Yosemite’s Wawona Hotel Is A Charming Throwback

We were still lying in bed at the Wawona Hotel in Yosemite National Park when we heard someone outside whistle “The Star-Spangled Banner” from start to finish, with perfect pitch and clarity.

The whistler, we later learned, was Marvin, who has worked at the hotel for 20 years. He whistles the anthem as he raises the flag on the front lawn, and he has so perfected the performance that he finishes the song  just as the flag reaches the top of the pole.

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Some Tips For An Affordable Hawaii Vacation

Waikiki.

I’m returning to Hawaii in January for my fifth visit, and I’ll be sure to hear about it from envious friends and readers. But when I ask them whether they’ve been to Hawaii, they’ll tell me it’s too far away and too expensive.

Well, it hasn’t gotten any closer. It still requires an eight- or nine-hour flight from the East Coast. But it has gotten cheaper, and I’m going to share some tips on how to enjoy Hawaii at a minimal cost.

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Tourists Shaken Up In Wild Horse-Drawn Carriage Ride

A spooked horse took off with a family of seven on a wild carriage ride without its driver in Salt Lake City, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Nobody was seriously hurt.

New York Hotel Offers Intimate Views

The new Standard Hotel in New York has developed a reputation for providing intimate views of guests to passers-by in the new High Line Park. The hotel has not just tolerated this, it has encouraged it, The New York Post reported this week. You can see one of the photos taken of an exhibitionist guest (or is it an employee?) on the Hotel Chatter blog, but you might want to make sure the kiddies aren’t watching.

Bad Tourist: Five Thoughtless Things I Saw On Vacation

When I travel, I am a student of human behavior, which is to say I mutter complaints about the things people do that I don’t like. Line cutting is a big one. I hate that.

I recently spent a week on vacation, including a few days (not enough) at Yosemite National Park, where someone apparently behaved so badly that it set something of a record. I didn’t witness it, though. We were off in the park when fellows guests at the Wawona Hotel set off a canister of bear repellent in their room, shutting down the hotel for several hours. These guests, we were told, abandoned most of their gassed belongings and took off.

This gave me the idea of cataloguing the rude things that travelers do in a new feature I shall call Bad Tourist. So here goes the first installment of the five most obnoxious things I actually saw people doing on that trip:

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Passengers Not So Much With The Wi-Fi

Airlines are not getting the results they hoped for with on-board Wi-Fi, Scott McCartney reports in the Wall Street Journal’s Middle Seat column.

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Marijuana Cultivation Threatening National Parks

Part of Sequoia National Park in California was closed this week while authorities destroyed a marijuana crop being grown in a rugged canyon just half a mile from a popular cave, the Associated Press reports.

A week earlier, the same thing happened in Yosemite National Park, according to the Los Angeles Times.

This is not a Cheech and Chong joke, with a few plants grown by a dopey hippie. These are huge operations that are seriously damaging the forests and bringing heavily armed criminals into close proximity to hikers and tourists.

It wasn’t clear who did the planting in these cases, but in other cases members of Mexican drug cartels have been arrested, CNN reported last year. Scary stuff.  

Far be it from me, a humble travel blogger, to suggest I have an answer to this country’s massive drug problem. But it seems to me that when the AP reports that the National Park Service got an additional $3.3 million to eradicate drugs this year and that its rangers are pulling up plants worth $20 million and $40 million at a time, this is not an equal fight and it’s not going to end any time soon.

On Risk, Common Sense And Compassion

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about the risks of travel, how people perceive them and react to them.

I was on a red-eye flight back from LA to JFK last week. We had encountered some turbulence early on, and then things calmed down for a few hours. When the pilot announced more turbulence ahead and asked people to stay in their seats with their seat belts fastened, I heard dozens of people clicking their seat belts on.

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Megabus Pulls Out Of Hartford

Woeful news: Megabus has stopped selling fares to and from Hartford after Sept. 14 and is refunding fares already sold for travel after that date.

I heard about it from a reader who got an email from Megabus canceling her trip and promising the refund. There’s no notice of the change on the Megabus site, but the reservation system won’t allow bookings for Hartford after Sept. 14.

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Signs Of California

Here are some signs I saw in California that I’m pretty sure I’m not going to see in the Northeast any time soon:

• Management Fire: Do Not Report
• The Doctor is In: Medical Marijuana
• Free Bag of Oranges With Gas Fill-up
• Speeding Kills Bears
• Avoid Overheating: Turn Off Air Conditioner
• Radiator Water 1/2 Mile
• Speed Limit 70 MPH
• In-N-Out Burger