Arthur Frommer: The Safest Destinations Are Named. Guess Who's Not a Leader?
Posted on 11/27/2018, 2:00 AM
A well-respected international consumer organization has picked the safest countries in which to travel, and the United States is nowhere among the leaders. Which are the world’s safest countries in which to travel? In these days of terror and climate change, that question is posed by a great many would-be tourists. An international organization recently researched that question, and to no o...
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Police Destroy Semi-Submerged Sculpture Park in the Maldives
Posted on 09/26/2018, 5:30 PM
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 summer when the work opened to the public—was an over-/underwater project designed by British-born artist Jason deCaires Taylor to be explored by swimmers and snorkelers. It stood amid calm waters belonging to the luxe...
Looking for a Classic Caribbean Vacation? Arthur Frommer Suggests Belize
Posted on 09/20/2018, 12:00 PM
Although nearly a million American cruise passengers enjoy momentary contact with Belize each year, the number of its actual tourists is only 250,000 persons, and the country is therefore uncrowded and somewhat innocent of commercial development (except in Belize City, to which no tourist goes). A stay here is like a trip to Costa Rica many years ago, before tourism enveloped and changed that ...
WW2 Tower Converted to Vacation Rental in Channel Islands
Posted on 09/05/2018, 5:15 PM
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 fortifications aimed at their British enemies, and many of these structures still stand to this day. Now, a local preservation group has converted one of them to a vacation rental. Standing on the southwestern tip of Jersey Is...
Royal Caribbean's Private Beaches Make Second-Class Citizens of the Rest of Us
Posted on 08/27/2018, 6:00 AM
Most passengers on a Caribbean cruise are by now aware of the “private beaches” and “private islands” that cruise lines operate for the purpose of keeping you from contact with local residents or businesses when your ship alights at a particular port. This deliberate segregation has been tolerated by most of us because the artificial beaches or ports have been operated in such a way as to be r...
Huge Projections and New Architecture Center Added to Chicago Riverwalk
Posted on 08/15/2018, 7:00 AM
The Chicago River has had about as strange a career as any waterway in North America, starting with its namesake city's decision in the late 19th century (enacted in the early years of the 20th) to reverse the river's course in order to keep sewage out of Lake Michigan. Of course, that just sent the sewage—including the foul runoff from the same meatpacking factories that gave Upton Sinclair the...
The 'Mamma Mia!' Sequel is a Lie: That's Not Greece!
Posted on 08/02/2018, 8:30 PM
You may remember—or perhaps you studied it in your Great Achievements of World Cinema class—that the first Mamma Mia! movie was set in Greece. Based on the hit Broadway musical, the film was famously, dazzlingly Greek, so Greek it made Zorba look shy. Meryl Streep's American character has decamped there to run a preposterously picturesque cliffside inn, where old flames hover and neighborhood teens...
Partially Underwater Artwork Welcomes Snorkelers in the Maldives
Posted on 08/02/2018, 3:30 AM
The world's first semi-submerged sculpture park is now open for snorkel-equipped art lovers off the coast of the Maldives in the southern Indian Ocean. Dubbed Coralarium, the over-/underwater project was dreamed up by British artist Jason deCaires Taylor, who, according to Smithsonian magazine, has worked on similar installations off coasts in Grenada, Mexico, and the Canary Islands. Those were ...
Georgia in Hawaii: O'Keeffe's Forgotten Island Travels
Posted on 08/01/2018, 2:15 PM
Georgia O'Keeffe had a strong sense of place, and that place was usually New Mexico. But having a powerful affinity for one locale didn't leave the painter immune to the allure of others, as she discovered, seemingly to her own surprise, during a 1939 stay in Hawaii. "My idea of the world," she wrote in a letter sent from the islands to her husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, " . . . h...
This Midwest American Town Is Turning 350 Years Old
Posted on 07/03/2018, 7:15 PM
You might have heard that New Orleans and San Antonio are each celebrating a 300th birthday this year. Both cities made our list of the Best Places to Go in 2018 for that very reason. But it's likely you missed the news about another riverside municipality's big milestone—even though it bests the other two by half a century. Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan turns 350 this year. The Soo, as it's kn...
