Merry Christmas, Gadling Readers! To you, I give this beautiful photo, taken by Morrissey at the Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Looks kind of like an ad for an airline, doesn’t it?
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During the crunch of holiday travel, do yourself a favor and read Seth Stevenson’s great op-ed piece from the NY Times/IHT a few days ago: Hell on Wheels.
It’s a very a propos message. A traveling companion, on my recent travels to Central America asked if bringing a wheeled bag was in order. I said absolutely not (and you’ll know why if you’ve read my recent posts from Costa Rica and Panama).
Mr. Stevenson points out, in a very entertaining piece (written from aboard a ship in the Pacific), that the advent of wheeled bags have enabled and encouraged us to pack much more than we can carry and much more than we need. He points out that they are frequently useless for real traveling, outside of “the taxi-airport-taxi-hotel-shuttle-bus-convention center” trip.
So, avoid the massive steamer trunks (a la Joe vs. the Volcano), minimalize, and experience life…outside the suitcase.
In a part of the world famous for its snow and magnificent mountains, I was quite surprised to learn that there is only one ski resort in all of Alaska.
There is more than one place to ski, of course, but the Alyeska Resort in south-central Alaska is the only place considered a proper resort –- you know, with rooms at the base of the ski lift and snow bunnies frolicking in the hot tubs.
The only problem is that few people outside of Alaska even know about its existence. But that’s all about to change according to a recent article in USA Today. That’s because the owners of the resort are investing $25 million to expand and improve facilities and to re-groom the 1,400 acres of trail to create more friendly slopes (currently 37% of the trails are black diamonds –- good news for hard core skiers but rather scary for amateurs such as myself).
Although the resort still remains “off the radar” in the lower 48, it’s only 40 miles south of Anchorage and therefore rather easy to get to. Perhaps not as easy as Whistler, for example, but it is still worth the journey before everyone else discovers it.
For the uninitiated, Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (just called “McSweeney’s” on the street) is a literature and humor website started several years ago by author Dave Eggers. The site never fails to be entertaining, in its own quirky, ultra-hip way, and it succeeds in its mission to be different from just about everything else out there. (check out a New York Times assessment of the McSweeney’s quarterly here.)
There are dozens of different categories of content, many of interest to the traveler. There are dispatches from a writer who lives in Lisbon, Portugal, travel narratives-slash-recommendations from Kevin Dolgin, who takes a look at everywhere from A to Zagreb, and dispatches from one of the dirtiest rivers in the United States.
The Lists are, in my opinion, the most amusing part of the site. Here are some samples:
Common Illnesses at the Vatican (Hymnorrhoids; Ave Malaria; Exorcysts)
Vacation Slogans for Lower-Tier Towns (A Reasonable Place to Visit; Town in Mirror is Smaller than it Appears; A Place to Gas Up)
Actual Examples of Model Conversational Phrases that the Travel Guide Les Etats-Unis Dans Votre Poche: Edition Bilingue Felt Were So Central to the Experiences Likely to be Undergone by French Visitors to America that it Included Them on its Companion Study Cassette Tape (Yeah! I’ll bet if you laid those burgers end-to-end they would reach to the moon. Let’s go try one, shall we?; Where’s the fine democratic American melting pot?; I’m never lucky at these kinds of luck things.)
Forsake your family this Christmas day and spend a few hours browsing around the site. When they get mad, don’t mention my name.
Are you drunk right now? Chances are, you’re not, according to an article in the Economist about how high prices for hops and barley are threatening Christmas debauchery. The price of beer has skyrocketed this holiday season, and in some cases (God forbid), your favorite micro-brewed beers might have completely disappeared off the shelf.
There’s crop failures all over Australia and Europe, so if you’re sampling the pubs there, don’t expect them to be in a generous holiday spirit. The folks stateside aren’t faring any better. What’s happened is many Pacific northwest farmers have switched to growing corn, instead of hop (what gives beer its unique taste). Corn can be made into ethanol for biofuel, and that’s a booming market right now. Unfortunately, the decrease in hop production, estimated at 50% in the past decade, has led to prices shooting by up to five times what they were. Bigger breweries, like your neighborhood Anheuser-Busch, have it a little better due to long-term contracts, but their six-packs have still increased in price.
On this note, have a merry Christmas everyone, and stay safe. Use a designated driver.