TripCart :: The Travel Blog

2009 Fall Color Staycations

Well, its that time of the year again and for our readers in the right parts of the country - a compact vacation on a tank of gas. Sure, the fall festivals and quaint white church steeples make Vermont Fall Foliage a world-class destination, but, with the right timing (check out our friends at Foliage Network) and a warm sweater - you are ready to hit the parks and forests of the United States and watch the transition from Green to Yellow to Orange. (And we are not talking about the Terror Alert Status!).

Thanks toCheapOair Buzz for this picture:

Here is our 2009 fall foliage destination guide:

Fall Foliage around Boston:

Massachusetts Fall Foliage  is a no brainer - early in the season - head north to New Hampshire, later follow the coast south - from Maine to Connecticut. Nearest to Boston - try Lexington, Concord and Walden Pond. To really see the fall colors in style, consider one of the many Fall Foliage cruises leaving from New England ports - Rhode Island up to Maine.

NY Foliage:

Each borough - Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens (Alley Pond Park - Leaves and Tashlich), Brooklyn and even Staten Island has good and accessible leaf peeping - just hop on the subway (or ferry). Feeling a bit more adventurous, but still no car? You can get a hour-long moving show of Hudson Valley Foliage  from the train (Metro North). Make sure to get a seat on the left side of the train going north or the right going south. Skip rush hour for better fares and less cellphone chatter.

If you have a couple of days to dedicate to New York State fall foliage (and wine tours and more) head north early in the season, while Central Park is still green and check out the Adirondack fall foliage in September.

Chasing Fall Foliage South:

Global warming or not, the leaves change later as you go south. If you'd like to combine some foliage viewing with an urban weekend and maybe take in a show or get tickets for a football game - pick a different city each weekend from Boston down to Washington DC. Philadelphia is a good place for your Fall Foliage PA headquarters and a drive up the Potomac is a great way to see the Maryland Fall Foliage 30 minutes out of the Capital.

Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Mountains lose their crowds and turn yellow, gold and red in the fall and late October is a good time to close out the West Virginia fall foliage season.

And for the 3 people a year who search for "Pittsburgh fall foliage" - we have two pointers - Grandview Avenue and Fallingwater.

For our fans out west:

Its a different experience, the Colorado fall colors, the wild-west towns, the snow covered peaks (and sometimes even, the snow) and the mix of evergreens and aspens. Fall Foliage in Colorado  can be less than an hour outside of Denver - try Georgetown, or a bit further, Estes Park.

Further south, you can even find some decent New Mexico fall foliage spots near Albuquerque, Santa Fe  and in the Four Corners region of the state.

And what would a back to school season trip be without visiting the shopping malls?

Well, its that time of the year again and for our readers in the right parts of the country - a compact vacation on a tank of gas. Sure, the fall festivals and quaint white church steeples make Vermont Fall Foliage a world-class destination, but, with the right timing (check out our friends at Foliage Network) and a warm sweater - you are ready to hit the parks and forests of the United States and watch the transition from Green to Yellow to Orange. (And we are not talking about the Terror Alert Status!).

Thanks toCheapOair Buzz for this picture:

Here is our 2009 fall foliage destination guide:

Fall Foliage around Boston:

Massachusetts Fall Foliage  is a no brainer - early in the season - head north to New Hampshire, later follow the coast south - from Maine to Connecticut. Nearest to Boston - try Lexington, Concord and Walden Pond. To really see the fall colors in style, consider one of the many Fall Foliage cruises leaving from New England ports - Rhode Island up to Maine.

NY Foliage:

Each borough - Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens (Alley Pond Park - Leaves and Tashlich), Brooklyn and even Staten Island has good and accessible leaf peeping - just hop on the subway (or ferry). Feeling a bit more adventurous, but still no car? You can get a hour-long moving show of Hudson Valley Foliage  from the train (Metro North). Make sure to get a seat on the left side of the train going north or the right going south. Skip rush hour for better fares and less cellphone chatter.

If you have a couple of days to dedicate to New York State fall foliage (and wine tours and more) head north early in the season, while Central Park is still green and check out the Adirondack fall foliage in September.

Chasing Fall Foliage South:

Global warming or not, the leaves change later as you go south. If you'd like to combine some foliage viewing with an urban weekend and maybe take in a show or get tickets for a football game - pick a different city each weekend from Boston down to Washington DC. Philadelphia is a good place for your Fall Foliage PA headquarters and a drive up the Potomac is a great way to see the Maryland Fall Foliage 30 minutes out of the Capital.

Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Mountains lose their crowds and turn yellow, gold and red in the fall and late October is a good time to close out the West Virginia fall foliage season.

And for the 3 people a year who search for "Pittsburgh fall foliage" - we have two pointers - Grandview Avenue and Fallingwater.

For our fans out west:

Its a different experience, the Colorado fall colors, the wild-west towns, the snow covered peaks (and sometimes even, the snow) and the mix of evergreens and aspens. Fall Foliage in Colorado  can be less than an hour outside of Denver - try Georgetown, or a bit further, Estes Park.

Further south, you can even find some decent New Mexico fall foliage spots near Albuquerque, Santa Fe  and in the Four Corners region of the state.

And what would a back to school season trip be without visiting the shopping malls?

DOH!

Do your part to promote beer literacy by learning the art of beer tasting. The AHA (American Homebrewers Association) invites YOU to join the ranks of the few, the proud, and the lucky men and women of America who are trained with discriminating abilities to drink beer. YOU can become a beer judge, too, and travel around the U.S. chillaxing and drinking. I’m thisclose to quitting my day job… Every year over 100 beer judges judge 2,300 beers at Denver, Colorado’s Great American Beer Festival. For three days straight at the beginning of October, these guys get to drink beers and give out medals to their favorites. In 2007, 25,000 gallons of beer “flowed.” (And it would be a huge shame to go all the way to Denver and not check out the Coors Brewery, the world’s largest brewery on a single site.) The Madison Homebrewers & Tasters Guild sponsors the Big & Huge Homebrew Competition in April (we just missed it). Wisconsin is home to great breweries, including Miller Brewing Company, Sprecher Brewing Company, Lakefront Brewery, Capital Brewing Company, and more! The Oregon Brewers Festival is in July at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland. Drink and listen to great music for four days straight. And east of Portland, in the town of Hood River, you can visit the Full Sail Brewing Company, get a free tour, and relax with some beers out on the brewery deck overlooking the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area — what a life! It’s like Benjamin Franklin said, so many years ago, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Amen, Brothah!

Coachella - Getting Ready to Rock

Coachella, a huge (by American standards) annual music festival in Indio, California (just outside of Palm Springs) has released their list of bands scheduled to perform over three days from April 27-29th.  The main headliners include: The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bjork, Sonic Youth, Faithless, The Decemberists, Kings of Leon, Rage Against the Machine, Air, Tiesto, DJ Shadow, The Roots and about a hundred other bands.  Hip-hop seems to be sorely underrepresented.  Beware that tickets for this musical extravaganza are from cheap with the 3-day pass running in excess of $250 and a day ticket (the first day looks to be the best day to attend with Sonic Youth, Felix Da Housecat, DJ Shadow, Faithless, Rufus Wainright, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and a bunch of others) is $85.  The Europeans are spoiled by music festival after music festival practically every weekend of the summer, here's a journalist from The Guardian complaining about last year's Coachella.

Beautiful Time-Lapse from the 2006 Reno Balloon Race

106 balloons at the Reno Balloon Race, but how do they "race?"

(thanks neatorama)

"Hey Man, What are you doing for International Talk Like a Pirate Day?"

It always happens around this time of year - the high of Labor Day has worn off, and now you start your frantic search for where to get your Blackbeard on for International Talk Like a Pirate Day. ITLPD was started eleven years back by two friends, a few years later humorist Dave Barry picked up on the idea, since then it's gone international.

But if ye don't know where to drop your anchors this September 19th, the Washington Post has a roundup on some of the better places to set sail for-

• Hunt around for the man himself at Blackbeard's Lodge on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina. There's a free ferry to Blackbeard's old hangout and at Teach's Hole you can get your hands on "over 1000 items that relate to piracy."
• If you're more into a commercial thing then let Mickey get your back at the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride, now with new and improved Johnny Depp - new characters and movie enhancements have been added to this classic ride.  Afterward you and the fams can get right into the middle of the action at the Pirate's Dinner Adventure, there's meant to be lots of sword splay, action and vittles.
• Perhaps the appropriately planned (September 23rd) Portland Pirate Festival's the place for you this weekend - besides pirate music and souvenirs there'll be sword fights, cannon firings and plenty of reason to still talk like a pirate.

Zozobra - It's Like Burning Man in Drag

What do you get when you cross a 290+ year-old festival with a 50-foot burning effigy in a dress, Santa Fe's version of Burning Man: Zozobra. Old Man Gloom, Zozobra's other moniker, is a gigantic white-robed marionette with flaming red hair originally designed William Shuster, Jr. in 1924. The Fiesta de Santa Fe began way back when in 1712 to celebrate the end of the Pueblo Revolt and the restablishment of power by the marquis of Penuela, Jose Chacon Medina Salazar y Villaseor.

Shuster was originally inspired to create Zozobra at a private fiesta for local artisans he was holding at his home. He got the idea from the Yaqui Indians of Mexico who fill an effigy of Judas with firecrackers and burn it during their Holy Week celebrations.  Shuster personally oversaw the construction (and torching) of Zozobra until 1964 when he handed the reigns over to the local chapter of the Kiawanis Club.  Each year over 3,500 man-hours are spent making the puppet for America's oldest community celebration. Over 30,000 people are expected to attend this year's festivities this weekend; here's a quick video of the big dancing man of doom from 2004-

related travel guide: northern new mexico and southern colorado

Fear and Hope in Black Rock City

Our Burning Man veterans here at TripCart couldn't let the week go by without giving a little love to the roughly 40,000 burners spending this week out on the playa of the Black Rock Desert about 90 miles away from Reno, Nevada.

Burning Man started over 20 years ago when Larry Harvey and friends burned an eight-foot man and his dog on Baker Beach in San Francisco. By 1990 the event had been moved to Nevada's Black Rock Desert where about 100 people participated. Six years later the number of attendees had jumped to about 10,000 and as many as 40,000 participants are expected this year.

This year's theme is Hope and Fear: The Future and the Pavilion of the Future is the centerpiece of the event, it's here where the Burning Man will be housed before he gets torched come Saturday. Inside is a maze of art installations providing both utopic and dystopic futures. Words are but a poor substitute for all the videos and photos documenting this amazing cultural event - I don't know what in the hell Larry Harvey is talking about in this clip, but the eye candy is delicious-

Related posts: Top 10 Labor Day Destinations • Top 10 Amusement Parks (Outside of Orlando) • Top 10 Places to Cool Off This Weekend • Burning Man Videos