Large portions of the cities of Chicago and Indianapolis will be on the move this weekend, along with scores of other Americans, traveling to Miami to watch the Bears face off against the Colts in Super Bowl XLI. Needless to say, airfares are through-the-roof from either of the competing cities, check out today’s episode of The Map for the full story. There are still hotel rooms to be had, though, if you have another way to hie yourself to Florida before Sunday. Hotel Chatter has been running for play-by-play of the latest Miami room rates all week – as of this morning there were still rooms for $199 at the Summerfield Suites, only 19 miles from the stadium.

Americans overseas face a different challenge: in most other places in the world “Football” means the World-Cup variety, and the locals can’t be bothered to watch or screen the NFL version. Expat Yanks with broadband access, can always watch the game online –PC World has the lowdown on how to find streaming coverage–as long as they’re willing orient their Sunday night/Monday morning schedule around the kickoff time. But if it just won’t feel like the Super Bowl if you’re not in a sports bar with a brew in hand and a crowd of other screaming Americans, here’s a list of links to expat bars and parties around the world:

Budapest
Buenos Aires
Copenhagen
Frankfurt
Hong Kong
Lima
London
Melbourne
Paris
Prague
Shanghai
Tokyo

– The Map: Super Bowl Weekend
– Tagged: Sports
– “Around the globe, it really is a Bears world (Chicago Tribune)
– “Super Bowl Weekend in China? No Problem!” (PC World)
– “Super Bowl: Show me the money” (Guardian)

What is on the mind of the Travelistic viewer today? Your top five most popular tags and searches tell all…
Among the tags, some obvious choices:
– Beaches
– Shopping
– Nightlife
and some less so:
– Street Vendors
– Pak Klong Talat



Your searches span the globe, and hint at francophilic tendencies:
– Paris
– Lady Liberty
– Greektown Chicago
– Philippines
– Pyramid Lake

That’s right, in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, 65 million americans will be in the air or on the road. That’s almost double the number who traveled over Thanksgiving weekend (aka – the busiest travel weekend of the year), and an increase of one million from last year. It’s also a new record for the highest number of people traveling during this period. With such an epic number of people flooding airports and highways, cue the bad weather: Denver International is in lockdown due to a blizzard, which in turn has snarled O’Hare. It snowed heavily around Seattle yesterday, with more storms expected over the weekend, and, on the international scene, it’s so foggy in London that hundreds are stuck at Heathrow, and thousands more caused British Airways’ website to crash trying to find out about their flights. If you’re traveling in the next few days, make sure to check the weather, traffic reports, and airport conditions before you set out.

– “65 million expected to travel over holidays” (MSNBC)
– “Some holiday travel delays at O’Hare” (Chicago Tribune)
– “Blizzard Blankets Colorado, Snarls Holiday Travel ” (Bloomberg)
– “Overnight storm mild, but mountain passes get lots of snow” (Seattle Times)
– “Anger and frustration at Heathrow” (BBC)