Maybe it's a holdover from Communist days, when Soviet citizens patiently queued up to buy meat, vegetables, and other necessities of life from poorly stocked groceries, but lines seem to be part of Russian culture. The trick is knowing how to avoid them—and I recently learned how to avoid one of the most infamous: the line for tickets to St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum. I’ve heard horror stories of people waiting in the ticket line for two or three hours during peak summer times, but even when I visited, on an Icy November day, the line was hundreds of people long by the time the museum opened its doors. But I was able to go straight in because I had already purchased my ticket, more than a week in advance, from the museum’s official website.
Today’s cool, crisp, finally-fall weather had me in the mood to walk to our offices in Midtown from my downtown home. As I trotted down Broadway, passing 29th street, I realized I had not yet been by to see the new Ace Hotel, and more precisely, its buzzed-about in-house Stumptown Coffee shop.
This past August, I traveled as a writer and social networker with Green Living Project, a non-profit organization that films sustainable programs across the world for inspirational and educational purposes. In GLP's two-year history, the organization has documented over thirty diverse projects in ten countries across Latin America and Africa. I joined Green Living Project’s first domestic trip in the land of plump lobsters, historical small-town reminiscing, and tongue-staining summer blueberries in Maine.
Planning on braving the airport tomorrow? Sure, the day before Thanksgiving is hands down the busiest travel day of the year and yes, there's not a shadow of a doubt that your airport will be more calamitous than usual. But Bing Travel just may be able to help make your holiday travels a little bit more bearable.
Bing Travel Fareologists will be staked out at the Boston and Seattle airports tomorrow. Travelers with questions can get expert advice on how to travel during this über stressful time of the year. To boot, 1,000 travelers will be randomly selected to be reimbursed for their baggage fees (up to $15).
After arriving Monterosso, Italy, last month for a daylong hike through the five seaside villages of Cinque Terre, one of my friends had that sinking realization: left behind on one of the three trains we’d taken to get there was her wallet. With all her money, credit cards, and, worst of all, her passport inside.
When I stepped into the shower on my first morning at the new St. Regis Princeville Resort on Kaua’i, it was virtually impossible not to hum “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.” Only a sheet of plate glass separated me from the turquoise arc of Hanalei Bay, a key location for the movie South Pacific (1958).
For those of us who long for the golden days of airplane travel—when
boarding a plane was inherently luxurious in its exoticism, travelers
dressed for the occasion and, most importantly, checked their bad
manners at the cockpit door—but aren’t necessarily interested in
censuring modern decorum-challenged travelers too forwardly, pardonMOI
to the rescue.
Ben Franklin once said that “visits should be short, like a winter’s
day.” A few blocks from his birthplace, Boston’s new Ames hotel is doing its best to prove him wrong.
Occupying the Romanesque former headquarters of the Ames farm-tool company, the 113-room downtown property (which officially opened last night) is the very chic result of a collaboration between David Rockwell and the Morgans Hotel Group—the New York-based founding
fathers, so to speak, of the boutique hotel.
Who doesn’t know Cynthia Rowley?! If you don’t have one of her flirty dresses, then you may have sunglasses that bear her name or you may be eating off of one of her dinner plates. And don’t forget her fragrance and recent collaboration with Avon to create a line of cosmetics.
Coming in 2011 Cynthia will join the likes of Kate Spade, Richard Tyler, and Christian LaCroix among others who have given airlines a bit of a fashion tune up. United Airlines has asked Cynthia to design uniforms for all service employees; everyone from pilots, flight attendants, and customer service representatives, to ramp service and maintenance employees. “We have chosen Cynthia for her keen sense of style and her commitment to involve employees throughout the design process” says United Airlines.
Right now she is talking with employees in every sector of the company before she embarks on creating a functional and fashionable set of uniforms. “I feel very fortunate to be the one United has chosen for a project of this magnitude, “says Rowley.
So you may see your friendly flight attendants looking very exuberant and hip in a Cynthia Rowley uniform come 2011. Let’s hope that the uniforms will lead to happier travel for those who wear and those who see.
Mimi Lombardo is the fashion director at Travel + Leisure.
Cancel any upcoming flight you have. Renege on that pending cruise you booked. Thinking about taking a scenic train ride? Well stop. Why? Because I have found a new mode of transportation that is sure to blow you out of the water and change the face of travel as the world knows it. What is it you ask? Cupcakes.
