Destination Updates

Booking Yosemite for Summer or Fall

Destination Updates
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Computer: “We’re Sorry.” “We apologize. There are no available rooms for your desired dates. Please modify your dates or number of guests.” That’s the error message I got on Monday when I tried to book a week’s stay in Yosemite National Park for this June using the park concessionaire’s online reservation system.  It didn’t surprise [...]

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Destination Update: India

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Eco-gram from Charming Chandigarh, The City Beautiful (via EcoLocalizer) Chandigarh, a city in northern India is called The City Beautiful, but I could as well call it The City Green. The city is nestled in the foothills of the evergreen Shivalik hills, and ever since its foundation in 1952, the streets of this well-planned city [...]

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Destination Update: Sweden

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6 Gorgeous Small Rustic Cottages: Sweden’s Urnatur (via sustainablog) As soon as I discovered this collection of small houses, I was taken. Wow! These rustic cabins with green roofs, treehouses, and small homes are located at Urnatur, in Sweden, an eco lodge and retreat center. Urnatur is a family-owned retreat and tree house hotel, with private [...]

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In Vegas, a New Cure for Monster Hangovers

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In Vegas, a new cure for monster hangovers (via AFP) It’s Sunday lunchtime in Las Vegas and Justin looks like he wants to curl up and die. He has a monster hangover after drinking for two days solid. But help, he hopes, is at hand. The 38-year-old from Seattle is among the first customers trying [...]

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Back to “The Big Easy”

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New Orleans’s post-Katrina artistic revival is in full swing (via The Christian Science Monitor) By Carol Strickland, Contributor posted April 15, 2012 at 9:48 am EDT New Orleans When you arrive at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and hear Satchmo’s trumpet pour out soaring notes of “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans,” your pulse [...]

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“Must See” Budapest

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Top 10 Things to See in Budapest (via Downtown Magazine NYC) For more on Budapest, be sure to pick up a copy of the spring 2012 issue of DOWNTOWN Magazine. If you do decide to go, here are the Top 10 must-see sights in this beautiful city.  1. Houses of Parliament (Pest side of river) [...]

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Travel Canada: British Columbia Wines Come of Age

Destination Updates

(Tales Told From The Road” continues its series of “Travel Canada” stories highlighting destinations and attractions from sea-to-sea.) Bad Babies Baby Duck. Baby Deer. Cloyingly sweet and rather disgusting in taste, these were the British Columbia produced wines that I drank in Victoria, B.C. during a visit in 1974. Heck, there probably was  even “Baby [...]

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Travel Canada: “Hanging Out” at Capilano River

Destination Updates

(Beginning today, Tales Told From The Road” will run a series of “Travel Canada” stories highlighting destinations and attractions from sea-to-sea.) Remember that scene from Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom when Jones uses a machete-like sword to cut loose a rope bridge over a canyon, sending “The Bad Guys” flailing their limbs in [...]

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Stockholm: Bringing You There with iPads

Destination Updates

Earlier this week, I attended the 2012 Canada Meeting Marketplace in San Francisco where travel writers spend a day “speed dating” in 15-minute mini-meetings with Canadian tourist boards and travel providers to learn about the latest travel opportunities in Canada.  This year, many Canadian presenters used an iPad as a tool for visually conveying “What’s [...]

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Hey! Where’s My Beer?

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4 Travel Destinations for Craft Beer Lovers (via The Good Pour) We have a son who’s the biggest beer geek we know. Every time we head to his house for dinner, we learn about another artisan or craft beer. Whenever we go out to eat together, he likes to choose an eatery with an impressive [...]

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Visiting “America Sud”

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Six Fascinating Places to Visit in South America (via The Good Pour) The most we here at LetsPour ever think about South America is when we’re uncorking a fabulous bottle of wine from Argentina or Chile. But Donald Gioia has us dreaming of moving…err, traveling, to South America for a nice long vacation (thanks Donald!). [...]

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Free-Diving With Dolphins Off Italy

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The Big Blue II? Free-diving with dolphins off Italy (via AFP) CAPOLIVERI, Italy (AFP) 1332417096 Fabio Muzzi/AFP Jean-Jacques Mayol, son of the late Jacques Mayol, the French diver who inspired the film “The Big Blue”, looks at the sea on March 16, 2012 from the terrace of Villa Glaucos, his father’s house near Capoliveri on [...]

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The Best Marathons and Fun Runs for Wine Lovers

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The Best Marathons and Fun Runs for Wine Lovers (via The Good Pour) Looking for a little wine to go along with your next marathon or 5K? Here are 10 runs through the country’s most beautiful wine regions that you should put on your running calendar this year. 1. Wineglass Marathon and Half Marathon Starting [...]

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In Peru, It’s “Surfs Up!

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Surf’s up in Peru, and commuters hit the waves (via AFP) Not for these commuters the rush for the bus, the crowds on the train or the slow, frustrating crawl through the traffic. Instead every day some Lima residents head for the beach on their way to work. The Peruvian capital is one of the [...]

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The Cherry Trees of Washington, D.C. Bloom

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Century later, US cherry blossoms coup for Japan (via AFP) WASHINGTON (AFP) 1332169825 Karen Bleier/AFP The Jefferson Memorial in Washington is seen as a backdrop to the city’s famed cherry blossoms. A century before cultural diplomacy became a buzzword for governments around the world, Japan scored a spectacular success — Washington’s cherry blossoms, which…

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The “Titanic” Arrives in Belfast

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Titanic comes home as Belfast launches attraction (via AFP) Peter Muhly/AFP/File A replica of a main staircase aboard the Titanic is pictured at the Belfast visitor centre — the world’s biggest Titanic visitor attraction — in Northern Ireland on March 13. The centre opens in the ship’s Belfast birthplace this month, 100 years to the [...]

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Nepal’s “Urban Shamans”

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Nepal shamans spread message to Westerners (via AFP) Prakash Mathema/AFP/File Nepalese shaman Mohan Rai (L) performs a ritual at the Shamanistic Centre in Kathmandu on Febraury 16. After decades of modernisation when witch doctors were almost wiped out, “urban shamans” are enjoying a renaissance among Nepal’s metropolitan middle class and Westerners… Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Dick Jordan

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