Photo of the day – Lunchtime in Vietnam

by Meg Nesterov on

If it weren’t for the modern water bottles on the tables, this photo could have been taken in any year. Flickr user American Jon captured a beautiful lunchtime scene at the Bac Ha Sunday market in Vietnam, with great color from the traditional costumes and perfect lighting. Bac Ha is known for the many ethnic minorities who are found only in the region, serving up unusual food like thang co, a blood porridge made with horse meat, as well as moonshine.

Want to see your timeless travel photos on Gadling? Add them to the Flickr pool and be sure we can download them for a future Photo of the Day.

Pigeon Forge Winterfest in Tennessee to open with veteran dedication of 5 million lights

by Jessica Festa on

Not sure where to spend the winter this year? Head over to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, for their 22nd annual Pigeon Forge Winterfest. The four month long event will go from November 8, 2011 until February 26, 2012. This year, with the opening day of the festival being near Veteran’s Day, the event will open with a special parade dedicated to veterans as well as a ceremony in Patriot Park that will feature 5 million Winterfest lights.

The origin of Pigeon Forge Winterfest comes from the goal of the town to create activity and tourism in the area during their off-season. Luckily, the festival helps to bring many people to the area during this time and having an off-season is not a problem for Pigeon Forge any longer.

Some of the highlights that event attendees can expect include:

Dollywood’s Smoky Mountain Christmas
November 5-Decemeber 30

Not only will this event feature 4 million twinkling lights, it will also be the opening day for “Christmas on Ice” held in Dolly Parton’s Celebrity Theatre. The show will feature the Ice Theater of New York, the country’s leading ice dancing group, as well as singers who will sing Christmas song favorites.

The Titanic Museum Attraction
November 8-December 31

This event marks the actual ship’s centennial throughout 2012. There will be real snow every Friday and Saturday from November 25 to December 12. Attendees can also enjoy an ice carving competition, taking place on January 14, where people will be able to see the artists working with small hand tools as well as chainsaws.

Wilderness Wildlife Week
January 7-January 14

This week is sponsored by the city and includes educational programs about the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and other topics pertaining to the outdoors. All activities are free, and include events such as guided hikes, classes, seminars and workshops. Learn about park wildlife, enhance your nature photography skills, or gain knowledge on the sport of fly fishing.

Saddle Up!
February 23-February 26

Also sponsored by the city, this portion of Winterfest is a tribute to the American West. Attendees can expect cowboy poetry, Western music, and an authentic chuckwagon cook-off. Don’t miss this, as Saddle Up! attracts some of Western music’s biggest performers, such as Kent Rollins, Ray Doyle, Saddle Cats, Chuck Pyle, and more.

Priceline launches hotels for tonight app

by McLean Robbins on

In a potential attempt to compete with apps like Hotel Tonight, Priceline has launched a new Tonight-Only Deals hotel reservations service that is being bundled into its free Hotel & Rental Car Negotiator app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The new service enables last-minute travelers to choose the exact hotels they want for stays the same night and still enjoy Priceline’s discounts.

“Usage trends show that approximately 70% of priceline.com’s mobile customers are booking hotels for same-day check-in, so there’s a clear market need for the Tonight-Only Deals service,” said John Caine, priceline.com’s senior vice president of marketing.

Tonight-Only Deals will be posted on the service at 11:00 a.m. local time and can be instantly booked up until 11:00 p.m. local time, or until they sell out.

The new service will show the names of all the available Tonight-Only Deals hotels with descriptions, maps and photos, along with the rates and the percentage discounts. Tonight-Only Deals also will display each hotel’s customer satisfaction score and reviews generated by priceline.com guests who have stayed there.

Cities where Tonight-Only Deals can be found include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Ft. Lauderdale, Honolulu, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Fe and Washington, DC.

The concept seems easy. When a traveler searches the app’s published-price hotel listings for a same-night stay, the app will also look for Tonight-Only Deals and alert the traveler if specially discounted deals are available. The traveler will then see a list of up to three available hotel room reservations per city and will see which hotels have reservations available. Travelers can choose to see the Tonight-Only Deals or continue with their regular search.

The app is easy to use – we tested it for our home market (Washington, DC) and easily found three deals for hotels we’d definitely consider at an average discount of about 20%, usually somewhere between $20 and $50.

In contrast, Hotel Tonight, a similar app, showed significantly more area results (two in Arlington, three in DC, and three resorts within a few hour drive). The discounts here appeared to be greater, but the geographic concentration may have been less desirable, depending on what you were looking for.

At the moment, it just means that we’ll be checking both apps when we make sure we find the best possible hotel and the best deal.

Most popular cities for celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving

by McLean Robbins on

Monday, known in the United States as the Columbus Day holiday, holds another name in Canada – Canadian Thanksgiving, which means that this is a three-day weekend throughout much of North America.

Thus, Hotwire has compiled the most popular cities for celebrating, based on both room nights booked and total price.

“While Thanksgiving means family time to many, others see this three day weekend as an opportunity to pack a few overnighters and take a short leisure trip to a big city,” said Clem Bason, President of the Hotwire Group. “With popular Canadian cities seeing a dip in business travel over the holiday and the Canadian dollar nearly on par with the US dollar, there are deals abound in both Canada and the US. Travelers should take advantage of the Thanksgiving weekend discounts, and it looks like many of them already are.”

Destination

Average Price on Hotwire

1.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

$86

2.

New York City, New York

$231

3.

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

$103

4.

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

$99

5.

Chicago, Illinois

$117

6.

Boston, Massachusetts

$166

7.

Las Vegas, Nevada

$106

8.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

$64

9.

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

$93

10.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

$79

Sadly, these trends don’t extend to airfare – flying this weekend appears to be expensive!

White & Church in TriBeCa, New York, serves worm, scorpion, and cricket cocktails

by Jessica Festa on

This past summer, White & Church opened in TriBeCa, New York, as an inventive Italian restaurant with an extensive cocktail list. On the drink menu, not only will you find interesting food-based cocktails such as a Bloody Mary mixed with mussels, as well as nature-inspired libations including a martini made from smoked tree-bark, you will also find cocktails that include bugs.

No more are the days when you can get a drink on the house if you find an insect in your vodka. At White & Church, that insect is actually a garnish.

Some of the bug cocktail options you can sample here, according to Brian Niemietz of the New York Post, include:

  • Summer-This piña-colada style drink is garnished with bamboo (don’t eat) and crickets (eat). Supposedly, they add an element of sweetness to the cocktail.
  • Blue Velvet– This brandy-based libation is a mixture of Sambucca and Créme de Menthe and is topped with a scorpion. Don’t worry, it’s not alive.
  • Why Not– This frozen cocktail is similar to a margarita with the addition of avocado, red pepper, and spicy worms.

Want to see how these cocktails are made for yourself? Check out this video: