Intelligent Travel

Proximity Goes Platinum

The Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina

A few months ago, we ran this fantastic video, produced by former researcher Alison Ogden and NG Channel Advanced Media Producer Chris Keener about the opening of the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina. At the time, Alison interviewed hotel manager Dennis Quaintance about the steps he was taking to make the hotel achieve LEED platinum status for sustainable building design (recycled building materials, solar panels, and even waterless urinals were among the more inspired design elements). So we were pleased to hear that the U.S. Green Building Council recently awarded the platinum rating to the hotel, making it one of the greenest buildings in the country, and the first building in the hospitality industry to receive the platinum status.

This coincides well with a recent TripAdvisor survey, which found that Americans are increasingly interested in choosing green lodging options (and sustainable travel in general, in fact). So message to hotels: it's a smart idea to go green, let's see more of it soon.

Photo: courtesy of the Proximity Hotel

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Atlanta is for Louvre-ers

Le Musée du Louvre? Ici? Oui!

Thanks to a ongoing partnership between the Louvre and Atlanta's High Museum of Art, you can view a selection of the Louvre's masterpieces sans international airfares.

The exhibit, titled “The Louvre and the Masterpiece,” is the third and final installment in a series of year-long exhibits on loan from the Louvre. This exhibit opened in Atlanta on October 12 and will be on view at the High through Sept. 6, 2009.

As the title suggests, the exhibit will examine masterpieces. Not only will museum-goers have the opportunity to view 91 selections from the Louvre's eight curatorial departments, they will also learn about the concept of "the masterpiece" - how the term is defined, and how our perceptions evolve over time. Though most of the artwork will be on display throughout the exhibit's duration, some pieces, such Vermeer's The Astronomer (left), will be rotated in and out periodically.

High Museum of Art, 1280 Peachtree Street, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia; +1 404 733 4444. 

Cinematic Road Trip: South Carolina

You know you missed him... so John Ur is back with a smattering of the best films which show the landscape of South Carolina.

I know I’ve been to South Carolina. I’ve driven through it any number of times going to Florida or Georgia. But for the life of me, I can’t describe how it looks outside of the ads I’ve seen for the golf courses or Myrtle Beach. And in some ways, I wonder (completely ignoring any important historical events), why is South Carolina even a state? I mean, why doesn’t it just unite with North Carolina and settle down, buy a house, have some kids? Is it really that different that it needs its own borders?

Here’s what I do know, at least from what the important tourism people tell me through their plethora of ads about that state: There are some of the best golf courses around in South Carolina, most notably Hilton Head. For many, this is more than enough reason to book a trip. For those in the audience to which this applies, you may want to check out The Legend of Bagger Vance, a deeply philosophical (sometimes nauseatingly so) film starring Matt Damon and Will Smith. The film shot in Beaufort, Charleston, and Hilton Head, and has some beautiful long sequences filmed on the Pete Dye Course at Colleton River Plantation in Bluffton and the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island.

Besides golf, on the Sea Islands along the coast you may find the descendants of African slaves, the Gullah or Geechee people. The Gullah worked on rice plantations on the coast, which tended to be swampy marshland. Because of the heat, isolation, and undesirable conditions, the slave owners hardly ever ventured out to oversee the work being done. Thanks to their relative separation from the rest of the state, the Gullah were able to retain many of their own traditions including language, song, and the trade for which they are famous: basketweaving. So strong are their skills and traditions that a Gullah woman, Mary Jackson, was recently named a MacArthur Genius.

Arkansas: Sweet Mountain Music

Friend of IT Gerard Matthews sends along a tip on the best place to find some bluegrass in the hills of Arkansas.

Tucked away in the Ozark Mountains of northern Arkansas, between clear mountain streams and canopy-covered hiking trails, lies a small town where people come together to sit a spell, eat down-home cooking and pick a little old-time music. A folk or country music festival isn’t such a rare thing in the South, but in Mountain View, Arkansas, you can hear sweet gospel music, or lightning-fast bluegrass licks almost any day of the week, so long as the weather’s nice. 

To say that Mountain View (population 3,000) is small might be a bit of an understatement, but from April to November the town square quite literally hums with excitement. The breeze up in the mountains smells like honeysuckle and feels good after a long, humid day. And in the center of town, as afternoon lulls into evening, the crowds begin to gather around the old courthouse, and local musicians—farmers, teachers, accountants, civil servants, shopkeepers, housewives, and their families—make their way to the surrounding town square, instruments in tow.       

“On a regular night, there’s at least 100 musicians out there on the square. It’s like a festival, but it’s a little different ‘cause it’s something that we’re all used to," says Dean Hinesley. "It’s really just a hunger and a craving that we have to take care of from time to time.”

Hinesley is a banjo picker who also plays the guitar, stand-up bass, mandolin, and fiddle (although never plays the fiddle in public, he says), is a fixture around the Stone County Courthouse on Friday and Saturday nights, and occasionally during the week, if he and his buddies get the itch. He’s 70 years old and has been playing music “for all but about ten of those.” 

As musicians sit in small groups of five, six, or seven, taking turns yelling out the names of songs everybody knows, music lovers can walk from group to group, enjoying a glass of lemonade or basket of fried green tomatoes from the local vendors. Old couples sit in lawn chairs and young children chase each other in circles or play in the grass. The music scene here has become a favorite for out-of-towners over the past few years, but the people of Stone County have been pickin’ and grinnin’ for decades.

I Just Wanna Shout!

Those of you spending this weekend in Charlotte, NC,  should be prepared to eat. The city is serving up some food, fun, and music as world-renowned and local chefs meet up for the Shout Culinary Arts Experience. The two-day event features interactive cooking demonstrations from celebrity chefs including Cat Cora from Iron Chef America, Billy Strynkowski, executive chef for Cooking Light magazine, and Curtis Stone of TLC’s Take Home Chef (check the blog next week for my interview with Curtis). I'm going, and looking forward to some of these highlights:

• Culinary groups are offering mini cooking seminars that teach you how to make your own sushi or tabouleh. And local upscale restaurants will be dishing out samples of a variety of popular menu items – from tapas to seafood to Southern classics – for a fraction of the usual price.   

• Teetotalers may want to steer clear of the Robert Mondavi tour, which includes tastings and cooking demonstrations. 

• And, thanks largely to Compass Group North America, a Charlotte-based food management company, Shout will be a “green” event.  They plan to recycle plastic and glass bottles as well as aluminum and cardboard.  And, as they did last year, Compass will donate leftovers to the Second Harvest Food Bank in Charlotte. (Stay tuned for an upcoming story on Shout going “green”).

The Shout Culinary Arts Experience will take place on Friday, Sept. 26 from 5-10 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 27 from 12-9 p.m. at the Johnson and Wales University Campus at 801 West Trade Street, Charlotte, NC.

Photo courtesy of Charlotte City Center Partners

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Little Rock: Bill of Fare

With all this talk of the presidential campaign crowding our news cycle, Traveler's contributing editor Andrew Nelson sought out a respite at our last sitting President's new library.

The Roman Emperors constructed vast mausoleums and temples to commemorate their glory. Presidents of the United States build libraries. The William J Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas, is, even for Republicans, worth the effort, as it's very much like our 42nd president: friendly, loquacious, and obsessed with arcane—and sometimes fascinating—detail. The museum, located just east of downtown, is a handsome building, with its chin jutting out to the Arkansas River. It's landscaped with new trees and thick grass lawns that attract hordes of buzzing dragonflies (stand-ins for the White House press corps, perhaps?). Inside is open and airy with fine views of the river, its 16-mile-long promenade and Little Rock's cluster of gleaming new highrises.

"The second floor's got all the information," said one docent, referring to the time line of events and achievements that marked the Man from Hope's two terms in the White House. "But the third floor's got all the fun." By this she meant there are exhibits devoted to planning state dinners, displaying candid pictures of the Clintons relaxing in the White House, and five Clintonian saxophones. It even answers the question on what to do with presidential portraits of your pets (you hang them in your library). Both Socks and Buddy are immortalized for the ages.

Other highlights include the former President's Cub Scout hat as well as his presidential limo (parked on the first floor). There's also a re-creation of the Oval Offices, but velvet ropes prevent you from entering. Not so, Bill's old cabinet room. People can sit at the table and look at computer screens that explain the decision-making process. Mostly, visitors seemed to want to find the chair Clinton once used and sit in it. (Hint: look for the one that's two inches taller than anyone else's.) The adjoining library holds approximately 78 million pages of documents, 2 million photographs, and the museums remaining 85,000 museum artifacts. It proclaims itself the largest within the presidential library system. For now, anyway. Let's see if W. will top it.

Photo: Clinton Library and Museum, via eschipul's Flickr.

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New Orleans Revisited

As the last of the unidentified victims of Hurricane Katrina were laid to rest at the Charity Hospital Cemetery, most New Orleanians spent the third anniversary of Katrina preparing for another storm. With Hurricane Gustav building up strength in the Gulf, New Orleans canceled its plans for a traditional jazz funeral procession for the unidentified victims. Nearly 1,500 white flags representing those who died in Katrina covered the ground of the Metairie Cemetery. And on Friday, August 29, those gathered at the Katrina Memorial for the burials rang hand bells 9:38 a.m., marking the exact time three years ago that the levees broke and flooded 80 percent of the city.

Fortunately, the damage from Gustav was minimal and will unlikely cause any major setbacks in the effort to rebuild New Orleans. But just because they've survived the latest storm isn't reason to stop thinking about the region. A recent poll from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation shows that most New Orleanians are cautiously optimistic about the future of their city. Habitat for Humanity and the St. Bernard Project have together rebuilt nearly 300 homes in the hardest hit areas of the Crescent City, but locals worry that they are being forgotten. There is still plenty of work to be done, and luckily, we can all help.

Georgia on My Mind

After a lovely long Labor Day weekend, I'm back at my desk and wishing I was still on the beach at Tybee Island, Georgia. I headed down south to Savannah and Tybee this past weekend and relied heavily on your picks, so thanks to all those of you who submitted them. They were, as always, fantastic.

Just after getting off my flight, my aunt drove us into Savannah for lunch. I've always loved visiting the city, which has been portrayed in recent history as the host to both Forrest Gump's famous bench and the bizarre true crime book (and film) Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

But I love how the antebellum culture of city is just as thick as the Spanish moss dangling from all the trees. Founded in 1733, it is known as America's first planned city, with 24 town squares that break up the grid of streets and offer residents a shady respite from the heat (Gump's bench was in Chippewa Square, but has since been placed in the Savannah History Museum). Cotton created an economic boom for Savannah, the results of which can still be seen in the downtown historic district, with its elegant homes, many with intricate wrought-iron porches. These homes and porches can still be appreciated thanks in part to the fact that Union general George Sherman decided not to burn the city down and instead offered it to President Lincoln as a Christmas gift.

We got about that close to history while dining out at Vic's on the River, a favorite of my aunt, which was also recommended by reader Katie. The restaurant is housed in an old cotton factory building that looks out onto the river, and you can watch from the windows as the riverboat cruises line up like ladies at a beauty pageant. The food had all the trappings of southern comfort, from the biscuits that arrived first with honey butter and marmalade, to our main courses, one of which was an amazing helping of shrimp and grits that had me longing for a larger plate. But the most authentic aspect of our meal wasn't on the plates at all, but hidden in the walls. We sat in the main dining room, just to the right of a map which was preserved under glass. I noticed that it hadn't hung like a typical artwork, and a small placard next to it explained that it had been found during a renovation of the building in 1901. During the Civil War, Union soldiers had occupied the building, and they'd mapped out General Sherman's march through Tennessee to Georgia on the plaster in the wall. It was a fascinating glimpse at history.

Plan My Trip: Savannah and Tybee Island

As Labor Day weekend approaches, Traveler staffers are fanning across the country for their end-of-summer getaways. IT editor Janelle Nanos has Georgia on her mind.

I'm meeting up with my extended family in Georgia this weekend, splitting my time between Savannah and Tybee Island, so I'm looking for suggestions on what not to miss. What are the best ways to savor the waning summer days down south? Where are the top dining, shopping, or attractions that stand out? (You know I love your restaurant recommendations.) As always, I'll be bringing my video camera and notebook, and I'm always up for meeting readers, so feel free to email me with your suggestions or leave them in the comments below.

Photo: Walter Bibikow/Getty Images for National Geographic Geographical Information: Georgia

Underwater Legoland

Traveler Contributing Editor Chris Elliott and his young associates filed this report from SEA LIFE, the brand-new Legoland underwater theme park, where taking a theme park vacation no longer means leaving your conscience at home:

When Legoland California opens its new underwater theme park, SEA LIFE, on Monday in Carlsbad, Calif., it may be closest thing we have to America's first green theme park.

Everything about SEA LIFE, from the types of fish on display to the way in which it recycles waste, exudes social responsibility. When I got a sneak peak of SEA LIFE earlier this week, I found myself standing next to a bin for recycling park tickets. I'm a regular at all of Orlando's theme parks, and I've never seen a recycling bin of any kind, let alone for tickets.

Last year, the family theme park quietly sponsored a company-wide initiative called the "Green Wave Committee" with the goal of creating a cleaner, more eco-friendly park. The result: over a year, Legoland saved 212 tons of materials from going into landfills.

Legoland already recycled water, used environmentally-friendly pest control and had transitioned to sustainable packaging for food items made in the park. The Green Wave upped the ante by aggressively encouraging park guests and employees to recycle (departments within Legoland competed to see who could recycle the most cans). The park also teamed up with San Diego Habitat for Humanity and its Cans for Habitat program to raise funds to help build an 11-unit condominium complex in Carlsbad.

Thankfully, all that social responsibility doesn't translate into a boring theme park. SEA LIFE is pretty exciting. All of the freshwater fish living in the aquarium can be found in California lakes and streams, and its cold-water marine animals are all native to the California coastline. (Alas, the aquarium wasn't fully stocked when we visited, but we were promised lots of exciting fish, including sharks.)