Istanbul is a great city. There's historic scenery everywhere, and shady parks as well. There is a Jazz festival going on, so a couple of us headed across town last night to catch this amazing quartet in an outdoor amphitheater.

In between the 6 and 12 hour bus rides to get here from Fethiye, I spent a day at Ephesus checking out yet more spectacular ruins. I was amazed at how many people were there. Thousands. I have no idea where they dug all these people up. Maybe everybody who was planning to go to Egypt came to Turkey instead.

written by  Jason Kester on July 16, 2003 from Istanbul, Turkey
from the travel blog: Middle East, 2003
tagged Tourism
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It's a strange place here. They really love tourism. Everything worth visiting has been developed in the Disneyland model. Bigger is better. Take a place with amazing views and natural splendor, then add roller-coasters and aerial tramways to make it even better. Most tourists are Chinese, in giant package groups.

It's the Chinese labor holiday this week, so everybody is traveling to all the tourist sites. And when everybody in China does something, it's quite a thing to see. Yangshuo was pretty crowded when I first got here, but on the first it just went insane. You simply could not walk down the streets because the people were too thick. Hotel prices are tripled, you can't find an empty seat on a train, and even more tourists are flocking everything. It would be amusing if I wasn't in a hurry to get to Beijing. As it is, I'm essentially trapped in the South for the next 7 days.

written by  Jason Kester on April 30, 2004 from Yangshuo, China
from the travel blog: Southeast Asia, the Trans Siberian and Scandenavia
tagged Tourism
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There are no tranquil pools that you can sit by and think about life. They have tranquil pools of course, but they are surrounded by hotels, Ferris wheels, aerial tramways, and filled in with gravel so that they can be converted into a Hot Spring.

Beijing is cool though. It's big but not dense. I could deal with living here. Apart from that though, you'd really need to know Chinese well enough to find a remote village if you wanted to see China in its unaltered version.

written by  Jason Kester on May 6, 2004 from Beijing, China
from the travel blog: Southeast Asia, the Trans Siberian and Scandenavia
tagged Tourism
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New Jersey's a geographically diverse state unlike any other. It's one of the few states where some of the nation's best beaches are just a couple hours drive away from award winning winter ski resorts. Sunset Beach in Cape May is one of only a handful in the country where sunrises can be seen in the morning on the eastern beach, and sunsets seen at night on the western beach. New Jersey's home not only to the HBO hit show the Sopranos, but did you know it's also the home of the nation's first beach resort (Cape May), half of all the revolutionary war battles, the first college football game ever (Rutgers beat Princeton) and the statue of Liberty?

If you're planning a vacation, business trip, or just a week-end getaway, consider New Jersey for its 13 casinos, wild wolf preserve, 130 Miles of gorgeous beaches, both winter and summer skiing, nation-wide largest collection of Victorian Era B&Bs, historical landmarks ranging from the Statue of Liberty to the museums of George Washington and Thomas Edison, and world's greatest collection of beach boardwalks, just for starters.

written by  ACCar on December 30, 2007 from Atlantic City, United States
from the travel blog: Visiting New Jersey
tagged Tourism, Beach, Travel, CarHire, Limo, CarService, AirportShuttle, GroundTransportation, NewJersey, Beaches and Limousine
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