Free Republic

PHOENIX - When SB1070 was signed into law, there were calls from Los Angeles to St. Paul to Boston to boycott Arizona. City councils, businesses, organizations, and even musicians vowed not to travel to Arizona, because of our stance on illegal immigration. But one study shows, the boycott strategy didn't deliver the knockout punch some hoped for. The study found that occupancy rates at Arizona hotels are up more than 5 percent in May, and more than 11 percent compared to last year. The state raked in $48 million in tourism dollars. The boom in numbers is apparently thanks in...

So you’re on your way to the Holy Land and you can’t wait to get to Jerusalem for your first glimpse of the city that’s holy to more than half the population of the world. What are the essentials you should bring along to make your trip that much more enjoyable?

Come Visit Israel by Ari Bussel I like to fly light, but it never seems to work. The one exception is when I return from Israel to the United States. Everything here is cheaper, so I really do not buy things in Israel, other than recently published books in Hebrew. In Israel, magazines and books in duty free are exempt from VAT, a substantial savings when the price of a book is close to $20. On the way to Israel, however, the situation is quite different. I take everything, from grocery bags (the paper type because they are bigger here)...

PHOENIX - If you've got to go - to Phoenix, that is - you'll soon have another place to stop if you've gotta go. Next month, five of the 13 rest areas closed by the state last fall in a budget-cutting move will reopen, the Arizona Department of Transportation announced Monday. Four more should be welcoming travelers again by the fall. ADOT spokesman Doug Nintzel said his agency's funding, largely a combination of gasoline taxes and vehicle-registration fees, has stabilized since October, when the department decided it could afford to operate just five rest areas. And it looks like state...

Don’t think I wouldn’t catch the next flight out of Istanbul and head for the U.S. if I had the money and opportunity to birth my baby in the best country in the world, and have my child become, presto, a legalized citizen of the U.S. All told, it would cost me about $45,000 including luxury hotel accommodations along with hospital and doctor’s costs. Not a bad price to pay for instant access to excellent medical, educational, and economic prospects. Oh, and my baby also gets the privilege of applying for her foreign born family members to join her once...

Alas, New Orleans has not survived the British after all. The city that saw off the Redcoats in the war of 1812 has surrendered to an article in the Guardian poking fun at an advertising campaign intended to stiffen the backbone of tourists worried about the BP oil spill. The city's convention and visitors' bureau went with the slogan "This isn't the first time New Orleans has survived the British" over a picture of a statue of General Andrew Jackson, who led the US forces to a famous military victory in the Battle of New Orleans. The Guardian noted the...

Pity poor Arizona! First, the federal government causes it a lot of economic damage by failing to enforce the immigration laws. Then, when Arizona decides to lend a helping hand on enforcement, the political left gets in a snit and launches a boycott. Fine. Let them. I'm launching a buycott. My wife and I are canceling our planned trip to San Francisco this summer. We'll be going to Arizona, instead. We want our hard-earned tourist dollars to go to the good people there, not the extreme leftist city that Nancy Pelosi calls home. Besides, to be honest, I wanted to...

Wow, President Barak Obama, while down in the Gulf of Mexico for the fourth time, to check up on how the oil spill and its clean up is going on, says to everyone around the country to take a vacation trip to the Gulf, encouraging tourism during the summer.

MORELIA, Mexico — A government media tour to promote tourism in southwestern Mexico went awry when machete-wielding Indians briefly kidnapped 13 reporters on the trip, officials said Sunday. Fifteen people trying to film a beer commercial were also abducted. Nobody was harmed during the abductions Saturday, said a Michoacan state government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media. Government officials were still negotiating Sunday to recover the cameras and other media equipment stolen by the Nahua Indians. The indigenous communal landowners were upset that Grupo Modelo, the maker of Corona...

Visitors to Zion National Park in Utah will want to adjust their arrival and departure times to avoid the closure of Utah Highway 9 this summer from the park’s east entrance to its junction with the Zion Canyon Scenic Drive. The reconstruction of a 9½-mile section will close the road and tunnel through the Checkerboard Mesa and some other areas from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. Controlled traffic will be allowed before 9 a.m. and after 4 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays, the park said

Dear Crazy People, We’ve been given to understand that you intend to stage another media stunt, wherein you’re again going to float some empty ships – they may be full this time, they were mostly empty last time – in the general direction of the Gaza Strip. Your hope is apparently that your cameramen will capture the Israeli reaction and edit it into an overreaction or, failing that, simply reprint your feverish fantasies with slack-jawed credulity. Again. Our problem isn’t so much that your goal involves obfuscating the millions of tons of food and aid we’ve delivered to Gaza civilians,...

Road work at Zion park to close east entrance SALT LAKE CITY — Major road work starting June 7 will shut down Zion National Park’s east entrance at times. The national park says the Mount Carmel Junction Road will be closed weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. until Oct. 28. It’s the first major reconstruction since state Route 9 was built in 1930. The $6 million federally funded project will involve milling and grading the roadway down to its original elevation, compacting the road base, shoring up the historic retaining walls, providing drainage for groundwater and repaving. Zion park,...

A new website promotes Arizona.

Che Guevara spawns tourism industry with 'Che Trail' In life, Ernesto "Che" Guevara fought to overthrow a corrupt, capitalist elite. In death, he is spawning his own tourism industry – soon to include a three-country "Che Trail." Tourism officials in Argentina, Cuba and Bolivia are collaborating on a historic route that will allow Guevara buffs to retrace the footsteps of the Argentine medical student turned revolutionary in Cuba who was killed in a failed mission to foment an uprising in Bolivia. Bolivia's vice minister of tourism, Marco Antonio Peredo, said that the international "Caminos del Che" trail will include sites...

thatstheguy07 — May 17, 2010 — Since this video has been getting so many views, and ppl have been asking the same questions, I figured Id explaion a ciuple things here. This video was sent to me by someone on facebook. I dont know who the guy is, what the aftermath was, or which crossing this was at.

OK, I admit, I found out about this place because economic development -- in this case, limestone quarries to supply gravel for roads -- threatens this unique geological and hydrological site/phenomenon/tourist attraction. And I guess it does bug me when something of national (indeed, international) geological, hydrological, historical, and traditional value can be so undervalued. So, I provide the basic setting, read the links in the comment if you want. The Witch's Well in the Northern Estonia karst area is in reality a karst spring that starts gushing forth during the spring floods when the underground Tuhala River can no...

A Pakistani man was detained at the U.S. Embassy in Chile yesterday after field tests detected explosive residue on his hands and personal items, the State Department said today. A U.S. official tells ABC News the man had been recently added to a U.S. terror watch list, and as a result his U.S. visa was in the process of being revoked. In accordance with U.S. law, the man had been notified of the intention to revoke his U.S. visa and he was at the embassy to discuss the matter.

Enjoy breathtaking scenery without the winding roads and gnarled trafficOn a sunny and clear day, is there any scenery in the world more breathtaking than the towering mountains and sparkling waters that surround you as you travel up the Sea to Sky Highway? However, throw in bumper-to-bumper traffic and unexpected delays and the journey can be less than relaxing. Well, what if you could slow down and really enjoy that beautiful scenery without the worry of the car in front or behind you and the twists and turns of the highway? What if you could actually relax and make the...

GULFPORT, MS (WLOX) - So far there have been no official reports of oil in Mississippi waters, but some tourism operators said world-wide media coverage is enough to scare off visitors. Tuesday, coast tourism leaders and BP officials will meet in Biloxi to discuss the oil leak's effect on tourism. Some business owners said their message for BP is that while the oil hasn't surfaced in Mississippi yet, the negative economic impact is already here. Some passengers who boarded the ferry to Ship Island this weekend said they had worried that oil in the Gulf of Mexico might keep them...

Rarely are currency exchange rates as good for the American dollar as that of Asian countries. In Asia, the American dollar carries a lot of clout and with the recent devaluation of the USD; it is a good thing that these countries offer an excellent trip for so little cost to Americans.