The TV Show The Office is Boosting Scranton Tourism

by Jamie Rhein on

In case you don’t know this, Dunder Mifflin, the paper company of the show The Office isn’t in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It doesn’t even exist. That’s one thing about Scranton that’s fictitious. There are more. According to Jan Chaney’s Washington Post article Hooters isn’t in Scranton. Benihana isn’t either. Just because those places aren’t in Scranton, doesn’t mean every detail is made up. Local places do get mentioned to add a flavor of authenticity.

Because of The Office’s success, Scranton is getting a tourist following and the city is recognizing there is tourist dollar potential in maximizing the relationship between reality and fiction. At the end of October, 26-28, there is The Office Convention where fans of the show can converge on Scranton to meet some of the cast and participate in a variety of Office related activities. Screenings of episodes at movie theaters are part of it. So is a cast member look-a-like contest. All cast members aren’t coming, but who cares? The ones who are are a hoot. Check this link for the list and updates. Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fisher and John Krasinski are currently not on the list.

You can purchase tickets on-line. Prices range from $25 to $250. Tickets that include visits with cast members are $50 and up.

Hiring A Guide Can Enhance a Travel Experience

by Jamie Rhein on

I’m a huge fan of guides–not necessarily guide books, although I do use them to give me a running start on figuring out where I might head before my interests lead me in other directions, but living, breathing human guides who know a place well. These folks are worth hiring for a few hours tour–or a day. Or even a week. Guides can save lives even.

When trekking with a guide and sherpas through the Markha Valley in Ladakh and on the Annapurna trail in Nepal, I saw fliers for missing hikers who had set off on their own. Either they become lost or hurt. Regardless, they were unable to get back from what they probably imagined as a solo adventure. With thieves not uncommon in Nepal’s mountains, guides offer protection. The trails in Ladakh are so rugged and faint and head in so many directions, it would be easy to get lost. It’s certainly easy to get sick. The sounds of people in my group heaving at night from altitude sickness on my Ladakh trip was not exactly music to my ears. We had a trip that involved people cooking for us and mules carrying our bags, so I can’t fathom what it would be like to attempt 17,000 feet while carrying belongings, food.and water. And, by the way, the people who got the most sick were the ones who fancied themselves the most athletic. They pushed themselves to prove something and BAM!!! a real puke problem.

Even if you don’t need a guide to save your life, guides are a way to find out little tidbits of places and people you wouldn’t know otherwise. In Benares, (Varanasi) India, we hired a guide for a day who took us on a city tour that began early in the morning and ended late in the day. We clicked immediately and since we were traveling with our son, who was not yet a year and a half, and our daughter who was nine, having him take us to a boat for our crack of dawn boat ride on the Ganges River made this excursion seem less daunting. He also filled us in on facinating details about who gets cremated and who doesn’t and pointed out prominent people’s houses and details about the architecture. He also took us to places to buy the best masala tea mix and filled us in on details about trying to get a job as a professor in India’s affirmative action system. One of my favorite moments was listening to him sing in one of the temples we went to to show us how the sound carried.

When we went to Sri Lanka (before kids) but with my father, we hired a guide and a driver for the entire trip. Since we stayed in budget hotels (clean and airconditioned but no frills) and ate simple, local food, the money we spent on our guide/driver/car helped us to see most of the country in nine days. Since my dad got sick for a couple of the days, having a driver allowed for my dad to wait with someone while my husband and I continued to sightsee. Our guide also took us to his house to visit his family at the end of the trip and helped us make a delivery of art supplies and books to an school for kids with developmental delays. We could go at our own pace.

In Beijing we hired a guide to take us around for two days. He was a guide who a friend of ours knew. Besides pointing out historic details when we went to various places, he knew exactly where to shop and where to get the best, local spicy food. As my husband said, “Hurt me.” The hot pot restaurant he took us too was excellent and filled with neighborhood locals.

While living in New Delhi, we mostly headed out on our own, but one of my highlights was the personal guided tour we took with a guy named Nigel. He is British and has been giving guided tours of Old Delhi for years, but unfortunately, I think he may have stopped.

Although, I also like the experience of winging it, guide free to see what comes our way, guides can make traveling easier and provide the details you might miss otherwise. Here’s a helpful tips article, Hiring Guides in Foreign Countries from Wendy Perrin over at Concierge.com.

Free (and Almost Free) in London

by Catherine Bodry on

Fodor’s Travel Wire recently put out a comprehensive list of sites and activities in London that are free, or close to it. I’ve never spent as much money in as short amount of time as I have when I’ve been in London. The last time I was there the dollar was significantly stronger than it is now, yet I managed to blow through my (admittedly meager) savings in a weekend.

Fodor’s list includes free or cheap art museums, free concerts, and cheap theater, opera, and movies. The “offbeat experiences” are the best: look up ancestors in a public record office, visit Hyde Park or Covent Garden, or watch fishmongers in Borough Market.

Don’t forget to account for the cost of transportation when planning your budget — the Tube is not cheap, although it’s the least expensive way to get around London besides walking.

GADLING TAKE FIVE: Week of September 29–October 5

by Jamie Rhein on

How exactly does one pick just five posts to highlight out of a week’s worth of post bounty? Impossible, I say. Particularly since we have one more blogger on our team who has been a writing fiend ever since he started posting on Monday. Blogger Grant Martin has an eye and ear out for cheap travel and the bizarre story like Delta Requires Two Seats for Conjoined Twins.

Then there is Leif Pettersen’s last post on his hilarious series My Bloody Romania. He’s back in Minnesota thinking that everywhere he goes smells like french fries. I’ll miss Leif’s missives here, but more can be found at his blog Killing Batteries.

We’ve had a week of dabbling into science and technology with posts on a man-made island (Neil), space travel (me), and forays into the mysterious like the Loch Ness Monster (Catherine). Kelly’s travel read picks have also started again now that she’s back from Australia. There are five new One for the Road gems.

Here are my five posts if I must pick five–and I must. It’s “gadling TAKE FIVE,” that’s why.

This coming week, watch for another Where on Earth post. Brett’s wild about Gozo, Malta, the place he featured for this go round.

Rock, Paper, Scissors … Well?

by Grant Martin on

Sitting on an upside down garbage can and drinking Bordeaux at a wine and cheese party in this past weekend, we got on the topic of Rock Paper Scissors (naturally) and I was politely informed by my Parisian comrades that I was playing incorrectly. In France, you see, they have the power gesture: The Well.

Rock and Scissors fall in the Well, you see, but Paper covers it.

But doesn’t that create an unfair advantage for The Well? Shouldn’t everyone choose The Well because you have a 2:1 advantage?

Riding the M3 on the way home my brother in law and I discussed this. He pointed out that any semi-intelligent person would choose The Well because of the advantage, but if you were really smart you would choose Paper, knowing what everyone else would choose. So in the end, it comes down to an economically stratified game, with the plebians picking The Well and the elite going with Paper. Classist warfare, boiled down to a game of hand gestures. And that, is what we decided, makes the game French.