U.S. Civil Rights Trail Links Dozens of Historic Sites in 14 States
Posted on 01/16/2018, 11:00 PM
Fourteen states, covering a chunk of the U.S. from Delaware to Kansas, are joining together to promote tourism to more than 100 landmarks crucial to the struggle for civil rights. The U.S. Civil Rights Trail is a first-of-its-kind effort by tourism officials to expand smaller state programs, such as the Mississippi Freedom Trail, to cover a multi-state region predominantly in the South, the setti...
Arthur Frommer: For No Real Reason, Feds Attack the Legality of Cannabis Tourism
Posted on 01/12/2018, 1:00 AM
Because the current U.S. Attorney General is a fierce opponent of marijuana, we can expect a massive legal attack against travel to the states—mainly California and Colorado—that have recently legalized its use. What is startling about this prospect is that the alleged dangers of smoking marijuana have been denied by every respectable study. The key examination of marijuana was cond...
NYC's Met to Charge Mandatory Admission to Out-of-Towners
Posted on 01/05/2018, 11:15 PM
For the first time since its founding in the 1870s, New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art is instituting a mandatory admission fee. Starting March 1, visitors who do not live in New York State will be charged $25 to enter. That ticket will be valid for three consecutive days at the Met and its offshoots, the Met Breuer and the Cloisters. There will not be separate lines at any of those plac...
When Southern California Museums Open for Free This Month
Posted on 01/04/2018, 12:30 AM
The 13th annual Free-for-All day at Southern California museums will be Sunday, January 28. Nineteen institutions in the area will waive their admission fees on that day, offering access to their artistic, cultural, natural, and scientific holdings at no charge. An additional 18 museums where admission is always free are also listed as participants—though in their cases, we guess the event is m...
Want a Cannabis Vacation? Now There's a Whole Town for That
Posted on 01/03/2018, 12:00 AM
One day after California, America's most populous state, made recreational cannabis consumption legal, the Los Angeles Times reported on an entire town where getting stoned is the whole point of the joint. It's called Nipton—as in Nipton in the bud. The village was purchased last September by American Green, a publicly traded, Arizona-based cannabis company. Nipton is a speck of a century-old mi...
Two New Biographies Are Indispensable for Trips Through Europe or America
Posted on 12/27/2017, 12:00 AM
Hundreds of thousands of Americans are currently purchasing and avidly reading two monumental biographies in book form about two monumental figures in world and American history. In position number one on every bestseller list is Walter Isaacson’s 900-page volume on the life and achievements of Leonardo da Vinci (Simon & Schuster). The other, ranked closely behind and almost as large, is R...
Lady Gaga Residency in Vegas Set for Late 2018
Posted on 12/21/2017, 6:00 AM
By the end of next year, it will be easier than ever for Las Vegas gamblers to watch Lady Gaga perform "Poker Face" on the same day they perfect their own. The singer is settling in at the MGM Park Theater for a bigtime residency expected to begin in late 2018. Currently set to include 74 concerts, the deal, which Variety says will make Gaga more than $1 million per show, could be extended, provi...
Neapolitan Pizza, Panama Hats Among Traditions Given UNESCO Heritage Status
Posted on 12/13/2017, 11:00 PM
As anybody who travels with open eyes and an open mind soon discovers, a place isn't made unique just by its buildings and scenery. The dishes, dances, crafts, languages, and other traditions developed there are just as important and every bit as worthy of preservation. That's why the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage was established in 2003—to bring awareness and protections to signifi...
Two Brand New Museums Dedicated to Mississippi History
Posted on 11/28/2017, 6:30 AM
Side-by-side history museums in Mississippi's capital city, Jackson, will open to the public on December 9—one day before the state's bicentennial. The brand-new institutions share an entrance and a downtown address (222 North St.) in the mid-state city because the stories they tell are inextricably entwined, as you can see from their names: the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi C...
Statues in Dublin Can Call Your Mobile Phone
Posted on 10/20/2017, 8:15 PM
In the famously word-drunk city of Dublin, even the statues now have the gift of gab. As part of a new tourism project called Talking Statues Dublin, 10 of the Irish capital's most recognizable sculptural likenesses—including writers James Joyce (on Earl Street), Oscar Wilde (at Merrion Square), and George Bernard Shaw (at the National Gallery) as well as political figures James Larkin (on O'Con...
Upper Levels of Rome's Colosseum Reopening for Tours
Posted on 10/04/2017, 9:45 PM
The upper tiers of the Colosseum in Rome are reopening to the public for the first time in four decades. The renowned architectural marvel—which dates to the first century A.D. and is one of the ancient city's most visited sites—is coming off a 5-year, multimillion-dollar restoration paid for by Diego Della Valle, chairman of luxury leather brand Tod's. With public money for major preservation...
