Free Republic

Competing against the world’s most breathtaking locales, the Dead Sea is just three months away from potentially being named one of the world’s seven natural wonders as part of the New 7 Wonders of Nature competition. The online voting contest seeking to name seven natural wonders of the world is years in the making and is set to finish on November 11, 2011. The organizers want to have 1 billion votes cast on their website, www.new7wonders.com. The current results are confidential, but Israel’s Tourism Ministry said they feel the Dead Sea is doing well so far, even if they don’t...

Just as students head back to college and families finish summer vacations comes the latest bad news from pest control companies: Bedbug infestations are getting worse and becoming more common in some places, including dorms, hotels, nursing homes, hospitals, office buildings, and schools and day-care centers. According to a survey released Wednesday by the National Pest Management Association and the University of Kentucky, pest control companies say there has been double-digit growth in infestations in the past year. About 54 percent of pest companies reported treating bedbugs in college dorms, compared with 35 percent in 2010; 80 percent reported treating...

The province is defending its marketing of the town of Dildo after accusations it was being ignored because of the 'sensitive nature' of its name. On VOCM Open Line with Randy Simms, Tourism Minister Terry French refuted the remarks, saying Dildo is in travel guides for all to see. French says the town is prominently displayed in the provincial tourism guide. French says on page 260 of the guide, which is a map of the Avalon, Dildo and South Dildo are in the middle of the map. He says the town is mentioned multiple times in the travel guide,and is...

The state of Washington formally shuttered its tourism office on Friday, a move that helps close deep budget deficits but makes it the only U.S. state no longer spending money to attract visitors.

Consumer spending was flat in May, breaking a string of 10 straight months of gains, as households struggled with rising prices and automakers failed to deliver the models Americans wanted. When adjusted for inflation, spending slipped 0.1 percent, the Commerce Department said on Monday, falling for a second straight month. The report, which showed underlying inflation quickening, suggested that consumer spending would offer little support to the economy in the second quarter. In the first three months of the year, it advanced at a modest 2.2 percent annual rate. Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of U.S. economic activity,...

SNIPPET: "They say they police intelligence unit arrested Asdatul Sahirun on Sunday at a shopping mall in the capital's Malate tourist district."

The Holland America liner, the Oosterdam, which makes regular cruises to the Mexican Riviera, will no longer sail out of San Diego after April 2012.Regular voyages to the Mexican Riviera, long a mainstay of San Diego’s cruise ship business, are likely to end by the fall of 2012 with the decision by Holland America to move one of its key liners to Australia. The cruise line’s 1,926-passenger Oosterdam and the 2,500-passenger Carnival Spirit are the only two vessels that currently head to the Mexican Riviera on a regular basis, and both are now scheduled to leave San Diego after April...

Tourists Flee Osama Shadow By Irfan Ahmed CHITRAL VALLEY, Pakistan, May 6, 2011 (IPS) - This is the time of year when picturesque Chitral Valley in the northwestern corner of Pakistan sees a huge influx of tourists. But local residents fear a backlash from the events in Abbottabad, some 300 miles southeast, as authorities put up an extraordinary security cordon throughout this tourist haven. Local officials and residents note a number of cancellations from tourists who have apparently heeded their embassies’ travel advisories to stay out of Chitral, which borders the Afghan province of Nuristan, a Taliban stronghold. Many countries,...

Last Tuesday, a man by the name of Chip Thoma filed a lawsuit against Governor Palin over an alleged “traffic conspiracy.” Yes, you read that right… If you’re thinking this sounds like some sort of ridiculous frivolous complaint, you would be correct. Mr. Thoma isn’t new to Governor Palin, nor is he new to filing frivolous claims against Alaskan Governors. However, you wouldn’t know much about this case if you got all of your news from the Associated Press. Becky Bohrer, the AP writer who covered the story, not only posted her story with an embarrassing grammatical error, but she...

SARASOTA COUNTY - Prosecutorial missteps and a series of communication problems led a judge to release 16-year-old Shawn Tyson from custody just hours before police say he shot and killed two British tourists in Newtown.

A British tourist was beaten to death by officers in a Dubai police station after being arrested for swearing, it was claimed yesterday. Lee Bradley Brown, 39, was on holiday at a £1,000-a-night hotel in the Arab state when he was thrown into a filthy cell. Police sources say he was ‘badly beaten up’ by a group of police officers, leaving him unconscious on the floor. Inmates told how they watched officers bundle him into a body-bag and drag him out of the building. During Mr Brown’s six days in Bur Dubai police station, guards refused to give him enough...

The company that produced Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s TLC reality show, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” received $1.2 million in state tax credits for filming in Alaska through a government program Palin signed into law as governor in 2008. The Anchorage Daily News first reported the story in February, but after an analyst at the Tax Foundation posted a blurb on the group’s blog linking to the piece Tuesday, Palin faced a fresh heap of criticism from Washington conservative pundits who may have been a bit late to the fight, but were not shy to throw punches. The state legislature passed...

Authorities have closed three upscale townhouses that were operating as a maternity center for Chinese mothers paying thousands of dollars to give birth in the United States so the children would automatically gain citizenship. Police and city inspectors found seven newborns and two mothers when they closed the homes for building code violations on March 8 in San Gabriel, a suburb east of Los Angeles that is home to a large Asian population. The women, who were Chinese and Taiwanese nationals and spoke little English, told officials their families had paid to send them to the United States to give...

Pär Kjellin, the CEO of leading Swedish travel package operator Apollo, has argued that travel and tourism to countries with authoritarian regimes helps to undermine them. Kjellin argued on Thursday that tourism can be a "good and democratic force," making a link between the high volumes of tourists to countries such as Egypt and Tunisia and the ongoing pro-democracy movements. "The fact that people travel and meet across cultural, religious and political boundaries is a good thing. Visits, even to dictatorships, I believe helps to destroy them. I would argue that tourism, major global travel, is in itself a positive...

When New York City’s health department revealed last weekend that three people had contracted cholera, it was a reminder that the city is not just a world capital of arts, business and the like — but also of exotic diseases. If a disease has cropped up in the world, there is a good chance it will eventually find its way to New York City through the diverse travelers who cross the city’s borders. For instance, several people every year are found to have a biblical disease, leprosy, though health officials say no one has to fear catching it in the...

The authorities that run San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate Bridge announced that next year, they will remove the crossing's human toll takers and replace them with electronic sensors. The switch has been sold as a triumph for efficiency and traffic flow but is potential budget disaster for tourists who now risk stumbling into fines or having to pay more money for e-pass equipment. Cities and states across the world have been moving to sensor-based tolling systems, from TxTag in Texas to E-ZPass in 14 states, without regard to the burden it places on tourists who either don't understand the system,...

New Orleans restaurants seem to have recovered after the BP oil spillBy Brett Anderson, The Times-Picayune Published: Sunday, December 26, 2010, 8:45 AM The days of explaining exotic species of Hawaiian finfish to puzzled locals have passed at Grand Isle restaurant. After struggling through months when the oyster bar would sit idle for weeks on end, supplies from Terrebonne Parish and Galveston Bay are now readily available. Grouper may still be more difficult to come by than usual, but at least it's not Chilean. Still, David Pearson, a partner in Grand Isle, a Warehouse District seafood restaurant, is not resting...

It's no wonder Somali immigration officials in Mogadishu thought a 41-year-old man who described himself as a tourist was insane; they hadn't seen a tourist in the Somali capital since, well, ever. Canadian citizen Mike Spencer Bown is a seasoned traveler having visited more than 150 countries. But when he arrived in Mogadishu as a tourist, he was met with disbelief. "We have never seen people like this man," Omar Mohamed, one of the officials, told the AFP. "He said he was a tourist, we couldn't believe him. But later on we found he was serious. That makes him the...

The wind was so strong Saturday night it blew the Showboat Branson Belle aground during its cruise with guests onboard. The Belle and local authorities tell KY3 there's no serious injuries and only three people requested medical assistance as a precaution. A passenger told KY3 over the phone Saturday night, most of the 567 passengers are calm but some are panicking. The passenger also says the captain announced it's not safe to evacuate the boat where they came aground. He said the rocky shoreline is covered in ice. Fire crews are trying to create a gameplan but the captain announced...

Kayaker presumed dead after Congo crocodile attack By Jenny Gross - JOHANNESBURG | An acclaimed South African outdoorsman who was leading a kayaking expedition from the source of the White Nile into Congo was dragged from his craft by a crocodile as two Americans watched, horrified. The guide is presumed dead. The two Americans paddled to safety after the Tuesday morning attack on the Lukuga River in Congo. The International Rescue Committee helped evacuate the Americans to a nearby town after Tuesday's attack, said Ciaran Donnelly, the organization's regional director in the Central African country. The body of 35-year-old Hendrik...