Fort Lauderdale used to be known as a raucous spring break haven in the 1980s, with hundreds of thousands of college coeds descending upon the city each year for a 24-7 celebration of all things frivolous and decadent. But after the locals finally put their foot down and declared, “Enough!,” the binge-drinking crowd has all but vanished, paving way for new, more grown-up kind of place. Here’s why I love it.
National Geographic Traveler Editor at Large Christopher Elliott is the magazine’s consumer advocate and ombudsman. Over the past 15 years he has helped countless readers fix their trips. Here’s his latest advice.
Since the fateful first edition of Patricia Schultz’s “1,000 Places to See Before You Die” was published in 2003–a few years before that Jack Nicholson-Morgan Freeman dying-buddy film would lend the concept a buzz-worthy name–”bucket lists” have hijacked popular discourse on travel. Here’s what’s wrong with that.
I don’t know about you, but for me, indulging in authentic, local cuisine while traveling—and finding the most authentic establishment to patronize—is a must. With warm-weather wanderlust upon us, we asked our Facebook fans to give us the inside scoop on their city’s signature dish, and where to go if you want to try it for yourself. Here’s what they had to say.
Maybe it’s Lucy, the 3.2-million-year-old hominid uncovered in the Afar Triangle in 1974, or the majestic permanence of the Great Rift Valley, but a sense of returning to the root of everything pervades Ethiopia. Everywhere, what is ancient is alive and well. And though Ethiopia’s cities are modernizing fast, you never feel divorced from the essence of the land.
Twitter Chat w/ Traveler’s Editor in Chief on 4/8!
Ever dreamed of having the ear of National Geographic Traveler’s editor in chief? Here’s your chance. Keith Bellows will be the featured guest on a live Twitter chat next Tuesday, April 8th at 12:30 p.m. ET, so start thinking of what you might want to ask him.
#NGTRadar: Travel Lately
The Radar–the best of the travel blogosphere–is a regular feature on Intelligent Travel every other Wednesday. Follow us on Twitter @NatGeoTravel and tag your favorite travel stories #NGTRadar to help us find the crème de la crème on the Web. Here are our latest picks.
Marina Popjakova might not be a native of Bratislava, but she certainly feels like one after having lived there for so long. She thinks Slovakia’s capital deserves more attention than it gets–and shares her enthusiasm for her adopted city with the world as a volunteer for Spotted by Locals. Here are some of Marina’s favorite things about the “Beauty on the Danube.”
I first visited Burma, now Myanmar, in the spring of 1966, when I was 18. It was a few years after the coup d’état; most foreigners had been kicked out of the country, and the government was not welcoming visitors. I fell instantly in love. Even though the ruling military regime was one of the harshest in the world, the people I met were gracious and generous. I wanted to write a book–anything that could get me back there. But I haven’t had the occasion to return until this year.
Tucked into the peaks of Toubkal National Park, named for North Africa’s highest summit, a crop of modern guesthouses has transformed Imlil, Morocco–once known as a no-frills base camp–into a comfortable retreat for day hikers.
Brooklyn is known for all the writers who live there: You can find them frowning at their laptops in their neighborhood cafes, donning their noise-canceling headphones to block out the clamor of the only other comparably populous group–children under five. As luck would have it, Nell Freudenberger’s Brooklyn lies at the intersection of these two sets of scribblers.
When you work at National Geographic, one of the first questions people ask is if you get to travel. The answer is often yes, but one of the best parts of the job is being surrounded by sharp, globe-trotting people, and getting to hear their stories. That’s why we asked folks on National Geographic’s Travel team to share a story about the best trip they’ve taken in the past year with our Intelligent Travel readers.