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tourism posts
Video: "Stuff" skiers say
Feb 11th, 2012 at 2:00PM: I'm in Lake Tahoe--California and Nevada's premier ski destination--visiting my brother and his family. My teenage nephew, a member of the Olympic Valley Freeride & Freestyle Team, turned me on to this farcical video about things skiers say. If you're a skier--or snowboarder--you're fully aware that there are certain phrases ubiquitous to those who spend their days on the slopes--even if the ...
Video of the Day: Guam, where America's day begins
Jan 24th, 2012 at 5:00PM:
Each year, more than a million people visit the Pacific island of Guam, an unincorporated territory of the United States located in Micronesia. This video shows why: breathtaking sunsets, beautiful beaches, fantastic diving, a vibrant tourist district, tropical flora and fauna, and a unique culture influenced by Spanish colonization, Japanese occupation, and now American control.
I'm also ...
Chinese tourists chart a new European Grand Tour
Dec 24th, 2011 at 11:00AM: According to BBC Travel and the China Daily, approximately 70 million Chinese nationals traveled abroad in 2011, up from 10 million in 1999. A chunk of this new crop of Chinese tourists is traveling to Europe, but their itinerary veers a little off the trodden path.
BBC Travel outlined some of the historical highlights of the "new" European Grand Tour: cities like Trier, Germany, the birthplace ...The ever-evolving language of travel
Oct 16th, 2011 at 12:00PM: While it is clear that travel itself has evolved in many ways in the past decade or so, it appears that travel language has, too. It is something that seems to happen overnight, without anyone really noticing that new vocabulary words are being invented but using them anyway. Check out this list of some relatively new lingo that has stuck in the language of travel.
Couch Surfing
While at one ...New North Korea tour company needs approval from the feds
Aug 7th, 2011 at 8:00AM: A new company is trying to get into the North Korea tourism game. Korea Pyongyang Trading USA, based in New York, is looking to diversify out of its current business – importing Pyongyang Soju from North Korea. Founder Steve Park has his eye on Mount Kumgang, the site of a resort that involved a joint venture between South Korean companies and the North Korean government. It went sour when a ...Is the United States a booming travel market for North Korea?!
Aug 6th, 2011 at 3:00PM: International relations may be strained, but that's not stopping the tourists. According to Yonhap News Agency, the number of North Koreans visiting the United States in the first half of 2011 surged more than 50 percent from the same period in 2010. The report cites data from the Department of Homeland Security, which puts the number of visitors in the first six months of the year at 139. In the ...Video of the Day - A ride through Lisbon
Aug 2nd, 2011 at 8:00PM:
Can you describe your favorite city in one word? Yellow Bus Tours, a tour guide company in Portugal, recently asked tourists of Lisbon to describe the Portuguese capital in one word.
Set to a montage of beautiful scenes shot in and around the city, the video sets a vibe that certainly makes the city look inviting. Kudos to Yellow Bus Tours for capturing the feel of the city & ...
Why Plymouth Rock Is New England's Biggest Tourist Trap
Jun 29th, 2011 at 10:30AM:
Have you ever been to a tourist trap? A scam of a site, something over-hyped and talked about until it can't possibly be worth it? The sort of thing you walk up to, snap a photo of and curse as you walk back to your car?
I saw one just the other day. It was Plymouth Rock, the lump of granite that supposedly marks the spot where a ragged band of English religious refugees washed up on ...Zurich to vote on suicide tourism
May 15th, 2011 at 10:00AM: Zurich is set to vote on whether to continue allowing foreigners to seek assisted suicide in the city.
Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, but the public has become increasingly concerned about the number of people coming to their country with the intention of killing themselves.
Two proposals are on the table: one to ban assisted suicide for everyone, the other to limit it to city ...Travel spending from abroad jumped almost a billion dollars
May 11th, 2011 at 10:00AM:
Visitors from outside the United States are bringing plenty of cash with them. In February, they spent $11.6 billion on travel to the country and on tourism-related activities once they got here. That's an increase of $970 million over February 2010. To top things off, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, this is the fourteenth month in a row that foreign visitor spending has ...After the royal wedding: a boost for travel to UK
May 5th, 2011 at 7:00AM:
The big event is over and the attention of the world has moved along to other stories but the verdict is in: the Royal wedding brought a huge spike in travel to the UK.
"Travelers from across the globe arrived in London to watch and be a part of one of the biggest events in history, with visitors from Europe, to Australia and Asia. Londoners and tourists camped outside Westminster Abbey for ...Ten (more) random observations about Ethiopia
Apr 26th, 2011 at 9:30AM:
When writing last year's Ethiopia travel series, I collected twelve random observations about Ethiopia. These were interesting bits of information that didn't fit in any of my articles. While writing my Harar travel series, I collected ten more.
1. The standard traveler's money belt that hangs from your neck and is tucked under your shirt is very amusing to Ethiopians because Oromo women ...Bamburgh Castle excavation reveals Anglo-Saxon building
Apr 22nd, 2011 at 11:00AM:
An excavation in the courtyard of Bamburgh Castle has uncovered an Anglo-Saxon hall, the BBC reports.
It was already known that there was a castle here from the 6th century AD, when England was a patchwork of small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The kingdom of Northumbria was the largest and one of the most powerful. Little was known about the Anglo-Saxon period at Bamburgh, however, because of the ...Lesbian couple sues hotel after being denied double room
Apr 22nd, 2011 at 8:30AM: A lesbian couple is suing a hotel in England after being refused a double room.
Rebecca Nash and Hope Stubbings say they tried to check into the Brunswick Square Hotel in Brighton but were refused a room because the hotel only gives rooms to couples.
This is surprising for a number of reasons. First, it's illegal in the UK for hotels to refuse rooms to gay and lesbian couples. Second, ...The worst zoo I ever saw
Apr 21st, 2011 at 9:00AM: I feel sorry for my Harari friends.
During my stay in Harar, Ethiopia, they were so hospitable, so eager to ensure I had a 100% positive impression of their city and country. For the most part I did, and I left for the capital Addis Ababa with lots of great things to say about Ethiopia.
They should have warned me not to visit the Lion Zoo in Addis Ababa.
It's billed as a natural wonder, ...A visit to an African market
Mar 28th, 2011 at 8:30AM:
One of Africa's best attractions are its markets. Full of vibrant life and color, an African market always makes for a fascinating visit.
Harar has one big and several smaller markets. There used to be one at each of its five gates, but some have dwindled to barely half a dozen women selling tomatoes and potatoes. The only big gate markets now are at Assum Gate, where there's a busy market ...An interview with a traditional African healer
Mar 25th, 2011 at 8:30AM: At first glance, Alia Abdi doesn't look like someone who can cure cancer with a simple recipe. A middle-aged wife and mother living in a typical home at the end of a rambling alley in Harar's old city, she offers visitors hot coffee and a ready smile, like any other hostess in this hospitable town.
Alia gets a lot of visitors. She's a traditional Ethiopian healer, with a variety of herbal ...Hawaii back in business, just how much uncertain
Mar 20th, 2011 at 4:00PM:
After last week's tsunami event and resulting disruptions kept tourists, hotels and a cruise ship from normal island life, Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie declared all "back in business" after a tour of the Big island and Maui.
"We can come back quick," Abercrombie said during a day-long inspection of the islands adding "We're back in business. I don't want information getting out to the ...Top 20 travel destinations - The 2011 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report
Mar 10th, 2011 at 3:00PM: Every couple of years, the World Economic Forum crunches a bunch of numbers and releases a list of the top countries in the world to visit. While ranking 139 countries, they measure aspects such as pricing, culture, environmental protection, safety, and infrastructure. For the 2011 report, Switzerland remained at the number one spot - the returning champion from the last report in 2009. Nine out ...Five things to do in (and around) Dublin, even in the rainy winter
Feb 24th, 2011 at 12:00PM:
Ah, Dublin. Home to Guinness, a Leprechaun museum, an absurdly tall spire and the famous / infamous Temple Bar quarter. It's also home to around 300 days of cloudy or rainy weather, which begs the question: why are you fixing to fork out hundreds, possibly thousands more just to visit in the summer? There's no question that the weather in Europe is far more palatable in the spring and summer ...
