November 2007 Archives

Where have we gone this week? (And where has this week gone? It's Friday already!)

IT followed a chocolate-powered journey through the Sahara, and we were ready to dive into a wine spa in Japan.

Our interest was "kindle"-d in a new e-book created by Amazon, and a collection of green guidebooks being put out by publishers.

And though it feels like we're forever green, we were pleased to hear that the Rockefeller Christmas evergreen – decked out in LED bulbs – is greener than ever.

We contemplated the demise of gayborhoods, and the impact of tourism on the Antarctic. And we celebrated the cooperation between African lodge owners and the Maasai community, and cheered the return of the New Orleans streetcar named St. Charles.

AND we were named one of the Travel Blog Rising Stars by Christopher Elliott, so thanks to Chris for the love!

And thanks to you for reading this week, and if you haven't already, please remember to subscribe to this blog's feed.

Photographer: Sefosse, from Pavia, Italy.

Getting the Shot: The pic was taken from "Sacro Monte" in Varese, an Italian town near Milan. You can reach "Sacro Monte" walking trough the "Path of 14 Chapels," along which you can see 14 sacred buildings built in 1600 which are decorated with many wall paintings from different ages. One of them has been created by Renato Guttuso. At the top you reach the sanctuary devoted to Madonna.

The Details: The pic was taken on Sunday, November 25, at 5 p.m.; in Italy we are in autumn. It is unique because the clouds covered the entire town beneath, while from the top of the Mountain (almost 900 meters) we were able to see a fabulous sunset. In the picture you can see two of the chapels, shrouded in mist. We felt a magical atmosphere, which seemed almost holy; my friend which has been living in Varese for many years said that she had never seen such a marvelous sky.

IT agrees that the shot seems magical, but maybe that's partially because we have a thing for mist.

Want your pictures added to the mix? Join IT's Flickr pool. Help us put more up online by adding your story behind getting the shot. And keep up to date on Global Eye and all IT news by subscribing to this blog's feed.

While lots of tour companies are becoming more sustainable and reducing their carbon footprints, there are many travelers who still prefer to explore the world solo. Guidebook companies have answered travelers'  pleas, as the Washington Post recently noted:

The new responsible and ethical travel guides, including Lonely Planet's recent "Code Green: Experiences of a Lifetime"... aims to give readers a way to judge the sustainability of operations from lodges to wildlife treks. In a world where commercial enterprises are increasingly eager to tout their eco-tourist credentials, these specialty books help travelers distinguish environmental ventures from orchestrated PR.

Some publishers, such as the U.K.'s Rough Guides and Australia's Lonely Planet, have integrated the concept into all their books and Web sites. They urge readers to reduce their global warming emissions and compensate for those they generate over the course of a vacation. Both companies' Web sites have a feature allowing visitors to calculate the global warming impact of any given trip and then donate money to Climate Care, a British group that compensates for carbon emissions by funding initiatives that cut greenhouse gases. Every Rough Guide, moreover, contains a section urging travelers to stay longer in a given location to minimize their climate impact.

The guidebook companies are careful to practice what they preach: Lonely Planet's Code Green: Experiences of a Lifetime is printed on 100% recycled paper and uses soy-based inks. Also be sure to check out the company's "Is Your Holiday Green - Or Just Greenwash?" and its "Pick and Mix" PDF chapters for South America, Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. This spring, Fodor's is also publishing Green Travel: The World's Best Eco-Lodges & Earth-Friendly Hotels, which will feature reviews of 100 hand-picked eco-lodges around the world.

So, whether you prefer Lonely Planet, Fodors, Rough Guides, or any other guidebook, it's likely your favorite trusted travel companion is turning green (and if it's not, then it is at least green with envy).

Photo: Lonely Planet's Code Green: Experiences of a Lifetime

Traveler recently launched Laura Morelli's "The Genuine Article: In Pursuit of Authentic Crafts" on its online shopping guide. And in pursuit of some of our own authentic handicrafts, IT stumbled upon Traditional (Hastalska 7 Prague 1; +420 222 31 66 61), which, according to the store owners, is the only place in the  Czech Republic where you can buy 19th-century hand-carved wood printing blocks, which are often considered a lost art form.

Printing blocks are made from three pieces of wood (local Bohemian hardwoods like pear and plum) that are glued and nailed together. The top piece is carved with an intricate design, while the bottom piece is used as a handle.

Printing blocks were used to make textiles and wallpaper until the mid-20th century, when printing became entirely mechanized, and most wood blocks were deemed useless and thrown away. Traditional restores the blocks and now uses them and sells them in its store. Actual color prints can be seen at the shop, but due to their rarity, they are not for sale.

Traditional also has locally handmade textiles, corn husk dolls, candles, and ceramics, so even if you're not looking for printing blocks, the store is worth a stop. Check out Traveler's Shopping Guide for more places to find Czech handicrafts on your next visit to Central Europe.

Photo: Traditional

From IT’s vantage point—peering from behind our towering files of research notes and page proofs stuffed with mass-produced (recycled) paper—the notion of handmade paper has a distinct charm. So the fact that Chinese villagers in Guizhou Province’s remote Shiqiao remain patient masters of just such a tradition is especially intriguing.

The handmade papermaking tradition dates back to the Han Dynasty in 100 B.C. It’s such a part of Chinese heritage that papermaking is even considered one of the four great ancient inventions of China, according to the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), who recently funded a project to build a visitor and display center in Shiqiao in an effort to help preserve the indigenous craft.

As if we needed to remind you, the ancient process of making handmade paper has hugely been replaced by modern mass production processes. These days, only 40 families in Shiqiao Village are still able to support themselves by producing and selling their handmade masterpieces.

All-American art icon Edward Hopper is getting major play at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, with 94 pieces on display in the first comprehensive American exhibition of his work outside of New York in more than 25 years.

Featuring Hopper’s well-known mid-century works like “Nighthawks” and “Automat,” the striking exhibition has attracted a shoulder-to-shoulder stream of visitors since opening September 16. The National Gallery explains Hopper’s universal appeal: "In etchings, watercolors, and oil paintings, he portrayed ordinary places—drugstores, apartment houses, and small towns. Both commonplace and mysterious, these haunting images led many to praise him as the most American of painters."

And perhaps even more noteworthy, five of Hopper’s works from the exhibition inspired a new opera (get it, Hoppera?) that coincides with the exhibit: “Later the Same Evening.” Written by composer John Musto and librettist Mark Campbell and performed by musicians from the University of Maryland’s Opera Studio, the world premiere of the opera was performed in November at UM’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and garnered rave reviews. A final (and free!) performance will take place at 6:30 p.m. this Sunday, Dec. 2, on a first-come-first-serve basis at the National Gallery of Art.

Unfolding on an early evening in 1932 in a New York apartment, the opera interprets the five artworks—"Room in New York," "Hotel Window," "Hotel Room," "Two on the Aisle," and "Automat.” The disconnected storylines imagine the lives of the characters in each painting intersecting randomly at a Broadway musical. The stark stage set-up prominently features the paintings, each one illuminated by spotlight at key moments in the performance as the singers freeze-frame momentarily to mirror the scenes.

Here's a tour company that offers something many don't: profiles and biographies of each of their tour guides. Earthfoot hosts very small-scale, low-impact, personalized eco-tours around the world. We know that a tour guide can make or break a trip, and were glad to see that Ecofoot provides detailed bios of their hosts so guests know what to expect when they head out on their tour. Here are a few of our Asia picks:

For equestrian enthusiasts, you can ride retired racing thoroughbreds with the daughter of the late His Highness Sri Jayachamaraja Wadiyar, Maharaja of Mysore on the Horse Safari near Mysore (India). You'll travel 12-22 miles (20-35 kilometers) per day and camp in deluxe tents at night for about a week. You can also explore the Golden Triangle along the borders of Thailand, Laos, and Burma with Dr. Jeffrey Petry, a cultural anthropologist. With Dr. Petry as your guide, you can visit Doi Mae Salong, a mountainside village founded by the Kuomintang soldiers 50 years ago, and explore the marketplaces in Chiang Mai and Mae Sai.

Most of the tours have very small groups, so you'll never feel you're another head of tourist cattle. Bravo to Earthfoot for giving us a tour of their tour guides.

Photo (Wat Arun in Bangkok, Thailand): Emily Haile

Last week, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the Kindle, a portable electronic device he told Newsweek he hopes will become Book 2.0. The handheld gadgets can hold 200 books (plus hundreds more saved on memory cards), and has access to Amazon’s endless “virtual library stacks,” at $9.99 for new releases. Plus, via Amazon, Kindle users can subscribe to newspapers, magazines, and blogs at monthly subscription rates.

According to Newsweek:

The Kindle represents a milestone in a time of transition, when a challenged publishing industry is competing with television, Guitar Hero and time burned on the BlackBerry; literary critics are bemoaning a possible demise of print culture, and Norman Mailer's recent death underlined the dearth of novelists who cast giant shadows. On the other hand, there are vibrant pockets of book lovers on the Internet who are waiting for a chance to refurbish the dusty halls of literacy.

Now, we prefer curling up with a tattered book or magazine to anything with an LED screen as much as the next bookworm. But as travelers whose shoulders get tense even thinking of the way we stuff our carry-ons with hefty novels and guidebooks, the notion of slipping a 10.3-ounce Kindle into our bag feels like instant Icy Hot to our weary muscles. “Working sort of like an Etch-A-Sketch,” says Newsweek, the contraption uses MIT-developed E Ink and is designed to be easy on the eyes.

Premiering at $399 per Kindle, we’re inclined to hope Bezos pulls a Steve Jobs and lowers the price soon. In the meantime, we can't wait to see whether the Kindle sparks a book revolution.

For some book picks to use on your new Kindle, be sure to check out our Ultimate Travel Library. And to read more Intelligent Travel, subscribe to this blog's feed.
 

Photo: Amazon.com

African safari trips are one of the fastest-growing trends in tourism, so IT was interested to hear about an award-winning model in Kenya's Great Rift Valley, where the lodge owners partnered with the Maasai community to repopulate the dwindling wildlife and help stimulate the local economy.

When Anthony Russell, a Kenyan architect and safari tour operator, reached out to local Maasai leader John Lengio about building an eco-lodge in the Shompole region, he proposed a plan that would allow for the community to become partners in the lodge (they now own 11 percent, with the option of buying up to 80 percent of the project at any time). In return for their partnership, Russell asked that the community of over 2,000 locals be responsible for conserving the wildlife. ABC News reports:

They set aside one area just for conservation and used local Maasai men as the rangers. In seven years, the area has seen a huge increase in wildlife; the lion population, in particular, has gone from five to more than 50. The increase in wildlife means more tourists, which means more money for all.

...Last month the U.N. Development Program awarded Shompole Lodge with the   Equator Prize, one of the highest honors in eco-tourism. While there are many eco-friendly luxury lodges in Kenya, the program singled out Shompole for being unique in combining grassroots conservation with business.

Chokkhu Daan, by Abhik Sengupta

Photographer: Abhik Sengupta from Sydney, Australia. 

Getting the Shot: Durga Puja is the principal religious festival in the Indian state of West Bengal. Idols of the Goddess Durga are worshiped for five days in colorful marquees, accompanied by spectacular lighting displays, music and dance. Most of the idols are made by families of artisans living in the Kolkata suburb of Kumartuli.

In October 2007, I went to see Kumartuli, hoping to catch some of the sculptors in action. Normally the idols would have already been finished and delivered. This year there had been extensive rain in the preceding weeks, so the whole process had been delayed.

I was lucky enough to arrive just as the senior artist was doing the process of Chokkhu Daan (literally "Gifting of Eyes"), which symbolically breathes life into the clay image of the goddess by painting the traditional lotus petal shaped eyes.

We've been keeping up with the rebuilding of life in New Orleans, and IT contributor Katie Howell sends along another sign of hope for the city.

Good news for public transportation proponents, historical preservationists, and those waxing nostalgic. The familiar “clang clang” of the world’s oldest surviving urban rail line has returned to New Orleans’ St. Charles Avenue. Hurricane Katrina halted service of the city’s derelict public transportation system more than two years ago. Service quickly returned to the “new” Canal Street line (reopened in 2004 after a 40-year hiatus); the modern, tourist-centered Riverfront line; and the downtown portion of the St. Charles Avenue line. But damage to the tracks and catenaries on the rest of the St. Charles line kept the green, historic landmark-status streetcars from running the length of the oak-lined avenue through New Orleans’ famous Garden District until two weeks ago.

While the system isn’t completely back to pre-Katrina status, commuters, tourists, and “Nolaphiles” alike celebrated the partial return of the Big Easy’s crown jewel with parades, parties, and free rides. Five streetcars are currently running ten minutes apart along the three miles (4.8 kilometers) between St. Charles Avenue and Napoleon Avenue. While the full 6.5 mile route is still not open and the trains are running on a limited schedule, they do replace the erratic bus service that's been in place for the last two years. The city hopes to have the rest of the St. Charles line reopened by spring 2008.

For every swimmer who can relate to the unpleasantness of swallowing a mouthful of chlorine water, a hot springs spa in Hakone, Japan, has devised a unique solution: the headline-grabbing new Beaujolais Nouveau wine spa, complete with a 3.6-meter-tall wine bottle that sporadically pours the recently released trendy red into a pool filled with wine-loving spa-goers.

The wine spa is just Yunessun Spa Resort’s latest in a line of unorthodox offerings. You can steep in coffee and green tea baths, lounge in a pool of sake, or relax in spa designed to re-create the feel of a steaming bowl of Ramen noodles. Fortunately, Yunessun has a few more traditional spas as well, like an ancient Roman bath and a Turkish hammam.

On November 23, a team of Brits began the "first ever carbon-negative driving expedition." Andy Pag of London and John Grimshaw of Poole will drive their recycled BioTruck some 4,500 miles from the U.K. across the Sahara to Timbuktu in Mali, West Africa.

The catch? Their truck runs on chocolate fuel.

UK-based Ecotec has "developed a process for converting waste chocolate from a nearby factory into bio-ethanol on an industrial scale," says the BioTruck site. "Previously this waste product was thrown away in landfill sites but now the bio-ethanol can be used to make fuel for petrol cars and in the production of Biodiesel."

We thought "waste chocolate" was an oxymoron, but for now, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt:

IT loves hostels. Turns out, everyone else around the world agrees. So much, in fact, that several countries have recognized the virtues of hostelling with commemorative stamps, and the U.S. is looking to join the dormroom-loving party. Hostelling International USA has organized a petition for a 2009 postal stamp (deciding on 2009 stamps takes place late in 2008). World Hum has the scoop:

German schoolteacher Richard Schirrmann started the hostelling movement in 1909, and throughout its history Australia, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan and Sweden have all honored it with commemorative postage stamps. Hostelling International USA wants the United States to join those countries for the 100th anniversary of hostelling, and it’s asking travelers to help by signing an online petition.

Today, over 4,000 hostels located around the globe provide safe, affordable lodging to budget travelers worldwide, and hostels have hosted more than 1.2 billion overnights since the movement’s conception. Check out the picture gallery of international postage stamps recognizing “the positive impact of hostelling on intercultural exchange and youth development.”

We've already put our names on the list. Thanks, World Hum!

Photo: HI-USA

As a transplanted New Yorker new to D.C., I've gotten a bit nostalgic this past week for all the holiday trappings of my former home: The massive twinkling UNICEF snowflake that dangles above Fifth Avenue (outshining anything in Tiffany's windows across the way). The smell of, yes, chestnuts, roasting over the street vendors' fires. And while there was the frustrating certainty that I'd be elbowed by tourists on my commute through Rockefeller Center, I could grant them some forgiveness once I got my daily glimpse of the spectacular Christmas tree.

So I was glad to hear that my old city is taking on some of my new interests. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced last week that the famous tree, brought in this year from Connecticut, would be decked with 30,000 energy efficient LED light bulbs. And, as part of the Mayor's expansive PlaNYC program, Rockefeller Center is adding a solar roof to its collection of buildings. Here's how it all breaks down:

Tishman Speyer has installed 363 General Electric solar panels on the roof of 45 Rockefeller Plaza to help reduce the building's electricity consumption....The solar-powered energy will help reduce peak electrical demand, especially during sun-intensive summer months when electricity use increases, which will in turn alleviate pressure on New York City's electrical grid. The solar roof will keep 67,392 lbs of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere each year and more than 2,000,000 lbs over its 30-year lifespan.

A Passion for Travel: Photos That Tell the Story

Create photos that showcase your passion for travel with National Geographic Traveler photographers Jim Richardson and Catherine Karnow. Discover the secrets of how to capture the spirit of a place and bring back images of enduring significance. According to Editor-In-Chief Keith Bellows, “we’ll help you turn your pictures into stories — which will make your pictures much more meaningful.” Let National Geographic Traveler show you how to make great pictures in the great places of your life.

WHEN:

DECEMBER 2, 2007
9:00AM-4:00PM
COST IS $195.00, LUNCH INCLUDED

WHERE:

Fashion Institute of Technology
Katie Murphy Amphitheater, D Building, 1st Floor
7th Avenue at 27th Street
New York, 10001-5992

Photo: Catherine Karnow

For a video about the rescue of the Explorer passengers, visit NG.com

The sinking of the cruise ship Explorer in Antarctic waters last week has lots of people talking about how tourism is changing in the region. Over 35,000 visitors now travel way way down south, five times the number who trekked down there fifteen years ago. They get there on ships that vary in size from the 100-passenger types like the Explorer, to the huge cruise liners which transport thousands of passengers.

But since Antarctica is still one of the last unclaimed territories (seven nations claim to control portions of the region) there's difficulty in regulating the size and safety standards of the vessels that pass through the waters. A treaty group has been established as a kind oversight government for the area, and according to the New York Times, they're increasingly aware of the potential pitfalls for the tourism industry. The Times reports:

[W]ith the rapid rise of ship tourism in Antarctica — perhaps the last major ungoverned territory on earth — the sinking was not unanticipated. Both the United States and Britain warned a conference of Antarctic treaty nations in May that the tourism situation in the region was a potential disaster in the making.

...While the rescue may have been a success, the consequences for the Antarctic’s fragile environment of having a submerged ship that is estimated to be holding 48,000 gallons of marine diesel fuel sitting off its coast are unclear.

And while the frontier nature of Antarctica is a large part of its tourist appeal, it also means that the region is a legal muddle. There are no obvious answers about who is responsible for dealing with any environmental damage the Explorer may cause or how methods can be created to prevent future sinkings.

“There’s been kind of an explosion of tourism in Antarctica,” said Jim Barnes, executive director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, an association of environmental organizations that participates in Antarctic treaty meetings. “Do we want this to become Disneyland or do we want some controls?”

A scene from DC's annual "Drag Race" held the night before Halloween.

When San Francisco canceled its annual Halloween party in the Castro district last month over fears about safety, it spurred a conversation about the shifting makeup of historically gay neighborhoods, and whether they're on the verge of becoming passé. As the New York Times reported:

These are wrenching times for San Francisco’s historic gay village, with population shifts, booming development, and a waning sense of belonging that is also being felt in gay enclaves across the nation, from Key West, Fla., to West Hollywood, as they struggle to maintain cultural relevance in the face of gentrification.

...The Castro remains a top tourist destination for gay and lesbian visitors. But Joe D’Alessandro, president and C.E.O. of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors’ Bureau, and a gay parent who lives in the Castro, predicted that eventually the neighborhood would go the way of North Beach, “still a historic Italian neighborhood though Italians don’t necessarily live there anymore."

While gentrification encroaches upon urban gay enclaves, the idea that the neighborhoods are passé doesn't sit well with John Tanzella, Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association. "I wouldn’t say that it’s the case yet," he told IT.

Rangers worry that the gym-to-outside transition for climbers is threatening the ecology of parks.

Maybe the elevation is going to their heads, but the Associated Press reports that some rock climbers aren't being so kind to the terrain they're scaling, and are leaving litter scattered all over Yosemite National Park.

The increasingly popular sport is attracting climbers to parks all over the country in droves, but the impact of those pilgrimages has become obvious, if not obnoxious. According to writer Garance Burke, volunteers picked up more than 900 pounds of abandoned ropes, toilet paper, and wrappers in Yosemite this past September.

Longtime climbers speculate that it's the influx of novices heading to the park. There have been reported thefts and even people drilling into the rocks with power drills. The AP reports:

"There are lots of people out cruising around the woods looking for really fun boulders to climb on," said Phil Powers, executive director of the Golden, Colorado-based American Alpine Club. "But one of the biggest concerns that we have is that gym-to-outside transition."

Problems are also cropping up in California's Joshua Tree National Park, where rangers have found boulders covered in holes and stakes, and in Arches National Park in Utah, which banned slacklining last year and no longer permits climbing on any arch named on a topographical map of the park.

We all want to be green these days, and some companies are making it even easier for us to travel that way. Manaca, Inc. offers eco-tours in more than 20 countries, from Nepal to New Zealand to Namibia. The company selects local operators, guides, and eco-lodges and asks them to sign Manaca's Responsible Tourism Pledge to ensure authenticity and sustainability.

Book an eco-tour to Belize and you'll experience the ruins, rain forests, and coral reefs that make Belize's environment unique. After touring the ancient Mayan ruins with Manaca's hand-picked guides, you might stay at DuPlooy's Jungle Lodge, located next to the 45-acre Belize Botanic Gardens. Or you could stay at the Chaa Creek, the first jungle lodge in Belize, which sits on a 365-acre reserve and employs more than 70 local staff. You can see butterfly farms and a medicinal rain forest trail, and have plenty of time to enjoy horseback riding, hiking, bird watching, canoeing, and the spa facilities offered by Chaa Creek.

Macaca's Eco-Assessment rates lodges based on what each does for community, conservation, and education. All of the lodges are tested by Manaca staff members, and while Manaca claims some lodges "vary in rusticity," they promise that "they are all quite clean and pleasingly comfortable."

Manaca's rating system makes life a bit easier when it comes to choosing what tours to go on, so they get a definite plus in our Tour Guide book.

Like your Tuesday Tour Guide? Subscribe to this blog's feed!

While Costa Rica has emerged in recent years as an eco-tourism destination, tucked in the Chiriqui Highlands near the Baru volcano is another eco-hot-spot waiting to erupt.

The town of Boquete, Panama, is quaint—mom-and-pop shops line the streets, offering a more Southern California feel than a Central American one. But life around Boquete is vibrant—abundant wildlife and rich rivers and forests make bird watching, hiking, climbing, and white-water rafting all readily available in Panama’s vibrant environment. And better yet—the town’s 3,000-foot elevation means it is regularly ten degrees cooler than other Panama towns.

While you’re there, be sure to check out Boquete Tree Trek, a half-day zip-lining trip through 3 km (1.86 miles) of jungle canopy. On a hot day, go to Chiriqui River Rafting for white-water rafting trips with one of the region’s oldest outfitters. For those who want an energy boost without the adrenaline rush, take a coffee plantation tour with Coffee Adventures. Visitors can hike through fields of coffee trees, meet the pickers, and get a caffeine fix in the brewer’s "cupping" room.

Boquete is a seven-hour drive from Panama City, or 45 minutes from David.

Photos: Magda Wojtyra (top); Juan Antonio Villegas (right)

If you find yourself in Chicago between now and January 27, be sure to check out the Field Museum's "Finding Our Place in the World," which opened November 2. The exhibit features more than 100 maps of all sorts—from those designed by Leonardo da Vinci and J.R.R. Tolkien, to flight charts and Buddhist cosmology maps. It also has rare maps like the world's oldest surviving road map, Erhard Etzlaub's Das Ist der Rom Weg, from 1500 A.D., and a 3,300-year-old clay map of what is now a part of Iraq.

The Field Museum, along with over 30 other institutions, is part of a larger citywide celebration called "Festival of Maps Chicago." The Brookfield Zoo features archival maps and future plans for the zoo in its Discovery Center Lobby. Check out celestial charts at the Alder Planetarium's Mapping the Universe exhibit, and learn how flat maps are made into globes at the Chicago History Museum's "Mapping Chicago: The Past and the Possible," which also has maps that document events like the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

The festival's blog showcases different events and exhibits around the city, so be sure to see what's happening before you go. If you can't make it to Chicago this winter, you can also see pictures of some of the maps online. The Field Museum is also co-publishing a book (pictured, above) with the University of Chicago, which features much of the exhibition material. Appropriately, the entire festival is plotted on a cool interactive map on its main website, so you'll never feel lost navigating your way through the varied exhibits.

We have a thing for slow food and sustainable eating, so we were thrilled to hear that our interests are in sync with the zeitgeist when the word "locavore" was selected as the Word of the Year by the New Oxford American Dictionary. Their explanation:

The past year saw the popularization of a trend in using locally grown ingredients, taking advantage of seasonally available foodstuffs that can be bought and prepared without the need for extra preservatives.

The “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation.

“The word ‘locavore’ shows how food-lovers can enjoy what they eat while still appreciating the impact they have on the environment,” said Ben Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. “It’s significant in that it brings together eating and ecology in a new way.”

The Dictionary credits four San Franciscan women with coining the phrase two years ago when they challenged people to only eat food produced within a 100-mile radius of their homes for an entire month. The Locavore project took off, setting off a worldwide trend that eventually gave them "it-word" status.

We like some of the runners up as well, particularly "upcycling," which is the transformation of waste materials into something more useful or valuable.

Neatorama, thanks for the tip!

The always entertaining Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank reports on the travels and travails of May and Flower, this year's presidentially pardoned turkeys. 

From Tuesday's ceremony at the White House, writes Milbank, the two 45-pound turkeys were led by police escort to Dulles airport and taken to "a private room in the United Airlines Red Carpet Club" where they reportedly napped. Later, after skipping the security line and taking a private bus to their terminal, they presented first-class tickets to board a commercial flight dubbed "United Turkey One, Flight 6519" to Orlando. There, they will serve as grand marshalls at a Disney World parade. The irony wasn't lost on Milbank:

At a time when nearly 40 million Americans live in poverty, the wholesome ceremony for the annual turkey-pardoning has managed to turn into yet another display of American excess.

Apparently, their itinerary also got some scoffs from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals who noted that the birds would be better off in an animal sanctuary. "Most of the turkeys pardoned in the past several years have died less than a year after the ceremony," PETA wrote in a letter to President Bush.

"Putting these creatures into cages and whisking them off to Florida on an Airbus A320 has all the hallmarks of a CIA operation," noted Milbank.

We never knew what "perks" turkeys were getting, and on the busiest travel week of the year! In the end, I suppose it's only fair for these two to get the trip of a lifetime, while millions of their brothers and sisters aren't so lucky.

Happy Thanksgiving from IT!

Photo: White House photo by David Bohrer

We recently wrote about the top cities young people are congregating to let loose, so a World Hum post about which cities Americans are most likely to get arrested in caught our eye. Not surprisingly, six of the top ten are Mexican cities. Too much Spring Break fun, anyone? World Hum reports:

Tijuana tops the list, with a whopping 520 Americans detained last year. Not surprisingly, many of them were young and drunk, according to Sunday’s [Nov. 11] San Francisco Chronicle, which published the list. Guadalajara ranked second with 416 arrests, and Nuevo Laredo ranked third, with 359. London and Mexico City followed, ranking fourth and fifth respectively. Only one Asian city made the list: Hong Kong ranked 10th, with 90 arrests.

The numbers for Tijuana look pretty bad, but the Chronicle notes that roughly 15 million to 17 million American visit the city each year, so it could be worse.

Tijuana arrests were actually down from 646 in 2005, so the popular party town is improving. The SFC also reports that possession of alcohol, drugs, and guns is a leading cause of arrest at U.S. borders stops in Mexico and Canada. (We never would have guessed.) Surprisingly, there were only 32 arrests in Amsterdam in 2006, and arrests jumped from 45 in 2005 to 274 in London this past year. We're just glad partying Americans have moved on from Mexico and decided to represent our country in other cities around the world. (We couldn't say that more sarcastically.)

Photo: Magda Wojtyra

The Associated Press recently reported some disturbing figures of female grizzly bear deaths in Yellowstone National Park. The article states that about 18 female bears have died this year from “hunting accidents, management removals, and natural causes.”

Grizzlies lost their endangered status earlier this year, a controversial move to some conservationists, including Paul Hansen, director of the Nature Conservancy's Greater Yellowstone Program. But not for the reasons you might think.

“It has been a bad year,” Hansen said in an interview with IT. “But the overall number of bears is still up and it's been up consistently for a decade or more.” The problem this year, he said, was the dry climate, which made food sources more scarce.

But Hansen sees trouble ahead for Yellowstone’s grizzly population. Climate change, the introduction of invasive species, and loss of habitat will be the bears’ main obstacles in the coming decades.

The legendary Sherwood Forest is dying, the Associated Press recently reported, and while Robin Hood can't do anything to save it, 15 organizations have teamed up to win a $100 million grant to preserve it in a TV competition held later this year.

Sherwood Forest is most famous for being the hideaway of Robin Hood, the 13th-century bandit who robbed from the rich (outwitting the Sheriff of Nottingham) and gave to the poor. According to the AP, the once 100,000-acre forest is now a dwindling 450 acres, with 997 ancient oaks. Only 450 of those oaks are still alive, and only 250 of those are "in good shape." The AP explains:

On average one veteran oak per year would fall; this year seven have come down and the rate seems to be accelerating, said Izi Banton, the forest's chief ranger.

Each oak has its own management plan and some even have names, like Medusa, Stumpy and Twister. Rangers monitor them closely, watching for branches that look droopy or stressed, anxious to ensure that each tree lives as long as possible, said Paul Cook, a senior ranger.

Ancient oaks survive about 900 years, of which 300 years are spent growing and 300 dying. Of the seven trees already lost this year, four were felled by high winds on one February night.

The most famous tree is Major Oak near Edwinstowe, where Robin Hood is said to have married Maid Marion.

The 15 organizations that have teamed together are hoping they will beat out the other three finalists in "The People's £50 Million Giveaway," where people vote for which project they think deserves the funding. The Giveaway is part of the UK's BIG Lottery, a branch of the National Lottery that awards grants to community projects. Be sure to check out the video, which has a very animated Brit explaining why Sherwood Forest deserves extra funding.

Thanks, Gadling, for the tip!

Photo: VisitNottingham.com

As Thanksgiving approaches, the IT staff is looking forward to heading home for the holidays. But home for us—from Seattle to Long Island—involves trekking through crowded terminals, lugging baggage around the country, and, naturally, getting delayed (but hopefully not sleeping) in airports. So we were intrigued by a recent CNN article that highlighted airports offering travelers a number of different ways to pass the time before their flights.

If you find yourself stuck in Austin-Bergstrom, look out for local musicians playing on weekday afternoons. Vino Volo (Italian for "wine flight") has wine bars at Sea-Tac, Sacramento, JFK, BWI, and Dulles (with 7-10 new stores opening in 2008), so travelers can enjoy a glass before boarding their planes. Major U.S. airports like JFK feature XpresSpa, which Traveler's Senior Editor Sheila Buckmaster has personally tested:

Travelers headed for an international destination, especially if they are good campers and allow lots of time between airport arrival and wheels-up, find themselves with time galore. I've spent mine just walking around, people-watching, reading, cleaning out my wallet, and—now—having my nails done. When I saw the Xpress Spa "station" at JFK, with a great cross-section of humanity submitting to back massages, reflexology, and nail attention—all in plain sight of folks passing by—I thought, "Great. Didn't have time for a manicure before I left, but now, I have all the time in the world to get one and allow it to dry thoroughly."

So I signed up, fearing that I'd get a mediocre manicure. After all, practitioners here aren't in the business of building a loyal following. We are one-shots for them. "Next...!"

In the end, I had as good a manicure as I'd ever had, and enjoyed my conversation with the technician, a Korean immigrant whose work ethic is formidable. The airport gig is her weekend job. She works at a salon in Jamaica, Queens, during the week.

Boldly go where no man has gone before. Well, go where few have gone before, anyway. Brazil-based Amazon Nature Tours offers a new boat tour that, by our calculations journeys farther up the Rio Negro than any other tour company.

Impressed? It gets better: Amazon Nature Tours began as a lumber company in the 1980s, but soon realized the importance of rain forest conservation. They began their eco-tour operations in 1989, employing locals and finding other ways to help support local communities. Amazon Nature Tours explains that for many of their crew members, their children are the very first in their families to attend school. So they're no longer harvesting lumber, but cultivating economic development instead.

Traveler's Genuine Article columnist Laura Morelli is back this month with a buyers guide to selecting traditional Catalan ceramics. Here's a peek at where you won't find the most authentic urns, bowls and plates (and where you actually will).

Barcelona—despite its reputation as one of the world's greatest shopping cities—is not the place to buy Catalan ceramics. At the pottery shops on the streets surrounding the cathedral, you will not find the best selection or prices, nor will you get the chance to see the wares being made. When you're ready to buy, arrange a trip to one of the regional towns known for pottery, including Argentona, outside of Barcelona; La Bisbal d'Empordà, near Girona; and La Galera, near Tarragona. These rural villages contrast sharply with the stylish Catalan capital, offering a more authentic experience, as well as a better value on traditional Catalan pottery. The best part: few of these towns figure in a guidebook, so it's a great way to experience Catalan life outside the tourist mainstream.

You can find the rest of the column here, as well as last month's tips for seeking out saris from Rajasthan.

Photo: Ingolf Pompe 26/Alamy

In case you wondered, National Geographic is a bit like a college campus. We have a cafeteria, a whole lot of knowledgeable folks milling around, and an ongoing series of events and lectures to keep us learning. And now, for a little while at least, we also have a mascot.

This past week National Geographic unveiled a 110-million-year-old dinosaur, which is currently in residence in our lobby. The 30-foot skeleton of the Nigersaurus taqueti, (which we at IT have dubbed Nigel) is the cause celébre of the new "Extreme Dinosaur: Africa's Long-Necked Fern Mower" exhibit, which will be on display through March 18. It's also an extension of the Extreme Dinosaur story in the December issue of National Geographic Magazine, which features an introductory essay by John Updike (you can read and hear a Q&A with Updike online).

"Nigel" was discovered by Explorer-in-Residence Paul Sereno in 1997. Most of its bones were collected from the Sahara region in Niger, and it's known for having a distinctively different mouth (which reminds us a bit of a stapler). NG's Insider reports:

"It had a broad, straight-edged muzzle with more than 50 columns of tiny teeth—500 altogether—lining the jaw. The construction of its mouth enabled the Nigersaurus to work close to the ground, mowing down mouthfuls of greenery."

In his presentation at the unveiling, Sereno called Nigel and its peers the "cows of the Mesozoic."

Another cool element in Nigel's backstory is that Sereno teamed up with a group of Chicago-area high school students to help pull the exhibit together. Through an organization called Project Exploration, the students did fieldwork, visited fossil labs, and read through research studies to help supplement Sereno's excavation. The students were on hand yesterday for the unveiling, and you can learn more about the project, and the delegates here.

To learn more about Nigel's anatomy and lifestyle visit the research report published by PLoS One, the online journal from the Public Library of Science. Or come down to the lobby and check out Nigel for yourself.

Photos: Above, Kate Baylor; Below, Mike Hettwer, Project Exploration

Two stranded fliers catch some posh shut-eye in Hong Kong's airport

It's not something we like to think about as we begin to pack our bags for our Thanksgiving travel, but it's better to be prepared for the worst. And willingly or not, we've all done it: used a bulky sweater as a blanket, a backpack as a pillow, and curled up in the seemingly least-disgusting corner of an airport to catch a little shut-eye while waiting for a flight.

The Budget Traveller's Guide to Sleeping in Airports shares our sympathies.This site is dedicated to travelers' tips and reviews (over 5,100 reviews in 800 cities) of how to sleep in an airport, whether by choice or by bad weather delays.

Worth a look are the "Airport Funnies" page and "The Airport Diaries" blog. The site has other cool features like the Top 10 - Best and Worst lists. The current most hated airport is Paris Charles de Gaulle. Out of the top ten worst airports, three U.S. cities made the list (in case you couldn't guess, they were New York's JFK and LGA, and California's LAX). Asian airports dominated the most recent favorite list, including Singapore, Hong Kong (pictured above), Seoul Incheon, and Kuala Lumpur.

As if the old-timers in our midst needed further evidence of Generation Y’s devil-may-care attitude, a report on global travel trends (PDF) recently revealed a rise in “debauchery tourism.”

The Guardian has the scoop:

Hard drinking, gambling, and strip clubs are all on the bill as 25- to 34-year-olds embrace the adult version of the American "spring break" (where college students take to the beaches to party for a week) with a "work hard, play harder" ethic.

Topping the list of debauchery destinations is, unsurprisingly, Las Vegas, followed by increasingly hedonistic hotspots Buenos Aires, Cape Town, and Macau. The Guardian cites such examples as more hotels in Vegas throwing pool parties and offering personal cabanas with lounge chairs and tables, ranging in price from $1,000-5,000 per day, as well as cruise lines that are amping up their on-deck 24-hour entertainment.

IT recently spotted mother-daughter duo Hoachi Dinh and Baochi Doan sitting on the National Mall, gazing up at the Washington Monument. Originally from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam, the two currently live in Tampa, Fla., and flew to the capital for vacation and a little bonding time. In this edition of “Talk to a Traveler,” IT learned what’s unique about Saigon.

What do you think of the nation’s capital?

Fall is a great time to visit. The weather is cool and it’s easy to get in to see a lot of the museums. We’ve seen the White House, Capitol Hill, and a lot of government buildings. Our favorite is the EPA. We didn’t actually get in, but we loved looking at the building from the outside. It’s huge!

Well, DC is a lot different from Tampa, not to mention Saigon. What impression would someone from here have of Saigon?

It’s more similar than you might think, especially now. A lot of KFCs everywhere, huge construction projects, and a ton of people everywhere you go. A lot of pollution too. Now that there are direct flights from California and New York, there are a lot more people visiting.

I think we have our fair share of fast food chains here. How about food that’s a little more authentic?

Our food is a lot less rich [in Saigon] than here in the States. Less butter, grease, and oil. The diet is really based on fish, rice, and noodle soups. I think the street vendors have great food. Pho is really popular too—beef noodle soup.

What's something different that people can do while they’re visiting Saigon?

Taking a boat along the Mekong River is really fun. A lot of them sell tropical fruits and orchids, and you can take one of them into the suburbs. You can rent a boat in the west of Saigon [and explore] a lot of little villages.

Looking for a winter weekend getaway that's au naturale? The Appalachian Mountain Club is launching a set of naturalist-led snowshoeing and cross-country skiing trips in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  Excursions are available for all skill levels; one of the treks is specially designed for families with kids aged ten or older.

Spend a night at the new Highland Center or rustic Joe Dodge Lodge before hoofing it to one of eight backcountry mountain huts, "a focal point of our work to protect alpine and forest ecosystems, maintain trails, and promote the use of renewable energy," says AMC's website.

Just $170 per adult ($187 for non-members) includes meals, accommodations, and snowshoes. A glance at TripAdvisor tells us that the huts are popular with hikers. Contributor dd55 offers this tip:

Let me suggest you take advantage of the hiker shuttle the AMC runs. For a nominal fee, park your car where you want to come out and then take the shuttle back to your trailhead. Very convenient. The shuttle schedule is available here.

If that sounds to your liking, you could follow a route that includes three AMC huts. Start at Zealand, go to Galehead, and then on to Greenleaf. This route provides a nice mix interesting flat land, high peaks and unforgettable ridge walking. You never forget your first time on a ridge above treeline.

There are plenty of spots, including at least one AMC tent site, to pitch a tent. And as first timers, you will probably welcome the huts as little havens along the way. I know I did.

We're looking forward to getting a chance to strap on snowshoes and find out for ourselves. Know other great mountain trail trips? Let us know in the comments below.

Photo: Mike Kautz

Is it Friday already? The countdown to Turkey-day has begun. But first, a recap of this week's savory treats.

We kicked off Geography Awareness Week with a video of geographic-genius Lilly, who at 23 months old, has a mastery of maps that most of us envy. And we uncovered a great eco-map of Seattle, which points out the flora that can be found in the urban jungle.

We discussed the impact of climate change on tourism, and of tourism on Crete. Our Global Eye saw visions of Bangkok, Bordeaux, and Singapore.

Something drove us to write about ridesharing news, just as something drove Kansas City cabdriver named Papa Bear to convert his cab into a mobile karaoke hall, complete with video footage.

We encouraged you to contribute your cell phone photos to our Mobile World Contest (still accepting submissions!) and now encourage you to find us on Facebook, where we just created a new group.

Something you want to see? Let us know in the comments below. And don't forget to subscribe to our RSS feed. Happy Weekends!

Bangkok, Thailand

Photographer: Paul Tamburro, New York, New York

Getting the shot: Funny story about this kid. He and his sister get people to buy dried corn and seeds from them to feed the pigeons. They tell you they're poor and hungry so naturally you feel bad and go ahead with it. After you throw the seed, about 5,000 pigeons come flying in and in all the commotion, they steal your wallet. So instead of doing all that I gave the kid money and told him to keep the seeds and feed the birds himself.

The Details: This was July '05...after the cross-country drive, I felt the need to keep going west, so it turned into a cross-world trip. I eventually got back to New York City three months after I left.

We not only love how he captured the motion of the birds, but the entire cultural exchange in just one shot. Let us know what you think in the comments below, and be sure to add your own pics to our Flickr pool. Subscribe to this blogs feed for more Global Eye photos.   

Opening this Saturday, Nov. 17th, the new America by Air exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum is eye candy for the aeronautic-obsessed. You can step into the giant nose of a Boeing 747, play pilot in front of an A320 Flight Deck Device, or take a step back in history as you look at the Jenny, the first aircraft used by the post office back in 1918.

The exhibit is divided into four thematic sections: Early Years of Air Transportation, 1914-1927; Airline Expansion and Innovation, 1927-1941; the Heyday of Propeller Airliners, 1941-1958; and the Jet Age, 1958-present. It's chock full of fun, hands-on interactive exhibits and engineering feats (take a look at this YouTube Video which shows the  complicated process of bringing the Boeing 747, pictured, from its original home in North Carolina to the rafts of the Air and Space Museum).

And for those with flying phobias, sit back and enjoy the ride, these things don’t have engines, and they’re not going anywhere!

Photo: Inspecting the completed installation of Boeing 747 forward fuselage in the America by Air exhibition at the National Mall Building; Eric Long/NASM

IT’s favorite travel experiences have nothing to do with glossy marketing plans or publicity stunts, so we can’t help but feel bowled over by some of the branding attempts prowling around the tourism stratosphere—from admittedly clever (think Spain’s Joan Miró red swirl logo, radiating a cultural-hotspot aura) to strikingly absurd (sun and fun in Tel Aviv—really?).

But still, we can’t deny the power of branding, both for good and evil. And as a recent article in Newsweek emphasized, branding a country is a tricky balancing act between edginess and honesty.

Take Australia’s “So where the bloody hell are you?” campaign by its national tourism bureau. When British government censors threatened to ban the ad for its off-color language, the controversy sparked debate that spurred “tens of millions of dollars in free PR,” according to Tim McColl Jones, one of the Aussies behind the sassy ad.

Last fall, Traveler Senior Researcher Marilyn Terrell visited Croatia and wrote about the fascinating organ built along the Adriatic Sea that is powered by lapping waves. But while we could describe the haunting sounds, we couldn't re-create them over the blog (and you probably don't want to hear us try). Fortunately, the organ is now the subject of a video by National Geographic, and features an interview with Croatian architect Nikola Bašić, who explains how it was planned and designed. It also features the haunting music it creates, which, coupled with the waves, leaves us drifting off to sleep. Enjoy.

Beer probably isn’t the first thing you’d associate with a monastery, but for the fellows at Chimay, beer and cheese making is a spiritual labor of love.  The whole enterprise began in 1862, when the Trappist monks of Chimay, Belgium, wanted to create jobs for their community and earn some needed funds to run the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Scourmont. Their solution? Beer! The monks shifted their focus from farming to brewing. Once the brewery was up and running, they handed its administration over to local businesses to bolster the town’s economy.

As you might expect from monks, the Trappists adhere to the old adage, “waste not, want not.” Water for the beer is drawn from wells on abbey grounds. Grain husks leftover from brewing are donated to Chimay dairy farms to feed the cattle. Extra yeast produced in the fermenting process is resold as yeast tablets. And waste water from the brewery is purified right there at the Chimay purification plant and reused in the area.

The rigorous brewing process results in three ales: Chimay Triple, Chimay Red, and Chimay Blue. Blue is the strongest at 9% alc. vol., while Red and Triple have slightly fruity aromas and flavors. Chimay also offers four locally-made cheeses.

Today’s pick for unlikely tourist attraction: Kabul, Afghanistan.

Though the war zone’s issues run the gamut from serious safety concerns to severely polluted air quality, the Globe and Mail reports on the recent re-opening of  “a corner of loveliness in the heart of Kabul,” the 27-acre (11-hectare) beech tree-lined Babur Garden. The green space is modeled after an ancestral garden fashioned by the founder of the Moghul empire, 16th century Emperor Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur. After $5 million in restoration work, the revamped park is once again a much-needed haven of tranquility for locals.

IT friend Lolly recently went on a tour in Peru. She raved about her guide Devon Graham (biologist and tour company owner) so much that we just had to look into the tour operator ourselves.

Margarita Tours organizes private eco-expeditions in the Amazon. While most of their tours are riverboat-based, they also have three working field stations, like the one pictured above, where many of their tours will stop for the night. (The stations are owned and operated by Project Amazonas, a non-profit conservation organization that fosters biological, medical, and environmental research in the Peruvian Amazon.)

Perhaps you've been enjoying our new Global Eye feature on IT, but aren't ambitious enough to submit a photo. Well now we have a great incentive, and it's even easier to snap a shot. If you have an amazing cell phone photo, you could win a trip to the Galapagos by entering the National Geographic Traveler Mobile World Contest! You can register for the contest and learn how to upload your images easily online, plus see a gallery of entries already submitted.

The first due date was today, but we've extended deadline until November 30th! Vanna, tell them what they can win!

• Grand Prize: 10-night Galpágos tour for two aboard the luxurious yacht La Pinta. Sponsored by Geographic Expeditions.

• First Prize: 4-night San Francisco weekend for two at the Hotel Carlton, dinner at the Saha Restaurant, and two City Passes. Sponsored by Hotel Carlton, a Joie de Vivre Hotel, Saha Restaurant, and City Pass.

• 2nd Prize: 7-day Photography Workshop for one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sponsored by Santa Fe Workshops.

Visit the Traveler website or www.mobileworldcontest.com for more details and to enter!

Photo: Nevada Wier/Getty Images

Here at IT, we're always concerned about the impact that tourism is having on our favorite destinations — so many of which, as New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin noted on this blog, can often be "loved to death." But the  Times had an interesting piece exploring an alternative dilemma: how is global warming  affecting the tourism industry? Elisabeth Rosenthal writes:

"Imagine a ski resort whose chairlifts are in the lower reaches of mountains without decent snow. Or a scuba club whose reefs succumbed to warmer and stormier seas."

Factor in that many up-and-coming destinations are in less developed countries, where the costs of building green can be prohibitive and tourism sustains much of their economy, and you can see how problems can arise.  Luckily, some places are becoming more savvy about how tourism and sustainability are connected: The small island nation of Fiji combined their tourism and environmental ministries this summer. "We have to plan to mitigate and adapt to climate change," their minister told the Times.

But, as always, some destinations also see the hidden benefits to changing temperatures: at Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort in Canada, melting glaciers allow skiiers to venture further up the mountain for good snow, and they've been extending their lifts higher to accommodate them. The golf season in Antalya, Turkey, used to start in March, but it's now warm enough to putt in February. And in Greenland, melting icecaps have provided a boon to the tourism and fishing trades.

Have your travel plans changed on account of climate change? Let us know by commenting below.

Photo: tellytom at IT's  Flickr pool

Our friends at Gadling recently pointed out that the top-ranking islands on Traveler's latest Destinations Rated survey (Denmark's Faroe Islands, Portugal's Azores, Lofoten in Norway) aren't very well known or highly visited. That's certainly true, given that the tourist traps of Ibiza and St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands scored predictably low. The 522 panelists gathered by National Geographic's Center for Sustainable Destinations were asked to rank islands according to their sustainability and stewardship. But there are also places you've definitely heard of that still have pockets of authenticity and untouched landscape. Here are some of the unpublished comments from the panel.

The Greek island of Crete receives four million visitors a year and got a middling score of 62, but one of our experts said this:

"I very rarely go on holiday to an island destination twice—Western Crete was an exception. The Pure Crete company takes the environment seriously. For 18 years they have specialized in providing all-inclusive, self-catering holidays to traditional village houses set in the foothills of the White Mountains. Many have been restored from dereliction by Pure Crete in cooperation with local families thus contributing to the livelihood of the local community. Pure Crete was a founder member of Green Flag International (now known as Green Globe) and has sponsored a loggerhead turtle hatchery, supported preservation of the Lammergeir or Bearded Vulture, and helped to promote a donkey sanctuary. Most recently they have introduced a carbon offset levy that their clients may choose to adopt.

The food, wine, and hospitality in local tavernas remain as authentic as ever. The historic and archaeological treasures are numerous, and it was good to see the authorities have now provided excellent bilingual interpretive materials for the first time at Aptera archaeological site. Everyone has heard of the best-known gorge in Crete, the Samaria. If you want to avoid the frenzy of hundreds of walkers then why not try some equally spectacular but much less well known, quieter, and peaceful gorges like Imbros."

Zipcar and Flexcar, two car-sharing programs that rent low-emission, fuel-efficient vehicles to consumers have recently agreed to merge.

The companies previously operated in different cities (Flexcar with fleets in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.; Zipcar in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, and London), but will now change all branding in those cities to Zipcar.

To use a Zipcar, members reserve a vehicle online. They use their "smartcard" to unlock the shared car, drive it, then return it to its original location. Zipcar members pay an annual membership fee and an hourly fee (or daily fee) that covers insurance, gas, maintenance, parking, and 24/7 emergency service, making Zipcars a flexible, simple, and convenient urban transportation choice. Zipcar has already partnered with 70 universities, saving college students the hassle of paying hefty campus parking fees.

Not only do car-sharing companies take the hassle out of owning a car in a city, but sharing cars also has many green benefits. Zipcar claims that each of their cars replaces 20 privately owned vehicles, which lowers fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Zipcar members also reportedly save $5,000 per year. So not only are you being green, but you're saving some green, too.

For more green driving tips, click here or here!

Photo: Zipcar

Ever been in a city and wished you could escape from the concrete blocks? In one Pacific Northwest town, you can.

Seattle is making it easier for locals and visitors to find some green space in the heart of the metropolis. The Seattle Urban Nature interactive habitat map uses a Google map interface to show all public parks, habitat types, and plant species found in the Seattle metro area (for the record, there are many: over 400 parks and nine city gardens in all).

In Italy, it’s easy to marvel at frescoes painted by the masters. But while gaping at the Sistine Chapel ceiling is nice enough, tour company Context would prefer you try your hand at a more authentic experience: slathering wet plaster with your own artistic finesse during a three-hour fresco workshop in Florence. In addition to scoring a sweet handmade souvenir, participants leave Florence with a greater understanding of why the Renaissance artists preferred fresco best.

A network of architects and historians who lead walking seminars for “intellectually adventurous travelers,” Context offers similarly unique tours and seminars in Paris, Rome, Florence, Naples, and Venice, with New York and London tours soon to debut.

Each tour is centered on a theme, and tour groups are limited to just six people—allowing the groups to tread lightly and support local businesses over tourist traps. Among the highlights: indulging in Parisian chocolate,  studying the ecology of the Venetian lagoon, and diving into Christmas traditions in Naples.

For those with the desire to take the karaoke party beyond the bar and onto the road, one Kansas City cab driver has the answer for you: cabaraoke. The force behind this movement is the Yellow Cab driver called Papa Bear, who, for a standard cab fee, gives you a ride and a full-on karaoke session with over 300 songs to choose from. In addition to being equipped with TV screens continuously reeling song lyrics, Papa Bear’s cab contains video cameras to capture customers' performances. The footage from these cameras is uploaded onto Papa Bear’s website as well as onto YouTube, where you can find guys in button-down shirts belting “Sweet Caroline” or twenty-something females singing “Pour Some Sugar on Me” with alarming sincerity. (Esquire has even taken the time to rate them, American Idol-style.) Here's one of the most viewed clips, a singer belting out "I'm So Excited."

Although cabaraoke is exclusive to Kansas City, Papa Bear hopes to expand the business. “My goal is to spread this to cabs in every major city,” he told The Pitch in an interview last month. “I’m hoping to design and develop a cabaraoke machine that is simple for any driver to use, even with no technical knowledge and even if the cabbie doesn’t speak English.”

Best of luck, Papa Bear!

Walking in the Mists of Bordeaux, by Joanne Hammond

Photographer: Joanne Hammond, Bribie Island, Australia

Getting the shot: I recently returned home from a three-month holiday in France and the U.K. We started in Valbonne in the south of France and slowly drove our way north to Paris, generally stopping for a week at different places. We spent about four nights in Bordeaux and I was totally enchanted by this city.

This shot was taken one morning as we walked from our hotel along the River Garonne into the old town centre. The new refurbishment of the river is wonderful—big wide boulevards and wonderful gardens and public places. I was particularly entranced by this water feature in front of the Place de la Bourse. As we sat nearby we watched the stillness of these reflected water surfaces change to water spouts that then produced a magical mist...and would slowly fade to reveal the city behind.

Here's a little something that recently sparked our interest: Aussies are developing electricity-generating clothing. Yes, you read correctly. Researchers at CSIRO (Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) were recently granted $4.4 million AUD (about $4.08 million in the U.S.) to determine the feasibility of electricity-generating shirts. Some researchers think marketing these shirts is attainable within five years.

We'd explain the science, but we're not science bloggers for a reason. Dr. Adam Best, the leader of the project, explained to the The Sydney Morning Herald:

The secret behind the idea involved piezo electrical materials. "Whenever you bend or deform piezo electrical material it creates an electrical charge."

If a shirt could be woven from the fabric, the constant vibration would "produce electricity as you move."

The power would be fed into flexible batteries that would also be woven into the shirt. Appliances, including mobile phones and palm pilots could then be plugged into the shirt.

Also on the research team is Dr. Richard Helmer, who has also been trying to develop a musical shirt. If successful, closet air guitarists would actually be able to play a tune simply by strumming their hand.

Of course, "to be a commercial success [the shirts] would have to be no heavier than a woollen jumper and would need to be washable," the Herald explains.

So the next time you're Down Under and you see someone talking into their collar, do not be alarmed. They are probably just talking into their new shirt-powered mobile phone. Thanks, Ecotality Life, for shining a new light on the latest fashion!

Photo: CSIRO

With all the commotion about what is (or isn't) happening in the new Airbus 380's private sleeping rooms, IT thought it might take a look at some more innocent in-flight activities. Take, for example, the new dating service featured by SkyEurope. SkyDate, which will fly from London to Prague on November 28th, hopes to hook up travelers at 36,000 feet by arranging onboard speed dating: each guest is guaranteed to meet at least ten other travelers and engage them in conversation for five minutes each. When the flight arrives, the passengers are then brought to a four-star hotel and taken on a tour of the city, where they'll get to continue the conversation. They'll return home the next day, and a few days later will get a letter letting them know who's interested in them.

The service is aimed for those between 25 and 40 years old, and it had it's maiden voyage in June of this year. So far, it's taking off — SkyDate is launching similar trips from Brussels, Amsterdam, Lisbon and Barcelona to Vienna and Milan to Prague throughout the month. We're waiting to see if skydating will outpace the mile-high club as a new form of in-flight entertainment.

Airline troubles seem to be in the news nonstop these days, with ongoing reports about flight delays, airport gridlock, and NASA’s controversial decision to withhold the results of a survey on airline near-collisions. So IT checked in with air-traffic expert John Hansman, director of MIT’s International Center for Air Transportation, for his take on the hot air travel topics of the day.

What do you think about NASA withholding their study on flight safety from the public?

The issue is complex. I think it’s important to protect the pilots who reported the data—it’s important to have studies like this where people are free to identify problems, and it’s important not to compromise them. Now, I think NASA did not do a particularly good job handling that—and their explanation for not releasing the data was weak—but there are valid reasons for withholding the study.

Today kicks off Geography Awareness Week, an annual event sponsored by National Geographic to promote geographic literacy in classrooms throughout the country. The My Wonderful World campaign is hosting activities all week to celebrate, and their terrific blog tipped us off to Lilly, future traveler for sure:

Phew! It's been a big week for us here at IT. We've launched two new features that incorporate more of our readers: the photo-driven Global Eye, which showcases beautiful images pulled from our Flickr pool (add your own pics to the mix!), and Talk to a Traveler, which goes out on the streets of D.C. to ask travelers of all kinds for suggestions on what we should do, see, eat, and visit when we go to their hometowns.

Editor-in-Chief Keith Bellows spoke with Al Roker about sustainable island destinations, while the rest of the staff offered up suggestions for finding great thrift store souvenirs and a bunch of travel books to get you going.

We mourned the death of the Elvis is Alive museum, but were heartened by the growth of tourism to Colorado farms. Always moving, we navigated the subways of the world, lauded a green ride-sharing service, and calculated the walk score for your next hotel. We kept our plates full by serving up some slow food, green drinks, and free rice.

So what's next for IT? You'll have to wait till next week, when we return. But to keep up to speed, we recommend subscribing to our RSS feed on the side of the screen. Vastly improved, it will keep you in the know about all things IT.

(Don't know RSS that well? Here's a friendly video explanation). Happy Friday!

Photographer: Kaitlin Ziesmer, Denver, Colorado

Getting the shot: The shot was taken at the Rocky Mountain Balloon Festival at Chatfield Reservoir on August 25th, 2007. I had just moved back to Colorado for school a couple days before, and my parents had just left that morning. I drove to the reservoir at about 5:30 in the morning, perfectly timing the sunrise. After waiting about 30 minutes, the balloons took to the sky all at once.

After an outcry from Sikh and other religious groups, the United States Transportation Security Administration altered its policy for screening airport passengers with head coverings last week.

First implemented last August, the controversial policy mandated that cowboy hats, berets, and turbans require additional screening such as removal or pat down—regardless of whether not a metal detector has been set off.

Over the course of a few weeks, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) received more than 50 formal complaints ranging from confusion to outrage over policy as it related to turban screening, said the group's national director, Rajbir Singh Datta.

Public removal of the turban is “akin to a strip search,” Datta said, in an interview with IT. He was also concerned that Sikhs were being religiously profiled and that searching anyone wearing a turban would reinforce negative, unfounded stereotypes about the community.

“My turban signifies my duty to my faith,” said Datta, who has never shown his hair in public. While he described his organization's meetings with TSA as “pretty productive,” he was concerned at the lack of communication about the change in policy. TSA has been working with SALDEF since 2001 to draft security policies that are sensitive to the Sikh community, he said. But in this instance, there was "zero communication" about the change or why it was occuring.

Our recent literary roundup dredged up a great memory from Senior Editor Scott Stuckey. He offered up a book selection that helps bring him back:

I went to college in the Midwest and spent some weekends sightseeing in the Flint Hills of Kansas. One November, a friend and I hitched a ride to a lonely back road in the vicinity of Cottonwood Falls, hopped a fence, and started backpacking across the rolling tallgrass prairie, a state highway map our only guide. We saw no one for the next couple of days, crossing the sea of grass like early pioneers. Then, a snowstorm hit, and we got cold and wet. We found a road, made our way to a ranch house, and knocked on the door. The family who lived there, who might easily have taken offense at our trespassing on private ranchland, welcomed us in, dried our clothes, fed us a huge meal, and drove us into town where our parents would pick us up. In the years since, that rolling prairie has become the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, and it’s still worth a visit. But before you go, read William Least Heat-Moon’s PrairyErth, which he calls a “deep map” of Chase County, Kansas, where the preserve lies. Moon spent years getting to know the land and the people of this remote region, where hospitality and unencumbered views endure. The result is a rich, layered profile combining history, geology, geography, and contemporary narrative.

Visit the National Parks System's Tallgrass Preserve website for more information on it's history programs, tours, hiking trails, and historic building visits. Oh, and be sure to check the weather before you go.

Photo: National Park Service

Obviously, IT loves a good shopping spree for authentic crafts when we're traveling. But there's also something to be said for scoping out the local thrift stores for some fabulous finds. Our friends over at Gadling and Gridskipper reminded us of the satisfaction that comes from scoring a great item for next to nothing while you're wandering, and we asked the Traveler staffers to tell us their favorite thrifty souvenirs.

Assistant Editor Janelle Nanos: I found my all-time favorite sweater in a thrift store near Covent Garden in London—a white cardigan with tiny blue flowers that I wear year round. It's girly and cozy and generally perfect in every way.

"Wandering around Maui, my brother and I tired of the endless rows of Hawaiian shirts that cluttered the shops, so we ducked into the Salvation Army store to find some more authentic duds (35 Halekuai St., Kihei, Maui). He found a vintage terry-cloth polo with Maui stitched on the pocket, and I snagged a super-soft "Hang Loose" T-shirt that's perfect for sleeping in. Thankfully, this year I went to Kauai, so the shirt actually makes sense now."

It's been 30 years since "the King" passed away, but that hasn't stopped Elvis enthusiasts from traveling to Graceland to celebrate the life of the crooner; they get over 600,000 visitors a year. But there's bad news for the folks who weren't convinced that Elvis had ever left the building to begin with: The Elvis is Alive Museum is about to close. The bizarre Missouri outpost, just an hour outside of St. Louis, was once a coin-operated laundry, but for the past 17 years it's been the pet project of Baptist minister Billy Beeney. The AP reports that:

[T]he 81-year-old proprietor of The Elvis is Alive Museum... has placed his Elvis Presley memorabilia on eBay in hopes that someone else will take up the cause. His collection includes photographs, books, FBI files, replicas of the Cadillac the King drove and of the casket and gravestone from his 1977 funeral, even a painted Elvis head.

This morning, as part of NBC's week-long promotion to go green, National Geographic Traveler Editor-in-Chief Keith Bellows appeared with Al Roker on the Today show to discuss the November/December cover feature, "Places Rated: The World's Best Islands." Al was interested in hearing more about the integrity of popular tourist destinations Phuket, Molokai, and Key West, but we suggest picking up the issue to get Geotourism Editor Jonathan B. Tourtellot's complete list to learn how some of the world's most beautiful places are faring.

Click below to watch the video:

Here at IT, we're always up for a round of drinks at the end of the week. But when writer Kathryn O'Shea-Evans told us about Green Drinks, we knew we'd found drinking buddies for life:

When you first hear the name “Green Drinks International,” it sounds like a society for appletini lovers, green tea enthusiasts, or people who’d rather every day was St. Patrick’s Day. Thankfully for everyone involved, it’s none of the above. Founded in London in 1989, the networking organization brings people together over drinks to talk about the environment and what they can do to help.

What started as a group of friends in a London pub 18 years ago has now snowballed into a massive international coalition: Green Drinks now has over 285 member cities, more than half of them established within the past year. You’ll find Green Drinks groups everywhere from Warsaw to Cape Town, Boulder to Beijing. Even SUV-clogged L.A. has a Green Drinks, and it’s one of the most dedicated: unlike most chapters, which meet monthly, the Los Angeles chapter hosts an event every week.

Even the founders are a bit overwhelmed by the groundswell of support. “I think we’ve had more new Green Drinkers over the past 18 months than at any other time over the past 18 years,” says Paul Scott, who founded Green Drinks and still runs the London group. “Green issues are becoming mainstream, rather than a niche for people with woolly hats and weird sandals.”

IT was just sent a link to FreeRice, a site sponsored by Poverty.com that's working to make us smarter and help end hunger at the same time. We think that's pretty brilliant, so we felt compelled to pass it along.

It's a simple vocabulary quiz, but when you answer a question correctly, ten grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program. In the month since the site's been up, 931,645,600 grains have been donated. We wish this had been around when we were studying for the SAT's.

Go, get smart and help feed the hungry. 

Welcome to Intelligent Travel's newest feature, "Talk to a Traveler," in which we make the most of our location in the nation's capital as a national—and international—tourist hub. With so many people seeking out our city's varied cultural offerings, we decided to turn the tables and ask what sights, attractions, activities, and meals we should check out when we wander into their hometowns.

On a layover in Washington, D.C., 18-year-old Scott Macdonald hopped on the subway and headed downtown to visit some monuments. IT spotted him outside of the White House gates and got the inside scoop on his hometown in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. 

What’s your impression of DC?

It’s great. It’s my first time here and the streets seem really clean, and the people are friendly, but there are a lot of hobos around. Considering it’s the nation’s capital, that’s not exactly impressive.

Agreed. If people came to Antigonish, what would you recommend that they do? 

Definitely take a drive on the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Island. It’s this really long, beautiful, scenic route that takes you around the north of the island. Nova Scotia is almost an island minus a small piece of land that connects it to the rest of Canada, so we’ve got a lot of great beaches too.

Isn’t it too cold for the beaches?

Summer is the best time to go. A lot of Europeans have summer homes in Antigonish because it’s a really nice climate, especially compared with the rest of Canada. But don’t go in January or February. It’s  freezing then—like minus fifteen Celsius!

As we mentioned last week: IT loves to escape into a good travel book (andTraveler's new book columnist, Don George, has promised us a bevy of great titles). This weekend provided a bounty of other great travel reads, from the Washington Post, who reported on a new selection of green guidebooks, and whose Book World went literal this weekend with its roundup of 25 books that span the globe. The New York Times Book Review's cover story featured The Discovery of France and an inside review of two New York City-centric titles from Times reporters. The Economist's Furthermore blog has been posting a guidebook roundup with a quickness that impresses, and our friends at Gadling always add to our reading list with their "One for the Road" posts (and thanks for the "Trip Lit" shoutout last week!). But that wasn't enough for us, so we polled the office to learn what books are on our nightstands, helping to seed great travel dreams:

Editor-in-Chief Keith Bellows: I'm reading Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. Set in Bombay, it's an extraordinary true story of an Australian on the run who steps into the maelstrom of the chaotic world of the Bombay streets. Atmospheric, bang-on evocation of Bombay and filled with picaresque characters and a plot that is by turns unbelievable and riveting.

Assistant Editor Amy Alipio: Since I was in Manitoba recently, I am reading Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, by Will Ferguson. He's a Canadian humorist and it's a collection of essays about his travels to the little known or undervalued bits of Canada: Churchill, Manitoba; Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan; Thunder Bay, Ontario. If you like Bill Bryson you'll like his stuff, but even more than that he looks at the bigger picture: What is Canada? What does it mean to be Canadian? Since as an American, I tend to know a lot more about exotic destinations like Hungary than our neighbor to the north, I find it an interesting read.

a girl in a polo-neck by Richard Thomson

Photographer: Richard Thomson

When and Where: Miao (minority) village festival, near Kaili, Guizhou, China, 2000.

Getting the Shot: I got here by chance after deciding to follow a man who did the Asian drop-hand sign towards me by a roadside a few miles outside Kaili. 'Come here', he signaled. I did. I followed him for an hour or two along tracks in order to find out why. It just felt as though he must have had a good reason. The reason become obvious when banners became visible over the track near the entrance to his village: a festival.

Our dear friend and contributing editor Andrew Nelson paused his travels for a moment to send us another great postcard from the road (literally this time).

It seems totally incongruous, but travelers barreling down Mississippi's Interstate 20/59 will see a glorious art deco tower rising over the town of Meridian (pop. 40,000). The skyscraper, with its geometric lines and colorful terra cotta tile facade, is worthy of New York or Chicago. How did all this tower of Jazz Age power end up in a sleepy part of deep Dixie? The story's interesting:

The 16-story brick structure is named the Threefoot Building after the Threefoot family, local Jewish-German merchants originally named Dreyfuss - "three feet" in German. The building, planned during the Roaring 20s economic boom, was finished in 1929, shortly before stock market crash. Though the Great Depression savaged the family's business, the Threefoot has stayed the town's tallest building. Plans are now underway for a New Orleans developer to restore the structure as an upscale hotel.

Colorado is cultivating a new kind of tourism. Rather than erecting a Disneyland of the Rockies or enticing luxury-seeking tourists to one of the state's hot springs, Colorado is drawing visitors to its many farms.

Tourists spent about $2.2 billion on "agritourism" in 2006, and the new trend is sprouting up all over the Centennial State. The Rocky Mountain News reports:

"It's going to grow, especially if we nurture it a little bit," said Dawn Thilmany, a professor in Colorado State University's Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics. "We're not leading-edge in Colorado, but we're ahead of the curve."

...For those in agriculture, it can mean preserving the land for future generations. Outside Colorado Springs, Duke Phillips has been hosting visitors at Chico Basin cattle ranch for the past several years.

Phillips initially was skeptical of having guests at the 87,000-acre ranch, but he found the extra money helps carry him through not only droughts but market downturns. He also was surprised to find that paying customers often like to pitch in and work, even while they are on vacation.

"That's what people want—they don't want to sit on a beach," Phillips said. "They come to contribute."

Can you walk to the drugstore from your house? Your hotel? We stumbled upon a nifty site called Walk Score that will tell you in seconds flat.

The site plugs itself as a resource for real estate buyers, but we think it’s also invaluable for travelers when picking a hotel or getting an idea of the distance between attractions. Who wants to stay in a hotel miles from nowhere? A cute café, restaurant, or shopping district within walking distance can mean the difference between a crummy vacation and one filled with local charm. It can also alert you ahead of time if you’ll need to rent a car. Scores range between "Walker's Paradise" (90 - 100) and "Driving Only" (0 - 25).

Here in our nation's capital, we're used to waltzing into most of our museums free of charge, but we were glad to hear that France has made plans to follow suit. Starting in January, 14 of France's museums will drop their admission prices for six months in an effort to draw a wider, more varied audience. Three of the museums will be in Paris: Guimet, (Asian art); Cluny, (medieval treasures); and Arts et Metiers, (scientific inventions).

The new French President Nicholas Sarkozy introduced the idea as part of his election platform, but it has been met with plenty of opposition.  The Agence-France Presse reported that Francoise Benhamou, a Sorbonne economics professor who specializes in the financing of culture, was skeptical about the plan. She points to the fact that plenty of French visitors already take advantage of the free evenings or open-house days offered at the museums, and that most of the people benefiting from the free admission would be foreign tourists who don't pay taxes.

Benhamou argues that instead of thrusting open the doors to the museum, new pricing programs for the young, unemployed, or frequent visitors should be created instead. That, and creating new educational programs for young people, she says, will help create lifelong museumgoers.

As for us, we're interested to see how the six-month plan works out. What do you think?

Image: "Deux grues au bord d’un étang" from the Guimet Museum

Mark Ovenden's new book, Transit Maps of the World, a is vibrant 144-page tip of the hat to the world’s urban train systems. From the unusual Hamburg diagram, which lacks curves, to the pitchfork prongs of Buenos Aires, Oveden navigates the history of maps as they have evolved over time. After paging through the lovely volume, we tapped his expertise with a few questions of our own.

What is your favorite transit map?

I'm very keen on the current Moscow map for it's simplification of a complex network into pure geometry; the Paris one as I use it every day, and the London Tube diagram for it's historical contribution to good practice in urban rail map design.

How are transit maps connected to our sense of place?

Because subway maps are so prevalent in society, they have, in some places at least, virtually replaced the physical geography of the city in the minds of their inhabitants. This is especially true of the more iconic maps like Washington, New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo. When the Madrid map (based on 30 degree diagonals) was replaced this year with a highly trendy looking but relatively stark diagram made up only of perpendicular horizontals and verticals, the local population reacted angrily as many had learned the feel of the city from the old map!

How do you recommend travelers tackle foreign metro systems?

• Find out before you descend how to tell which direction the trains run in: Some systems use the Inbound/Outbound or North/South/East/West-bound idea. Many others use the terminal station to show the direction they’re heading in. You may have to check lights on the front of each train, side panels, or announcements to know how far or which way your train is running.
• Make sure you have the best value ticket—it’s easy to over- or underpay for a journey. Fines can be high if you ride too far, and day passes are often better value than buying lots of singles.
• Be streetwise, even below ground! Be respectful of local customs and always try to be polite. You may be the only person offering your seat to a pensioner, but better to be performing acts of random kindness than behaving like a cocky tourist.
• Make sure you know the time the system shuts: You probably don’t want to risk being miles away from where you are staying because the last train left ten minutes ago!

Can't decide whether you want to safari in Africa or scuba dive in a coral reef? Well, one tour company offers a unique scuba sea safari that should satisfy your craving for both land and sea adventures.

One Earth Safaris offers "scuba sea safaris" between Zanzibar, Pemba Island, and Kenya, (where sharks and humpback whales are plentiful) with visits to places like the Samburu National Reserve and Masai Mara National Reserve for sightings of the Big Five (elephant, white rhino, buffalo, lion, and leopard). Company founder Ranjit Sondhi says that seeing the Annual Wildebeest Migration is a must when visiting East Africa. One Earth guests can also track gorillas in Rwanda and Uganda in groups from 4 to 35 people. The company is currently developing plans for an underwater hotel off of Pemba Island.

The One Earth team (comprised of ecologists, ethnologists, and naturalists) has also developed One Earth Sukuma Voluntourism, a volunteer program on a wildlife conservancy that acts as a buffer to Tsavo National Park (the largest in Kenya) and as a safe haven for buffalo, elephants, antelope, giraffes, and zebras. One Earth Safaris supports sustainable tourism, which gets a huge plus in our books.

Photo: Russell Hunkin, One Earth Safaris

Introducing Intelligent Travel's newest feature: Global Eye. It's a chance for us to showcase the incredible talent of our readers, selected from our new online Flickr pool. We love how a picture can tell a story, and we'll include a bit of info from each shutterbug about where, when, and how the shot was taken. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do and encourage you to contribute your own shots to the mix.

The Hong Kong Skyline from Hopewell Centre Glass Elevator, via the Happy Sleepy page

Photographer: Magda Wojtyra, Toronto, Ontario

Getting the shot: "The photo was taken on May 20, 2007 from a moving elevator of the Hopewell Centre in Hong Kong. This was my last day in Hong Kong. I had been traveling with my partner for six months in Southeast Asia, and the next day we were flying back to Canada. We went up and down the elevator several times, savoring the other-worldly quality of the city and [how] our own minds' perspective [had been] bent into new patterns by the travel."

IT caught up with urban designer Ron Fleming at a recent APA symposium on green planning. We spoke with him about the subject of his latest book The Art of Placemaking, which discusses the importance of public art in creating meaningful destinations and homes. 

What is the art of placemaking?

Placemaking is a way of thinking about urban design to maximize a people’s connection to the history, land, flora, and fauna of where they are from. It’s a way to anchor people to their locale.

Why is that important?

It makes people care about where they are from. It gives them a sense of proprietorship and belonging. It creates respect and decreases vandalism.

Here's a new trend in eco-travel: GoLoco, an online "personal public transportation network" that allows members to seamlessly arrange travel plans, share cars, and split expenses, thus reducing our CO2 emissions and making traveling a lot easier (and fun!).

How it works: Sign up for GoLoco. Once you have an account, post your travel itinerary. Trips can be specific or general ("any Saturday or Sunday, around 1 p.m."). Then, invite fellow GoLoco friends to go on this trip with you. If you don't know anyone on GoLoco, you can make new friends by posting so that everyone on GoLoco can see your itinerary. After friends respond to your post, decide who you'd like to travel with, and modify your travel plans if necessary. On your determined travel day, meet up with your fellow travelers and let the adventure begin!

GoLoco also allows users to arrange to share trip costs. Users can submit payment information to GoLoco, which will calculate trip costs and automatically transfer shared trip costs to the driver's online account. That way, travelers won't have to deal with exchanging money during their trip. Only downfall: GoLoco charges a 10 percent transaction fee for transferring trip costs. But if your friends are notoriously difficult when it comes to money, the extra charge is worth it.

GoLoco is also a Facebook application, so spread the word.

Also on our cyber-networking radar, Dopplr (no more puns, we promise) allows you to post your travel plans to your friends. If a friend is near you, you will both be alerted (on your cell phone or online). As The Guardian explains, "[Dopplr is] a social network that focuses purely on your travel plans—and those of the people you know—in order to encourage serendipitous meetings." Currently, Dopplr (which is also a Facebook application) is available by invitation only, but as the network grows, our forecast (sorry, we had to) predicts this service will go a long way.

The dizzying Manhattan restaurant scene just got a little bit calmer. Slow Food NYC, a branch of Slow Food International, has come up with a way to recognize local establishments who embody the Slow Food ideals of quality, authenticity, and sustainability.

Restaurants, bars, and markets that meet their standards are given the Snail of Approval, and Slow Food members can nominate their own favorite restaurants that measure up. Here is a smattering of the new snail inductees in Manhattan and Brooklyn, with a peek at their menus:

• Craft: Octopus and avocado purée
• Lupa: Skirt Steak with cipolline and peppers
• Hearth: Roasted lamb with lamb sausage, buttercup squash, and chanterelles
• Applewood: Grilled Vermont goat with curried chick peas, tomatillos, and lemon yogurt
• Franny’s: Buffalo mozzarella, garlic, and oregano pizza

In addition to preparing sustainable meals, Applewood, in Brooklyn, uses meats free of hormones and antibiotics, and they go so far as to butcher some of their animals on-site to ensure quality. And one of IT's favorite haunts, the Brooklyn Brewery, also got a snail seal; Brooklyn uses 100 percent wind-generated electricity to make its brews, including the yummy brown ale, a blend of six roasted malts. 

Next time you're in the Big Apple, seek out the snail!

Dry your eyes, Halloween-lovers. Another year’s ghoulish day may have come and passed, but pumpkin enthusiasts can still get their kicks this weekend at the holiday’s last hurrah: the World Championship of Punkin Chunkin. The annual festival draws thousands of folks to Nassau, Delaware, to see who can hurl a pumpkin through the air the farthest.

According to IT friend-of-a-friend Chris Moore, a local who’s been to the zany festival “more times than he cares to admit”:

The contestants are insanely competitive; the objective of the event is two-fold:  Drink as much as humanly possible, and see how far you can launch a pumpkin . . . . There really is nothing else like it on Earth.

Irv Gordon breaks a world record every time he gets behind the wheel of his 1966 Volvo P1800. The 67-year-old retired teacher has clocked more than 2 million miles (2,593,831 as of this writing) on the car...and he's still driving it. He's got the Guinness world record for "most miles driven by a single owner in a non-commercial vehicle" and, as one might imagine, a major case of the travel bug. "Some people watch the Travel Channel. Then there's the rest of us," says Gordon. "I'd rather be there and see it in person."

Gordon pulled over to talk to us on Interstate 70, while on his way to Las Vegas for an auto trade show.  We asked him what drives him to, um, keep driving, and for some of his favorite stops along the way:

Gordon's not the type to go to art museums, but the Devil's Rope Museum in McLean, Texas, is right up his alley. An ode to that sharpest of American inventions, barbed wire, it used to be a brassiere factory in the 1940s, he says. Best of all, it's free.

The tiny town of Gothenburg, the "Pony Express Capital of Nebraska," is worth a stop for its station museum.

The Henry Ford Museum is another favorite, good for road trippers from Chicago. It's actually in Dearborn, Michigan, nearly 300 miles east, but with Gordon's internal gauge, anything within a few hundred miles is certainly worth a side trip, he says. (We're sure Ford would be proud).

Today's postcard from contributing editor Andrew Nelson offers more of America's pastime for those of you not already exhausted from the World Series:

With the World Series all wrapped up, baseball fanatics who like to roam may want to head south to the National World War II Museum (945 Magazine St.; +1 504 527 6012) in New Orleans. Devoted to America's experience during WWII, the museum, which showcases the battles for Europe and the Pacific as well as life on the home front, is hosting a new exhibit and a conference exploring the role baseball played for the Greatest Generation.  The 3-day conference and ongoing exhibit, "Duty, Honor, Country: When Baseball Went to War" begins November 9th. Attending will be World War II veterans and former major leaguers Bob Feller, Dom DiMaggio, Jerry Coleman and Lou Brissie along with baseball historian Todd Anton, major league pitcher Curt Schilling and manager Tommy Lasorda. While there, check out the restored C-47 dangling from the rafters. The plane, purchased on eBay, dropped parachuting soldiers onto Nazi-occupied France during the D-Day invasions.

Here at Traveler, we do a lot of reading: in addition to the upcoming magazine copy, we're constantly perusing newspapers, blogs, and websites all day. But we know there's nothing quite like escaping away into a good book, which is why we're thrilled to announce the arrival of Don George's "Trip Lit" to our new columnist cadre.

Don is a legendary travel writer and editor who has won numerous awards for his work. He has been travel editor at the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, founded and edited the Wanderlust section of Salon.com, and most recently was Global Travel Editor at Lonely Planet Publications. He is the author of  The Lonely Planet Guide to Travel Writing and the editor of six literary travel anthologies, including The Kindness of Strangers, Tales from Nowhere, and By the Seat of My Pants.

In his inaugural column, Don discusses the challenges of navigating both the Alaskan wilderness and parenting in Lou Ureneck's Backcast, offers up a feast of new epicurean-themed books, before detouring into India and Africa.

We're looking forward to going where he leads us next.

When I saw this article in the Guardian about celebrating the 20th anniversary of Dirty Dancing at the Mountain Lake Hotel, the Virginia resort that stood in for the Catskills in the classic film, it left me feeling a little nostalgic. Not only for the always-quotable scenes from the movie ("Nobody puts Baby in a corner!"), but for my own time at Mountain Lake, which I visited in college with a group called the Appalachia Volunteers.

While most of my classmates were building homes and cleaning up parks throughout the region, our team had the run of the 2,600 acre hotel property, clearing the shoreline of the lake and helping to build the wilderness trails and bocce ball court. Mind you, we also made a point to re-create as many of the scenes from the film as possible, (the gazebo on the property was actually built for the film) which was a huge part of the fun.

But while the press clips about Mountain Lake tend to stress the Dirty Dancing-themed weekend packages, which include dance lessons and trivia nights, most overlook all of its outstanding outdoor features. Aside from the vast lake, which offers boating, fishing, and swimming (and the occasional practicing of dance routines) the hotel also has a wilderness conservancy and biological station on the property, 20 miles of hiking and biking trails, and several education programs for students through seniors.

And of course, after you leave, you also get the pleasure of telling people you've "had the time of your life."

Photo: Mountain Lake Resort

Many people visit Providence, Rhode Island, to tour the local colleges or make a pit stop on their way to Boston. But for those who live there, P-town is a diverse, laid-back city full of restaurants with character, Victorian architecture, peaceful hiking trails, and aspiring artists. Plus, it also happens to be an extremely pedestrian- and bike-friendly place. Here's a bike tour that gives you a real feel for the Renaissance City.

Start your morning by bicycling through Swan Point Cemetery, 200 acres of trees, flowers and headstones dating back to the 1840s. Look through the trees on the eastern edge to catch glimpses of the Seekonk River. Science fiction guru H.P. Lovecraft, one of Providence's strangest sons, is buried here.

After working up an appetite, bike north on tree-lined Blackstone Boulevard and make a left on North Avenue, then another left down Hope Street and head to Seven Stars Bakery (820 Hope Street) for locally roasted coffee, a super-moist ginger muffin or warm sticky roll, handmade daily with organic flour.

Pop in at Frog and Toad (795 Hope Street) for Danish paper-cut mobiles, bird feeders carved from colored gourds, handmade notebooks, unique totes, and cute cards.

It's no secret that anything chocolate makes us giddy, but green chocolate really puts IT in a state of ultimate bliss.

D.C. sweets store Cake Love (founded by the Food Network's Warren Brown) recently joined other local businesses in the District and switched over to 100 percent wind power. The businesses joined with Rockville, Maryland-based Clean Currents, a company offering low-cost green energy to metro-area businesses around the U.S.

Be sure to try cake flavors like Neil's Hat Trick (dark and white chocolate, vanilla buttercream, fresh raspberries glazed with chocolate ganache) or Pumpkin Head, a pumpkin butter cake with cream cheese icing and cinnamon, a perfect autumn treat. Vegan or gluten-free Green Label items are also delightfully delicious.

Check out one of their locations in D.C., Silver Spring, Maryland, and Shirlington, Virginia.

Photo: Cake Love

No, Taipei 101 is not an introductory class to the capital of Taiwan. Rather, it's a building in the bustling Taiwanese city, and currently the tallest building in the world. But the 101-story building holds more than just one world record: It is also home to the world's fastest elevator, rushing from the first floor to the observation deck on the 89th floor in 37 seconds (that's 3,314 feet or 1,010 meters). Locals affectionately describe the building as resembling a tower of Chinese take-out containers.

Traveler friend Russell Johnson, who served as a panelist for October's "Places Rated: Islands" issue, gives a tour of the tower in his new video essay about Taipei 101, and explains how the 730-ton building stands up to East Asia's frequent typhoons and earthquakes. Check out his blog, or read about Taiwan in Traveler's November 2007 issue.