National Comedy Museum Opening This Summer in New York State
Posted on 03/28/2018, 12:15 AM
Baseball players have Cooperstown. Rock stars have their own hall of fame in Cleveland. Even androids, when they're not dreaming of electric sheep, can visualize themselves getting inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh. But what about the age-old, joy-bringing art of comedy? Why isn't there a national museum celebrating history's most important producers of yuks? Come August, you w...
Play the Casanova at New Museum in Venice
Posted on 03/19/2018, 11:30 PM
Giacomo Casanova belongs to the rare class of historical figures whose names became common nouns. Traitorous World War II-era Norwegian leader Vidkun Quisling and France's lecherous Marquis de Sade (lop off the "e" and add an -ism or an -istic) are in the same crew. It's a curious kind of superstardom where the legend outstrips the life to such an extent that the world often forgets there was ev...
The World’s Most Rewarding Source of Free Homestays Is, and Remains, Servas
Posted on 03/02/2018, 8:45 PM
Organizations come and go that arrange for you to stay free-of-charge in someone else’s home or apartment in the course of your travels. The latest leaders in this effort are Couchsurfing.com and Globalfreeloaders.com, which are sometimes criticized as having grown too large to be effective. But another such organization—USServas.org—is older by far and careful to hand-pick both hosts and ...
Introducing Evaneos, a New Tool Connecting You with Local Planning Help
Posted on 03/01/2018, 3:30 PM
Planning for vacation is generally done in two ways today. There’s the O.C.D. version, in which the traveler spends weeks poring over the internet, reading guidebooks, putting down deposits, and prepping. And there’s the laissez-faire way, in which the vacationer picks a tour company—and then leaves the rest for others to plan. With the first option, the traveler gets a customized vacation, but ...
New Looks for Two of London's Most Important Art Museums
Posted on 02/22/2018, 11:15 PM
Fans of art and architecture already have a lot to keep them busy during stays in London—and with free admission at most of the top cultural institutions, the city's treasures are easy to access, too. But museum- and gallery-goers will have even longer to-do lists in the coming months, thanks to the reopening of two high-profile spaces—one a 250-year-old mainstay, the other an oft-reviled Brutali...
Paris' Grand Palais Getting a Grand Makeover
Posted on 02/20/2018, 9:30 PM
The Grand Palais in Paris is getting its largest refurbishment since opening for the Exposition Universelle in 1900, when the mammoth hall on the Champs-Élysées was used to show off sculptures and horse races under the biggest glass roof in Europe. Today, the Grand Palais is used for blockbuster art exhibits, sporting events, and fashion shows. As a matter of fact, one of France's most famed fas...
The South of France Is Getting a New Picasso Museum
Posted on 02/10/2018, 12:00 AM
A former convent in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence is being transformed into a museum to house a trove of works by Pablo Picasso. The driving force behind the project is the artist's stepdaughter, Catherine Hutin-Blay, whose mother, Jacqueline Roque, was the artist's second wife. (As it happens, both Roque and Picasso are buried just outside Aix-en-Provence, at the Château of Vauven...
Arthur Frommer: My Choices for the 10 Most Memorable Destinations
Posted on 02/05/2018, 3:30 PM
As a professional travel writer, I was required to travel to far more destinations than the average American does. In my youthful years, I literally lived on an airplane, in constant motion, often traveling to several countries each week. And I loved every bit of that life—especially these 10 particular destinations. Here, based on that experience, are my choices of the world’s 10 most mem...
Is It Safe to Vacation in Cape Town Once the Water Runs Out?
Posted on 01/31/2018, 12:00 AM
We have never been here before. A major world city is about to run out of fresh water. On April 12, the drought-stricken city of Cape Town, on the southwestern tip of Africa, hits Day Zero. That's when the reservoir levels drop too low, taps run dry, and water must be trucked in. How we reached this point is important. While climate change dramatically reduced rainfall in the Mediterranean clim...
"Three Billboards" Locations Way Outside Missouri
Posted on 01/26/2018, 12:15 AM
The titular small town in Martin McDonagh's Oscar-nominated dark comedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri does not exist in real life. And we're not sure we'd want to visit if it did, considering the corrupt police force, vengeful townsfolk, and flying Molotov cocktails depicted in the movie. The scenery sure is nice, though. Much of it was filmed not in Missouri but 600 miles or so to th...
