I’m the first to own one of Los Angeles sculptor Robert Toll‘s new one-of-a-kind welded-steel belt buckles.

“In 1993 three Australians and one Englishman took their kayaks to two rivers in what used to be called Soviet Central Asia. As far as we can ascertain, it was the first time kayaks had been taken into Uzbekistan and Kirgizstan, and probably the first time kayaks had been taken down the Chatkal and Pskem rivers.”
Dancing with the Bear by Liam Guilar is a free online book that recounts their journey. It offers a reminder that not all roads have been taken, that there are still unique adventures to be had.

Hearing the news that Moat Brae, a Georgian townhouse in Scotland that sparked JM Barrie to create Peter Pan, is to be turned into a center for children’s literature got Emily Temple thinking about all the real-life places that have animated works of literature.


Not big cities that figure in thousands of books, like New York and London and their numerous incitements, but “houses and moors, caves and farmlands hidden away in authors’ hometowns or childhood vacation spots.” So she compiled a list of ten real life places that inspired the likes of Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Emily Brontë, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Mark Twain, Robert Frost and F.Scott Fitzgerald to create literary classics.

The rest of the story: 10 Real-Life Places That Inspired Literary Classics by Emily Temple (Flavorwire 2011-08-06).

As an aside: it would be fun, wouldn’t it, to plan a summer trip to Durham, Maine (the inspiration for Salem’s Lot) and to locales such as the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado (The Shining‘s Overlook Hotel), around Stephen King Country: The Illustrated Guide to the Sites and Sights That Inspired the Modern Master of Horror by George W. Beahm. Available from Amazon

The Travel Film Archive sells commercial access to travelogues and educational and industrial travel films, “…from the boulevards of 1920′s Paris to the streets of San Francisco in the 60′s…from the Sudan to Palestine to Pakistan” and every place in between. All of the footage, much of it in color, was shot on film between 1900 and 1970. The library includes work by renowned travel filmmakers Burton Holmes, Andre de la Varre, and James A. FitzPatrick, as well as footage shot by journeyman cameramen. Although the films are not rentable by individuals, the catalog available on line is a joy to visit, especially for anyone nostalgic for locations and lifestyles lost to time. Here, to take one example, is New York City as it was a little more than a half century ago:

Website: The Travel Film Archive

(Photo: John Gabree)

“Yes,” says Geraldine DeRuiter about The Everywhereist,  “it’s a travel blog.” But that hardly does it justice.
DeRuiter is a clever, insightful and opinionated writer, and whether she is carrying on about obnoxious airplane passengers, the Seattle Gum Wall and the Most. Complicated. Shower. Ever. or splurging at Rome’s Hotel Raphael, overdosing on New York cupcakes (a descent into madness) and encountering L.A.’s Coolest Mailman, she is never less than entertaining. Bonus: guest bloggers.

The site: The Everywhereist

You may think summer is just around the corner, but I have proof to the contrary:

I-80, Donner, California June 1, 2011

Denver, Colorado

"Continental social food," the slogan of TAG restaurant in Denver, could hardly be more apt. With menu items that extend from sushi tacos with guacamole through meat loaf friended by bokchoy and kimchi, grilled lamb with Bambino watermelon, and Kobe sliders with irresistible duck fat fries, to salmon served in the company of spring ramps, shiitakes, English peas, cured wild boar, Meyer lemon confit and umami butter, comfort food has never been so edgy.

TAG’s barkeeps follow the same fresh, seasonal path trod in the kitchen by chef and owner Troy Guard. Some classics like daiguiris and stingers are delivered straight, but most, like the Kumquat-Jalapeño Mojito, receive a TAG twist. Also, since many of the bar's concoctions depend on seasonal ingredients, every visit is likely to be greeted with a surprise, and not one not limited to mixed drinks: the Bazi Shot is an energy swallow packing 12 vitamins and 68 minerals, and there's house-made ginger ale and a TAG-branded coconut soda. The beverage menu matches the lets-give-it-a-shot attitude emanating from the galley.

I never pass anywhere near Denver without a visit to TAG. It's the only way to find out what happens if, say, the flavors of yuzu, jalapeño and Pop Rocks find their way onto the same plate. Desserts -- peanut butter partfait, for example, with caramel, bittersweet chocolate and Nutella marshmallow ice cream -- prolong the adventure. Tag also has a raw bar and is open for lunch and dinner (social -- a.k.a., happy -- hour is 2-6 pm). TAG, 1441 Larimer St., Denver CO 303-996-9985.

http://www.tag-restaurant.com

The url for The Detourist has changed. The real URL for this post is now
http://thedetourist.com/2011/04/18/lodging-unique-hotels-around-the-world/

Unusual Hotels of the World is a guide to one-of-a-kind lodging experiences, hotels so unique -- underground, made of ice, up a tree, underwater -- that they themselves become the reason to travel to a particular destination. Some of the 233 properties profiled on the site are well-known, but many will be new to the majority of travelers.

Unusual Hotels of the World offers 'experiential' hotels. Staying there is worth the trip, which will often be long and arduous, and delivers the guest a memorable and hopefully enjoyable experience. Some are luxurious, some are not, and throughout the guide you will find a range of choices to suit the budgets of every traveler.

Visitors can search for lodging by experience ("arty," "bling," "family," "romance," "thrill," "wild"), type of facility (castles, oases, igloos, boats, cabooses, lighthouses, wigwams, prisons, caves, and so on) and location on the planet. The website regularly updates its entries based on visits by the editors and feedback from hotel guests. People who sign up as members of the site receive a newsletter that includes promotional deals and offers from the associated properties.

Site: Unusual Hotels of the World

“He who would travel happily must travel light.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The url for The Detourist has changed. The real URL for this post is now
http://thedetourist.com/2011/04/16/packing-tips-making-travel-easy-safe-stress-free/

If you're tired of being mistaken for the Joads when you travel, you already suspect that traveling lighter would be traveling better. And yet, as this exhaustive site demonstrates, there's a lot more to the art and science of traveling light than jamming as much as possible into one humungous handbag.

OneBag.com, a frequently updated reference guide to "going pretty much anywhere, for an indefinite length of time, with no more than a single carry-on-sized bag," has a wealth of practical, field-tested advice for over-burdened travelers.

As author Doug Dyment writes, of "all the travel skills you might acquire, learning to travel light is the one most likely to result in enjoyable, productive, stress-free travel experiences." Less luggage means fewer opportunities theft, damage, mis-routing or finding out the hard way that you have been the unsuspecting mule for drugs or contraband goods.

Carrying only one bag can be a real money-saver, too. You can use public transit more easily, cut back on tithing cabbies, bellhops and baggage handlers, and avoid the increasingly exorbitant airline luggage fees.

And with lighter traveling comes more flexibility:

Less stuff means greater mobility, which gives you more travel options. With no checked luggage to limit your choices, you can more easily deal with delayed transportation and missed connections (you can even switch to earlier flights when space is available). You needn't arrive at airports as early, and you will be among the first to leave, while others wait for baggage delivery and long inspection queues. You can board trains, trams, and coaches with alacrity. You won't feel compelled to take the first hotel room offered: you can comfortably walk down the street should the ambiance be unsuitable or the price unreasonable. You can sell your airplane seat (by volunteering to be "bumped") on full flights. You can even travel as an air courier.

Among many useful pages on OneBag.com highlights include Using A Packing List, a detailed analysis of every individual item on Dyment's personal packing list, a checklist of things to take care of prior to leaving on a trip, contact information for suppliers of harder-to-find items he mentions, a short list of recommended books on related topics, links to some carefully-chosen sites that OneBag enthusiasts are likely to find interesting, Dyment's own compilation of travel industry links to airlines, hotels and automobile rentals, plus the best metasearch engines, handy lists of country/airport/airline codes, and tools for checking real-time flight status, airport delay conditions, and aircraft seating arrangements.

Dyment keeps track of content changes here, and site updates can be followed also via Facebook, Twitter or RSS feed.

For travelers, OneBag.com may be the single most useful destination on the internet.

Site: OneBag.com

The url for The Detourist has changed. The real address for this post is now
http://thedetourist.com/2011/04/16/readin-writin-ramblin-travel-books_16/

Since 1998, a lifetime in Web years, Literary Traveler has anthologized travel books and essays with artistic ambitions, and arranged literary tours and literary events for readers who like to travel and travelers who like to read.

The many dozens of literary articles and travel profiles by and of famous writers are arrayed alphabetically from Louisa May Alcott to W.B. Yeats. A list of recently added authors, for example, includes Joseph Conrad, Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Edward Gorey, Victoria Hislop, Che Guevara, Naguib Mahfouz and Mario Vargas Llosa. A sampling of recent articles -- Of Dreams and Dolls: American Girls and the Spirit of Exploration; Colin McPhee's Musical Life in Bali; Karl Marx's Revolutionary Brussels; Jim Morrison & Lipstick Kisses at Oscar Wilde's Pere-Lachaise; Origins of Crime & Justice in James Patterson's Washington DC; The Real Story Behind Dickens' A Christmas Carol; Shirley Jackson's Outsider Perspective of Bennington, Vermont -- reveals the range of interests explored by the site's contributors.

In the nature of things, most of the familiar names are in the public domain, but so what?; there are endless hours of classic travel writing on the site, including a series on Ernest Hemingway and Ernest Hemingway's Places, interviews with well-known writers like Alan Lightman, and links to recommended volumes for purchase.

Primarily or at least most usefully a subscription site, Literary Traveler offers two types of memberships: free and paid. A free subscription provides limited access to many of the articles; an all-access premium account including a monthly newsletter costs $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year.

Site: Literary Traveler

The url for The Detourist has changed. The real address for this post is now
http://thedetourist.com/2011/04/15/let-me-stay-for-a-day-an-inspiration-to-detourists-everywhere/

If anyone deserves to be called The Godfather of Couchsurfing, it's Dutch author Ramon Stoppelenburg. He grasped earlier than most the personal networking opportunities made possible by the world wide web.

One of the first Dutch bloggers, in early of 2001 Stoppelenburg started a website called Let Me Stay for a Day with the intention of cadging free places to crash as a means of underwriting his travel ambitions. The plan worked out better than he could have anticipated: in short order, he had 3,577 invitations from 77 countries. Leaving home with no more than "a backpack filled with clothing, a digital camera, a laptop, and a mobile phone," for nearly two years, as he writes in Dutch-inflected English, he "traveled the world WITHOUT ANY MONEY, visiting people who invited me over through this website. I crossed distance with my thumb or with help of sponsors and supporters. In return for all support I wrote about this all in my daily reports on this website."

By the time he shut down the project in 2003, Stoppelenburg had visited The Netherlands, Belgium, France, England, Austria, The Isle of Man, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, Spain, Hong Kong, Australia and Canada, with all expenditures -- even airline tickets -- sponsored or donated by his followers: the former student, then in his mid-twenties, had found a way to become a seasoned world traveler for the cost of a $35 website domain registration.

During his travels, Stoppelenburg published columns weekly in the Dutch daily newspaper Spits, in addition to the 7,000 photos and over 550 reports he posted to his website. You won't be surprised that Letmestayforaday.com turned into a book that the author is currently translating into English. Since June 2008, he's been conducting walks up Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain. And in September 2010 he relocated to Phnom Penh, where he runs a movie theater playng American and European pictures and is organizing a European Cooking Trip that starts in the summer of 2011. He posts updates on his activities to his current blog.

Some of the American media may think of Ramon Stoppenlenburge as "the notorious Dutch freeloader," but out here on the road he's a hero to detourists and armchair adventures everywhere.

"Let's talk about hotels" is the cut line for the blog where Guillaume Thevenot reports on topics associated with hotels, b&bs, and travel-related businesses. Hotel Blogs provides links to travel professionals, services and websites, plus tips on social media marketing for the hospitality industry. A regular feature is Q&As with CEOs of companies like Hotel Tonight, a company that offers same-day hotel bookings on iPhones, online marketing consultant for hotels e-conceptory, and menumodo, a hosted content management tool for creating, updating and distributing restaurant menus.

Site: Hotel Blogs

Getting the best fares usually means visiting several often-overlapping sites, including those of the airlines servicing the route you're researching, to see who is reporting the lowest fares. As a place to begin, The Detourist usually starts its searches with Airfarewatchdog, an automated fare-comparison site that offers easy access to information about specific routes, destinations and sales.

One section, Top 50 Fares, tracks special, usually time-sensitive deals. This morning, for example, the top offers range from $18 round trip between Los Angeles and Las Vegas (LAX-LAS) on Spirit, the flying bus line (actually, this is an unfair comparison, since buses are roomier, now usually provide wireless access, and have no hidden charges) to $158 r/t flight between Baltimore and Austin (BWI-AUS) on Continental, American, Delta and United. As always, watch for surprise fees.

Airfarewatchdog, part of the company that owns BookingBuddy, OneTime, SmarterTravel and the flash-sale travel site Sniqueaway, was created by George Hobica, a travel journalist specializing in consumer issues.

Site: Airfarewatchdog.com

It's a small world after all.

Tucson:

After hearing a bezillion times how great it is, I made a detour to the The Grill at Hacienda del Sol. Except for the setting -- in the restored and renovated Hacienda del Sol Guest Ranch Resort that was once a Roaring 20s-era school for daughters of the super rich -- the restaurant was otherwise remindful of St. Estephe, the legendary Southwest Fusion eatery of the 1980s that was unaccountably cloistered in a Manhattan Beach mall. At a time when there were possibly six decent restaurants in all of L.A. County, St. Estephe concocted sometimes delicious, often fanciful, always outrageously priced creations that took Hispanic-American food to places it had never been before.

(You might have ordered "chips and salsa," for example, and been served a dinner plate with a thin layer of red and green sauces deployed in the pattern of the holism symbol and graced with a single taco chip in the form of a dove. This was before anyone knew what a "plate" was, so the place definitely was cutting-edge, but as admirable as its efforts may have been as art, they left something to be desired as, well, food. And it was damnably expensive. You'd wonder if the boys in the back got a bigger kick out of sending out their latest caprices or the bill.)

The Grill at Hacienda induced St. Estephe flashbacks. The menu is replete with components like shrimp chorizzo, parmesan foam, pancetta dust, micro egg yolk, jalapeno-blueberry jam, yam and smoked gouda gratin, charred tomatoes and, I kid you not, "heirloom" beans. Normally this kind of menu -- small portions, unusual tastes -- is right up my alley, but Hacienda del Sol's eclecticism just comes across as pretentious. I can't say the food overall is bad (although the chorizo con pappas was positively insulting), but it lived up to neither its aspirations nor its prices (and lets face it, when you're blown away by a meal you don't even notice how much it costs).

There are plenty of first-rate restaurants in Tucson. You needn't go out of your way for this one.

The specialized search engine Real Travel brings the benefits of social media aggregation to the work of finding hotel lodging. Combining real-time pricing and availability data, Facebook "likes," and hotel reviews from across the web, Real Travel simplifies hotel search. You'll find hotel ratings, an easy-to-use price comparison tool, property photos, location information, information about nearby attractions, and advice from fellow travelers about lodging and "things to do." Unquestionably one of the more useful travel tools.

Site: RealTravel.com

Los Angeles: Hip movie rental store starts a extension program

Next month, Vidiots, a venerable indie video outlet in Santa Monica, introduces a film studies program taught by industry pros, critics and academics. Register now for four-, five-, or six-week series ($128-$192) or for individual classes ($40) in the new Vidiots Annex, 302 Pico Boulevard, next to the store between Third and Fourth Streets across from the Santa Monica Civic parking lot. A Saturday night film club includes a discussion afterward. 310-392-8508; http://www.vidiotsannex.com.