Find The World’s Best Festivals

Do you travel for food, culture or history? You can find all that and more at a festival, and a website launched this week aims to connect travelers with some of the world’s most unique, exciting and unusual festivals. Fest300 is part practical directory, part inspirational magazine. On the homepage, you’ll find a mix of lists (how about top festivals to enjoy naked?), essays, videos and “festimonial” interviews with participants and performers. Ready to attend something? You can search for festivals by month, location or category (“wild parties” is intriguing).

Throughout Fest300, you’ll also find blog posts and tidbits from founder Chip Conley, a sort of festival “junkie” who founded the Joie de Vivre boutique hotel chain and now travels the world in search of the “collective effervescence” experienced at festivals, sharing his on-the-ground experiences. Why 300? Chip explains, “Fortune lists the 500 largest companies, and Forbes the 400 richest people in the world. We chose 300 experiences as the right number to capture the wide diversity and best festivals the world has to offer.” The site is adding more festivals each week, aiming for 270 by the end of year, with the final 30 to be crowd-sourced by the Fest300 community. Also in the works is a “matchmaking” feature to find the best festivals for you based on your interests.

Take the pledge to attend at least one festival this year at Fest300.com

Dueling Summer Garlic Festivals Find Common Ground

Summer festivals and events often bring open-air concerts, barbecues, annual farm-oriented contests and more. The warm weather experienced in the United States from June through September has a way of doing that. To summer day trippers, it’s often not a problem of finding an event to attend, but choosing which one. Such is the case in Oregon where dueling garlic festivals had friends and neighbors at odds.

The Elephant Garlic Fest (slogan: “fun stinks”) has been held for 15 years in North Plains, Oregon. This year, organizers of the North Plains event decided to combine their festival with an annual barbecue and truck and tractor pull held in Banks, Oregon. Meanwhile, others in North Plains still wanted their garlic festival, so they organized one of their own, the Summer Fest and Garlic Out West (slogan: “where it’s chic to reek”).

With the events happening on two consecutive weekends, one week and less than 10 miles apart, community organizers worried that neither would receive the attendance needed to make them successful.Now, after months of battling that included intellectual property disputes, conflict-of-interest accusations and claims of impropriety, it will be the 2013 North Plains Summer Fest & Garlic Out West Festival in North Plains that prevails. To be held August 9-11, the event will feature live music, food and craft vendors, beer and wine garden, fundraiser runs, pancake breakfasts, a parade down Main Street and more.

The festival also features garlic beer, garlic ice cream, garlic milk shakes and more, as we see in this video:



Meanwhile back in Banks, the Barbecue and Tractor Pull will continue and be held August 16-18, minus the garlic.

Wondering what the big deal is about garlic in Oregon anyway? In 2010, the United States exported 18.6 million pounds of garlic, much of which was grown in Oregon.

8 Ways To Celebrate Oregon Craft Beer Month

Ever since Henry Weinhard opened his brewery in 1856, Oregon has had a taste for beer. Since then, the state has made a name for itself in the beer world. It’s one of the states with the most breweries per capita and Portland itself is home to the largest craft brewing market in the United States. Talk to any Oregonian and the topic of beer will inevitably come up; when you’re from a state that has over 135 brewing companies it’s hard not to.

Which makes it no surprise that the state also has its own designated Craft Beer Month. Summer on the west coast just got a whole lot more attractive didn’t it?

Love beer? Love Oregon? You might want to consider celebrating. Here’s how.

1. Go to a festival
Oregon Brewer’s Festival, this year held July 24-28, is one of Portland’s favorite events, and with good reason: it features over 80 craft beers from around the country and your chance to get to know a handful of them quite intimately. If that’s not good enough for you, Portland International Beer Festival is just a few days before.

2. Plan a road trip that involves at least five breweries
OK, granted you could stay in Portland and probably stand on a street corner and spot five breweries, but you could also plan a road trip across the state to hit up some of the famous breweries, as well as some of the lesser-known ones. The Oregon Brewers Guild has a map that makes doing that quiet simple. You’ll only be constrained by how far you want to drive and what you want to drink.

3. Buy beer and other assorted goods
Don’t have plans for Fourth of July yet? You may want to consider stocking up on brews and various beer paraphernalia at Rogue Brewery’s Fourth of July Sale, taking place at all of their locations (there are eight).

4. Plan a weekend of “research”
Even if you can’t visit Oregon, you can still do some beer research. Start with this year’s 50 Best Oregon Beers and see which ones you can get in your home state. And when you find one that’s not available, book a ticket out west immediately.

5. Run and drink
A sporty town like Portland wouldn’t think twice about drinking and running, which is why there are such things like the Craft Dash, perfect for runners with a hankering for a pre-, during and post-race IPA.

6. Bike and drink
In Bend you can get on the Cycle Pub and work your way around town while drinking and pedaling, and in Portland you can check out the Oregon Brewery Trail bike tour. After all, in this state, bikes and beers go hand in hand.

7. Try a new style of beer
From sour beers (you’ll want to be at Puckerfest) to smoked varieties, there’s probably a variety of beer or two that you haven’t tried – and it’s about time you did.

8. Learn how to homebrew
It should come as no surprise that Oregon has its own homebrew club – brewing since 1979 of course – and if you have ever been interested in making your own beer, Oregon might be the place to start. Check out Portland’s Homebrew Exchange, which sells all kinds of homebrewing supplies. At Uptown Market you can sign up for a bi-weekly homebrewing class. All you ever needed to know in order to kick off those craft brews at home.

Festivals And Events Coming Up This Month

Summer weather brings festivals and events that range from open-air concerts and outdoor car shows to group hikes and more. In June, there are a number of notable summer festivals and events. Some are held annually, others are starting up for the first time this year. Count on good food, warm summer fun and great memories to be made at any of these must-see events.

Gettysburg Festival
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania – June 8
It’s blues, beer and barbecue at the Gettysburg Festival this weekend featuring legendary bluesman Big Jack Johnson’s backing band, the Cornlickers, PA’s First Lady of Blues, Octavia and the U.S. Army Field Band Volunteers. Since 1981, the soldier-musicians of The Field Band Volunteers have performed for millions of listeners around the planet, representing their fellow soldiers through music.

Richmond Bacon Festival
Richmond, Virginia – June 9
A first for the 17th street farmers market, 20 restaurants will compete with bacon-centric dishes and Devils Backbone Brewery and Bold Rock Hard Cider will be pouring more than 20 craft beers. Held by a local brewer and beer distributor, the idea is to design bacon-oriented culinary creations then wash them down with a craft beer.Emmett Cherry Festival
Emmett, Idaho – June 12-15, 2013
Held since the 1930s and always during the second full week of June, the Emmett Cherry Festival serves up a taste of tradition. Cherry Festival events, concerts and carnival all happen in the Emmett City Park starting Wednesday through Saturday. Looking for some down-home goodness? This may be it. Featured are a cherry pit-spitting contest, a pie eating contest and entertainment. Nearly 40,000 people are expected to attend this family-oriented event that celebrates the arrival of the cherries.

Rockin’ Dopsie, Jr. & The Zydeco Twisters
Little Rock, Arkansas – June 27
Rockin’ Dopsie, Jr. & The Zydeco Twisters are the greatest living link to what can best be described as a gumbo of Cajun/Acadian music, Afro-Caribbean rhythms and melodies, and the blues. Held at
Wildwood Park for the Arts in western Little Rock’s Chenal Valley, the event’s gates open at 6 p.m. for outdoor
picnicking, and the concert begins at 8 p.m.

Orion Music and More Festival
Detroit, Michigan – June 6-8
Over 20,000 fans are expected to attend each of the three days of the festival, headlined by Red Hot Chili Peppers on Saturday and Metallica on Sunday with a total of 39 acts scheduled to perform. In addition to five stages, all set up on the Belle Isle baseball fields, there will be a car show, film screenings, horror movie memorabilia, food vendors from around Detroit and more. Featured at Orion Music and More is a 30-foot skate ramp where pro riders will tear up the Vans Vert Ramp while bands perform live.

Outdoor Rise Festival Brings Adventure To New York City

Residents of New York City who are looking to put a little outdoor adventure into their lives will be pleased to learn of an upcoming event that aims to help them do just that. The first ever Outdoor Rise festival is scheduled to take place June 17-23 and will offer a full week of competitions, classes, lectures, films and more. Best off all, the event is scheduled to take place across all five boroughs and will be absolutely free.

Outdoor Rise is sponsored by Discover Outdoors, an organization that is dedicated to improving the “quality of life through meaningful outdoor experiences.” With that in mind, there are some big plans for the upcoming festival with events such as daily yoga classes, kayaking and stand-up paddle boarding opportunities on the Hudson River, bouldering in Central Park and organized hikes along a variety of trails. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There will also be photography workshops, guest speakers, adventure films and more. For a full schedule be sure to check out the events calendar on the Outdoor Rise website.

The hope is that that this event will not only provide a rare opportunity for outdoor adventure to the very metropolitan New York crowd, but also give someone the chance to connect with the outdoors in ways that they never have before. Many people who live in NYC might not even know that these opportunities exist right outside their door, and the dedicated team at Discover Outdoors wants to remind them of this fact. Along the way, they might even inspire them to bigger adventures.