I shot this video early this morning in downtown Orlando from the VIP viewing area as the not-so-old Amway Arena (once the TD Waterhouse Centre, opened 1989) was demolished. Ka-boom! Instant 9/11 flashbacks for me, and lots of dust.
Jason Cochran
Travel and the baby brain
Travel regresses us to our “baby consciousness.” Is it any wonder that so many of us travel in our 20s, when we’ve just left that larval childhood stage but have not yet grown into the ill-fitting uniform of full adulthood? Is it any wonder so many travelers put a high priority on intensely sensory experiences such as drinking, sex, panoramic views, and extreme sports — pursuits that please our primal natures?
Welcome to the Low Self-Esteem Economy
More of us are being told by businesses that because the economy remains in a muddle, we’re all the equivalent of rank beginners. Welcome to the new Low Self-Esteem Economy.
The State Department STEPs up outreach to travelers
U.S. consulates or embassy are never places that welcome a weary traveler, not even if you have the privilege of carrying a passport with a bald eagle stamped on the cover. Indeed, the diplomatic fortresses we build abroad, such as the bunker on London’s Grosvenor Square and the $750 million citadel in Baghdad, are resolutely intent on keeping us out.
Stap Vinnig Oor: Round the world during the Web’s infancy
Everyone logs their trips online now, but no one was doing it then. I was a pioneer. Here is the miraculously hand-coded site where I tracked my round-the-world journey back in 1998.
Who is this Paul McCartney guy?
I think there may be a cultural reason for the self-enforced stupidity we’re seeing in American youth, and moreover, for a stubborn failure to perceive that mouth-breathing ignorance as a failing.
How to see London for $15 a day [WATCH]
Some incredibly useful tips for saving cash on a London vacation — without missing out on what makes London London.
San Francisco’s tourist pitfalls
I take you to San Francisco, which is already a good-value city for vacations, and show how to make it into an even better value.
A ride on L.A.’s Angels Flight [WATCH]
An as-if-you-are-there video, without commentary or too many cuts, of a ride on the historic Angels Flight Railway in Los Angeles.
Signs that your favorite website is a post mill
Post mills can undermine the Fourth Estate, allow marketing and PR departments to manipulate our media as their mouthpiece, and leave the watchdogs sleeping. An entire generation of people is growing up without an understanding that the people who bring them their news have hastily recycled it, without checking how it got to them.