → All Tags

Geeky Philly: The Star Wars Show Opens

After we told you about the Star Wars show opening in Philadelphia, we had to go check it out. We got to the Franklin Institute right about 10 am Saturday to watch this lightsaber duel and see a bunch of Imperial Stormtroopers march all over the place. And after navigating the crowd of kids and adults acting like kids, we finally managed to scope the show.

Now, with the disclaimer that we're Star Wars geeks, it was awesome. There were heaps of models from the movies, costumes and taped interviews with Lucasfilm artists. The token attempts at science--questions like could people really survive on Hoth--were also nice and good for the kids.

We skipped the $5 extra for the Millennium Falcon experience. We wish we would've skipped the Star Wars planetarium show. (The theater is nice; the show was bad.)

Your exhibit ticket gets you into the rest of the Franklin Institute, so if you're taking kids, you can make a full day of it. If you'd rather not, we'll have more geeky Philly recommendations this week including comic book shops and sneaker boutiques.

Related Stories:
· Stormtroopers Invading Philly [Jaunted]
· R2-D2 Mailbox Map [Jaunted]
· Star Wars Travel coverage [Jaunted]

Sundance / Sundance Field Trip / Sundance Film Festival / Sundance-2008-Map / Skiing / Videos / Travel Videos / → All Tags

Jaunted at Sundance: Riding at Park City Mountain Resort

We had a chance today to get out to the slopes before the Sundance insanity begins in earnest. And though it was pretty damn cold out there, it was an awesome day for riding. With everyone flitting around town making final preps for the film festival, we were still carving corduroy at 11:30.

PCMR started a new thing this year: The resort's divided its massive amount of terrain into "MountainZones," which are manageable chunks that each give a nice mix of beginner to expert slopes. When you've only got a few hours to spend, this is really helpful; you don't get overwhelmed by the size of the place and can focus on enjoying yourself.

We spent most of our day rocking the Bonanza zone, where the lift lines were non-existent and the terrain didn't kill us. We also ducked into the Summit House restaurant (elevation 9,250 feet!) and had a chance to warm up by the roaring fireplace.

Related Stories:
· Park City Mountain Resort [Official Site]
· Skiing coverage [Jaunted]
· Sundance Film Festival coverage [Jaunted]
· Sundance Field Trip [Jaunted]