Destination: United States
76-Second Travel Show: America’s Best Beach?
by Robert Reid | 06.09.10 | 2:34 PM ET
Sorry, California and Hawaii. Robert Reid heads to Southampton, New York to visit the current champion.
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Yahoo! BuzzConfessions of a Focus Group Traveler
by LiAnne Yu | 06.08.10 | 11:14 AM ET
iStockPhoto When LiAnne Yu visits other countries, she watches people from behind a one-way mirror. She now knows which cultures prefer jeans that accentuate curvy butts.
Tracking Twain and the Mississippi
by Jim Benning | 06.04.10 | 12:03 PM ET
Laura Barton followed the river through 10 states to better know Twain. Her story about the journey also touches on the music and other literature of the river. It’s a lovely piece.
I kept in mind a line from “Old Glory”, Jonathan Raban’s account of his own journey down the river: “It is called the Mississippi, but it is more an imaginary river than a real one.”
It had been shaped in my own imagination by a confederacy of literature and song lyrics. I pictured it as described by Twain, or Eudora Welty, or William Faulkner, who saw “alluvial swamps threaded by black, almost motionless bayous and impenetrable with cane and buckvine and cypress and ash and oak and gum.” I imagined it as it was conjured up by Paul Robeson in “Ol’ Man River”, or in the songs of Johnny Cash or Charlie Patton, a mighty force capable of carrying away the one you loved, of breaking levees and washing the lowlands of Greenville and Leland and Rosedale, and I saw the delta through Paul Simon’s eyes, “shining like the national guitar”.
Side note: The more time goes by, the more I appreciate Paul Simon’s “Graceland” for its power to evoke the river and the region.
The World at Home
by Frank Bures | 06.03.10 | 11:05 AM ET
After years on the move, Frank Bures returned to Minnesota. Now, in his Minneapolis neighborhood, he finds himself transported across the globe.
See the full audio slideshow: »
The Roads Home
by Tom Swick | 06.02.10 | 9:43 AM ET
On a bi-coastal life amid the bridges of the Delaware River
Video You Must See: ‘Running on Empty’ in Los Angeles
by Michael Yessis | 05.28.10 | 10:45 AM ET
Ross Ching has beautifully adapted Matt Logue's Empty L.A. concept.
What Kiss Cams Say About Cities
by Michael Yessis | 05.24.10 | 2:22 PM ET
I love this idea from a sportswriter I usually can’t stand: The Kiss Cam as a two-minute glimpse into a city’s soul. In this case, Bill Plaschke’s talking about the Kiss Cam at Staples Center in Los Angeles during Lakers’ games.
Nowhere, it seems, are the couples as animated, or the crowd as involved, or the message about the heart of Los Angeles any more clear. In a night filled with supermen, it is a brief, heartwarming reminder that the Lakers have been built upon the hopes and ideals of those who are real.
In a town where everything is supposedly disposable, no Kiss Cam moment is cheered louder than a smooch between an elderly couple. In a town that supposedly doesn’t trumpet family values, the second-loudest cheers occur for the forehead pecks of a parent on a child.
The third-most popular Kiss Cam moment? Hugh Hefner sitting in a luxury suite kissing three or four bunnies. C’mon, this is still Hollywood.
Gawker’s Guide to New York City in the Summer
by Eva Holland | 05.21.10 | 12:14 PM ET
Brian Moylan offers some advice for peaceful co-existence between visitors and locals on the busy streets of New York this summer—though some of it, like the suggestion that tourists should stay strictly on the beaten path of big-time Manhattan attractions, seems more geared towards the comfort of city-dwellers than the enjoyment of newcomers.
Our own Mike Barish shared his tips for a successful holiday visit to New York this past winter.
‘The Truth is People do Walk in L.A.’
by Michael Yessis | 05.20.10 | 11:06 AM ET
Ryan Bradley’s Good series Walking in L.A. gets off to a strong start. He aims to reverse the notion that Los Angeles isn’t a place for walkers, and he’s carrying a lot of statistical ammunition.
Everyone thinks they know L.A., even if they’ve never been west of St. Louis. Nobody walks in L.A., right? There’s that Missing Persons song, or that line from Steve Martin’s L.A. Story: “...it’s not like New York, where you can meet someone walking down the street. In L.A. you practically have to hit someone with your car. In fact, I know girls who speed just to meet cops.”
But the truth is people do walk in L.A. And bike. Fully 12 percent of all trips in Los Angeles are by bicycle or on foot—that’s more than Austin or Portland. In sheer numbers, L.A. has more bikers and walkers than Washington, D.C., or Chicago, or even San Francisco. And it happens to be far safer for biking and walking than all three, according to a 2010 Benchmarking Report by the Alliance for Biking and Walking. I lump walking and biking together only because, until very recently, so did everyone else. In the 1990s biking and walking were “alternative,” like rock music. Fifteen years ago, Los Angeles spent “about $1 million” a year on pedestrians and bike services. This year Los Angeles has earmarked $36 million on walking alone. Could it be that this western cow-town, this place that’s synonymous with self-reinvention, is reinventing itself?
Bradley’s first exploratory walk in L.A.: a 17-mile trek from LAX to downtown.
Mapped: California as the World’s Stand-In
by Michael Yessis | 05.20.10 | 10:18 AM ET
In 1927, Paramount Studios apparently produced this map of California, designating cities and regions that could double as various parts of the world. Now I can say I grew up near the stand-in for Wales. (Via The Map Room)
Que Lástima, Arizona
by Adam Karlin | 05.19.10 | 8:50 AM ET
iStockPhoto The state's new immigration law puts more at risk than tourism dollars and tacos. Adam Karlin reports from the Sonoran Desert.
Which American City Spends the Most on Food and Drink?
by Eva Holland | 05.18.10 | 10:54 AM ET
That’d be Austin, TX, per this cool graphic posted at Flowing Data. As the chart’s creators note, that’s a lot of Torchy’s Tacos. (Via Andrew Sullivan)
An Ode to Hawaii’s Messy Reality
by Eva Holland | 05.14.10 | 10:42 AM ET
Over at Nerd’s Eye View, World Hum contributor and Hawaii enthusiast Pam Mandel ponders the typical expectations of visitors to the islands, and how they stack up against the reality she’s gotten to know and love. From the post:
It’s weird to have a long term relationship with a place that isn’t my home. I’m keen to the flaws but part of my heart remains in the islands… [O]n my last trip there, I watched a traveler open the envelope and take out that staged photo, and, then, respond with such disappointment at the real thing. How can a place stack up against such oppressive expectations? Why would Hawaii want to be our Shangri-La, our Atlantis, our Bali Hai? It’s so much work, too much makeup, the lighting and the filters and the fiction to make a place paradise belies what’s really there.
And I’m good with what’s really there.
An Insomniac in New York
by Eva Holland | 05.12.10 | 3:58 PM ET
Bill Hayes has a lovely essay in the New York Times about life in his new home, New York City, a place seemingly purpose-built for insomniacs. Here’s a choice quote:
Sometimes I’d sit in the kitchen in the dark and gaze out at the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. Such a beautiful pair, so impeccably dressed, he in his boxy suit, every night a different hue, and she, an arm’s length away, in her filigreed skirt the color of the moon. I regarded them as an old married couple, calmly, unblinkingly, keeping watch over one of their newest sons. And I returned the favor. I would be there the moment the Empire State turned off its lights for the night, as if getting a little shut-eye before sunrise.
The whole thing is worth a read.
Waiting for Oil in the Florida Keys
by Tom Swick | 05.11.10 | 10:56 AM ET
iStockPhoto On a visit to the islands, where some are now contemplating the unthinkable