Search

The article focuses on the crackdown of the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority against street-food vendors in Bangkok, Thailand in order to make sidewalks more accessible. Topics covered include experience of some Thais in opening their own street-food cart and their dream of building their own bricks and mortar store, experience of the author of eating nothing but street-food from Bangkok and reasons for the persistence of street-food in Bangkok.

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of traveling to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam together with his family.

In the article, the author discusses why Generation X children can handle the challenges and temptations in the 21st century amidst the worries by their parents about the things they read, see and do.

The article features several restaurants and other dining establishments including Restaurant Bobby Chinn, Wild Rice, and Wild Lotus Restaurant, among others, in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The article presents a description of a tourist vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii aimed at locating the less-expensive goods, services, and experiences available there. It is noted that the cost of every item, no matter how small, is more expensive in Hawaii than elsewhere in the U.S. A variety of moderately-priced lodgings, restaurants, and scenic attractions are presented.

The article presents an account of a trip through the tea plantations of the Darjeeling region of India in the Himalayan foothills. The region produces the world's most expensive teas. Several of the regions 87 tea estates are described and a variety of teas are sampled and evaluated. The tea estate owners and managers are seen as men of considerable ego.

The article presents a first person account of an automobile excursion across the U.S. to exemplify the author's newspaper column on traveling on a limited budget. It was also an attempt to duplicate the first U.S. cross-country automobile trip made in 1903 by Horatio Jackson and Sewell Crocker. The author describes sights and experiences that impressed him in the course of the months-long trip.

The author presents a review of a trip he took across the world, from New York to San Francisco. The trip, which was focuses on low-budget travel and tourism, takes him through Spain, Albania, Turkey and Kyrgyzstan. Details related to each location are reviewed.

The article focuses on Bangkok, Thailand, as a tourist destination, especially for young people. The city's creative revolution is happening in shopping centers and also in market areas. Some say the recent emphasis on architectural design and beauty is the result of the economic crisis of 1997-98, which made it harder for young people to study abroad. The author's theory is that the current wave of hyperconscious aestheticism is a reaction to the dirty, damp and wonderful ugliness of Bangkok's streets. One problem hampering the city's creative development is the population's addiction to fads. INSET: YOU'VE GOT TIL 1 TO PARTY LIKE (AND WITH) THE NATIVES.

The article offers travel tips for Dominica in the Caribbean as well as includes recommendations for accommodations, hotels, and tourist attractions.

A first person narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of visiting tourist spots of Bulgaria.

A first person narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of visiting Chicago, Illinois and witnessing its architectural innovations.

A first person narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of visiting Mumbai, India.

The presents the author's experience when he visited Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. The author says that she and her friend Samira Mesbahi spent just 113.12 dirhams at Shakespeare and Company. The author found a fabulous deal while searching the web, which was Villa 08. The author says that it is a three-bedroom house in gated community Arabian Ranches and the cheapest room here was $60 a night.

The article presents the author's experience of flying by European budget airplanes around Europe. During his seven day tour, the author visited Geneva, Prague, Copenhagen, London, Frez, Paris and Budapest. The author traveled from Geneva to Prague by the airplane of the company Flybaboo. He describes the lounge of Flybaboo at the airport in Geneva as non-business-class.

The article offers the author's experience of visiting tourist attractions of San Juan, Puerto Rico. He makes mention of various affordable hotels and restaurants including Nuyorican Cafe and Aguaviva, and other tourist sites. He visited Casa Blanca, the oldest structure of San Juan, the fortress El Morro, famous museums and shopping spots of the area.

The article presents the author's experience of finding accommodation and eatery options within small time travel budgets in Verbier, Switzerland. The author says that after looking hard for any cost-effective options he was forced to look for other options and finally had to stay in another town Le Châble, Switzerland due to high costs of living in Verbier, Switzerland. Information is also provided on the eateries in the region including Le Rosbif in Le Châble, Switzerland.

The article presents the author's experiences of traveling in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was overwhelmed with the quality of nightlife and the excellent fare offered by numerous restaurants and bars. He gives a graphic account of neighborhood areas, Puerto Madero and Palermo which offer exquisite hotels. The article also gives a list of galleries and museums, restaurants and bars and clubs.

The article discusses the tourism industry in New Orleans, Louisiana following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While tourism has increased since the hurricane, visitors to the city are still arriving in low numbers. In an effort to boost tourism, hotel deals and budget options are abound and trips to the city remain affordable. New Orleans' legendary nightlife remains strong in the city's historic French Quarter.

The article presents the author's comment on his trip to Penang, which is an island off Malaysia's west coast. He includes information on Malaysian cuisines and different food varieties that he has taken during his trip. He also reported about his package tour to the historic port town Malacca nearby Malaysia's capital city Kuala Lumpur.

The author reports on the virtual reality web site, Second Life. The world of Second Life includes hotels, bars, mountains, forests and thousands of virtual acres. It is place to interact rather than play a game as compared to the World of Warcraft site, which involves online role-playing. Businesses, such as American Apparel, open in-game boutiques on the site to build their brands. INSET: Design Yourself a Body; Boogie All Night.

The article presents the author's experience of visiting Jost Van Dyke, Virgin Islands. The author went to Jost Van Dyke form Tortola, British Virgin Island, on a ferry. Ali Baba's is an open-air bar-restaurant that offers Brugal rum and Carib beer. White Bay Villas and the Sandcastle Hotel are some the hotels in Jost Van Dyke.

The article presents the author's experience of visiting Barcelona, capital of Spain. The author stayed at Hostal Gat Raval, a hotel. He had visited Museu d'Art Contemporani De Barcelona, a museum that exhibits pop music albums, La Rambla, the parklike pedestrian and others. He had also visited bars including Inopia Classic Bar, Mamacafé and others. The retail stores visited by the author includes Castañer, Nubius and others.

The article presents information about ski resorts in Bariloche, Argentina.

The article discusses the author's travel to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to trace the remnants of the love affair between French writer Marguerite Duras and a wealthy Chinese man, which served as the raw material for her 1984 novel "The Lover."

The article features town of Jackson in Wyoming and offers information on its tourist attractions.

The article features the city of Palm Beach, Florida and provides information on the tourist attractions in the city.

The article looks into the factors that contribute to the growth of the travel industry and tourism in Cambodia.

Relates personal experience of traveling to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Stay at the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Devi resort; Excursions to elephant camps offered by travel agencies. INSET: LODGING, DINING AND SHOPPING FOR EVERY POCKETBOOK, by Matt Gross..

The article offers the author's insights on his interest in Vietnamese food which made him move to Vietnam, wherein he tried to fit in with the locals.

The article reports on the deleted tweets of Lena Dunham, the 24-year-old creator of HBO's "Girls," who offended some of her followers after she posted a photo of herself wearing a Muslim veil or cracking jokes.

As a traveler, I am not a particularly choosy person. I will go pretty much anywhere, anytime. Wander on horseback into the mountains of Kyrgyzstan? Why not? Spend the night in a sketchy Burmese border town? Sure! Eat my way through Bridgeport, Conn.? Loved it. Once, I even spent four consecutive Sunday nights in Geneva -- in midwinter -- an ordeal to which no rational adventurer would willingly submit. In fact, of all the world's roughly 200 nations, there was only one -- besides Afghanistan and Iraq (which my wife has deemed too dangerous) -- that I had absolutely zero interest in ever visiting: Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SING to me of the man, O Muse -- that cleverest of men, most favored by the gods, most frustrated by them, too. Sing to me of endlessly lost Odysseus, whose 10-year journey home, from the scorched and blood-stained plains of Troy to the Ionian island of Ithaca, was a decade of disaster. Sing to me of the Cyclops, the Sirens, Calypso and Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, of challenges confronted and conquered, destiny delayed and at long last achieved. So sing to me, I begged the Muse one Friday evening in May, or, hey, you know what? Just send me an intercity bus -- I've gotta get out of here. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IN 15 years of traveling to Asia, I have seen and done a number of strange things. I have eaten writhing octopus tentacles in Seoul, and I've been shepherded into a Phnom Penh nightclub by a Cambodian dwarf in a tuxedo. At this point, little surprises me. But when I arrived in the city of Malang, in the cool hills of inland East Java, I discovered something I never imagined existed. It lay, as most wonderful things in Asian cities do, down a narrow lane -- this one near the town center, across from the squall of a bird market. At first, I didn't realize what I'd found. It seemed like a tidy middle-class neighborhood, some houses gaily painted in yellows and greens, others with a kind of Arizona desert-chic design. A bakery called Mega Aussie sold sweet rolls, and in the midmorning light people were stretching laundry to dry. Then I stopped in my tracks and listened. This was odd: The tinnitic buzz of Honda scooters had fallen away, as had the honking of truck horns, the calls of noodle vendors, and the general bustle of Malang's 800,000 people. All that was left was silence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

THE minute I walked into the steakhouse, I knew I was in the wrong place. Or maybe exactly the right place. This was N9ne, at the Palms Casino Resort, a few blocks from the Las Vegas Strip, and it was definitely not my scene. The slick design -- leather in muted colors, steel and aluminum accents, and silly lighting -- was one thing, but I've dealt with worse. No, it was the clientele: big men with vigorous, voluminous hair, a penchant for untucked dress shirts, done-up women at their sides and a kind of frat-boy bluster that terrifies a balding, neurotic little Brooklynite like me. I came to know the men as the Shays -- a term adopted by my friend Jennifer Cornthwaite, a V.I.P. host at the Palms whom I'd met at a bar a couple of nights before. It derives from an e-mail Jennifer's ex-boss once wrote, in which he spelled ''touche'' as ''too shay.'' Soon, a Vegas type had been profiled: manly at a glance, uninhibited, at ease with cocktail waitresses and expensive cars. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WALK into the Ace Hotel, on the corner of Broadway and 29th Street, at any given time, and here is what you may find: The band Jac might be playing in one corner of the vast lobby, their horn-and-accordion tunes bouncing off the century-old mosaic floor, the dark wood paneling, the 17 1/2-foot white columns. In one of the red-suede sofa nooks, under a huge American flag bought at the Brimfield Antique Show, a motley crew of friends from Washington -- a women's-wear designer, a tour guide, a defense contractor -- might be striking up a conversation with the British pop-soul singer Edei. In the middle of the lobby, the long library-style black tables have been colonized by MacBooks. Someone, somewhere, is sure to be saying, ''I hear Q-Tip D.J.'s here on Fridays.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DEAR CHONGQING, To address a letter to a city of any kind is folly. To send a letter to a metropolis of your immensity -- 32 million residents! -- shows, as we say here in New York, chutzpah. Also it's a bit weird. And yet I'm writing anyway, because I don't quite know how else to get a handle on the six days I spent with you in October -- six days in which I felt embraced and ignored, beloved and rejected, entrapped and, in the end, liberated. Please let me explain: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THE place was called Cronin's Yard, and it was somewhere around here -- it had to be. Off to my right, past the barbed-wire fences that bordered intense green pastures, rose the first russet foothills of Macgillycuddy's Reeks, the highest mountain peaks in Ireland, swathed in a fog punctured in rare spots by the pale morning sun. In there -- somewhere -- was the Yard, supposedly the best starting point for hikers in the Reeks, and now, after four days of driving southwest from Dublin to County Kerry without a map, GPS or, really, any sense of Irish geography, I was so close. All I had to do was find it. I had plenty of time to do so. Although I'd just wasted close to an hour on a needless, if gorgeous, detour down a long, swerving single-lane road to Carragh Lake -- thanks for the directions, supermarket clerks -- it was not yet even 10 o'clock. And as I drove the rented Fiat back on the tight rural routes, I relaxed enough to enjoy the scenery and the delightfully odd village names (Oulagh, Ownagarry, Kilgobnet) without thinking that I might, you know, somehow get lost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOMETIME back in 2000, Allen S. Rout, a systems programmer from Gainesville, Fla., posted a few photos of his 5-month-old son, Stephen, on his personal Web site. They were the kind of photos that every parent takes, but one in particular stood out: Stephen wearing a pair of red overalls, smiling in a crib. ''We're really blessed,'' Mr. Rout wrote as the caption. ''Stephen is an amazingly happy baby.'' The photo had faded from memory until last July, when Mr. Rout, curious about his online reputation, did a Google search of himself. Deep within the results pages, he found the picture of Stephen. Only, it wasn't exactly the same picture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AT midday in July, the Tangier medina was a ghost town. With shadows reduced to slivers, even in the narrowest of the ochre alleyways, residents retreated to lunch behind thick wooden doors or to relax inside their antique silver shops. It was hot and still, despite the occasional breeze from the Mediterranean, and only fools dared venture out -- fools, that is, like me. Not only was I outside, but I was also moving quickly in the sun, turning corners and following curves without thinking. Instinctively, I took a left at the Cafe Centrale, for decades one of the city's prime people-watching spots, feeling closer to my goal. Maybe it lay up those jagged stairs, or past that unfamiliar mosque or through that arch where the hooded woman was filling a bucket of water from a pump, but it was close. I could tell because I didn't recognize anything -- it was all new. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IN the claustrophobic confines of New York City, nothing marks the beginning of summer like an open-air dance party. And in South Brooklyn on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, summer commenced at an event space known as the Bklyn Yard. In a grove of leafy trees, hundreds of women (exposed shoulders, gladiator sandals) and men (straw hats, crisp shorts, multicolored Nikes) swayed to the effervescent beats of Michael Mayer, a techno D.J. from Cologne, Germany. Local children turned the Yard's boccie courts into sandboxes, while their parents picked at freshly made brick-oven pizzas. The line for drinks (sangria, Sixpoint Craft Ales) stretched nearly as long as the line for the portable toilets. Shortly after 8 o'clock, the sun began to set, turning the sky a vibrant pink that was reflected in the placid waters running alongside the Yard: the notoriously polluted Gowanus Canal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Bklyn Yard is open Fridays to Sundays all summer. On Fridays the space hosts a beer garden that opens at 6 p.m. (no cover). Saturdays are generally centered on food, such as a lobster bake cooked up by the Red Hook Lobster Pound (cover varies). And the Sunday Best dance party is $8 advance, $12 at the door. The Yard is at 388-400 Carroll Street, on the canal. Visit bklynyard.com for more details. The Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club conducts free canoe trips every other Wednesday and Saturday through the summer. The dock is on Second Street near Bond Street. More information: waterfrontmuseum.org/dredgers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ONCE upon a time, a young man went for a walk. It was December 1933, and an 18-year-old Englishman named Patrick Leigh Fermor put on a pair of hobnail boots and a secondhand greatcoat, gathered up his rucksack and left London on a ship bound for Rotterdam, where he planned to travel 1,400 miles to Istanbul -- on foot. He had virtually no money; at best, he'd arrive in, say, Munich to find his mother had sent him $:5. But what he did have was an outgoing nature, a sense of adventure, an affinity for languages and a broad network of friends of friends. ''If I lived on bread and cheese and apples,'' he later wrote, ''jogging along on fifty pounds a year like Lord Durham with a few noughts knocked off, there would even be some cash left over for papers and pencils and an occasional mug of beer. A new life! Freedom! Something to write about!'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IT was a busy day. In the morning, I'd followed a creek as far upstream as I could, until it disappeared underground. At midday, I'd stopped in town for a slice of pepperoni pizza. And in the afternoon, I'd explored a chain-link-fence maze at the edge of a university. Now, with dinnertime approaching, I was pedaling home on the trusty bicycle that had taken me to the far corners of my world. I was 10 years old. That blue BMX may have been the last bike I owned, but in the past quarter-century I've never lost my appreciation for the freedom of movement that two wheels offer. Powered not by expensive gas but by cheap leg energy, easy and usually free to park, bicycles are perhaps the ideal vehicle for a frugal traveler, capable of taking you across a city or, if you have the time and ambition, around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

NICOLA DE THOMASIS, a round-bellied, bearded, bespectacled man from the rough-hewn hills of Abruzzo, stood near the head of his dinner table, holding a pair of tongs -- and my fate -- in his hand. He had already placed on my plate an almost lethally large portion of spaghetti alla chitarra, dressed with the region's traditional tomato-and-lamb ragu, and his tong-bearing hand kept inching closer and closer to the communal pasta platter until, at last, he dove in with the instrument, scooped up a final, fatal tangle of noodles and added them to my dish. I was done for. But if I was going to die, this was absolutely the way to go. I had already sampled the family's wild-boar sausage, chunky prosciutto whose craggy appearance belied juicy depths, and sharp pecorino from the sheep that outnumber the humans in Abbateggio, this village (population 420) at the edge of Majella National Park. The spaghetti was thick and toothsome, made by the expert hands of Nicola's wife, Nicoletta, who'd sliced it on a chitarra, a guitarlike box of wires that gives the pasta flat, almost crisp edges. After that would come more: lamb chops, breaded and fried and drizzled with lemon, their rib bones arcing elegantly away from the meat; simple roasted potatoes; Savoy cabbage sauteed into the warm, vegetal equivalent of a grandmother's hug. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

DAY after day in January, the rain poured down on the California coast without pause or pity -- some of the worst storms to hit the state in a decade. High winds took out power lines and overturned SUVs. Garbage washed up on beaches. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their mudslide-threatened homes. And on one particular Tuesday afternoon, in the Mission District of San Francisco, the heavens focused their fury on a visiting father from Brooklyn -- i.e., me -- who, so self-absorbed he was blind to the calamities around him, had decided to walk home from the supermarket with his 13-month-old daughter, Sasha, in her stroller. Only six and a half blocks, I thought. No need to use my weeklong bus and cable car pass ($26). But within a block, the downpour had rolled off my waterproof jacket and soaked my jeans through. On the next block, a homeless woman joined us, complaining that ''it's a terrible thing when you have to steal cupcakes to eat.'' True enough, but I was too stressed to commiserate. And on the third block, the inevitable happened. The paper grocery bag hanging over the back of Sasha's stroller disintegrated in the rain, spilling a week's worth of organic groceries -- a dense honeydew melon, supple young broccoli, tiny cremini mushrooms -- across the flooded sidewalk. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IN the depths of a New York City winter, it's easy to forget what tropical warmth really feels like -- that close, comforting pressure on your bare skin, the humid aroma of vegetal growth and decay, the way vistas both urban and pastoral seem to shimmer, sigh and relax in the heat. You can remember these things, sure, but they seem abstract -- faded dreams from another life. Until, that is, you find a cheap flight down south and plan a one-day escape from the frigid slush. Even with airfares edging back up, deals are still plentiful for those with a little flexibility. So, a couple of weeks ago, when I spotted a Delta Airlines flight for $189 (taxes and fees included) that would take me to Miami in the morning and return that very evening, I snatched it. In between, I would have about nine hours to soak up as much of that city's sockless, pastel culture as I could afford on a budget of, as usual, close to nothing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

BACK in 1996, if you were going to pick someone to cover the cruise industry, you might not immediately have thought of Carolyn Spencer Brown. A cruise newbie, Ms. Brown easily got seasick and was dumfounded by things like preset dining times. She described her attitude back then as ''Frankly, it's not my style of travel.'' But that didn't stop an editor at The Washington Post from assigning her the cruise beat, and after her first trip, on Celebrity's Zenith ship, she got hooked. Thirteen years and 150 cruises later, the 47-year-old is now an aficionado (she even met her husband on a cruise), and has since moved on from The Post to become editor in chief of CruiseCritic.com, an online magazine and discussion board devoted to all things seaworthy (and not so seaworthy). I recently spoke with her by phone about a business that, all too often, seems out of reach for frugal travelers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

NOT far from Waseda University in Tokyo, around the corner from a 7-Eleven, down a tidy alley, lies a ramen shop that doesn't look like a ramen shop. In fact, Ganko, as it's called, doesn't look like anything at all. There's no sign, no windows, only a raggedy black tarp set like a tent against a tiled wall, with a white animal bone dangling from a chain to signal (somehow) what lies within. Past the tarp and through a sliding glass door is Ganko proper. Five stools are lined up along a faux-wood counter, and above it a thin space opens like a proscenium onto a small kitchen, crusted black with age and smoke but hardly dirty. The lone performer is a ramen chef. With a week's stubble on his chin, his eyeglasses fogged with steam and a towel wrapped around his neck, he certainly looks ganko, or stubborn, and he speaks hardly a word as he methodically fills bowls with careful dollops of flavorings and fats, ladles of rich broth, noodles cooked just al dente and shaken free of excess water, a slab of roast pork, a supple sheet of seaweed, a tangle of pickled bamboo shoots. All is silent until the final moment, when the chef drizzles hot oil on top and the shreds of pale-green scallion squeal and sizzle. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

EVEN in a Dantean hellscape as nightmarish as Kennedy Airport, the Delta arrivals area is an inferno unto itself. With six zones -- some international, some domestic -- spread across two low-ceilinged, ill-lighted terminals whose depths often block cellphone signals, travelers require a virtual Ph.D. in urban spelunking to navigate. And that's if you're a New Yorker. If you've come from Miami, Madrid or Moscow, and perhaps speak less than fluent English, the arrivals areas can be as opaque as a graffiti-scarred cinderblock wall. How do I get into the city? Where's my luggage? Where's the bathroom? Where's my daughter? The answers to these questions can flummox even the savviest travelers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]