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New York Beyond the Big Apple

For many years, my exposure to the state of New York was limited to the view from inside an air-conditioned car heading north from Ohio to my summer camp in Maine. My family’s annual drive through the Empire State became somewhat of a joke over time, as my brother and I held contests to see [...]

World’s Top Dealer in Endangered Animals Snagged

Anson Wong, the notorious kingpin of the illegal wildlife trade, was finally convicted by a Malaysian court this week and sentenced to prison. He dealt in such rarities as snow leopard pelts, panda skins, Sumatran rhino horns and live Komodo dragons, buying and selling in Australia, China, Madagascar, New Zealand, South America and elsewhere. Full [...]

Speed Trap App

It happens to almost everyone driving from D.C. to the Delaware beaches: you’re tooling along at a reasonable rate enjoying the rural countryside and then suddenly POW! — the speed limit inexplicably drops to 25 mph and there’s a siren and flashing red light behind you. Welcome to the Delaware speed traps. You’d better watch [...]

10 Tips for Walking on Water

This weekend I took advantage of a free Zozi deal I blogged about last week and tried out stand up paddleboarding for the first time. After driving about an hour southeast of Washington, D.C., to YK Kiteboarding and Stand Up Paddleboarding in Maryland’s Chesapeake Beach, I got my sea legs, so to speak, on a [...]

The Radar: Singapore Slides and Bootlegger Prices

Singapore’s Changi Airport just recently opened a 40 foot twisty slide in its Terminal 3. Passengers who spend at least $22 in the airport shops will receive tokens for two rides down the slide. This is the latest addition to the airport, which also features a butterfly garden and a rooftop swimming pool. [YouTube]

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Ask a Park Ranger: Acadia in the Fall

A few weeks ago, we introduced a new magazine feature called “Ask a Park Ranger” where we track down the best advice from the experts about our national parks. We’ll be featuring the results in a column in the magazine and here on our blog. Here’s our first question.
Q. My husband and I are [...]

Book Excerpt: The Last Speakers

Welcome to a new feature on the blog we’re calling Library Fridays, where we’re teaming up with our National Geographic Books division to provide you excerpts and sneak peeks of some of our upcoming titles. Our inaugural excerpt, The Last Speakers, is one I’m particularly excited about. Part travelogue, part anthropological study, the book is [...]

How Do You Do Abu Dhabi?

What to do in Abu Dhabi? A smattering of suggestions…

Have your hands patterned with henna
at the Abu Dhabi Library and Cultural Centre. This stately complex,
across from the Grand Mosque, houses nearly two million volumes.

Rise early and get to the vegetable market
at Port Zayed by 6 a.m. for your pick of fresh fish, fruit, and [...]

Your Take: Do You Lie When You Travel?

Many of our readers have responded to Daisann McLane’s latest column in our September issue, “The Lies We Tell,” in which she discusses posing as a jewelry designer when visiting a gem dealer in Jaipur, India, and other instances when she’s twisted the truth while traveling. An excerpt:
…when I travel, I’ll improvise extravagant new [...]

Traveling with “Survivor”

Jeff Probst travels a lot. As the host for CBS’s Survivor, he knows a thing or two about zipping around the globe and what happens when you drop everyday people into exotic countries. Curious to know what he’s learned from a life on the road, Andrew Evans caught up with Jeff on a steamy beach [...]

Editor’s Note: Cruising the Amazon

Last October, I took a river trip into Peru’s Pacaya Samiria National Preserve aboard the Aqua; my account of this Amazon wilderness is in the latest issue (“The Lost World,” page 82). What I found there constituted a trip of a lifetime and the article chronicles why. Alas, for all the deep reporting I did on its [...]

Brazilians Take Flight

Brasilia-based writer Diogo Alcantara notes that with an increase in international flight options, traveling for Brazilians has never been easier. International trips for Brazilians for a long time were limited to traditional destinations, such as Buenos Aires, New York, Miami, London, and Paris. But Brazil’s growing economy and a stronger currency is changing the scenario, [...]

Photo Gallery: Katrina Then and Now

It’s been five years since the floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina consumed the city of New Orleans. Getty photographer Mario Tama was there as the waters rushed in, and has gone back to show how the city has recovered. A gallery of his before and after photos can be found at National Geographic News.
On August [...]

On Foot Map: Venice’s Dorsoduro

Without cars and structurally unchanged for centuries, mysterious
Venice is an anachronism–but don’t relegate it to living museum status.
In the scenic district of Dorsoduro, modern art and traditional
artisans thrive alongside sleek eateries and much loved enoteche
(wine bars). This walk through Venice’s southwestern side highlights
the best of La Serenissima, the Most Serene Republic, both old and new. [...]

Old Faithful’s New Digs

Old Faithful got some new digs yesterday with the opening of a 26,000-square-foot, $27-million visitor center in Yellowstone National Park. The building, which is expected to earn a LEED Gold certification, features interactive exhibits on what visitors see, hear, and even smell as they watch the iconic geyser erupt. “We’re trying to explain the plumbing [...]

Free Activities for 48 Hours on Zozi.com

We’ve become accustomed to using the Internet in certain ways when booking travel. For me, I go to Kayak.com when searching for a flight. I always check out my hotel on  TripAdvisor for its reviews before booking. But when it comes to booking activities for my trip, I’m always a little bit at my wit’s end. 

So anyone who’s [...]

Galapagos with Teens: Surf or Turf?

Senior editor Norie Quintos, who edits the annual Tours of a
Lifetime package in the magazine, just returned from a trip to the Galapagos
and mainland Ecuador with her teen sons. This is the second of a four-part
series. To see the first post, click here.

The biggest logistical decision travelers to the Galapagos
face is whether to go on [...]

Strange Planet: Giant Water Slide in Grand Rapids

A 500-ft.-long inflatable water slide stretched the length of three city blocks in Grand Rapids, Michigan this past weekend, and thousands of eager young city dwellers lined up for free rides. NPR interviewed 21-year-old Rob Bliss, who masterminded the event. Bliss began organizing free fun in Grand Rapids in 2008, when his giant pillow fight [...]

Adventure Travel with Heart

On the first and last days, it poured rain. At 9,000 feet, I came down with a bad case of bronchitis. At 12,000 feet, my face and my hands swelled disproportionately as a result of altitude sickness. At 15,000 feet, I worried about whether I would make it through at all. Seven days, six nights [...]

Video: Bonneville Speed Week

It went by so fast that we almost missed the annual Bonneville Speed Week! Every year in late August, over 500 competitors gather at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats to test their own personal speed limits and try to break new records, competing in vehicles of all shapes and sizes.
Speed demons have been traveling [...]

Tips for Traveling in a Country After Civil Unrest

Donna M. Airoldi

offers advice for travelers treading into unstable areas of the world. Protests, riots, bombings–these events obviously can’t always be foreseen, and they can happen anywhere, including popular destinations where you may have upcoming plans for a vacation.
Should you cancel? Reschedule for a later date? Go ahead and hope for the best? The answer [...]

Save Mississippi’s Folk Art Grocery

In the past, Margaret’s Grocery in Vicksburg, Mississippi may have been the perfect place for someone to pull over and get a gallon of milk on the way home. Nowadays those pulling out of the grocery driveway are more likely to leave with a couple quirky photographs and a newfound understanding of sanctification. But the [...]

North Carolina Barbecue Trail – The Extra Mile

If you’ve sunken your teeth into Traveler’s September issue, you’ve surely noticed the delectable food trails we featured. Love Louisiana gumbo? Craving Vermont cheddar? You’ll find delicious, state-specific travel ideas for footloose foodies in our Taste of Travel section this month. On page 40, we highlight the North Carolina Barbecue Society’s North Carolina Historic Barbecue [...]

Daily Radar: 08.17.10

Check out South African airline, Kulula’s new plane design.
Not only are the planes lime green, but they’ve gone ahead and labeled
the landing gear (“standard with supa-fly mags”) and used the design to
give poetic license to the head pilot (“captain, my captain”). [lostateminor]

While planning my parents’ trip to Germany, my mom keeps joking that she’s going [...]

Eat, Love, Pizza: Sampling Naples’ Swoon-Worthy Slices

Inspired by the release of “Eat Pray Love,” we asked some our female contributors to write on how those themes have played into their travels. Today Emily Chaplin Krug shares how she followed in the footsteps of best selling author Elizabeth Gilbert to find her Shangri-La, Neapolitan style.
Three little words: I, Love, Pizza. I’ll try [...]