Travel Guide
Tags: Literary Travel / William Least Heat-Moon / Blue Highways / Road Trips / → All Tags
Photographer Retraces William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways
Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon is probably my favorite travel book of all time, so I was pleased to see it resurface in the news last week, more than 30 years after its publication. CNN.com has an enjoyable interview with the author and a slide show of photographs from the route he took on his classic journey of discovery. For those who aren't familiar, in 1978, William Least Heat-Moon lost his teaching job and his wife left him, so he decided to outfit his van and start driving across the country, avoiding interstates and sticking to the lesser-traveled roads that were colored blue on the old Rand McNally maps. His three month tour produced a terrific book, and one that reveals many great insights into traveling and life in general.
Tags: Barack Obama / History Travel / Political Travel / Walking Tours / → All Tags
Discover President Obama's Lost Years on a Tour of His New York Haunts
President Obama is most closely associated with the city of Chicago, but he spent five years in New York as a student and community organizer, and a local actor has created a walking tour that shines a light on what he calls Obama's "lost years" here. The AP introduces us to Jeremiah Miller, whose two-hour "Obama's New York" tour takes visitors to some of the places the 44th president spent time during his 1981-1985 stint in the city.
Tags: Pedicabs / Manhattan Pedicab / Taxis / → All Tags
New York Pedicabs Go Legit, Lose Outlaw Status
I've never taken a pedicab in my life, but it seems I'm in the minority, as the number of the pedal-powered bicycle taxis has risen dramatically since their introduction to New York in 1995. Pedicabs have become so popular, in fact, that they're now regulated by the city, which requires vehicles to be insured, inspected, and fitted with seat belts, headlights, and hydraulic brakes. A story in The New York Times explains that the new regulations legitimize an industry that began as something of a fringe group, attracting actors, artists, and various downtown weirdos to a unique profession that could net them up to $1,000 a week and help them stay skinny and hot.
Tags: Smuggling / Lizards / Crime / U.S. Customs / LAX / Weird Travel / Animal Smuggling / Money Belts / → All Tags
Leapin' Lizards! Cali Man Busted Smuggling Aussie Reptiles in Money Belt
Things travelers should put in a money belt: Passport, tickets, cash, emergency contact information. Things travelers should not put in a money belt: lizards. It may seem rather obvious to most readers of this blog, but there's one guy in California who somehow never picked up this basic tenet of travel wisdom. As the LA Times points out, 40-year-old Michael Plank was arrested by U.S. Customs agents at Los Angeles International Airport this week when he was found to have 15 lizards stuffed in a money belt. Plank was on his way back from Australia and apparently decided to bring 11 skinks, two monitor lizards, and two geckos with him to his LA home, where they'd be worth around $8,500.
Tags: Travel Trendwatching / → All Tags
Would You Fake Sick In Order To Score A Better Seat On The Plane?
Tags: New York City / Southwest Airlines / Beer Travel / Winter Travel / Bryant Park / → All Tags
Slankets, Sliders and Southwest Ale at NYC's Bryant Park
Almost six months ago, Southwest Airlines gave New Yorkers an outright gift: the Southwest Porch, a relaxing, open-air venue in the middle of the city at Bryant Park. During the day, workers from offices in Midtown would sit in the adirondack chairs and on the cushioned lounges to eat their packed lunches, and at night, they can return for a drink and snacks when the bar opens.
The Porch is a pleasant surprise for its lack of pretension and excess of good food choices (being from Top Chef Tom Colicchio' s 'wichcraft chain). We expected it to close down for the winter when the leaves began to fall, but instead the Porch has re-inaugurated itself via a winter menu and introduction of fire pits and slankets, the slankets in celebration of Southwest's recent SkyMall cover.
Tags: Travel Deals / Bahamas Travel / Travelzoo / → All Tags
Avoid Holiday Travel And Score Deals Like The Bahamas For Under $250
Before you settle in for a long winter's nap, it's time for a warm-weather getaway. Travelzoo's offering a dirt-cheap package to the Bahamas where you'll get airfare and five nights at a hotel for $229.
You'll stay at Our Lucaya Reef Village in Grand Bahama Island. The hotel has a Vegas-style casino where you can blow the money you would have spent on full-price airfare and hotel, as well as two golf courses and four pools. But the most important amenity is that this resort sits right on the beach.
The deal's good for travel through December 19 and from January 3 to 31. We recommend that you avoid visiting during November, as it's still hurricane season in the Bahamas. Travelzoo warns that it'll take forever if you book this over the phone. A lot of people are taking advantage of this package and are jamming up the lines. So go the easy route by booking it online using promo code 500GBI and make sure you do it before November 25.
Related Stories:
· Caribbean Beach Overrun by Family of Cute Pigs [Jaunted]
· Save The Planet and Work on Your Tan At The Same Time [Jaunted]
[Photo: joshDubya]
Tags: Christmas Alternatives / Sydney Travel / Australia Travel / New Years Travel / Holiday Travel / Travel Deals / → All Tags
We're Dreaming Of A White (Sand) Christmas Down Under
Think a white, sandy Christmas might be better than a white snowy one? All you northern hemisphere people can be guaranteed a very different experience if you decide to celebrate Christmas in Australia, where temperatures can easily reach over the century mark and a swim at the beach is way more likely than a snowball fight.
The nice thing is that it's not even too late, if you decide skipping the drag of family festivities is what you want. There are still plenty of packages available to get you Down Under for a few days around Christmas time, including heaps of lastminute.com travel packages from LAX to Sydney, including airfare and accommodation for a week for around $2,000 for a five-night stay.
Tags: Cruise Travel / Rihanna / Celeb Travel / Royal Caribbean / → All Tags
It's Rihanna On A Boat, As The 'Oasis' Floats
While we were having a little Thursday night drink near Times Square last night, Rihanna was performing in the Opal Theater on Royal Caribbean's newest, biggest, largest cruise ship ever: the Oasis of the Seas to celebrate the night before her first cruise out of the Fort Lauderdale.
Then, this morning as we mixed some instant cappuccino in our modest kitchen, the Oasis set sail from the US with 5,400 passengers for her first voyage, a preview cruise that included the Good Morning America gang. While going about our mundane day, it was weird to remove ourselves from the scene for a moment and think about what was taking place; that the 225,000-ton ship with 20-ish restaurants and a freaking Central Park with live foliage, was floating. And with pop culture personalities, no less.
Tags: Movie Set Travel / Jaunted on Location / Twilight Travel / Vancouver Travel / → All Tags
Relive The Magic of Twilight's 'New Moon' At These Vancouver Spots
New Moon has such a hold on the world right now that even Martha Stewart admitted to having dreams about Robert Pattinson. The movie's cast hasn't been helping matters either with a media blitz that has taken them around the world, but let's not forget where it all started, in Vancouver.
The "New Moon" movie was filmed in Vancity last spring and its stars seemed to make the most of their time there. Check out a few of their favorite spots and find out how you can see them all for yourself:
Tags: Flight Attendants / Uniforms / Korean Air / In-Flight Fashion / → All Tags
With Korean Air, Flight Attendants Fly Fashionably
Looks like a few of you must have noticed how pretty the flight attendant uniforms were for Korean Air because all of you guessed correctly which airline these stylish flight attendants worked for.
The uniforms were introduced in 2005 and let's just say they were badly needed. Korean Air keeps an entire Uniform Fashion History on their website and the ones worn from 1991-2004 were well, so very early 90s with a few leftovers from the late 80s.
But today's uniforms, envisioned by Italian designer Gianfranco Ferre, feature a choice of either skirt or pants in consideration with the FA's "active cabin duties." Here's how Korean Air describes their stylistic goal:
During the development of this attire, the largest emphasis was placed on attaining harmony between modern global fashion appeal with a foundation of Korea's traditional and inherent beauty. While elegant and refined, the uniform is also comfortable, distinguished by its ergonomic design and the use of practical and supple fabrics.
We mostly just love the pretty blue color that they use, which was actually incorporated into the uniforms of 1973. Now, where can we buy these outfits for ourselves?
Related Stories:
· Can you guess the stylish flight attendants [Jaunted]
· Uniform Changes [Korean Air]
Tags: Travel Advertising / Airlines / Airline News / AirTran / LCCs / Travel Ads / → All Tags
AirTran Brings Insanely Obnoxious Seat-Back Advertising To The US
Seat-back ads have finally arrived in the US, with low cost carrier AirTran being the first to embrace what is already beloved onboard European LCCs like Ryanair and EasyJet.
Soon, passengers on all AirTran flights will be confronted for the entire trip by a 2.5" by 9" poster, sitting a few feet from their eyes, trying to worm its way into their eyeballs. It will be present on all 138 jets, and the first advertiser is an odd one: Mother Nature Network, a "one-stop resource and an everyman's eco-guide" for environmental news, travel, lifestyle, etc. MNN will use the ads to publicize a 7-night cruise giveaway as well—how eco-friendly of them. Hmm...
