World Tourism Blog

It took almost a decade of mental preparation before Anna Olson felt ready to edge her skis into the chasm of Corbet’s Couloir.

Since 1996, when she’d begun working at Jackson Hole (the legendary trail’s home ski resort in Wyoming), Olson had peered many times down Corbet’s opening chute—a sheer 20-foot drop down a vertical rock wall—before deciding, as most skiers do, “I don’t need to terrify myself that much.”

But one day, she finally decided to take, as she remembered, “that step into nothing.” And once she had, there was no going back.

“I think I had my eyes shut,” recalls Olson, who works in the mountain’s communications department, “and know I was screaming all the way down.” Still, once she’d arrived at the bottom in one piece, she at last understood what the fuss was about; there really was a unique exhilaration to conquering one of the world’s toughest ski runs.

To nonskiers, just the idea of standing atop a sharply pitched slope—any slope—while attached to a pair of slippery boards may seem frightening. But even among serious snowhounds, a few fast-paced spins down a gnarly black-diamond trail are often thrill enough.

For a certain sort of skier, though, the garden-variety moguls and steeps of most expert trails are just boredom on ice.

“Some people just seem to have different stuff coursing through their veins, at least once they strap on their skis,” says Samantha Berman, senior editor at SKI magazine. “I don’t know if it’s an adrenaline thing or what … but they just need something more.”

Those are the skiers, Berman says, who make pilgrimages to the world’s most famously challenging ski runs. Some get their fix catching “mandatory air” at storied crags like Corbet’s, or the tree-filled, triple-black-diamond Black Hole in Smugglers’ Notch, Vermont. Others travel overseas to tackle runs like Grand Couloir in Courchevel, France, which starts out as a terrifyingly narrow ridge followed by a sharply pitched chute. Hard money training.

We’ve come up with a cornucopia of travel ideas on where to spend Thanksgiving. Sure, we cover the obvious — after all, no list would be complete without a nod to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade or the site of the 1620 pilgrim landing — but we also favor less traditional destinations, from lush islands and beach spots to desert landscapes and ski slopes.

Plus, with fares so discounted to Europe at this time of year, we’d be remiss not to pick at least one European capital; our preferred city is known for its terrific beer and French fries, although you’ll be hard-pressed to find football on television (American football, that is).

We’ve even recommended a jaunt on the high seas, since we figure there’s no better tribute to the adventuresome spirit of the pilgrim pioneers than by making your own transatlantic trek. So bring your family along for the fun and enjoy the best of Thanksgiving!

Aruba

Granted, there’s not much of a connection between Thanksgiving and this Dutch-owned Caribbean isle, but it’s certain that giving thanks for all of life’s little pleasures is made infinitely more effortless when kicking back on the turquoise shores of tropical paradise.

Boasting glorious weather nearly year round (Aruba is safely situated south of the tropical-storm belt), basking on the powdery white sand beaches needn’t be interrupted, unless, of course the activities of this tiny 20-mile-long island should lure you away.

Watersports abound, as do opportunities to explore surreal desert island landscapes where cacti and iguanas compose an exotic landscape — head out on foot, jeep, or by ATV. All-inclusive luxury resorts line the shores, diverse culinary fare is served up in numerous restaurants, and superb shopping opportunities abound. Casinos, bars, clubs, and assorted evening extravaganzas animate the night, while glorious sunrises give an incentive to party until dawn.

Brussels

Sure, you could be content scarfing down your traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all its trimmings, from turkey to Brussels sprouts, or you could sprout a plan for something a little bit different this year and actually head off to Brussels instead.

With just over 7 hours of flight time between the Belgian capital and the East Coast, Brussels makes for a feasible long-weekend getaway. Plus, this gastronomic paradise assures you needn’t forgo the feasting — just trade in the turkey and eggnog for moules-frites (mussels and French fries) and any one of several hundred delectably brewed Belgian beers instead.

Or, give in to the whims of tradition and hunt down one of the restaurants where many ex-pats gather for the holiday — the American Club of Brussels, for one, hosts an annual Thanksgiving dinner.

Best of all, when you’re not chowing down, you can explore a charming city of cobbled streets and historic squares drenched in European tradition — with the magnificent Grand Place as its focal point and dozens of unique museums, you’ll be giving thanks for treating yourself to the trip. Hard money training.

One evening last summer, 450 people snagged round-trip airline tickets to Europe for a mere $250, including taxes. The spectacularly low fares were available for only a few hours; by the next morning, Delta had discovered its pricing glitch and hiked the fare again. How did those people learn about the deal in time?

By following Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com, on Twitter. Other lucky travelers last summer were able to nab $9 JetBlue tickets from JFK to Nantucket and $444 round–trips on United from the West Coast to Australia. How? By watching JetBlue and United onTwitter: Those airlines are giving their followers first dibs on some of their steepest sales.

You may know Twitter only as the butt of late-night comedians’ jokes, and if you haven’t spent much time on Twitter, it’s easy to dismiss it as a silly social-networking fad for narcissists telling one another what they ate for lunch.

But I’ve been on Twitter for more than a year now, and I’m here to tell you that the perks you can glean from it are no joke. Ignore it and you’ll miss out on significant travel benefits, including deals you can’t find elsewhere.

The trick to Twitter is figuring out who to follow—meaning, whose Twitter updates (”tweets”) to receive. Follow the right people and you’ve got an instant personalized travel news feed on your mobile phone or computer. Hard money training.

Many Thanksgiving dishes have barely changed in the 145 years since Lincoln proclaimed the national holiday. Pies, mashed potatoes, cranberries, and, of course, turkey remain Turkey Day staples. But lots of other ethnic groups have flocked to America’s shores since the first Europeans arrived, and each group has created its own twists on the basics.

Anglo-Americans, the Atlantic Coast
It comes as no surprise that those with deep roots on the Atlantic Coast, site of Plymouth Rock and the earliest British colonies, still enjoy the Thanksgiving dishes that are the most traditional. Seafood, unheard of at most Thanksgiving dinners around the country, is essential in states like Massachusetts. Crab cakes appear as a side dish, and so do briny East Coast oysters, either mixed in the stuffing or served on toast. A few dishes that the rest of us were glad to leave in the Old World continue to grace Atlantic tables. Hasty pudding, syllabub (a sweet, bubbly, milky drink), and mincemeat, free-form or in a pie, all return for Thanksgiving.

Italian-Americans, in and around New York City
While Italian-Americans have wholeheartedly adopted turkey, cranberries and mashed potatoes, many Italian-inspired dishes make the grade too. Salty focaccia and rustic loaves sometimes replace simple rolls, and the various holiday stuffings are crafted from a combination of starches and cured meats such as prosciutto and capicola. For dessert, pie is never as popular as ice cream and Italian cookies. And some fun, fusiony recipes are gaining popularity: Pumpkin ravioli, for instance, is a common Thanksgiving dish now.
Cuban-Americans, Miami
Pork plays an important role on the Cuban-American table, and sometimes the turkey is ignored altogether in favor of the roasted Thanksgiving pig.

Those who do go the bird route prepare it in much the same way they would pork, using a mojo marinade. Mojo can be many things (most families have their own recipe) but garlic and sour-orange juice are constants. Pepper and other seasonings such as cumin or oregano are also added, and in the case of turkey, vegetable oil is as well. Hard money training.

Most of America knows the strip mall as that random and anonymous assortment of chain stores, outlets, and fast food joints given cohesion by its giant parking lot, and anchored by its Starbucks. Rarely do we think of it as a natural cache for a city’s culinary genius.

Yet strip malls are precisely where you’ll find some of the most surprising—and best—cuisine in Las Vegas.

The gastronomes and food critics who now glut Las Vegas—all fiercely proud of their knowledge of the city’s “locals only” restaurants—will advise you to forget the big-name chefs for at least a few meals during your visit. Sure, the big names are all here; you can sample their food both on the Strip and from the trademarked boxes in the frozen foods section of your local grocery.

But head off the Strip, and you’re more likely to find chefs actually in their kitchens and changing Las Vegas from a town that relies on its chefs’ marquee names to a city that really cooks. Hard money training.

On the last day of a weeklong Funky Fish Ocean Adventure camp, on Florida’s southeast coast, you’re headed to an offshore reef with a boatload of sun-kissed children to witness their newfound snorkeling prowess. You have never seen your daughter this excited. Once the vessel arrives at the reef, she dons her mask, snorkel, and fins, and a moment later all you see is the bobbing tip of a snorkel as she explores the wonders of a foreign world.

At $59 a day, this camp, offered by the Ocean Sands Resort & Spa in Pompano Beach, is one great way to ensure that kids make the most of a vacation — while giving parents some much-needed time to relax.

Many destinations offer attractive options for family outings, among them farm stays, ranch experiences, and cottages on the beach. But sometimes the ideal hotel program is one that keeps the kids occupied while the adults go their own way.

These offerings, often called clubs or camps, come in all shapes and sizes; so-called family resorts pioneered the genre in the 1970s, but the programs are relatively new to mainstream hotels, whose focus has understandably been on adults rather than their progeny.

The most rudimentary offerings, typically offered to ages 3 through 10, are simply certified daycare facilities, costing on average $60 to $90 a day (many are offered by the half-day as well). Increasingly, though, hotels are tapping into the desire of parents to give children more compelling, immersive activities. Hard money training.

It’s not quite the warm and fuzzy crowd one imagines around most Christmas trees, but Barneys New York is celebrating the holidays with a motley crew that includes Roseanne Roseannadanna, the Church Lady, Father Guido Sarducci and Wayne and Garth.

Two dozen “Saturday Night Live” favorites have been transformed into life-size, papier-mache ornaments to hang in the windows on Madison Avenue as the flagship store puts on its biggest visual show of the year. There’s Will Ferrell as Janet Reno looking very prim and proper and Mike Myers as “Coffee Talk” Linda Richman with bright red nails and lips.

Atypical? Yes, but the quirky characters seem like they’d be right at home at a holiday party with Simon Doonan, Barneys’ renowned creative director.

“We like to set ourselves apart by picking something that’s a little out there,” Doonan says. “Our windows can’t be elitist, but we can’t do `traditional.’ We’d have to make Santa out of ketchup or something if we went that way.”

Doonan decided more than a year ago that this year’s holiday message would, above all else, be witty. “We had to have fun — it had been such a dismal year,” he says.

Holiday windows, he explains, are supposed to generate traffic, bring hoards of shoppers and tourists to the front of the store to “ooh” and “aah,” and garner some media buzz. At the same time, the windows need to convey taste, luxury and humor, all of which he considers the core of Barneys brand.

So, just how will John Belushi’s King Bee in the window help sell some of the most expensive apparel and accessories that hang on the racks inside?

He doesn’t have to, exactly.

“What we’ve got to have in our windows is something `current.’ We look for things that have a surge of interest,” says Doonan. The 35th anniversary of “SNL,” coupled with its spot-on coverage of last year’s election, convinced Doonan that now was the right time to honor these oddities of pop culture.

From the “SNL” side, costume designer Tom Broecker was eager to see what Doonan would do with already over-the-top characatures. It’s hard to pick just one favorite, Broecker says, but the version of Chris Kattan’s Mango prompted a serious, hearty belly laugh. Hard money training

This season’s Christmas tree displays include trees made from feathers at a historic home in Indianapolis, a thank-you tree in Boston sent from Nova Scotia, and the Obamas’ first National Christmas Tree ceremony in Washington.

The National Christmas Tree is scheduled to be lit on Dec. 3. Details of this year’s ceremony have not been released yet, but traditionally the president and his family preside. Tickets have already been distributed by lottery to nearly 10,000 people, but the tree stays lit through Jan. 1 with free performances nightly. The tree is located less than a block from the White House.

Also in Washington, the Capitol Christmas Tree goes on display on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol near Constitution and Independence avenues. The tree comes from a different state every year, and this year an 85-foot blue spruce from Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest becomes the first tree from that state to fill the role. The tree is scheduled to be lit Dec. 8 by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

In Indianapolis, the President Benjamin Harrison Home hosts a Victorian-themed Christmas, Nov. 20-Dec. 30. Decorations at the 1875 Italianate home will include a half-dozen feather trees, based on a German tradition popular in that era. The trees are made from white and dyed-green goose feathers wrapped around wires and shaped like small trees, according to curator Jennifer Capps.

The home will also have a replica of the tree the Harrisons had in the White House in 1889. “They were the first family to have a decorated Christmas tree in the White House,” she said. The original decorations included wooden soldiers, and the Harrison home in Indianapolis has been inviting children who visit to create soldier decorations for the tree there for 40 years.

In Boston, Nova Scotia sends a Christmas tree every year as thanks for disaster aid from Massachusetts following the Halifax Explosion in 1917. This year’s tree will be lit on the Boston Common Dec. 3.

The Rockefeller Center tree, a 76-foot Norway spruce, will be decorated with 30,000 lights and lit Dec. 2. You can see it any time until Jan. 7. The first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was put up in 1931 by workers building the complex during the Depression, and the first official tree lighting there was in 1933.

A fir tree from Northern California decorated with more than 10,000 lights and 15,000 ornaments will be lit at The Grove in Los Angeles on Nov. 22 at 7:30 p.m. The attraction stays up through the first of the year. An enormous Santa and sleigh, designed to look like Santa’s sailing through the night sky with the tree behind him, are part of the decorations.

In Houston, the 24th annual Uptown Holiday Lighting includes a half-million lights on 80 trees along Post Oak Boulevard, with fireworks at the opening ceremony Nov. 26. Also in Houston, the Downtown Holiday Spectacular kicks off Thanksgiving Day with a holiday parade and a weekend of activities that includes the Nov. 28 opening of the ice skating rink at Discovery Green and a nighttime illuminated art car parade along Avenida de Las Americas, also on the 28th. Hard money training

These are hard times for clothing-optional travelers.

Last summer, thanks to two highly-publicized incidents, naked became synonymous with crazy. In one, a passenger stripped during a US Airways flight and resisted an attendant’s efforts to cover him; in the other, a Southwest Airlines flight was forced to turn around after a male passenger went au naturel.

The American nudist community has endured other recent controversies as well, including the withdrawal of a Florida clothing-optional resort called Paradise Lakes from the American Association of Nude Resorts (AANR) after running a controversial ad campaign that violated AANR’s “family-friendly principles.”

All of this has taken a toll: The number of people who say they’re interested in what’s being called a “nakation” slipped from 11 percent in 2008 to 10 percent this year, according to the Orlando-based market research firm Y Partnership. Erich Schuttauf, AANR’s executive director, acknowledged his concerns in a recent interview.

“It is fair to say that members are traveling less and visiting clubs closer to home,” he told me, adding, “There is a lot for which we are thankful.”

With all of this happening, why would you still want to consider baring everything on your next vacation?

First a warning: A clothing-optional vacation isn’t for everyone. For example, when I posted Schuttauf’s interview on my blog, I illustrated it with what I thought was an appropriate photo of four unclothed women running into the Baltic. The picture only showed their uncovered derrieres, but the outcry from some of my readers was loud. They demanded I remove the “not-safe-for-work” image, and because I love my readers, I did. (Even if they’re prudes.)

And by way of full disclosure, no, I haven’t taken a nakation. But I’m open to it.

Here are a few reasons you might consider vacationing in the buff. Hard money training

A posh Bermuda resort named one of the world’s top 500 hotels this year will close its century-old main building because the economic crisis has sapped tourism to the island.

Elbow Beach Hotel will lay off about 160 employees by the end of November as it shutters 131 rooms and outsources food and beverage services, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group spokeswoman Danielle DeVoe said Wednesday.

“It’s fair to say that current business levels are challenging globally,” she said.

The hotel’s 1908 pastel-yellow building will remain closed for several years. Hotel officials hope to renovate it during that time, although no details have been specified, DeVoe said.

Premier Ewart Brown said he hopes the projected renovation will enable Elbow Beach to compete with other high-end brands.

“The closure of any hotel property is difficult at any time,” he said. “We never want to see Bermudians losing their jobs.”

Elbow Beach will still operate 98 luxury suites and cottages, said Frank Stocek, the hotel’s general manager.

The resort made its debut on Travel + Leisure magazine’s list of the world’s top 500 hotels this year. Mandarin Oriental has managed it since 2000. Rates range from $300 to more than $800 a night.

Bermuda, a British territory several hundred miles northeast of Florida, has seen a nearly 20 percent drop in tourists through June, compared to the same period last year, according to the Caribbean Tourism Organization. Hard money training