James Wysong of Tripso seems to be the man to go to for Halloween travel tales. First there was his column about costumes he’d witnessed over the years while flying (Wysong is a former flight attendant). Today, he weighed in with a list of urban legends of crashes and coincidences traded by airplane crews when they’re not busy handing out your drinks and peanuts. Some are merely strange, others downright creepy:

“Several years ago, a flight crashed shortly after take-off. When authorities recovered the black box, they found that the pilots’ last conversation was about the dating habits of the flight attendants working that day. A few years later, two pilots and an off-duty crew member were talking about the details of that tragedy in the cockpit of their own flight just before take-off. They remarked on how hard it must be for families to hear those final words. Shortly after take-off, their own flight crashed, leaving no survivors. The last sentence was, “So we had better make our conversations good for our families.”

The column has 13 (naturally) such stories, for a full dose of the air-travel heebie-jeebies.

Previously:
– “Halloween at the Airport”

Endless Europe is a web-based reality series, chronicling the adventures of two backpackers and two crew members who did an eight-week jaunt across Europe this July and August. The three Canadians and one American, none older than 23, made the classic post-college circuit of party capitals like London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Prague, as well as newer destinations like Tallinn and Dubrovnik, and hit up the World Cup in Germany for good measure. There’s a map of their whole trip here. The series debuted on October 1, and, to date, there are 12 episodes on their website, EndlessEurope, that cover the crew’s travels to the UK and Germany (you can see the first seven right here on Travelistic). The site was initially used to generate interest in the project through a contest to choose the two hosts, and now has downloadable versions of each episode, and bios and blogs for each of the cast members, where you can get a preview of the mishaps and drunken hijinks to come.

There seems to have been a bipolar choice of two topics in the travel stories published this weekend: creepy, Halloween-themed tales of haunted inns, resurrected neighborhoods, and the end of the road for lost luggage, or serious newspapers (the WaPo, the NYT) trying a fresh take on the quintessential vacation land of the sunny Caribbean.

Los Alamos, CA’s Creepy Inn
The perfect hotel for Halloween (SF Chronicle)

Europe’s Catacombs and Ossuaries
SKULL AND BONES: Continent chock-full of skeletal stashes you can visit (SF Chronicle)

Macabre London
The London prowl (LA Times)

The Afterlife of Lost Luggage
When you and your bags part ways (LA Times)

City of Night of the Living Dead Back from the Dead
Pittsburgh’s South Side, Resurrected (Washington Post)

The Caribbean
Antigua
Intimate Caribbean (Washington Post)

All-Inclusive Resorts
Caribbean Resorts With Infinity Pools, Golf Courses and Sandcastle U. (NYT)

Caribbean Boutique Hotels
Upscale and High Design Hotels in the Caribbean (NYT)

Jost Van Dyke
Jost Van Dyke, a ‘Somewhere’ Barely on the Map Island in the British Virgin Islands (NYT)

Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic Offers a New Place in the Sun (NYT)

Puerto Rico
36 Hours: San Juan (NYT)

(Images via ant468hyde and matt.ohara’s photostreams)

Ever wondered what’s behind the curtain at the end of the baggage claim conveyor belt? Or, what would happen if you just hopped on? So did Chris Jackson of Newbury, NH, who gave in to the impulse and rode the carousel through to the secured luggage area at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport last Tuesday. A panic alarm sounded when a baggage handler finally spotted him. According to a report in New Hampshire’s Union Leader: “Londonderry Police Capt. Bill Hart said Jackson apparently had nothing more up his sleeve than having fun. ‘It appears it was simply a prank,’ he said.” But because we’re in the age of the TSA and terror alerts, there must be consequences – Jackson was charged with criminal trespass, set $5,000 bail, and ordered to stay clear of the airport. (via World Hum)

You might have noticed MNStories’ “Uptown Art Car Parade” clip in our featured videos today. “MNStories” is actually Chuck Olsen, a filmmaker and blogger who runs a site, Minnesota Stories, dedicated to short films about his home state. What you can see here on Travelistic is Chuck’s own work, but the blog features content from users all over the Land o’ Lakes who have a story to tell, such as yesterday’s post of the Twin Cities’ first snowfall. Chuck encourages aspiring vloggers who want to post on his site: “Have fun! Turn the camera on yourself, show us your world. You have a voice – use it!” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

We’re one of Yahoo’s hot links for today, on their roundup, The Nine. Sure we’re sharing screentime with cute cat videos from YouTube and one-stop shopping for all your cow-themed needs, but they like us, they really like us!

The experts-in-everything at Lifehacker have an interesting comment thread going right now, with readers’ tips for getting info while in a new city, especially places where you didn’t expect to end up, or have extra time on a business junket, and did no pre-trip guidebook reading. Suggestions range from the tech-enabled – downloading podcasts, checking websites like TimeOut and VirtualTourist – to the decidedly analog – getting toasted and talking to the locals at the corner bar. Commenter FizzyPopMan even weighed in with one of my favorite low-budget tricks:

“2. SEEKING THE HIGHEST VIEWPOINT.

This is kind of obvious I know, but wherever there is a tall office block or tower with a public viewing area, I will always climb it (well take the lift/elevator anyway). I take a city map with me and attempt to relate this to the direction I am looking. This is a really good way of ‘getting your bearings’ and I am surprised that more people don’t do it. It sometimes involves paying an admission fee (but is usually worth it). If I can’t find an observation tower I make my way to the highest viewpoint (again, map in hand). For example, some of the best views in the world are free (e.g. Hong Kong, San Francisco, Edinburgh….you get the picture).”

Head on over there and throw in your two-cents’ worth.

Wallpaper, the glossy magazine-cum-bible of modernist chic that helped turn “design” and “lifestyle” into the ubiquitous buzzwords they are today, has just released a series of travel guides. Aimed at jet-setting urban voyagers who are already way past visiting the Eiffel Tower or the British Museum (except maybe to see Norman Foster’s Great Court), the 20 guides currently available cover the reigning capitals of design and fashion – New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Milan, Stockholm, Rio – with their picks for hotels, architourism, design must-haves, and faultlessly hip leisure activities. A few up-and-coming destinations for the cognoscenti – Mexico City, Sydney, Istanbul – are also included in the first group of titles, but shoe-ins like Berlin and Hong Kong won’t be available until next spring, and Reykjavik until next fall. Hotel picks don’t include any budget options, but are sure to cater to your deep need to never stay anywhere that doesn’t provide a total design environment. Surprisingly, though, for a magazine that endorses spare-no-expense necessaries like $600 coffee makers, each sleek little volume is available for a paltry $8.95 – only $.20 more than the cover-price of an issue.

Elsewhere:
– Wallpaper* City Guides (Phaidon)
– “Armchair Traveler: Wallpaper City Guides” (NYT)

Hawaii: Earthquake, Shmearthquake
- “Rattled, but Hawaii’s rolling on” (LA Times)
- “On Hawaii’s Big Island: Shaken but not deterred” (USA Today)

Matt Harding Speaks
- “The Guy Who Danced Around the Globe” (Washington Post)

BC’s Gourmet Getaway
- “Harvesting the good life: Kelowna, British Columbia” (SF Chronicle)

Germany: More Than Oompah Bands and Pretzels
- “Europe’s sleeping beauty” (LA Times)

Montreal Rising
- “36 Hours: Montreal” (NYT)

Praga, Warsaw
- “In Warsaw, a Once-Lawless Area Starts Its Way Up” (NYT)

When last we checked in, Scotty and Fiddy, the lads behind a hitchhiking project called Hitch 50, had just left New York on their cross-country mission to hit all 50 state capitals in 50 Days. Thus far, they’ve made it to 15 capitals in 11 days, and are currently heading for number 16, traveling on 1-85 toward Montgomery, AL. Their project has gotten a rush of media attention, including a mention in the same USA Today write-up that featured Travelistic, and a spot on MSNBC.

Their YouTube channel also has regularly posted updates from the road.

Previously:
- “Hitch 50”
- “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Internet“

Travelistic got a nod from USA Today in today’s issue, in a piece rounding up travel video online. Check us out in the top spot of their chart detailing the options!



You can find Tiffany’s Newport Beach clip in today’s featured videos.

- Travelers take their vacations to the Net” (USA Today)

And the saga continues. Reuters announced today that deputy foreign minister Rakhat Aliyev, son-in-law to President Nazarbayev, has bowed down before the comic might of the Borat movie juggernaut, and actually invited the faux-Kazakh journalist to tour Kazakhstan. Said Aliyev: ””I understand that the feelings of many people are hurt by Cohen’s show,” he said. “But we must have a sense of humor and respect the creative freedom of others.” Oh, so now it’s funny, tens-of-millions of PR dollars later. Something makes me think that they’re still working on that “sense of humor” thing over at Kazakh Government HQ; how else to explain the rest of Aliyev’s statement, which contained this gem, delivered in all seriousness:
“ “His trip could yield a lot of discoveries—that women not only travel inside buses but also drive their own cars, that we make wine from grapes, that Jews can freely attend synagogues and so on.”

- “Grumpy Kazakhs invite Borat to “his” land, at last” (Reuters)

Previously:
– “Today in Borat News“

Travelistic got a mention and review in yesterday’s Inside Traveler blog, in a piece about travel video portals:

“Travelistic has depth (in terms of quantity) and incorporates community well. Much like 43 Places, viewers and filmmakers may mark whether they’ve been or want to go to the location featured in each film. And, in good old Flickr style, filmmakers can tag their videos. I navigated the site in beta (trial) form, but now that Travelistic is open to the public (since Monday), I think it’ll keep getting better.”

Thanks for the vote of confidence Jessie and Emily!

– “Internet Itinerary” (IT-Inside Traveler) – second item

I’ve never flown anywhere on Halloween, so I was surprised to learn that, despite our current state of security hassles and identity paranoia, both travelers and flight crews often show up at the airport in costume. Via MSNBC Travel today, a list of get-ups actually witnessed by Tripso Columnist James Wysong. Some are ingenious:

Airline CEO. I wish I had thought of this one. A flight attendant dressed up as the tycoon from the Monopoly game and added a badge identifying himself as an airline CEO. He bragged about his pension during the whole flight, threw fake money around and laughed continuously at the other airline employees. Simple, yet brilliant.

others, decidedly ill-advised:

Osama bin Laden. Maybe funny at a college frat party, but a little too close to the bone at the airport. The person who did this was — believe it or not — a pilot, and let’s just say it went over like a lead balloon. I laughed, not at his costume but at his surprise when he discovered the authorities didn’t think it was funny.

I’m totally dressing up as a phantom piece of lost luggage.

(Image via simonk’s photostream)

And we heart Jaunted. The “Pop Culture travel Guide” had a post yesterday about our file of videos starring everyone’s favorite bikini-travel squad, the Get Out! girls, featuring the inimitable Lindsay Clubine and Misty Rice.

“Travelistic, which launched today, bills itself as the YouTube of Travel. And while you should definitely go over there and check out their treasure trove of travel videos, what we really care about is the fact that they are the only site we have found that allows you to enclose Get Out! girls videos.

So, in the spirit of our HD Travel Shows review we are in the midst of, here is a totally compressed Get Out! girls video. If you click on the above video, Lindsey and her sidekicks will teach you the karmic effects of turtle spotting in Hawaii—like, the more you know.

Since Travelistic currently defaults embedded videos to play, we had to jury rig things a bit otherwise Jaunted readers would have been forced to endure Lindsey all day long. ”

Thanks for the link guys! And rest assured, the auto-play situation is being addressed as I type this.

It must be the unseasonably early cold-snap – this weekend’s travel features skipped over the exotic destinations and adventures in favor of hibernation-season comforts like food, wine, socializing, and luxe lodgings to bundle up in. Elsewhere, the SF Chronicle considered the problem of the “Ugly American”, while the Times of London ran a special section on the US, celebrating our culture of excess, and crowing about the near two-dollar-to-the-pound exchange rate that gives them even more access to it.

Burgundy’s Wine Festival
- “In Beaune, They’ll Drink to That” (Washington Post)

Gourmet California Wineries
- “A more robust wine country” (LA Times)

Istanbul’s Restaurants
- “Istanbul: Fresh as the Morning, or Rooted in Centuries Past” (NYT)

Madrid’s Open-Air Cafés
- “A Night Out on the Terraza in Madrid” (NYT)

Where to Stay Like Royalty
- “Queen-sized holidays” (Globe and Mail)

American Travelers’ Image Problem
- “Taking the ‘ugly’ out of ‘American’ in eyes of rest of the world” (SF Chronicle)

America, as seen by Brits
- “Welcome to America” (Times of London)

- “Don’t do things by halves” (Times of London)

- “America’s hottest hotels” (Times of London)

To kick off your weekend: something from the archive, featuring members of Monty Python before they were known as such.

Ever suspect the pilot of your flight might be playing this game?

The tourist boards of some countries (I’m talking to you Kazakhstan) will fight tooth-and-nail in a vain battle against stereotypes of their country and citizens; Sweden, however, in a typically pacifistic move, has decided to embrace theirs as a marketing gimmick. At the website Stockholm – The Musical, Visit Sweden has set up an e-card generator where you can add your or a friend’s name, a preset “peculiarity” (prudish, talks only English), and watch as both are blended into an a musical extravaganza of Swedish clichés – wacky accents! guys named Sven! dancing meatballs! blondes in bikinis! The all-singing, all-dancing Stockholmers vying for your tourist cash are terrifyingly perky, and promise to “kiss your ass wherever you go.” Even weirder is that this approach appears to be specifically targeted at UK citizens, to judge by the list of names you can choose from; there aren’t too many Gareths, Fionas, and Ians round these parts. I’d really like to how they came up with this idea, one too many rounds of Pripps Blå, perhaps? (via Jaunted)

Daily Candy posted an update of their Travel Lexicon yesterday, with a bunch of journey-related neologisms and portmanteaux suggested by readers. This one’s my favorite:

arm restle
n. the ongoing battle waged with your seatmate over the middle armrest. Maneuvers include elbogarting (slow advance of the elbow to gain ground) and recline and conquer (capturing the armrest during feigned or actual sleep).

followed closely by:

travelanche
n. the state of affairs when one little thing goes wrong and then everything snowballs toward disaster. (“It started as a minor delay in Seattle and ended up a full-blown travelanche involving lost luggage, bad airport food, and dire intestinal consequences.”)

If only there were never a need to define either of them.

(via World Hum)

Previously:
– Word of the Day: Flashpacking

Farecast, an airfare predictor I blogged about back in June, when it was still in private beta, has recently gone public and upped their number of searchable cities from two to 75 (US only). They’ve also incorporated all sorts of helpful features to guide you on your way to the cheapest airfares available. Farecast draws on price feeds from all the major, and many minor airlines, and pairs them with historical pricing data to show you when might be the best time for you to travel to a certain destination, or, if you’re already booking your trip, they eliminate the guess work of wondering if the cheapest fare you can get today might be bettered tomorrow. All fare searches come with a graph of recent pricing on your route, and a prediction as to whether the fares will drop, rise, or hold steady before your departure date. While they won’t book a flight for you, they’ll give you all the necessary booking details, plus a link to the airline, so you can go ahead do it yourself, no service charges for discounters like Orbitz or Expedia included. Another feature will show you all of the previous day’s cheapest flights from an airport of your choice, and if your home ‘port isn’t represented on the site, you can vote to add it. Farecast throws so much useful data your way, that the site can, at times, be tricky to navigate, but the transparency they’re bringing to a really opaque business makes it worthwhile, just the same.

Previously:
– Farecast Airfare predictor

Seems the interwebs are due for another ambitious travel project undertaken by young and underemployed adventurers with little more than a dream and some html skills (and prerequisite ironic hipster ‘staches). Starting today, two 20-something buddies going by the names Scotty and Fiddy are setting off on a quest to hitchhike to all 50 state capitals in 50 days or less. They’re accepting rides and advice via their website, Hitch50, where their current location is shown on a Google Map that’s linked to their GPS-enabled cell phone. They’re also recording their adventures in a blog on the site, and a flickr photostream. Seems they’ve managed to get a ride from their starting point location in Times Square, since at the time of posting their waypoint was centered on I-95, somewhere in the vicinity of Ridgefield, New Jersey. The jury is still out, however, on how they’ll be able to make it to Juneau and Honolulu by November 29, while still adhering to their rule to not pay for any transportation. Best of luck to you, boys. (via Gadling)

Previously:
- Vagabonding
- Wheels: 2, Miles: 10,000
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Internet
- Europe on Foot

LA Times Asia Special:
Macao’s Casinos
- “A new type of treasure island rises”
Nikko, Japan
- “Serenity amid the shoguns”
North Korean Mountains
- “One tiny crack in the border”
South Korean Monasteries
- “A peek at the monastic life”

Barcelona on the Cheap
- “Footloose in Spain’s Capital of Style, Barcelona” (NYT)

European Love Nests
- “Continental hotels for stylish dirty weekends” (Times of London)

Georgia (the country, not the state)
- “In Georgia, a Pilgrimage to the Cradle of Wine” (NYT)

Greenland
- “Magnetic north” (Guardian)

Mexico City
- “Grabbed by the Mariachis” (Times of London)

World Wonders: Tourist Traps, or Trips of a Lifetime?
- “Still got the magic?” (Times of London)

It doesn’t come as much of a shock, after the great foiled-terror-plot/checked-luggage crisis of two months ago, that August has earned the record for the greatest number of “mishandled” bags in four weeks. Over the course of the month, some 437,000 bags went missing – that’s 14,100 a day (for US airlines alone!). And this in a year that’s already seen record statistics for carriers worldwide: 30 million lost bags in 2005. USA Today’s article offers some cold comfort by noting that “the DOT report also shows that airline on-time performance improved slightly after Aug. 10. Airlines boarded planes faster because passengers had fewer carry-ons. And the number of passenger complaints about slow security lines dropped sharply in August.” Though they also added, “airlines say baggage handling is back to normal after the government last week began allowing passengers to carry small containers of liquids on board. Some say they still need upgrades.” Back to “normal”, eh? So basically, planes board and take-off faster, winging you to your destination where you will spend days waiting for your luggage to arrive and rationing your 3 oz bottles of toiletries. Whee!

Previously:
- Weekend Travel Section Roundup
- New Security Restrictions and the Demise of the Carry-on Bag
- Today in Travel Media

(Image via Rob Elliot’s photostream)

Frank Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim museum jump-started the trend of small cities paying big bucks for architecture to draw tourist pesos (aka the Bilbao Effect) back in 1997. Now, architourists have new cause to make the pilgrimage to northwestern Spain: after spending a day in the galleries at a Gehry, they can stay in one. A new hotel from the master of rumpled titanium has just opened in the tiny town of Elciego, roughly 100k south of Bilbao, in the wine-growing region of La Rioja. The hotel Marqués de Riscal is part of a larger winery complex of the same name, and incorporates a vast wine cellar under the building, and a vinotherapy spa where you can soak in oak cask tubs (and pretend you’re fermenting?). The exterior is trademark Gehry, like some kind of spacecraft from planet Pritzker touched down in the middle of an otherwise picture-postcard village. Reuters has a rough cut of their tour of the hotel posted, where a spokesman admits that locals refer to the building as “the thing.”



A local vintner is more circumspect, saying: “There are detractors, there are people astonished by it, people who think it is too much, people who don’t see any architectural value. But time will put it in its place. I think it is going to be very interesting.”

Elsewhere:
- Rioja in a designer glass (Guardian)
- Marqués de Riscal Google mapped (Tagzania)

Ever wondered what happens to airplanes after they take their last trip to the hangar? According to the BBC, this question is on the minds of the bigwigs in the aviation industry, as the first generation of jumbo jets that precipitated the air travel boom of the 70s and beyond, is now due for retirement. The average jet has a life span of 30 years, and currently, the scrapping of planes is not covered by End of Life Vehicles Regulations that pass the cost of dismantling cars onto the manufacturers. With 8,000 aircraft due for retirement in the next 10 years, however, this is likely to change. Boeing, in a preemptive strike against legislation, and one that’s surprisingly good for the environment, has set up the Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association (Afra) to handle the recycling and repurposing of plane components. Working parts are sold for reuse, metals are stripped out and recycled, and for other components, such as the carbon fiber that now constitutes as much as 50% of some planes, research is being conducted into the best methods of disposing of them. Boeing has developed a method of recycling carbon fiber that has such a high-quality end product, it can go right back into plane construction. Always competitive, Airbus has set up its own recycling research initiative – Pamela (Process for Advanced Management of End of Life Aircraft) – backed by 3.2 million euros of investment. Nice to see what can happen when industry realizes that environmentally sound practices are also good business sense, no?
(via Treehugger)

As any assiduous reader of Pitchfork Media knows, Canada, and Montreal in particular, is just churning out top-notch indie pop and -rock acts lately. Showcasing all that goodness, and drawing a roster of international talent to Quebec’s capital, the Pop Montreal Festival kicks off its fifth edition today. Shows by the likes of Joanna Newsom, Beirut, Regina Spektor and hometown boys Islands are scheduled back-to-back between now and the 8th. The original music fest has also branched out into a film festival, Film Pop, and a two-day art, design, creative-free-for-all marketplace called Puces Pop. All this plus Quebecois french, euro culture in North America, and an entire second city built underneath downtown? Is it possible to have a crush on a city? Cause I think I have one on Montreal.

Elsewhere:
- “New Music in Montreal” (NYT)

Jaunted this morning reports that a fourth offensive in Kazakhstan’s war against the Borat movie is upon us. Not content to stop at a highly visible ad section glorifying their country in the NY Times, a state visit by President Nazarbayev, and a $40 million epic about a Kazakh folk hero that’s currently in the works, the Kazakh government is now infiltrating American TV with ads promoting Kazakhstan as an exotic Eurasian destination. Apparently, Nazarbayev is a real tourist draw, because he makes a cameo appearance in the clip. Jaunted poster djk claims to have seen the beast on CNN today, but you can witness its cheesy production values and overly loud voiceover here:



This news follows last week’s report that Borat tried and failed to gain entrance to the White House during Nazarbayev’s meeting with President Bush, to deliver an invitation to his movie. Of course, that didn’t deter him from finding new ways to antagonize the government of his purported home country:

“Shortly after Nazarbayev dedicated a statue in front of the Kazakh embassy, Borat denounced an official Kazakh publicity campaign running in U.S. magazines as ‘disgusting fabrications’ orchestrated by neighboring Uzbekistan.

‘If there is one more item of Uzbek propaganda claiming that we do not drink fermented horse urine, give death penalty for baking bagels, or export over 300 tons of human pubis per year, then we will be left with no alternative but to commence bombardment of their cities with our catapults,’ Borat said.”

Here, to fill the gap between P.J. O’Rourke’s Holidays in Hell and Jackass, comes the Vice Guide to Travel. The anti-hipster hipster magazine that brought you “Dos and Don’ts” fashion mockery, scatological humor by the truckload, and liberal-baiting editorial pranks, has just released their version of a travel documentary, in which the editors, regular contributors like comedian David Cross, and Mr. Johnny “Jackass” Knoxville himself, play a worldwide game of chicken in some of the most “extreme” destinations on earth. Among the stunts on the DVD: hanging with the Mujahideen at an arms market in Pakistan, hunting mythical dinosaurs in the Congo, tracking down the descendants of Nazis in Paraguay who’re keeping the Third Reich alive, and a visit to a training camp for “PLO Boy Scouts” in Beirut. As for tours of the favelas in Rio and the Chernobyl disaster site, though, how badass can you be when fusty old-school rags like the SF Chronicle and the NY Times got there first?




Previously:
- Cooking in the Danger Zone/ Bourdain Behind the Line of Fire

Travel with a DIY streak seemed to be on the minds of travel editors near and far this weekend. The Washington Post turned in a piece on top hostels, as chosen by readers, and the Houston Chronicle and Boston Globe both headed for the hills, with pieces on hiking between the mountain refuges of Norway, and up a newly opened, limited-access trail on Mount Saint Helens, respectively. The London Times’ editors took it upon themselves to vet the Good Hotel Guide’s picks for the top 10 independent small hotels of the year, and find out if they’d earned the accolades.

On a slightly different note, the SF Chronicle did a nice job of combining news and travel coverage in a special section on Mexico, that looked at the post-hurricane redevelopment of Cozumel and Cancún, and the truth behind recent reports of violence and unrest across the country. This excuses them for laying on the “Mystical Mexico” treatment a little thick in a piece about the tradition of brujeria in Veracruz. The LA Times also did their part for informed tourism, with a piece about Art Nouveau architecture in Budapest, which dispelled the idea that the recent protests should prevent anyone from visiting.

Budapest
- “Budapest, so Nouveau” (LA Times)

Hiking
- “Hiking hut to hut” (Houston Chronicle)
- “Moon walk” (Boston Globe)

Hostels
- “High on Hostels, From Farmhouses to Chalets” (Washington Post)

Hotels
- “Small wonders” (Times of London)

Mexico
- “The magic of Los Tuxtlas” (SF Chronicle)

- “Protests, passion part of Mexican culture” (SF Chronicle)

- “Winds change Cancún’s course:
Resorts renovated after Wilma steer clear of spring-break image” (SF Chronicle)\

- “Cozumel rebuilds, new ports sought” (SF Chronicle)