Archives for April, 2008
Subway Art
Posted by marilyn terrell on April 30, 2008 GrrlScientist is a brainy blog I like, and the author, an evolutionary biologist and ornithologist, has recently completed a photo series of all the tile mosaics on walls of the New York City subway station at 81st Street and Central Park West, which is right outside the American Museum of Natural History. She’s identified most…
No Beer at the Inn
Posted by Katie Knorovsky on April 29, 2008 The Halal Inn opened last December in Oldham, England, as the first Islamic pub in Britain. Buzzing (albeit a bit hesitantly) with a decidedly sobering business model, the place adheres to a strict no-alcohol policy, opting instead to serve fizzy non-alcoholic juices, drinks, and spritzers. The Daily Mail explains: Pubgoers can play snooker, darts or…
Yellowstone and Montana MapGuides
Posted by Crowd Favorite on April 29, 2008 We always try to keep tabs on what our neighbors here at National Geographic are doing, and so we’re excited to share what the folks at the Center for Sustainable Destinations are up to next. One of CSD’s many projects is to establish geotourism charters with local communities to help identify, develop, and promote the…
Gettysburg Going Green
Posted by Intelligent Travel on April 28, 2008 By: Ashley Thompson Don’t judge a building by its exterior is the lesson learned at the all-new Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center, which opened April 14. Despite being designed to “blend into the rural Pennsylvania countryside” according to the National Park Service’s website, the brand new center is packed full of modern multimedia, and has…
Down by the River
Posted by it on April 24, 2008 Contributing Editor Andrew Nelson rounds out his week-long tour of San Antonio’s Fiesta with the big shebang: the River Parade. The ambulance chasers and personal injury lawyers must love the River Walk, San Antonio’s spectacularly successful network of leafy, landscaped pathways lacing its river flowing through downtown. Few barriers, rails or poles separate pedestrians from…
Heavy Medal
Posted by it on April 23, 2008 Contributing Editor Andrew Nelson offers us a metaphor, or perhaps medalphor, for San Antonio’s Fiesta… Wandering San Antonio during Fiesta Week you’ll encounter a lot of people whose jackets, baseball caps and sashes are emblazoned with dozens of brightly colored medals making them look like walk-ons from an opera set in a 19th century Spanish…
Highbrows and Humidity
Posted by it on April 22, 2008 The cloistered campus of the Southwest School of Art & Craft in downtown San Antonio is a far cry from the raucous, Rabelaisian crowd that attended the Fiesta Oyster Bake on the city’s west side. Here, set amidst 1851-era limestone buildings, the flesh is mostly covered, more apt to display Ralph Lauren polo ponies than…
NYC with Teens
Posted by it on April 22, 2008 Traveling with tweens and teens to New York? Senior editor Norie Quintos shares some tips and tricks from a recent trip to the Big Apple with her 12- and 14-year-old sons. Limit the number of museums and choose them carefully. Just because there are dozens of world-class museums in the city doesn’t mean you have…
Tour Guide: Homeless World Cup
Posted by Jeannette Kimmel on April 22, 2008 Scotland wins the Homeless World Cup 2007 in Copenhagen For those who can’t wait for the soccer World Cup in 2010 in South Africa, there’s a different type of World Cup going on this year Down Under. This year, Melbourne is hosting the annual the Homeless World Cup, an international event featuring 500 footy players…
The Luck of the Suck
Posted by it on April 21, 2008 Contributing editor Andrew Nelson is in San Antonio this week celebrating Fiesta, and he’ll be sending us dispatches from the road all this week. How hard is it to eat a Texas-sized bucket of baked oysters? Really hard, I’m discovering. Each mollusk is the size of your fist, shut tighter than Area 51, they mock…
A Taste of Oz
Posted by kristen gunderson on April 21, 2008 Last week, I took a trip to Australia while waiting for my lunch to heat up in the microwave. Standing in the NG cafeteria, I noticed with surprise the package the man next to me was holding. “Oh my gosh, you have Tim Tams!” My new friend grinned and revealed to me that he got…
Go Wild for Earth Day
Posted by Crowd Favorite on April 18, 2008 This lemur can’t contain his excitement for Earth Day… You can celebrate Earth Day many ways: by picking up new eco-friendly habits, booking a green hotel getaway, or choosing from the host of other ideas featured at NG’s Preserve Our Planet website. But if you really want to dig in and get close to nature…
Just the Very Best Please
Posted by it on April 18, 2008 Senior Editor Sheila Buckmaster is known for her good taste, so for our Authentic New York coverage, we wondered which New York City locales can satiate her appetite. Cookbooks and guidebooks aren’t all that different when it comes to taste. When I thumb through a cookbook, I think, “Okay, of the dozens of recipes here,…
April 22: The End of Plastic?
Posted by mary beth larue on April 18, 2008 Could this be the end for plastic bags? Whole Foods has announced their goal to eliminate all plastic grocery bags by Earth Day (April 22). The grocer, which features natural and organic foods, said it hoped shoppers would bring their own reusable bags, but would offer 100 percent recycled paper grocery bags when needed. Why…
Funky Brunch in Pittsburgh
Posted by marilyn terrell on April 17, 2008 I finally got a chance to eat brunch in an antiques shop. My daughter Lucy, who’s an engineering student at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, had been trying to arrange it, but each time I visited I had to leave before this once-a-week event occurred. The antiques shop is called The Zenith, and it’s located at…
Chris Elliott on Greenwashing
Posted by it on April 16, 2008 Leave it to our beloved Help Desk columnist Chris Elliott to help clarify the confusion behind “greenwashing” in travel. In a recent article he wrote, now up on his blog, he exposes techniques used by airlines, hotels, and other culprits in the tourism industry to wrap themselves in a cloak of “green” by purporting to…
Manhattan’s Secret Burger
Posted by marilyn terrell on April 15, 2008 It’s about the last place you’d expect to find a greasy spoon. After you enter the swanky, hushed lobby of the $400/night Le Parker Meridien hotel on West 56th St., immediately turn left and push aside the set of heavy floor-to-ceiling brown drapes. Then walk down a narrow hallway and follow this neon cheeseburger sign…
The GeoTourism Challenge: Nominate Now!
Posted by it on April 14, 2008 Each one of these flags represents a new way of looking at tourism A few months ago we introduced the GeoTourism Challenge, a contest sponsored by National Geographic’s Center for Sustainable Destinations and Ashoka’s Changemakers to help seek out the people and places which are using innovative tourism methods to help “sustain, enhance, and preserve…
A Colonial America Trifecta
Posted by Intelligent Travel on April 11, 2008 By: Ashley Thompson A very special out-of-town friend and I were having a hard time deciding what to do with our lone weekend we would have together while he was in D.C. I just moved here from the Kansas City area, and he was on a short leave from his teaching job in France. Our…
Tour Guide: Biking the Underground Railroad
Posted by Jeannette Kimmel on April 10, 2008 For history buffs out there (you know who you are), the Adventure Cycling Association has a great tour that combines U.S. history lessons with plenty of exercise. The 48-day, 2,100-mile Undergound Railroad tour takes 14 cyclists from Mobile, Alabama, through the Deep South and the Tennessee River Valley, across the Ohio River, and up through…
America’s “Distinctive Destinations”
Posted by Crowd Favorite on April 10, 2008 Every year since 2000, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has added 12 places to its list of “distinctive destinations” in the U.S. These destinations “offer an authentic visitor experience by combining dynamic downtowns, cultural diversity, attractive architecture, cultural landscapes, and a strong commitment to historic preservation and revitalization.” This year’s destinations include: Aiken, South…
Up Close to the Proximity Hotel
Posted by it on April 9, 2008 “Travelling Without Footprints,” is a video series exploring carbon-friendly travel experiences. In this first installment, former Traveler researcher Ali Ogden takes us to the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina, where owner Dennis Quaintance shows us what it takes to make a hotel green as he works toward achieving LEED Platinum status. His notion is…
Tour Guide: Experience Oz
Posted by Jeannette Kimmel on April 9, 2008 Deciding where to go on your next Aussie vacation can prove to be difficult. Many people don’t realize that the land Down Under is almost as big as as the U.S., and therefore, one cannot simply drive from Cairns to Melbourne in an afternoon (it’s roughly the same distance from L.A. to St. Louis, Missouri…
How to Really “Backpack Europe”
Posted by Crowd Favorite on April 9, 2008 For some of us here at IT, camping in tents was our first real introduction to travel. So our interest piqued when reading Arthur Frommer’s interesting blog post about campsites situated on the outskirts of most European cities. The campsites are usually accessible via the city’s public transportation system (like a subway or bus), and…
Filipino Brunch in SoHo
Posted by it on April 8, 2008 Associate Editor Amy Alipio shares her New York long-weekend tradition: Sunday brunch at Cendrillon. Um, brunch where? you might ask. Cendrillon restaurant in SoHo flies under the radar because of its Filipino menu. Not one of the better-known Asian cuisines, Filipino fare is a mix of Chinese, Malay, Spanish, and even American influences. (How else…
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