Mar 18th, 2010 at 12:30PM: We spend our travel lives hunting down the world's most famous sights like the Eiffel Tower and Machu Picchu. But did you ever consider the amazing sights right in your own backyard? That's the idea behind Obscura Day, an international event taking place in 80 cities worldwide on March 20th.
Obscura Day is dedicated to celebrating the strange and interesting sights found in our hometowns. In ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
detroit posts
Get weird at Obscura Day this weekend
Mar 18th, 2010 at 12:30PM: We spend our travel lives hunting down the world's most famous sights like the Eiffel Tower and Machu Picchu. But did you ever consider the amazing sights right in your own backyard? That's the idea behind Obscura Day, an international event taking place in 80 cities worldwide on March 20th.
Obscura Day is dedicated to celebrating the strange and interesting sights found in our hometowns. In ...My favorite Detroit dive bar: The Old Miami
Jan 11th, 2010 at 3:00PM: The building at 3930 Cass Avenue in Detroit doesn't look like much. A short, squat brick square with a green awning proclaiming it as "The Old Miami," the space has actually had several different names throughout the years.
In the 40's and 50's it was called The Miami Lounge and was an after-work hang for car salesmen in the area. The 60's saw it transition into Ken's Lounge, a sleazy joint ...Man ignites small bomb on U.S. bound plane
Dec 26th, 2009 at 8:00AM: A Nigerian man is under arrest after igniting a bomb on a plane bound for Detroit yesterday. Abdul Mudallad, 23, used a powder strapped to his leg mixed with a syringe containing some sort of liquid to set off a small explosion on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam as it made its final descent into Detroit. While the mixture did explode, the explosion was very small and the ensuing ...NYC tops U.S. list of most expensive cities
Dec 21st, 2009 at 3:00PM: It's not exactly shocking to see that New York City is the most expensive city in the United States. Groceries, gasoline and other items tend to run a tad more than twice the national average. Whether you rent or buy, you'll spend a fortune in this city, where the average price for a home is $1.1 million and an apartment, on average, will cost $3,400 a month.
So, how can so many bloggers live ...New York remains top U.S. port of entry
Dec 12th, 2009 at 8:00AM:
Through the first nine months of this year, overseas visitors passed mostly through only 15 ports of entry. These spots, according to the Department of Commerce accounted for 84 percent of entry traffic into the United States, gaining two percentage points over the first nine months of 2008. New York's JFK airport, Miami and Los Angeles dominated, pulling in 39 percent of all arrivals, up a ...How did international visitors enter the U.S. this year?
Nov 21st, 2009 at 9:00AM: If you visited the United States from overseas, you probably hit the ground in one of 15 ports of entry. These top first stops accounted for 84 percent of all entries from overseas in the first eight months of 2009-- up almost 2 percentage points from the same period in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Traffic through the major ports is becoming slightly more concentrated. This ...Talking Travel with Step Back from the Baggage Claim, Jason Barger
Nov 11th, 2009 at 11:30AM: Jason Barger already knew a fair amount about people before he headed off his 7-day, 7-airport travel spree to do nothing but watch them interact. He'd spent many a spring break leading adolescents and adults on house-building ventures in Mexico, a trip that took him through various airports with a band of travelers of all ages, for example.
Wanting more fodder to further develop his ideas about ...Explore five cities with a "bad rap"
Oct 29th, 2009 at 11:30AM: I grew up in Detroit. I love my city and will be the first tell anyone who thinks it's nothing but a boarded up hellhole just how wrong they are. But I know Detroit's bad rap comes not only from suburb-dwellers and business travelers who just breezed through, but also from the media that portrays it as a city with nothing to offer other than casinos and a punchline. But maybe the tide is changing. ...Detroit's Boblo Boat is back!
Oct 26th, 2009 at 10:30AM: As a child growing up in Detroit, one of my favorite summer activities was riding the "Boblo Boat" down the Detroit River to Boblo Island. An amusement park created in 1898, it closed for good in 1993. The island is now a residential community and any hope of resurrecting the old-time amusement park is gone, but thanks to a local doctor, nostalgia-seekers may soon be able to take a ride on one of ...Detroit's first Restaurant Week kicks off Friday
Sep 16th, 2009 at 1:30PM: Nearly every major city has a Restaurant Week - one week per year when dining establishments all over the city offer multi-course menus at a deep discount. Restaurants see it as a way to pull in new customers or boost sales during a slow period, while diners jump at the chance to try out new places or revisit their favorites for a smaller price.
For the first time, Detroit will be running its own ...Car art of the US landscape: Weird, wacky and wonderful
Sep 15th, 2009 at 2:30PM: It seems fitting that car art has taken its place in the landscape of the United States. When Henry Ford was crafting his Model T, he probably didn't foresee that his innovation would lead to another type of car creativity. Yesterday for Gadling's day of Weird America, Jeremy posted about Detroit's gigantic Uniroyal tire that was once used as a ferris wheel at the World's Fair, and Sean posted ...Detroit, home of the Uniroyal Giant Tire
Sep 14th, 2009 at 9:00AM: Interstate I-94 East from Ann Arbor, Michigan to downtown Detroit is a monotonous drive. Low-rise housing complexes, mall parking lots and the Detroit Metro airport pass you by on the mostly flat route, snaking its way towards the heart of the Motor City. But if there's one weird landmark you're not likely to miss along the way, it's Detroit's very own Uniroyal Giant Tire, rising more than 80 feet ...Michigan travel: Great destinations for a good cause
Aug 5th, 2009 at 11:30AM: With Michigan's economic news sounding about as grim as economic news can sound, Sarah Aldrich has written an ode to seven of Michigan's small towns. Her recent post at Intelligent Travel captures the essence of each of the towns she adores. Reading Adrich's missive reminded me of various friends of mine who have vacationed on Michigan's shores. Everyone of them came back with stories about a ...Top U.S. ports of entry
Aug 2nd, 2009 at 12:00PM: Eighty-six percent of international arrivals to the United States come through only 15 ports of entry, according to data from the Department of Transportation. This represents an increase of one percentage point over last year (measuring the first five months of 2008 to the first five months of 2009.
The top three ports of entry are hardly surprising: New York (specifically JFK), Miami and Los ...Tour Detroit's "good, bad, and hopeful" sides
Jul 17th, 2009 at 12:00PM: Detroit gets a bad rap. So bad, it was voted the "Least Favorite" city in a recent TripAdvisor poll. But one local is trying to help both visitors and residents get a better understanding of the city, to see that maybe it's not the punch line everyone thinks it is.
Linda Yellin, the creator of Feet on the Street Tours, runs walking, bike, and bus tours of the city for individuals and tour ...Apparently, everyone hates Detroit
Jun 25th, 2009 at 4:30PM: TripAdvisor.com conducted a survey of 3,400 Americans, asking them their opinions about various cities. The result may or may not surprise you: Everyone loves New York and everyone hates Detroit (above), which was not only listed as the "Least Favorite," but also the "Least Healthy" and "Dirtiest." Second and third place for least favorite city? Los Angeles and Atlanta. Why's everybody hating on ...Layover: Detroit
Jun 18th, 2009 at 8:30AM: Detroit's long association with the automotive industry led to poor public transportation development during the 1900s. As a result, the airport, which is thirty minutes from either downtown Detroit to the east or Ann Arbor to the west, is poorly connected to the cities. While there are a couple of public buses that visit the airport, neither lines go to any worthwhile destinations at any ...DHS biometric program begins in Atlanta and Detroit
May 30th, 2009 at 10:00AM: Non-U.S. citizens flying from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport will now have to leave their fingerprints as they leave the country. The objective, of course, is to prevent the use of forged or otherwise fraudulent documents, curb identity theft and apprehend "criminals and immigration violators."
"Collecting biometrics allows us to ...Budget summer vacations from Detroit: Ann Arbor
May 7th, 2009 at 10:00AM: Forty miles west of downtown Detroit and twenty minutes from its airport, Ann Arbor is the complete antithesis of it's next door neighbor. Unemployment and crime are among the lowest in the state, property values are high, education is top notch and the city is alive with innovation and activity. Sure, The D has it's virtues (as Mr. Lansel from the Post gently reminds us,) but there is a ...On the road with the Lincoln MKS
May 7th, 2009 at 9:00AM: When Ford contacted us about taking Lincoln's new MKS out for a test drive, I thought that they had the wrong website. Autoblog, our sister site, takes care of all things automotive, and they would certainly be better equipped to handle a test drive. And in addition to being an airplane person, well, I'm not a very good driver. But they made a good point: everyone on Autoblog has seen the MKS a ...
