Follow the locals to cheap food
Thanks for attending my presentation about “Saving Money on Travel” at Lone Star College. Here are a lot of the travel tips I covered in my workshop.
Feel free to read more articles on my website. New articles are posted all the time. Travel safe! Continue reading
“I like thinking that perhaps this is how we should always travel, without foresight or answers, adventitiously, with faith as our compass.” -Andre Aciman, Conde Nast Traveler, 9/2010
“Anyone who has read, who has dreamed, who knows the history of the city he is entering, who is penetrated by all the opinions of those who came before him, brings with him his impressions almost all ready-made: he knows what he must love, what he must despise, what he must admire.” Guy de Maupassant speaking of Venice
This retro-painted jet reminds of the way things were
For all of those poor souls stranded due to weather, I have assembled a list of America’s worst airports. I haven’t been to every airport (EAU, FAT, & GGG come to mind), but I think this is a pretty accurate list of the Top 5 worst airports in America.
I figured, given the number of times I’ve been to Austin just for live music, it’s about time I learned something. This is why I visited the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin.
The museum fills in the blanks I never learned growing up as a non-Texan, and left me with a lot of food for thought. History, it seems, is ironic.
How about these factoids: Continue reading
There are two kinds of travelers. There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see and sees it, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it. The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more. He is constantly comparing what he sees to what he wants, so he sees with his mind, and maybe even with his heart, or tries to…it sometimes blurs, and sometimes sharpens, his eye. My head was filled with pictures of Paris, mostly black and white, and I wanted to be in them. –Adam Gopnik, Paris to the Moon
I’m not sure I agree with the types of travelers, but, like Adam, I want to be in the photo.
View from the upper deck
My Bill Bryson books sat unread on my shelf until I gave one to my brother to read on a trip last summer. He loved it, so I grabbed Bryson’s Notes From a Small Island off the shelf to read myself. Here’s the plot: Bryson is getting ready to move from England, his home of many years, so he takes a last, long, meandering trip about Great Britain. It’s not a novel concept, nor an exciting one, but he makes it charming, readable, and particularly funny. This is one of the best books for getting a taste of the culture of England, Scotland, & Wales, and a primer of the little-known places you might like to see.
This passage alone makes the book worth reading: Continue reading
Those little old houses by downtown Houston really mean something. I have always enjoyed the unlikely juxtaposition of historic homes and churches, plucked up by a giant and placed like children’s playtoys in a park abutting the Houston Skyline. But I had never taken the time to visit the Heritage Society in Sam Houston Park for a tour.
Houston’s 53-story Heritage Plaza towers over (pardon the cliché) these little houses like a schoolkid ready to step on ants. It’s like the future (or a 1980’s version of it) casting a shadow on the past, which is an apt metaphor for Houston, where historic buildings are often lost to new development, for better or worse. Sam Houston Park calls to mind an animal refuge. In this sanctuary, the Heritage Society has gathered up a handful of survivors, Continue reading
This humorous passage about the storied ugly American traveler is taken from the 1955 travel book American In Italy. It could have been written yesterday:
I first heard of the two women from St. Louis from a bellboy who told me they had hung their laundry on the chandelier. When the manager discovered it had washed off the decorations he tried to make them pay.
“Like hell,” they told him. “If you can’t make your decorations meltproof you can pay for them yourself. Continue reading
This article of mine was published at www.petergreenberg.com on January 11, 2011:
Do you know who to count on in case of a hotel emergency? Matthew Stone reveals that knowing how hotel staff can help you—and how you can help the staff—in a hotel emergency is essential in protecting the lives of everyone.
