For our slide show of the world's most iconic bridges, click here. (Hint: The super-gorgeous photos are the last five in the slide show.)

And let us know if there's a cool bridge we've left off by mistake.

I met Dr. Brown maybe six months ago and was incredibly impressed with how pragmatic he was. Charming, too--we had lunch, and as we walked through the streets afterward, he said hello to just about every single person who crossed his path.

While we're handing out gold stars, here's one for Disney: The company is now allowing same-sex couples to participate in its Fairy Tale Wedding program at Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and on the Disney Cruise Line ships. Better late than never.

The Southern California CityPass gives the term "marketing gimmick" a good name.

Until this spring, the Southern California CityPass didn't include both Disney parks and Universal Studios parks on the same ticket. But now this pass includes admission to Universal Studios Hollywood, Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure, SeaWorld Adventure Park, and the San Diego Zoo for $189 per child and $235 per adult. Compared to the cost of booking each theme park ticket separately, that's a savings of $30 to $46 per person. If you're planning to stop at multiple parks, this CityPass may be worth checking out.

Multiple-attraction passes aren't that worthwhile at many destinations worldwide. Either they tend not to include all the top sites you'll want to visit, or they don't have a significant savings off the cost of buying individual passes.

In an article titled "Next Stop, Squalor," Smithsonian magazine talks about organized tours of the world's worst slums. (This topic is one that Budget Travel touched on in its 2004 article, "Reality Tours to the Emerging World.")

Poverty tourism is the most common label used to describe the trend in tours that allow travelers to see the wretched of the earth up-close. Some folks--though not BT--also call the trend "poorism."

As Smithsonian's article points out: "For years, tour operators have been escorting foreign visitors through Rio de Janeiro's infamous favelas, with their drug gangs and ocean views, and the vast townships outside Cape Town and Johannesburg, where tourists are invited to mix with South Africans at one of the illicit beer halls known as shebeens. A nonprofit group in New Delhi charges tourists for guided walks through the railway station, to raise money for the street children who haunt its platforms."

Arthur Phillips, author of the best-selling novels Prague and The Egyptologist, talked last week with BudgetTravelOnline about literary tourism and his latest novel, Angelica, which is a ghost story set in London.

Read the fun, Web-exclusive interview by clicking here. You'll find an excerpt of Angelica, which hit stores last week, by clicking here.

Budget Travel's top picks on where to dine-out in Barcelona can be found by clicking here.

And we're glad to say that Gridskipper is also dishing on the best places to eat cheap in this Spanish city. Click here for their list.

If you've ever braved the lengthy lines to enter the Vatican Museums, you will be disappointed to hear that thanks to newly reduced hours, the wait to get to the ticket booth has grown even longer.

Until last month, the ticket booth for the Vatican Museums opened at 8:45 A.M., meaning early-birds were often in line well before 7 A.M. Those who were part of an organized tour or with reservations could skirt the line and waltz in through a separate entrance.

Now, those who are not part of a group or who do not hold a reservation have to wait until 10 A.M. And, to make matters worse, the ticket booth now closes at 12:30 A.M. in low-season and 3:30 P.M. in high-season--over an hour earlier than in the past. By compressing the time to get in and visit via the stand-and-wait method, the Vatican Museums hope to "train the tourists" to use its newly revamped reservation system, which requires an advance purchase that's at least one business-day in advance and a written request that's faxed directly to the Vatican Museums. (For instructions, see the Vatican Museums website by clicking here.) Less patient travelers can try one of Rome's many booking agents, who slap on hefty fees for the booking service.

It's all part of a play by museum officials to phase in reservation-only entrance by January 2008. This reservations-system will be good for budget-conscious travelers in the long run, however, because it will also serve to control the flow within the museum, meaning visitors will get to view the artworks and chapels in a less-chaotic manner. Unfortunately, to make up for lost revenue due to the reduced number of visitors, the entrance ticket has increased to $18 (or 13 euro).
--Barbie Latza Nadeau, a Rome-based reporter for Newsweek for the past decade as well as a contributor to BudgetTravel.com.

CORRECTION 3/10/2007, 3pm ET: This post initially linked to stories by Barbie Nadeau, which are no longer available on the Newsweek website. We regret the confusion.

I'm just back from L.A.--managed to get home yesterday despite the hideous weather. I'd been to L.A. a few times since the Walt Disney Concert Hall opened in 2003, but I'd never visited it. I went on a tour this trip, and was just blown away. You can't really understand the power of Frank Gehry's building until you stand next to it. (This is probably true of the Guggenheim Bilbao, too, but I have yet to make it there...)

Next time I'm in L.A., I'll absolutely go to a concert at the concert hall, but I'd encourage anyone and everyone to take the tour (from $12) even if they don't have performance tickets. Info on tours is available here.

I was in L.A. for a conference of travel editors, and at times it was a bummer. Not the editors--they were lovely. But most are editors of newspaper travel sections, and newspapers have been having a tough time lately (in part because so many people are getting their news from TV and the Internet). At the beginning of the conference, everyone got a chance to say how things were going, and many of them had grim reports: shrinking budgets, fewer pages, layoffs and buyouts... It was depressing, and not just because they're good people getting a raw deal.

In a ridiculously adorable new feature, we're spotlighting babies born recently at top U.S. zoos. Speedy red river hog triplets, a 95-pound baby rhino, and an Asian elephant named Mac, who loves splashing in his pool, are a few of the newcomers. Want to know where to spot an okapi? Or how to bypass long lines for a glimpse of panda cub Mei Lan? We've got fun facts, tips for planning a zoo visit, and plenty of photos--just try making it through this slide show without cracking a smile!

Costs for travelers to East Africa have been on the upswing. Take, for example, the costs of visiting Tanzania's Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which is famous for having a volcanic crater with a spectacularly wide diameter. In 2005, a one-day admission fee was $30 per person. Now it's $50 per person. An identical price jump has happened at the nearby Serengeti National Park.

Elsewhere in East Africa, admission fees have jumped $10 per person in the past year at the Lake Nakuru National Park and the Maasai Mara Game Reserve. Each spot now charges $40 per person per day.

Costs for visas, departure taxes, and accommodations are also on the rise. To stay within your travel budget, you'll need to track down safari bargains. Here are two key options for keeping your safari costs low....

Ever wanted to go between the moon and New York City? Head over to 43places.com, where you can browse hundreds of different places both familiar and fictional. The free (just create a profile) site is based on the idea that every person should visit (or aspire to visit) about 43 places. Travelers can make lists of the places they want to go and help others by rating all the places they have been. Places can range from well-known cities to fictional settings, such as Narnia and Middle Earth.

For travelers, the site pretty much serves the same function as TripAdvisor, letting users post their own thoughts about places, but it adds a dimension by allowing people to post thoughts about places they'd like to go. The site also allows users to add descriptive tags to places, such as "cafe," and then search to find other locales that have the same tags, such as other cafes worldwide.

43places.com fits nicely within the ranks of TripAdvisor and IgoUgo. It's pretty fun to see where other people have been compared to where they want to go; just watch out or you may go mad to the tune of Christopher Cross.--Lindsey Ramsey

Last week, Christopher Winner, the Rome-based editor of The American magazine, answered more than 100 reader questions about Italy in one of Budget Travel's weekly live chats. (Read the informative transcript by clicking here.)

Winner's publication recently picked the best dining spots in top Italian cities. I trust this list partly because it's written by English-speaking Italians and American ex-pats and is intended for use by English-speaking visitors to Italy. I also trust this list because...

McCarran International Airport in "Sin City" has opened a new rental-car facility that puts all of its companies in one place.

On the plus side, the airport is now running a single fleet of buses--which all look alike--to shuttle passengers who are renting from any of the companies. This bus fleet replaces the various vans run by the airport's 10 competing car-rental companies.

On the down side, the new car-rental facility is about three miles from the airport. That puts most of the lots at a further distance. So, next time you fly into Las Vegas, plan to spend a few extra minutes picking up your rental car. And before you depart, consult this website.

--Dickens World is set to open next month in Kent, England. This theme park features rides based on 13 of the novels written by you-know-who. The Guardian in London got a sneak peek, and has this gem of a quote from a park official: "Visitors are not going to come here to be depressed so our role is to entertain them. We're not going to have starving babies crawling around on the cobblestones." The park will instead feature a log flume ride that illustrates the happier side of Great Expectations.
--See videos on Google maps when you use Venividiwiki (whose motto is "I went, I saw, I share"). This new website lets you pick on a spot on a Google Map and see videos of attractions located there. The selection of videos is strongest for Western European destinations, not surprisingly. You can search by activities, events, places, and other criteria. Try it here. And for Budget Travel's choices of the best tricks to do with Google maps, click here.
--British Airways has been named the world's best airline in an annual, comprehensive survey of frequent fliers. Continental won for being the best carrier based in North America.
--Treehouse inns allow you to wake up with birds on your windowsill. These cottages, you see, are perched among the branches of tall trees. HotelChatter is highlighting the latest such lodging, Free Spirit Spheres, in this post. You'll find Budget Travel's online video of similar inns with birds-eye views by clicking here. One example is the Out'n'About Treesort, in southwest Oregon, which is less Spartan than the Free Spirit in that it comes with electricity and heat, and usually a refrigerator and sink to boot.

What do Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Moscow , and Vienna have in common?

Each city offers train service between its international airport and one of its major downtown train stations, and each city offers check-in at its train station.

The best part of Vienna's City Airport Train is its check-in service at the Wein Mitte train station downtown. On the last night of a recent visit to Vienna, I went to the train station, checked-in for my flight, confirmed my seat assignment, and dropped off my luggage. For the rest of the night, I was carefree.

My morning trip to the airport was a breeze. I didn't need to worry about hauling my bag around a subway system during the rush hour. Once I arrived at the airport, I saw people standing in a line to check-in, and the line looked like it would take about 30 minutes to snake through. I smiled to myself that I had stood in line for less than five minutes the night before.

Here are the details:

--Today's fun fact: "In Ireland, some rental agencies apply an extra fee for travelers age 70 or older; travelers over 75 can't rent at all," reports Ed Perkins at SmarterTravel.com. "In Israel, travelers over age 75 can't rent at all, and in Romania, the cut-off age is 70."

--Be a Hawaiian Cowboy for a day. Take a break from the tiki-torch circuit with a day-trip to the 8,500-acre Kahua Ranch on the Big Island. Brush-up on your lassoing skills, chug beer around a campfire, and learn to line-dance, all for $95 per person, according to the Chicago Tribune.

--Try a Japanese sampler: The city of Kyoto has made it easier to be an armchair traveler by launching its first tourism website. The site's best part is its list of the 100 best things to do in the city. One example: The summer festival in which fishermen use trained birds to catch sweetfish.

Yesterday the U.S. State Department updated its travel advisory on Mexico stating, "violence by criminal elements affects many parts of the country, urban and rural, including border areas." The warning is in response to recent narcotics-related violence, and while there's no evidence that Americans have been targeted, the agency recommends that travelers to the country use caution in unfamiliar areas. Which made me think -- does Mexico have a similar travel advisory for people traveling to the U.S.? It doesn't, but perhaps it should.

In the wake of our country's deadliest mass shooting in history, it seems hypocritical to warn against perceived threats abroad. What do you think? Should visitors to the U.S. think twice before booking their next vacation here? Is it right for a single act of violence to mar the reputation of an entire nation? Should the global community be advised not to travel to the U.S? Let's hear your thoughts. --David LaHuta

Last year, vacationers brought roughly 9,000 dogs and cats to Hawaii. That was 3,000 more pets than in 2003, when Hawaii first loosened up its rules regarding out-of-state pets, according to this AP story. Under its new rules, the state allows visitors to bring their dogs and cats if they can document that their pets are free of rabies and if they pay a fee of $165 per pet. Pets had previously been quarantined for 120 days. Since Hawaii threw a bone to vacationers by changing its rules, more hotels have been setting aside rooms offering creature comforts.

Cat and dog owners traveling anywhere in the U.S.--not just Hawaii--can find a list of accommodations by turning to PetsOnTheGo.com and PetsWelcome.com. Dog owners, in particular, may learn some new tricks on how to travel with a pooch by reading this Budget Travel article.

Chicago's liveliest nightspots, newest shops, and best spot for desserts can be found by clicking here.

Hungry for to know this spring's coolest restaurants in Chicago? Click here.

You'll find a list of the best hotel gift shops by clicking here.

For more ideas, check out our sister magazine Girlfriend Getaways.

Keep reading to find two click-and-go. easy weekender trips to Chicago...

Google mashups, of course.
Before you take your next trip, don't just settle for a standard map of your destination. Go online first to see if some creative person has whipped up a free, customized map. New mashup Google maps highlight selected locations with boxes that fly over the maps and typically display addresses and phone numbers.

Here's the fastest way to see if there's an enhanced map of your destination. Visit this website, Google Maps Mania. Then search on your destination either by clicking on the "By Country" link or by entering your destination's name in the website's search box. You'll find both the link and the search box in the top right-hand corner of the website's main page.

For example, click on this Prague 360 map. Besides seeing the typical Google map of the Czech capital, you'll see teardrop-shaped markers for various spots around the city. By clicking on each marker, you'll see photos of the location or additional information about events scheduled to take place there. For instance, if you click on the link "Flying above Petrin Tower -- Prague Skyline," you'll see a 360-degree image of Prague's skyline, which you can click and drag for an adjustable view. (Neat!)

This service allows you to plan for aspects of your trip in ways that your guidebook won't. Budding photographers can spot the most promising locations for taking scenic photographs. Nightlife-lovers can find out about the latest lineups at top concert venues. Travelers willing to take public transportation can plot out where subway and tram stations are in relation to their hotel.

Many U.S. and Western European cities have well-developed Google Map Mashups, which you can find by clicking here. However, most destinations around the U.S. and the world still don't have a lot of customized maps available. If the location of your next trip doesn't have a cool map now, bookmark the Google Maps Mania site and check back six months from now. New maps may have been developed by then.

Another cool planning tool is Google Earth, which incorporates satellite data into Google's streetmaps. Learn about the latest cool features of this free software by clicking here.

I got a very nice letter in response to my story on Bermuda, and while that in itself might not merit an entry here, the writer mentions a resource that could be very useful for people interested in the island. The letter is from Jane Barcroft of Memphis, who loves Bermuda so much she has written (and gotten published) two books of her poetry about the island; they're called Pink Sand Poems and Bermuda on My Mind...

When I last visited Cyprus, the Mediterranean island nation had just become the European Union's newest member, despite a failed, last-ditch attempt to reunify the country. (It's been divided acrimoniously between Greek and Turkish sides for over 30 years). And while I enjoyed exploring the bustling fishing town of Paphos and the hiking trails of the Troodos Mountains, what I really wanted to see was the North, virtually unchanged since 1974 when a Turkish-led occupation resulted in economic sanctions. Unfortunately, what little time I had on the island was spent outside the capital -- which left few opportunities to cross the U.N.-guarded border -- but friends who did cross over reported a world frozen in time: Locals driving cars from the 1960s, outdated architecture, and a crumbling infrastructure. But it's not all bad news. Since the majority of the North's visitors come from Turkey (which is to say there's hardly any tourism at all) much of what's there is a well-kept secret, and a well-preserved one at that. I'm thinking, in particular, about the Roman and Byzantine ruins that have largely been untouched and the finger-like Karpas Peninsula, home to some of the loneliest beaches on the island. The Greek side of Cyprus is wonderful, and should be explored at all costs, but if I had a second chance on the island I sure know where I'd be headed.--David LaHuta

By the way, it's no coincidence that today's Real Deal is a terrific air/hotel package for a week on Cyprus, which averages 340 days of sunshine a year. You can find the details as well as more information about crossing over to the Turkish-controlled area, by clicking here.

By the time we arrived at our riad, it was early evening in Marrakesh and we were starving. We were desperate to drop our bags as quickly as possible and set out in search of dinner, but the riad manager, Omar, had other ideas. He assured us we couldn't leave without first accepting some traditional Moroccan hospitality. "Our custom in Morocco is to offer all guests some refreshment," he said, escorting us up to the riad's expansive roof terrace, "and customary for all guests to accept it."

"Alright," we acquiesced, certainly not keen to start our trip by contravening tradition, "what kind of refreshment do you offer?"

"A glass of whiskey berbere, naturally," he said with a grand gesture, and disappeared.

"Uh, okay," we said exchanging confused looks. Wasn't it awfully risqué to offer alcohol in a Muslim country, particularly with the mosque next door in plain sight? But before we could ponder the mystery further Omar was back, carrying a worn steel tray, two small glasses, and an ornate silver teapot.

Of course, we should have guessed - whiskey berbere is nothing other than the tongue-in-cheek name for mint tea.

More than 20 million people have already voted in the new Seven Wonders of the World international campaign launched by Swiss explorer Bernard Weber back in 1999. (Of the seven ancient wonders, only the pyramids are still standing.) The Statue of Liberty, Easter Island, Sydney Opera House, Christ Redeemer Statue, Stonehenge, and Angkor Wat are among the 21 finalists selected by architectural experts. You have until July 6 to vote for your favorites. The following evening--yes, that would be 7/7/07--the winning landmarks will be announced at a flashy ceremony broadcast live from the Estadio da Luz in Lisbon; the mixed bag of performers and celebrity guests includes Jose Carreras, Chaka Khan, and Neil Armstrong.

Abreu Tours, which specializes in travel to Portugal, has organized various Seven Wonders packages, starting at $431 per person for three nights at the Amazonia Lisboa hotel, based on double occupancy, and a type C ticket to the event. While it may not sound like it, type C ticket holders actually have the best views of the stage. Abreu's package offers savings on both the lodging and on the tickets, which are valued at up to $190 per person, plus booking fees. For more discounted travel to Portugal, check out a recent Real Deal for airfare and a week in Lisbon and Porto from $1,044.

Update (7/3): To vote, visit this website: http://www.new7wonders.com, click on a photo, and follow the instructions for voting.

A reader has written us to complain about a story that Budget Travel ran a couple of years ago, called "My Hometown: Chattanooga." (Read it here.)

Lisa Lowe Stauffer, who is a native-born daughter of the city, says the article "wasn't bad, just superficial." She adds: "There's so much more to Chattanooga than funky shops and the Choo Choo."

Now, personally, I still think very highly of the piece that Budget Travel ran. But I thought I'd share with you Stauffer's own, unedited take on this much-beloved city...

Readers have reacted to This Just In's recent blog post about proposed hikes in National Park admission fees. Here are some of your comments:

"I know this site is about budget travel, but you should be pointing out what an incredible bargain the parks are, even with the fee increase, rather than whining about it. The parks are being loved to death and are in severe need of additional funding for maintenance and repair projects. Without an increase in fees, your next whine will be about the poor conditions in the parks."--anonymous reader, Oregonian

"As a big fan of our great parks, I am always concerned about maintenance. It seems like more is always needed so a hike may be justified if properly used.--Richard Reina

"Although more money is needed for the National Parks, they were established for all people regardless of ability to pay and they should have a minimal entry fee but since we already pay dearly through taxes, there should only be very small to no raises."--Earl

Meanwhile, the leading author and expert on the National Parks, Kurt Repanshek, clearly explains "the real cost of visiting a national park" in this blog post at National Parks Traveler. The money quote: "If we don't do something, it seems the Park Service chances pricing vast numbers of Americans out of the national park landscapes and experiences. And that not only will cut down on the ranks of park advocates, but it will surely increase the costs for those few who can afford the price. And where will that leave the parks?"

By the way, you can discuss this issue with Kurt--as well as ask other questions about how to plan a visit to a national park--in a live chat at BudgetTravel.com on Tuesday, May 22. You can submit your questions now by clicking here.

Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville
This museum traces the history of the Texas prison system since 1848. The permanent exhibit on capital punishment features "Old Sparky," the electric chair that dispatched 361 prisoners from this mortal coil between 1924 and 1964. Another exhibit displays prison contraband, including many of the weapons that prisoners made over the years. The prison hardware exhibit displays classic tools, such as the ball and chain. You'll find photos of exhibits at Txprisonmuseum.org. (Adults pay $4 per person; children ages 6 to 17 pay $2 each.)

Toilet-themed restaurants in Taiwan...

More than 100,000 Korean gymnasts take part in the Arirang Festival's Mass Games, a tightly synchronized performance reenacting the country's history--or its Communist leaders' version, at any rate. This year's first installation, held in a giant Pyongyang stadium, concluded on May 15, but you can catch the one-of-a-kind spectacle when it returns August 1-September 10, 2007. While North Korea has agreed to grant U.S. citizens visas for the event, trips must typically be arranged through a government-sanctioned tour operator. Companies such as Geographic Expeditions, New Korea Tours, and Koryo Tours are among the options.

Be prepared for little, if any, freedom of movement within the country and for the sense that you've been transported back in time. You can get a sneak peek at what exactly the capital of North Korea (part of the "axis of evil"!) looks like by checking out our slide show of photos from Charlie Crane's new book, Welcome to Pyongyang. (The picture above is of a bride and groom posing in Mansudae Fountain Park.) You can read an excerpt from the introduction here. For more on the freedom to travel, read an editor's letter from Erik Torkells and our recent article To Boycott or Not to Boycott.

And if you've ever been to North Korea, share your impressions!

Americans are visiting Mexico more and more, despite fears that the new passport requirements would hurt tourism south of the border. Tourism revenues were up 14 percent over last year, according to this story in Modern Agent.com.

For ideas from Budget Travel on where to travel in Mexico, click here:
Puerto Vallarta
Oaxaca

And see here for a cool offer on a two-week tour of Mexico.

You can read Steve's winning entry by clicking here. He blogs at OurManInGranada.com.

From Vietnam's KOTO to Nicaragua's CafeChavalos

Some time ago, when I was still living in Vietnam, I was approached by a journalist who was keen to write a feature on KOTO.

KOTO is the Hanoi street kid charity where I volunteered for over two years. It is a humbling place and it's fair to say it broke my heart on an almost daily basis. The idea behind it is simple -- we took kids out of extreme poverty, we housed them, we paid them, we covered their medical expenses.

And by working and training in our own restaurant they learned about the hospitality industry while customers' bills would help cover the charity's costs. Eventually, after 18 months, trainees graduated to a job at the likes of the Hilton or Sheraton. Graduation Day was the blubbiest of blub-fests.

What KOTO achieved was miraculous. Simply put, working there changed my life, just as it changed the lives of 250 young adults it had saved from the streets.

But, anyway, as I was saying, a journalist rang me wanting to do a feature on KOTO.

It's baffling why New York City waited so long to get a "duck truck" sightseeing tour. Even a comparatively tiny city like Dublin has been ferrying around tourists on half-boat, half-bus vehicles for years now. But the mysterious wait will end on June 5, when New York Splash Tours launches its fleet of AquaBuses.

As I discovered during a recent sneak preview, the AquaBus charts a course through Times Square, Hell's Kitchen, and a portion of the Hudson River. The tour takes about an hour and its main highlight is when the vehicle slips into a small tunnel that looks like a car wash. Inside, you are surrounded by screens that project images of a storm-tossed sea. The vehicle is then tossed from side to side while you and your fellow passengers are spritzed with water. Stuffed rats race up the side of masts along the tunnel walls, for comic effect. Then, another door opens up, and the vehicle dives into the river. Kids throw their hands up in the air like they're on a log flume ride. They also blow whistles, which they were handed when they clambered aboard.

Overall, the trip is a bargain if you're a parent who wants to keep your kids entertained while giving your feet a rest. Grown-ups with (or without) children may also like the tour because it offers a relatively rare view of the New York City skyline, as seen from the river. On a bright day, the shiny grill of the Chrysler Building causes the pulse to quicken, like the best picture in a children's book.

Tickets cost $29 per adult and $20 for children between 3 and 11 years old. Learn more here.

Look at three past favorites and preview one of this year's installations by watching this slide show.

Curious about this half-medieval, half-modern city set against the Mediterranean? Then consider asking a question of AnneLise Sorensen (shown left). She's the author of Top Ten: Barcelona, and covers Spain for many publications. Submit your question here, and she'll answer it in a live chat tomorrow.

Related: Rick Steves talks about Barcelona. [via CNN.com]

Earlier: When visiting Barcelona, be sure to take a daytrip to nearby Figueres, home of the Salvador Dali museum and other highlights. Details here.

One of this year's picks is Charlottesville, Va., which Budget Travel recently profiled, too. [Photo: My Hobo Soul via Creative Commons and Flickr]

Here's the full list:

This week, A.J. Kinik and Michelle Marek are guest-blogging here. They write the wonderful blog, "...an endless banquet."

With the help of our friends here on the editorial board at Budget Travel, we managed to squeeze a whole heap of information into our "My Montreal is Better Than Yours" spread, but even so, the process was not without its casualties. It's tragic, but when all was said and done, we had a number of other hot Montreal tips (all food-related, naturally) that wound up on the cutting room floor. One of the benefits of doing a week of guest-blogging here at Budget Travel Online is that we get to make things "right", and throw a few more names and addresses your way. We were able to notify our cartographic division about some of these changes just before they went to press, so you'll even find some of these on your very own, handy-dandy, relatively accurate AEB Montreal maps.

After years of endangerment, our national bird is now easily spotted along the upper Mississippi River (from Minnesota to Illinois); in the Minnesota Valley refuge; Oregon's Bear Valley and Cape Meares refuges; Virginia's Mason Neck, James River, and Blackwater refuges; and the Chesapeake Bay's Rappahannock River refuges, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

[Photo by Frank Wouters via Flickr and Creative Commons]

Here are his answers to the most asked questions about vacations to Italy.

Earlier: Rome fare sale--$536 round-trip, including taxes, from NYC. Seats are still available.
Related: Perhaps the best story Budget Travel has ever run about Rome.

Today's the birthday of Tai Shan, the panda cub at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

See a video of Tai Shan playing. [Courtesy of our partner site, WashingtonPost.com]

Learn how to hug a panda in China for only about $125.

Catch our slide show of baby animals in zoos nationwide.

Find out "What's New In Washington D.C. This Summer".

Well, this marks the end of our guest-blogging stint here at Budget Travel Online (and simulcast on "...an endless banquet"). We thought we'd leave you with some more results from of our "...an endless banquet" Summer 2007 Questionnaire, which (as we're sure you've noticed) have been light, and maybe even a bit frivolous, but they're loaded with lots of useful tips for all of you who are contemplating coming to Montreal for a visit.

fig. a: Ethne de Vienne, La Depense, Montreal, QC

Caught Mapping...in Montreal
Anthony and Michelle have created online city maps of Montreal, which point out the locations of gourmet hotspots.

The Montreal You Won't Find in a Guidebook
Here are some of Anthony & Michelle's favorite Montreal eateries, bakeries, and bars.

Strawberry Social
Here's a taste of life in Quebec.

It's Time for Ice Cream Sandwiches!
Try this gourmet recipe and learn the story behind its invention.

Traveler's Tips for Montreal Trips
Anthony & Michelle quiz several Montreal gourmands about their favorite places to eat...and other matters.

More Montreal Goodness
The story of a relaxed July day with food and friends in Montreal.

And be sure to check out their wonderful blog, "...an endless banquet."

Last week, Malta and Cyprus received permission from the European Union's finance ministers to replace their currencies with the euro. The change will go into effect in January 2008, bringing the euro club to 15 members. Here's a quick recap of the others: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Slovenia.

The switch will make it more convenient for travelers already stopping in nearby euro countries, such as Italy or Greece, to tack on a visit to Malta or Cyprus. For inspiration and travel packages, check companies like Homeric Tours, whose week-long trip we recently featured as a Real Deal, Cypriot Odyssey. FIT Tours is a good source for Malta.

One word of warning: while the actual cost of goods in Malta and Cyprus should remain roughly the same under the euro, we wouldn't be surprised if some local businesses use the switchover as an excuse to bump up prices. (We saw it happen when Italy lost the lira!)

As you may know, the euro has reached the painful exchange rate of 1 euro to $1.38. You can do the math for your hotel reservations and other costs by using Budget Travel Online's currency converter. And you can get the backstory on the economic reforms Malta had to make to qualify for the euro via this article on Economist.com.

Have an opinion about the euro (good or bad?) and what it means for travelers? Share your thoughts!

Rumor: Walt Disney World may soon announce that it is pledging that all of its 18 hotels will meet new, industry-leading standards for environmental practices by next spring, reports the Orlando Sentinel. If true, each hotel will pledge to use non-toxic cleaners and meet measurable goals for conserving water and energy. Disney is often a bellwether of industry trends. For instance, Disney World led the industry last fall by moving to ban trans-fat foods from its parks, a practice that is now widespread among resorts, hotels, and cruise ships.

The Kingdom Rules. According to a press release from Zagat Survey, 48 percent of those surveyed picked the Magic Kingdom as their favorite park. Epcot was the 2nd favorite, with 36 percent of the vote.

Cool map of WDW: Check out this super-detailed Google mash-up map of Walt Disney World, which plots every location with a description and photos--including facts about individual rest rooms. (To see details, you need to zoom in by adjusting the map scale with the slider control on the side of the map.)

3 Ways to Avoid a Crowd at Disney World. [via Disney AnonyMouse blog]

Anthony Falcone, senior producer at Budget Travel Online, has been to Walt Disney World 13 times. So whenever we have a question about Disney World, we naturally turn to him.

Here's his advice on how to pick the best guidebook for your upcoming Disney World vacation.

Earlier: Disney World news.

On July 14, Paris launched a cheap, accessible bike program for residents and tourists to use practically for free, with 10,600 bikes at 750 stands around the city. (We touted this in our July/August issue.) How fantastic was it that Paris introduced 10,600 bikes at 750 stands around the city for everyone to use in free half-hour increments? Well...

Once the system was up and running on July 14, we learned to our dismay that the Velib kiosks (which unlock the bikes) only recognize credit and bank cards with microchips in them--a small technical detail that effectively bans tourists from North America from renting a Velib bike. Amazingly, Paris had no idea that other countries don't routinely issue cards with microchips in them, so right now, unless you have a chip-card, there is no alternate means of gaining access to the Velib system.

It turns out that the bike programs in Brussels and Lyon also work on the same type of system, and also require a credit card with a microchip. In Brussels, however, you can get around it by purchasing a short-term ticket at the city's main tourism office. In Lyon, you can buy a Tecely card that works with Lyon's entire public transportation system. (In order to get it, though, you have to show up at a Lyon public transportation office with your passport, a photo of yourself, and a hotel bill as proof of residence; fill out out an online form on the velov.grandlyon.com site; and then wait for the city to activate your account.)

We can only hope that these programs will change soon. As soon as there are any updates, we'll let you know.

Family travel was one of the hot topics discussed at a panel here in New York City yesterday. Seems the trend among families is for vacations that offer "one-stop shopping." Two of the panelists (Emily Kaufman, aka The Travel Mom; and Dorothy Dowling, the senior vice president of marketing and sales for Best Western) explained that families are more and more likely to look for hotels or cruises that will take care of everything: lodging, meals, entertainment, tours, outdoor activities, and so on. The other panelists from AAA and Southwest Airlines agreed.

All-inclusive vacations are a far cry from the family vacations of my childhood, where my parents would spend months before each trip piecing together every last detail, from hotel reservations and train tickets right down to which trail we would hike at Yosemite and what snacks we'd bring along the way.

I guess the new approach shouldn't come as much of a surprise--no country has embraced the notion of one-stop shopping quite like ours. Still, I have to wonder if there isn't something to be said for creating your own trip, specifically tailored to your family's needs. After all, even the best trip coordinator wouldn't have known that I preferred Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for a snack and my sister wanted a Kit Kat.

Feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below

Thank you, Mary Davis of New Port Richey, Fla, for offering our blog readers the following two travel tips. (As a token of our appreciation, we've sent her a set of Streetwise maps of Italy.)

Rome
We went in April. Rather than stand in a long line to buy individual, same-day tickets, we visited the website of the Vatican Museums instead, which offers tourists the opportunity to purchase tickets to tour the Vatican Museums as part of a group led by one of their tour guides. It saved us from waiting in line and it was an excellent tour. We were fitted with headsets so we could hear every word the tour guide said.

Florence
Before traveling to this city, purchase a Friends of the Uffizi pass online. The cost is 60 euros for individuals, 100 euros for families of up to 4 people and 25 euros for students under 26. It will get you free entrance to the Uffizi Gallery and the State Museums in Florence. Plus, the Pitti Palace (Palatina Gallery e Royal Apartments, Gallery of Modern Art, Costume Gallery, Silver Museum, Porcelain Museum, Boboli Gardens), Accademia Gallery, Bargello Museum, Medici Chapels, Cenacolo by Sant'Andrea del Sarto (Refectory of the Santo Spirito Church), Medici Villa La Petraia, and Medici Villa at Poggio a Caiano. The best part is, you go straight to the entrance and skip the lines.

The farms in Pemberton Valley, an idyllic stretch of countryside 30 minutes north of Whistler, British Columbia, are rarely open to the public--unless you happen to visit on Sunday, August 19, for the Pemberton Valley Slow Food Cycle, a free 31-mile bike ride up and down the valley floor. It's agritourism at its best!

During the daylong event, participants can check out organic farms and meet the folks behind them, as well as visit the valley's natural beef producer, coffee roaster, and small commercial bakery. "There will be 10 stops along the route and each of them will be small farmers' markets," says co-organizer and local farmer, Anna Helmer.

Pemberton's Rotary Club is even running a grocery shuttle for those who want to buy more than they can carry on their bikes. No advance registration is required: All you have to do is show up to get a free map and almanac of the region. Check out a two-minute video of last year's ride along with more information--including links to local B&Bs--on slowfoodcyclesunday.com. --Laura MacNeil, associate editor

Related: More and more farms are opening up. To learn which ones allow visitors to lend a hand, read the magazine article, Farm Tours Where You Can Pitch In.

Next time you visit the Big Island, why not skip the fancy resort and hop in a VW camper van? Sharon and Gary Berg, owners of Hilo-based G.B. Adventures, rent out a fleet of pop-top camper vans that are ideal for touring the island's stunning beaches, parks, and volcanoes. With names like Whitey and Tolula Blue, the mint-condition Vanagons sleep four and are equipped with sinks, stoves, and mini-fridges--even beach towels and island maps. "All you need is your swimsuit and flip-flops," says Sharon, who's lived on the island for over 20 years.

A week-long itinerary that circles the Big Island might go something like this...

One tempting reason is that you'll have a good chance of witnessing the Aurora Borealis, or northern lights, filling the late-night and early-morning sky with brilliant streaks of purples, greens, blues, and yellows. The area outside Fairbanks, about 110 miles south of the Arctic Circle, is one of the best spots for viewing the natural phenomenon (which can seem like something out of a sci-fi thriller!).

Credit: Brian Adams/Alaska Travel Industry Association, travelalaska.com

Autumn is foliage season in Alaska, too, and leaf peepers can get their fill at Denali National Park, home to Mt. McKinley and located about a two-and-a-half-hour drive south from Fairbanks. The park's lodges have created a new series of six guided three-hour hikes, in addition to their tours of the taiga forest and rolling tundra and heart-pounding whitewater rafting excursions.

And as the temperatures drop, so do Denali's room rates. From August 28 to September 18, the fall foliage special allows guests to stay at any of the lodges--McKinley Chalet Resort, McKinley Village Lodge, Denali Bluffs Hotel, or Denali Grande Lodge--for half the price with a 50 percent discount on any Denali excursions. A two-night stay with two tickets to any excursion starts at $329 per room, based on double occupancy. For more details and bookings, contact Denali Park Resorts, 800/276-7234, denaliparkresorts.com.

Alessi is the hip housewares brand that features supercute designs, such as corkscrews shaped like colorful parrots.

Jan's top recommendation is Heron Island, Australia. "I visited once during a 2004 trip to Australia," he says. "I wish my family could go every year!"

Why Heron Island?

"It must be paradise on Earth. The island is about 800 metres long and 300 metres at its widest and one-third of the island is taken by the University of Queensland, where they operate a Coral Research Station. The island has just one resort, no further buildings.

You can swim straight off the beach to an endless garden of coral where the waters are literally teeming with beautifully coloured fish and marine life."

The roosters wake you. You emerge from your room to find your host mother, who greets you with a smile, a plate of fruit, and a sing-songy Buen' dia, mi hija! Como almanece. ("Good morning, my child, how do you rise?"). The best way to learn to speak Spanish is to go abroad and study. And you'll find fantastic deals on language-immersion classes in Nicaragua.

Learn the details in this new story by Joshua Berman.

Real Deals: Volunteer in Nicaragua, $850

Or: Take an 7-night diving adventure in Nicaragua for $855 from G.A.P. Adventures. This package includes a stay at Little Corn Island, located about 45 miles off the eastern shore of Nicaragua. You'll stay at Casa Iguana, which offers 11 private cabins overlooking the water. You'll find other scuba-diving packages through divelittlecorn.com.

Elsewhere: The L.A. Times reports on the happening town of Granada, Nicaragua.

Related: Here's an interview with Joshua Berman -- coauthor of Moon Living Abroad in Nicaragua, GoToNicaragua, and the fantastic blog "The Tranquilo Traveler" -- on how he became an established travel writer.

CNN.com is reporting that Travelocity.com has been fined by the U.S. government for booking trips between our country and Cuba in violation of our government's long-standing embargo.

For context, read Erik Torkells' essay "On Life, Liberty, and the Freedom to Travel."

Related:

Is there any way to legally travel to Cuba?

A writer goes inside Cuba.

Here's a 90-second video of crowds enjoying a ginormous wave pool at Tokyo's Summerland theme park. Have you ever seen anything like it?

Tickets to the park, which includes access to the wave pool, cost $31 per adult in the summer. It's accessible by subway at Haijima station.

Related: Five Ways to Make Dining in Tokyo a Little Less Frustrating

Chemists at the University of California at Davis--the Harvard of enology--invented the machine with funding from the resort. The machine can test if oxygen has leaked past the cork and allowed the wine to become vinegary. The machine uses nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy--the technology behind MRI scans at hospitals--to test the level of acetic acids in your wine. It's a bad sign when the machine finds a lot of acetic acid.

Guests staying at the resort can test one bottle for free, says a spokeswoman for the hotel. To test more than one bottle, guests pay a fee of 10 percent of the value of the wine, with a minimum $50 charge. That's the same fee you'll pay if you're not a guest of the resort but you drop by anyway and request that one of your bottles be tested.

Some studies estimate that one in eight bottles of premium wines (meaning wines costing $8 or more) are spoiled. The machine has not been subjected to rigorous independent testing, and it may not be foolproof. High levels of acetic acid or only one of the many possible signs and causes of damage to wine.

Learn more about the machine and the resort by calling Crystal Springs at 973/827-5996.

Photograph by Linda B. (the Wine Diva), titled "Corkhenge", via Flickr & Creative Commons

Related: Check out these articles on wine and travel.

Rex Airlines has begun to offer a Backpacker Pass that offers unlimited travel on any flights to destinations across Australia for one to two months. Prices are about $410 for a one-month pass and about about $780 for a two-month pass. Routes link Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide with far-flung destinations, such as Kangaroo Island, Ballina, Cooper Pedy, and Broken Hill. For example, here's a sample route between Sydney and Kangaroo Island, which would take 19 hours to drive but can now be reached cheaply by an afternoon flight.

View Larger Map

More details at Rex Airlines.

Yesterday, the Venetian became the latest transplant to open in Macau, which has rapidly morphed into a glitzy, much-hyped gambling haven. Casinos in this former Portuguese colony--a tiny peninsula connected to mainland China and about 40 miles from Hong Kong--already rake in more money than their Vegas counterparts.

American billionaire Sheldon Adelson was on hand for the obligatory smashing of a champagne bottle, in this case, against the side of a gondola, one of many floating down the gaudy casino's canals. Touted as the world's largest gambling space, the Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel has 400 slot machines, 800 gambling tables, 3,000 rooms, and 1.2 million square feet of convention space, according to the AP.

The Venetian joins a market recently crowded by casinos like the Sands, also developed by Adelson, and the Wynn Macau, yet the demand seems almost insatiable. (I happened to be in Macau in July 2005, about a year after the Sands opened, and had to wait in line just to enter the jam-packed casino on a weekday afternoon!)

Gamblers have long flocked to Macau, but until 2001 they were at the mercy of Stanley Ho and his 40-year monopoly on the local casino industry. For a taste of the old-school gambling scene, make a beeline for Ho's Casino Lisboa--you can't miss it, the roof is shaped like a giant roulette wheel.
Photo: Venetian Macao

Related: Trip Coach: Hong Kong and Macau.

The exhibit includes a three-dimensional reconstruction of what the 3.5-foot, 60-pound hominid might have looked like. Also on view are dozens of artifacts from where Lucy was discovered, such as paintings, pottery, and musical instruments.

Unearthed in northeastern Ethiopia in 1974, the fossilized remains are "the oldest and most complete adult human ancestor fully retrieved from African soil," according to the museum.

Details: "Lucy's Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia", 713/639-4629, $20 for adults, $12 for children (3-11), college students, and seniors. The exhibit is open through April 20. --Amy Chen

Update (Sept. 4): Budget Travel recently recommended a source for great deals in Houston relating to the Lucy exhibition. Themed deals combine VIP passes to the show with a stay at one of 16 area hotels. Prices vary, but start at $120 per night at the SpringHill Suites by Marriott Houston--Hobby Airport. Price is by room. When: Until the exhibition ends on April 20. See VisitHoustonTexas.com.

Related: A recent Houston Chronicle story detailed the controversy over this exhibition. Some scientists think the exhibition may damage the fossil. Feel free to sound off below, if you have an opinion.

The participating restaurants include Cero at the St. Regis, Cohiba Brasserie (in Pembroke Pines), Himmarshee Bar & Grille, Lola's on Harrison, and Mark's Las Olas. A complete list of participating restaurants is at sunny.org/dineout. The program is co-sponsored by American Express, but you do not need to use an AmEx card to pay for your meal. [via the Miami Herald, from an article not online]

Related: Find BudgetTravel.com's latest Real Deals in Florida.

I spent Labor Day weekend in San Francisco, a city I hadn't been to in a while. It was gorgeous. When the weather's good there's no prettier city in the U.S. A few thoughts on some of the stuff I encountered there after the jump...

As I mentioned before, my partner, Adam, and I went to SF with his grandmother. Adam's uncle, who lives in Seattle, couldn't make it--but he insisted we go to the Cliff House. I'd been once before, and had figured once was enough....

Last night, I was walking home from dinner when I noticed that the gorgeous Woolworth Building is being garishly lit up with hot pink lights, like some two-bit hooker. (Well it is!) Then I saw that the 9/11 Memorial of Light (at least I think that's what it's called) was on again. If I remember correctly, it was a year after 9/11 that someone had the poetic idea of shining two bright columns of light where the Twin Towers stood. The columns have reappeared every year around September 11 (again, to the best of my memory). One year, there were millions of bats flying in the lights, presumably eating the bugs that the light drew--the lights seemed to glitter. Last year, however, they were only on for one day, September 11. (Adam and I went to his office near the top of the Chrysler Building to watch. It was unforgettably beautiful.) If you're in NYC on September 11, make sure you have a good vantage point downtown; one option would be Top of the Rock. It's my understanding that the ultimate memorial plans won't incorporate the columns of light, which is a shame, because they're far better than anything anyone else has mentioned.

Some "tourist traps" are definitely worth a visit, as Budget Travel explored in a story called "Where Locals Fear to Tread."

In a recent blog post, Erik Torkells invited you to share your favorite tourist traps. Check out what some of our readers picked. And if you haven't added your suggestion, feel free to do so below.

Mackinac Island is a total tourist trap and I love it. Renting a bike and riding around the island. Touring the fort and watching the guides shoot the cannon. Taking the horse-and-buggy ride. And, of course, buying fudge.—Carol

The Blue Lagoon in Iceland. I think most Icelanders go to Reykjavik's public pools (which are great as well), but there is no experience as relaxing as the one you'll have at the Blue Lagoon. Stand under the waterfall, rub silica sand all over your body, relax in the warm waters and enjoy the scenery...sure, you'll be surrounded by other tourists, but you'll be too serene to care.—Rachel

South Seas Resort, Captiva Island, FL is one of my favorite resorts. I haven't visited there since it suffered severe hurricane damage a few years back but I am sure that now that it has been fully restored, I would fall in love with it all over again.—Susan

My favorite tourist trap is Venice, Italy. I never tire of going there.—M. Herrick

Da Yooper Tourist Trap is a wonderful place for Yoopers who do not live in the U.P. (upper Peninsula of Michigan) anymore. It is on the road between Marquette and Micigan. The plate on the front of my car came from there!!—Merie

Every year my husband and I go to Key West for a quick pick-me-up vacation and every year we continue to go to Mallory Square for the Sunset Celebration. It is such a wonderful tourist trap but the sites are well worth it. The sunsets are always something special to watch, but the fun is in watching the street performers as well as their audiences who both entertain while you wait. We wouldn't miss it!—Patti

Seaport Village in San Diego.—Bianca

The Cowboy Bar in Jackson Hole. It is located on Town Square, and the bar stools are saddles. The rest of the bar is decorated with a taxidermy (a grizzly bear and a bobcat are my favorites), old photos featuring famous actors and singers from the 50s and 60s, and other random cowboy memorabilia. But on any given day you are just as likely to meet a tourist as a local having a beer on the saddle next to you.—Lauryn

Can't disagree with you more about the Cliff House. Was there for Labor Day weekend; it was sunny and glorious. We ate at Sutro's at the Cliff House, which is the more high end restaurant. Everything was delicious.—Carol

Wall Drug, South Dakota. It was here I first discovered what a tourist trap really is! Now, it is so camp and nostalgic, it just makes us laugh. Reading the billboards all across the state is still the most interesting thing about the drive to the Black Hills. Oh, and don't forget the prairie dog town!—Corie

The Space Needle in Seattle. You only go there when you have out-of-town guests (of which I am now one), but you enjoy it each time, as do your guests. An unparalleled view of Seattle, the Olympic Peninsula, and Elliott Bay.—Larry

Pigeon Forge Tennessee is absolute fun and enjoyment. Lots of shows: breakfast shows, lunch shows, dinner shows. Great restaurants, nationally known ribs, and wonderful, reasonably priced food at dinners, like Mel?s. Plenty to keep you and your family enjoyably entertained. Don?t miss the Dixieland Stampede show. We stayed at the Holiday Inn and the warm pool with waterfall and the hot tub were a welcome comfort after each day of being a tourist and kids are restricted after 11:00PM so adults can just relax. We were there for a week and plan to return ASAP. We are 60 years old and can truly say it was the most enjoyable vacation we ever had.—Carl

The biggest tourist trap of them all...South of the Border. This stop sits at the border of North and South Carolina on I-95. You can't miss it because Pedro warns you of its coming (from both directions) with bill boards from Florida to NY.—Amanda

This week, Charlie Suisman, who runs the excellent ManhattanUsersGuide.com, answered reader questions about New York City travel in a live chat at our website.

Here are some of his tips.

Q: Where are the cheapest hotels to stay in New York City?
Charlie Suisman: Many of New York's hotels have just gone nuts with their pricing. It's ridiculous. But you don't have to spend a fortune—however, it's still going to be more expensive than most other American cities to sleep. Here are a few picks that, depending on the time of year, should have rooms between $100 to $250: The Pod Hotel, Rooms to Let, Second Home on Second Ave, Country Inn the City, Mayfair New York, Broadway Inn, Abingdon Guest House, and The Larchmont.

Q. What's a good neighborhood to stay in? Somewhere besides the usual Times Square?
Charlie Suisman: Definitely! Whenever my friends and family come to visit, I suggest they stay anywhere but Times Square and midtown. Nothing wrong with it, but you'll get a visitor's view of the city, rather than an insider's. And so many great chefs, and shops, and nightlife is now below 34th Street. So, I'd suggest staying in the West or East Village. If you want to get a *really* different angle on the city, try the Lower East Side. It's far from bucolic, but there's so much history there, not to mention a definite hipster scene. The Hotel on Rivington caters to the neighborhood's new-found vibe.

Q.What's your advice for visiting Manhattan during Christmastime?
Charlie Suisman:There are so many things to do at holiday time, it's hard to select just a few -- there are annual holiday markets at Grand Central and Bryant Park, Paul Winter's annual (number 28, I think) Winter Solstice Celebration at Cathedral of St. John the Divine, is great. There are many Messiah performances -- of all kinds. There's a tradition at the 21 Club of the Salvation Army doing these boisterous singalongs at lunchtime -- there's nothing like those anywhere. There's Tuba Christmas at Rockefeller Center (Rock Center is the city's unofficial Christmas center, with its mega-tree and ice-skating rink).

Q: We only have two nights in NYC. What should we see?
Charlie Suisman: The first thing I'd do is go up to one of the observation decks, either the Empire State Building or the one at Rockefeller Center. I'd go with the latter because it's likely to be less crowded. Get an overview of the city, to see how it's laid out. The best thing to do in New York is walk -- it's the best way to get a feel for the city. I'd get out of midtown, too -- go to the Flatiron district, Greenwich Village -- that's where a lot of the action is these days. But since you're here for a very short time, you'll probably want to check out a few of the must-sees. For museums, choose from the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art (I feel terrible leaving out so many other amazing museums!). If the weather's nice, I'd go down to Battery Park and see the Statue of Liberty from afar (rather than spending the time getting there and back). See a Broadway show. Central Park has never looked better and an afternoon stroll there would be memorable -- you could also hire a horse and carriage from the area of 5th Avenue and 59th to give you a tour of the park. Great shopping is always there for you -- Saks, Bloomingdales, and every small shop you can imagine. Or just wander. That sense of discovery can be the most fun of all.

Q: My daughters and I would like to visit NYC and would like to know what time of year to come to get the best hotel prices. Thank you.
Charlie Suisman: You can generally find the lowest rates in January, February, and March. Some hotels will offer weekend packages, which can bring the rate down further. And don't just assume that a rate you see on the website is the lowest price you can get. Call the hotel and chat with someone from reservations. A little luck may be involved, but you may be surprised to get a lower rate -- with some polite persistence -- if the hotel isn't that busy.

(See full the transcript here.)

EARLIER: Most popular blog posts.

Find more tips at ManhattanUsersGuide.com.

This fall you'll be able to cozy up with your friends under patio heaters at about 1,000 cafés and restaurants in New York City. A new regulation allows anyone with a licensed sidewalk cafe or restaurant to add the space heaters, extending the time that patrons can hang out alfresco.

More news from New York: The city is launching a NYC Sunday Stays promotion at roughly two dozen hotels, offering discounted Sunday night room rates of 20 to 30 percent. Details here.

I met a friend for a drink last night and we ended up at a place in Soho called Tailor. We stumbled upon it (and out of it, if you must know), drawn in by the lack of a sign and the not-very-transparent glass facade--it just looked like someplace we'd like. We got that neat NYC sense of discovery, of there being something new and cool around every corner. (Of course, we also got a bit of NYC pretentiousness. The maitre d' actually boasted, "We've had all the famous chefs come by." The restaurant's chef is Sam Mason, a darling of the food media.) In any event, the drinks were awesome. I had a Blood & Sand; if I remember correctly, the cocktail was a mix of scotch, vermouth, a cherry beer, and a head of orange foam. I'm going on and on about this for a reason: Our 10th anniversary issue will be devoted to our readers, and as part of that, we're asking readers to submit the reasons they love NYC. And we're looking for really specific, surprising stuff, not just the lights in Times Square and Central Park in the autumn. Come on folks, give us what you got!

(Enter your opinion by clicking here.)

Update (9/28): Those of you who aren't familiar with Sam Mason, who has a rep as one of the sexier chefs around, might want to check out his Internet TV show, Dinner with the Band. Mason cooks for bands and interviews them (about life on the road, what they like to eat, etc.) and then the band performs.

On October 1, 1982, EPCOT Center opened its gates to the public for the first time. And while many things have changed over the years—like the name (it's just Epcot now) and the attractions (good-bye World of Motion, hello Test Track)—it still remains the coolest "edu-tainment" theme park you'll ever find.

When I was eight, my family was on one of its many trips to the Magic Kingdom, when my aunt, who lived in the area, had gotten us tickets to see a preview of the futuristic new park that Disney was building just a monorail trip away. I still remember standing on the monorail platform, staring out at the not-yet completed buildings, and thinking, "Wow." Twenty-five years later, I still get that feeling whenever I walk in.

Epcot elicits strong reactions from people. Some people rank it as their favorite theme park, even above the Magic Kingdom (blasphemy!). Others think it's a waste of time, and only go because Disney started swapping out some of the "educational" rides for thrill rides. As for me? There's nothing I love more than a leisurely stroll around World Showcase, popping in to hear the Voices of Liberty, or learning the importance of conservation at The Land.

Disney World marks the milestone on Monday morning with an official rededication ceremony. (It's a celebration that almost wasn't, as detailed by Jeff Pepper in his excellent blog, 2719 Hyperion.) And like anyone celebrating a birthday, Epcot has been going through some changes lately. It started with the phased refurbishment of Spaceship Earth, including the removal of the much-maligned Mickey wand. The Italy and Japan pavilions have just re-opened with new restaurants, while China and Mexico are next on the slate to get revisions. Donald Duck, along with the rest of the Three Caballeros, was added to the Mexico boat ride, and Canada just introduced a new Circlevision 360 movie, starring comedian and native son, Martin Short.

If you're thinking of visiting Epcot to join in the celebration, be sure to catch the annual Food & Wine Festival, running now through November 11. If you like to eat or drink (or in my case, both!), this is an absolute must-do. Kiosks ring World Showcase lagoon, and feature appetizer-size foods and wine by the glass from 25 international regions. Add in daily seminars and musical performances from acts like The Four Tops and Sheena Easton, and you've got yourself a rockin' good time! Entry is included in your park admission, and while the samples are not free, they're pretty reasonable. Most food items will run you under $5 and a glass of wine is around that. If you're a little skittish about trying out an unfamiliar cuisine, this is a great way to dip your toe in the water and try something new. And if wine's not your thing, stop by the United Kingdom pavilion where you can still grab a pint of beer at the Rose & Crown Pub.—Anthony Falcone

Photo: Epcot's IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth © Disney

We're especially proud of this project, so check it out.

Photo by Tony Law

The editors at TripAdvisor have come up with a list of 10 places that have ghost tours and other shockers.

But I'm not sure that their suggestions are all that good.

Topping their list is the Farnsworth House Inn in Gettysburg, Penn., because it offers Civil War-themed ghost tours of its attic and basement.

Oddly, customers reviewing the Inn at another online review site, TravelPost.com, generally hated it. Anonymous customers posting at Yahoo!'s Travel Page didn't like it much either.

In fact, most of the customer reviews on TripAdvisor's own page for the hotel are rather sour, too!

Hmmm...What about #2 on the list?

Eid al-Fitr is the Festival of Fast-Breaking that followers of Islam are celebrating right now. Rick Steves has just blogged a post from Turkey about how this is a great time to be traveling. Here's one of his key points:

Ramadan is, in balance, a great time to travel. You don't realize it, but most people are not eating or even drinking all day. I offered my waiter a suck of my hookah water pipe. He put his hand to his heart and explained he'd love to but he was fasting for Ramadan.

If you sleep lightly, you'll wake to the sound of a prayer and meal just before dawn. Sun rises and the day-long fast begins. Then, at about 7p.m. the food comes out, and the festival begins. Mohammad broke his fast with dried date or olive—so that's usually the fast breaker to this day. Saying, "Allah Kabul etsin" (may God accept...your fast today)," the staff at a restaurant where I was just having a drink welcomed me to photo them and then offered to share.

Every time I witness the breaking of the fast, people offered to share their food. At the restaurant I said no, but they set me up anyway—figs, lentil soup, bread, Coke, and baklava. I thought the Coke was a bit odd...but my guide said it's not considered American any more. It's truly global.

This Real Deal offers a sweeping two-week tour highlighting the varied aspects of Turkish history and culture, from Istanbul to otherworldly Cappadocia to sun-kissed coastal towns like Kusadasi, from $1,649 per person—plus taxes of about $116. It's a great deal because as a BudgetTravel.com reader, you get access to the $150 special discount. (But, alas, Rick Steves is not associated in any way with this tour.)

Today Gadling has a roundup of Eid celebrations.

The L.A. Times recently ran an excellent story on how the workers at Egyptian resorts feel about Western tourists when they have to serve them, especially during the fasting period of Ramadan.

Despite being five years old, a World Hum essay by Rolf Potts is one of the best travel pieces to have been written about how American travelers view Islam. (Note, his essay begins with a story about Eid al-Adha, a different festival.) Link, here.

Photo of the Mosque domes in Istanbul, Turkey, by Andrew Ward/Life File/Photodisc .

Everyone who has ever visited New York City has a different opinion about what is essential about the place. So let's hear it! What do you think captures New York's character or appeal? The best stories we receive will be printed in an upcoming issue of the magazine.

To get your juices flowing, here are a half-dozen of the many good NYC responses we've gotten from other readers so far. They're good because they focus on one place in the city and they give us details. (They've been slightly shortened for space.)

Sean McLachlan, author of Moon Handbooks London, recently answered your questions about London in one of BudgetTravel.com's weekly live chats.

Here are hot tips for travel within the next few months. You'll find advice on lodging, transportation, top spots for a date, cheap theater tickets, and more.

Street Sensation is posting photographs of every street in central London. It's added links to relevant websites for 3,500 businesses and tourist attractions.

The comprehensiveness can blow you away. Pick a neighborhood you want to visit and then get yourself situated visually. Combine this with a satellite tour via Flickr's world maps or Google Earth's satellite views, and you've got a handful of fun planning tools.

One flaw: We wish they had some way to highlight the coolest places, or maybe let you mark them and add notes. For now, you have to pay about $8 for a printable map.

[Street Sensation]

EARLIER: London: Cheap Sights, Eats, & Sleeps.

Growing up in Texas, I saw some of the world's most inventive festivals. From the Texas Rose Parade to the much less-enticing Mosquito Festival, my fellow Texans will use any excuse for a party.

Last weekend, I returned to my hometown of Gilmer just in time for the East Texas Yamboree, an annual festival that draws over 100,000 visitors to an otherwise tiny town of 5,000 residents. One of the oldest folk festivals in Texas, the Yamboree began as annual celebration of the county's Great Depression cash crop. The affair, celebrated with a fiery hometown pride, has grown to a three-day carnival and pageant.

The most amusing event of the festival is the Yam-decorating contest. Yams are painted, bedazzled, and festooned by K-12 students to mimic pop-culture icons, animals, and virtually anything else that can be patterned from a yam.

With categories such as yamimals and yam-beings, the contest embraces bad puns. This year's crop included a Superyam (complete with the title "Superyam saves Yamopolis")...

Barcelona launched its bicycle borrowing program last March and has just announced that it will increase the number of available bikes from 1,500 to 6,000 by the program's second anniversary. You have to sign up online with a credit card and wait for a registration card to be mailed to you. Since the system posts letters to addresses within the country, your best option is to enter into the website the address of the hotel where you'll be staying. Then notify your hotel so they'll know to look out for it. A spokesperson for Barcelona's program has confirmed that this process should work smoothly for American visitors.

Weekly subscriptions are €1, or about $1.40; the first 30 minutes are free. You can cycle for up to two hours at a time. The system is open 24 hours on Fridays and Saturdays, but closes between midnight and 5 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays. More info can be found on bicing.com (in Catalan and Spanish only).

Seville recently launched a public bike program with 1,500 bikes parked at 150 stations across the city...

Workers out in midtown yesterday afternoon may have been surprised to find Bryant Park, a popular lunchtime retreat, transformed into a scene recalling Will Ferrell's hit comedy, "Blades of Glory."

Professional skaters were decked out in characteristically sparkly costumes to perform for the grand opening of the Pond at Bryant Park, a small seasonal rink surrounded by trees and gleaming skyscrapers.

First up was a pair of lively ice dancers from the country of Georgia, Isabella Tobias and Otar Japaridze, who zipped and toe-picked to what sounded like Georgian folk music. Sinead and John Kerr, four-time British ice dance champions from Scotland, also drew on their roots. They skated to traditional Scottish melodies—including strains of Auld Lang Syne—while sporting a highly untraditional take on tartan...

Hitting bookstores today, The Tokyo Look Book offers a colorful peek at what the kids are wearing these days on the sidewalks and catwalks of the capital city. Check out our slide show of images from the book. It captures the agony and ecstasy of high school, with a uniquely Japanese twist.

The author, British anthropologist Philomena Keet, recently stopped by our office to chat about the making of the book ($30, barnesandnoble.com).

Keet listed for us the must-see neighborhoods for travelers who want to see Tokyo's street styles for themselves. Here are the areas to head for and what to expect when you get there:

If you've been planning to visit the world's most tilted tower, you're going to need to exchange those plane tickets to Italy. The Guinness Book of World Records says you'll need to fly to Germany instead.

According to a Reuters news report, the upcoming 2009 edition of Guinness has ruled that the record belongs to a church steeple in the small village of Suurhusen, Germany. The Slate Tower, built in the 15th century, tilts at an angle of 5.07 degrees, while the famous Pisa tower only tilts at 3.97 degrees.

Whether this is something to celebrate, I leave up to you. After all, the tilting is generally due to shoddy construction and poor planning. But the fact that each structure is still standing after hundreds of years means that the work couldn't have been that bad, right?

RELATED Dream Trips: Leaning Tower of Pisa

RELATED Trip Coach: Germany for the Holidays

Suurhusen photo by edwardyanquen via Flickr and Creative Commons
Pisa photo by Argenberg via Flickr and Creative Commons

We just can't blog fast enough to keep up with the breakneck pace of Beijing's development, which extends well beyond its Olympics-related construction. Earlier this week, the city welcomed the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA).

One of China's few non-profit, privately funded arts organizations, the UCCA will host lectures and screenings of experimental films—in addition to contemporary shows, such as an inaugural one on the Chinese 1985 New Wave movement.

The UCCA's spare galleries, exposed support beams, and 31-foot-high ceilings recall the Bauhaus-style building's original function as an electronics factory. It's a natural fit for the 798 art district in Beijing's northeastern Dashanzi neighborhood, which got its start in the 1990s, when massive factories were converted into galleries, boutiques, and cafés.

UCCA, 798 art district, 4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, 011-86/(0)10-8459-9269, ullens-center.org, 30 RMB (about $4); closed Mondays.

Photo of an exhibition hall, courtesy of the UCCA.

EARLIER: The Great Wheel of China and Complete Coverage of the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

When Tony Pierce became editor of LAist.com, he pumped up the site's metabolism by tapping a lot of great writers and pushing them to cover the city's music scene and outrageous headlines smarter than any other L.A. website.

And his vision seems to have paid off, as LAist's pageviews have soared. The crosstown behemoth L.A. Times has been so impressed that they're hiring Pierce away to be an overlord of many of their blogs, including the spectacular Daily Travel & Deals blog created by Jen Leo.

Today, Tony answers some questions from our readers about L.A. Here are outtakes:

It can be hard to find a clean bathroom when you're traveling. One solution is to use a bathroom locator service called MizPee if your phone has a Web browser.

We can't make this stuff up, folks.

Here's how it works: Turn on your phone's Web browser, and search for bathrooms by city and street address. The site will fetch a list of the nearest ones, along with details, such as whether each bathroom has a diaper-changing station.

The site, which launched today, has received more than a million visitors during its test phase. The service is available for these cities: Atlanta, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Manhattan, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Oakland, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Toronto, and Washington D.C., according to the press release.

It seems the most useful at night, when parking's scarce, or traffic's fierce.

EARLIER Dumb websites are turning off travelers.

MORE SILLY TRAVEL NEWS In China, you can order stir-fried Wikipedia.

978,567 Americans visited Spain between January and October. That is a remarkable 22 percent increase over the same period last year, given that the dollar doesn't go very far there right now.

If the trend continues through the end of the year, American traffic to Spain could hit a record. The last record was set in 2000.

And among all of the major destination for American tourists, Spain seems to have enjoyed the biggest jump in American visitors. The Spanish government credits its recent marketing campaign.

Budget Travel's November issue includes a fun story on Chueca, which was one of the Madrid's most run-down neighborhoods, but is now one of its most fashionable.

THE BEST PLACES YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF: La Cerdanya.

EARLIER Free bikes in Spain.

I recently watched a screening of Persepolis, an animated film based on the 2003 graphic-novel memoir of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian woman who grew up during the Islamic Revolution. The film, which opens on Christmas day in New York and Los Angeles, was entirely hand-drawn in dramatic black-and-white images that create an indelible sense of place and emotional complexity—both to Satrapi's story and the country of Iran as a whole. (Watch the trailer below for a taste.)

To me, the film is a welcome reminder that Iran is more than the sum of its leaders, even if U.S. news reports often ignore the society's deep and complex cultural roots. (The title, Persepolis, comes from the name of the 6th-century Persian capital that Alexander the Great later destroyed.) You may not want to travel to Iran any time soon, but both this film and the country deserve a closer look.

EARLIER Movie Quest: Atonement

MORE BY LAURA MACNEIL An intriguing look at how Japanese fashion is loosening up.

The Texan city is kicking the habit for New Year's, with a stricter smoking ban taking effect in most bars, restaurants, and public areas as of January 1, 2008.

Fort Worth joins a growing number of U.S. cities, states, and companies that are giving smokers the cold shoulder; the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation has compiled a detailed list.

The smoking ban isn't the only change sweeping through Fort Worth, which, as I recently discovered, is mighty cosmopolitan for a place nicknamed Cowtown. Get the scoop by reading 25 Reasons We Love Fort Worth.

It's that time of year for taking stock of where we've been and where we're headed, not just in our daily lives, but in our travels.

When we recently asked readers how the weak dollar is affecting their plans, we received a flood of more than 200 comments. Many discussed seeking out alternatives to Europe—such as Argentina, Thailand, India, Croatia, and China—and staying closer to home (Alaska, Texas).

We have our own list of places that have recently piqued our interest (more on that after the jump), and we'd like to hear from you: Where are you headed in 2008?

Photo of a little cove in Bermuda, between Warwick Bay and Horseshoe Bay, by Buff Strickland (yes, that's his real name).

We just posted about a new smoking ban going into effect in Fort Worth, Texas, on New Year's.

Across the pond, Paris, France, will also go smoke-free in all public spaces, including cafés and restaurants, starting January 2, 2008. The city approached the ban in stages: it outlawed smoking in venues like schools and hospitals (!) in February of 2007, but granted a few additional, sweet months of addiction to patrons of bars, cafes, and restaurants. Time's up for Paris's legendary smoking culture with the turn of the year.

I'd never suggest a trip on the basis of a change in smoking laws, and the dollar feels a little like Monopoly money right now, but I like Paris in February—and there are usually bargains to be had. A disclaimer: if you hate the cold, keep in mind that historically Paris averages a high of about 45 degrees Fahrenheit in February (7 degrees Celsius). Personally, I think that makes dropping into a smoke-free, cozy café for vin chaud all the more satisfying, but I can understand if you don't.

Related discussions: Can you still afford Europe? (94 responses at 2:11pm, 12/30/07) and Dollar forecast for 2008 (25 responses at 2:14pm, 12/30/07)

UPDATE, Jan. 2 Do smoking bans increase the chance you'll visit cafes and other hotspots? Post your thoughts!

The mayor of Paris is proposing that the city offer about 2,000 electric vehicles for the public and tourists to use. The cost in euro would be about $5 an hour, depending on mileage. Details are expected next month, according to the London Times.

You'll likely be able to use an electric vehicle, dubbed by locals Voiturelib' ("free car"), that can go a maximum of about 60 miles an hour, according to the car blog Jalopnik. Under the plan, public cars will be available to the residents and tourists without needing to book ahead. If you subscribed to the proposed service, you would be able to pick a car up from a station and leave it anywhere in the city, with fees being deducted from your credit card.

Paris already has a car-sharing scheme with regular gas-guzzling cars. You subscribe to the services offered by three companies and then whenever you need a car, you pick it up in a parking space near you and pay roughly $4 to $13 an hour, depending on your plan, or a fee by the kilometer driven. When done, you return the car where you picked it up. Gas is included in the price. Tourists can use the services, but be aware that the participating company websites are in French: Caisee Commune, Mobizen, and Okigo.

The program is similar to the free-bicycle program in Paris that we told you about last summer. That program has been wildly successful. Called Vélib', it has spawned its own language: There is the véliber (to ride a free bike), and the derivatives vélibataire (single male cyclist), vélimace (cyclist moving at a snail's pace), vélibation (a drunk night on a free bike), and Vélibabouchka (a bike-riding grandma), according to the Dictionnaire du Vélib' by Anne Abeillé.

The program has also spawned its own traditions. "A seat turned backwards is an indication that that particular bicycle has a flat tire, a broken chain or some other fault, and other users should avoid it," according to blogger Khoi Vinh.

MORE Info on free bicycle programs in Europe by Paul Brady at the blog Jaunted.

ELSEWHERE ON OUR SITE Here's Budget Travel's round-up of free bike programs in Europe.

EARLIER ON THE BLOG Air France starts a carbon-offset program.

Spyland is set to open in near Saragosa, Spain, (about 170 miles northeast of Madrid) within two years. The roughly $400 million amusement park will have rides based on the worldwide history of spies and secret service, including a mock-up of the Pentagon.

Visitors will play the role of a spy, collecting clues, watching stunt shows, and sliding through a water park.

Spyland will be part of Gran Scala, a new Las Vegas style resort complex being built in the Aragón desert.

Official website.

ELSEWHERE The International Spy Museum is already open in Washington, D.C.

EARLIER 70 readers share their 2008 trip plans.

In Rome, a new virtual tour of ancient Rome is the latest exhibition at the Baths of Diocletian, a majestic collection of saunas and gymnasiums that are roughly 1,700 years old.

First, the backstory: Over the past couple of years, experts have used laser scans, satellite imagery, and ancient texts to create computer images of frescoed halls, gardens, and roads as they might have looked in the first century A.D., according to this Associated Press article. Visitors wear 3-D glasses and have the sensation of watching what it would have been like to walk down the ancient Via Flaminia.

Stops include Livia's palace, the Milvian Bridge on the Tiber River, and a triumphal arch built by the Emperor Constantine. A handful of lucky visitors at any given time are given joysticks to control avatars, or cartoon representations of travelers, that appear on-screen, walking along the street.

Get a small taste of the offering at the Virtual Heritage Lab website.

This will the first of many such virtual tours of three dimensional simulations of ancient Rome.

For example, RomeReborn1.0 is a project that will soon be made available to the public by university researchers. This digital model of the city will reproduce for tourists "on satellite-guided handsets and 3-D orientation movies in a theater to be opened near the Colosseum [images of] what the Colosseum, the Forum, the imperial palaces on the Palatine once looked like," according to this Reuters story.

Virtual tours will become available over the Internet, too. For example, "a section of Livia's villa will also be uploaded in the coming weeks on the Internet-based virtual reality community called Second Life," according to the AP.

[CORRECTION: This blog post originally dated the Baths of Diocletian 2,000 years old, rather than 1,700 years old. I regret the error. Thanks, Katy!]

EARLIER A leap forward in noise-canceling headphones?

We recently asked readers if they knew of any must-see spots, restaurants, and shops in Napa Valley, Calif.

You offered a bunch of great tips! Here's a sampling (edited for space):

Tom says:

My wife and I have been there many times. Cakebread Cellars has a tour included with the tasting, but call to reserve a time. I am not a fan of V. Sattui Winery because it's always so crowded, like a cattle car, even though I like their wines. To avoid traffic on the roads, drive the Silverado Trail, which is less crowded and has a number of very good wineries—especially as you get further north.

Smyrna says:

A little known tidbit on the Napa Valley: Pacific Union College is nestled in the hills 8 miles east of St. Helena, and it owns hundreds of untouched acres. For budget accommodations only 8 miles away from St. Helena, the girls dorm offers guest rooms for less than $100/night double occupancy. See www.puc.edu for details. Sunshine Foods Market in St. Helena is great for a quick bite or picnic food. Do not miss Guini's in St. Helena on Main Street. The sandwiches are a local favorite! Say yes to Guini juice on your sandwich.

Bill says:
Rutherford Grill is where you'll find locals enjoying themselves and great food. Take a hike - Bale Grist Mill State Park and several city parks in Napa are terrific - eg. Skyline and West Hills.

Leah says:

You must eat at Redd! It's located in Yountville and well worth the money. Another must is Taylor's Refresher. Great fun to sit outside, drink shakes and eat a yummy ahi tuna burger or a super tasty blt.... Woodhouse Chocolate in St. Helen is also lovely and a good place to buy gifts for others (in addition to wine, of course!). Plus the town is super sweet and has some lovely little boutiques along the main street. They also have a nice farmer's market just behind the grade school, but not sure of the dates and it may not open until late spring.

"Travelmystic" says:

Check out the SF Chronicle ads for hotel/resort specials, some midweek off season deals are fantastic. Current special is a new resort on the Napa river at the Vino Bello Resort begin at $129 for a spacious studio + a botttle of wine. AAA also lists some very good specials in their magazine VIA. We often check out at the visitors center in town what B & B's are offering half off prices—especially midweek—and have stayed at some wonderful Inns.

Lisa says:
For a change of pace from winery tours, how about a tour of the Jelly Belly factory nearby. [In Fairfield, about 20 miles outside of Napa.] The samples are delicious and the tour is fun. The nearby Budweiser Brewery tour is less fun although the samples are generous.

See the full list of tips here.

EARLIER Bud Travel gets Facebooked! More than 460 people have become a friend of Bud. If you're already on Facebook, you can view his profile here.

The 16th president's newly restored summer cottage, located roughly 3 miles north of downtown D.C., is almost ready for its inaugural public viewing.

James Buchanan was the first president to spend time at the residence, but I guess even the folks at the august National Trust for Historic Preservation, who oversaw the renovation, knew enough to lead with the star attraction. The 34-room cottage retains the name of its more famous occupant, Abraham Lincoln, who summered there regularly with wife Mary Todd and family, riding his horse to work at the White House in the mornings. By most reports, his unusual height and bearing made him comical in the saddle—and large enough, portentously, to attract early assassination attempts, including one on an evening journey to the cottage that left a bullethole in his famous top hat.

Originally constructed in the 1840's, the cottage became part of a mid-19th century federal estate featuring an infirmary and numerous other residences for disabled soldiers. Lincoln Cottage has just undergone an extensive, 7-year renovation costing some $15m.

Opening day ceremonies are scheduled for President's Day, February 18. General admission tickets are available the next day. Apparently, visitors will not have free reign, so you'll have to join the small, hourly tours. If the thrill of walking the same floors as this titanic moral force in American history isn't enough, the first exhibition at the cottage will feature a signed copy of the Emancipation Proclamation-- which Lincoln deliberated at the retreat-- plus the pen the president used to sign the document, and a signed copy of the 13th amendment abolishing slavery.

In the event you're already planning a trip to D.C. for the Cherry Blossom Festival (this year it runs from March 29-April 13, official website) you might want to add Lincoln's Cottage to your itinerary—and book your lodging soon, since it's a perfect madhouse in D.C. during the festival. It'll be nice to get out of the city proper, and you'll have bragging rights as one of the first to see the cottage in its restored condition.

Tickets are $12. For more information, go to www.lincolncottage.org.

(Photo: President Lincoln's Cottage. COPYRIGHT 2006 National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States, 1785 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20036, U.S.A. All rights reserved.)

We've been keeping an eye on Kenya ever since the disputed reelection of President Mwai Kibaki on December 27 set off periodic outbreaks of violence. The worst clashes between police officers and supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga have been in the slums of Nairobi, the western cities of Eldoret and Kisumu, and the coastal town of Mombasa. Keep in mind that these locations aren't on typical safari itineraries; safari-goers tend to arrive in Nairobi and quickly set out for the national parks in the south and near the Tanzanian border.

While the uneasy situation shifts from day to day, scenes of mobs wielding stones and machetes are rattling Kenya's reputation as one of the safest, most popular destinations in Africa. Hotels near Mombasa, which cater primarily to beachgoing Europeans, are reporting cancellations of about 70 to 90 percent for late January, according to Kenya's Tourism Board.

If you have upcoming plans to visit Kenya, we suggest researching the penalties for canceling, postponing, or rerouting your trip. A recent New York Times Practical Traveler column provides a useful overview of questions to ask and a sampling of policies.

As for safety concerns, the State Department issued a travel alert on January 11 urging that Americans defer non-essential travel to the provinces of Nyanza, Western, and Rift Valley; Britain has taken a stronger stance, advising against all but essential travel to Kenya.

We checked in with tour operator 2Afrika, whose packages we feature regularly in Budget Travel. So far, the company's president Kenneth Hieber says that remarkably few customers have opted to cancel their Kenyan safaris. He returned from Africa on January 14 and has been posting updates on 2Afrika's blog. Hieber stated that "we feel there is no need for anyone to cancel or postpone their safari arrangements." However, if travelers wish to cancel a safari, they will receive a credit for a future 2Afrika safari or be rerouted through other parts of Africa.

Kenya's tourism board has been working overtime to monitor the situation and reassure travelers. In a press release, former chairman Jake Grieves-Cook was quoted as saying: "Only a small proportion of our country—which is greater than the size of France—was affected in any way…We had over 40,000 tourists traveling in Kenya at the time this situation unfolded, with not one harmed or even inconvenienced in any way."

It's not surprising that the tourism board is alarmed. Tourism surpassed agriculture in 2007 as Kenya's top money-maker and, as the Economist reports, Kenyans are already beginning to feel the pinch as travelers and investors become jittery.

RELATED What to do when there’s a travel emergency.

Russian literature got its start in St. Petersburg, and Elaine Blair's new pocket-size book, Literary St. Petersburg, pays tribute to 15 writers—from Alexander Pushkin to Joseph Brodsky—whose lives and stories are indelibly linked to the city.

We've reprinted a chapter on Fyodor Dostoevsky that includes the spectacular blue-domed cathedral where he married, the site of his mock execution, and the garret apartment that housed Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment.

Click here for the book excerpt and city map.

IMAGE: The book cover depicts a view of the Neva and the Admiralteyskaya Embankment by Moonlight, 1882, by Aleksandr Karlovich Beggrov (cover designed by Louise Fili Ltd; image courtesy of Stage Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia/The Bridgeman Art Library).

MORE LITERARY TRAVEL: Basilica: A Walking Tour of Papal Rome, Golden Boy: Growing Up in 1950s Hong Kong, and A Late Dinner: Culinary Travels in Catalonia.

Today, Beijing officially unveiled its National Aquatics Center, dubbed the "Water Cube." This is the building where Americans will hopefully win some gold medals during the swimming competitions of the Summer Olympics. The building has a bubbly surface, made of transparent cushions. Here's a close-up of the surface, shot by Tony Law for BudgetTravel.com.

According to Reuters, "The building will perhaps be at its best at night when an LED system with 16.7 million tones will turn the arena into a vibrant kaleidoscope of color both inside and out."

For more details on this and other new attractions in Beijing, see our Web-exclusive coverage.

Ithaca has come up with a clever idea that other cities should copy. The town of about 30,000 residents in central New York state is throwing a party for teachers Feb. 16-24—which is when hundreds of thousands of teachers are on break for "Winter Recess."

A teacher can receive discounts on dining (such as 15 percent off a meal at the famous Moosewood restaurant) and lodging (such as an $89 a night rate at the downtown Holiday Inn, which is 40 percent off the standard rate). "Bring your school ID, your union membership, or a note from your principal, and you're in," says IthacaLovesTeachers.com.

Here's a photo of Newfield, N.Y., teacher Lisa Miller riding a mechanical bull at last year's Winter Recess teachers fest. The ID tag she's wearing is the V.I.T. (Very Important Teacher) pass that can be used to get discounts around the city.

This year, concerts include Taj Mahal and Lyle Lovett. (Teachers can get free beer and wine at the concession stand. It could get crazy!)

There are educational events, too, such as a reading by novelist Denis Johnson, winner of the 2007 National Book Award.

Food will be a big theme at the party. Ithaca has more restaurants per capita than New York City...

With many tickets and packages already sold out, the window for booking an affordable trip to the summer Olympics is drawing to a close. We want to know: Are you or any of your friends or family traveling to Beijing for the Olympics? If not, has the increased attention inspired you to consider a future visit?

Post a comment below and check out our Beijing 2008 Olympics Guide for practical advice, photos of new attractions, and uncut video.

Jenny Beorkrem is a 24-year old Chicago designer who launched typographic neighborhood "maps," Ork Posters, in November of last year, and quickly sold out. Here's a look at her San Francisco map:

[The image is slightly pixelated here, but a real life print has sharp, clean edges to it.]

Jenny's Boston, New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco maps cost $27 each as screen prints, a little less as posters.

For cool maps from other sources, see this blog post by Prêt à Voyager.

EARLIER

Vintage Hawaii postcards: A slide show.

Cool travel posters from the 50s and 60s.

Starting yesterday, thanks to the Department of Homeland Security, all Americans will need more I.D. to re-enter the U.S. by car from Canada. (Until now, only a driver's license or birth certificate was required.)

You must now provide border agents with two forms of identification. (If you have a passport, you'll only need to show that.)

The two documents must be a proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, and a government-issued photo ID, like a driver's license. Details and fine print can be found at the State Department's website (travel.state.gov).

Ruled by a repressive military junta, Myanmar (traditionally known as Burma) is taking baby steps to promote tourism, after ruthlessly squashing protests led by Buddhist monks back in September.

As Ethical Traveler reports, the Ministry of Culture has reopened Thiri Zeya Bumi Bagan Golden Palace, one of four recently restored sites. The 1,000-year-old Golden Palace was built by King Anawrahta in what was then the capital city of Bagan (also called Pagan). Thousands of ancient temples still crowd the skyline.

Making the choice to visit Myanmar—or any country with a bleak human rights record—can gnaw at your conscience. Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist Aung San Suu Kyi and groups like UK-based Tourism Concern have urged travelers to avoid Myanmar while its regime remains in place. Some tour operators refuse to run trips there.

G.A.P Adventures, however, offers a guided 14-day tour of Myanmar from $945 and states that "...travelers should have an opportunity to experience this country firsthand, meet its people, and potentially return home as ambassadors for positive change." Journeys Within also covers Myanmar, and co-founder Andrea Ross raved to Budget Travel about the little-known resort area of Ngwe Saung.

The State Department's consular sheet on Myanmar has information on what to expect and how to prepare for the trip. One tip: Bring cash as local businesses typically don't accept traveler's checks or credit cards, and ATMs are nonexistent.

Are you intrigued or put off by the idea of visiting Myanmar? Can boycotting a country do more harm than good? Voice your opinion by posting a comment below.

RELATED To Boycott or Not to Boycott and Mr. Bush, Let Us Go to Cuba!

PHOTO of balloons over Bagan courtesy of Sara Heinrichs via Flickr.

American Idol is coming to Walt Disney World as part of the major revamp of Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney-MGM Studios). Due to open later this year, the attraction will closely follow the format of Fox's popular singing competition. Each day, amateurs aged 14 and older will compete, and winners will face-off in a Grand Finale show nightly. Top performers who are 16 to 28-years old will get to enter a regional audition for TV's American Idol on another day. No word yet on whether Scrooge McDuck will play the role of the obnoxious judge.

And here's news from elsewhere around the Disney-verse:

Frida fans, take note: the largest U.S. show of the painter's work in 15 years opens at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on February 20.

To score VIP (untimed) tickets, check out the special hotel/ticket packages offered on the museum's website, philamuseum.org.

Once you've had your art fix, there are plenty of great local restaurants to keep the flavor of México going. In honor of the show, the chef at Xochitl has created a four-course, $35 menu based on Kahlo's favorite foods, including stuffed poblano peppers and shrimp, cactus, and potatoes in guajillo sauce. Wash it down with a Corazon de Kahlo (Frida's Heart), a specialty cocktail made with pineapple, cilantro, and tequila (408 S. 2nd St., 215/238-7280, Xochitlphilly.com). For a quick snack, grab a taco at one of the city's tasty taquerias. Some good bets are La Lupe, in the Italian Market (1201 S. 9th St, 215/551-9920); Taqueria La Veracruzana in South Philly (908 Washington Ave., 215/465-1440); the Northern Liberties takeaway spot, Taco Riendo (1301 N. 5th St., 215/235-2294), and the Loft District's Jose's (469 N. 10th St., 215/765-2369).

For more Philly travel ideas, visit Uwishunu.com, the city's tourism blog.

*CORRECTION (2/14): When this item was first posted, it mistakenly said that Philadelphia was the only American city to host the exhibit. But the exhibit was already in Minneapolis, and it heads to San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art June 16–September 28, 2008. We regret the error.

PHOTO by OliverAlex via Flickr, Creative Commons]

Per this New York Times review:

For the price of 1 euro (about $1.50), you rent yourself a glass and get to sample as many of the wines as you want. At the end of the night you throw some bills or coins into a big jar, the amount based on what you think is fair.

Fra_rosa, Zionskirchstrasse 40; 011-(49-30) 657-06756.

Perlin, Griebenowstrasse 5; 011-(49-30) 4069-0951.

Forum, Fehrbelliner Strasse 57; 011-(49-30) 600-53072.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, a federal judge has dismissed a potential class-action lawsuit against Walt Disney World that would have allowed disabled guests to use their own Segways at the theme parks. We first posted about the lawsuit back in November.

Disney's contention has been that the theme parks offer alternative methods of transportation for the disabled and that Segways are a danger to the safety of its visitors if they're not operated properly. Currently, only trained employees are allowed to use the device in the parks or guests on specialized tours when the parks are closed (pictured to the right).

It's important to note that U.S. District Judge Gregory A. Presnell dismissed the case because the plaintiffs had shown no intention to actually visit the resort in the future—not necessarily because he agrees that Disney should not allow Segways.

Did he make the right call? It's tough to say. On my many trips, I've been banged around not just by wheelchairs and motorized scooters, but strollers and scampering children, too! During busy periods, navigating a theme park can be an arduous task at best. But from what I've read, Segways are faster and more difficult to control than the above items (expect maybe the children), which can make them a risky proposition.

So you tell us. Where does Disney's obligation to the safety of all of its guests end—and the rights of its disabled guests begin?

Image: Epcot guests take a spin on a Segway during morning hours before the area opens (Disney)

In a historic and controversial first, today the Philharmonic became the first major Western institution to perform in North Korea, which remains under the iron grip of Kim Jong Il. Director Lorin Maazel led the musicans—including eight of Korean descent—in works by Gershwin, Dvorak, and Wagner as well as the Korean folk song Arirang. When introducing Gershwin's "American in Paris," Maazel quipped that a composer might someday write a work titled "Americans in Pyongyang.” (You can read an account of the event here.)

The North Korean government has granted unusual access to the Americans, who were greeted with a traditional music and dance performance, an opulent banquet, and tours of the capital. Curious to see what one of the least-visited cities in the world looks like? You can get a peek by checking out our slide show and an excerpt from the coffee-table book, Welcome to Pyongyang.

Newsweek's Beijing bureau chief Melinda Liu wrote a blog post with insights into the political implications of the Philharmonic's visit, where the musicians are staying, and what they're allowed to experience. The magazine also managed to enlist fashion designers to make over Kim Jong Il. You can view the decidedly less dictator-like results—and even create your own outfit!

RELATED One of the world's most isolated countries courts tourists: Should you boycott?

Fewer Americans want to spend summer in the city—New York City, that is—according to a recent survey by the American Society of Travel Agents.

Although you probably won't be surprised by the rest of the survey—Orlando and Las Vegas remain the top domestic destinations for the sixth year running—New York dropped to number seven on the list after five years at number three. Travel agents report that New York trips make up just 2.1 percent of bookings for 2008 travel to U.S. cities as compared to 11.8 percent in 2007.

Why the sudden change?

For about a decade now, anyone in Rome could wander among the city's most famous ancient ruins, known by the shorthand "The Forum," for free. But starting next Monday, March 10,* entrance tickets will be required.

The Forum will be included in the ticket covering the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill. It will cost 9 euro -- about $14, or more if there's some kind of special show going on.

BUDGET TRAVEL TIP To skip the frequently long lines for entry to the Colosseum, buy your tickets at the Palatine box office (200 yards away, on Via di S. Gregorio 30). Once you have your ticket, you can proceed past the line and straight to the entry turnstiles.

BUDGET TRAVEL TIP 2 If you're visiting in the peak season of July, you may want to prebook your tickets through Pierreci (011-39/06-3996-7700, pierreci.it) and pick them up directly at the Colosseum will-call window, but there's a $2 surcharge.

I'm personally sorry to hear about this because the policy will discourage locals from visiting the site. Especially during the off-season, you would see Roman families spontaneously visiting the amazing grounds, mingling with tourists.

On a brighter note, ...

California's budget crisis might force the government to shut down dozens of state parks, thereby cutting off public access to many of the its beaches and recreation areas. (Federally managed parks, such as Yosemite, wouldn't be affected. Get more details on this story by reading this article at the website of The National Trust for Historic Preservation. The LA Times Real Deals Blog has also been covering this here and here.)

The threat to California's parks is reminiscent of the 1995 budget standoff that shut down national parks across the country—but at least then the closures were temporary. A move like the one California is considering could reduce public access to state lands for years.

Taking away access to parks seems like an immoral act, like kicking a puppy, but the fiscal situation for a lot of states, and the nation, for that matter, is pretty dire.

How fundamental is it to have a state park system? Worth raising fees and/or hiking taxes?

In what will come as a surprise to travelers planning to climb Mount Everest this spring, the Nepali government has decided to close the south face of the mountain to trekkers from May 1-10 when the Olympic torch is to be carried to the summit.

China already banned climbing on the north face of Mount Everest until after May 10. The mountain lies on the border between Nepal and Tibet, the region of western China where ethnic Tibetans have rioted this week against the Chinese government.

The New York Times reported today (Friday) that Nepal’s tourism minister said the Chinese government had urged Nepal to close the mountain to help prevent political disturbances during the Olympic torch ceremony. The Olympics are scheduled to take place in Beijing from Aug. 8-24.

It’s not clear whether official word of the mountain closure has trickled down to tour companies in Nepal. Dawa Sherpa, head of Asian Trekking, told the Times that he was trying to reorganize treks set for the spring on the Tibetan side of the mountain to the Nepali side. The news of the closure of the Nepali side came as a shock to him.

Sherpa says some of the trekkers preparing for climbs this spring are already in Nepal and now their trips are in limbo.

EARLIER:
Budget Travel story on trekking in Nepal

BudgetTravel.com's coverage of the Summer Olympics in China: www.budgettravel.com/beijing2008

We challenged a photographer to capture glimpses of unexpected, everyday life in Paris—and found ourselves falling in love with the city all over again.

Ian Gittler is an author, photographer, and designer living in New York City. He is currently working on two new long-form books, one about youth culture and another comprised of detailed still lifes of vintage motors.

Check out his slide show of fresh, evocative images of Paris.

You can also catch him online at iangittler.com.

Debuting this month, Ideo Eyes Open dispenses with the trappings of the standard city guidebook. Its New York City edition, for instance, doesn't have a subway map or info on the city's most famous museums. Similarly, its London edition points you to the city's hottest cupcake shop rather than Big Ben.

What the guidebooks do offer is plenty of captioned photos of spots where you rub shoulders with locals, not tourists—as this slide show illustrates.

In a surprise move, the photos are cross-indexed by theme and activity, somewhat like a children's Choose Your Own Adventure book. You're encouraged to flip back and forth through different pages, discovering boutique shops, foodie havens, and similar venues.

The Wapping Project is a "former hydraulic power plant turned gallery/restaurant/bar hybrid." thewappingproject.com.