Intelligent Travel

Beyond the City Limits

Mid-April, I decided to visit my hometown of Seattle. Seeing as the Emerald City is in the peak of its rainy season at that time (believe it or not, the rain does stop eventually), my mom wondered why I'd ever want to visit for a week of gray drizzle. Well, I found round-trip airfare for $178 (which I ended up paying for in the end, when my MD-80 flight was canceled and I spent an extra six hours in BWI—I'm not bitter), and I knew visiting in April would allow me to see my favorite parts of the Pacific Northwest sans camera-toting tourists. Fortunately, I ended up bringing with me about 36 hours of sunshine, so my mom and I ventured out of the city.

Our first stop: Whidbey Island. About 30 miles north of Seattle is the ferry from Mukilteo (its small port has no more than a lighthouse, small market, and Ivar's restaurant—their smoked salmon chowder is to die for) to Whidbey Island.  There's not much on Whidbey, either, but that's the beauty of it. We stopped by Greenbank Farm, a 1930s berry farm on the south-central part of the island. In 1972 Greenbank was considered the largest grower of loganberries, a cross between a raspberry and blackberry, for which the farm is now famous (stop by in July for their Loganberry Festival). Unfortunately, we arrived before the farm actually opened for the day, so instead of testing some delicious loganberry products, we were instead greeted by some of the farm's furry friends (pictured left).

We continued north through Deception Pass, a 4,134-acre marine and camping park with great views and wildlife-watching opportunities. Stop your car before Deception Pass Bridge and take a walk along one of the short trails, or check out the view from the lookout on the other side (for more information, the visitor center is located about one mile south of the bridge). After leaving Whidbey Island, we continued east on Route 20 and north on 237, on a mission to make it to Edison, Washington, for lunch.

Positively Portland

Oh, that we should all get this kind of a send-off on our travels...

Traveler's assistant art director, Stefan Caiafa, recently ordered a CD from CD Baby, an online music store based in Portland, Oregon, that buys music directly from musicians, digitizes it, and sells the CDs from their warehouse. The musicians get paid more per album than with the big-name labels, and you get the satisfaction of listening to unique music and supporting independent musicians at the same time. Anyway, CD Baby just sent Stefan an email confirming his order, along with this heartwarming message:

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Friday, April 25th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh...

Stefan wonders: Do you think they put something in the water in Portland?

P.S. from Stefan: The CD I ordered, Young@Heart's Mostly Live, is equally heartwarming, and possibly means that whatever exists in the waters of Portland also runs in the waters of the East Coast. At the very least, it seems that the spunky septuagenarians and octogenarians who sing on the CD regularly parade through the streets of Northampton, Massachusetts, spreading positivity. If you aren't in Northampton, however, try catching the excellent Young@Heart documentary recently released nationwide.

Photo by Paul Tamburro via Flickr

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Cocktail Caucus in the Emerald City

Recently a friend and I stopped by Seattle's Tini Bigs Lounge, a black-wall, pink-light cocktail lounge just steps from the Space Needle. The sign outside claims it is the "second best cocktail lounge" in Seattle. At first, I wasn't quite sure why—after sampling a couple varieties of their ten-ounce 30 martinis, I'd happily call them the best around.

"Everyone claims to be number one regardless if it’s earned or just a marketing ploy," says manager Patrick Haight. "We like to think of ourselves as a humble cocktail lounge that is progressive in creating a good quality cocktail with unique and fresh ingredients. Being number two always gives us room to strive in doing better."

Fair enough. That night we sampled the Florida Keys, Aloe, and Lemon Drop varieties, avoiding the (we felt) more adventurous flavors, like the Burning Man-tini (mazama chili pepper vodka mixed with chocolate liqueur), voted best martini by Seattle Weekly.

But if you stop by the lounge this week, stay away from their classic varieties, step up to the 1909 Brunswick bar to order a "Bama-tini" or "Clin-tini," and watch as Tini Bigs's Democratic cocktail caucus takes place right in the lounge. Both drinks are made from the exact same ingredients, and for every drink ordered, the tally will go up on the board (pictured, above).

"We will be serving and keeping our unofficial results until one of the candidates drops out," says Haight. "From that point I will already have a McCain and 'fill in the blank' board ready to go until the election. We’ll have our election night party at Tini Bigs and our adjoining bar Hula Hula to root for the perspective candidates. Last election we had a more than enthusiastic party." This is one political party we'd be glad to take part in.

Tini Bigs is located at 100 Denny Way (+1 206 284 0931), on the corner of First and Denny, near the Space Needle and Pacific Science Center.

Photo: courtesy of Patrick Haight; Tini Bigs chalkboard art by Martin Hester

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Global Eye: Seattle

Photographer: Lola Akinmade, Virginia, USA 

Getting the Shot: Years ago, I remember walking around side streets all day trying to find the best shot of the Seattle Space Needle. After fruitless attempts, I decided to ride the elevators up to the top. By the time I was done for the day and leaving around dusk, I looked up at the tower and shot this picture.

The Details: The sky was a beautiful indigo blue and the eclectic street lamp in the foreground gave the tower an other worldly, intergalactic feel. I usually travel with a Nikon Digital SLR (DSLR) camera, but this shot was captured with a simple point-and-shoot APS Kodak Advantix camera. I wasn't sure what I was going to get until I developed the film...

We love how Lola managed to make the street lamp seem more otherwordly than the Space Needle behind it. What do you think? Send us your own photos for Global Eye by adding them to our Flickr pool.

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America's "Distinctive Destinations"

Every year since 2000, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has added 12 places to its list of "distinctive destinations" in the U.S. These destinations "offer an authentic visitor experience by combining dynamic downtowns, cultural diversity, attractive architecture, cultural landscapes, and a strong commitment to historic preservation and revitalization."

This year's destinations include: Aiken, South Carolina (for its varied history, from the first pottery made by Native Americans to being one of the first railroad towns); Apalachicola, Florida; Columbus, Mississippi; Crested Butte, Colorado; Fort Davis, Texas (for having no traffic lights or chain stores); Friday Harbor, Washington (pictured left); Portland, Oregon; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Red Wing, Minnesota; Ste. Genevieve, Missouri (for its French colonial architecture -- the most found in the U.S.); San Juan Bautista, California; and Wilmington, North Carolina.

Making the Most (and a Moose) in Jackson Hole

Contributing Writer Cathy Healy knows a thing or two about traveling, but even she had to learn that there's more than one way to enjoy Jackson Hole.

TETON VILLAGE, Wyo. – Arggggggggg! I’m a fair-weather skier and this is the fairest of days. The sky is blue and the powder is deep. My family is all over the mountain, but there is nowhere for me to ski!

Jackson offers only one easy green molehill of a slope that takes five minutes to come down—and that's after a ten-minute wait in line. The next step up is a double blue peak that's an Everest to me, given that I’ve only been on skis once in the past five years. So I had a choice: I could eat worms or I could enjoy what Jackson Hole Mountain Resort does offer. I ate worms. How’s that for stupid?

So here’s the lesson learned: Even on a family vacation, you’ve got to plan for yourself, too.

Next year, I plan to make the most of Jackson’s unique location. From the ski mountain, you can wander to Grand Teton National Park and over to Yellowstone National Park. So I’m going to sign up for wildlife tours in Yellowstone to catch a sight of wolves, or maybe take a cross-country ski tour of the Tetons, where if you're lucky, you might see moose tracks.

Or, maybe you’ll just think it’s a moose.

Cinematic Road Trip: Idaho

John Ur is back this week with the next stop on the Cinematic Road Trip. This time it's Idaho. Sweet!

A confession must be made. The amount of time that I’ve spent within the borders of the state of Idaho between birth and the present day total approximately ninety minutes – eighty of which were spent in the car driving between Montana and British Columbia. But cry not, native Idahoans! For I am aware of the tragedy of my limited visitations to the Gem State.

Any avid reader of adventure and backpacking magazines could rattle off a number of great locations in Idaho that deserve your outdoor attention: Snake River, Hells Canyon (the deepest canyon in the U.S.), Shoshone Falls (higher than Niagara Falls), and Borah Peak (the highest in the state, and which has a number of peaks running through the Rocky Mountain Range), to name a few. You can check out some of the great, natural areas of Idaho here, in panoramic photos no less.

Idaho's 80 recognized mountain ranges stretch across much of the north and southeastern part of the state. The majority of the cities lay in the Columbia Plateau, a region that follows the Snake River through the center of the state. This region is also the home to the farms that make the state famous for its potatoes. And potatoes are the main ingredient of Tater-Tots, a small cylindrical side dish made from deep fried, grated potatoes.

Neighborhood Watch: A Sign of Change in Hollywood?

One of Hollywood’s most photographed stars could be on its way to becoming just another real estate selling point if a Chicago-based investment firm has its way.

Cahuenga Peak’s 138 acres of unspoiled mountains, which stretch behind the postcard-ready Hollywood sign, hit the real estate market earlier this month for a cool $22 million—much to the chagrin of Los Angeles city officials, who reportedly have been trying to raise funds over the past several years to purchase the property. The city hoped to preserve the mountaintop and join it with Griffith Park, where the sign sits.

According to the L.A. Times, city leaders have so far accumulated about $5 million and had intended to ask the nonprofit Trust for Public Land to help negotiate a selling price with Fox River Financial Resources. A recent appraisal estimated the ridge was worth about $6 million, resulting in all-out sticker shock from Fox River’s lofty asking price.

Ironically, the glitzy relic-turned-Kodak-moment dates back to 1923, when the Hollywoodland Real Estate Group spent $21,000 on the sign as an advertisement to promote a new residential subdivision. The sign’s 13 letters (it read “Hollywoodland” until 1949) each measured 30 feet wide by 50 feet tall and were only intended to be a temporary addition to the landscape. Four thousand 20-watt bulbs glittered through the Hollywood night, visible from 25 miles away, and soon the sign became a symbol of the city's glamour. But after several years the icon fell into disrepair and was replaced with the debut of a new 45-foot-tall sign in 1978.

Cinematic Road Trip: Washington

Washington is stuck between a rock and a hard place in the realm of cinema. On the rock side, it is not very close to Los Angeles. The hard place is Vancouver, B.C., which in the past three decades has climbed up the ladder to become the third largest city for film and television production behind Hollywood and New York City. The growth of the industry just north of the Washington border began largely due to the strength of the U.S. dollar against the Canadian dollar. Vancouver was a perfect place to film on the cheap, with beautiful mountains and cityscapes that could double as American locations, and Washington was left out in the cold.

The dollar has softened but Vancouver’s filmmaking base of indoor studios and talented crew members has kept the business flowing. The state of Washington has over the past few years tried to increase its production with tax-based credits for filmmakers along with other incentives. But unfortunately for them, these incentives are similar to those offered in other states and cities including those in British Columbia. So what’s a poor state to do?

Play to your strengths, that’s what. Washington has some breath-taking scenery. From Puget Sound to the Cascade Mountains, Mount Rainier (pictured, above), Mount St. Helens, the Snake River, the Columbia River, the San Juan Islands and Olympia National Park, Washington has the unobstructed exteriors needed for many movies. So it should be easy to pick out some movies with sweeping vistas right? Right?

Well, let’s see. There was Dancer in the Dark, by Lars von Trier, that was entirely set in Washington State circa 1964. But a movie “set” in a location does not always mean it was shot there. Dancer in the Dark was actually filmed in Sweden with the exception of the Washington State Penitentiary scenes. If you have an interest in seeing the penitentiary, it’s located in Walla Walla, not far from the northern border of Oregon.

There was WarGames with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. This '80s hit built the most expensive set ever at the time, constructing the NORAD HQ in the Cascade Mountains.  There is also a scene of Broderick and Sheedy taking a ferry to “Goose Island.” The real location they ferry to is Anderson Island – the southernmost island in the Puget Sound.  Other locations for the film include Everett, Seattle, and Lake Chelan National Recreation area as well as locations in California.

But if you want the quintessential Washington State experience, you have to go to the quintessential Washington State city—Seattle. And there's a slew of all-time classics shot in Seattle including The Last Mimzy, Firewall, The Ring Two, Life or Something Like It.  OK, you probably guessed that I’m just pulling your leg. Though these movies were shot in Seattle and they surely have redeeming qualities, we all know that when we think of Seattle, we think of one movie.

Cinematic Road Trip: Oregon

John Ur is back with another stop on the Cinematic Road Trip. This time, he sets his sights on Oregon.

During my cross-country drive, I remember looking south across the Oregon coastline and shuddering. Cannon Beach's fog was rolling in over, and the rhythmic waves from the Pacific Ocean had me thinking, 'This place is creepy. It’d be a great place for a Stephen King movie.' The beach was soggy from rain and the rocky coast exposed a land that had been beaten for ages and was tired of being picked on. Trees arched permanently away from the wind. I half-expected zombies to dig their way out of their sandy graves and creep inward from the shore, infecting the entire population in an apocalyptic battle for the future of mankind.

Fortunately, no zombies were to be found. But driving through the fog along the coastline was like seeing things in black and white. The fog and gray skies desaturated the landscape. Trees became dark gray. Lighthouses were a dingy white. Nothing remained a clean, pure color. Everything was (dis)colored by the mist.

Alaska's Guests Keep Warm with Recycled Oil

The 1.5-mile wide Mendenhall Glacier may be just around the corner, but you'll be plenty warm at Juneau's Westmark Baranof Hotel. The 196-room hotel, owned by Holland America, combines vegetable oil with fuel oil to heat the hotel.

The hotel is the only place in the city that collects used cooking oil. The ingenious process is good for the planet, saves thousands of dollars in fuel costs, and rids local companies of the headache of disposing of used oil, which they used to have to ship to the lower 48 states for removal, creating an added expense.

For nearly two years the hotel has collected about 200 gallons a week from McDonald's and other restaurants and hotels in town. That added up to 10,000 gallons last year, Andy Krone, chief engineer at the Baranof, told IT. "It's a good thing for the business community," said Krone. "It saves us money and its good for the environment." Most guests don't even know that they're being kept warm by the grease left in the fast food fryer.

Hotel Confidential: Books by your Bedside

For all you wordsmiths in our midst, a Portland hotel hopes to make your wildest fantasies a reality. That is, if you dream about lodging somewhere with a cataloged lending library.

In December, the Italian Renaissance-style Heathman Hotel, built in 1927 and located in the downtown cultural district, unveiled its 4,000-title library—and a coinciding package, called “Books by your Bedside.” The $229-per-night package promises perks like a free hardcover book written by an author who has also slept at the Heathman (past guests include Tom Wolfe, Wallace Stegner, John Updike, and Alice Walker), a travel reading light, a tour of the library, and some enticing swag from local independent bookstore behemoth (and Rolf Potts favorite) Powell’s. Plus, Heathman vows to make a donation in each guest’s name to SMART (Start Making a Reader Today), an Oregon nonprofit that promotes literacy for children.

Heathman’s library boasts signed editions from seven Nobel Prize winners, 14 Pulitzer Prize winners, five U.S. poets laureate, and 2,000 books from the collection are on display in the Mezzanine Library’s custom-designed bookcases. It’s one of the largest hotel libraries in the country and received distinction by AAA this year as the country’s only independent hotel with a library of its scale.

And—yes, it does just keep getting better—rather than typical dime-a-dozen hotel art, Heathman’s 150 luxury rooms all feature works by regional artists, and, of course, the hotel’s efforts to earn an EnergyStar certification tug at our eco-loving heartstrings.

Whether you book a room at the Heathman or not, be sure to peruse our travel library for some of Traveler's handpicked reads.

Photo: John Valls

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Yellowstone’s Grizzlies in Peril

The Associated Press recently reported some disturbing figures of female grizzly bear deaths in Yellowstone National Park. The article states that about 18 female bears have died this year from “hunting accidents, management removals, and natural causes.”

Grizzlies lost their endangered status earlier this year, a controversial move to some conservationists, including Paul Hansen, director of the Nature Conservancy's Greater Yellowstone Program. But not for the reasons you might think.

“It has been a bad year,” Hansen said in an interview with IT. “But the overall number of bears is still up and it's been up consistently for a decade or more.” The problem this year, he said, was the dry climate, which made food sources more scarce.

But Hansen sees trouble ahead for Yellowstone’s grizzly population. Climate change, the introduction of invasive species, and loss of habitat will be the bears’ main obstacles in the coming decades.

Scenic Seattle

Ever been in a city and wished you could escape from the concrete blocks? In one Pacific Northwest town, you can.

Seattle is making it easier for locals and visitors to find some green space in the heart of the metropolis. The Seattle Urban Nature interactive habitat map uses a Google map interface to show all public parks, habitat types, and plant species found in the Seattle metro area (for the record, there are many: over 400 parks and nine city gardens in all).

Walk Score Helps You Hoof It

                

Can you walk to the drugstore from your house? Your hotel? We stumbled upon a nifty site called Walk Score that will tell you in seconds flat.

The site plugs itself as a resource for real estate buyers, but we think it’s also invaluable for travelers when picking a hotel or getting an idea of the distance between attractions. Who wants to stay in a hotel miles from nowhere? A cute café, restaurant, or shopping district within walking distance can mean the difference between a crummy vacation and one filled with local charm. It can also alert you ahead of time if you’ll need to rent a car. Scores range between "Walker's Paradise" (90 - 100) and "Driving Only" (0 - 25).

Creepy Sleeping

Personally, we prefer to get a little shut-eye when we stay at any hotel. But some hotels just beg to be haunted. If you're planning  to stay at any of these ghastly quarters, you won't even need your own ghost stories. To these ghosts, it doesn't matter if it's Halloween.

Construction of the Victorian-style Ocean Edge Resort began in 1907, when banker Samuel Nickerson decided to replace the site’s original home, which had burned down a year earlier. Nickerson completed the Cape Cod mansion—which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places-- in 1912 for his son Roland, who died before the new house was completed. But his wife, Addie, seems to have loved the place so much, she can still be seen roaming the halls today (she is said to be looking for her husband). About two hours away is the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem (also haunted - but then again, what house in Salem isn't?), which hosts an annual Halloween Costume Ball.

New Mexico: An old Sante Fe Trail outpost (which is linked to Jesse James and Billy the Kid), the St. James Hotel reportedly still sees visitors from the Wild West. One Trip Advisor traveler attests to hearing a scream at 3 a.m., and to seeing a ghost vortex through a camera lense. Even if you can't find any ghosts, every few months the hotel hosts "Murder Mystery Weekends," a two-night event where guests become Annie Oakley or Doc Holliday and try to solve their own murder mystery.

Into the Wild: Tourist Attraction?

Photo: Marc Paterson

Chris McCandless, the 24-year-old vagabond who hiked into the Alaskan wilderness alone with a ten-pound bag of rice in 1992, never made it out of the wild, but the abandoned bus where he died of starvation just might—that is, if some Alaskans have their way.

The Toronto Star has the scoop: Alaskans are now bracing themselves for an influx of “McCandless pilgrims" (such as Marc Paterson, pictured) inspired by the release of the Sean Penn-directed film, Into the Wild, to trek the Stampede Trail, seeking out the infamous city bus where McCandless perished. Local residents in Healy, Alaska, are brainstorming ways to deal with the “unwanted tourist attraction.”

Among the suggestions is airlifting the bus from its site, either to the start of the trail where it would be more accessible or nearby to a park in Fairbanks. The Star explains:

About 100 visitors, mostly young men, make the trip to Healy (population 1,000) each year. Many making it into the bus shoot videos for posting on YouTube and snap photos for Facebook, often imitating the iconic pose of the skeleton-like McCandless in Krakauer's book, which showed the young man grinning as he leaned against the bus, days before his death.

The McCandless pilgrims carve their names into the rusted sides of the bus. Paterson signed his just beside the door. And they leave messages in aged notebooks; [Jon] Krakauer, McCandless' mother and Penn have all left notes.

Sustain and Entertain

Travel isn't just about taking in museums and historic sites, it's as much about mixing it up with the locals in their natural habitat. So what does that often entail? Nightlife. But it's hard to be thinking "green" when you're a few drinks in (which might explain the popularity of phrases like "trashed" or "wasted," no?). Thankfully, there is a nightclub that's already thought things through. Writer Matt Bloom reports from San Francisco that the new club Temple is working not only to sustain the party, but the planet:

A trip to San Francisco calls for two things: eating and drinking. Throw some hot sounds and a dance floor in the mix, and you've got the Zen Compound, where for the last two months, hungry ravers have been gathering for late-night eats and beats. It's a tough title to claim in a town that outlawed plastic bags, but the SoMa compound, comprised of Prana Restaurant and Temple nightclub, might be the most progressive testing ground for renewable energy in the city. For starters, the facility holds no-waste events: They don't use plastic (except water bottles), the cups are made of corn, every food scrap (and napkin) is composted, and every bottle is recycled. The Pan-Asian cuisine at Prana is almost exclusively local and organic. And the light displays, powered by energy-efficient LED and CFL bulbs, are projected to save the club thousands of dollars in resources each year.

Home (Away From) Home on the Range

A beach-and-theme-park vacation is much too tame for resident family travel expert Norie Quintos. This year, for part of her summer vacation with her two sons, she headed out to Wyoming:

What parent hasn’t read the Dangerous Book for Boys? Okay, I haven’t, but I’ve read all about it. Here’s the gist: What our overprotected, over-teched, overscheduled suburban sons really need to blossom is the freedom to climb trees and get muddy and learn Morse code. Well, I’ve believed and lived it all along, and the kids and I recently returned from a vacation that hits the spirit if not the actual suggestions on the book’s list.

We squished our toes in the mud of a creek.
We fed leftovers to a black lab named Twister.
We threw tomahawks.
We played cards.
We heard cowboy poetry.
We canoed in a lake with loons.
We fell asleep to the howls of a coyote.
We threw lassos.
We read by the light of a lantern.
We searched for signs of bear.
We whittled.
We absorbed U.S. history by listening to a cowboy tell tales of Butch Cassidy, Wyatt Earp, and the Donner Party around a campfire at night.
We traveled by covered wagon.

Turning Off San Francisco

This Saturday, San Francisco is turning itself off. On the 20th, Lights Out San Francisco is asking residents to shut off all non-essential lighting from 8 to 9 p.m. in a citywide effort to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

LOSF estimates that turning off essential lighting for one hour will save about 15 percent of the energy regularly used on a Saturday night in San Francisco. The nonprofit has been giving away compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) in the weeks leading up to the self-imposed blackout. PG&E and Yahoo! have already donated 210,000 CFLs for the event. But no one expects people to just sit in the dark, so the group is encouraging participants to have fun while the lights are out—by holding a block party, telling ghost stories to the kids, or sharing a romantic candlelit dinner.

LOSF founder Nathan Tyler was inspired by the recent Earth Hour event in Sydney, Australia, where Sydneysiders were asked to turn off their lights for one hour on March 31 of this year. More than two million residents participated, resulting in a 10.2 percent energy drop that day.

Even if you don’t live in San Francisco, you can still go green by going dark. LOSF plans to launch a national Lights Out event on March 29, 2008, in cities across the U.S., so stay tuned in to get turned off.

Culinary Conquests

Calling all food enthusiasts: Wake up and smell the oregano. The Culinary Institute of America has recently designed five food-centric getaways that won’t leave you hungry.

The CIA “Sophisticated Palate,” a selection of epicurean adventures that offer lectures on cooking techniques, traditions, food and wine pairing, and of course, wine tasting, encourages its guests to “see, taste, and explore.” On each of the two- or four-day programs ($1,995 for two days; $3,995 for four days; accommodation not included) CIA guests will meet exclusively with local vintners, food producers, chefs, premier growers, and restaurateurs in the Napa Valley region.

Segways in Santa Barbara

National Geographic Traveler contributing editor Andrew Nelson, yet again, sends IT a dispatch from a destination we never even knew he was visiting. He writes:

Santa Barbara's famous for its Spanish mission. Today there's a Santa Barbaran with a mission of his own—wheeling travelers around the chic California colonial outpost on the two-wheeled electric, zero-emission scooters known as Segways. Jerry Mahoney and Trish Caron, owners of Segway of Santa Barbara, mainly sell the whiz-kid marvels, but they also have a profitable sideline offering tours to travelers. He operates from the company's headquarters, an old warehouse in a neighborhood called the Funk Zone—a collection of industrial-style buildings housing sculptors, skateboard makers, and surfing outfitters squeezed between Hwy 101 and the Pacific Ocean.

Goats Cut Carbon Emissions

If you've been in Washington State recently you might have noticed something a little furry. That’s because the University of Washington is doing a bit of gardening… not with pesticides and gas-guzzling lawnmowers, but with goats.

We kid you not. A herd of 60 goats romped through the main campus in August, delighting in weeds like blackberry bushes, ivy, and salal (a hemlock relative). The goats were hired by the university’s Integrated Pest Management program, which seeks to find pest-ridding alternatives to chemical processes. The UW's Bothell campus hired goats a few weeks earlier, and is considering acquiring a permanent herd. Not only are goats cheaper than human labor, but they also provide free fertilizer. The university says that they are using goats as a way to cut its carbon emissions.

Pike Place Perfection

Seattle's Pike Place Market celebrated its 100th Anniversary this August. While it takes a lifetime to explore all nine acres of this Pacific Northwest attraction, one of our Seattle staffers shares her list of must-sees (and must-eats) for the traveler who’s only got an hour or two:

Pike Place Fish (pictured): Look for a big crowd and follow the sound of rowdy fishmongers to get to the market’s most popular attraction. Since 1986, with the help of a now-famous business philosophy, these guys have set the standard for fish market operation. Order fresh Dungeness crab or wild coho salmon, and watch the fishmongers do what they do best—just be sure to watch out for low-flying fish. Can’t eat a 20-pound salmon fillet before you leave Seattle? No problem. The boys will put it on ice and ship it anywhere in the world.

Pigs on Parade: Make sure to visit Rachel (she’s a neighbor to the fishmongers), the market’s bronze piggy bank and Seattle’s original pig on parade. In 2001, the Market Foundation auctioned off 170 Pigs on Parade (each decorated by local artists) to raise money for the market’s social services. This year, in celebration of the market’s 100th anniversary and in the Chinese year of the pig, 100 more pigs can be seen all around Seattle.

JuntoVenture Crosses North America

Sure, we do a lot of writing about sustainable traveling (and also practice it when we have the chance), but we've just come across a group of four who are really doing it. And we mean REALLY doing it. These four go by the name JuntoVenture and are traveling the length of North America (Death Valley to Alaska) to show the world that sustainable travel is totally feasible.

The group is using only eco-friendly clothing, food, transportation, and even hygiene products. The purpose of this trip is "to show people that they can take eco-friendly lifestyles on the road, and can have fun while doing it." Plus they're shooting video, creating podcasts, and blogging as they go. The end product will be a self-produced documentary featuring the footage they filmed along the way.

Here's a teaser from their blog (which is a must-read full of the snafus and victories on their journey):

Free Sail in Seattle

If you happen to be in Seattle on a Sunday afternoon, you can take a free ride in a historic wooden boat like the Puffin, a tiny steam-powered launch built in 1906. The Center for Wooden Boats restored this antique craft, along with several traditional wooden sailboats, rowboats, pedal boats and canoes that you can rent on other days of the week as well. You can meet their artist-in-residence, a master Haida carver, and help him carve a traditional cedar dugout canoe on Sundays between 1 and 4 p.m. The Center is located at the extreme south end of Lake Union about five minutes north of downtown Seattle by car. (FYI: I came upon the Center for Wooden Boats when I was reading about the Cornstalk Institute and the  Festival of the Great Unknowns music jamboree in Albuquerque. Thanks Gadling!)

Keeping IT Close to Home

Just uttering the word "vacation" conjures images of sandy white beaches, mountain treks, and nine-hour road trips. But, what if it meant staying home?

National Geographic's Green Guide recently featured a piece on vacationing carbon free in your own city. Instead of housework, chores, or to-do lists, seek out local adventures like searching for the best sangria in a Spanish neighborhood or the top sushi in Chinatown. Or, how about hitting up the farmers market to prepare an outdoor feast, or taking advantage of free art gallery admissions on a weekday morning when you're usually at work? If you hadn't noticed, IT has this policy down pat: Check out all of our backyard vacations!

From the Green Guide:

"Alan Durning, executive director of the environmental non-profit Sightline Institute, wanted to unload some of that [eco-]guilt when he embarked on a year of living car-lessly (and he continues to live that way, five months after his experiment ended). Despite being free of four wheels, he and his family worked in a few vacations, his favorite being a week spent...without traveling at all. Rather than taking a train or renting a car, they stayed at home and became tourists in their hometown of Seattle.

Amtrak Adds Luxury Cars

IT's always been a bit partial toward trains, so we had to share this news: Amtrak recently announced that it has teamed up with GrandLuxe Rail Journeys to offer luxury accommodation on popular Amtrak routes. Beginning this fall, seven exclusive GrandLuxe cars will be attached to the back of select Amtrak trains.  GrandLuxe passengers will be pampered with five-course meals, private cabins, live music, and all the luxuries of a fine hotel. Routes will include Amtrak’s California Zephyr from Chicago to San Francisco and the Silver Meteor from Washington, D.C. to Miami. The partnership was made in response to increasing train ridership and to introduce a more appealing option to travelers who want a bit more out of their rail vacation.

But fine dining and fluffy pillows come with a hefty price tag: a one- to two-night trip will cost between $789 and $2,499 per person.

Our opinion? Trains are over 17% more energy-efficient than airplanes, according to the Transportation Data Energy Book. And while air travel is unarguably the fastest way to get around, it can also be the most frustrating. Customer satisfaction with the airline industry is lower than ever, due to tight cabin space, the seemingly neverending list of security-checkpoint rules, long lines, and mishandled (or missing) luggage.

Beach Bargains

Half of IT is headed to the beach for Memorial Day weekend—lucky for Emily, she's staying with friends in their timeshare. But for those of you paying your own way, we've located an article on Smarter Travel (thanks Gadling) with a list of five hidden, affordable beach destinations. They suggest:

Anna Maria Island, Florida The hidden beach destination Floridians escape to, Anna Maria Island has somehow managed to keep condo towers, all-fast-food chains, amusement parks, and glitzy mega-resorts off its shores. In fact, no construction on this seven-mile [11-kilometer] long barrier island on Florida's Gulf Coast is more than three stories tall, Subway is the only franchise, and 60 percent of its land is open beach. And, it's affordable, especially in the summer. You can rent vacation homes with water views and pools for well under $1,000 per week and get seafood entrees at beachfront restaurants for under $15.

Fest Obsessed: Lahaina, Hawaii

IT covered Lahaina's Halloween celebration last October, unaware of the other big festivals one of Maui's top tourist town celebrates. But thanks to Andy Gross, a Denver-based freelance writer who wrote to us about one other such fest, we have learned about several upcoming revelries, which we've listed post post. Andy writes:

We spent Easter weekend in Maui, where the 15th annual Celebration of the Arts  (April 5-8, 2007) was in full swing at the Ritz Carlton, Kapalua, about a 20-minute drive from downtown Lahaina. Dedicated to increasing awareness of the arts, culture, and people of Hawaii, the weekend's events —open to the public, not just Ritz guests—include traditional chanting, hula dancing, speaker panels, parties, arts and crafts stations, and several ceremonies—including the one I attended, the Hiuwai and E Ala E Sunrise Protocol.

Seattle: The Center of the Universe

With a title like this, IT panicked. A story about Starbucks? Luckily, writer Ali Busacca takes us about as far from the mainstream as possible, to a place that's just downright odd. Yes, IT's in bliss. She writes:

On a small traffic island along Fremont Avenue, a signpost displays the words, "Center of the Universe," with an arrow pointing straight down.
The signpost, which also points to such destinations as the Milky Way, Atlantis, and the North Pole is just one of the quirky landmarks found in Fremont, a neighborhood in northern Seattle. Known for its artistic freedom, the area is sometimes referred to as "The People's Republic of Fremont" and bears the motto, "De Libertas Quirkas," meaning "Freedom to be Peculiar."

Anchorage Away!

IT asked former Traveler staffer Meghan Aftosmis (who currently works in PR) to ask her Alaskan colleagues for their favorite wintry things to do in Big Wild Life  (a.k.a. Anchorage) besides watching the start of the Iditarod or viewing the Northern Lights. Here's what she came up with:

The Chugach Mountains tower over the Anchorage skyline and are hardly a secret. In winter, trailheads are accessible, views are unbelievable and options are limitless. Try the multi-purpose Powerline Pass trail from the Glen Alps Trailhead high above Anchorage. It leads to views of the city and the seemingly never-ending Chugach Range. Enjoy the trail and surroundings on Nordic skis or snowshoes.

It's never too cold to go ice skating in the city's outdoor rink on Town Square with its beautifully colored and lit ice sculptures. Or try the ice on Westchester Lagoon, a pond known to attract local skaters.