A 300-mile bike trip? On these trails, no sweat

Taschen launches a limited edition photo book on The Beatles that features iconic pictures by Harry Benson.

The city that makes its name on gambling has been dealt some bad cards in recent years. High unemployment, a bottomed-out housing market and drops in gaming revenue contributed to unrest and malaise in party city.

Historic sites would be gone now were it not for the efforts of seven indomitable women.

No one wants to spend more than they have to on a vacation. But with the family in tow, it’s even more important to keep the budget in check.

Summer is nearly year-round in Southeast Texas so it should be no surprise that the free stuff to see and do in the sprawling metropolitan area of America’s fourth-biggest city focuses on the outdoors.

A 300-mile bike trip? On these trails, no sweat

Today’s the big day

Well into spring, the weather is already toasty in this town nestled along the Rio Grande just 60 miles north of Mexico. But the 80-degree temperature is nothing compared with the heat of late August — and we aren’t talking about the mercury.

The city that makes its name on gambling has been dealt some bad cards in recent years. High unemployment, a bottomed-out housing market and drops in gaming revenue contributed to unrest and malaise in party city.

America is full of baseball pilgrimages and road trips. Fenway Park in Boston turned 100 this year. Wrigleyville, the neighborhood around Wrigley Field in Chicago, is the best baseball neighborhood in the country. California has five major league teams to visit. New York City has two major league teams and two minor league ones. Roadtrippers can enjoy the Pioneer League with stops in Montana, Idaho and Utah.

The Golden Gate Bridge was heralded as an engineering marvel when it opened in 1937. It was the world’s longest suspension span and had been built across a strait that critics said was too treacherous to be bridged.

A deal pops up on our iPhone and on an impulse, we’re into the lion’s den

Also: News of other new ships, the fate of the Love Boat, a new dock in London, and more.

The old-fashioned American Queen brings river cruising back to the mighty Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee rivers.

Parents are splurging to take children into the wild on small ships

Twenty years after my last European riverboat ride — on the Elbe of eastern Germany — I was back on the Continent this spring to take a look at a whole new class of impressive river vessels.

A parade of new ships is set to sail from Miami, with the latest to be announced Tuesday.

The tone for a cruise on the Disney Fantasy is set when guests step into the atrium, a three-deck Art Nouveau space designed for grand entrances. A member of the crew announces each family’s name over a loudspeaker as if it were a state dinner and the receiving line applauds.

Just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean you can let common sense fly out the window.

Norwegian Cruise Line’s new Norwegian Breakaway, which will enter service in April of 2013, will have an unconventional design that includes an oceanfront boardwalk lined with shops, restaurants and bars, called the Waterfront.

Mark Terrill led a couple on bicycles down a narrow road lined by perfectly manicured trees, flowers and shrubs. At the end was the crystalline white sand beach of The Moorings Village, a luxurious 18-acre resort along the Atlantic Ocean that formerly was a coconut plantation.

On these tours, you’ll learn about the world without leaving South Florida

A few brand new hotels and a whole lot of major renovation projects hit the market in South Florida over the last year.

If you’ve turned on a TV lately, chances are you’ve seen ads for the Gulf Coast featuring beaches, seafood and friendly faces. But you might have winced if you noticed the ads’ little green logo for BP. It’s a reminder that they’re paid for by the company responsible for one of the biggest oil spills in history, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which littered beaches with tar balls and devastated tourism for months.

South Florida and Theme Park Central are connected by enough modes of transportation that you can leave the driving to someone else.

The flat water and back bays around Fort Myers are a great place to learn to paddle while standing up.

The scene couldn’t have been more idyllic. Four women gathered around a large quilt, intently sewing and averting their eyes from curious gazes. Their plain, black dresses and hair covered in a cap identified them as Amish. Faint strains of German could be heard in their muted conversation.

How about a little education in zoology with that chicken curry?

As Universal Orlando theme park prepares to open a new and technologically eye-popping version of its iconic 3-D Spider-Man ride this week, creator Stan Lee says it’s sort of a fluke that the costumed web-slinger ever came into existence at all.

Historic sites would be gone now were it not for the efforts of seven indomitable women.

I wanted to see distelfinks. But they were hard to find.

Look closely around the doomed ocean liner’s destination and you’ll find ghosts of the Titanic.

A mosquito is chewing on my ankle as I watch the mayor of Lake Charles, Randy Roach, play washboard with a zydeco band while two women dance with a guy dressed as an alligator. Earlier in the day, a live gator was spotted lounging behind Steamboat Bill’s restaurant.

First came the art galleries. Then the boutiques. Then the food and drink (craft and farm-to-table, thank you very much). Then the — record store and trendy barbershop?

The Mile High City sure bears a likeness to the power center of Panem, ‘built in a place once called the Rockies.’

Austin has grown beyond music and BBQ to embrace sushi, food trucks and farm-to-table menus.

A century ago, arguably the biggest sports rivalry was touched off when the Red Sox beat the team that would become the Yankees.

The scene couldn’t have been more idyllic. Four women gathered around a large quilt, intently sewing and averting their eyes from curious gazes. Their plain, black dresses and hair covered in a cap identified them as Amish. Faint strains of German could be heard in their muted conversation.

When I heard that the famous revolving Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone was expanding, I was dubious: It’s round, I thought, and it’s in an enclosed space. How can it expand?

Tinkling drinks in hand, New Yorkers Lauren Levy and Jacob Schum settle onto lounge chairs a few feet from the Caribbean’s lapping waves. Levy adjusts her yellow bikini. Schum smooths his blue Bermuda shorts. They smile at each other and sigh softly.

As traffic stalled along the palm-lined street, we peered from our taxi and spied the cause. A little parade came our way: boys in crimson church robes, young women balancing flower baskets on their heads, and a flatbed truck carrying a raucous band. Crackling fireworks zipped every which way.

In praise of seedy seaside towns

I saw my first whale shark off Isla Holbox, Mexico, near Cancun, where the Caribbean Sea meets the Gulf of Mexico. Allotted two minutes in the water, I kicked alongside a wide, bus-sized figure covered in rows of white spots, which the locals call <span class="italic">dominos</span>.

When we arrived in Puerto Rico on Christmas day, we weren’t sure what would be open for dinner on this primarily Catholic island, and the kids were sick of our carry-on plane food. We managed to find an open sushi place. Instead of the usual array of sushi rolls, we found menu items we’d never seen before — like rolls wrapped in tortilla instead of seaweed, stuffed with mofongo (mashed, fried plantain) and fried chicken.

An inexpensive and surprising destination for family-friendly adventure travel

A man in a white tank top, black drawstring shorts and flip flops drags a beat-up bike from the front room of an abandoned house on a wide boulevard lined with mansions.

It’s the typical tale of doomed Carnival romance: Boy spots girl in the sweaty crush of a street party. Moments later, they’re locked in a passionate embrace. Then the crowd surges, and the human tide wrenches them apart, forever.

Most pre-Carnival street parties in Brazil are all about samba, but the moves on display at Sunday’s Blocao parade were focused more on wagging and strategic sniffing than on fancy footwork.

The popularity of the tequila has spawned a tourism boom in the farm country where it is made.

Scanon’s ScanStik looks like a big long pen. What it is is the smallest full-page scanner. Though it’s loaded with useful features, it’s surprisingly user-friendly. Just press the “on” button and roll it down the page you want to scan (or multiple pages), then connect to a computer with the included USB cable, which also recharges the scanner’s battery. A directory will open. Click on file transfer or view the files with your default viewer, and you’ve got it. The scanner’s LCD display shows battery level and free memory and lets you choose between 300 and 600 dpi resolution and jpegs in 24-bit color or black and white. The ScanStik is 8.9 inches long (just right for standard paper widths) and about .5 inches in diameter. It has a built-in micro SD slot (but you must supply an SD card) and comes with an installation CD. You get free firmware upgrades, but, alas it only works with Windows platforms. Hopefully Mac access will follow.

It’s a winner

That’s a wrap

Mark Terrill led a couple on bicycles down a narrow road lined by perfectly manicured trees, flowers and shrubs. At the end was the crystalline white sand beach of The Moorings Village, a luxurious 18-acre resort along the Atlantic Ocean that formerly was a coconut plantation.

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