The Good Hotel in San Francisco – Really good

by Annie Scott on

The Good Hotel is a new hotel (opened in 2008) in sunny San Francisco with a lot of green features. Better yet? It was listed in our Budget Travel series as “the first hotel with a conscience” and a great place to stay, with prices from just $55 (low season rock bottom) to around $230. You can also get a complimentary tour of San Francisco from a Golden Gate Greeter for free if you stay there!

This hotel is located in downtown San Fran (home to lots of earth-lovin’ hippies, but we’re not talking Humboldt), and is eco-friendly, pet friendly, and even invites guests to participate in local philanthropic adventures. The rooms have “‘Good’ Amenities: bed frame made of 100% reclaimed wood, light fixture made of glass water bottles and toilet top sink,” but don’t worry. You won’t be without a hairdryer, flat screen TV, iPod docking station, or anything else important. There’s also a heated pool across the street to which guests have access, and you can borrow bicycles to get around.

Sales Manager Emily Oestreicher told Tonic.com about whose idea the green initiatives originally were: “The green initiatives are something that the GM and I are both particularly interested in. The bicycle borrowing was something that I saw a hotel in Palm Springs and in Portland (Oregon) and the general manager, Herve [Blondel], was able to see enough of my enthusiasm to want to move forward with that. So he gave me the leeway to sort of figure out and coordinate it and we made it happen.” Oestreicher also reportedly came up with their popular Twitter page, where you can find deals on rates and more (you know, before Twitter was obvious).

Some more good ideas:
“The eco-friendly hotel décor features reclaimed and recycled construction materials. Vending machines in the lobby are stocked with wallets made from FedEx envelopes and are one example of our inventive ideas to promote a good lifestyle. We are also as fun as we are inventive. You’ll find humorous touches like “Be Good” written on walls of your room.” — The Good Hotel.

Every Joie de Vivre Hotel also gives a minimum of $200 per guest room to local charities every year. And P.S. Complimentary parking for hybrid cars! This hotel really is Good.

NYC best city for singles (if you own a computer)

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Looking for love lust on your next vacation? Your next trip should be to New York, which has knocked Atlanta out of the top spot as the best city in the country for singles. And, why wouldn’t it? You have more than 8 million people chasing their dreams, so the choices are endless. There’s one of everything, so in one night, you could meet every flavor of scumbag available. But, there’s an upside to all this variety, so don’t give up hope yet!

Atlanta fell to the sixth position, with Boston, Chicago, Seattle and Washington, D.C. occupying the second through fifth spots in this annual survey by Forbes.com. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Milwaukee and Philadelphia round out the top 10.

This is New York’s first time in the #1 spot, which evaluates 40 of the largest cities in the United States for “coolness, cost of living alone, culture, job growth, online dting, nightlife, and ratio of singles to the entire population.” Notably absent are: willingness of hot girls in that city to talk to you, cost of buying several drinks for someone genuinely out of your league and adult bookstores nearby to help you when you strike out yet again.

Well … I think New York would win on that one, too.

What pushed New York into the winners circle, apparently, was the number of people with online dating accounts. The city has more people hitting the web to scratch their various itches than any other city in the country.

Top U.S. ports of entry

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Eighty-six percent of international arrivals to the United States come through only 15 ports of entry, according to data from the Department of Transportation. This represents an increase of one percentage point over last year (measuring the first five months of 2008 to the first five months of 2009.

The top three ports of entry are hardly surprising: New York (specifically JFK), Miami and Los Angeles. How insane is it that the leading first impression of our country is in Queens?! These three spots were responsible for 40 percent of all arrivals so far this year. Their share of all international arrivals – trending with the top 15 – increased by roughly one percentage point year-over-year. Miami, Orlando and Philadelphia were the only members of this group to post increases.

Six of the top 15 ports of entry into the United States sustained double-digit decreases in arrivals. The stream through San Francisco is off 18 percent, moving it into the #6 position on the list (behind Honolulu). Detroit dropped 32 percent, pushing it to fifteenth, behind Boston and Philadelphia, and Agana, Guam fell 9 percent, putting it behind Chicago on the list.

Photo of the Day (7.11.09)

by Brenda Yun on

Nothing is more quintessentially San Francisco than the iconic Golden Gate Bridge — and the fact that it eclipses the moon in this stunning shot by Bay Area resident ohadby makes this photo all the more breathtaking. Add the moon’s white glimmer on the water and the sparkle of city lights in the background and he’s captured night and this place in all its glory.

If you have some great travel shots you’d like to share, be sure to upload them to the Gadling pool on Flickr. We might just pick one as our Photo of the Day!

Walt Disney Museum to open this fall

by Jamie Rhein on

When I was writing my post Five famous fathers: Visit where they lived with their children, I did research Walt Disney to see what else there was to head to that is not a theme park. Walt Disney was a dad as well as a family entertainment genius. I wasn’t able to find a site to head to, although he is one of the first men I though of. That’s changing this fall. It’s not that he lived in a museum, but there is a museum coming that will be all about him.

Walt Disney’s daughter, Diane Disney Miller is excited about the October opening of the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. One of the reasons for the museum is to show just how diverse Disney’s life was and to provide insight into the man behind what has become bigger than life.

While reading the AP article about the museum, I was struck by the fact that some people don’t know that Walt Disney was a real person. I suppose that’s because some companies have fake people who are their icons. Betty Crocker comes to mind. Maybe some folks think that Betty Crocker is real.

In the case of Walt Disney, I’d say that his impact on American popular culture is unrivaled. I was also happy to read that the sticky parts of his past are also included such as his testimony in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The museum is not a Disney version of Disney, but a full look at an amazing man.

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Click the images below to learn about some the most unusual museums in the world — from funeral customs, to penises, to velvet paintings, to stripping.