Miami: More than the Super Bowl
– “Super Bowl host has serene, artsy sides under the glitz” (SF Chronicle)
- “Party time in Miami: You do have a room, right?” (Chicago Tribune)

Buenos Aires for Vegetarians
– “Steak out in Buenos Aires” (Guardian)

Caribbean Island Guide
– “The 10 Point Caribbean Escapes Plan” (NYT)

China: Hiking the Great Wall
– “Wall to wall adventure” (Sydney Morning Herald)

Italy’s Hippy Hill Town
– “Calcata, Italy: Where Newcomers Gave an Old Town a Second Life” (NYT)

Mexico City Dining
– “In Mexico City, Regional Flavors Unchanged by the Big City” (NYT)

St. Petersburg, FL: Not Just for Oldsters
– “A Fountain of Youth” (Washington Post)

Halloween may be behind us, but in Mexico and parts of the US Latino community the macabre All-Saints goings-on have carried through to today, the second and last day of Día de los Muertos. One-part Catholic holiday, one-part Aztec festival, the Day of the Dead actually spans two days – Nov.1 and 2 – in which families spend all night at the graves of their dear departed, munching candy craniums and bread decorated with bones by the light of skull candles. Skeleton sculptures and elaborate flower-strewn altars to the dead also invade homes, public spaces, schools and office buildings. For the occasion, Reuters has a news report shot in Mexico City’s Zócalo, which, considering it’s built over a massive Aztec temple complex, is where a lot of the el Día action goes down.



For a taste of how the Day of the Dead is celebrated in the US, check out YouTuber omhappy1’s footage of the festivities at LA’s Hollywood Forever cemetery over the weekend.

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)

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)

The video site Turn Here relaunched today with a spruce new design. The good news: a more navigable layout, links to videos featuring nearby locations, and new categories for searching and sorting clips. The short, user-submitted videos of locals talking about their corner of the world are still mostly focused on major US cities — New York, LA, San Francisco — but there is a smattering of new international clips, like this one of Coyoacán in Mexico City. They also seem to have sorted out the issue of people who were using their clips as a free promotional tool, by having sponsored advertising content that’s distinct from the rest. The so-so news: since the current version of the site is just out of the box, some of the features are still a little wobbly and don’t always work on the first click.

Previously
– “Turn Right at the Forward Slash“