A page from “For You the Traveller.”A 21-year-old artist has reinvented a cherished commodity for world travelers seeking an authentic experience in a new place: a local’s recommendation.
In a limited-edition book (just 200 copies were printed) titled “For You the Traveller,” New Zealand-born Nabil Sabio Azadi has collected the personal experiences of natives in destinations across five continents: a scientist, a metalworker, a musician, a political analyst among them. The storytellers reveal how they spend their days and what their city means to them; and then they provide readers a phone number to contact them.
Mr. Azadi has collected guides in cities around the world through his own travels, and those featured in “For You the Traveller” live in Tehran, Paris, Sapporo, Seattle, New York, Berlin and Antwerp. Each participant promises to be a port-of-call for those who purchase a book. “If you share yourself with them,” Mr. Azadi said, “they will share their shelter, philosophy and land with you.” Read more…
The Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality The portable library at Metzitzim Beach in Tel Aviv.Gone to the beach and forgotten your paperback? If you’re in Tel Aviv, at least, you’re in luck. Israel’s largest city on the Mediterranean just opened its first beach library, a portable cart stocked with more than 500 books in five languages including Arabic, English, French, Hebrew and Russian.
Parked at the city’s Metzitzim Beach throughout the summer, the cart provides loaner books on an honor system, with no registration required and no fines if you keep your paperback for an extra day in the sun. Selections range from children’s books to poetry.
For those who prefer to read digital content, Tel Aviv offers free city-wide Wi-Fi under the network name “free-tlv.”
Amit Geron The view from the rooftop restaurant and bar at the Mamilla Hotel in Jerusalem. The Mamilla Hotel, a chic hotel less than a mile from Jerusalem’s Old City which opened last summer, has gotten plenty of buzz, including being listed on Condé Nast Traveler’s Hot List for 2010. It will be adding a new wellness spa, Akasha, this August. Read more…
Tired of the snow? Find yourself craving a bit of warmth and sunshine to get over the final hump of winter? In this Sunday’s Travel section, Jane Margolies offers some last-minute getaways, from an upscale surf lodge on the Gulf Coast of Florida, to a three-day cruise to the Caribbean. And for those who aren’t sick of the snow, Cindy Hirschfeld picks five of the top North American resorts for spring skiing.
Also this Sunday, Clifford J. Levy, the Times’s bureau chief in Moscow, explores a Russian diaspora that has emerged in Israel, including a bar in Jerusalem called Putin. Andrew Ferren gallery hops in the Murcia province of Spain. And John Holl crafts his own beer in New Hampshire. Other reports from the Amalfi Coast, Rome, London and Prague.
Yannis Kontos/Polaris, for The New York Times The amphitheater in Epidaurus.Q.
I’m looking to take my wife and kids — 9 (boy) and 7 (girl) — on a “learning” vacation, and ideally I’d like a place that offers a mix of leisure activities but also a vacation where they can learn about another culture or learn about the environment, etc. Any ideas?
Jeff Heitzner,
Haworth, N.J.
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