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The May 14th Carnival of Cities is now online, being hosted by the Perceptive Travel Blog. If you’re looking for some inspiration for upcoming travels, look no further. There are some very interesting blog posts here, covering cougar-sightings in Chicago (!), Cirque du Soleil in Seattle, the cacophany of street sounds in Hanoi, Vietnam, inexpensive apartments in Larnaca, Cyprus, touring Whistler Village, BC, and more.

For solo travelers, I especially recommend reading Caitlin’s post “Save Money in London: Part 1 - Transport” at Roaming Tales. (Part 2 - Free Sightseeing is already up at the blog as well.) As we all know, traveling solo means having no one to share lodging or transportation expenses with, so tips like these can really help keep your budget manageable. It’s been a good 15 years since I’ve been to London, so it was good for me to get a refresher on transportation options and current prices. I’ll be reading the future installments in this series. Thanks, Caitlin!

If you missed out on Restaurant.com’s Mother’s Day specials, don’t worry. Here are more for this week:

May 13th thru 18th, Take 50% off Dinner of the Month Club purchase . Use code CUISINE!

May 13th thru 18th, Take 50% off $25.00 Gift Certificates. Now $5.00 when you use code CUISINE!

At the top of the hill in Burlington, VT overlooking Lake Champlain is the University of Vermont campus, home of The Robert Patrick Fleming Museum. If you’re on your own for an afternoon in Burlington, Vermont and you happen to love museums, the Fleming Museum might appeal to you. And at $5 for admission, it’s also one of the best tourist bargains you’ll find in town. It’s really a remarkable collection for a small, rural state like Vermont that doesn’t have tremendous financial resources. That said, be aware before going that it does not compare to large museums in cities like New York, Boston, or London. You will probably only need to spend an hour or two here to see everything. The collections are relatively small, though they contain some really amazing objects and artwork.

The Museum hosts a permanent collection of 20,000 pieces of art spanning cultures from Ancient Egypt, Africa, and Asia to Europe and the Americas. Its American collection naturally includes some prominent Vermont artists, such as Charles Louis Heyde and Francis Colburn (whose paintings I really enjoyed, as I liked the obvious influence of modernism and cubism in them; his “Granite Quarry” is a nice tribute to the quarry culture in Vermont). What is really unexpected is its collection of objects such as a winged figure bas relief from ancient Assyria dated 880 BC and a nice little Egyptian collection, including a late Dynastic mummy and coffin. But the Museum’s best permanent collection, in my opinion, is the James B. Petersen Gallery of Native American Cultures, which showcases more than 2,000 Native American artifacts and artwork from both North and South America, including textiles, arrowheads, baskets, and more. I couldn’t take my eyes off a really unique carved raven baby rattle. The Gallery is a fitting memorial for the important anthropological work of Professor Petersen. Finally, the building’s Marble Court is a work of art itself, made of Italian, French, and Vermont marbles, with huge columns supporting a second-story balcony.

The Museum also has rotating exhibitions throughout the year. Over the past decade, the Fleming has hosted some prominent exhibits, including Picasso: Inside the Image, Andy Warhol: Work and Play, Francisco Goya: Los Caprichos and Rembrandt and the Art of Etching. You have until June 2008 to see the current Michael Light exhibit 100 Suns, a disturbingly beautiful collection of photographs of atomic explosions carried out by the U.S. in Nevada and the Pacific the 1950s and 60s; Actors and Exorcists: Masks of Sri Lanka, a collection of ornate, intricately carved and visually stunning ceremonial masks; and Between Soft Machines and Hard Science: The Interstitial Art of W. David Powell.

This past January, the Fleming introduced “Late to Eight” hours on Wednesdays, allowing visitors until 8pm on Wednesdays to view its collections. See their website for additional hours; they are closed on Mondays.

One of my favorite websites is Restaurant.com. Why? Because you can routinely purchase $25 gift certificates to your favorite restaurants for just $10, that’s why! (I do love a bargain.) There aren’t a lot of Vermont restaurants currently participating, so I generally use the certificates when I travel to other cities. It’s a great way to save money and try new restaurants. (Solos, be sure to read the certificate details; often, it specifies that two entrees need to be purchased. But there are deals for solos to be had here, too. It just depends on the restaurant.)

Right now, Restaurant.com is running two really great specials I wanted to share with you. Just click on either of the links below to take advantage of these deals. Enjoy!

Now thru 5/11, 50% off Dinner of the Month Club purchase + receive a FREE $10 deLa Flowers Gift Certificate. Use code MOM!

Now thru 5/11, 50% off $25.00 Gift Certificates for $5.00 + receive a FREE $10 deLa Flowers Gift Certificate. Use code MOM!

I was just at this fabulous Chinese restaurant last night with some new friends, and it reminded me all over again how much I love the food here. If you are ever in Burlington, VT, you simply must eat here at least once. This is, quite simply, the best Asian food in Chittenden County and perhaps all of Vermont. In fact, A Single Pebble has been named Best Place to Have Dinner by readers of weekly newspaper Seven Days in both 2006 and 2007 and was named one of the Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in the U.S. by Chinese Restaurant News in 2007.

Although the best way to experience A Single Pebble is with a group–because they encourage family-style dining, where everyone shares what they’ve ordered–I would not hesitate to eat here alone. There is dining at the bar, and from what I’ve heard, the bartender is very friendly and service there is good. (Service is good overall; waitstaff are fairly knowledgeable about what they are serving and are always friendly and helpful.) You could order an entree for yourself or 2-3 small plates could make a meal.

Located on Bank Street in Burlington, the restaurant looks very unassuming from the outside, located in what looks like a residential house. The draw here is the unbelievably fantastic food, including many vegetarian options. I have eaten here many times and have never had anything less than a stellar meal. I can certainly recommend the dumplings (any kind), the Ants Climbing a Tree (pork and cellophane noodles), the Chinese Broccoli, the Five Flavor Chicken, the Crispy Lemon Chicken, Poached Green Vegetable with Hong Kong Sauce, Shiny Noodle Shiitake Mushroom & Carrot, Dan Dan Noodles, and my new favorites, the Mock Eel (braised shiitake mushrooms in a ginger sauce, crispy and delicious), and the crab cakes (which come 3 to a plate with 2 different dipping sauces). They serve wine by the glass and make a scrumptious Mai Tai.

You probably will not spend less than $20 for dinner here; lunch is about half that, depending on how much you can eat. You can make reservations online at their website. Reservations are highly recommended (especially for dinner on the weekend), as this is one of Burlington’s most popular restaurants.

Nothing kills a vacation faster than getting sick. You’ve waited months, perhaps years, for this trip and sure enough, you arrive at your destination, and all those alien germs you’ve never been exposed to before decide to play pig-pile on you and you catch the flu. Or you pick up the dreaded airplane cold. Whatever the reason, whatever the timing, the last thing any of us wants is for our vacations to be ruined by sickness. And let’s face it, colds and flus are the least of our worries. What if you suffer heat stroke or food poisoning? Being seriously ill makes us vulnerable, and even more so when we’re alone in a strange place. Okay, I’m going to stop there, because I’m sure I’m scaring you.

RELAX. BREATHE. Serious illnesses on the road rarely happen, and when they do, it’s usually because we didn’t take care of ourselves properly. I’m a big believer in “an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure.” Nobody can control all eventualities, but there are things you can do to boost your immune system, protect your body, and increase your chances of staying healthy on the road. Let’s look at a few: [Read more →]

If you’re in the vicinity of St. Albans, VT (about 30 minutes north of Burlington, VT via I-89) this weekend, and you have a sweet tooth, get your maple fix at the 42nd Annual Vermont Maple Festival, running Friday through Sunday. Gorge yourself on sugar-on-snow, maple donuts, maple cotton candy, and maple creemees. (Then be ready for that sugar crash on Monday, just in time for the work week.)

This annual event (designated one of the Top 10 Summer Events by the Vermont Chamber of Commerce) draws crowds of 50,000 annually. That’s approximately half the population of Vermont. Okay, I kid, but it IS greater than the population of Franklin County, where St. Albans is located. Clearly, we Vermonters do love our maple products. (Did you know that real maple syrup–not the fake crap you can buy in the grocery store–is a heart healthy, natural sweetener that can help boost immunity? It contains zinc and manganese, two trace minerals our bodies need. Did you know you have to boil 40 gallons of sap to get 1 gallon of maple syrup? ) If you’ve never had sugar on snow. . . .get thee to Vermont in the springtime! It is heaven in a snowy bowl, usually served with homemade donuts and sour pickles on the side to cut the sweetness.

But the festival offers more than maple-based food products. There are antique and craft shows, a youth talent show, fiddlers, a parade through town, tours of sugarhouses, and an 8.5 mile footrace called–wait for it–the Sap Run. (Okay, if you know nothing about sugaring, you probably didn’t get that, but trust me, it’s funny.)

If you are nowhere near St. Albans, VT this weekend, you can always order yourself a taste of Vermont’s homegrown pride over the Internet from my friends Colleen and Paul at Palmer Lane Maple. I just sampled some of their maple goodies this past weekend and Mmmm. Let’s just say I did not come home empty-handed.

If you haven’t yet decided yet where to go for your summer vacation, here’s an opportunity to let your ears make the decision for you: Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal featured an article on upcoming rock concerts around the country this summer. There is a smorgasbord of them. And it’s not like they expect you to follow them from town to town, living out of your van and not bathing for weeks at a time. So, if your fave band isn’t coming to your hometown this summer, why not go to them?

Enjoy: Summer of Rock

Some friends and I had dinner here last week. Burlington Hearth is a licensed location of American Flatbread, based in Waitsfield, VT. They also have a Middlebury, VT location. They make the tastiest flatbread pizzas using brick ovens in an open kitchen area, where you can watch them work from your table in the main dining room. Or you can sit by the large front windows and watch people and traffic in this busy area of town. Housed where the gone-but-not-forgotten restaurant Carbur’s used to be at 115 St. Paul Street across from City Hall Park, the restaurant is cozy, with brick walls and lots of wood details, including a long wooden bar area that seemed ideal for solos. [Read more →]

Check out this week’s Blog Carnival of Cities, hosted at eyeflare.com. My article, One for Vegas, is featured.

Up until a few days ago, I had no idea blog carnivals existed. It’s a great way to be introduced to new blogs on the topics you are most interested in (in my case, travel). I’ve just read some great articles about places around the country and the world I knew little to nothing about. Broaden your horizons–get introduced to some new blogs!

The homesite of Blog Carnival of Cities, where you can access past and future carnivals, is here. Enjoy!