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Travel shopping list (but not for packing)

Keith&Co.

Keith&Co.

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I'm here...
On a trip last year to the Bangor Submarine Base, coworkers gave me the intern and the responsibility of showing her around Seattle. My qualifications were that i had a car and i wasn't afraid of driving in Seattle.

The only goal she had when we set out was that she didn't want to feel stupid when she got home. She didn't want the second thing people asked after she said 'Seattle' to be 'Why not?'

As in, right after you say you were in Seattle, people ask if you saw the Space Needle. So we saw that. And had dinner at Pike's Market. And rode the Ferry.

It is a way of travel, I suppose, to at least be able to talk intelligibly about the one and only thing people know about an area. Growing up in Idaho, i don't know how many times we took visitors out to find a field of potatoes. It was easier in winter, we could point to any damned stretch of land and say 'They grow potatoes here... Just not now.'

So, what are some places you'd take someone, so that they could say 'Yes, I did!' when they get home? The de rigueur points of visitation in your area...?
 
The Stratosphere casino (but so far we've never actually gone up the tower--at this point we have three observation platforms, the Stratosphere tower is the highest, the Paris casino has a replica of the Eiffel tower and there's a giant wheel akin to the London Eye), the Bellagio fountains and as time permits the insides of some of the major casinos (there are some rather impressive art-type things in some of them, like the glass flowers on the ceiling of the Bellagio lobby.) A drive down the Strip at night. Fremont street at night. (It's now a pedestrian mall with a 4-block long screen overhead on which they do shows {stuff specially produced for the format} once it's dark enough.)
 
In Canada's London? I'd take them to Toronto. And in Toronto there are a couple major tourist spots:
- C.N. Tower
- Royal Ontario Museum
- Ripley's Aquarium

In London itself? People don't really visit here unless they live in the greater area.
 
rousseau said:
In London itself? People don't really visit here unless they live in the greater area.
Click to expand...

Well I’ve visited London – when I made last minute plans to catch some plays at the Stratford festival and couldn’t find a room. Nice town. Of course, that was probably 40 years ago.

As for Dallas, I show visitors the Sixth Floor Museum, which is actually a very tasteful and interesting museum of the Kennedy assassination in the old School Book Depository building where Oswald set up his lair. We also have some fine traditional museums, including a relatively new Ross Perot Science museum, which so far I haven’t myself visited. Everyone typically wants to see Southfork, the ranch from TV’s “Dallas,” which I’ve never seen and never plan to.

I like to drive visitors by the Booker T Washington (arts magnet) high school down town, alma mater of Nora Jones and Erykah Badu among many others. It’s on the way to looking at some impressive downtown architecture. There's also a nifty park downtown which is usually crowded. It'sbuilt over a sunken expressway.

I end my tours with a trip to Fair Park, which contains a collection of Depression era art deco buildings with restored murals:

facade.JPG


drs.JPG


welder.JPG
 
Tharmas said:
rousseau said:
In London itself? People don't really visit here unless they live in the greater area.
Click to expand...

Well I’ve visited London – when I made last minute plans to catch some plays at the Stratford festival and couldn’t find a room. Nice town. Of course, that was probably 40 years ago.
Click to expand...

It's definitely a liveable town, with enough going on for residents to keep themselves amused. But not much to go out of your way for.
 
I understand that Japanese tourists get off the plane at Tullamarine, spend 2 hours on a bus, watch the penguins come ashore at Phillip Is., then reverse the process and leave. That might tell you just how much is of interest in Melbourne.

That said, I like our museum and the Scienceworks campus of it. I assume most cities have the equivalent, so I don't drag visitors to it but it is a lot of fun for youngsters (and me).
 
spikepipsqueak said:
I understand that Japanese tourists get off the plane at Tullamarine, spend 2 hours on a bus, watch the penguins come ashore at Phillip Is., then reverse the process and leave. That might tell you just how much is of interest in Melbourne.

That said, I like our museum and the Scienceworks campus of it. I assume most cities have the equivalent, so I don't drag visitors to it but it is a lot of fun for youngsters (and me).
Click to expand...

The NGV is a must see IMO.

And you haven't been to Melbourne if you haven't been to Young and Jackson's to see Chloe.

Now, if you really want an Australian capital city with very little of interest, you can't go past Brisvegas.

Mount Coot-tha lookout and the Castlemaine Perkins brewery are about the only landmarks that anyone from out of town might be expected to have visited. Maybe Streets Beach at Southbank could be added to that list.
 
Keith&Co. said:
On a trip last year to the Bangor Submarine Base, coworkers gave me the intern and the responsibility of showing her around Seattle. My qualifications were that i had a car and i wasn't afraid of driving in Seattle.

The only goal she had when we set out was that she didn't want to feel stupid when she got home. She didn't want the second thing people asked after she said 'Seattle' to be 'Why not?'

As in, right after you say you were in Seattle, people ask if you saw the Space Needle. So we saw that. And had dinner at Pike's Market. And rode the Ferry.

It is a way of travel, I suppose, to at least be able to talk intelligibly about the one and only thing people know about an area. Growing up in Idaho, i don't know how many times we took visitors out to find a field of potatoes. It was easier in winter, we could point to any damned stretch of land and say 'They grow potatoes here... Just not now.'

So, what are some places you'd take someone, so that they could say 'Yes, I did!' when they get home? The de rigueur points of visitation in your area...?
Click to expand...

When I first moved to Chicago, there was an ad campaign on the TV encouraging people to visit Indiana. Delightful cartoon crows would sing "There's more than corn in Indiana!"

I remember hearing the ads and thinking "There's corn in Indiana?"

So I guess the one thing everyone knows about Indiana turned out to be something I didn't know.
 
I live in Denver. Visitors like to go to an "actual" dispensery buy their bud of marijuana and keep the receipt - for their first legal purchase.

:D
 
starwater said:
I live in Denver. Visitors like to go to an "actual" dispensery buy their bud of marijuana and keep the receipt - for their first legal purchase.

:D
Click to expand...

I suspect there's some of that going on here, also.
 
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