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Tips for staying safe while traveling on a budget - MarketWatch

Check me out in today's Marketwatch.com piece, Tips for staying safe while traveling on a budget - MarketWatch. Dengue Fever - catch it!

Lonely Planet Encounter New York

Happy to announce Encounter New York. Lonely Planet's new pocket urban travel guides. Local NYC author Ginger Adams Otis dishes on the best galleries, happy hours and street eats in the city. Fun book!

Download NewYork.pdf

A Streetcar Named New Orleans

A Streetcar Named New Orleans  

 

By Jay Cooke

They'd gathered at Beauregard Circle by the entrance to City Park, a crowd several hundred strong, tooting horns and shooting video, tossing beads and waving Saints hats.

The steady 'bwomp, bwah bwah' of a brass band marked the cadence we quickly fell into, dancing around the vintage St. Charles streetcar with the throng on the median, or  'neutral ground'. They'd gathered to cheer us on, a krewe of 60-odd costumed revelers, temporary freaks and ambassadors who climbed aboard the streetcar, bedecked by purple, green and gold.

We were in Mid-City New Orleans, with the Phunny Phorty Phellows social krewe, to kick off Mardi Gras 2007. It was January 6, AKA Twelfth Night, when legend says wise men bestowed gifts onto baby Jesus, and New Orleans' Mardi Gras season begins.

I was riding with Anna and Kristian, two New Orleaneans impacted by Katrina, but fighting to revive their town. We squeezed to the front of the streetcar, grabbed window space and some beads and held on as the streetcar lurched into the night. The band, stuffed in the rear of the car, kept on blowing.

In the 18 months since Katrina became a four-letter word in this town, New Orleans has struggled to recover. Despite red tape and doubters, a hearty core has returned to make a stand and rebuild this unique American city.

It's not been easy. Normalcy is hard to fathom when half a city remains uninhabited, when empty homes line once-vibrant neighborhood blocks. Crime is a major issue.

That's what makes Mardi Gras and New Orleans' spring celebrations - the French Quarter Festival, Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, and New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival - so important for New Orleaneans. In the city that's mastered communal celebration unlike any other, public parties now symbolize progress, a reminder of good times past and promise of future ones to come.

We saw this first-hand in Mid-City, a broad, middle-class borough that flooded but is now returning in fits and starts. As our streetcar clanged down Carrollton St. away from the kickoff crowd, smaller groups clustered along the neutral ground, awaiting our approach. They'd wave and bellow "throw me something", we'd whoop and shower down beads in return.

We had the perfect front-window vantage of upcoming groups, some standing, some in lawn chairs, all ages and ethnicities represented. As we approached, they'd erupt in joy.

Though stereotypes paint Mardi Gras as a raucous show of drunks going wild (which they do, on Bourbon Street), for New Orleaneans it connotes much more. Mardi Gras is about families, and generations, gathering for reunions; neighbors reconnecting at favorite parade route spots, year after year.

The conductor noticed the turnout. "So many people," he said as he worked his dual-levered magic, angling the streetcar left onto Canal Street for its dash to the French Quarter downtown. Truth told, the crowd wasn't huge, but in a city striving to repopulate, parade goers were a welcomed site.

As we rode through our final leg downtown, a king cake appeared, and we munched the ceremonial pastry of Mardi Gras. Our beads depleted, we stumbled off at Royal Street, barely noticed despite our elaborate masks and clownish costumes -  which in itself, was a small symbol of normalcy returning to New Orleans again.

If You Go

The 2007 Mardi Gras season runs through Fat Tuesday, Feb. 20, when the police sweep Bourbon Street at midnight and Ash Wednesday begins Lent. Popular parades include Endymion (Feb. 17, 4:30pm), Orpheus (Feb. 19, 5:45pm) and Zulu (Feb. 20, 8am). For schedules, video and trip planning details visit www.mardigrasneworleans.com.

 

Festival season continues throughout spring in New Orleans. Favorites include the Tennessee Williams Festival (Mar. 28-Apr. 1, www.tennesseewilliams.net), the French Quarter Festival (Apr. 13-15, www.fqfi.org) and the granddaddy of American music happenings, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Apr. 27-May 6, www.nojazzfest.com).

Places to Eat

Down-home Mothers (401 Poydras St., 504-523-9656) dishes fluffy biscuits and 'heaping debris' po'boys. Palace Cafe (605 Canal St., 504-523-1661, www.palacecafe.com) masters horseradish oysters, velvety crusted duck and unreal desserts. The Central Grocery (923 Decatur St., 504-523-1620) birthed the muffelatta, a mega sandwich stuffed with ham, salami, provolone and olive tapenade. One fills two.

Places to Stay

A great value in the French Quarter, the 1830's-era Place d'Armes (625 St Ann St., 504-524-4531, www.placedarmes.com) features several buildings around a communal pool and courtyard. The Canal Street Guesthouse (1930 Canal St., 504-266-1930, www.bestguesthouse.com) shrugs off Katrina with its watery murals and festive traveler's ambiance.

Travels with Lonely Planet

King Features Syndicate 2007

 

Lonely Planet New York City 5

Hot off the presses, Lonely Planet's New York City 5. Featuring interviews with New Yorkers on their tips and tricks for navigating NYC.

therefore_I_travel
Originally uploaded by droccadnoh.

Travelers Tales: the World is a Kitchen

Kimchi 김치
Originally uploaded by Nagyman.

kimchi
Living in Korea, kimchi was the staple. Back stateside, the cravings panged. First I bought it, then I made it, to make Mr. Cho proud.

Food and travel are deliciously intertwined, and cooking is a great way to get immersed into a culture. I learned it making kimchi in my Fort Mason backyard, and love to reconnect with true tales of food cultural immersion.

The World is a Kitchen, the new Travelers Tales anthology, bridges cuisine and culture in 37 stories from writers around the world. With an extensive directory and fab accompanying website, the book speaks to its growing community.

San Francisco Zine Festival 2006

Fine Print Revisited: Way back in 1994-95 I worked at a small- & independent-press distributorship down in Austin, TX; Fine Print Distributors, long R.I.P.

I still pine for the days we'd pull down a new pallet with the latest Temp Slave, Hate, or Punk Planet aboard. Many hours spent soaking up information from far-flung outposts, valuable stuff in those final months before Mosaic upended the forklift.

King of all? Factsheet Five, the Sears Catalog guide to the small & alternative publishing world, reviewing hundreds of titles on all subjects, many available for price of postage or fair trade.

Back in the days of DIY innocence before the web leveled economies of scale and relandscaped publishing, the 'zine scene was the way for indie media voices to get word out. It was the punk rock parallel to big journalism, niche creators of content unbeholdened to corporate interests, typed at temp jobs and stapled by fellow travelers with Kinkos gigs.

Nostalgic? Shit yeah, for zines had little if any monetary prospects, so the scene was pure.

But the problem with nostalgia is it implies something is over, when in fact, 2006, its becoming the year that 'zines came back.

No surprise, really: the publishing platform that usurped zinemaking has evolved into the mainstream itself, so a natural reaction would be for indie print publishing to return, price inefficiencies and all.

Two great indicators. First, the return of the San Francisco Zine Fest, held this weekend, Sept 9-10 2006, at CELLspace. A two-day conference of indie & underground publishers, the show offers workshops, film screenings and opportunities to connect with nearly 1,000 like-minded creatives and creators. Bonus: costs our favorite price - free!

And in news that warms our media dork hearts, 2006 also sees after an 8-year hiatus the return of Factsheet 5. Plans are for FS5 to continue covering the small & alternative/independent zine and media world, branching into other publishing platforms including radio, blogs and DVDs. Currently they're ramping up their editorial staff, and are wide-open to contributors, so if you've got an itch for this, start scratching.

What's next? The Meat Puppets reuniting to tour?

Ben & Jerry's - Alaskan Adventure Sweepstakes

One month to go to enter and win the Ben & Jerry's - Alaskan Adventure Sweepstakes. The Grand Prize winner walks with a trip for 2 to Alaska and a year's supply of Ben & Jerrys.

I co-wrote the downloadable "Planet Chill Sustainable Travel Guide" PDF, so I'm ineligible.

Wired Magazine Backpacking Stoves

Just tested backpacking stoves for the August 2006 Wired Magazine. Too bad that Jetboil GCS didn't wow me like I'd expected, but can't wait to use the Brunton again.

  MSR pocket rocket 
  Originally uploaded by ryebrye.

  Ah....the Jetboil 
  Originally uploaded by mike.palic.

Downtown LA's Comeback

  Rooftop blue 
  Originally uploaded by Divwerf.

Once an urban blight, Downtown LA is now red-hot. Home to top restaurants, hotels and art centers, it's become a Hollywood success story: as A-list neighborhood.

Jay Cooke covers Downtown LA's ascendent mix for the May 2006 Business Traveler Magazine.

He traverses mixed-use neighborhoods, canvassing Chinatown galleres, the American Apparel home factory, the LA basin's last winery and the Downtown Standard Hotel rooftop bar.

A travel writer and change journalist, Jay Cooke covers California and the West for VIA, the San Francisco Examiner and the San-Francisco Bay Guardian, among others. He profiled socially responsible businesses in San Francisco for Business Traveler in September 2004.

New Orleans clips

Went to New Orleans in December, to survey the city and update the WorldGuide on Lonelyplanet.com. Here's my reportage:

Back to the Big Easy

Neighborhoods December 2005