76-Second Travel Show: 'Who Is Dean Reed?'

Dean Reed, who died 25 years ago today in East Berlin, is my vote for one of the most fascinating people of all time. He outran a mule, picked up a random hitch-hiker with a Capitol Records contact that led to his recording contract, got huge in Uruguay, had dinner dates with Che Guevara, was the first rock star to appear in the USSR, and made movies with Yul Brynner, and eventually one billion people -- per some estimates -- knew who he was. About ten of which were Americans.

For free MP3s, see this German site.

76-Second Travel Show: 'Outtakes from Garfield Assassination Replica'

Episode # 049

F E A T U R I N G * 1 4 3 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

It's been one year since the '76-Second Travel Show' probed every alley of New York to find the most worthy presidential experience to have for a president's day weekend in the Big Apple: and NAILED IT (with this).

Chester A Arthur is one of two presidents (George Washington being the other) to take the oath in Manhattan. Arthur did so because a guy called Charles Guiteau went and shot James Garfield for no apparent reason (enigmatically self-proclaiming 'I'm the stalwart of stalwarts' as he squeezed his trigger, twice).

Time hasn't been forgiving to Arthur, a man who pronounced his middle name ('Alan') with mock-French twist ('Alain'), had something like 50 pairs of paints, and frankly wasn't much of a president. But his former home, at 123 Lexington Ave in Manhattan, is now an Indian spice shop -- and you can get a 'Chester Arthur' sandwich (well, if you ask for one) upstairs in his former bedroom.

To celebrate the one-year anniversary, the 76 team held a party with a couple of the reenactors from the 0:13 replica of James Garfield's shooting (he'd die two months later -- you really might not want to know the details of exactly why he died).

We also dug up, from the 76 archives, some outtakes from the original video.

Enjoy. And remember. And definitely go eat one of those sandwiches.

The original:

76-Second Travel Show: 'Does Saying No Make You a Travel Wimp?'

Episode #048

F E A T U R I N G * 7 1 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

I've jumped from Soviet aircraft, thrown lead weights at dynamite in Bogota, and even been on a horse in upstate New York. But in Quebec City, I found something I just couldn't do: a night at the Ice Hotel.

Does saying 'no' make you a travel wimp?

76-Second Travel Show: 'Sound Challenge'

Episode #047
F E A T U R I N G * 6 9 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

Maybe the question for travel in 2011 isn't what you'll see, but what you'll hear?

Here's my defense of closing your eyes for Lonely Planet.

Robust Christmas II

Last year, especially for Christmas, the 76-Second Travel Show tracked a surprising surge in the usage of the word 'robust' on both sides of the Atlantic:



A year later, we're noticing the trend in the US has continued its spike upward.

The New York Times rose from over 900 usages of 'robust' in 2009 to over 1400 (1406 as of Dec 23, including online references), while the UK's Guardian dropped slightly to 1885.

Does that say the UK is over robust, while the US is just getting started?

Either way, 76 Studios is looking forward to a very robust 2011.

76-Second Travel Show: 'What's the Harvard/Yale of Travel?'

Episode #046
F E A T U R I N G * 8 5 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

Those who think the Red Sox/Yankees are the best rivalry in US sports ought to spend more time around college football. Considering the numbers of times baseball teams square off each year, and -- then -- how meaningless each game really is, nothing beats college football.

Particularly when it's two teams playing for nothing but pride. Harvard and Yale were, historically, instrumental in CREATING the sport of football. Unlike the big BCS teams, they have no polls, no bowls, no championships looming -- just a regular-season schedule capped with one of the biggest unseen rivalries in the country.

Sports in general is an underrated way of connecting with locals anywhere you go. And I found the same joy from mingling in the whirlwind of overcoats and scarves at Harvard Stadium a week-and-a-half ago. It was fun. And different from games back in Oklahoma. No merch stands, programs were free, and there were a lot of people in overcoats and scarves. One woman, a proud Crimson fan, told me, 'The boys sing 10,000 Men of Harvard in the locker room after each win.' So?, I thought. 'First in English, then in Latin.'

Football players who sing in Latin? Definitely not in Oklahoma anymore.

76-Second Travel Show: 'What's Worse: Airport Scanners or the Shoe Deal?'

Episode #045

F E A T U R I N G * 3 5 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

Everyone's mad about the new X-rated airport scanners. Some groups are rallying the 812 million annual air passengers in the states to opt out of the scanners on November 24, the busy day before Thanksgiving. Opting out means pat downs -- which are more detailed than they used to be. Recently, one guy faces a $10,000 civil suit for saying he'd have TSA agents arrested if they touched his junk.

All of this cannot compare with the single greatest energy-wasting project of all time: taking on/off shoes at airport checks.

At 0:36 to take them on/off -- per a 76-Second Travel Show sample test -- this security measure equates 923 years of combined personal effort to show some sock at TSA security checks... each year. That means every year, air passengers in the US are spending more time shedding shoes than it took to build the Empire State Building (about seven million man hours, or 799 years of personal effort).

TSA rep Sharon Horowitz told me by email they're trying to find ways to axe the shoe checks. But, she says, the scanners -- 385 units in 68 airports, a cost of nearly $70 million apparently -- do a better job of detecting 'metallic and non-metallic threats,' like stuff in shoes.

Richard Reid, are you laughing?

This video features 'Give Peace a Chance' by Dean Reed: one of the most remarkable cover versions of any song recorded behind the Iron Curtain.

76-Second Travel Show: 'How to Time Travel'

Episode #044
F E A T U R I N G * 6 4 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

Did you see that Charlie Chaplin video yet? I like how George Clark, the director, says three times he's screened it for 'about 100 people,' calls the woman in question 'butch' a few times, starts with blatant self promotion, and -- a director -- rambles on way too long and shoots his deal in bad lighting.

Considering that, AND that it's the 25th anniversary of a more relevant time-travel (and Huey Lewis) vehicle Back to the Future, it's time to weigh in.

Can you time travel? Is it better to go back or forward? And what when would physicist Paul Davies, with a time machine, head to?

My ranking of the Charlie Chaplin traveler, out of five possible clocks:

76-Second Travel Show: 'Monopoly Travel to Atlantic City'

Episode #043
F E A T U R I N G * 1 8 2* B O N U S * S E C O N D S

Question: Can a Monopoly board be used as a guidebook?

Why yes! In Atlantic City, it can!

Parker Brothers first published Monopoly 75 years ago this year -- it began in various forms decades before as 'Landlord's Game.' Some people don't realize that the color-coded properties encircling continuous layout -- eg Connecticut Avenue, St James Place, Marvin Gardens, Park Place -- are based on real ones in New Jersey's famed seaside beach destination. And with the exception of one -- St Charles Place -- all can be visited, and doing so (sometimes) leads to Atlantic City's best survivors from past-gone eras.

I followed the board around Atlantic City recently. Several locals independently advised that the Baltimore Grill on Atlantic Avenue served 'the best pizza in the world.' It didn't -- and didn't have a grill either -- but I loved the '50s-era throwback. Meanwhile, at the corner of Vermont Ave & Pacific Ave, I peppered the keys of an antique pianola in a 19th-century lighthouse, now surrounded by housing blocks.

But the best stop? Easily St James Place, home to a classic pub and hotel at the Inn at the Irish Pub? Most memorable stay in an American hotel I've had. Like walking into a Little Rascals set, with picks from local estate sales that date to the Depression, lacy curtains blowing in AC-free rooms, slanted floors and -- in my room at least -- an embroidered Norwegian scene hanging opposite an inspirational quote taped onto a paddle.

76-Second Travel Show: 'Are the English the Champs of Travel?'

Episode #042
F E A T U R I N G * 5 0 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

It has to be said. Stack'm up: Graham Greene, Eric Newby, Jan Morris, Colin Thubron, even Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson in one corner; Mark Twain, Paul Theroux, Bill Bryson, uh John Steinbeck (considering this week marks the 50th anniversary of his 'Travels with Charley' trip), maybe Elizabeth Gilbert in the other? The English, the former group, will win every time -- at travel writing.

What can the Americans do to catch up?

76-Second Travel Show: 'What is a Travel Animal?'

Episode #041
F E A T U R I N G * 7 9 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

Animals are going berserk of late: whales jumping, like Simon Le Bon, aboard private yachts in South Africa; bears hijacking Toyotas and ramming them into trees. Are they protesting our travel? Or just trying to tag along?

I've tried to promote 'travel animals' before -- such as the walrus, the pig and the prairie dog. But the notion has changed for me. It's time to refocus toward animals who travel, not just animals to look at.

Some will liken the best 'travel animal' to those who travel the longest distances, like the arctic tern which travels the equivalent of three trips to the moon over its life. But distances, just like ticked-box countries visited, doesn't equate to travel value. Instead, I'm looking for are animals that combine relaxation, fun with curiosity and escape.

We have one suggestion. Do you have any candidates?

If bored, visit the full 76-Second Travel Show archive.

76-Second Travel Show: 'Airline Logo Awards'

Episode #033
F E A T U R I N G * 4 6 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

AN ODE TO BRANIFF
There are two reasons why I've been bit by the travel bug most of my life:

• my dad buying me a sun idol outside the 1st-century pyramid at Teotihuacán outside Mexico City at five years old, and
• looking out over the pastel-colored Braniff jets at the rainy Dallas/Ft Worth Airport on the way there. And dreaming.

Airports birth many travel dreams. Looking out over runways and seeing exciting, artful planes named for far-off countries you hadn't heard of before. Some with funny logos. Others starting with 'Q' and featuring winged kangaroos. Certainly as a kid, I loved any chance to be at airports -- to me, diesel fuel in the morning smelled like victory. But mostly I loved Braniff.

It was the jet that took us most places in those early days -- trips to San Diego, to Mexico, to San Antonio, to Chicago. And it was the first jet to get serious with colors in its 'end of the plain plane' movement that led to sculptor Alexander Calder's imaginative designs for Braniff tails and fuselages in the mid '70s. Airplanes as art.

Braniff, it should be noted, originally began in the Oklahoma oil boom in 1928 as the 'TULSA-OKLAHOMA CITY AIRWAYS,' one of the great airline names of all time. It'd evolve, then it'd collapse by 1982 -- shortly after J.R. Ewing got shot on the TV show Dallas.

Considering that United/Continental -- curiously -- will be known as 'United' from 2011, but look 'Continental,' I thought it was time to tribute the best of airline logos, particularly Braniff's love of art.

76-Second Travel Show: "What Does Travel Teach?"

Episode #024

F E A T U R I N G * 4 5 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

The New York Times Travel Show attracts three types of people: crusty travel vets looking for contacts, casual travelers (some keen for group tour deals) and travelers pulling rolling suitcases to fill with freebies.

In two full days, I met dozens of vendors. I posed at for a Zapata-moustache pic at the Mexico section, where I also grabbed a pink drawstring bag. The three grumpy women at Russia's Intourist Agency set out 'Trans-Siberian' tours, but shrugged in silence when I mentioned I had (co-)written a guidebook to the train ride. (Russia, please regroup on effective ways to attract people to your lovely country.)

Enjoyed many panels too. New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, in a panel of travel writers MC'ed by David Farley, confessed to not being a travel writer, and that she believed in travel 'without preparation.' Sree Sreenivasan, of Columbia University, suggested Facebook's motto is 'if it's not broken, we'll break it.'

That panel, on social media in the tourist industry, ended with a slide show on Germany, where I learned that Germany has 16 federal states but that its list of musical geniuses included Bach and Brahms, but NOT Klaus Meine of the Scorpions!

Every day has its moment -- unless you stay in and write bad poems. Mine came Friday when I lost my favorite pen, a multi-ink-jet dealie that I left by the coffee. After an hour of re-padding my empty pockets, I walked back to the scene and found an employee, Nina. 'Um, I lost a pen -- do you know if anyone saw it?' Her eyes lit up, and she pulled it out (of her sock actually -- Javits Center uniforms have no pockets, I guess). 'You mean this?'

Travel is all about little connections and kindnesses made when you least expect, and if you're lucky, most want them.

Thank you Nina. Thank you Travel.

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Links:

• Sean O'Neill of Budget Travel
• Kim Mance of Galavanting TV
• David Raezer of Approach Guides
• Mike Peters of NoDebtWorldTravel

76-Second Travel Show: 'Here Come the Siberians'

Episode #023
F E A T U R I N G * 3 2 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

Some of the reasons why virtual travel, while a nice aid, will never replace the non-virtual version. Recorded during my Siberian trips of 2005 and 2008 while updating Lonely Planet's Trans-Siberian Railway guide.

76-Second Travel Show: "Bed-Stuy, Do!"

Episode #020
F E A T U R I N G * 1 1 4 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

"You're a photographer?"

I had just snapped a shot of New York's only living landmark, a four-floor-high magnolia tree that was moved to Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant in 1885 from North Carolina. I put away my camera and looked up. A guy leered across the street towards me, knit cap, gray eyebrows, and... a smile.

I told him I was, sorda.

"Do you know what this is?," he asked, pointing to the building hidden by the magnolia.

And so began a lengthy talk with the executive director Dan Durett of the Magnolia Tree Earth Center, the building beyond the tree. (The center hosts community events; email durett@optonline[dot]net for more info.)

Welcoming experiences like this happened to me all over "Bed-Stuy," a neighborhood still trying to shed its "Bed-Stuy, Do or Die" 1970s image as a crime zone of drugs and violence. It hasn't been that way in a while. And visitors can easily enjoy a day -- combing it with a couple sites in nearby Crown Heights (including the Brooklyn Children's Museum and the fascinating Weeksville).

At the cafe Bread Stuy, one of the handful of lively neighbor-run businesses on Lewis Ave, I met with TRUE, an artist who moved from LA to New York, and to Bed-Stuy's historic Stuvyvesant Heights in 1999. He told me there's so much creative energy, and too few places to put it, that "speakeasies" have been set up in basements -- for art, jazz trios, drinks, dance. "It's a great place to go, get drinks for $3, shake your ass a bit, then wobble home at 2am." (One example.)

In nearby Crown Heights (a short walk via Utica Ave), Weeksville is a fascinating site. An 1830s African-American community set up a decade after New York State abolished slavery. The term "Weeksville" fell out of use after the grid system of streets replaced it, trams and subways came. By the 1960s it was a mystery to professors at Clinton Hill's Pratt Institute, who flew over Crown Heights looking for it. Guide Kaitlyn Greenidge told me they saw the "pointed rooftops" in a lot behind Bergen St, and a long restoration project followed. You can visit the three original buildings Tuesday to Friday afternoons, and on July Saturdays the site hosts free concerts.

For food, Peaches on Lewis Ave is the local favorite -- good for shrimp and grits or po' boys.

Staying in Bed-Stuy is another option. Akwaaba Mansion is my favorite New York City B&B, an 1860s Italianate villa, with its own yard, and set back from a strip of brownstones by an iron fence. Another consideration -- and a deal from $175 per night -- is renting a fully contained brownstone apartment from the artist TRUE.

76-Second Travel Show: 'Love for Cold Travel'

Episode #017

F E A T U R I N G * 6 0 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

COLD STUFF
In Charlie English's spotty, but occasionally interesting, book The Snow Tourist, he builds a (failed) igloo in Nunavut, hikes in avalanche country in the French Alps, visits the snowiest city in the world in upstate New York, and lingers at Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum to see the 1565 painting by Pieter Bruegel The Hunters in the Snow.

The painting depicts the 'pleasure of winter,' showing a fully snow-covered land, with much activity and joy outside -- other than the man who has fallen flat on his face (look closely).

English follows the trend of snow in art to when Japan opened up in the 19th century, and Impressionists such as Claude Monet were overwhelmed by Japanese artists' stylized snow scenes -- where the 'snow' comes from the absence of ink -- only the plain white of the paper showing through.

It's a nice spin on the glory of winter, a time when most travel publications focusing on escaping it (note the flurry of Caribbean and Hawaii deals these days).

Nothing wrong with a beach, but there's nothing wrong with the cold either.

And, unlike scorching August days in New York when subways become saunas, and we cling to shadows to minimize the pools of sweat that form on our business outfits, you can do something about the cold: wear more clothes. In summer the only respite is from a beach or an air-conditioned movie theater.

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Here's my recent list of some of the world's best winter festivals for Lonely Planet.

76-Second Travel Show: 'Quest Lessons from David Farley'

Episode #016
F E A T U R I N G * 6 0 * B O N U S * S E C O N D S

THE CITIZEN KANE OF TRAVEL
I always call Italy the 'Citizen Kane of travel' -- it has the accolades, the press, the attention, the love. And anytime I go, I leave feeling all the hype was justified.

Some people equate things like seeing art and eating pasta in a Tuscan hill town as the 'real Italy.' Others might say it's hearing profanity on a gritty alley of Naples. Nearly getting hit by a Vespa in Rome. Shopping 21st-century fashion in Milan. Seeing where Darth Vader courted in one of those awful prequel Star Wars films at Lake Cuomo.

David Farley, whose travelogue An Irreverent Curiosity, wouldn't take a stab at defining a 'real Italy' when I met him for a Roman lunch in New York a couple months ago. He only knows that the town he bases his search for Jesus' stolen foreskin counts too.

Calcata, just outside Rome, is off the main Roman roads -- and indeed modern-day guidebooks. His 2007 New York Times article gave it some attention, for better or worse, as he wrote in World Hum.

Next time I'm in Rome, I'll be taking the bus out from Saxa Rubra bus station in suburban Rome to see a medieval town that looks like a 'cupcake on a high perch,' as Farley writes -- one filled with 'hippies, artists and bohemian types,' who saved it from demolition a few decades ago.

Maybe I'll go to take clarinet lessons.

Chris Jagger is Travel

I made the claim in Tuesday's 76-Second Travel Show that travel is kinda like Chris Jagger. That the biggest things we pick up from trips aren't usually from a glimpse of the leaning tower of Pisa, Red Square or that big Jesus in Rio -- but what we find around it. Meaning, extended conversations with rice-bag clerks, minor-league hockey games, asking to speak to curators of small, neglected museums. Or a Chris concert for 100 at the now-defunct Bottom Line in New York, rather than seeing Mick belt out 'Satisfaction' for the 14, 237th time from the back of Giants Stadium (I've done both).

Turns out I was righter than I figured: Chris Jagger is a travel writer.

Last May Chris wrote about his little romp through Texas, crossing the center of the state's wide girth at places you might expect -- the Alamo, Austin's swimming holes, a dude ranch.

Though he loses points for his typo for Galveston's historic Balinese Room (he calls it the 'Bali Club') -- and he probably could have pointed out Indian Territory is today's Oklahoma and that Abilene is in Kansas -- we at SSSTS applaud the effort and award Chris 3.4 stars out of 5.0 stars on the Perfect Travel scale for picking local diners over chain restaurants (which, per Chris, 'seek to ruin any sense of adventure') and finishing a horse ride by picking up some Wranglers on location (I did the same in Valentine, Nebraska a few years ago -- call me Chris, let's travel).

To me Texas is the most overrated and underrated state: overrated by Texans, underrated by everyone else.

Chris gave us a nice overview of central highlights. But I'd vote that the real Chris Jagger of Texas is more likely Big Bend National Park , rooting for TCU football, spending some time in Lubbock, or seeing the world's greatest cheerleaders, the Kilgore Rangerettes.

These are all big-time Chris Jaggers.