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Summer Travel 2022: Pay Your Money and Take Your Chance

Count me among the droves of disappointed summer travelers whose vacations were devastated by long airport lines, canceled flights, indifferent travel agents and lost luggage. My intention was to become acquainted with port wine and fado music in exotic Portugal. Instead, I settled for the intimacy of small-town charms in Iowa, a welcoming Midwestern state that has more attractions than I ever imagined.

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Portland’s Whimsical Creativity Trumps Grit and Crime

When I first moved to Portland, Oregon, in the early 1990s, one of my first friends was a man who self-published a high-brow zine about amusement park rides. He eschewed car ownership, although he was happy to ride in mine. When we played Scrabble, he favored long, obscure words over point value. For all of my friend’s quirks, he turned out to be a surprisingly typical Portlander. Those who found Portland too self-consciously hip could laugh at its liberal excesses as immortalized in Portlandia. But these days, Portland has acquired a layer of grit. Homeless camps and boarded-up buildings covered with graffiti dot the whole city. Does the promise of Portlandia live on? For the sake of journalism, I decided to take an unflinching look at my city. Read More

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Poupon U for Students Who Can Cut the Mustard

You’re familiar with Purdue and Princeton. You know about Penn State and Pitt. But are you aware of Poupon U? It’s a small culinary institute in Middleton, six miles outside Madison, WI. You won’t find it on U.S. News & World Report’s Best College Rankings but, rest assured, all its students can cut the mustard. At the center of Poupon U sits the Mustard Museum, a repository of more than 6,300 different mustards.

PLANE SPOTTERS SHARE BIRDWATCHERS’ PASSION FOR THINGS THAT FLY

Plane Spotters Share Birdwatchers’ Passion for Things that Fly

Birdwatchers stroll through forests hoping to catch a glimpse of an elusive bird. Plane spotters do the same, only their birds are bigger, louder and arrive on schedule. This isn’t some small group.  Plane spotters have an extensive network of members from all over the world. In Los Angeles, their Facebook Group LAX24R, the official LAX Plane Spotting Community, has over 4,200 members, and that’s just one group for one airport. For most people, plane spotting is just a hobby, something they do for pleasure. It’s mesmerizing to watch 330 tons of metal inbound from an exotic destination gliding gently toward a runway, and being able to capture that feeling is immensely satisfying. For others, it becomes a global pursuit for photos that showcase airplanes and airports.

Above the Arctic Circle Alaskans Skin Moose and Mush Dogs

It’s 1:00 am under a brooding Alaska sky in February. The temperature’s a few degrees above zero and there’s no sign of the aurora borealis. I wander back into the pioneer cabin where the others in my party are waiting around for the northern lights to show. Inside, Jack Reakoff holds forth about how to hunt, slice and transport the hides and carcasses of various large Alaskan mammals. He’s even brought laminated, full-color sheets showing himself and his wife posing with their kills and pictures of the chunks of meat these animals become. He segues from the best cuts of moose and bear to his upcoming gig training Special Forces how to safely cross frozen rivers.

“What do you think the most dangerous thing here is?” he asks, peering around the pioneer cabin at my group, a ball of energy despite the hour. “Bears? Moose? No, falling through the ice. Getting wet in cold weather.” The aurora never shows on my second night in Alaska. Still, after a couple of hours with Jack, I’m gripped by the spirit of Alaska and the self-sufficiency necessary to live here.

Chinese tourists at Universal Studios

5 Places Where International Travelers Can Find the Soul of America

Should you visit America this summer? Though statistically rare, violence against overseas guests has led several foreign governments to issue travel advisories. The Japanese Consulate General in Detroit warned of “potential gunfire incidents everywhere in the United States.” China cautioned its America-bound students that “shootings, robberies and theft have occurred frequently in the U.S.” Even Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry admonished its citizens to postpone trips to the U.S. “due to recent acts of violence.” And yet, with few exceptions, foreign arrivals in the United States have continued to climb every year since 2000. Are the rest of us missing something here?