TripCart - the best place on the web to find things to do in the United States. Presents a religiously updated blog full of advice and tips for trip planning
As a tribute to Michael Jackson, we dug through the web to list some significant Michael Jackson concert venues in the United States. His last concert as part of a world tour in the United States was on January 27, 1989 (20 YEARS AGO!) in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, not far at all from Staples Center.
Some very dedicated mother travels all over the states with her kids while her husband works in what seems to me like a top secret government position. She posted at The Vacationer that she likes taking the kids to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. What Sharon didn’t mention, is that the National Aquarium in Baltimore ranks (just barely) in Parent’s Magazine’s Top Ten Aquariums for Kids in the U.S.
For your trip planning pleasure, here’s the list and their rankings:
I have a very busy friend who’s going on a business trip to Missouri and is bringing her 2 kids and their au pair who will have a car and liberty to take the kids all over the St. Louis area entertaining, which their mom is working. Since she knows I spend all day online reading and writing, she asked me to come with a list of activities for her family to partake in during their little vacation. And it is true, I enjoy nothing more than planning trips. Anyways, here are my findings, read the reviews, looked at pictures, and they all check out—thought I’d share...
Those wacky guys over at Forbes have just released their list of the best cities for single folk. The criteria for decoding how single-friendly a city is was determined by a ranking of culture, nightlife, job growth, cost of living, number of single people, and how easy it is to get some via online dating services. So if you're traveling in the near future and want to make sure you run into your fair share of eligible single people here are the top 10 cities where you should put in some face time-
We don't get how Philly could be better for singles than Miami or Vegas nor does it make sense that Portland (#29) ranks lower than Memphis (#23), unless there's just a lot more people trolling Craigslist in Tennessee.
Here are the cities that ranked #1 in each of the different categories-
According to Hotwire, the place to be this Labor Day weekend will be Chi-town. This is the second year in a row that the Windy City has been the country's favorite place to vacation before wrapping up the summer. Here's the full list of the top 10 with last year's ranking in parenthesis:
Chicago (1)
New York City (18)
Atlanta (4)
St. Louis (12)
Boston (6)
San Francisco (5)
New Orleans (21)
Las Vegas (13)
San Diego (3)
Norfolk-Virginia Beach (34)
It sure is nice to see that New Orleans is making a comeback.
It seems that whenever we travel around there's a general dearth of public bathrooms available. MizPee hopes to garner the "wizzdom" of the crowds by helping you find an appropriate place to potty. The service can be accessed by either sending your city and state in a text message to 415-350-2290 or by using your mobile phone to navigate to their website: www.mizpee.com - just give them your whereabouts and they'll help you find a place to make a wee: "MizPee finds the closest, cleanest toilet and gives you entertaining reading material once you get there. Since the service is cell phone-based, it's always with you, when you really need it." Awesome.
The Big Apple just dropped the big sum of a billion bucks for 3500 bus stations, 330 news stands (shown in the picture above), and 20 public toilets that will soon be popping up all over the city. The new street candy was designed by Nicholas Grimshaw Architects and is composed of 95% recyclable materials. We like the look (TreeHugger has shots of the other installations) but we would have preferred something that looked a little more old school.
Tickets prices in the US continue to rise and are at their highest levels since 2000 according to the US Bureau of Transportation. Average ticket prices have risen another 3.4% to a high of $378 but are still about $20 short of 2000's record high. According to the report the most expensive airports to fly into these days are Anchorage, followed by Cincinnati, Honolulu, San Francisco and New York's John F. Kennedy. The cheapest place to fly into is Dallas' Love Field followed by the ghetto Midway Airport in Chicago.
New Mexico done went and got themselves a sense of humor and their new tourism advertisements playing up their association with Area 51 are pretty hilarious. Unfortunately we couldn't embed the video of their ads here but hop on over to their New Mexico, Earth web site and check out their new ad campaign.
We're suckers for top 10 lists and Forbes Traveler has been kind enough to put together their thoughts on which ten cities in America have the best grub. Their ranking are based on several criteria: # of restaurants, # of fine dining restaurants, representation of regional cuisine, # of second-tier restaurants, # and depth of ethnic restaurants (extra points for a Chinatown), # of neighborhood restaurants frequented by locals, and the number of travelers who think eating out in the city is one of its highlights. And here is the definitive list of America's best restaurant cities-
New York - Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo, TriBeCa, NoLita, the Lower East Side and many many more
Chicago - counter service at Avec to a 22-course experience at Alinea
San Francisco - a great city to Asian in from Bong Su in Market to Green's at Fort Mason
Los Angeles - lots of celebs, great sushi and the best new steakhouse in the US (Wolfgang Puck's CUT)
New Orleans - still recovering from Katrina but most restaurants have made a strong rebound
Houston - here you'll find New Texas cuisine and Nuevo Latino food, head to San Antonio for more traditional TexMex
Washington, D.C.- great international cuisine and the country's finest classic Spanish restaurant Taberna Alabardera
Atlanta - Hotlanta's Midtown and Buckhead neighborhoods are full of great southern flare
Boston - from French to ethnic, there's just about everything somewhere in Beantown
Las Vegas - those free lunch buffets at the casino just keep getting better and better
Led Zeppelin may already be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but we're sure they were jealous when Disney decided to build an Aerosmith roller coaster in Orlando in 1999. Finally, the fates have smiled on Jimmy Page and Robert Plant and by 2008 Myrtle Beach will be graced with a 15-story looping steel roller coaster that promises to get the Led out. It will be one of the signature rides at the newly constructed 140-acre Hard Rock theme park. The park's CEO is thrilled with the cross-generational marketing opportunities: "Led Zeppelin are the icons of hard-rock music, parents and kids alike can relate
to the band's music."
If you're in the mood for a little R&R and don't feel like hitting vacation meccas like Chicago, San Francisco or New York, maybe you should check out some of the more overlooked cities in our fair country. According to MSNBC, these second-tier cities have "great art scenes, friendly locals, delectable cuisine and rich history." Here's the rundown on their suggestions-
Baltimore - blue crabs, Inner Harbor, Mount Vernon neighborhood
The American Institute of Architects compiled their list of the 150 most significant architectual structures in the US. You can now view all of them and vote for your favorite at the America's Favorite Architecture website. You won't be surprised by anything you see in the top 10, but to our eye, the good stuff is towards the back of the pack. Head over and vote for your favorite and find some inspiration for your next weekend getaway.
Virginia's new tourism site is something worth checking out. In an effort to highlight the state's Heritage Music Trail they've developed a site that uses "sing back" technology to let you hear a bluegrass song of your invention based on a few elements you supply. Think of it as a kind of redneck AdLibs where you pick your name, occupation, hobby, etc. You can then email your backwater music gem or send it to someone's cell phone. What a great way to get the word out that Virginia is for lovers.
If you're in Arizona anytime in the near future and looking to do a little spelunking you might want to check out the Kartchner Caverns (about 45 minutes southeast of Tucson). The Caverns were discovered just over thirty years ago when two college students caught a whiff of the sweet smell of bat droppings near a sinkhole and decided to explore. In all, over two-miles of trails were found and some of the rooms have ceilings up to a hundred feet high. For more info check out this great article from the Seattle Times.
America’s
Favorite Architecture is the result of an AIA and Harris
Interactive poll of 1,800 Americans naming their 150 favorite
structures across the nation based on nominations from AIA member
architects.
According to their list American architecture's in the toilet, only a few of the buildings in the top 50 were built in the last 50 years and most of them were built for the government, boring. Here's their uninspiring top 10. The buildings toward the end of the list are a lot more interesting.
In little Montecito, California, lies the 500-acre San Ysidro Ranch. It sits in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains and looks out over the Channel Islands. There are 17 miles of trails situated amongst luxury bungalows that feature hot tubs and wood-burning fireplaces amongst other sumptuous amenities. Hollywood bigwigs have been getting hitched here for over 60 years, starting with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in 1940. Jackie and JFK also got married here as well Julia Roberts and Jennifer Lopez. If you're in the mood to live it up like a celebrity (and have the means) doubles start for around $600 a night.
If you're going to be anywhere near Bridgeton, Pennsylvania (about two hours west of Philly) you should swing by the Ringing Rocks County Park and pound on some stones, the unique rocks resonate when hit with another stone and sound sort of like a bell. There's a huge boulder field dull of these musical rocks made from volcanic basalt. Neatorama has the low-down on other musical rocks and here's more info about Ringing Rocks.
A new travel blog called Geek About has recently posted their list of the top 10 beaches in the world that also offer WiFi. So, when you take time off, if you still need to be plugged in, this list should help make planning your next trip to the sea a little easier. The beaches from the United States that made it into the top 10 include: Clearwater Beach, Florida - this beach off of Tampa has multiple WiFi outlets; Sunset State Beach, California - just south of Santa Cruz, this beach has tons of activities and camping available as well as internet access; Hermosa Beach, California - one of the more happening hotspots in LA for beach-goers, there's also plenty of WiFi via AT&T and iPAss; Waikiki Beach, Hawaii - probably the most beautiful spot on the list, it would be a shame to be latched to the loptop here but it still beats the office.
When you've got that sad, tragic longing in your heart for the greatest city in the world but just can't manage to make it to New York you can always turn to Newyorkology. They've compiled an amazing list of all the webcams around the city - from the United Nations building, to Central Park West, to Ground Zero (featured above), to Lady Liberty herself, you'll be able to nurse your longing at least for a little while.
We're always mesmerized by super hi-resolution photos and these are super fun to play with. That little red square in the inset is the top of the building you see in the picture. It's easy to waste some time here just looking around Boston. This image was taken from the Prudential Tower's Skywalk and is comprised of 612 overlapping images taken with a 300mm lens - this picture has a resolution of 95,000 x 40,000 pixels. Other hi-resolution shots on the site include Yosemite and Zion National Park. Sweet eye candy indeed.
Forbes Traveler recently compiled their very own list of the top 25 sexiest beaches in the world. Most of them are in the Western Hemisphere for some reason and three of them are in the US (though only South Beach in Miami is part of the Lower 48). Two beaches in Hawaii also made the sexy cut: Ka'anapali Beach in Maui and Kauapea Beach on Kauai. Here's Forbes' description of Kauapea-
The so-called "secret beach" on the northern rim of the "Garden Isle" of Kaui
isn't such a secret anymore. Curious tourists regularly stream onto its majestic
span of white-gold sand, which offers nice views of the Kilauea Lighthouse.
Access to the beach is fairly rugged--getting there requires 15 minutes of agile
hiking--but funseekers continue to make the trek.
Ironic Sans has directed us to the Burt Reynolds & Friends museum in Jupiter, Florida. It appears that Mr. Reynolds is a bit of a pack rat and this unique museum is full of all kinds of kitsch, including keys to cities, movie posters, signed photographs, movie scripts and movie props (that canoe propped up against the wall in the corner in the picture above is the canoe from Deliverance). Burt also teaches intensive three-week courses for aspiring actors and he's a deputy sheriff in about half a dozen cities and the entire state of Hawaii, Arizona and South Carolina.
You just flew into New York and you've made your way to your hotel only to realize it's 2 in the morning and your wide awake - what to do? Well, Gothamist has a shiny new mashup available that let's you see where the drama around the city is taking place. Fires, overturned cars, shootings, jumpers, robberies - whatever you're into. You can find out where the happenings around the city are going on in real time and check out a little live NYPD Blue.
Simply stunning. Michael Durham has an amazing blog featuring some great photography. Most of his shots are landscapes but he also proves to be quite dapper with a macro lens. Scroll down for some great shots of a yellowjacket.
There's a scathing article this week about parking problems in LA. Hotspots in Hollywood are raping customers to park on the weekends. Never mind the cover charge for the club themselves, these days it's common to pay up to $50 just to park your Benz-o for the night. The LA Weekly makes a great case for never ending up on Hollywood and Vine at night - you're either stuck in awful traffic, being extorted to drop off your car for a few hours or worried that one of the many rogue towing companies is going to haul your car off (and then give a kickback to the lot). Our advice: find somewhere else to get loaded.
KFC took over 65,000 1-foot by 1-foot tiles to create a giant Colonel Sanders in the desert near Rachel, Nevada (you can check it out if you're on your way to visit Area 51). The 87,500 square-foot logo is the first to be seen from space. Some of the brilliant minds at KFC headquarters said, "If there are extraterrestrials in outer space, KFC wants
to become their restaurant of choice." That's some desperate marketing. Below is a time-lapse video of the logo's creation.
