August 2010

Blast From The Past: Cool Island Monastery

Trip Blog Posts

On Sunday afternoon, fine fall weather broke the gloomy skies we had encountered at the end of the last week and continued with even sunnier skies and warmer temperatures on Tuesday as we drove south of Bayeux about an hour and a half to the storied island abbey of Mont. St. Michel. This monastery fortress [...]

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Armchair Travel: Driving China

Armchair Travel

Peter Hessler’s River Town:  Two Years On The Yangtze chronicled his stint teaching English to Chinese students in Fuling when he was a Peace Corp volunteer.  With Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present he took a long, hard look at China’s move from its ancient past to its modern, frenetic, Almost-A-Capitalist-Country status.  [...]

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Travel Tech: The Guidebook In Your iPhone

App Reviews

You thought your iPhone was primarily a telephone.  Wrong.  Then you decided it actually was mostly a computer.  Right.  Finally, you discovered it was not just a telephone and a computer, but also a travel guidebook, too.  Right again — almost; it’s actually a guidebook library.  Here are two popular places to buy electronic books [...]

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Destination Update (8/26/10)

Destination Updates

Here are this week’s travel destination stories on the Web: Bucks County, PA (GoNOMAD.com) Bog Trekking In Estonia (The New York Times) Paris For Beginners (Los Angeles Times) A Day’s Outing At Home (AP via Chicago Tribune) Down Mexico Way (San Francisco Chronicle) Flying High Over Germany (Contra Costa Times) Backcountry Idaho (Los Angeles Times) [...]

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Travel News Update (8/25/10)

Travel News Updates

Here are this week’s travel and travel technology stories on the Web: American Airlines Faces Big Fine (AP via The Seattle Times) Hipmunk:  The Latest Airline Booking Site (Elliott.org) Razors On A Plane (The TSA Blog) Traveling With Cats (The Seattle Times) Where A Tie When You Fly (Elliott.org) American To Charge For Front Row [...]

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Blast From The Past: French “Lean Cuisine”

Trip Blog Posts

We’ve been complaining (but scarfing up) the heavy-on-meat-and-cheese German-style cuisine of Austria and Switzerland, so we were hoping that dining out in France would give us a “leaner and meaner” look.  No such luck. Finding a table in Beaune is tough this time of year with all of the tourists in town. Our hotel recommended [...]

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Armchair Travel: On The Road With The New Yorker

Armchair Travel

My wife is no longer my only travel companion: The New Yorker joins us for most trips these days. A few years back one of my wife’s book club friends started loaning me back issues of The New Yorker to tote along on vacation.  Finally, last October, I asked my wife to give me a [...]

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Travel Tech: Taking iTunes On The Road

Travel Tech

Taking music and podcasts with you on your iPhone has never been a problem:  Just connect your ear buds and “blow your mind” as you travel.  But if you want to play your tunes and news over a speaker, you need some extra hardware.  I just finished a two-week trip and “road tested” a couple [...]

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Destination Update (8/19/10)

Destination Updates

Here are this week’s travel destination stories on the Web: The Oldest Cities in Western Europe (GoNOMAD.com) Pacifica’s Mystery Castle (San Jose Mercury News) Mongolian Surprises (GoNOMAD.com) Landing A Big One In Mexico (San Francisco Chronicle) Berlin’s Arts Scene (GoNOMAD.com) The Streetcars Of San Francisco (Dallas Morning News) Summer Sierra Hikes (SFGate.com) Brunei’s Empire Hotel [...]

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Travel News Update (8/18/10)

Travel News Updates

Here are this week’s travel and travel technology stories on the Web: Flying The Unfriendly Skies (AP) It’s A Dog’s (Travel) Life (Los Angeles Times) Are Liquids Really A Threat? (The TSA Blog) Revenge Of The Hotel Clerks (Elliott.org) Cruising Solo (Los Angeles Times) International Blackberry Bans (AP) Free Wi-Fi At SF Bay Area Airports [...]

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Blast From The Past: We’re Not In Gimmelwald Anymore, Toto

Trip Blog Posts

After riding on a gondola, a bus, and four trains, we crossed the border into France and picked up a “Similar” car.  (Hertz rented us a Renault Laguna or “Similar” car, but since we haven’t as yet been able to figure out the make of the vehicle, we assume it is a “Similar” and not [...]

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Travel Essay: Remembering Quincy

Travel Essays

I met Quincy in July of 1984 at a campground just west of the McKenzie Pass on Highway 242 which runs between the Willamette Valley and the town of Sisters on the east side of the Oregon Cascades.  We would spend the next five days together camping out in the wilderness that lies at the [...]

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Travel Tech: MapQuest On The iPhone

App Reviews

Traveling a few hundred miles from home by car has given me a chance to discover whether the MapQuest 4 Mobile app for my iPhone can keep me from getting lost.  The answer:  Yes, but so can a folding paper map from AAA. Finding Your Way Like its “real computer” version, the Map Quest 4 [...]

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Destination Update (8/12/10)

Destination Updates

Here are this week’s travel destination stories on the Web: Ten Unknown European Places (The Sydney Morning Herald) Exploring An Ancient Siamese City (GoNOMAD.com) Normandy’s Quite Glamour (The New York Times) Victoria Day Trip: Butchart Gardens (Chris Around The World) Wining And Equining (Los Angeles Times) London’s Secret Gardens (The Washington Post) An Argentinean Gem [...]

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Travel News Update (8/11/10)

Travel News Updates

Here are this week’s travel and travel technology stories on the Web: iPad Data Costs (Engadget.com) Mexicana Airlines Files For Bankruptcy (AP via The Seattle Times) Fall Travel Bargains Predicted (The Seattle Times) Travel For The Rich Only? (National Geographic Traveler) Free National Park Admission (AP via The Seattle Times) Airline Fees Test Travelers’ Limits [...]

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Blast From The Past: Hiking with Heidi and Pinocchio

Trip Blog Posts

We were joined at dinner last night by a woman from San Diego who said that she came to Gimmelwald because the movie “Heidi” could have been filmed in an area just like this. Maybe Pinocchio grew up around these parts, too. At the urging of our host, Olle, who lent us a couple sets [...]

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Travel Essay: Lost City Of Gold

Travel Essays

It was blazing hot outside in Lewiston, a “big city” in Idaho sitting at that bottom of a canyon where the Clearwater and Snake Rivers join up their watery forces and flow toward a downstream rendezvous with the mighty Columbia to continue their journey on to Astoria and the Pacific Ocean.  I had gone there [...]

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