One day, 24 sites, no sleep. For the multitudes scheduled to descend on New York City for the holidays, Condé Nast Traveler's Kate Maxwell offers this quick tutorial on what to hit and what to miss. 

Among the stops: Eating in Nolita, the Meat Packing District, and at Katz's Deli on the Lower East Side; shopping in Little Italy and Chinatown; a little R&R at the Bowery Hotel; a visit to the New Museum; the Union Square Farmers' Market; a walking tour of the West Village; a Central Park carriage ride; ice skating in Bryant Park; the Metropolitan Opera; a view from Top of the Rock; a drink and fortune telling at the West Village's Employees Only; Chelsea clubbing; karaoke and a massage in Koreatown; and a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Whew!

Park Hyatt Istanbul. 

by Ondine Cohane

Because of my work as a travel writer, people always ask me what my favorite trip has been. It's almost impossible to answer the question, but I try to name a few choices by category: best beach retreat, most life-altering culinary experience, most thrilling adventure, prime surfing spot, etc. For best recent discovery, Istanbul has catapulted to the top of my list.

When I visited Istanbul last year I expected to like it, but instead I fell absolutely head-over-heels. The mix of old and new felt just right, with days starting at beautiful historical sites like the Hagia Sophia and ending at fashionable restaurants like 360 with incredible views of the city. The lights of skyscrapers twinkled across from the floodlit monuments of Sultanahmet, Istanbul's historic center. And the crowd was strikingly cosmopolitan; the nightlife there made New York look almost staid. The choice of hotels was also incredibly diverse--ranging from luxe palace properties along the Bosporus to small, cozy guesthouses tucked away in less well-known neighborhoods.

Just last week the Park Hyatt opened in the Macka Palas, a 1922 landmark inspired by Milan's palazzos, right in the heart of Nisantasi, a buzzing area for shopping and close to the city's museums and best restaurants. If you check it out, try to snag one of the 25 rooms with their own Turkish baths or a top-floor suite with a private terrace. It seems fitting that most of the heavyweight hotel brands now have a presence in Istanbul; it is most definitely worth the spotlight.

Recession special: The Borrego Ranch Resort & Spa, debuting this month in Borrego Springs, California, has special introductory rates running until January. Prices start at $295 midweek and $335 on the weekend, a savings of 20 percent.

Further reading:
* Recession Special: Palm Springs getaway
* Word of Mouth: The buzz worldwide

by Sara Tucker

"There are lots of problems with public toilets in New York City," began a recent Times editorial, "starting with the fact that there aren't any."

The scolding, posted by the Gray Lady on The Board, went on to point out that while "New Yorkers have long been promised relief in the form of high-tech European toilets that take coins and clean themselves," the city's small number of demonstration models "have never been able to multiply to critical mass the way, say, fiberglass cows and Duane Reade drugstores have." 

The situation is no better in Paris, where "hygiene workers have to clean an average 56,000 square metres of urine-splashed surfaces a month" and "the sight of dozens of men urinating on the walls of the Paris town hall" during last year's rugby World Cup so incensed Mayor Delanoe that he ordered the installation of 'anti-pipi' walls to fight back.

And in Britain, whose public toilets were once the envy of Europe, "hailed as marvels of Victorian municipal design," as many as 5,000 public lavatories have closed in the past decade, halving the number of conveniences. "There could hardly be a more urgent need for public money," groused the Daily Telegraph.

Indeed, the problem is so widespread that bloggers have been driven to wonder: "Are public toilets viable?"

Absolutely, says Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization. Not only viable, but imperative, and we had better do something about their sorry condition if we want to hang around the planet much longer. That's why Sim has made it his mission to "raise the social status" of toilets and toilet attendants in all parts of the world.

According to the WTO, some 2.5 billion people, or 40 percent of the world population, lack basic sanitation. And of the billion or so people lucky enough to have sewerage systems, only about 30 percent have their sewage "treated in an environmentally acceptable way." The rest flows straight into gutters, rivers, or lakes.

We deserve better, says Sim, which is why the WTO has declared November 19 World Toilet Day, its purpose "a call to action for people to demand clean toilets for all." It is the organization's hope that the public and the "restroom community-at-large" will mark the day "to practice toilet etiquette" and make "a new declaration for the forthcoming year." A declaration, that is, to elevate the status of the toilets in our lives.

This is no joke. "If those systems go down," says a trustee of The Plumbing Museum in Watertown, Massachusetts, "civilization rapidly deteriorates. The day water stops coming out of the tap is the day civilization starts to crumble."

For ten ways to celebrate World Toilet Day, read on.

 

* Abba incubator Sweden was happening in the 1970s!  Review a photographic homage to shaggy hair and jumpsuits then read up on Stockholm's renaissance in this month's CNT.

* Now Google tracks the flu.  Has the bug come to your home state?

* Phoenician ruins found in Lebanon. A new (or rather, very old) pyramid in Egypt.  A good time to be an archaeologist.

* Ian Fleming's Jamaica.  Barak Obama's America. Pet cheetah's cargo hold.

* Coffee, tea or...what!  NASA's beverage selection

AP Photo

by Barbara S. Peterson

Remember our recent post about how Delta and Northwest, who just tied the knot, had incompatible fee structures?  Well, it's hardly a surprise that while Northwest's name will soon be repainted with the Delta livery, its stingier policy on bags will survive the merger. 

Delta was the only major airline that didn't charge for the first checked bag, but now it's adopting Northwest's $15 charge, bringing it in line with the rest of the industry. And AirTran is following suit.

Just remember one thing: Don't expect the fee to get your bag to the carousel any faster. Airlines are laying off thousands of airport workers in their bid to become profitable, in a recession, no less...

Brody's a travelin' man in the 2007 film The Darjeeling Limited.
Video: YouTube

by Beata Loyfman

Adrien Brody has a lot to brag about: He won an Oscar for The Pianist. His girlfriend is the lovely Spanish actress Elsa Pataky (you might remember her memorable turn in Snakes on a Plane). And he recently purchased an actual castle in Cleveland, New York. Oh, and Giorgio Armani renovated it. Not bad for a kid from Queens.

Here at the DT, we're not fans of snakes and shiny statues, but upstate real estate certainly gets us excited. And we're not alone. When an Oscar winner buys a castle in a tiny town, wanders around the shops (he's been spotted at Wal-Mart), and attends the local theater, Cleveland's 758 residents get understandably excited.

If 50 acres of land and a drafty castle aren't on your wish list, but you'd still like to experience small-town life, check out this Quick Trip to Beacon, New York. Here, cute B&Bs, avant-garde shops, and art galleries might provide a better cover for any celebs wishing to go incognito.

Further reading:
* Adrien Brody wins an Oscar--and steals a kiss from Halle Berry. (Check out Bono's shades in the crowd.)
* Boldface: Celebrity travels

by Barbara S. Peterson

Virgin America is the latest airline to make it official: The company rolls out WiFi capability on November 22, and claims it will be the first airline to have Internet access fleet-wide by the second quarter of next year. Of course, as a smaller airline with about two dozen planes, Virgin has an easier time of it than, say, American. Note: American has already been testing the service on certain flights, namely New York to San Francisco, LA, and Miami.  And Delta has promised to bring WiFi to the majority of its passengers within a year. (Given that it's also in the middle of a mega-merger with Northwest, don't be surprised if Delta's timetable slips.)   

This is good news, no?  For a fairly nominal fee (around $13) you can e-mail, surf the Web, and instant message from your airplane seat--you can do everything, in fact, except make a phone call.

So much has been made about the new WiFi deals that one tiny fact seems to be lost: Not long ago, you were able to phone home from 35,000 feet using the seatback "airfone" service that has now been ripped out to make way for WiFi access. Originally, though, that freed-up bandwidth was supposed to go towards cell phone use. Aircell, the company licensed to use that space, was formed in part to provide such services to private plane operators--who use it today. (The commercial airline service Aircell offers operates under the brand name Gogo.)

Today's the final day of a three-day British Airways sale on fares to London and other European cities, with prices starting at an advertised $396 between New York and London. Virgin Atlantic responded yesterday with its own counter offers, starting at an advertised $416.

Something to keep in mind, though: On our sister blog, the Perrin Post, Condé Nast Traveler Consumer News Editor Wendy Perrin writes, "Prices for transatlantic travel will most likely drop lower--perhaps even much lower--thanks to the downturn in business travel, overcapacity, and further reduction of fuel surcharges."

Of course, we all know that the ticket prices airlines advertise and what they actually cost in the real world bear little relation to each other.  Wendy's done the hard work for you, hashing out the actual cost of the British Airways and Virgin Atlantic tickets.

Further reading:
* The Perrin Post
* Recession Special: Palm Springs Getaway
* Just In: Breaking travel news

Soon to be full of sandals and straw hats.
AP Photo

by Beata Loyfman

If you're one of the millions watching your 401K plummet faster than a parachute-free skydiver, you might find it hard to tell what's worse: the economic downturn (cough, meltdown, cough) or the fact that even the nation's brightest minds have no clue what's going on.

Sadly, investment strategies are not our specialty, but we can help you with a money-saving deal on a great escape: 

With the Viceroy Palm Springs' appropriately named Breathe Easy package, you can hide out in the balmy California valley and receive 25 percent off everything--including rooms, spa services, meals, and drinks. Plus, use of the gym, townie bicycles, and WiFi is free. What does this mean for you? A Regency King room at this chic resort for just $149 per night on weekdays. And with round-trip airline tickets from the east coast hovering around $250, this can be your most cost-effective investment all year.

If Palm Springs isn't your cup of tea, not to worry. Check back here for more travel deals every week.

Further reading:
* Take comfort in Harvard's Brief History of Recessions
* Just In: Breaking travel news

The Soweto Gospel Choir raises the roof.
Photo: Oliver Neubert

by John Oseid

The world lost a monumental figure last week when legendary South African singer and anti-Apartheid hero Miriam Makeba passed away on stage in Italy. How fitting, it was reported, that she was singing her signature exile hit "Pata Pata." Harry Belafonte recounted on NPR just how remarkable a personage the 76-year-old "Mama Africa" was. Perhaps few people besides Nelson Mandela could claim the hearts of the entire continent as she did.

Thoughts of Ms. Makeba inspired me to check out a DVD I had recently stumbled across at Virgin Records. The 26-member Soweto Gospel Choir's live concert in Johannesburg's Nelson Mandela Theatre turned out to be so compelling that I found myself watching it three mornings in a row while I sipped my coffee. The office was just going to have to wait.

By 2030, the plane arriving at your gate could resemble this: a fuel-efficient aircraft with theater seating and a radical, stingray-shaped design. Check out the video above, in which Condé Nast Traveler Senior Consulting Editor Clive Irving takes you along NASA's test flight of the X-48B "blended wing" aircraft. For more, read Irving's story in the November issue.

In other green flying news, Air France KLM recently signed a charter on biofuels with eight other major airlines. The charter's signatories have also announced two new research projects: The first, led by Yale University's School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, concerns the jatropha curcas plant (look it up). The other, conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council, aims at ensuring that fuel produced from seaweed is compatible with the charter's commitments.

Flying is about to take a radical turn.

A guest room at the new Good Hotel in San Francisco.
Note the chandelier made out of used Voss water bottles!
Photo: The Good Hotel

by Brook Wilkinson

The Good Hotel is the latest shabby-to-chic property in Joie de Vivre's stable of San Francisco hotels. Once the rundown Hotel Britton, this new hot spot is now a mecca for virtuousness. I attended the grand opening party last week, and my favorite part of the tour was the bathroom. Check out these toilets: When you flush, clean water comes out of the faucet. The water that you use to wash your hands here goes straight into the toilet tank to reduce waste. It takes a little getting used to, but what an ingenious way to save water.

My other favorite amenity is the volunteering hotline in the lobby. Got a free afternoon while you're in town? Head downstairs and pick up the phone that connects directly to One Brick, a nonprofit organization that will hook you up with one-shot volunteering opportunities around the city. There's already a whole wall of photos from guests who have taken advantage of this innovative partnership. Think of it as no-muss, no-fuss voluntourism.

In the words of our president-elect, let's be clear: The Good Hotel is not at the top tier of luxury. (For that, check out JDV's Hotel Vitale.) But rooms start at just $89--a steal in this city--and the green details are impressive: reclaimed wood beds, pillows made from the old hotel's bedspreads, and One Laptop per Child computers in the business center. The attached pizza parlor, however, is second to none. This is the best traditional thin-crust pizza I've had since leaving Manhattan last year. I love that they grow their own basil and oregano in one of the grittiest parts of the city, and that they use biodegradable and compostable packaging.

Further reading:
* Responsible Traveler: Making a difference
* San Francisco's newest museum

Typical Rio scene:
Bare bodies and fresh fruit.
Photo: Lisa Limer, Condé Nast Traveler

by Julia Bainbridge

Brazil seems to be on everyone's mind these days. Well, maybe not everyone's, but certainly mine--and a couple of my favorite bloggers'. Perhaps the chill has left some of us longing for warmer climes, perhaps the perennial winter black uniform makes me ache for a more vibrant wardrobe; either way, I'm thinking of those girls from Ipanema.

First up, the Sartorialist. Fashion guy Scott Schuman recently took his blog to Rio de Janeiro, where he's shooting some colorful clothes and even more colorful people. (Case in point: Valentino in crisp seersucker, beachside.)

Another of my favorites, as you all know, Anthony Bourdain, peruses the streets of Sao Paulo's Liberdade neighborhood on his Travel Channel show, "No Reservations." Brazil hosts the largest number of Japanese outside of Japan, and its food is all the more interesting because of it. (Okay, this episode was from last year, but I was perusing Bourdain's Web site this morning and this clip jumped out at me. Who watches TV anymore, anyway? The Internet killed the video star.)

Gourmet's "Diary of a Foodie" is also into Brazil's fusion cuisine. Watch Brazil: When Foods Collide.

Last month Zane Lamprey of the Food Network's "Have Fork Will Travel" enjoyed some feijoada, Brazil's signature dish. Here's a recipe chef Eric Ripert cooked up for Food & Wine magazine.

Crayfish with buttered toast at Pelikan.

In his November-issue article for Condé Nast Traveler, "Sleepless in Stockholm," Patrick Symmes writes: "Food has opened a hundred doors for me, and the Swedes, like people everywhere, are what they eat."

The golden-haired Swedish stereotype is gone; now Chileans, Greeks, Turks, Arabs, and, most recently, Iraqis, have chopped up the city and sautéed it with new, more robust spices. Still, though, Old Scandinavia lives, and Symmes found the restaurants to prove it:

* Gondolen serves cocktails, lobster, and toast skagen from an aerie overlooking the Old Town (6 Stadsgården; 8-641-70-90; entrées, $40-$70). "The simplest dish--toast skagen, or crayfish salad on buttered bread--was at once clean and rich, and no other dish seemed necessary ever again," writes Symmes.

* Bakfickan, off a side entrance to the Opera House, is a cozy, even crowded purveyor of traditional Swedish foods (12 Jakobstorg; 8-676-58-09; entrées, $21-$49). Upstairs, via the opera's main entrance, is the formal, one-Michelin-star Operakällaren, specializing in updates on such Swedish classics as reindeer steak (Karl II's Torg; 8-676-58-01; entrées, $45-$75).

* Pelikan is a cavernous and candlelit hall of worn wood, rich beers, and fresh husmanskost, a classic Swedish sampler of salmon, dilled egg halves, shrimp, pâté, ham, beets, and, yes, meatballs (40 Blekingegatan; 8-556-090-90; entrées, $22-$33). "I received...a triptych of little herrings that went down like an arpeggio of salt, spice, sweet, and vinegar."

* The Chokladkoppen ("Chocolate Cup") is an Old Town standard for coffee, tea, sandwiches, and treats (18-20 Stortoget; 8-20-31-70; entrées, $6-$12).

Check out the article for more on the new and the old Stockholm.

Two separate mentions of shark fin soup in our October issue drew a wave of letters from readers criticizing a dish that has helped contribute to the dangerous depopulation of sharks in the world's seas. We agree with our readers and deeply apologize for the oversight. We at Condé Nast Traveler do not condone the practice of cutting the fins of sharks and tossing the live animal back into the sea to die. Nor do we support the massive overfishing, poaching, and pollution that has put this ancient and unfairly demonized creature on the brink of extinction.

The good news, as our readers demonstrated, is that people are starting to be educated. Looking for more information? The documentary Sharkwater is a great place to start.

Carsten Höller's Revolving Hotel Room.

by Julia Bainbridge

Friday night, some girlfriends and I had a sleepover. Yes--nightgowns, dancing to Beyoncé, cocktails, and nail polish. After a couple of months of political and economic stress, we decided reverting back to our early teens was a good way to just have fun.

This winter, some art lovers are sleeping over at New York's Guggenheim Museum. Located in the museum's rotunda, Revolving Hotel Room is an installation created by Stockholm artist Carsten Höller, sponsored by the Waldorf=Astoria Collection. (Interestingly enough, Höller worked as a scientist studying insect behaviors before he began making art in the late 1980s.) More high art than lip-synching with hairbrush microphones, this is quite the distinguished sleepover (compared to mine, at least).

Höller's piece is made of four connected glass discs--complete with double bed, dining table and chairs, and some storage space--that slowly move around each other. When the museum closes and the public has dispersed, guests have both the hotel room and the theanyspacewhatever exhibition to themselves, with security personnel on premises throughout the evening. When ready to hit the hay--or, rather, the wood, leather, silk, feathers, cotton, horse hair, latex, acrylic glass, metal, and motor--guests will be provided with a complimentary mineral water supply in a private mini-refrigerator. Complimentary room service breakfast is also available.

Unfortunately, "Hotel Guggenheim" has sold out, but perhaps we'll get reports from some of the lucky few who revolved around its rotunda one night. Until then, there are always pillow fights.

Further reading:
* Revolving Hotel Room
* Word of Mouth: The buzz worldwide

The comfy, pantrylike Montana.
Photo: Casa Montana

by Ondine Cohane

If you read the Daily Traveler this summer you already know that I have a fondness for tapas. My former favorite small-plates spot was Barcelona's Cal Pep, but this week I discovered its gastronomic rival, Casa Montana, just down the Mediterranean coast in Valencia's Cabañal neighborhood. Although new to me, this is no trendy newcomer. A city institution that's been around since 1836, Casa Montana is full of people whose idea of the holy grail is an unpretentious, atmospheric local spot that serves a great glass of wine and rounds of appetizers that highlight the best of the region's ingredients. (The real Holy Grail, by the way, is supposedly across town in Valencia's gorgeous Gothic cathedral.)

Casa Montana's main room is lined with huge wood wine barrels and chalkboards that announce the weekly wines available by the glass. The prices are very reasonable; an excellent Tempranillo-Syrah mix only set me back 1.80 euros. As we moved on to the second glass, my husband and I ordered a stream of wonderful tapas under the excellent tutelage of our bartender, Alejandro Garcia Llinares, who puts many sommeliers to shame.

Worldwide reactions to the U.S. election.
NYTimes.com/video

by Sara Tucker

Worldwide euphoria was the mood this week as the election of Barack Obama "unleashed a global tide of admiration, hopes for change, and even renewed love for the United States."

"If history records a sudden surge in carbon emissions on Wednesday," commented an LA Times staff writer in a story filed from London, "it may be due to the collective exhalation of relief and joy by the hundreds of millions--perhaps billions--of people around the globe who watched, waited and prayed for Barack Obama to be elected president of the United States."

Le Monde's Robert Solé was rendered nearly speechless with emotion: "Sorry. No column today. The keyboard is not responding. History is a page being turned. Three words on the screen: 'Yes we can.' "

Nowhere was the relief more palpable than in Europe, where U.S. relations have been deteriorating since the 1990s. "Hard as it may be to recall, the United States' problems with the world--or, rather, the world's problems with the United States--started before George W. Bush took office," Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, reminded us before the election, in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs.

"The end of the Cold War gave everyone a chance to take a fresh look at one another," Kagan continued, "and the Europeans, in particular, did not like what they saw. American society seemed to them crass and brutal--just as it had to their nineteenth-century ancestors. [French Foreign Minister Hubert] Védrine called on Europe to stand against U.S. hegemony partly as a defense against the spread of Americanism. 'We cannot accept . . . a politically unipolar world,' he said, and 'that is why we are fighting for a multipolar' one."

Bono has a vision for the world.
AP Photos

by Beata Loyfman

Now that Bono's plans for a 36-story Norman Foster-designed tower on Dublin's River Liffey have been shelved, the U2 front man has plenty of time for his other hobby: saving the world.

And it looks like he's wasted no time in finding his next outlet. Bono will pen as many as 10 opinion pieces for the New York Times throughout 2009. Topics will range from poverty to Frank Sinatra to Bono's cause célèbre, the plight of Africa. (We're hoping there's an ode to wraparound sunglasses, too.) NY Times accountants are thrilled with this news; the cost of Bono's efforts comes to exactly $0. 

Meanwhile, Bono fans can check in at The Clarence, the U2-owned hotel in Dublin that has also been in the news lately. Bono and the lads have just won a battle with the Irish government to allow for a $235 million renovation to turn The Clarence into a futuristic landmark. Luckily, there's still a chance to stay at the original, and for a steal: The Dublin Winter Retreat package includes accommodations, a full Irish breakfast, and a welcome cocktail all for $270 per night. 

Further reading:
* Celebrity Charities: Fact or fiction?
* Madonna's Malawi Efforts Are in Vogue
* Boldface: Celebrity travels

Since our November issue hit stands, Condé Nast Traveler has received a lot of feedback--fan mail, questions, complaints, and everything in between--on our Readers' Choice Awards results. In the current spirit of democracy, the DT will be posting some of these letters and answering your questions.

Here's one: "I was just wondering how you choose the hotels and resorts in your top picks--is there a way to nominate our favorite places? I've noticed that the Honor Mansion, an inn in Healdsburg, California, has never been in your top picks, but it is one of my absolute favorites."

To answer: If you can imagine, we polled more than 9,000 properties this year. We try to be as inclusive as possible and cover everyone. But with the hospitality industry moving at the speed of sound, we can't always keep up. This is where our readers come in. Since you are the most savvy travelers around, we rely on you to tell us what we've missed. That's why we always include the option to write-in any properties or destinations that you loved so they can be included in next year's poll. We've just added the Honor Mansion to the 2009 survey. Thanks for the tip!

Do you have a question, response, or rant about any of the properties, destinations,  or modes of transportation featured in the Readers' Choice Awards? If so, post a comment. We'd love to hear from you.

Check out our methodology after the jump.

The Ana Hina album cover.

by John Oseid

I once endured a bitterly cold Manchurian winter with the help of classic Arabic songs. After teaching English all day to my Chinese charges in the mid eighties, I unwound night after night by listening to cassette tapes my young neighbors--who happened to be Palestinian students--shared with me. The rich melodies from warmer climes kept me sane until spring arrived.

The plaintive strains in Natacha Atlas's new Arabic album Ana Hina (I Am Here) have rekindled my love for Arabic harmonies. In the nineties, the sultry Anglo-Egyptian singer built her reputation on electronic beats with the world fusion collective Transglobal Underground. In recent years, she's been going back to her roots, this time reworking golden age Arabic music from the forties through the seventies.

Ana Hina is a lesson in Arabic traditions, from Atlas's melismatic voice to the riq tambourine and darbouka the album features prominently. "Ya Laure Hobouki" and "Le Teetab Alayi" were signature ballads for Lebanon's beloved singer Fairuz, composed by the famed Rahbani Brothers. The title track--Atlas's own composition--mixes accordion with the ancient ney flute.

Atlas takes her tributes in new directions, too. "El Asil" was popularized by the Egyptian heartthrob crooner Abdel Halim Hafez, but she modernized the tune with vamping horns and piano. Elsewhere, she throws in bits of tango and on "La Vida Callada," a Spanish song set to a poem taken from Frida Kahlo's diary, she collaborates with Barcelonan vocalist and oud player Clara Sanabras. Atlas aptly describes "Hayati Inta" as a "Berber-flavored number&reinvented&as the Doors meet Mingus." Somehow a version of Nina Simone's famous "Black Is the Color" fits in perfectly, too. It all makes me long for cold Manchurian nights.

More music:
* If you hurry, you can catch Natacha Atlas live before she begins a European tour. Tonight, she performs at the San Francisco Jazz Festival in the Herbst Theatre (the UN Charter was signed there in 1945).
* She'll be at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles on November 9.
* You'll see me in the crowd on November 11 at BB King on New York's 42nd Street.
* Boom Box: An unabashed gusto for music of the world

Flags a flying for Obama--and
hopefully planes will, too.
AP Photo

by Barbara S. Peterson

Out of the speculation about President-elect Barack Obama's economic plan comes this surprising development: Air travel could be a hot topic in the new administration. 

Barely after the votes were tallied, one possible choice as Treasury Secretary, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, was opining on CBS radio this morning about the woeful state of the nation's air traffic control and what the new president ought to do.  Namely, invest tons of money to get it up to 21st-century standards like using satellite technology to guide planes instead of antiquated radars.

Corzine, who's been advising Obama informally on economic strategy, said he envisions "a stimulus package with an infrastructure investment that will create jobs and provide returns in the long run."  Drawing a parallel to the building of New York's Lincoln Tunnel during the Depression, he added: "One obvious one (now) would be the air traffic control system, which is grossly under-invested in and outdated," he said.

Corzine dismissed talk that he would join the Obama administration. But he certainly knows about the impact of aviation gridlock: the three major airports serving New York City, including Newark in his home state, have the worst delays in the country and are supposedly the cause of more than half of all delays nationwide.

Fixing air traffic control isn't as simple as building a bridge or a tunnel. The problem is complex, and "next gen" satellite technology will take 15 to 20 years to roll out under ideal circumstances. One part of the picture may get addressed very soon after Obama moves into the White House, though: Air traffic controllers are demoralized and understaffed, in part because they've worked without contracts with their employer, the Federal Aviation Administration, for more than two years. As a senator, Obama sponsored a bill--opposed by the Bush White House--that would have forced the two sides to go back to the bargaining table. Meanwhile, new controllers saw their pay cut by 30 percent as more seasoned controllers quit or took early retirement. The resulting staff shortage certainly isn't helping flights get to their destinations faster, and controllers claim that labor peace would help things run more smoothly.

Photos: Guy Martin

by Guy Martin

As the villagers of Kogelo, where Barack Obama's grandmother still lives, prepared their best roosters for the celebratory slaughter and the inhabitants of the Japanese fishing town of Obama (which translates as "small shore") were dancing the hula and chanting "Yes we can!" in the streets, Berlin celebrated the election with an only slightly more pedestrian all-night hot-dog/sauerkraut/mojito fest at the Babylon Cinema.

The Babylon, a remarkably intact (meaning un-bombed) relic from the 1920s, was the site of a very active underground resistance cell against Hitler. Now, of course, it's smack-dab in the red-hot party district of East Berlin called Mitte, which is one of the reasons that the evening's organizers, the redoubtable Democrats Abroad, chose it. Some 70 percent of Germans favor Obama, and 300,000 showed up to hear him speak last July; last night about five times the 1,500-person capacity of the theater showed up to hunker down for eight and a half hours of the live CNN feed.

1:30 a.m.: Exit polls on the about-to-close Atlantic seaboard are going as expected. For whatever reason, a troop of really bad Hawaiian dancers takes the Babylon stage under the live feed screen. One of the dancers is a stiff, potbellied German boomer hippie now living out his private hula-fueled ethnicity. What is it? An homage to Obama's grandmother? His moves are monumentally bad, but he's a-dancin' and a-prancin' for Obama, and we can't stop him.   

Espresso and nicotine fuel me and my boon companion Heinrich* as we blast across town to see approximately 200 brave Republican holdouts at a bar. Henry's a former East German intelligence service (Stasi) spy for the foreign directorate headed by the legendary spymaster Markus Wolf. He loves watching Westerners practice democracy, and it's great fun to watch with him. (Politically speaking, it's an out-of-body experience. We last gamed the hotly contested Bush/Gore election together eight long years ago.)

The Republican clubhouse is called the Wahlkreis, or the Voting District, a book-lined pub not far from the chancellor's office. It's a sweet, chummy party with big-screen coverage in a couple of rooms. Henry and I mistakenly assume that there will be groups of vengeful, hang-dog American Republicans in standard-issue blue blazers and white shirts plotting the architecture of a comeback in 2016. We pounce on a kid dressed like Matt Drudge, with a McCain placard in his snap-brim hatband. But there's a problem: The Drudge clone, an affable 20-odd-year-old named Billy Six, is from a little town in the former East Germany, and everybody else in the room except for me is German, too. Where are the Americans?

Voluntourism--taking a vacation that includes some charity work--is a travel idea whose time has come. In our May 2008 issue, Condé Nast Traveler held the World Savers Contest, asking readers to report on their good deeds with an essay and photo documenting a recent voluntourism trip. A couple of weeks ago, we posted Beverly Orthwein's winning entry. This week, another one of our favorite contest entries.

by Jeanne Andrews

This picture still haunts me. The fact that I had to turn around and get into our air-conditioned van and drive back to our safe, clean, and protected volunteer house in San Salvador, El Salvador, leaving these children from the orphanage reaching out for us, still causes my heart to constrict. Never before have I walked away from children that I knew were in unsafe, unclean, and unhealthy surroundings, and there wasn't a bloody thing I could do about it.   

I was one of 30 volunteers who joined a mission/sightseeing trip to El Salvador with the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart in June of 2007. We were a group made up of high school students and their parents, teachers, and adults like me, who all wanted to experience a trip where we could give back. Some spoke Spanish; many of us did not. Gloria Petrone, who runs the El Salvador mission, can only be described as one of those "higher souls" that roams our planet--someone who does more good for more people on an hourly basis than a hundred people accomplish in a year. Sr. Petrone arranged for us to bring clothing and medical supplies to the orphanage in Izalco, help build a senior center in the village of Granadillas, and teach in the village of Las Delicias. A senior center was needed, she explained, because when families leave El Salvador to go to the United States, they often abandon their elders. Villagers were building this senior center--without the aid of construction vehicles or modern tools--to provide hot meals, showers, and a place for seniors to go during the daytime. We had no idea where they slept at night.

A Cambodian weaver works toward
a better future.
Photo: Nikaya Handcrafted

by Brook Wilkinson

Looking to get a head-start on your Christmas shopping? Want your gifts to mean a little more this year? Then click over to Nikaya, a brand-new online retailer of handcrafted goods made in Southeast Asia. Nikaya (which means "community" in an ancient Buddhist language) was started by Andrea and Brandon Ross of the tour operator Journeys Within. Condé Nast Traveler readers will recognize Journeys Within from Wendy Perrin's annual list of the world's best travel planners, as well as my profile of the company's voluntourism projects. (Avid Daily Traveler readers might also remember that Journeys Within is donating 100 percent of profits from the first ten trips that it arranges to Burma for next year to help victims of Cyclone Nargis.)

Andrea and Brandon just can't stand still, so after establishing scholarships for university students, handing out micro-loans to entrepreneurs in their community, building clean water wells, and running free English classes, they've decided to start a handicraft store that will benefit both the local artisans and the aforementioned projects: Nikaya sells silk scarves, purses, bags, jewelry, and pillow covers, with 10 percent of the profits going to Journeys Within Our Community, and the artists being paid fair-trade wages for their work. Best of all, Nikaya is offering Daily Traveler readers a 15 percent discount; just use the code NIKAYA001MAILING when you place your order. If any of my friends are reading this, I love the Callie bag...