December 2015

At the end of a journey to Oaxaca, Mexico, and possibly a new chapter in her travel life, PortMoresby comes to some conclusions and ponders some lessons learned. And more pictures, of course.

Oakland International will be the base for Norwegian's new California-to-London service—a big step for the expanding carrier and for the airport that's locked in competition with nearby San Francisco and San Jose. The service will start May 12, using 787 Dreamliners. The London base is Gatwick, where Norwegian is now the third-largest carrier, with service to 50 European cities. Altogether, along with the airline's Oakland flights to its Oslo and Stockholm hubs, Oakland passengers can...

Disney Cruise Line has cancelled both Greece and Turkey from its 2016 itinerary for Disney Magic's 12-night cruise. A spokesperson said the change was a result of monitoring conditions and activities in the region. Earlier, Costa Cruises had dropped Turkey stopovers for the last half of the 2015 season, and last month Celebrity announced it wouldn't overnight in Istanbul in 2016. The Celebrity announcement said it was due to cruise port construction in Istanbul, but it seems likely that...

Yassan spells out P,E,A,C and E all over the world.

Local politics and disagreement over who should pay is keeping Palermo's brand-new tram system from carrying residents and visitors around the city, and it's not clear there's an end in sight, although the mayor has threatened to resign if there's no solution by Dec. 31. The first line of the three-line system is finished and operating, but without passengers, and the other two lines are scheduled to be finished within a month. But no passengers can ride, because there is no contract with an...

Gumbo's on the Go again -- our first clue shows wide open space, or is it? New clues daily, so stay tuned!

A vista of North Yorkshire, taken from the Cleveland Hills.

The old Wall Street Mill mine in Joshua Tree National Park is long closed, but some old trucks remind us of the small community that once lived here.

It's nearly Christmas time, and for many of us that means a non-stop barrage of holiday music, but Joe Kohlhofer, a DJ at Austria's Antenne Carinthia station took it to the extreme by playing the same song 24 times in a row. The station was buried in complaints after the young DJ announced that he felt people were not in the proper Christmas spirit and that he would therefore play Wham's 'Last Christmas' for his entire two-hour show. Station officials were unable to stop him, because he had...

You can google just about anything—note the lower case 'g'—but only Google is keeping track of what people are looking for, and releases annual lists  of the top searches in dozens of categories. For last year, the U.S. list of top travel questions seems very basic and location focused, whereas last year's top questions had more of a "How-To" flavor. Here's the 2015 list: What to pack for Cancun? Where is Disneyland? What airport is ORD When is whale watching season in San...

Kingtikitaki takes us to the love lock fence at N Seoul Tower. And unlike so many places that discourage people to put locks up, N Seoul Tower encourages it in designated areas.

This week Gumbo made it to the West Coast with a visit to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.