Home

Our semi-regular efforts to keep the major airlines in business.

  • Reading, England: It's close to a lot of other, better places to visit.
    Image of Abbey Park

    This assessment of Reading, England won’t be, in any way, fair for a number of very good reasons. Firstly, because I spent a good part of my stay in the town ensconced in a mid-level business hotel room. Secondly, because the hotel where we stayed was a full 15 minutes outside of Reading, so I didn’t spend much time in the actual town itself. And finally, because our trip took place during the Winter Solstice, when daylight in Britain was more scarce than a straight set of teeth.

    Read more
  • San Antonio, Texas: A river walks through it.

    If you only ever visited Austin and San Antonio, you could be excused for thinking Texas was a pretty good place to live. The people seem nice, and the cost of living is relatively cheap. Even better, you don’t see hordes of cowboy hats everywhere like you do in Dallas or Houston. In fact, you could probably get by your entire life there just fine without ever buying a pair of cowboy boots (assuming the 24/7 Country Musak® doesn't drive you effing insane first).

    Read more
  • Mazatlán, Mexico: Lots to do and lots of reasons not to do any of it.
    Mazatlan, Mexico

    We didn't pick Mazatlán, Mexico as a vacation destination for its deep-sea fishing, sailing or any of the other things you can reportedly do there. We picked it because of all the things you don’t do there. Namely, put on pants or shoes (or deodorant, judging from the smell of our fellow tourists). This was our "sit around drinking Mexican beer while reading People Magazine" vacation. But despite our near lack of observable movement, I somehow managed to find things worth writing about: Iguanas, mostly.

    Read more
  • Cancun, Mexico: It's not all beer chugging and wet t-shirt contests (dammit).

    We hadn't originally planned our two-week vacation to Mexico for its affordability but—when weeks later I found myself unemployed (like the rest of the planet)—it seemed like a prescient choice. Regardless of its favorable exchange rate, Mexico was nonetheless a country with fascinating archeological sites and a rich history that would allow us to slip in a bit of culture between Marghitas.

    Read more
  • New Orleans, Louisiana: Hey, who got their Europe in our America?
    Photo of Cable Car

    Having been to New Orleans a few times, I'd still never fully explored this cultural anomaly; this veritable European city within America's American borders. Lacking only a fleet of washing machine-sized automobiles and a staunch refusal to use deodorant, New Orleans could pass one of the Old Country's crown jewels such as Roma or Paris. Its ample European influences—French-inspired architecture, for example—give the city a character that's unique, sophisticated and almost universally ignored by drunk American tourists.

    Read more
  • Puerto Rico: Where so many people speak Spanish, you think you’re in California.
    Photo of Puerto Rico beach.

    Planning a vacation in a foreign land can really be a pain, what with finding lost passports, figuring out currency exchange rates, and overcoming language problems (ours). Frankly, it sometimes makes sense to not even bother. That's how we ended up spending a week in the not-so-exotic—but still technically foreign—Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

    Read more
  • Athens, Santorini and Crete: It’s all Greece to me.
    A photo of the Acropolis

    Ever since I was an art student in college, I'd really only wanted to visit four exotic places: Egypt, Athens, Rome and the Playboy Mansion. Naturally, I was psyched when some friends of ours invited us to go along on their trip to visit relatives in Greece. This was an especially rare opportunity since one of them actually spoke Greek. In hindsight, had we gone to Rome with someone who spoke Italian, we might still be welcome there today.

    Read more