Intelligent Travel

Video: Guatemala Magic

Check out our latest video, now up online at Traveler's website.

On an assignment for National Geographic Traveler, photographer Pete McBride and writer Carl Hoffman journey off the beaten path in Guatemala. With the help of a local guide who specializes in discovering "deep culture," the two explore this Central American country's well-known tourist stops of Antigua and Lake Atitlán. But then they go beyond the tourist trail to spend time on coffee fincas and in out-of-the-way villages such as Chajul. The climax of their journey is their participation in a cult ceremony in a makeshift temple to Maximón, a local deity that is part saint and part devil and who demands offerings of cigars and rum from his devotees. As Hoffman writes of the experience, "The night dissolves into a phantasm of voices, alcohol, and nicotine, and we are swept away."

To read more about this trip, see the May/June 2008 issue of National Geographic Traveler. See our Tours of a Lifetime list here.

Cinematic Road Trip: New York

John Ur is back this week with a glimpse into the film highlights of the Empire State: New York.

The opening scene from Woody Allen's Manhattan

Subtract New York City from the state of New York and writing this week’s article would take on all the excitement of Iowa. But fortunately for you and me, we have reached New York after a long journey across the country and the city and its film history still exist. And as you well know there will be plenty to talk about when we look at the city, but for a moment let’s look at the entire state.

Many people refer to the region of the state outside of the city as “upstate” New York. This is a bit of a misnomer. The term has been used for any and every city in New York including Westchester, which is a mere 38 miles from Manhattan, and full of residents who commute into the city for work. Such is the far-reaching shadow of the city. You’re either in it or you’re out of it.

But the state of New York has a lot of variety to offer. The Adirondack and Catskill Mountains offer great hiking and skiing opportunities. Besides the Finger Lakes region and Lake Champlain, the state borders Lake Ontario to the north and west. I also remember fondly some family outings to Lake George – another of the agonizingly long car drives from home. Fishing, swimming, boating and other watersports abound in these lakes and some of the rivers that run through the state.

I’m sure I don’t even need to mention the popularity of Niagara Falls. The Falls’ popularity rose after the 1953 movie Niagara with Marilyn Monroe was released and they’ve since been featured in other movies like Superman II and Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End.

The Falls sit about 25 minutes northwest of Buffalo on the border between New York and Ontario. Buffalo has it’s own film history. If you’re looking for popular, there’s Bruce Almighty. If you’re looking for indie, there’s Buffalo ’66. And if you’re looking for classic sentimental, there’s The Natural. Besides Buffalo, The Natural shot in other locations around New York State – Fredonia, South Dayton, Stafford, and New York City.

But all of this is a prelude to the headliner. New York City. The City. There are far too many clichés that I could call up from memory when talking about the City. I’m going to try my best to avoid them here. Feel free to lambast me if you catch one. I grew up just a 40-minute train ride from Manhattan and I could see Staten Island across the Arthur Kill from my house. I never really thought much of this until the first time I spent any significant time away from home and I realized the City is like a giant magnet, a vortex.

Cinematic Road Trip: Pennsylvania

John Ur gets pumped up for Pennsylvania in this stop along the Cinematic Road Trip.

Growing up, I visited relatives out West. My parents would load up the car with our suitcases and a cooler for drinks and food. My sister and I would reluctantly get in the car. Stay on your side! Stop touching me! I’m not touching you! Mom, she’s on my side! Keep it up and I’ll pull this car over and wallop the both of you!

I tried to hide myself in a Nintendo Gameboy, playing Tetris until my thumbs were sore. Are we there yet, Ma? We’re almost out of New Jersey. (It was about two hours into the trip. I was restless.) And then we crossed into Pennsylvania—the Wild, Wild West. Let’s not even talk about western Pennsylvania. As far as I was concerned, that was as far from N.J. as California.

My memories from that era are vague. I remember the biblical town names of eastern P.A.—Bethlehem, Nazareth—and I remember signs for Lancaster County, the heart of Dutch Country. It always seemed a little odd to me that there would be signs advertising a place in the state where people wore hats and rode horses. Why was this a tourist spot?

If you’re curious about the Amish people of Lancaster County, you might want to check out the 1985 film, Witness. The movie stars Harrison Ford as Philadelphia cop John Book, caught up trying to solve the murder of another police officer. The only witness to the murder is a young Amish boy. In an effort to protect the boy, his mother, and eventually himself, Book takes up shelter in the Amish community—where there are no phones, no electricity, and no easy way to track him down.

While Book is hiding out, he picks up the simple way of life that the Amish lead—working their farms with the help of horses, milking cows by hand, building birdhouses. The Amish even allow him to participate in an old-fashioned barn-raising. The climactic scene takes place largely inside of a corn and grain silo on the Lapp family farm. What may seem primitive to me and you is to them modern and relevant—with days starting before dawn and working the fields until after night falls.

It wasn’t until almost 10 or 15 years later that I was able to drive through the state from east to west and reach the Rust Belt City of Pittsburgh. There are no shortage of films shot in the city of yellow bridges, but my recommendation is The Silence of the Lambs. I don’t remember many cityscape shots in the movie, but many scenes set in Baltimore were shot in and around Pittsburgh.

But if we’re going to talk the quintessential Pennsylvania movie—and we are—we have to talk Rocky. Sylvester Stallone plays the title character in the movie he wrote that made him a household name. The story is set in Philadelphia, where Rocky is trying to make a name for himself as a boxer. He fights for chump change and makes some extra money as a “collector” for a loan shark. (Sounds like some people I know in Jersey.)

Cinematic Road Trip: West Virginia

John Ur makes a stop in West Virginia in this week's Cinematic Road Trip column.

David Strathairn is a 59-year-old actor born in California. His most famous role has probably been as Edward R. Murrow in the Academy Award-nominated Good Night, and Good Luck. Before becoming an actor, he spent some time in a Ringling Brothers Clown College. And he played prominent roles in the two movies that we’re going to look at today in West Virginia.

Strathairn has long been a solid supporting actor in Hollywood, but got his break through his friendship with director John Sayles. Both Sayles and Strathairn made their debut with the Return of the Secaucus Seven in 1980. Seven years later Sayles called Strathairn again to appear in his film Matewan, shot in Thurmond, West Virginia. The city was chosen for its enduring characteristics of a 1920s coal mining town in Appalachia. As of the 2000 census, the town had a population of seven people.

Matewan is the story of coal miners struggling to form a union in the face of a repressive coal company. Despite their attempts at action, the Stone Mountain Coal Company threatens to cut miners’ pay at every turn. When the miners go on strike, the company brings in some hired thugs to intimidate and rough up the union men. Strathairn plays Police Chief Sid Hatfield (of the infamous Hatfield Clan)—an uncommon man who cannot be bought out by the coal company in a time when that practice was commonplace.

The background for the action is the hills and forests of southern West Virginia. The miners come out of their holes sweaty and covered in black coal dirt. Some of the action takes place near the railroad tracks that run through the area: The rails are rusted but trains still lurch into town to drop off their cargo and pick up coal for shipping up the line. The brick buildings and natural beauty of the area—with the New River Gorge just nearby—served the movie well, and also served to inspire Sayles while making the film. He later wrote,

[In] the hills of West Virginia, the people and the music have a mood and rhythm to them that needs to be seen and heard to be felt completely. There is a cyclical sense of time there, a feeling of inescapable fate...Politics are always at the mercy of human nature and custom, and the coal wars of the twenties were so personal that they make ideology accessible in a story, make it immediate and emotional.

Cinematic Road Trip: Ohio

John Ur hits the halfway mark for our journey together on the Cinematic Road Trip. And where best to do it but Ohio...

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland

Here we are halfway through our journey together. It seems like just yesterday we set off from the desert in West Texas and circled our way across the Southwest and up the Pacific Coast. We hiked through Canyon Country and Rocky Mountains and danced our way across the Great Plains, nibbling as much corn as our stomachs could hold, as we pulled up to the Great Lakes region. Mark this date. Today is the point of no return. It would be just as long a journey to turn around and go back as it would be to continue on and complete the task. Burn the ships, men! Onward we march!

Before we rush off into the forest and get ourselves lost, maybe we should figure out where we are. We are here, of course, and here happens to be Ohio. According to the US Census Bureau, Ohio is in the East North Central States Division of the Midwest. Say what? Leave it to a government agency to use more words than necessary to make something as confusing as possible. But one thing is certain, or at least widely assumed, and that's the fact that Ohio is the swingiest of swing states. When it comes to presidential politics, the phrase most often proffered by pundits is "as Ohio goes, so goes the nation." (It also cropped up as the title of a documentary about the 2004 election ...So Goes the Nation.) We'll see how it swings come November.

I haven’t spent all that much time in Ohio but I do know that much of the state has been through the same economic downturn felt by other steel manufacturing locations throughout the Rust Belt. Despite that, Ohio has many economic advantages for its various industries, including being within a day’s drive of over 50% of the nation’s population. And being home to King (Lebron) James.

Cinematic Road Trip: Michigan

John Ur introduces us to the fine films from the land of lakes: Michigan.

"Mishigama," or "Large Water," is the original name the Ojibwe people gave to Lake Michigan, and it's where state of Michigan, bordered by four of the five Great Lakes, took its name. The state seems to stick out from the rest of the States like a sore thumb, or as the Lower Peninsula is more commonly known, a “mitten.” Not only is it geographically unique (is it Midwest? Is it East?), but did you know that Grand Rapids was the first city in the U.S. to put fluoride in their water?

While you’re sitting at home, pondering the glass of water you’re drinking and thinking to yourself,“Fluoride? I didn’t know I was drinking fluoride,” I’m going to jump quickly into Michigan movies. If I were an immoral man, I would recommend Grosse Pointe Blank, which is set in the small town of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. But only one scene in a house and an aerial over Lakeshore Drive were shot there. The rest was shot elsewhere (mostly in California). Dear Grosse Pointe government officials: If you do not allow movies to be shot in your town, I cannot put your town in this column and you won’t find any tourists heading your way. Thank you.

Tourists who do make it to Michigan will find that the Wolverine State has the longest freshwater shoreline in the world thanks to the unique formation of its land boundaries from two different peninsulas. The largely forested, and sparsely populated, Upper Peninsula is a different world from the Lower Peninsula. The “U.P.,” as its often called, contains the Porcupine Mountains, which according to some definitions are the oldest mountains in North America. You’ll also find here Isle Royale National Park. The namesake island is the largest in Lake Superior, and its wolf and moose populations are studied closely as an example of a predator-prey relationship in a closed environment.

The Lower Peninsula is flatter and known less for its natural landscape than for its ability to produce automobiles. You can catch the beauty of the Lower Peninsula in Sam Mendes’s 2002 period drama, Road to Perdition. It was filmed mostly in and around Chicago, but the end scene with Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) and his son (Tyler Hoechlin) took place on the shores of Lake Michigan. At the end of their long journey attempting to escape the outstretched arm of gangster retribution, Sullivan and his son head to Perdition (a fictional town filled in by Saugatuck, Michigan, not far from Holland). They climb over sand dunes in Saugatuck Dunes State Park and hang out on the beach watching the tiny waves of the lake lap against the shore.      

Cinematic Road Trip: Indiana

John Ur makes a play at picking the best films of Indiana, the Hoosier State.

Let's start with the obvious. If you were going to name a film Home in Indiana, where would you shoot it? If you guessed Indiana, you’d be wrong. Most of the film was shot in Kentucky. How about The Hoosier Schoolmaster? Though it was made three separate times between 1914 and 1935, it was never shot in Indiana. But the Hoosier State hasn’t been completely left out in the cold. Of those movies that were shot in Indiana, two of them are some of the most famous school sports stories of all time.

The name Hoosier has an unconfirmed origin. Some believe it evolved from a slurring of words like “who’s there” to “Who’sh’ere?” The word could have referred to boatmen, who after successfully “hushing” up opponents in a brawl were known as “hushers.” Another folk tale refers to a man named Samuel Hoosier who hired men to work on the Louisville and Portland Canal. These men came to be known as “Hoosier’s Men” or “Hoosier’s.” The use of the word was, and can still be in some areas, derogatory taking the meaning of slow, derelict or irresponsible. But one movie was able to go a long way in turning that meaning on its head.

The 1986 film, Hoosiers, about an underdog high school basketball team from the small (fictional) town of Hickory, Indiana, is considered one of the top 10 all-time sports movies. Its inspiring storyline launched a league of imitations, all hoping to capitalize on the film's success: Down and out ragtag team gets a new coach with a new style that clashes with the old. After arguments and turmoil, the team comes together and starts to play bigger than themselves, culminating in a most unlikely of championships. Must be Hollywood putting a spin on reality, right? Wrong. The story was inspired by Milan High School’s 1954 Indiana state championship victory.

New Richmond, Indiana, starred in Hoosiers as the town of Hickory. Today, there are signposts around town commemorating the locations represented in the film. Greg Guffey’s book “The Greatest Basketball Story Ever Told” explains how the town still revels in its adopted  role: “As [the fictional] Milan the town still lives for ’54, so does New Richmond  the town live for ’86 and Hoosiers. A small sign hangs under the customary town marker. ‘Welcome to Hickory,’ it reads. The post office has ‘Hickory, Ind.’ under its regular New Richmond identification.”

Cinematic Road Trip: Kentucky

One of the best parts about planning a road trip is the strategizing. After Illinois, do we head into Indiana or Kentucky? We would be painting ourselves into a corner if we went into Indiana, because then we’d have to go south to Kentucky, and then north through Ohio to Michigan… and then what? We’d be stuck. We’ve hit all the other states that border Michigan. (Yes I realize Maine is going to present a problem.) So we’re going south to Kentucky.

The Bluegrass State is unlike most other states that we’ve looked at so far. We started in the Southwest and ventured through the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountain region, the Midwest cornfield states and then most of the states bordering the Mississippi River. With the exception of the southwest tongue of Kentucky that touches the Mississippi, the state seems to begin a new region—the Mid-Midwest? The Central Southeast? This tricky area, along with Tennessee, sits in its own space known sometimes as the Upland South.

Kentucky is known for bourbon and mint juleps, tobacco and Mammoth Cave National Park (the longest cave system known in the world). It's famed for its college basketball in the memories of sports fans, and bluegrass music in the ears of audiophiles. And then there’s horse racing. One of the most famous horse races in the world, The Kentucky Derby, takes place on the first Saturday of May in Louisville. If you’re into horse racing and want the authentic-look-and-feel experience, you can check out Seabiscuit. I snobbishly refuse to recommend any movie with Tobey Maguire in it, so remember to just look at the horses and try to block him out of your mind. The movie itself shot in California, New York, and Kentucky, with Keeneland Racetrack in Lexington sitting in for the Pimlico course. You can set yourself on a nice two-day visit to Lexington with this guide from the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Cinematic Road Trip: Illinois

John Ur leads us through some of the funniest films of Illinois on his latest stop on the Cinematic Road Trip.

Well friends, it’s been a long strange trip through the Midwest. We’ve twisted and turned our way through the agricultural heartland of America, and I’m not shy to say I’m glad it’s over. There are only so many words in my limited vocabulary for farm and corn. Sure, these large, loosely populated states have some nice qualities to offer, but those qualities usually do not include an abundance of films set and shot inside their borders. I am very excited, for that reason, to come today to Illinois. Illinois is the most average state in the country. Seriously. It was measured!  So it would stand to reason that I would find the most American films on this most American road trip in the most American of states. Right?

By virtue of having the third largest city in the country by population, Illinois enjoys a vibrant filmmaking industry. Chicago also happens to be blessed with a large contingent of iconic buildings which makes shooting a “Chicago” film outside of the city a difficult task. And yet, some of the most memorable Illinois films are actually filmed in the city's outer-lying suburbs, thanks largely in part to the work of John Hughes. Hughes was born in Michigan but grew up in Illinois and set many of his now-famous cult films in the suburbs, though often adding a subtle sprinkling of Chicago spice.

Sixteen Candles, Weird Science and The Breakfast Club (all Brat Pack movies) made Hughes a star writer-director. Each was set in Chicago suburbs—Evanston (Sixteen Candles), and Northbrook (Weird Science  and The Breakfast Club). (Pretty in Pink, another Hughes classic, was set in nearby Elgin, but it was actually shot in Los Angeles.) But Hughes’ most financially successful film, and arguably his most famous, is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Besides highlighting some of the same suburbs seen in his previous movies, Hughes takes us on a jaunt through downtown Chicago while we play hookie with Ferris. You can see some famous tourist spots during these scenes: The Art Institute of Chicago, the Sears Tower, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and Wrigley Field.

A fair and balanced look at the filming of Illinois would include talk about other genres besides the comedies of John Hughes. This view would likely encompass Batman Begins, The Color of Money, The Fugitive, and The Untouchables among others. But I’m not much for being fair or balanced (must be a genetic thing). I’m not a big comedy fan in general, so when one state happens to present a few of my favorites, you can be sure I’m going to call them out.   

Cinematic Road Trip: Wisconsin

John Ur heads to the land of Cheeseheads for his latest stop on the Cinematic Road Trip.

I had just finished scraping some bugs off the windshield when I looked out over a lake in Wisconsin, and saw some dark clouds rolling in. Until that point, the day had been sunny and breezy and comfortably warm. The wind started to whip through the trees and I decided it was time to roll out before the storm got too heavy. Not twenty minutes out of the city on I-90 and we’re beset by rain and wind. Rain started coming at us sideways, the wind sending plastic orange construction barricades sliding across the street, and 18-wheeler trucks had to pull off the road because the fanny-end of their trailers were going one way while their cabin was going another.

I pulled over behind one of these trucks when I judged it was prudent to get off the road (read: I followed everyone else). About fifteen minutes later, everything seemed to calm down a bit – the wind slowed, the rain straightened out – and the parking lot turned back into a highway as the cars cautiously pulled back on the road from the shoulder. I don’t know to this day if that was a tornado that blew past us, but in the month prior to my trip, Wisconsin had a record number of twisters.

This is a long roundabout way to say that weather in the north central region can be unpredictable. Sam Raimi found that out when he was trying to shoot A Simple Plan. Originally the movie had been slated to shoot in Minnesota (a la Fargo) but Raimi had to move production to Wisconsin because there wasn’t enough snow. In the film, Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, and Brent Briscoe play three friends in need of some extra money, who happen to stumble upon a crashed plane that contains over $4 million dollars. They hatch a plan, a simple one no doubt, to keep the money without telling anyone about it. The plan, however, rests solely on the thin hope that all three men will be able to keep their mouths shut. I will stop there and let you draw your own conclusions as to how the plot works out... Many of the exterior shots of the film took place in Ashland, Wisconsin, including the road and woods leading to the crash site of the plane. But as cinematographer, Alar Kivilo found out sometimes you have to improvise – though the road and woods were shot in Wisconsin, the actual valley where the plane sat was shot in Minnesota and the two pieces were spliced together in the editing room. Sneaky Hollywood!

This isn’t the first, nor last, sleight of hand pulled by moviemakers to trick an audience. Though with such nondescript locations as a snow-covered road and a wooded valley, it would be hard for anyone to pick out that longitudinal jump without some inside info. Attentive viewers can spot a more obvious switcheroo in the camp comedy, Major League.  The story revolves around the Cleveland Indians as they struggle through another awful season (which reflected the real-life Indians woes in the late '80s before they went on a successful tear through the '90s). Maybe the team in the movie had a problem since they were actually playing at Milwaukee County Stadium (former home of the Milwaukee Brewers). It’s tough always playing on the road.