Condé Nast Traveler Style Director Mark Connolly has just arrived in Paris following a weeklong stint covering Milan's fashion week. Judging from his report, below, traveling makes Mark very hungry. 

by Mark Connolly

Well, I'm finally in Paris! The fashion shows don't start until tonight, so I have a bit of down time. Am staying--as always--at the Hotel Meurice on rue de Rivoli (great location, amazing service), which is a short walk away from one of my favorite stores, W.H. Smith. It's an incredibly well-stocked British bookstore where I load up on all of the hottest European fashion magazines. Then I take them and myself a short walk down to Angelina's on rue de Rivoli for my favorite pig-out lunch, the Angelina salad. Foie gras, avocado, artichoke hearts, and a hard-boiled egg. I defy you to finish one. This is then followed by the holiest of holies of a dessert, which they are famous for at Angelina's, the Mont Blanc. Chestnut puree filled with whipped cream! Some brave souls actually have this with Angelina's super-rich hot chocolate (which is just melted chocolate, I swear). Definitely not a size zero now. I'm sensing the beginnings of a food obsession during this week. Watch this space . . .

Condé Nast Traveler Style Director Mark Connolly reports from Milan fashion week, where he's checking out the latest in Dolce, Marni, and Prada. Tonight it's on to Paris.

by Mark Connolly

Not all of the drama in Milan is to be found on the catwalks. Accessory designers need their moment to shine, too! I get to see what next season's cool shoes and "it" bags look like six months before they are in stores. I thought that you guys might like a sneak preview from a few of Milan's best designers.

P.S. A limousine is still required for some of next season's skyscraper heels.

CLICK A THUMBNAIL BELOW FOR A LARGER PHOTO

Some of the latest outdoor-inspired urban looks at the Hogan presentation.  Everybody needs a shearling over-the-knee boot, right?
Valextra's new fuschia squashy bag	Bally's nude leather cases and vanities lined in printed black lace

Street scene: Khan al Khalili.

Condé Nast Traveler's Cairo-based editor visits the scene of the February 22 bombing that killed one tourist

by Susan Hack

Ever since the fourteenth century, Cairo's Khan al Khalili has attracted a daily melting pot of foreign travelers seeking exotic mementos (which these days include King Tut tea sets made in China), as well as ordinary Egyptians who come to shop for clothes, housewares, and other essentials.

I live in Cairo and love to visit this medieval shopping mall. I search for bits of old silver, wander in and out of mosques, madrassas, and other Islamic monuments, and check out the latest fashion in the abaya souk; this year's look, imported from Dubai, is all about trims of silver sequins. Last Friday I had a different mission: to see how local businesses are faring in the aftermath of the February 22 bomb, which killed a French teenager and injured at least 20 other people.

Outside the Central Market in Kuala Lumpur. Don't be afraid to bargain like a local--
and move on if you don't get the right price.
Photo: Phalinn on Flickr using Creative Commons

by Dinda Elliott

As an editor at Condé Nast Traveler, I spend a lot of time thinking about the ethics of travel. How to be an environmentally responsible traveler? How to be culturally sensitive to my surroundings? In that context, a few of us at Traveler have had discussions and debates over the last year about the ethics of bargaining. The current politically correct view seems to be that bargaining is a bad thing, nothing more than wealthy Westerners exploiting the hardworking locals, squeezing them out of their tiny profits.

So I had to laugh today, on my first day in Kuala Lumpur, as I headed to the Central Market to look for traditional batik sarongs, when my Indian cabdriver warned me to bargain everything down. (I am a bit of a batik fetishist: My stepmother used to be in the business, and I got hooked traveling to Indonesia's northern Java on a buying trip for her a million years ago.) My driver didn't just warn me, actually; he yelled at me, as if to say, you dumb foreigner, get with the program! "Bargain HARD!" he exclaimed. "They will charge you way too much--at least 50 percent too much!"

Earlier I had visited the 88-story Petronas Towers, which have become a symbol of Malaysian pride, to discover that the economic crisis hasn't hit Kuala Lumpur yet. The towers' luxury mall, with everything from Chanel to Fendi, Armani, Prada, Versace, and Paul Smith stores, was throbbing with shoppers. There were Middle Eastern women in black chador, young Chinese Malaysian hipsters in knit hats and T-shirts, and Malay, Indian, and Chinese families out for a Sunday of browsing, eating, and shopping. Definitely no batik there, among the luxury designer shops.

A mosque in Penang. For a majority Muslim country, Malaysia has plenty of sex scandals.

by Dinda Elliott

Malaysians love political gossip, especially when it comes to lurid sex scandals. It didn't take long after my arrival in Kuala Lumpur for me to get an infusion of the latest Malaysian gossip. On my cab ride in from the airport, my Muslim Malay driver covered everything from an ongoing case about the deputy prime minister's alleged mistress, who was blown up by a bomb planted by mysterious attackers ("his wife was probably behind it--she's quite scary--lah"), to the story of a member of parliament getting caught on video having oral sex ("so unlucky to get caught!") and the case of semi-nude photos of another parliamentarian, this time a woman, being circulated publicly ("she was with her boyfriend, and he snapped some photos then spread them around"). And this is supposed to be a conservative, Muslim country!

What does all this sex add up to? Power struggle, my driver explained. This multicultural country is at a political turning point. Split between the majority Muslim Malay population and Chinese and Indian minorities, Malaysia has been ruled for half a century by an increasingly corrupt coalition called the Barisan Nasional. But last year, in an election the Malaysians are calling a "tsunami," the Barisan lost control of five out of 13 state governments--and for the first time, the country's ruling elite are nervously eyeballing the possibility of losing power outright within the next couple of years.

Bagutta's artful interior.

Condé Nast Traveler Style Director Mark Connolly reports from Milan fashion week, where he's checking out the latest in Dolce, Marni, and Prada. Today, he (miraculously) found time for a nibble.

by Mark Connolly

With at least 11 fashion shows a day plus showroom appointments, it's rare that I get time for lunch during Milan fashion week. Well, today was my lucky day, so I headed off to my all-time favorite Milanese restaurant, Bagutta.  Perfectly located in luxury shopping Nirvana on Via Bagutta (between Via Montenapoleone and Via Della Spiga), it offers amazing northern Italian food with a big side order of literary cred.  Since 1927, the restaurant has awarded a prize for best new Italian novel, and the place is packed with books, not to mention artists, writers, and publishers.  The walls and ceiling are also covered in paintings and murals by famous artists (just like La Coupole in Paris).  My favorite meal?  Rigatoni a la Bagutta followed by grilled veal chops and a mixed salad.  Maybe skip the pasta if you're a fashionista who wants to remain a size zero. (Fortunately, I am not!)

Stay tuned to the Daily Traveler this week for more from Mark in Milan.

German Chancellor Angela
Merkel rocks a bikini.

by Guy Martin

For those undecided about Mardi Gras wear, it's important to find proper sources of inspiration. A fired bank executive (with his '08 bonus in his pocket) being whipped by former depositors? That could really work for a lot of people outside the usual S&M demographic about now. But this Mardi Gras, the Daily Traveler is partial to the Bernie-Madoff-on-prison-KP-duty costume, e.g., stained and torn golf shirts and some ripped-up federal-issue khakis. It fits in with our whole plan for re-gifting ourselves with crap out of our closets for the duration of the crisis, anyway!

As ever, the Europeans and South Americans are way ahead of us. This year, in the Mardi Gras capitals of Brazil and Germany, nothing seems to be the flavor. Literally. 

Sao Paolo's reigning queen of Carnival naughty, Viviane Castro, notable last year for incurring an actual fine from the Carnival authorities for wearing too little--that's a fine for being naked, in Carnival, in Sao Paolo, get it?--has a new idea. 

First, let's recap. Viviane is a Sao Paolo "student" and samba school dancer with the X-9 Paulistana crew. Her '08 costume consisted of an inch-and-a-half-wide "cuff" running between her legs. The glitter-covered device had to be glued in place, over a splendid, eponymous "Brazilian," in fact. Seen front to back, it ran from the top of Viviane's pelvis bone to a point in the middle of her butt, a span of approximately nine crucial inches. According to Carnival authorities, the cuff's inch-and-a-half width didn't cover quite enough flesh up front.   

But none of that is the point.  Except that it is.   

For last Friday's parade, Viviane promised to paint her body with an image of, in her immortal words, "the great political figure Barack Obama," even though X-9 Paulistana's theme was the preservation of the Amazon.  Attention, red-blooded Democrats in Sao Paolo! Anybody get a shot of Viviane?

Here's looking at you, kid.

by Guy Martin

The Daily Traveler first noticed the New York City Police Department's spidery, cool-white Sky Watch when it was deployed in Times Square, just around the corner from the offices, a few months back.  We figured it was a prompt and reasonable civil defense response to the threat emanating from our very own spa and beauty editors' desks, where there are multi-million-dollar stockpiles of unguents and astringents that, as we know from the TSA, can be transformed into a dirty bomb just like that!

Incredibly, it turned out that we were wrong.  The anti-terror logic for the deployment of Sky Watch in midtown Manhattan was the target-ness of Times Square itself, a beloved polyglot perennial on the al-Qaeda hit list.

Welcome to Conakry's Café Obama.
Photo: Irwin Arieff

by Irwin Arieff

So, big deal, a few million people went to Washington on January 20. Myself, I headed for Guinea, in West Africa, where my daughter Alexis is studying, to celebrate President Obama's inauguration from a respectful distance. I think we had the better view.

While Guinea is a country of great poverty and political turmoil, its citizens are deeply inspired by our new president and the idea that similar change could be on the way to Africa. Everywhere we went, people saw the Barack Obama pin on Alexis's purse and yelled out to us, "Obama! Obama!" They pumped our hands in congratulation, bubbling with pride that easily matched our own. We passed the Barack Obama Restaurant, then the Barack Obama Café. Obama T-shirts were draped on bodies of all shapes and sizes. Many shopkeepers pinned big posters of the new president next to their front counters. Taxi drivers stuck small pictures of Michelle, Malia, Sasha, and Barack on their dashboards.

Luckily for us, Alexis's apartment in the Camayenne neighborhood of Conakry, the Guinean capital, had electricity on January 20. By about 4 p.m. local time (Guinea is five hours ahead of Washington), friends began arriving at her place to watch the proceedings on CNN International. By zero hour--noon EST--we were 11 strong: five Americans, three Guineans, a Tanzanian, a French diplomat, and a British think-tanker. All the Americans cried as Aretha Franklin sang "My Country 'tis of Thee," and we were all crying by the time Obama took the oath. We toasted the new president with Fanta, milk, and one guest's donation of Hungarian champagne.

Photo: Gaetan Lee on Flickr

by Clive Irving

It's an old British joke that tells a lot about the national state of mind: Supposedly a newspaper headline that reads "Fog in Channel, Continent Cut Off."  There you have, in one sentence, the hubris of island isolation.

This has been a week when minor snowfalls have generated national paralysis, as any unfortunate traveler has found. On Monday all London airports were closed and not a single bus ran in the capital. A snowfall of four or five inches had been accurately forecast, but no preparations made. The oafish mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said "It was the right kind of snow but in the wrong quantity."

Now a second wave of modest snowfalls has again closed one London airport, regional airports, and major roads. But it's obvious that the Brits really enjoy the comic potential of this chaos. The media colludes with the kind of pitiless mockery of politicians normally reserved for bankers and the managers of hedge funds. And now a new term, Snowmageddon, is used to describe conditions in southwestern England and the Cotswolds, where the counties responsible for keeping roads open have run out of salt.

I have myself seen the peak of snow clearing technology at work. Riding in a taxi through Knightsbridge, bordering Hyde Park, I saw a lone member of the highway department at work. On one side of the road he had a cart the size of a wheelbarrow carrying salt and grit. He scooped this out with one paper coffee cup, crossed the street and used it as though distributing seeds. He caught my eye and winked.

Snow is a rare event in southern England. It will be rarer still, say forecasters. But if you are a visitor, the best thing to do is to enjoy the communal spirit of ineptitude and self-mockery and put up with it--that is, unless you are stuck at Heathrow for sixteen hours.

Further reading:
* Heavy snow disrupts London travel (BBC News)
* Dispatches: On the road

Prague's Wenceslas Square, November 20, 1989. 
Photo: Peter de Jong / AP

by Guy Martin

As we have been experiencing lately--while putting the SUV up on blocks and chopping it into a big horse-drawn Christmas sleigh for the kids--history is a wild ride, a live run-through of chaos theory, starring, well, all of us. Whether we like it or not.

So this season, let's take a heartening cue from the roughly 80 million Eastern Europeans upon whom history rained down the amazing serial revolutions over the turn of the year 1989-1990. After a half century under the Russian boot, only a few--the nomenklatura--had anything left to lose. The 80 million had everything to gain by putting their civil courage and in many cases their lives on the line. And they did.   

The citizenry of Warsaw, Gdansk, Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, East Berlin, Leipzig, Bucharest, and Timisoara has very different holiday memories than those of us in the "complacent" West, as the legendary chronicler of the Soviet gulag Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn would have put it. These revolutions were the first. Bulgaria, the Balkans, the Baltics, the Ukraine, and Belarus would follow months, or years, later. But for a start, let's understand that for the first tier of former Soviet satrapies, December and January are a time of the anniversaries of complete political upheaval and, often, life-or-death decisions that altered those societies forever. 

Photo: Luigi Constantini/AP Photo

by Guy Martin

The Adriatic is the gray-green soul of turbulence at all times of the year, but in the winter, with the bora and sirocco winds battering the eastern coast of Italy, Venice in particular gets pounded by the water. It's the wind (in combination with a few unfortunate tides) that pushes water into the Venetian lagoon and yesterday raised the city's water levels to a 22-year high. This is certainly a finalist in the acqua alta sweepstakes to destroy the world's most fragile 1,600-year-old aquatic urban experiment. 

Theatrics are always a part of the Venetian approach to life--how could they not be so in the birthplace of opera--and so Monday's disastrous five-foot tides (with only a slight retraction of the water this afternoon) have finally opened the Piazza San Marco as a playground for wakeboarders. Wind's up! Get your stick out of the closet!

A giant stage set of a city, Venice and its actors have become all the more crazy as the water has risen. For the last two days the city has been paralyzed. (Add to that a timely strike by some vaporetti workers; even the traditionally rickety acqua alta boardwalks are impassable.) People have started pulling on their fishing waders. But even for Venetians the thing about taking to the water is that you have to remember where the steps are. Given the opacity of the tons of sludge that wash in with an acqua alta, that can be tricky. 

John Bok in his kitchen.
Photo: Guy Martin

by Guy Martin

"Naturally, the police beat the hell out of us, but that's not the point, my boy!" shouts John Bok across the bar in his Prague neighborhood of Karlin. 

Couples snuggling in the corners to Louis Armstrong's "It's a Wonderful World" look up at the gray-bearded eccentric in his elegant black vest. It's 11 at night on the nineteenth anniversary of the demonstration that started what's known outside the Czech Republic as the Velvet Revolution. Bok, 63, the seminal and hilariously irascible Czech dissident, had what we can call a very good war as the former Soviet satrapies threw off communism. He was the prime architect of the demonstration on the Czech revolution's first day, November 17, 1989.   

"The police carried the long sticks," Bok says, "but it was a little ironic, you know? They trapped us between two cordons of bad boys in front of the Ministry of Justice. Get the joke? That's the Ministry of Justice. Then they marched in on us, cutting down people left and right. Like they were cutting hay."

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!

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?

Click here for Amanda's photo album.
Photo: Sacha Brown

The four-time Olympian swimmer, wildlife spokesperson, and occasional swimsuit model jumps into the waters off Bonaire a second time.

by Amanda Beard

Bonaire, one of the many beautiful volcanic islands in the Caribbean, sits on extremely rugged porous rock, carving out a coastline similar to the arid side of Hawaii's Big Island. The scenery here is mostly cactus-covered cliffs with ocean access via stairways or paths. I think of it as Tucson meets Kona.

Like Kona, there's no sand to drag your heavy dive gear through. Less sand also translates to better visibility in the water: "Viz," as divers call it, can easily reach 100 feet, and when mixed with 85-degree water, a couple of shipwrecks, and a double reef system bustling with psychedelic-colored fish, you get world-class diving. Sometimes you can just jump in, drift with the invisible current and plodding turtles, and climb out when you've run out of air. Other times it's best to wait until dusk, break out your dive lights, swim to the reef's edge, and take in the unfiltered colors of the nightlife--all the while being followed by a pack of six-foot tarpon. No matter when, it's difficult to have anything less than an amazing dive in Bonaire.

Word has it that the general wasn't in Bucks
for the apple picking.
Photo: Washington Crossing

by Bryan Pirollli

The fall has arrived and an escape from city life is downright mandatory. But why not enjoy the crisp air and beautiful scenery while seeing some sites at the same time? Even though I've lived there for 18 years, I only recently discovered the historic delights that Bucks County has to offer a mere 30 minutes north of Philadelphia.

As I child I knew a few things about Bucks County: There were cows, there were houses, and I lived here. The travel potential never really struck me. But the county is, as I learned in fourth-grade history class, famous as General Washington's jump-off point for his Christmas night invasion of Trenton, New Jersey. 

Washington Crossing Historic Park is a major destination for history buffs and families alike. The park includes the Revolutionary-era hospital, called the Thompson-Neely House, as well as the Soldiers' Graves, where only one soldier buried is named. Kind of creepy.

If you're up for a hike, the park has plenty of winding trails, riverside views, and old canals to explore. You can also head up Bowman's Hill to the castle-like lookout tower for a breathtaking, miles-deep view of autumn foliage. Called Bowman's Tower, the structure opened in 1931 and commemorates Washington and his army's contributions to American independence.

Reenactments and special events occur year-round, but the big spectacle happens on the second Sunday in December. Locals don costumes and stretch their sea legs as they cross the Delaware River, just as George Washington did in 1776. (Check the Web site if you're interested in taking part.) I'll confess, 18 years and I've managed to miss this consistently. 

Not far from the historic park, in beautiful Lahaska, Peddler's Village will bump you back into the twenty-first century with some high-end shopping and dining. You might think you're still in colonial times, though, in this quaint town setting adorned with brick buildings and pathways. A dinner at the Cock 'n Bull will round out a day of sightseeing with some classic American fare. It was a treat for my family to visit Peddler's Village, but we always ended the day with dinner at home. Cock 'n Bull has nothing on Mom's cooking.

Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard has captured seven medals in her athletic career. Now she's a travelin' woman, and she's telling the DT about her most recent escape to Bonaire.

Training for and competing in the Olympics is always stressful, and when it's over it's usually time to get away for some much needed peace and quiet. After some careful research, my boyfriend and I decided on Bonaire, a small desert island that sits about 50 miles off the coast of Venezuela. We jumped on an overnight flight, landed at a ripe 5 a.m., and checked into the penthouse at the lovely Bel Mar Apartments. 

The room was perfect: A massive open-air ocean view with a balcony hot tub greeted us. By 6:30 a.m. we were unpacked and in the gin-clear water, snorkeling over pristine heads of brain coral, massive lavender tube sponges, and cities of fish. Looking down on a reef in Bonaire is not unlike looking down on the streets of Manhattan. Little yellow fish team up with little black and white fish and zig and zag all around the other oddly shaped and beautifully colored fish. Spiritually, though, the effects of staring down on a bustling city and a bustling reef are a world apart. Aaaah, relaxation!

Next, we threw tanks on our backs and explored some of the world-renowned dive sites. First stop: the Hooker. A 235-foot ship put to rest due to her alleged use as a transporter of illegal substances, the Hilma Hooker sits with her bow in about 100 feet of water. As we descended from the inner reef to her final resting place, the massive ship truly took our breath away. The stresses of normal life were beginning to fade into the 86-degree Caribbean abyss.

After drying off, we jumped into our Quad Cab 2x2 pickup and headed for the rugged northeast side of the island, where we explored bat caves marked with ancient native inscriptions, followed a family of wild burros from the safety of our vehicle (they bite!), and laughed hysterically at a herd of goats that had taken over a roadside junkyard. Dusty, dirty and tired, we headed back to town as evening fell and tried out a South American-style restaurant called Casablanca. After enjoying ourselves (perhaps a little too much), we got a solid 14 hours of z's. Sleeping in has never been so easy. 

Awake and well-rested the next morning, we contemplated the list of things to do while on Bonaire: wind surfing lessons, visiting the flamingo sanctuary, kayaking the mangroves, mountain biking the trails in the national park, riding quads on the unpaved mountain roads, more diving . . . Even just absorbing the hot sun and warm ocean breeze would be enough to fill our entire trip. We are excited by the thought of the adventures to come.

AP Photo

by Sara Tucker

Wanted: Your tips for carless getaways.

First up: Leaf peeping. Where can I go to enjoy the fall colors this year without having to drive? And why would I want to do such a thing? Because I'm mad about the price of gasoline, and  I'm fed up with way the automobile dominates our lives. Leaf peeping from the car is all well and good if you walk with a cane, but I don't. And I'm not interested in a bus tour or a cruise.

Here's what I've come up with so far: Amtrak's Vermonter travels between Washington, D.C., and St. Albans, Vermont. The train is slow, but who cares? (I always head for the quiet car, where I proceed to bully and berate inconsiderate cell phone users.) The Vermonter stops in Brattleboro, Bellows Falls, White River Junction, Waterbury, and Essex Junction/Burlington, all of which have accommodations within a short walk or cab ride of the train station, as well as plenty of fun, car-free things to do during your stay. (Warning: Room availability for this season is fast disappearing.) The Old Tavern at Grafton, for example, is 12 miles by cab from Bellow Falls, and the Inn at Essex, in Essex Junction, will pick you up at the train station. So will Forty Putney Road in Brattleboro. You won't need pickup service when you get to White River Junction: The Coolidge Hotel gets mixed reviews at TripAdvisor, but it's right near the station in one of Budget Travel's 10 coolest small towns.

For hikers and bikers, Country Inns Along the Trail arranges guided and self-guided inn-to-inn vacations and will pick you up at the nearest airport or train depot.

Finally, Vermont's official Web site lists ways to enjoy the state without your car. Note: The Missisquoi Valley Rail Trail begins in St. Albans, the last stop on the Vermonter's route. (Scheduled arrival time: 9:35 p.m.)

What carless adventures have you had? I'm looking for places to stay, ways to get there, and things to do--anywhere in the U.S. Post your suggestions below.

Finis D. Shelnutt.
Photo: Rick Blount

by Guy Martin

French Quarter fixture and linen-clad real-estate wheeler-dealer Finis D. Shelnutt ("the D is for dollars, baby"), knows how to batten down the hatches in his stately 10,000-square-foot antebellum building at 720 St. Louis Street. The dapper Shelnutt, 55, and his 170-year-old building weathered Katrina well--how could Gustav possibly be worse? During Katrina, Shelnutt cemented his legend by turning his ground-floor nightclub and bar--which had featured his ex-wife, Gennifer Flowers (yes, that Gennifer Flowers) as the chanteuse--into a crucial outpost of pre-hurricane civilization. That meant free offbrand beer and red beans and rice that Shelnutt cooked up every night for the National Guardsmen and journalists working the aftermath of the storm. 

So, as Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal and New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin feverishly encouraged full evacuation and as 2 million Louisianans lit out for the high ground over Labor Day weekend, Shelnutt calmly nailed plywood over his 12-foot-tall palladian windows and the delicately mullioned 18-pane 1839 transom glass over 720's entrance. He hunkered down for the blow in his upstairs apartment, the centerpiece of which is gangster Bugsy Siegel's gold-leafed 1919 Julius Bauer grand piano, won in the divorce from Ms. Flowers by the flip of a coin.   

"I don't stay in New Orleans just because I have equity in 720, although I do," Shelnutt said. "I have clients here that I've sold real estate to. I have the keys to their buildings and I want them to have the confidence that their properties are gonna be okay."   

But three hours before the outermost bands of Gustav began lashing the Quarter last week, the preparations inside 720 St. Louis had grown understandably more fraught.   

We'll see you at Heidi's.
AP Photo

Well, the DT did it for Denver so in the name of being "Fair and Balanced," we're rounding up some fun to be had in Minneapolis for the Republican National Convention.

* We think Heidi's is the bee's knees: The restaurant made our Hot List this year, and it's a great place to fill up on fresh fish and locally sourced vegetables (even the olive oil is exclusive to Minnesota). Chef Stewart Woodman and his wife, Heidi, serve dishes like black cod in tomato stew and mixed greens with acai vinaigrette and crispy yams.

* J.R. Watkins Natural Apothecary is a Minneapolis-based, 140-year-old line of good-for-you, good-for-the-earth beauty products.    

* Food & Wine magazine plots out a Twin Cities food crawl. They're also talking about the Midwestern wine boom.

* Jaunted links up some of its favorite spots.

* The Chambers hotel plays a double role as an art gallery. Case in point: Behind the front desk floats a Damien Hirst skinned bull's head in a tank of formaldehyde. The hotel also comes complete with a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant and a happening Rooftop Bar (which made our 2007 Hot List).

* Check out what we did recently on a quick trip to the Midwest's cultural capital.

Franklin would approve of
your thrifty ways.
Photo: Earlyamerica.com

by Bryan Pirolli

Did you spend all your cash on cheesesteaks and Phillies tickets? I can't blame you, but don't worry: You can easily see the best Philadelphia has to offer without spending another dollar. Here are some of the city's top free sights:

* For a glimpse into historical Philly, the bread and butter of the city's tourism industry, you don't need to buy tickets or wait in line to see some goofy broken bell. (I mean, it's still cracked.) Instead, take a stroll around Independence National Historical Park and check out the bell from outside its pavilion.

* Admission for the National Constitution Center isn't exactly free--it's $8-$12--but drop into the lobby to meet some Revolutionary characters in the . . . flesh? The newly constructed lobby has a wall of fame that will leave you questioning whether the images projected are real or not.

* Not far from the National Constitution Center is Christ Church Burial Ground. You have to pay to enter, but for free you can toss a coin onto Ben Franklin's grave through the fence. Then head over to Christ Church, birthplace of the American Episcopal Church, and see George Washington's personal pew.

Photos: Abraxas3d on Flickr

by Tom Loftus

If you happen to be a resident of certain West Coast cities, Labor Day signifies not cookouts and tossing the football, but attending a certain art orgy in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

The event is called Burning Man, and while it's already experienced media saturation from the likes of MTV, CNN, the BBC, and every blogger not currently at the Democratic National Convention, it has managed to retain its identity as one of most original festivals in the country.

And perhaps in acknowledging its role as a uniquely all-American freakfest, this year's art theme is "American Dream."

The Burning Man site explains:

In 2008, leave narrow and exclusive ideologies at home and carefully consider your immediate experience. What has America achieved that you admire? What has it done or failed to do that fills you with dismay? What is laudable? What is ludicrous? Put blame aside, let humor thrive, and dare to contemplate a larger question: What can America contribute to the world?

The Daily Traveler is looking forward to the installations that come about from this theme. A Mount Rushmore of Elvises? We'll run photos next week.

Alas, no one from the DT will be at Burning Man. Our repeated requests to have it moved from a prehistoric lake bed to an Ashtanga Yoga retreat in Tulum have been ignored. 

Michelle Obama's holding it down in
Denver until Barack arrives Thursday.
AP Photo

The Democratic National Convention is here (or, rather, in Denver), so we've rounded up some Mile High City tips from our partners in blogging:

* Super-awesome map for functions about town (MSNBC.com)
* Thoughts from the Denver Post
* Jaunted's celeb sightings
* Lonely Planet's Denver guide
* Where to get your freedom fries in Denver (Gadling)
* Denver locals give Intelligent Travel some ideas on where to go
* Wooden key cards will be used at the DNC as a more eco-friendly alternative to plastic
* The Hotel Teatro made it onto Condé Nast Traveler's Hot List this year

And our own Eimear Lynch, who hails from the Centennial State, has put in her two (insider) cents:

If I'm only home for a few days, I'm guaranteed to spend at least one of them wandering around Cherry Creek North. It's walkable and centered around the large, upscale Cherry Creek mall complete with a mediocre Saks and a great Neiman Marcus. It was Denver's yuppie neighborhood before downtown became accessible--and it still boasts pedestrian-friendly streets, charming chichi boutiques, tons of spas and salons, small art galleries and good, local eateries (and, of course, a huge Whole Foods). These are all within a few blocks of each other between First and Third avenues and University and Colorado boulevards.

Gaudi's Barcelona.
Photo: Concierge.com

by Julia Bainbridge

Woody Allen's Barcelona is a lot different than mine. In his latest film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which I saw last night and adored, he coats the city--Gaudi funhouses, gorgeous gardens, and all--in a honey-colored glaze that tempts you to "lick the screen." (P.S. I am officially in love with Penelope Cruz.)

When I was in Barcelona in 2001 there was romance, yes, but also a less-than-golden tint to the whole thing--more like a rusty metallic one. My Barcelona involved a robbery at knifepoint.

Don't be alarmed; it wasn't all that scary. Let me explain.