Results tagged “History” from Intelligent Travel Blog

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we've been following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Today he shares his last blog post, at a site that inspired him to start the project. You can find all of his past posts here.

Pittsburgh is where I officially launched this 50-state journey last July, but in many ways the first stop of my journey was in New Orleans two years ago. The Big Easy was my "test" city back in the fall of 2007, and I hired a local guide named Rob Florence, considered the best in the business, to see how many unmarked history sites we could locate. I especially wanted to pinpoint spots that were unfamiliar to local residents--perhaps even to Rob himself.

Rob is exactly what you want in a guide: genuinely passionate, friendly, and, of course, knowledgeable about almost every nook of the city. He has also been instrumental in preserving the past. Rob helped place a new marker at the gravesite of Homer Plessey (of the infamous Plessey v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision) and has been involved in countless other activities to ensure that New Orleans' rich history is not lost.

In 2007 Rob and I found numerous forgotten history sites, including a secluded burial mound miles outside the French Quarter, a decrepit building at the corner of S. Rampart and Perdido where the "father of jazz" Buddy Bolton is said to have gotten his start, and, in a parking lot behind Houston's Restaurant on St. Charles Street, the scattered remains of the factory where Andrew Higgins built amphibious landing craft used in the 1944 D-Day landings (pictured, above). At the time, General Dwight D. Eisenhower credited Higgins and his boats with helping to win the war in Europe. After this first visit to New Orleans I decided that a larger, 50-state trip was in order.

I recently went back to see Rob, and I asked him to help me track down some additional forgotten history sites, especially one that, although not nationally significant, is personally meaningful to me.

We recently received a letter from a reader asking for help finding a cruise across the southern Mediterranean along the coast of North Africa. She hopes to visit cities founded during the Roman Empire rich with remnants of the past. Here are three travel companies with excellent cruising options for exploring the region. All trips are education-oriented and feature prominent speakers and guest lecturers on relevant topics from archaeology to classical culture and language. One of the highlights of all of the tours is the magnificent Leptis Magna Theater on the coast of Libya, pictured here, and featured as one of our "50 Places of a Lifetime" in our current issue.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

Several weeks ago I mentioned my aversion to staying in "historic" hotels--until I spent a great night in Denver's Brown Palace, a building rich in regional and national history. Now I seek these hotels out whenever possible.

Last week I had a phenomenal stay at the Omni Parker House in downtown Boston, at the corner of Tremont and School streets. Founded in 1855, the Parker House boasts being "America's longest continuously operating hotel" and has hosted countless prominent individuals: Alexander Graham Bell, both Edwin and John Wilkes Booth, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ulysses S. Grant, Martin Luther King Jr., Mary Todd Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, and, of course, Boston's own Ben Affleck.

What most interested me about the hotel, however, was not its illustrious guests, but the individuals who have served there on staff.

About twenty-five years ago a budding opera singer who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music worked the night shift as a telephone operator. Her name is Denyce Graves, now one of the world's most famous mezzo-sopranos.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

Bob Marley was...here??

Reggae probably isn't the first thing that comes to people's minds when they think of the state of Delaware. But thanks to my extraordinary young assistant this summer, Dima Kislovskiy, I just passed through Newark, Delaware, to photograph sites related to Bob Marley, who's done more than any other artist to popularize reggae music.

Marley's mother had been living in Wilmington since 1963 when Bob moved there in 1966, hoping to earn enough money to start his own record label. Under the alias Donald Marley, he worked as a DuPont lab assistant and at the Chrysler assembly plant just across the street from the University of Delaware campus.

The facility was opened in 1951 to build U.S. Army tanks, and then six years later it began manufacturing cars until management shut the whole place down last year. While the massive buildings don't appear to have deteriorated much, weeds now peek through cracks in the abandoned, football field-size parking lots and the lawns and grounds are showing the first hint of neglect.

Bob Marley returned to Jamaica with enough money to launch Wail'n Soul'm, but he didn't forget his time in Delaware; two songs, "It's Alright" (from the 1970 album Soul Rebels) and "Night Shift" (from Rastaman Vibration, released in 1976) allude to his experiences in America's first state.

Next week: The Marias River, Montana

Sydney Suissa, the executive VP of content for the National Geographic Channel, joined a group of European journalists last week as they visited the beaches of Normandy where the D-Day landings took place. September 2009 marks the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II and to commemorate the event, National Geographic Channel International is launching a new series on the history of the war entitled "Apocalypse". Click through to see his photo essay.

There are 22 of us on the bus from Caen. A Tower of Babel on wheels, we speak French, English, Spanish, Greek, Turkish, Portuguese, Dutch, Estonian, Norwegian, Romanian, and Polish. The road takes us through a vast plain of rich farmland that rolls down to the sea; corn waiting for harvest, fields of wheat stubble glowing under the sun of a big sky and white gulls following tractors to feed on worms. Red poppies, the emblems of the first World War immortalized by the Canadian poet John McCrae ("In Flanders Field the poppies blow/Between the crosses row on row"), sway in the breeze along stone fences and gardens of hydrangeas, cosmos, and orange trumpet vines.

On June 6, 1944, one hundred and thirty-five thousand Allied soldiers landed on five beaches along the Normandy coast. The war that started on September 1, 1939 with Germany's invasion of Poland was now entering the endgame. The Allied beachhead in Normandy was the first step in the campaign to liberate Europe and topple Berlin. This pastoral landscape we are driving through was razed, bloodied, and gouged beyond recognition. Hundreds of lovely cobbled towns and villages like Crepon, Meuvaines, Bayeux and Creully were destroyed by artillery shelling, the march of tanks, the relentless advance of the Allies and the fierce retreat of German forces.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

As a native Washingtonian raised in sweltering summers (which I've grown to love), I have nothing but admiration for those who can endure prolonged, thermometer-freezing winters. "It can get down to 40 below here in the winter," my Nome, Alaska, taxi driver told me during the short drive from the airport to the hotel. He also gave me an impromptu tour of some of his favorite sites. "There's one of the oldest bars in Alaska, some say the oldest," he said as we passed the Board of Trade Saloon.

The temperature was 50 degrees when I arrived, but it felt much colder in the drizzling rain. Most of the states I've visited so far have been in the 80s or 90s (Arizona was 110, South Dakota 70), and I didn't pack pants or long-sleeved shirts for this 50-state journey, just shorts and T-shirts.

I was prepared to stay warmly huddled in the hotel throughout my brief trip to Nome, which was really just a jumping off point to a remote Alaskan village I needed to visit. But I was starving by the time I finished packing, so I outlined a daring plan: I would race down Nome's main ("Front") street as quickly as possible, buy enough food at the local grocery store for both lunch and dinner, and then sprint back to the cozy safety of my hotel room.

Like many bold adventures, this one went quickly awry. Less than halfway to the grocery, I caught site of the town's local historical museum. Keep going, my freezing arms and legs pleaded. But I could not. This will only take a moment, I rationalized. It didn't. (It never does...)

After almost two hours of poring through binders full of old documents, photographs, maps, and property deeds, I had several intriguing little-known sites to find, most notably the boyhood home of James "Jimmy" Harold Doolittle.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

Before arriving in Atlanta, Georgia, I received a call from a local WSB-AM radio reporter named Jon Lewis who wanted to talk about my search for unmarked historic sites throughout the country. I confessed I only had two sites to check out in Atlanta--one of which was already marked, and the second one I had yet to locate on a map. So throughout the day it was Jon who guided me around the city pointing out one fascinating, little-known site after another.

A few highlights:

To date, the worst hotel fire in the United States occurred in what was once the Winecoff Hotel on 176 Peachtree Street, and is now the Ellis Hotel. One hundred and nineteen people were killed on December 7, 1946, in what was supposedly a "fireproof" building--despite the fact it had no sprinklers or fire escapes. (The tragedy prompted cities across the country to enact stronger fire safety measures.) A young graduate student named Arnold Hardy won the Pulitzer Prize--and he was the first amateur to do so--for a picture he took of a woman falling from the eleventh floor. Miraculously, she survived. The building was put on the National Register of Historic Places only earlier this year.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

While heading to southwest Minnesota to research a little-known Sioux Indian site, I made a short detour to photograph a story related to a historic flight over St. Paul.

During the Civil War, military personnel from other nations came to the U.S. to observe combat operations. One of these visitors was a 25-year-old Prussian officer who was fascinated by the Union Army's Balloon Corps, which conducted reconnaissance missions over Confederate territory.

"Just now I ascended with Prof. [John] Steiner, the famous aeronaut, to an altitude of six or seven hundred feet," the young Prussian wrote from St. Paul to his father back in Wurttemberg on August 19, 1863. "Should one want to harass with artillery fire [opposing] troops...the battery could be informed by telegraphic signals where their projectiles hit. The above technique has at times been used with great success by this country's armies. No method is better suited to viewing quickly the terrain of an unknown, enemy-occupied region."

The experience had a dramatic impact; "While I was above St. Paul I had my first idea of aerial navigation strongly impressed upon me," he would later say. "[A]nd it was there that the first idea of my Zeppelins came to me." His full name was Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin, who went on to manufacture the eponymous airship. By World War I the Germans were utilizing almost 70 Zeppelins both for bombing raids and intelligence gathering against the Allies--including American troops.

Next up: Atlanta, GA

All photos and text © Andrew Carroll

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

After leaving Palestine, Texas, to pursue an extraordinary story I'd heard concerning the Columbia Space Shuttle explosion in 2003, I needed to photograph a site in Dallas related to one of the nation's greatest Blues singers.

I told the hotel concierge where I wanted to go, and, after noticing my camera and video equipment, he warned me: "Be careful." Be careful? "The building you're going to is near a homeless shelter, and it's a pretty rough area."

I appreciated the head's up but wasn't terribly concerned. Yes, when I got there I definitely encountered some scowls as I began setting up my tripod in the middle of the street to photograph 508 Park Ave. By the time I looked up from the viewfinder there were about half a dozen guys around me.

"Hey man, what's going on?" one of them asked--not in a threatening way, but his tone wasn't entirely welcoming either.

"I'm traveling across the country to find little known historic sites," I explained, "and that building is the last place where Robert Johnson recorded his music before he died."

"That's right, that's right," another guy said.

"Not just Robert Johnson, Eric Clapton recorded there too," an older gentleman added. I didn't know that.

Lynda Bird Johnson packs her camp trailer prior to her western trip. From the December, 1965 issue of National Geographic Magazine, by David Boyer/NGS.

This weekend President Obama and the First Family are heading to Yellowstone and Grand Canyon National Parks, in part to promote this summer's final fee-free weekend at over 100 parks that usually charge admission. With his visit, the President hopes to continue the tradition of Presidential visits to the parks, and encourage the preservation and conservation of our natural landscapes. If this trip sparks anything like the mass crowds now flocking to the Obama-visited burger joints here in Washington, D.C., the President will have done his job.

This will be the first visit to either park for Obama's daughters Sasha and Malia, but not the first time a First Daughter has made such a trip. In 1965, Lynda Bird Johnson, daughter of LBJ, caravanned across America's interior taking National Geographic Magazine along for the ride. Here's an excerpt from the article, "I See America First: Diary of the President's Daughter," that we dug out of our archives.

Our Ancestors saw the West in a covered wagon. I saw it in the covered wagon's successor, the travel trailer.

In late June we rolled away from the Grand Canyon with the keepsake memory of a sunrise Sunday worship service beside its awesome rim. For two days we lingered in Monument Valley, an American Stonehenge sculptured by nature. We climbed amid the cliffside homes of ancient Indians at Wetherill Mesa, celebrated Fourth of July with a parade at Laramie, and in Jackson Hole floated down the Snake River on a raft.

We applauded Old Faithful at Yellowstone, parked for the night among tombstones where Custer, his men of the 7th Cavalry, and his stubborn foes--the Sioux and Cheyenne--died at the Little Bighorn River, and paused in homage at Theodore Roosevelt's crude cabin in his memorial park. We waded the Mississippi River where it trickles out of Lake Itasca, and canoed on the inviting waters of northern Minnesota.

Though our trailers covered 2,900 miles--about the distance from Paris to Jerusalem--we had hardly begun to see America. To see it all would take a lifetime.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.


While researching hotels in Denver, however, I came across the Brown Palace Hotel & Spa in a terrific hotel guide put out by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (it was also featured in National Geographic Traveler's annual Stay List in 2008). Built by Henry Brown in the last 1800s, the name jumped out at me and I immediately made a reservation.

When I began preparing for this trip more than a year ago I did extensive reading on the Underground Railroad, and while its existence is hardly unknown--I think most of us have at least a vague awareness of its significance in our nation's past--the specific stories have been mostly forgotten.

One of the most extraordinary involves a crate shipped from Richmond, Virginia, to 131 Arch Street, Philadelphia, at 4:00 am on March 29, 1849. When the wooden box arrived at 6:00 am at the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society more than a day later, members of the abolitionist Vigilance Committee were there to receive it but, knowing its supposed contents, dreaded opening it for fear of what they might find. One of the members tapped on the crate and  asked if everything was "all right within?" A muffled voice replied in the affirmative, and the members
quickly pried open the box and let an escaped slave named Henry Brown experience his first breath of freedom. Brown had survived an excruciating almost 27-hour journey, and despite bold lettering on the box directing that it be kept "This Side Up," the crate was repeatedly dropped upside down, putting almost fatal pressure on Brown's neck and head.

I had read that Brown became a successful businessman and moved to Colorado, where he opened one of the most elegant hotels in the city. After I made my reservation, I was shocked that although the hotel's own website repeatedly mentioned how historic the building was, there was no picture of Brown and no mention of his daring escape--just a brief description that he was a "Denver carpenter-turned-entrepreneur." Which is a little like referring to Beethoven as a piano tuner.

Here at Traveler, we love digging through the archive of photographs available to us at National Geographic to learn about the history of a place and see how it's changed over time (see our recent photo galleries on Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Kodachrome Culture for examples). We present a "Then and Now" photo feature in every issue, and have even dedicated an entire photo issue to looking at how the places we love have changed. So with that in mind, I was particularly taken with a photo set I stumbled upon on Flickr where the photographer, Jason Powell, aligned old photos in their contemporary settings. The collection, called "Looking into the Past" is culled primarily from images from the Library of Congress, and were reassembled in the area around D.C. and Virginia. He's right, they open a window into the past that's just fascinating. Powell says he was inspired by the "Souvenirs" series of images created by Michael Hughes, and also on Flickr. Both sets are great, and help us look at familiar places with a new light. Check out more images from "Looking into the Past" after the jump.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

Near the top of my "things to find" list for this 50-state journey are historic markers on major highways that come up out of nowhere and cannot possibly be read at 65 miles an hour. I've seen these plaques and signs on past trips, and I'm determined to locate one at some point so I can stop, back up along the shoulder (safely of course), and see what it says.

What brought this to mind was the faded brown and white sign I recently whizzed past on Highway 6 & 50 en route to Baker, Nevada, that simply states: "Historical Marker."

The sign gives no indication as to what site of historical significance awaits whomever ventures down the gravel road. Nor does it suggest how far one has to drive. I was running late, short of gas, and had no time for an open-ended adventure in the middle of a Utah desert.

But I knew I'd curse myself if I later found out I'd passed by some extraordinary site just a few hundred feet away, so off I went.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

From Chicago I flew to Hawaii, and before popping over to Honolulu to pursue a story that connects Abraham Lincoln to Oahu, I set out to find a little-known grave in Maui, just south of Hana. Buried here is one of the most famous (and infamous, to some) Americans--and yet his final resting place could hardly be more remote.

The far-flung burial spot receives only a trickle of visitors, and seasonal flooding and mud slides can make the site totally inaccessible. Fortunately only a light rain was falling the morning I went there, and the drive along the Hana Highway was one of the most exhilarating I've ever taken. Never before have I seen such diverse landscape on a single road, from lush, dense forests one moment to dry and rocky terrain the next. The (barely) two-lane highway curves so sharply that I often felt as if I were driving through the twisting exit ramp of an endless underground parking garage. Countless myna birds casually hopped between the double yellow dividing lines, seemingly oblivious to the constant stream of cars rushing past. (The occasional clump of smashed feathers in the middle of the road however were proof that some had been a bit too cavalier.)

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

I typically travel to Chicago about once or twice a year, and on every trip I've walked past and in many cases gone into the Tribune Tower building at 435 North Michigan Avenue. But not once have I ever noticed the outside of the building.

After visiting Pittsburgh (see last week's blog) I sprinted through Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan and arrived in Chicago at about 7:00 p.m. The light was fading by the time I find a parking spot downtown, and I had to leave early the next morning for Hawaii so this was my only chance to photograph the Tower.

I raced up North Michigan Avenue and as the neo-Gothic building came into view, there they are: Embedded in the outside walls are stones, chunks of metal, small marble slabs, shards of jade glass, bricks, petrified wood, and a variety of other materials and architectural flourishes from landmarks across the globe--the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Berlin Wall, the pyramids, the dome of St. Peter's, the Kremlin, the Arc de Triomphe, the Forbidden City, and a host of famous temples, mosques, and cathedrals.

Today is an exciting day for Francophiles around the world: Bastille Day. Having just spent time in France, I wanted to learn more about this holiday and the history behind it.

Bastille Day became an official French holiday in 1880, but the reason for the holiday happened several years prior. On the morning of July 14, 1789, citizens of the country stormed the Bastille prison in Paris, overturning the absolute--and arbitary--power of King Louis XVI. This event marked the start of the French Revolution, forever changing the way France was governed. As the French Embassy notes on its website, by storming the Bastille, the citizens of France were stating that "the king's power was no longer absolute: power should be based on the Nation and be limited by a separation of powers."

After several thwarted attempts, Space Shuttle Endeavour flight STS-127 is set to launch tonight at 6:51 p.m. EDT (weather permitting) as the 29th mission to the International Space Station. Yet the press is quiet, cameras aren't glued to the launch pad, and it's doubtful the crew will come home to a tickertape parade. Space travel has unfortunately lost some of its luster, but if we turn back the clock to decades ago, when the Internet, cell phones, and putting a probe on Mars were imagined only found in science fiction films, we'd find a more enthusiastic audience.

Why? Because July 20 will mark the 40th anniversary of NASA's Apollo 11 mission--the first manned lunar landing. Four decades have passed since Neil Armstrong made that "giant leap for mankind," igniting a string of successful moon missions, a space shuttle program, and flights to Mars within our grasp.

Across the country, NASA is commemorating the historic event with a host of public programs. Take your family so they may relive the accomplishments of the Apollo 11 crew and spark a new excitement around space exploration in the next generation.

"Here Is Where," is the latest column on the Intelligent Travel blog. In conjunction with his upcoming book, "Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History" we're going to follow historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

Most accounts of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's three-year trek across the continent have the expedition beginning in Missouri on May 14, 1804. But the first journal entry was in fact written by Lewis on August 31, 1803--from Pennsylvania.

"Left Pittsburgh this day at 11 ock with a party of 11 hands 7 of which are soldiers, a pilot and three young men on trial they having proposed to go with me throughout the voyage," Lewis notes in the first line. Two sentences later we learn how close the whole journey came to unraveling from the get-go; while one of his crew mates was holding an "airgun" Lewis had brought, the rifle accidentally discharged and shot a bystander in the head. "[T]he ball passed through the hat of a woman about 40 yards distanc," Lewis writes in his error-ridden prose. "[S]he feel instantly and the blood gusing from her temple... [but] in a minute she revived to our enespressable satisfaction."

They departed soon after.

I thought the site would be a fitting a place to officially start my own coast-to-coast adventure, so I flew into Pittsburgh from Washington, D.C. (my home) the evening of July 5th. David Grinnell, who is the chief archivist at the Senator John Heinz History Center and could not have been more helpful, informed me that the site was near the Fort Wayne Railroad Bridge at 11th street (pictured, above).

We'd like to introduce "Here Is Where," the latest column on the Intelligent Travel blog. In conjunction with his upcoming book, "Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History" we're going to follow historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. And here is where he introduces himself and the project. Find all of his posts here.

Although today marks the official launch of my 50-state trip to find forgotten history sites throughout the U.S., I've been seeking out these unmarked spots for 15 years now. This began essentially as a hobby. Whenever I traveled to a new city I tried, time permitting, to hunt down unmarked places associated with little-known events and people.

Sometimes I was successful; during a recent trip to Los Angeles I found the baseball fields in Encino where U.S. military officer Gary Powers died after his KNBC helicopter crashed in August 1977. (Ironically, Powers had survived being shot down over the Soviet Union seventeen years earlier--an incident with enormous historical implications--when he was flying U-2 spy planes for the CIA.) Other times I was less so; while in Missouri last year I tried to locate any site related to George Eyser, a one-legged gymnast who won three gold medals in the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. No luck. But regardless of what I do or don't find, the search is what's exhilarating, and these mini-adventures have prompted me to explore neighborhoods and parts of towns I might otherwise not have visited. 

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they're blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids.

"Welcome back" were not the words we wanted to hear with six weeks left on our year-long journey, but there was no avoiding it unless we didn't tell anyone about the forty-hour layover we had in New York before flying on to Peru. "We're not finished yet," we had to say again and again. Carol and I were actually quite apprehensive at the thought of breaking up the flow of our trip to spend two nights back where we started last July. The benefits of doing this, besides seeing some family and friends, were that the boys could play with their long-lost buddies while Carol and I seriously downsized our luggage for the trip's final leg that would be spent mostly in tropical climates.  

As far as how it felt to be home for the first time in ten months, it was actually quite revealing. If there's one thing I've realized throughout all my travels, it's that your senses are elevated. Food, fashion, architecture, language, landscapes, wildlife, smells--you are much more aware of everyday details whenever you leave the familiar surroundings of home. Since I've been in this heightened state of awareness for almost a year, it didn't go away when we landed in the U.S. Just the opposite. I seemed to walk around in an "all that's old is new again" frame of mind.

Meanwhile, our trip to Peru would also be a sort of homecoming, for we were joining up with the winners of the National Geographic Kids Hands-On Explorer Challenge, which would reunite me with fellow staff members and other colleagues from The Society.  It also meant that Tyler and Stefan would have plenty of peers to share the experience with, a huge bonus for two boys who only had sporadic interaction with other kids their age in the last year.

In a not-too-well-known wrinkle of history, Lincoln freed the approximately 3,000 slaves then living in the District of Columbia on April 16, 1862, nine months before the country-wide emancipation of enslaved peoples. In honor of that date, Washington, D.C., celebrates Emancipation Day today.

In D.C., Emancipation Day was a public holiday marked annually from 1866 to 1901 before fading away. It's been revamped in the past four years, though D.C. Mayor Fenty has recently considered scrapping the local holiday to save the city some much-needed money.

This year, a series of education and commemorative activities have been planned, ranging from ongoing art exhibits on African American celebrations and culture, to rallies and marches supporting D.C. statehood, to a living history discussion with an actor portraying Lincoln as he discusses his views on slavery, colonization, and emancipation, put on by the Historical Society of Washington. Some events and church services continue into the weekend and beyond. If you can, be sure to catch the discussion by Howard University professor Dr. Mark Mack about how ground penetrating radar is being used to detect the unmarked African American graves which were discovered what is now Walter Pierce Park in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. The session takes place in the park at 2 p.m. on April 25.

Does your city have any celebrations of its very own? Unique to its history and culture?

Photo: via D.C. Mayor's office, by Lateef Mangum

With the new visitor center opening at Monticello this week, now is the perfect time to plan a visit to Charlottesville, Virginia. IT Editor Janelle Nanos shares some of the highlights from her recent trip.

I'm no country bumpkin, but I do admit that I tend to feel a bit confined if I don't get out of the city from time to time. So a few weeks ago, when I was looking for a weekend away, my boyfriend and I decided to check out the rumors about Virginia wine country and packed up our car for the three-hour drive down to Charlottesville.

Home to both the University of Virginia and Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's quirky estate (did you know that both are World Heritage sites?), Charlottesville is a easy escape. Tucked in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, downtown C'ville, as it's known to locals, is a hip mix of independent storefronts, a local theater and ice-skating rink, and a funky outdoor pavilion with free live performances every Friday during warmer months. Huge chalkboards along one stretch of the main thoroughfare encourage free speech - and the vibe is distinctly warm and friendly, even in February when I visited.

Pulling up to downtown C'ville and a bit hungry after the trip, we stumbled upon one of the best finds of the weekend: The delectable dumplings from Marco & Lucas. Cheap and hot, with a line of hungry college kids spilling out the door, this spot is located along the downtown pedestrian-only West Main Street, and they're the best dumplings I've found in the (relative) D.C. area. When fried, they were like little crunchy pockets of heaven, and honestly, I've been craving them ever since. Unbeknownst to us, these dumplings would kick off the weekend's theme: food and drink, as many of the adorable clothing shops closed early over the weekend. But that turned out to be just fine.

We were hoping to stay in a bed and breakfast, as there are dozens in the area, and were fortunate to find at room (on short notice) at the High Meadows Vineyard Inn in nearby Scottsville. Immediately taken with the periwinkle home with chartreuse shutters, I was even more smitten with our host, Nancy, who was incredibly warm and generous with her suggestions about where to visit in the area. Plus, she and her daughter make a mean breakfast - if you haven't tried their broiled grapefruit drizzled with honey and cinnamon, book your reservation now (plus, they offer great mid-week deals).

Rainer Jenss and his family are currently on an around-the-world journey, and they're blogging about their experiences for us at Intelligent Travel. Keep up with the Jensses by bookmarking their posts, and follow the boys' Global Bros blog at National Geographic Kids.

One of the benefits of having traveled throughout Africa for the last two months is that it has kept us in an information void for some extended stretches at time (Carol fondly refers to this as being in our little bubble). We did manage to watch Barack Obama being sworn in just a couple hours after we toured a township in South Africa, and I was able to retrieve sporadic e-mails in the bush from friends and family raving about how lucky we were to be on this trip while filling us in on the happenings from back home.  And it seems like every correspondence we've received has made some sort of reference to the lousy economy and how ominous the mood is in the U.S. I'm quick to reply that the places we've been to are feeling it too, proving that there's truth to the saying that when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.

From what we've experienced, I can attest that one sector deeply affected by the global financial crisis has been the travel industry. This was evident from all the empty hotel rooms and sparse crowds we'd seen in recent weeks. Although it's true that countries like South Africa, Kenya, and especially Zimbabwe have been impacted by social unrest and political instability, the economic slowdown has clearly compounded the fact that traffic is down as much as 60% in some places.  

One country that didn't seem as affected was Egypt. If they've lost business as a result of people cutting back on vacation spending, it was hard to notice. The same seems true for Jordan, which found us in full planes and sold-out hotels for our excursion to Petra. Maybe not as many Americans are there as formerly, but the usual mix of German, French and Japanese tourists appeared well represented. We also heard plenty of Indian, Russian and Chinese accents, and from what we can gather, travelers from these emerging countries might be compensating for any drop off from our part of the world.

We'd like to welcome Traveler Intern Giovanna Palatucci, who is getting her sea legs on the blog with this, her first post. 

Picture this: cows grazing on Beacon Hill, burlesque theaters in Government Center, and waves crashing at the Old State House doorstep. Certainly this is not what Boston looks like today. As modern architecture and planning quickly propel the design of our cities into the future, one group pauses to map out Boston's beginnings and transformation into a major urban center.

The Walk to the Sea, entering its first spring and summer seasons, is the latest walking tour to hit Boston. The route highlights the evolution of the city over four centuries, focusing on Boston's ties to the sea and covering ground that was once part of an active harbor.

The trail follows a one-mile route, descending 100 feet from Beacon Hill to the Long Wharf, passing historic landmarks and modern skyscrapers. Ten glass and stainless steel informational panels mark the path and explain Boston and American history through images and maps. Beginning in May, visitors can log on to the website to download an audio tour for the walk right to their iPods. And we like this eco-friendly feature: a small wind turbine on the top of the last panel keeps the signs illuminated for nighttime tours.

Walk to the Sea intersects two of Boston's famous walking trails: The Freedom Trail and the Black Heritage Trail. For those who can't get enough of walking tours through historic Boston, check out the Fairmont Copley Plaza's Freedom Trail Discovery Package, available this year from April 1 through December 31 for $349. The package includes a one-night stay in one of the Fairmont's elegant guestrooms, two tickets to the Walk Into History tour with 18th-century costumed guides, two tickets to the three Freedom Trail historic museums, and a copy of The Freedom Trail: An Artist's View.