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Last year, we wrote about a progressive green community with a fitting name--Greensburg, Kansa--that continues to set new standards in eco-development.

After a May 2007 tornado ravaged this town of 1,500 residents, the community voted to rebuild Greensburg as energy-efficient as possible. According to a New York Times article, community leaders' goals were to "build a sense of economic dynamism that would generate new businesses and jobs and persuade Greensburg's talented young people not to leave." 

One of the newest additions to the town, the Sun Chips Business Incubator (above), is designed to help local businesses recover after the tornado. The Business Incubator, completed in May 2009, received a LEED Platinum rating, the highest rating possible, due to its greater than 50% energy savings and innovative water reuse system.  Strategic window placement and skylights allow the Incubator to be mostly day lit, while photovoltaic panels mounted on the roof supply 10% of the building's energy needs. Water from the sinks and showers is collected and reused to flush the toilets.

It's that time of year again: yup, that's right, time to head outside and get lost in your local corn maze. According to The MAiZE, a leading corn maze company (yes, there is such a thing) based in Utah, the annual tradition lets family farms generate extra income by attracting day-trippers from nearby urban areas with their woven fields of corn. The MAiZE counts over 500 mazes in the U.S. (one in nearly every state), 15 in Canada, one in the UK, Italy, one even in Staszów in south-central Poland.
 
Rural theme parks that they are, corn mazes have been around for centuries, serving ceremonial purposes or amusing royalty in the days of kings and princesses. The "modern" corn maze has been around only since the mid-1990s when British maze developer, Adrian Fisher, claims to have created the first corn maze in Pennsylvania.

Mardi Gras has been synonymous with New Orleans for over 150 years, but the man behind some of the most stalwart traditions of Fat Tuesday is trying to change his city from a one-holiday town. Blaine Kern, the owner of Kern Studios, which produces 80 percent of the floats that zigzag through the city throughout Mardi Gras season, is on a mission to make New Orleans the nation's new Halloween capital. In 2007, he started the Krewe of Boo, a month-long series of events that culminates in a huge all-out Halloween parade. "We have cemeteries, voodoo parlors, haunted houses, and Gothic architecture," Kern said recently, enumerating the city's many creepy assets. With all that spooky stuff, it was a no-brainer for him to launch a new parade and encourage visitors to take part in the costumed revelry.

But the root of Kern's efforts isn't simply a passion for goblins and ghouls. He created the event as a way to raise money for his charity, The First Responders Fund, which helps house and support the city's fire, EMS, and police departments, many of which are still recovering from the impact of Katrina. "I found out that after Katrina most of the police were going home to trailers at night," Kern says. "The only way I know how to raise money [is to throw a parade]. " He has partnered with the Salvation Army and plans to construct 10 homes for first responders in the Algiers neighborhood of the city this year. This year's parade will be held on October 24th, at 7 p.m., followed by the annual Costume Exposé. Tickets to the party are $100, and all proceeds from both events go toward the fund.

[Krewe of Boo]

Photo: Krewe of Boo

Popular culture has done Cleveland a disservice. Most of its references to the city are negative: Drew Carey's "Cleveland Rocks" anthem did little more than reinforce stuffy mid-Western stereotypes; basketball star Lebron James is from there, but can't ever seem to stop talking about leaving town; David Foster Wallace used it as the ideal-because-it-isn't-ideal setting for his first major novel, The Broom of the System; even Dr. Seuss commented on the polluted state of Lake Erie in The Lorax. There was that unfortunate burning river situation (due to pollution) back in the '60s, and more recently, this series of "hastily made" tourism videos, which have drawn over a million views on YouTube, haven't helped. 

As we noted earlier this year, Cleveland is making strides to clean up its act. And you gotta love a city that doesn't take itself too seriously, as evidenced by the annual tongue-in-cheek Burning River Fest. But the one attraction that has me itching to visit Rock City, despite negative media representations, is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (pictured above), which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Interestingly, the celebratory concert will be held in NYC's Madison Square Garden (on October 29 and 30), rather than in the Rock Hall's hometown. And with the opening of the Rock Annex in New York last year, it looks like Cleveland may be experiencing some competition to maintain its nickname. In the meantime, click through the jump for a few reasons to add the original Rock City to your destination list:

We've got leaves on the brain today, and frankly, that's not such a terrible thing, particularly when the National Park Foundation and Olympus just announced the ten most photogenic parks for fall foliage this season. Feeling inspired? You can submit your favorite photos to the Share the Experience contest, put on by the Federal Recreation Lands, for the chance to win trips, camera gear, and other prizes. You've watched the Ken Burns documentary, now get out there this weekend and see America's "Best Idea" in all its splendor. Complete list after the jump.

There's a crispness in the air, and with a long weekend approaching, it's the perfect time to plan the quintessential autumn leaf-viewing trip. A few weeks ago, we ran a list of the Top Ten Fall Foliage Drives excerpted from National Geographic Guide to Scenic Highways & Byways, and your comments assured us that there are far more than ten out there. So we decided to open it up to the masses. I asked Traveler staffers for their favorite fall drives, and then went to the Twitterverse (via @NatGeoTraveler) for more suggestions. Here's what we've gathered so far. Feel free to share your own, or look for a great drive near you in the comments.

Instead of responding by email, Traveler Editor in Chief Keith Bellows came into my office and had me Google "The Dragon" just so I could see the infamous US129 highway on a map. Spanning Tennessee and North Carolina, the drive has 138 hairpin turns in just 11 miles, and if you can take your eyes off the road, the leaves are incredible. "It. Is. Awesome," was all he needed to say.

National Geographic Expeditions Marketing Manager Sarah Muenzenmayer shares tips on planning a Hawaii trip that's budget-friendly and full of local color.

As avid travelers in our early 30s, my husband and I like to plan trips that will challenge us--language barriers and exploring foreign cultures are the aspects of travel we find both adventurous and memorable. But with the hubby currently in grad school, we wanted a trip that was slightly easier to plan, not to mention easy on the wallet. Drawn to Hawaii's natural beauty, we decided to skip the resorts and instead to camp along the spectacular coastline. Here are a few tips on how we kept our trip to the Big Island and Kauai challenging, and kept the total cost pretty darn low.

National Geographic Digital Media staffer Jo Dickison was in Albuquerque last week to watch the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.  She shares a few tips for travelers planning to make the trip.

Mass Happiness has begun. The 2009 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta kicked off on Saturday with the spectacular mass ascension of 600-plus hot air balloons, dancing a delicate rainbow ballet in the air. The "mass happiness" theme is apt - it's hard not to smile at the sight of these balloons gently lifting into the sky. The annual Fiesta, which runs through October 11, includes a full roster of activities, but here are a few of the highlights.

Each day of the festival begins with the Dawn Patrol, where 12 balloons ascend to test the wind speed and direction for the mass lift-off at dawn. Saturday's Mass Ascension came off beautifully, with hundreds of balloons participating and excellent weather. Aside from the some 500 regular hot air balloons this year, there are an additional 80 or so "special shape" balloons of cartoon characters that are perennial favorites with kids. Look out for a flying pink pig, a floating Pepsi can and the Two Bees, which turns up every year. In the evenings there is usually a Glow Show at dusk when the balloons on the field are inflated and lit with burners, creating a lovely glow across the field. The glows are followed by a fireworks display, bringing the day's festivities to a close around 9 p.m. each night.

The Albuquerque festival is billed as the largest balloon festival in the world, and is unique in that visitors on the field can watch every step in the process as the crews prepare, inflate and launch the balloons. Festival Launch Directors, known as Zebras for the black-and-white shirts they wear, are in charge of air traffic control and launch procedures.

I've already discussed how Maurice Sendak's classic children's story, Where the Wild Things Are, inspired me to travel as a kid, so I openly admit to counting down the days until the upcoming film comes out. But in the meantime, I've been entertaining myself by looking at the images submitted to director Spike Jonze's website, in a contest called "Where the Wild Things Ought to Be." Artists have placed the Wild Things in classic paintings, movie stills, Where's Waldo? drawings, and even on Fox News. One of my favorites is Max on the The Great Wave, by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. He really looks like he's a natural fit in the wilds of the ocean. You can see more of the submissions here.

[via Neatorama]

Travel writer Chris O'Toole sends along a dispatch from a quiet corner of Pittsburgh, where the G-20 Summit is being hosted this week.

Before they discuss firing up the world economy, leaders at the G-20 Summit, beginning today in Pittsburgh, get a chance to chill out in one of my favorite places, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. Tonight President Obama welcomes the A-list crowd for dinner at this classic Victorian glasshouse with a twenty-first century twist. Tweaks like geothermal heating tubes, passive cooling in its indoor tropical forest and a grass roof atop its subterranean entrance makes it one of the greenest greenhouses in the world.

Ask any of my friends and they'll tell you that I'm a big nerd. I'm also a college student (i.e. broke and cheap), so any event that allows me to learn for free gets two big thumbs up. This is why I'm so excited for the Smithsonian magazine Museum Day. This coming Saturday, September 26, over 1,250 museums around the U.S. are offering free admission. That's right, FREE. All you have to do is go to the Museum Day website and print off the admission card.  Each admission card is valid for two visitors and the only stipulation is that only one card be used per household.

This event provides a great opportunity to take that trip to the museum you've been putting off or to check out a funky one you normally wouldn't consider. With a price tag like this one, what do you have to loose?

I've compiled a list (after the jump) of some of my favorite participating museums from the Museum Day list...

You've helped plan my Kenya trip and been with me through the paperwork, vaccines, and packing. You were even with me as I blogged my way through the trip itself, sharing my thoughts on designing a trip with teens in mind, the conundrum of the Masai Mara, and the questions raised when visiting the slums.

Now, you can see an online gallery of photos, on National Geographic Traveler's website. Click through to see a couple of my favorite images. Click here to see the whole slideshow.

Ah, autumn is here - which brings to mind changing leaves, back-to-school sales, and...crab races. Yes, crab races.

Every year on Labor Day weekend, the seaside town of Crisfield, Maryland holds its Annual Hard Crab Derby and Fair. This quaint village of 2,800 on the Chesapeake Bay has a long tradition of catching - and racing - its seafood. The festival is a celebration of the town's fishing heritage, particularly of the abundant (and delicious!) blue crabs that teem in the bay's waters.

Here, you can watch a parade on Main Street, a boat docking contest, a crab picking contest, and the crowning of the beautiful Miss Crustacean. But the main attraction of the festival is its namesake "crab derby," in which hundreds of crabs scramble down a chute to the finish line in a knock-down, drag-out race (okay, so the crabs aren't even aware of the race). The bets - and the crowd's enthusiasm - get intense. Afterward, nothing beats finishing off a fresh platter of crabs steamed with Old Bay spice while taking in views of the water at the Olde Crisfield Crab and Steakhouse. If you're hardy enough, you can top it off with a generous slice of Smith Island cake.

The best way to enjoy the festival is by renting a campsite in nearby Jane's Island State Park, which boasts 3,100 acres of Eastern Maryland's prettiest shoreline. When you need a break from the festivities, quiet kayak trails and beach walks await you in the park. So grab some friends, a tent, and a healthy appetite for crab and you've got one shell of a Labor Day weekend.  

Photo: kathyhaduch via Flickr

Some of my colleagues (I'm talking about you, Norie) got to safari in Africa and traipse around European capitals with their kids this summer, but I only got my act together enough to accomplish two nights in Atlantic City before school started this week.  

The surprise: Despite Atlantic City's rep as a resort town for casinos and nightlife, we had a better experience there with our three-year-old than the first time my husband and I visited on a last-minute weekend whim several years ago B.K. (Before Kid).

Here are some of the top toddler-tested attractions at this Jersey Shore destination.

Rolling Chairs: Introduced in 1887, these chairs pushed by young men and women were a great way to tour Atlantic City's four-mile-long Boardwalk. Go for the vintage-looking wicker chairs. Our chair attendant turned out to be a university student from Romania, where my husband is from, so they chatted away in Romanian. A half-hour tour cost us about $25 (plus Stefan ended up tipping his fellow countryman very generously). Our daughter loved tooling along, saying "beep beep" to pedestrians who wandered into our path, while eating a messy soft-serve ice cream cone from one of the Boardwalk vendors. A magical time to do a tour is at sunset or dusk when the beach is quieter and the light softens.

Traveling with teens to London? Senior editor Norie Quintos shares some hard-earned lessons from a recent visit with her 13- and 15-year-olds. Check past blogs on traveling with teens to New York City and Kenya.

Give them a preview: Provide some context before your trip, not necessarily with history books but with novels (Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, Oliver Twist, Harry Potter), music (Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Kinks), and movies (Shakespeare in Love, The Queen, Bridget Jones' Diary, and of course, the James Bond flicks).

Make yourself at home: Consider booking an apartment with kitchenette rather than a hotel. No need to pay restaurant rates for ravenous teen appetites. Agencies such as Central London Apartments cater to travelers. Some hotels, such as the Athenaeum in Mayfair, also have townhouse apartments that combine hotel service with apartment convenience.

Get active: Teens typically like to go fast and court danger. We got a little of both on a Central London bike tour (there are several companies, including the one we went with, the London Bicycle Tour Company). Weaving in and out of traffic, crossing bridges, and avoiding double-decker buses driving on the "wrong" side of the road made for ecstatic teens and a nervous mom.  Another bonus: We saw the obligatory sights, including Trafalgar Square, Buckingham palace, and Westminster Abbey, in under three hours.

 

Go easy on the museums: My younger son recoils at anything with the word "museum" at the end of its name, so I chose places that were more experiential, such as the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. A walk through the concrete-fortified underground warren of bunkers used by the British during World War II put us right in wartime London under threat of a blitzkreig. If only all history lessons could be as compelling. I didn't have enough time to take the kids to another of my favorite non-museumlike museums--Shakespeare's recreated Globe Theatre.

Turn it into a game: Really. Teens are not too old for a scavenger hunt (though you may need to provide an incentive). It's a stealthy way to turn them into cultured people. On the list: Quote a line of Shakespeare, Find an Elgin Marble, Read the Rosetta Stone. Cross the Thames. Have a spot of tea. Stand on the Prime Meridian line. Ride the London Eye. Try to make a Palace Guard smile.

 

Last week I took our two kids, Chase and Mackenzie, for an inexpensive and easy escape to Maryland's Eastern Shore. Unlike Martha's Vineyard or the Hamptons, it's short on celebrities and long on cornfields and regular folks--a bucolic place to play out the last days of summer. Here are some scenes from my Chesapeake Bay diary.

Day 1: There's a secret stretch of sand that few but the locals know. Beside the boat launch and ferry dock for the Oxford Bellevue Ferry is a sandy quarter-mile strip that's usually all yours (with a jungle gym and swings 50 yards away). We swim cautiously with an eye out for jellyfish, but mostly we play in the sand. The kids bury me up to my chin. We hunt shells, build sandcastles, and look for crabs. We take the nation's oldest privately operated ferry to Oxford, a quaint little town with a park near the Tred Avon River where the kids feed most of their lunch to the birds.

Day 2: Chase is fixated on crabs and each morning, first thing, he goes to the end of the nearby dock and helps me haul up crab pots. He pokes the crabs with a finger, squealing with excitement when they give him a nip, and makes me promise to take him for a crab dinner.  Later in the day we head to the Crab Claw, a rustic restaurant on the St. Michaels' wharf that's been around since the mid-'60s. They tape sheets of paper on picnic tables and serve heaps of crabs, clams, oysters -- a very messy affair and the kids love it. As I suspected, they want nothing to do with actually eating a crab. Instead, they gorge on chicken nuggets and fries--and feed oyster crackers to the ducks that jockey in the water near our feet. The day ends with cotton candy ice cream at the St. Michaels Candy Company.

Senior editor Norie Quintos has been blogging about her recent family trip to Kenya. Her previous posts in this series include on traveling with teens, taking care of paperwork, staying healthy, and packing.

From Laikipia, we flew by prop plane (via Nairobi) to the Masai Mara, the fecund savanna immortalized by many a nature documentary. The area supports some of the greatest concentrations of wildlife, including the so-called Big Five (elephant, rhino, Cape buffalo, lion, leopard). Visitors can't help but have high expectations. Lodges are numerous and run the gamut from basic to luxe. We stayed at the recently overhauled tent suites at the Fairmont Mara Safari Club: lavishly adorned in Africana and boasting typical four-star-hotel accoutrements as bathrobe, slippers, hair dryer, sewing kit, etc. With several wheelchair-accessible rooms, a host of modern conveniences, a highly trained staff, and a prime location overlooking a hippo-filled river, it is one of a few lodges on the Mara suitable for families with very young children and guests with mobility issues. 

One problem with the celeb-status of the Mara is that it is in danger of being loved to extinction. The masses of grass-feeding animals attract predators that feed on them, which in turn lures hordes of tourists, many desirous of the type of close encounters seen on Animal Planet and BBC wildlife programs. Drivers and guides feel the pressure to deliver on unrealistic expectations, putting unsustainable forces on the fragile ecosystem. While off-road driving is not permitted within the Masai Mara reserve, many areas just outside are deeply rutted and pocked. In some cases, the old tracks have become impassable and parallel ones begun.

Despite having been born and raised on the East Coast and spending most of my adult life in its major cities (Philly, New York, and finally, D.C.), I'd never been to Ocean City, MD, before last weekend when I hung around there with my husband and his family.
   
My mom's a big beach-goer and is pretty particular on her sunning spots. I may dare say she's a beach purist. She likes broad expanses of sand; spindly egrets; tufted, virgin dunes; and minimal crowds. Her favorite beach spot along "the shore" (what we Pennsylvanians and New Jersyians call the Jersey shore) is Cape May, NJ. She prefers it for its busy but manageable beach and homey snack shops but mostly for its well-maintained, brilliantly hued Victorian homes, most turned into lucrative B&Bs. I respect her high standards and now see they're probably why I'd never before been to Ocean City, MD.
   
Having said all of that, I didn't expect much from Ocean City as we arrived and finally extracted ourselves from our too-hot car after four hours on the road from D.C. It was busy and commercial and built up. It smelled too strong of the vinegar doused generously on the ever-popular boardwalk fries. I looked around, went for a dip, sat with the family, watched the world go by, and had two pepperoni slices and a cold beer. It was a fine day but considering Ocean City through the lens of what we at IT and Traveler espouse--authentic, cultural, and sustainable travel--I thought Ocean City fell short. But did it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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