Top Places to Find the Rich

High-end travel spots and services outperformed all other categories of travel last year, according to this reprinted L.A. Times article. And what sorts of places are the rich headed to? Places like "Costa Rica, Europe, Russia, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand."

Everyone's Off to Corsica

The Times of London is all about Corsica and its ever-more-fancy vibe. Gourmet thinks so too, with a good article in this month's issue (no link). All I need is one more story, and it's officially a trend.

Internet Agencies Grab More Biz-Travel Biz

Reuters reports that Expedia, Orbitz, and other Internet travel companies are making more and better plays for corporate travel dollars. Until now, most corporations preferred using traditional travel agents to book travel.

Explaining Chinese Food to the Chinese

Kung Pao or General Tso's chicken? Duck sauce? Fortune cookies? Ask someone in China's Sichuan province -- even descendants of the great general himself -- about these classic Chinese-American dishes, and they're not likely to know what the heck you're talking about.

Nifty Way to Cut Down on Lodging Costs

It doesn't get any cheaper than this. The concept of "I have a friend of a friend's cousin in Denmark who'll let me crash for a night" has been taken to the Web at CouchSurfing.com. Join the membership network and you can look up potential hosts all over the world with whom you can stay for free. Yes, free -- you don’t even pay a membership fee for the nifty service.

Don’t think Tempur-Pedic; hosts most likely will put you up on their sofa. On the other hand, they might offer to be your local tour guide. There's a vouching and verification system in place so that members can give each other references. And members can choose when and if they let other surfers stay with them. There are even couch surfing etiquette and safety tips.

Shanghai? Sure thing. New Zealand? No problem. Iceland, Morocco, Croatia? Check. This sounds tempting for truly budget travel -- does anyone have any personal-experience stories to share?

Beer, Sweat, Loads of Fun

On Saturday I hit one of the events that make New York what it is: P.S.1's Warm Up. P.S.1, a contemporary-art museum out in the industrial Long Island City section of Queens and part of the Museum of Modern Art, holds these get-togethers every Saturday in the summer.

At this former public school, what used to be the playground and courtyard is remade each year by some designy hotshots into some sort of oasis. (This year is all about enormous bamboo sculptures.) At every Warm Up, DJs and bands perform; there's a small dance floor; beer, burgers, and hot dogs are sold; and everyone has a great time admiring each other's cell phone, vintage T-shirts, and shoes.

I was drawn to this particular Warm Up by the dulcet sounds of the Scissor Sisters, a local band that mixes disco, rock-and-roll, and New Wave sounds into something sweet and catchy. But whoever's performing, Warm Ups are worth braving the stickiness of New York in the summer for the beautiful sets and the pleasant company of hundreds of happy New Yorkers having a good time.

Warm Up even made it into the NY Times' list of non-obvious places to go if you're here during the Republican Convention.

Buckingham Palace: Worth a Stop or Not?

QE2 (Her Majesty, not the ship) is headed to Scotland for her summer vacation, so over at Buckingham Palace, 19 of the state rooms are open to the public (through late September, when she returns). A few years back, the Consumers' Association, based in Great Britain, ranked the palace among the country's worst tourist attractions. It gets mixed reviews in our Rants & Raves section too. Is it really as bad a stop as some people say?

Confessions of a Ciggie Smuggler

From July's issue of InsideOut Travel comes a great little story about a Minnesotan taking the train from Krakow to Berlin, smuggling cigarettes into Germany, making friends with fellow passengers, and engaging in copious vodka drinking.

New Reason to Love JetBlue

Call me vain, but I'm thrilled that an Oasis Day Spa will be opening at the JetBlue terminal of JFK airport around Labor Day. (Another reason to love that airline!)

It will be a full-service spa, where you can get everything from a facial to a pedicure before hearing the front-and-rear-of-the-plane spiel. Treatment times will be coordinated with flight arrivals and departures, and the staff will keep tabs on schedule changes so you don’t have to worry about missing your boarding call. Can a massage be as effective as an anti-flight-anxiety pill or a tipple? It’s worth a try.

Hot Town, Amish in the City

OK, so the reality show Amish in the City wasn't nearly as cringe-worthy as I hoped was afraid it would be. (Here's the plot: Five Amish share a huge, ugly L.A. house with six kids from the city. Hilarity ensues.)

Rather than paint the Amish as rubes, the producers chose instead to make the Amish Five bear the burden of being seemingly the only decent folk in L.A. The city kids are nearly all hateful (bottle-blonde Paris Hilton wannabe, bitchy gay guy, spacey vegan girl, etc., etc.).

Mark my words: many lessons will be learned before the show is through. Me, I'm just hoping everyone gets to enjoy some shoofly pie soon. If you missed first episode on Wednesday, the always-classy UPN is repeating it tonight. Oddly enough, writes "illusion321," one of our Travel Talk forums users, the local affiliate in central Pennsylvania isn't carrying the show for fear of offending the Amish.

Boston Says Thanks With Post-Convention Deals

OK, I claimed I was going to shut up about them, but those conventions keep pulling me back. As a thank-you to its citizens and to DNC volunteers, the City of Boston and its many partners have put together a big list of deals on plays, restaurants, movies, parking, and lots of other good stuff. Most of the offers are only valid through this Sunday.

I hope that New York takes this idea and runs with it. Bloomberg, I'm looking at you.

[Thanks, Katherine and Susan!]

Have Dog, Will Travel

A while back the New York Times reported on the enterprising outfitters who can tailor outdoorsy trips for your dog as well as you (to my knowledge no one's yet made plans to take a tabby river-rafting).

Memphis' Authentic Rock Spot (Is Not Graceland)

Sun Studio, the legendary Memphis facility where Elvis Presley made his first recordings, is a must visit. Little has changed since Sam Phillips opened the place in 1950 -- it's a rock 'n' roll time capsule.

On July 5, Sun celebrated the 50th anniversary of Elvis’s first session here. But that's not why it's called the Birthplace of Rock and Roll. It was here, in 1951, that the first rock and roll record, Rocket 88, was recorded. The artist? Jackie Brenston and the Delta Cats. For those in the know, it was really Ike Turner and his Rhythm Kings, with special guest vocalist Jackie Brenston. Sun is where blues legend Howlin' Wolf made his first recordings; Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins also recorded here.

Sun is still an operating studio -- $75 an hour -- and artists such as U2, Tom Petty, and Bonnie Raitt have all made the pilgrimage to lay down some tracks and capture the vibe of rock's pioneers. More authentic and representative of rock and roll than Graceland, Sun Studio should be the highlight of your Memphis visit.

"Very Bad Hotel" Epilogue

God bless Hotel Chatter for following up on one of the funniest travel/Web collisions of the past few years -- the famous "Yours is a Very Bad Hotel" page, in which two genuinely pissed-off business travelers used their mad Powerpoint skillz to take aim at an inept Houston hotel that had managed to bump them despite their "confirmed" reservations, and then did very little to remedy the problem.

Perhaps it's not a complete surprise to find out that that hotel has a new name and is under new management now.

How About Tulsa?

As I've told you in previous posts, I'm going home to Kansas for a visit, and I'm trying to think of things to keep me busy. One place I'll certainly drop by is Tulsa, Oklahoma, which Fodor's selected as a top overlooked destination a couple of years ago. Tulsa has two excellent museums you should consider if you find yourself passing through the region. The Gilcrease Museum has the world's largest collection of Western American art, including most of the original bronzes made by Frederic Remington. There's also the Philbrook Museum of Art, a major art museum in a beautiful Italianate villa. So how did Tulsa get such cool stuff? Thank oil money and good taste, notwithstanding the weirdly futuristic campus of Oral Roberts University and its giant praying hands sculpture. Oh, and the city has a pretty cool zoo too.

Worldwide Airport Directions

It's usually a big headache to make sure you have enough info to get from the airport to your final destination. Till now: To and From the Airport is an enormous database of driving directions, numbers for cabs, and info on mass transit. Whether you're heading for Boulder or Bangkok, it's worth a look.

And for you ski bums: the same guy created To and From the Slopes just for you.

NYC Korean BBQ: All-You-Can-Eat Goodness

My bottomless stomach can’t get enough of bottomless eats. Last weekend it was all-you-can-eat sushi, but my latest target was NYC’s Yakiniku Juju (157 E. 28th St., betw. 3rd and Lexington Aves., 212/684-7830), a restaurant serving both Japanese and Korean fare but noted for its all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ deal ($23 Mon.-Thu.).

It’s infinitely more difficult to eat yourself silly at a place like this than at a buffet-type eatery, where the premium is on speed (what if the place runs out?) and quantity. For one thing, the food comes to you. You can still eat all you want, but you have to keep ordering from the wait staff, and with a middleman separating you from the food you're more likely to recognize profligate tendencies in yourself. Furthermore, Yakiniku Juju’s all-you-can-eat option (you can also go the menu route) is do-it-yourself. Your tools include a platter of vegetables and marinated meats (chicken, sirloin, liver, pork, and short ribs in whatever proportions you’d like), chopsticks, and a grill set in your table.

After the first round of food, I started experiencing carpal tunnel--like symptoms from all the cooking. By the second round I was approaching full and was lucid enough to recognize it.

At the end of your experience, you get a shot glass of sweet honey tea on the house. My advice for those eating on empty stomachs: wear pants with an elastic waistband.

An Ode to Good Beer

As you travel, it's important to plan on a few key pilgrimages to significant and sacred sites. This is the story of one of mine, to the Trappist abbey in Belgium where monks toil away making my favorite beer in the world (in between prayers): Chimay.

Gorgeous Panama Photos

"It’s dark still, out the window of the airplane, and the rain makes it more so. I am in a converted cargo plane with the pilot, two Kuna Indians and a crate of melons. The pilot cuts the engines to a quarter their power, and the plane makes a steep curve into the jungle."

Notes from the Road visits the Kuna Yale Indians, who are cut off from the rest of Panama by a thick jungle and keep mainly to themselves. Some gorgeous photos here.

[via BoingBoing]

World's 7 New Wonders

"Over two thousand years have passed since the Seven Wonders of the World were last selected," as the New 7 Wonders project points out. The folks there think it's time to select a new batch -- and you can still vote.

Here are the top three overall so far, along with their percentages:

Wall of China: 11.30 %
Potala Palace (it's in Tibet): 8.74 %
Roman Colosseum: 7.18 %

In case you were wondering, the seven classic Wonders were the

Pyramids of Egypt
Statue of Zeus
Pharos of Alexandria
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
The Temple of Artemis
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
The Colossus of Rhodes

CNN put together a "tour" of the ancient Wonders a few years back. The foundations of several remain, but the pyramids are by far in the best condition.

Oprah Likes Sandwich, Invests in Café

So Oprah is in San Luis Obispo, which is about midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. She orders a sandwich from a local restaurant, the Art Café and Bakery, and likes that chicken curry on homemade pepper-jack bread so much she invests in the place. Here's the Oprah moral: "Women try to do too much instead of reaching out and asking for support so they can do what they do better. Always do your best, because you never know who's watching." The owner is the sister-in-law of the head of Oprah's production company, so another moral might be "it helps to know Friends of Oprah."

Find out more about San Luis Obispo in our Santa Barbara and the Central Coast destination guide.

[Via Chicagoist]

Bottoms Up the World Over

The site is slow to load, but after it does the internationally inclined World's Best Bars delivers on its promise just about as well as any single site could. It leans towards the glam and the fancy, which is probably what most tourists (including myself) want when they're in a new place. The site is brought to you by a whiskey concern, which probably explains the eccentric, possibly imaginary "local cocktails" listed for most locations.

[Thanks, Jennifer!]

Sleeping Frank Lloyd Wright

I have home on my mind today. I'm traveling back to Kansas in a couple of weeks, and there are some places I want to check out while I'm there. One is the Inn at the Price Tower, a boutique hotel that has been created in the only Frank Lloyd Wright skyscraper ever actually built. It's in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, not far from my home town, Coffeyville, Kansas. I've heard the restaurant is good and may try that while I'm there, but it may be hard to say no to Murphy's Steak House, which makes some of the greatest hamburgers in the known universe. Oh, and while I'm on a Bartlesville tear, I might stop by the very worthwhile Woolaroc Museum, not far away, though I went there a couple of years ago.

The "Official" Little House

John Rambow's post the other day reminded me that there is something I've been needing to see for a long time. I'm going to visit the "official" site of the Little House on the Prairie, the original spot near Caney, Kansas, where Laura Ingalls's family is said to have settled when they moved west in 1869 (they didn't get to Walnut Grove, Minnesota, until 1874). Funny, I grew up about 15 miles away and have never visited. But now that I'm going back to Kansas in a couple of weeks, this seems as good a time as any.