Beach Bytes: Best Beaches for a July 4th Celebration
HAPPY FOURTH!: Holiday decorations at a coastal celebration (Liz Mitchell)
It’s not too late to plan a beach trip for the July 4th weekend, when Independence Day is celebrated in thousands of coastal towns throughout the United States. You’ll find the biggest festivals and warmest welcomes—sometimes hot—during this prime summer holiday when Americans celebrate the birth of their country (or at the very least, celebrate a day off from work!). A few suggestions for events follow, and I would be excited to join any of them for fireworks and festivities.
- Visit the coast of New Hampshire for a unique, historical day of festivities. An American Celebration at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth is a fabulous old-fashioned way to celebrate July 4th, offering an opportunity to experience four centuries of New England life. One of the highlights of a New Hampshire summer, this event includes a children’s bike and wagon parade, games and crafts, historic garden tours, live music, living history, hands-on activities, and lots of food.
- Off the coast of Massachusetts, Nantucket's July 4th Celebration includes face painting, watermelon and pie-eating contests, a dunk tank, children's parades, three-legged races, tug-o-war, music, and a huge water fight. Fireworks set off from Jetties Beach, a family-friendly spot on the North Shore.
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June 17, 2009
Beach Bytes: San Diego, California
Coronado Beach in San Diego (Bob Yarbrough/courtesy, San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau)
San Diego is a fabulous Southern California town for a beach and so much more. Although I always choose destinations with a beach feature so I can relax on the shore if I want, this trip lured me toward some days off the beach, onto the water, and touring the city's plethora of other attractions.
Public transportation provides an easy way for visitors to figure out how to get almost anywhere. People are friendly, the weather inviting year-round, and the food really good. Culture, sports, history, art, and architecture lend so many dimensions that a week’s visit is too short to touch it all. You could easily spend full days exploring the history and art of the city, which come alive with dozens of museums, 15 of those being easily accessible in Balboa Park, the largest urban park in the country. One of my favorite sections was the Spanish Village Art Center, where dozens of artists work daily in studios hosted by the center. On my next visit, I will want to see a ballet, the symphony, and a play. Or you could feed a passion for railroads, cars, sports, anthropology, science…you get the idea…it’s all here.
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June 05, 2009
Bulk of California State Parks May Close
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California (Robert Holmes/CalTour)
In an effort to narrow the massive California state deficit, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed, among other cuts, the closure of 220 of the 279 state parks and beaches to save about $213 million over the next two years. The state's famed park system attracts nearly 80 million visitors a year.
Parks on the chopping block include Point Lobos near Carmel; Lake Tahoe's Emerald Bay; Bodie State Historic Park, one of the best-preserved Old West ghost towns; Anza-Borrego Desert State Park; Will Rogers' Southern California ranch; the Governor's Mansion in Sacramento; Big Basin Redwoods, the oldest state park; and Humboldt Redwoods State Park, home to the world's tallest tree.
The 59 parks that will remain open are said to be the only ones that generate more revenue than they cost to operate. These include Old Town San Diego, William Randolph Hearst's Castle, and many popular San Diego County beach campgrounds. Opponents of the plan, however, argue that this analysis is incomplete and short-sighted, not considering the effects of job loss and tax revenue loss from businesses near the parks.
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May 26, 2009
Top 10 U.S. Beaches: Dr. Beach's 2009 Picks
POT OF GOLD: Hanalei Bay on Kauai, Hawaii (Thinkstock/Getty)
Florida International University's Dr. Stephen Leatherman, aka Dr. Beach, has released his 2009 list of top beaches (note that past winners are ineligible for inclusion). Here are his top ten beaches:
1. Hanalei Bay (Kauai, Hawaii)
2. Siesta Beach (Sarasota, Florida)
3. Coopers Beach (Southampton, New York)
4. Coronado Beach (San Diego, California)
5. Hamoa Beach (Maui, Hawaii)
6. Main Beach (East Hampton, New York)
7. Cape Hatteras (Outer Banks, North Carolina)
8. Cape Florida State Park (Key Biscayne, Florida)
9. Coast Guard Beach (Cape Cod, Massachusetts)
10. Beachwalker Park (Kiawah Island, South Carolina)
Tell us about your favorites in the comments section. My fave U.S. beach is probably the pristine stretch of sand at the bottom of the road in Carmel (amazing sunsets); outside the U.S.—and this one's way off the beaten track—it's Mogushi Beach in southwestern Japan. (For more of Away.com staffers' far-flung beach favorites, check out our interactive Google Map here.)
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April 07, 2009
Spring Wildflower Viewing in Death Valley
Desert gold wildflowers covering Death Valley's floor (Joel Southall)
An abundance of wildflowers has been creeping up through the earth in Death Valley National Park, peppering the park with bright, beautiful flowers that evoke the image of an artist waving a brush and splashing assorted paints across a 3.3-million-acre canvas. Spring is the best time to visit Death Valley, before temperatures become too uncomfortable—in late May the numbers regularly start creeping past 100 degrees. The flowers are peaking now, with everything from desert gold, notch-leaf phacelia, desert fivespot, gravel ghost, and evening primrose blooming in lower elevations, while higher elevations are just starting to show flora such as fremont phacelia and desert dandelion.
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April 01, 2009
The Day the Hosteling Music Died
When is a budget accommodation just TOO budget? (Karen Chen)
My hosteling love affair is over. I've run up the white flag, admitted defeat... yes, I am officially too old for hosteling. The end of the affair for me came in the most ignominious way, too, after I persuaded a half-dozen friends to take the hosteling route prior to a wedding in Santa Barbara. Big mistake.
Let the record state that I've communed with my fellow travelers in hostels from San Fran's Haight-Ashbury district to the southernmost town in Western Australia to a windblown hovel in the Nepalese Himalayas. Hell, I even picked up a traveling circus of bedbugs at Mumbai's Salvation Army hostel in order to save myself a few hundred rupees.
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March 24, 2009
Thru-Hike the Tahoe Rim Trail
TOUGH TRAILS: Lake Tahoe on the border between Nevada and California (Photodisc/Getty)
Hiking a long-distance trail from end to end in one push, or thru-hiking, is a badge of honor for those who have accomplished such a feat. It takes a lot of planning to coordinate food, water, campsites, and the like. Plus, you have to be extremely fit to carry your lodging and all of your food on your back for days on end.
But there's a great way to get a similar experience without sacrificing all of your weekends to planning from now through May. The Tahoe Rim Trail Association, steward to the 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail in Nevada and California, is offering people the chance to participate in a 15-day guided thru-hike with support in the way of food and other supplies. You'll still need to be in good shape and carry a backpack with personal gear and one- or two-days' worth of food and water. But that's pretty cushy, by most thru-hikers' standards.
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March 23, 2009
Q&A with Death Valley's Environmental Director Joel Southall
Joel Southall, Death Valley's Environmental Director, with his solar panels (courtesy, Xanterra Parks & Resorts)
Death Valley National Park has one of the largest solar energy systems in the United States. Built in the summer of 2008 by Xanterra Parks & Resorts, the 5,740 solar panels cover five acres of the park's 3.3 million acres, and help power the park's resort, The Furnace Creek Inn & Ranch Resort, as well as its many other facilities, including the lowest elevation golf course on the planet. The National Park Service awarded the new solar facility the 2008 Environmental Achievement Award. More recently, Flex Your Power, California’s statewide energy efficiency and conservation campaign, and Southern California Edison, an electric utility company, recognized the facility for its energy conservation efforts during peak electricity demand times. Joel Southall, Director of Environmental Health and Safety of Xanterra for Death Valley, took some time recently to answer my questions about the park’s environmental initiatives.
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March 02, 2009
California Coast: Lost in Beauty
COASTING THROUGH: View of the California coast at MacKerricher State Park (Stockbyte)
There's no denying the spectacular scenery of Big Sur on the central Californian coast, the way the serpentine road hugs the cliffs as you're practically swallowed up by the expanse of the Pacific. But I'm surprised more families don't venture north of San Francisco on Highway 1 to Mendocino and onward to the Avenue of the Giants and the Lost Coast, where the lightly-traveled and rugged shoreline is backed by dozens of peaks. Just outside the town of Weott, Avenue of the Giants is that special place you've seen on postcards where you drive through the trunks of massive redwood trees, some reaching mind-boggling heights of 350 feet. Then it's on to the Victorian houses of Eureka, the gateway to the Lost Coast, the only stretch of California shoreline that doesn't have a major highway near the beach. Stay at the affordable Bayview Motel, which starts at $91 a night and overlooks Humboldt Bay.
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February 09, 2009
Whale Watching in California
MARINE MAMMAL ON THE MOVE: Gray whales migrating along the Pacific Coast (Allison Whelan)
I've lived on the central California coast for 15 years, but it wasn't until my trip to Brazil last fall that I discovered the joy of whale watching. Fortunately, there are fantastic whale watching opportunities here in California at a variety of state parks.
Nothing matches the majesty of an encounter with the mighty gray whale, or Eschrichtius robustus, the official marine mammal of California. A descendant of the filter-feeding whales that lived 30 millions year ago, they grow up to 50 feet long and weigh 45 tons. Gray whales are currently on their annual migration, a 5,000- to 6,800-mile trip that heads south along the west coasts of Canada, the United States, and Mexico and lasts two to three months. In Baja California, Mexico, the whales breed and give birth in the warmer waters. Traveling 70 to 80 miles per day, the whales' spouts of vaporized water (at times reaching 12 feet high) can be seen as the whales surface every three to five minutes to breathe. It's a spectacle you don't want to miss!
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