Our Connected Traveler Technology Showcase at the New York Times Travel Show. Look for us in 2013 at both the NY Times and Los Angeles Times Travel Shows. Take a look at some of the fascinating demo videos we shot on the spot.
Psst, I be your tourguide. Cheap. No, don't walk away. Free! Let me guide you through what is probably the world's most intriguing high tech bazaar. DEMO is a souk for startups, where new companies make their pitches to venture capitalists. Don't be afraid. Let me take you by the hand and show you a virtual food fight, a motorized skateboard, plus some exciting new travel apps, one of which took the big prize.
I have always enjoyed Champagne, or sparkling wine, but I never appreciated its subtleties. I had a binary rating system: zero to one...maybe a "meh" in between. I was long overdue for an attitude change.
"Get out of Dodge" is a line from the 50s TV Western Gunsmoke in which Marshal Dillon admonishes ne'er-do-wells to high-tail it out of Dodge City Kansas. The Valley of Fire State Park, in Nevada is hardly Kansas, although Dorothy would be quite pleased with its yellow rock roads. The Valley of Fire is the perfect place to go to get out that outlaw town Las Vegas, as we did during the chaos of Consumer Electronics Show.
After spending most of my life as either a city dweller or a mountain hermit, I have now opted for the in-between, the idyl of small town life in a tourist destination. I have moved to the middle of a city block. There are houses to the right of me, houses to the left: a retired car dealer, a widow, a forty-something executive couple, a retired diplomat, a few clowns and jokers, notably a gang of 20-somethings that parties every weekend night until someone throws up and guests roar off on their motorcycles. There is a local radio station that mixes small town news with "hey dude" commentary about the 70s drug and rock scene. Recently the local newspaper featured a story about an encounter between a vehicle and a very large sow.
Over the past 20 years or so, Sonoma, California has gained the status of "tourist town."
Macau is now boffo, big wicket, the wiseguys at Variety Magazine might say. When I first ferried across from Hong Kong in the 1980s, Macau was a Portuguese colonial backwater with mid-sized plans to restore its architectural heritage. It did so beautifully. But plans became more than a touch grandiose after Portugal ceded it to China and in 2010 Macau belts "Look at me now!" Money fleeing the sinking oasis of Las Vegas is placing its bets here. Macau, is out Vegasing Vegas already in gambling revenues and if you look at the otherworldly palaces rising from under the construction cranes, it will probably outbuild it as well.
I stayed for a week last month, at The Venetian, a hotel-casino that makes the one in Las Vegas look like a Motel Six, witnessed the preview of a spectacular US$250 million water show called "The House of Dancing Water," similar to Cirque du Soliel's "O" but more engaging, I think, went to visit the family jewels (the Ho family, who controlled gambling in Macau for decades) including a 216 carat diamond, took a stroll through the old Portuguese quarter under the glow of holiday Chinese lanterns and ended the night with a bang at the Macau International Fireworks competition.
