Haunted Tours for Halloween Fun: East Coast Edition

by Kelly Amabile on

Want to get spooked this Halloween? If your travels find you in any of these ten East Coast cities, be sure to check out the haunted tours happening on and around Halloween.

Alexandria, VA: This Colonial Tour Group runs their original Ghost and Graveyard Tour, as well as a special enhanced Halloween version, several times throughout the autumn months.

Atlanta, GA: How about a haunted tour on two wheels? City Segway Tours runs a Ghosts and Legends Tour.

Baltimore, MD: Fells Point Ghost Tours is now called Baltimore Ghost Tours. They offer several ghost walks (including a Haunted Pubwalk) and a Haunted Harbor Cruise.

Boston, MA: Boston by Foot will run a one-time-only tour called Beacon Hill with a Boo! on Halloween night.

Charleston, SC: Bulldog Tours offers a variety of spooky walking tours, including the Haunted Jail Tour and the Dark Side of Charleston.

Pensacola, FL: The Historical Society hosts a Haunted House Walking and Trolley Tour – a “frightseeing tour”!

Philadelphia, PA: A walking Ghost Tour of Philadelphia departs daily at 7:30 pm through November.

Newport, RI: Nightly walking tours by Ghosts of Newport run through Halloween. They also run Carved in Stone, a 90-minute tour of the colonial Common Burying Ground.

New York, NY: Ghosts of New York runs an Edgar Allen Poe and his Ghostly Friends Tour each week, plus other haunted city walks.

Washington, DC: Washington Walks hosts a DC Haunted Houses Tour every Wednesday through Halloween.

Don’t miss the list of haunted tours on the West Coast.

Restaurant Menus Available Online for Major American Cities

by Neil Woodburn on

You know the drill. You’re in a strange city, someone gives you a restaurant recommendation, but when you get there, there is nothing on the menu that looks interesting to you.

Well, a new website plans to alleviate that culinary nightmare. MenuPages.com is a database of thousands of menus covering restaurants in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, and South Florida.

The site is organized by regions and cuisines. Simply find the restaurant that’s been recommended and click on the online menu or download the printable PDF file.

The listings are long and impressive–pretty much every restaurant I searched for in Los Angeles popped up. The one disappointment is the rather lackluster review section. Few of the restaurants feature reader reviews. Hopefully this will change in the future as the site catches on.

LOC Wise Guide: American Vacation

by Kelly Amabile on

The Library of Congress has a nifty online magazine called The Wise Guide that appears each month. It’s a creative tool that the LOC folks use to communicate interesting facts and tidbits from their massive repository of photos, videos, prints, audio recordings and films. The website is spirited and fun in design — who knew a .gov could be so engaging? (They smartly partnered with the Ad Council on this public service announcement.)

This month The Wise Guide takes readers back in time through a series of old-school example of US holiday travel. The Vacation feature points to historical photos from the Library’s Pictorial Americana collection that illustrates what traveling and vacations were like in the 19th century. There are classic pictures of summer trolley cars, grand hotels, roadside inns and automobile parades. This one is my favorite. (Be sure to read the caption.)

The June Wise Guide also features a page all about the Grand Ole’ American Flag, just in time for Independence Day.

Smithsonian Exhibit: Encompassing the Globe

by Kelly Amabile on

A fascinating exhibit about the golden age of discovery opened this week at the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery. Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries is the largest exhibit in the Sackler Gallery’s 19-year history. The exhibit runs through mid-September in Washington D.C.

If you can’t make a visit, at least check out their website, which features a slick flash-enhanced overview of the exhibit. Beginning with background about the roots of Portuguese exploration, the exhibit continues with sections on the Indian Ocean, Africa, China, Japan and Brazil. There are some cool things you can do with Google Earth too. The Washington Post has an online photo gallery of over 15 works from the show, which also features objects from Oman, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The exhibit focuses on the cultural exchanges that took place between the Portuguese explorers during their travels, highlighting masterpieces of art that were traded and collected during these journeys.

41st Annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival

by Kelly Amabile on

The 41st annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival kicks off this Wednesday, June 27th on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Each year the cultural event features music and arts from several world regions. This year’s global goodness will focus on the Mekong River, Northern Ireland and the state of Virginia. Quite an interesting culture combo!

The Mekong River: Connecting Cultures feature will celebrate the diversity of the region and its ties to daily life in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and the Chinese province of Yunnan. Programming includes crafts, cooking demonstrations, ritual specialists and artistic and musical performances as diverse as Vietnamese opera, Thai shadow puppetry and Cambodian classical dance.

Northern Ireland’s Smithsonian exhibit area will feature sessions on agriculture and fishing, as well as a collection of pipers, rhymers and mummers. The Roots of Virginia Culture presentation will include delegations from Virginia’s eight Native American tribes, West Africa, and Kent County, England, who together will represent the Native, African American, and English roots of the state.

The festival runs through July 8. Don’t forget to check out Gadling’s huge round-up of other musical summer festivals.