Articles

Zac Thompson

Article / Slideshows

What to Do in Aruba When You're Tired of Sunbathing

For many, the allure of a vacation in Aruba has to do with sun, slot machines, and shrimp dinners. If that’s you, we get it. Life is hard; sand is soft. Still, some of us prefer to…

Article / Passportable

Meet UNESCO's New Cultural Heritage Inductees: Reggae, French Perfume, and More

Reggae music from Jamaica, the Irish sport of hurling, Polish Nativity scenes, Korean wrestling, and about three dozen more arts, crafts, folk dances, foods, and festivals are the…

Article / Passportable

The Leaning Tower of Pisa Is Leaning Less

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is standing a little straighter these days. Engineers say that the tilt of the Italian icon has reduced by about 4cm (1.6 in.), according to news reports.More…

Article / Passportable

Underground Luxury Hotel Opens in a Quarry

Bringing new meaning to the term "money pit," the recently opened, mostly subterranean InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland is a ritzy, multimillion-dollar resort with 16 of its 18…

Article / Passportable

Smoke on a Carnival Cruise and You Could Get Kicked Off the Ship

Carnival Cruise Line is getting stricter with passengers who light up at sea. The company has updated its tobacco and marijuana smoking policy to include the possibility of removal…

Article / Passportable

New Rules in Rome Target Rowdy, Boozy Tourists

Italy has just about had it with your nonsense.Straining under the burden of accommodating endless hordes of tourists and their accompanying noise, litter, rowdiness, and traffic…

Article / Air Travel

Stressed at LaGuardia? The Airport Will Bring You a Therapy Dog

Before and after security, onsite airport therapy dog crews make NYC's LaGuardia a little more lovable. 

Article / Passportable

In Japan You Can Build Your Own Kit Kat Now

Like compact cars and the band Cheap Trick, Kit Kat candy bars weren't born in Japan, but they sure went big there. The chocolate-covered wafers (a U.K. creation currently owned…

Article / Passportable

American Airlines Will Allow Early Boarding for Flyers with Nut Allergies

As if determined to undo their decades of peanut pushing, U.S. airlines continue to make concessions to passengers with nut allergies. Hardly any carriers serve those snacks on flights…

Article / Passportable

World's Tallest Statue Unveiled in India

The average height of adult males in India is 5 feet, 5 inches (165cm).Throw in men made of bronze, and that figure might jump up a few notches, at least as of last week. That's when…

Article / Passportable

The Cartoon Network Is Building Its First Hotel

Listen up, fans of Adventure Time, We Bare Bears, and The Powerpuff Girls: The Cartoon Network is getting its own hotel. Developed through a partnership between the animated cable…

Article / Passportable

Colorful New St. Louis Hotel Wants to Give You the Blues (or Reds or Yellows)

"Got the St. Louis Blues," goes the old W.C. Handy song, "just as blue as I can be."Those lyrics take on new meaning at the Angad Arts Hotel, which opens this week amid the many…

Article / Passportable

National Veterans Memorial and Museum Opens in Columbus, Ohio

More than 40 million people have served in the U.S. armed forces. They've been honored with monuments, memorials, and museums in Washington, D.C., across the country, and even around…

Article / Passportable

Oldest Building on D.C.'s National Mall Reopens After Restoration

You've probably never heard of the Lockkeeper's House in Washington, D.C.There's a good reason for that. It's been closed for decades. But this unassuming stone building at the corner…

Article / Slideshows

British Columbia's Rugged Northern Coast: Seeing Bears, Whales, and Wilderness

The west coast of Canada doesn’t come to a full stop—it’s more like an ellipsis . . . Innumerable islets, many of them just uninhabited rocks with some trees on top, dot the Pacific…

Article / Passportable

The Pittsburgh Steelers Are Getting a Roller Coaster

One of America's oldest amusement parks is teaming up with one of the NFL's most storied franchises. Kennywood, which originated as a "trolley park" around the turn of the 20th century…

Article / Passportable

NYC's New Museum of Optical Illusions Wants to Blow Your Mind

Remember that day in fourth grade when your teacher distributed photocopied handouts of M.C. Escher prints, figures that appeared to be differing sizes but were actually the same, and…

Article / Passportable

The Game Is Afoot at London's New Sherlock Escape Room

Would you want to be stuck with Sherlock Holmes in an escape room—one of those games where players are locked in a confined space and have a limited amount of time to find clues, solve…

Article / Passportable

Police Destroy Semi-Submerged Sculpture Park in the Maldives

Police officers wielding saws, pickaxes, and ropes have destroyed the world's first semi-submerged sculpture park. Located in the Maldives, Coralarium—which Frommer's covered this…

Article / Passportable

Acclaimed Houston Art Museum Open After Renovations

After more than six months of renovations, the Renzo Piano-designed main building of Houston's Menil Collection—home to an eclectic horde of 17,000 artworks, from antiquities to…

Article / Arthur Frommer Online

Boost Your Overseas Vacation with a Free Stopover in Switzerland or Belgium

If you've ever longed to take a vacation from your vacation, maybe you should opt for an airline stopover.That's when a plane makes a days-long pit stop on the way to its final…

Article / Passportable

Would You Fly on Wires High Above Vegas? You Can!

Starting in November, you'll be able to ride a zipline high over the Las Vegas Strip—a first for Sin City, where daredevils have previously had to limit themselves to off-Strip zips…

Article / Slideshows

Walt Whitman's Brooklyn: In the Footsteps of the Borough's Bard

Walt Whitman was Brooklyn ’s original bearded bohemian. Though the poet was born on Long Island and spent significant portions of his life in Manhattan, Washington, D.C., and Camden,…

Article / Passportable

WW2 Tower Converted to Vacation Rental in Channel Islands

During World War II, the Nazis occupied the Channel Islands, a string of isolated spots floating between England and France. Using forced labor, the Germans built concrete…

Article / Passportable

New, Heart-Stopping Bungee Catapult Launches in New Zealand

New Zealanders are like Elphaba in Wicked—they're obsessed with defying gravity. The world's first permanent commercial bungee operation was established by AJ Hackett Bungy (that's how…