The Mirage – Las Vegas
Owned by MGM Mirage, this Hawaiian-themed, 3,000 room hotel is as much an entertainment complex as a place to stay. Over 40 years ago it was known as Castaways. But it’s as up-to-the-minute fresh as...
View ArticleThe Venetian – Las Vegas
The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino contains everything listed in its name, and a great deal more. Once upon a time on its site stood the legendary Sands Hotel. But Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack were...
View ArticleBellagio Hotel – Las Vegas
Home of the famed Cirque du Soleil show O, the Bellagio Hotel Las Vegas has this and much more to offer the guest. Opened in 1998, this luxury hotel is patterned after a Roman extravaganza, but offers...
View ArticleCaesars Palace Las Vegas
One of the oldest hotels in Las Vegas still standing, first opened in August 1966, Caesars Palace has never gone out of style. Recently renovated, it is still the Emperor of the city. With all the...
View ArticleCirque du Soleil Las Vegas
The astounding Cirque du Soleil is an enormous acrobatic act… and so much more. If you have an image of the old time circus with clowns and acrobats, be prepared for a shock. Cirque du Soleil Las Vegas...
View ArticleDining in Las Vegas
Not too many years ago, using the word ‘dining’ in relation to Las Vegas would have elicited laughter from any gourmet. True, you could get a steak for $2, but it was barely edible. The...
View ArticleFremont Street Las Vegas
Every city in America has a main street. Many European cities do, too, but as many of them are round it’s sometimes hard to tell which it is. But that’s not a problem in Las Vegas. Fremont Street is...
View ArticleRed Rock Canyon Las Vegas
Imagine Las Vegas and you have images of neon lights, casinos and maybe a spectacular show. But Vegas has much more to offer than the expected modern pleasures. Fewer than 20 miles from The Strip is a...
View ArticleLas Vegas Shopping
Vegas is naturally associated with gambling. Then came the inexpensive food, in order to get people to stay near the casinos to… gamble. Later came shows to attract people to the casinos to, well,...
View ArticleStar Trek Las Vegas: The Experience
The Star Trek Experience inside the Las Vegas Hilton is one of the more unusual ‘rides’ a visitor can take anywhere, even taking Disneyland into account. While Disneyland offers many a thrilling ride...
View ArticleStratosphere Hotel and Tower Las Vegas
The Stratosphere is not the largest hotel, nor does it have the biggest casino. But it’s got something that is nowhere else in Las Vegas or anywhere else: The Stratosphere Tower. The Tower, as it’s...
View ArticleAtomic Testing Museum
At 755 East Flamingo Road in Las Vegas resides one of the more unusual museums that visitors to this wild city can view. Considering that we’re talking about Vegas, that’s saying something. In fact,...
View ArticleSan Francisco – The Science and Nature Experience
Exploratorium Founded by Frank Oppenheimer, the brother of J. Robert Oppenheimer and himself a physicist, the Exploratorium contains over 650 exhibits that can’t be properly described – they have to be...
View ArticleAlcatraz Prison Tour
For a structure that served the purpose that made it famous for less than 30 years, Alcatraz is an enduring monument to a bygone era. Alcatraz Prison By the time it first came into use as a U.S....
View ArticleChinatown San Francisco
There are over six million people in the San Francisco area, with 750,000 in the Bay Area itself. Nestled within that vast sea of individuals is a conclave known around the world as Chinatown. Most...
View ArticleUnion Square San Francisco
San Francisco is a tourist’s delight for those seeking a mixture of old and new. One of the best examples of that contrast is Union Square. Built in 1847, the Union Square San Francisco was designated...
View ArticleAquariums of San Francisco
Visitors to San Francisco have a choice of three major options when seeking an aquarium. Fortunately, there’s no way to go wrong – all three are terrific. Aquarium by the Bay The Aquarium by the Bay,...
View ArticleThe Golden Gate Bridge
In 1937, then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in the White House. That simple action officially announced an event much of the world was already anticipating: the opening of The...
View ArticleSan Francisco, The West Coast Jewel
From its magnificent bayside vistas to the intimate cafes, San Francisco offers a visit par excellence. Fisherman’s Wharf and the Golden Gate Bridge may be the city’s two most well known attractions –...
View ArticleHaight Ashbury San Francisco
Chinatown isn’t San Francisco’s only culturally distinct neighborhood. From an area uptown near the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets sprawls “The Haight”. Several blocks of record shops,...
View ArticleFisherman’s Wharf San Francisco
One of the most popular tourist destinations in San Francisco, Fisherman’s Wharf alone has enough to see and do to consume the entire vacation. The area is one of the stopping points of the famous...
View ArticleSan Francisco Cable Cars, Old and New
San Francisco is, intentionally no doubt, one of the most eccentric and mixed metropoli on the planet. The town is heavily populated with residents strongly opposed to anything commercial. Yet, it is...
View ArticleGolden Gate Park
At over 1,000 acres Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is larger than Central Park in Manhattan. And, no less impressive too! In one of the busiest cities anywhere, visitors can enjoy archery,...
View ArticleNavy Pier Chicago
Whether you want to ride a ferris wheel or lean toward seeing some Shakespeare, Navy Pier in Chicago has every kind of enjoyment you can imagine. Open to the public since 1916, the area was revitalized...
View ArticleChicago Museum of Science and Industry
There are many examples of a Museum of Science and Industry around the country. But the one in Chicago is the oldest and unquestionably the best museum of its kind in the world. On three floors,...
View ArticleMagnificent Mile – Chicago
A mile of shopping! Now that’s something to set the heart a flutter. But the excitement doesn’t stop there, because this famed area has much, much more to offer. True, the shopping is first rate. But...
View ArticleShedd Aquarium
Sited at the shore of Lake Michigan, the John G. Shedd Aquarium is widely acknowledged to be among the world’s finest. Home to more than 650 species of fish, reptile, amphibians, birds and mammals,...
View ArticleBrookfield Zoo
Chicago is hugely popular among tourists for great buildings, restaurants and shopping. But one of the chief attractions, for both locals and visitors, remains the Brookfield Zoo. Opened in 1934, the...
View ArticleParks in Chicago
With over 500 parks to choose from in the Windy City (Chicago) you may have trouble deciding which to visit. But some of the major ones have gained their reputations from all the things they offer...
View ArticleThe Sears Tower – Chicago
For many years the world’s tallest skyscraper, the Sears Tower is really nine buildings combined into one massive structure. Completed in 1974, it was erected to consolidate offices housing 6,500 Sears...
View ArticleThe Art Institute of Chicago
Housed in an 1893 building erected as part of the World’s Fair, The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the country’s preeminent schools and museums. The college which is part of the Institute actually...
View ArticleThe Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Chicago
Frank Lloyd Wright is justly regarded as one of the greatest architects in history. But it wasn’t always so. Early in his career, as with most artists, he struggled for recognition and commercial...
View ArticleJohn Hancock Center, Chicago
Not the tallest building in Chicago, but surely one of the finest anywhere. John Hancock Center, with its distinctive twin aerials on top and X-shaped braces along the facade, this slightly trapezoidal...
View ArticleField Museum Chicago
Founded in 1893 as the Columbian Museum, this treasure trove of archaeological artifacts is one of the world’s preeminent institutions. With a library of more than 250,000 volumes and millions of...
View ArticleWhite Sands National Park
The name of the White Sands National Monument is well chosen. The sparkling white grains of gypsum that cover the whole area give off an eerie glow as the wind brushes over them. But there is much more...
View ArticleStunning Beauty and Variety of US National Parks
It’s impossible to completely convey in a single article the stunning beauty and variety of the U.S. National Parks. They range over the moonscape-like areas of the Badlands in South Dakota and the...
View ArticlePetrified Forest National Park
Sometimes, over millions of years of being exposed to the elements, wood eventually turns to something like stone. That obscure fact of chemistry takes on a whole new dimension in the Petrified...
View ArticleBadlands National Park
If you want to get a great idea of what South Dakota looked like millions of years ago, come visit Badlands National Park. Eons of wind and water have created deep canyons and high buttes where...
View ArticleThe Everglades National Park
Only an hour from bustling Miami is one of America’s most unusual parks. Covering over a million and a half acres in southern Florida, The Everglades National Park is a wilderness wonderland. Filled...
View ArticleZion National Park
In the northwestern section of Utah there is a region that offers terrain like no other. Zion National Park provides some of the most dramatic and variable scenery anywhere within the entire system....
View ArticleHawaii Volcanoes National Park
Visitors to Hawaii often have something other than visiting a park on their minds. Yet, this island state offers one of the most unusual national parks in the system: the Hawaii Volcanoes National...
View ArticleGrand Canyon National Park
First, some dry facts about the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. The canyon is over 275 miles long and a mile deep. In parts, it is 18 miles wide, four miles at the narrowest point. Elevations range...
View ArticleGrand Teton National Park
The Grand Teton National Park gets its name from the high, jagged mountain in Wyoming that forms the centerpiece of the area. But that description doesn’t begin to capture the scenic glory of this...
View ArticleGlacier National Park
Glacier National Park is over 1.4 million acres. But even that impressive size can’t begin to convey what is most significant about this park in Montana. For that, other facts are needed. Many of them....
View ArticleCarlsbad Caverns – USA National Park
Outside, Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico is nothing special. A few gray rock formations and a bit of scrub brush covering a short cliff. Inside, it is one of the most wondrous landscapes in the world....
View ArticleGreat Smoky Mountains
In the mountains of eastern Tennessee there lies a national park that encompasses over 500,000 acres of lush forest. Part of the Appalachian Highlands, it houses thousands of species of wildlife. It...
View ArticleNational Park USA – Crater Lake
Lewis and Clark may have been the first non-aboriginal explorers to be awestruck by Crater Lake in Oregon. But they were far from the last. Offering biking, boating, horseback riding and just sheer...
View ArticleYosemite National Park
There are some sights and sites that words will never properly describe. Yosemite National Park is in that class. But that is about the only group it’s in because this magnificent natural wonder is...
View ArticleRocky Mountain National Park
At just over 400 square miles (nearly 266,000 acres), Rocky Mountain National Park isn’t the largest in the system by any means. But any of its millions of annual visitors will agree there is none...
View ArticleYellowstone National Park
The oldest park in the U.S. National Park system, Yellowstone was established in 1872 and it covers almost 3,500 square miles (9,000 km²). But, those dry facts don’t begin to convey the magnificence of...
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