Destination: United States
Straight to Airport Security, Your Phone as Your Boarding Pass
by Rob Verger | 05.11.09 | 12:13 PM ET
Have you ever checked in for a flight using your iPhone as your boarding pass?
Completely paperless check-in—by way of a boarding pass with an embedded barcode sent to your mobile phone, which you then present at security and the gate—may be becoming more widespread, NPR reports in All Tech Considered.
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Yahoo! BuzzVideo: Alison Stein Wellner: The Heat Seeker
by World Hum | 05.11.09 | 11:16 AM ET
Alison Stein Wellner traveled around the world to eat the hottest food she could handle, a quest she chronicled for World Hum
My Worst Hotel Rooms
by Alexander Basek | 05.11.09 | 10:59 AM ET
Lists are in the air lately, so I decided to get in on the action. Herewith, my four worst hotel rooms, lifetime. I won’t name names, because I’m a gentleman. And also, because the parties in question might hunt me down and throw tiny bottles of shampoo at me.
Singapore: I was at the edge of Singapore’s Chinatown, which, as it turns out, is also the edge of Singapore’s red light district. Not that I caught on—I thought all the scantily-clad women peering out from cracked front doors were zealous about saving the environment and keeping that AC indoors. My hotel room here was easily the darkest I’ve ever stayed in: a deep red and purple color scheme lit by one dirty window overlooking an airshaft. The only outlet was in the middle of the wall above the bed.
When Choosing the Best Food in America, What Matters?
by Jenna Schnuer | 05.08.09 | 12:01 PM ET
Lately, the word best has been tumbling around my mind a lot. Blame it on the Beard Awards. Who was it going to be? Who would capture the crowns for best chefs in America?
Now, before you slam me for being anti-best, I’m not. I make part of my living off the damned, er, lovely word. As a travel and food writer, I package a bit of this from one place with a bit of that from another. Drape a coat of “best” on it—after extensive tasting and inner turmoil over who I’m leaving out—and, blammo, a list is born.
A Twitter Road Trip Twitique: What Worked, What Didn’t
by Sophia Dembling | 05.08.09 | 9:48 AM ET
Photo by Sophia Dembling My husband Tom and I recently drove a loop south from Albuquerque. (Here’s an annotated map of our route, in case you want to follow in our tire tracks.) This was the first time I’ve Twittered from the road. Interestingly, the great to-Twitter-or-not-to-Twitter debate started up while I was Twittering my trip and triggered a little metacognition about the process. Is it the right thing to do, and what makes a good travel Tweet?
Jizo, Protector of Travelers and Children
by Pam Mandel | 05.07.09 | 4:24 PM ET
Photo by Pam Mandel On my latest trip to Hawaii, I left my lei draped on the Jizo statue at a little shrine on a bluff between Hanauma Bay and Sandy Beach—to get there, you have to park at the Halona Blowhole viewpoint and walk back along the Kalanianaole Highway. Last time we were there, a ceremony was taking place and we didn’t want to interrupt—a group of 20 or so people stood in front of the statue chanting in Japanese, their prayers blown away on the brisk wind.
Dear ‘American Idol’: How About Some Road Tunes?
by Eva Holland | 05.06.09 | 12:45 PM ET
I’ll admit it: For the first time since Clay Aiken came in second and got all the glory anyway, I’ve been following “American Idol” this year. I’m a pretty halfhearted viewer—I tend to browse the recaps the next day, and then find the performances that interest me on YouTube—but I’ve still managed to take note of the various theme nights the “Idol” producers have come up with. Opry Night, Idol at the Movies, Rat Pack Standards, even Disco: the diversity of American musical eras and traditions represented is admirable.
Nonetheless, I’m left wondering about one great American tradition that “Idol” seems to have overlooked. Where’s the homage to road music?
Spinning Travel in a Tough Job Market
by Julia Ross | 05.04.09 | 11:44 AM ET
When I decided to quit a full-time job in Washington, D.C., to take a one-year fellowship in Taiwan, I didn’t know I’d be returning home to economic collapse and the worst U.S. job market in years. I skirted the problem by choosing to work for myself, at least for the immediate future.
Interview With Dr. Mike: Swine Flu and Travel
by Jim Benning | 05.01.09 | 5:51 PM ET
How safe is it to travel? Jim Benning asks an influenza expert and the host of a new Travel Channel show for his perspective.
Eight Great Family Travel Stories
by World Hum | 05.01.09 | 11:33 AM ET
iStockPhoto To mark World Hum's eighth anniversary, we've collected eight favorite travel stories from our archives that explore the family vacation in all its forms
Cheap Airfares! Buy Now!
by Rob Verger | 05.01.09 | 10:30 AM ET
There is an amazing multitude of low fares for air travel out there right now. Want to fly cheaply to Australia? Shanghai? Las Vegas? I’ve rounded up some great travel deals below.
Interview With a Celebrity Chef: Govind Armstrong
by David Farley | 04.30.09 | 4:15 PM ET
Photo courtesy of Table 8 at the Cooper Square Hotel Govind Armstrong may not yet be 40 years old, but the dreadlocked chef is already a veteran in the kitchen, having logged time in some of the world’s most famous restaurants.
It all started at the improbable age of 13 when Armstrong found himself working at Spago, Wolfgang Puck’s celebrated Los Angeles restaurant. Now, after working in some of the most acclaimed kitchens in Los Angeles and Spain, he’s on the verge of his own restaurant empire. The Los Angeles and South Beach outposts of Table 8 won rave reviews, and now he’s about to take his biggest leap yet: New York.
On his way up the celebrity-chef ladder, he’s found himself on Iron Chef America, as a judge on Top Chef and on People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People” list.
I met up with Chef Armstrong at the Cooper Square Hotel in New York’s East Village where he’s putting the finishing touches on the Big Apple outpost of Table 8.
No Shark Dives Here, Say Oahu Residents
by Pam Mandel | 04.30.09 | 10:39 AM ET
There are a handful of critters I hope never to get all that close to. Sharks are on the top of that list; I’d rather share my time in the water with occupants that don’t potentially see me as food. But plenty of tourists are more than willing to shell out $120 (give or take) to get in the water with the thing I so fear, “secure cage” or no.
Eight Great Stories of Beaches, Islands, Travel and the Tropics
by World Hum | 04.30.09 | 10:31 AM ET
To mark our eighth anniversary, we've collected eight favorite stories from our archives that celebrate and explore travel at land's end
Eight Great Travel Stories of Serendipity and Kindness
by World Hum | 04.29.09 | 6:09 PM ET
Photo illustration by Jim Benning To mark our eighth anniversary, we've collected eight favorite stories from our archives that show how one person, or one small act of kindness, can alter our sense of the world