Category: Travel

Jason, a loyal MR reader, asks as a request:

I'm a graduating senior who is planning on taking the much cliched trip
to Europe after graduation. I'm also an economics major and, naturally,
want to maximize my time spent there. I have never been to Europe. Do
you recommend travelling around Europe and seeing a little bit of
everything, or is it perhaps better to focus on one particular area? If
you'd recommend focusing on one area, which would it be?

I am of the mind that when it comes to travel you won't know in advance where you will like — especially on a first trip — so diversify.  Not long ago I offered up five spots to visit in the United States.  My five spots for a first European trip would be:

1. Paris. Duh.

2. Rome, the major city of antiquity plus still a major national capital.

3. Süsten Pass in Switzerland, or Zermatt on a clear day.  Rural Europe, and scenery, with a Germanic slant.  I love Germany but am hard pressed to pick out a single locale to make this list.

4. Prague, with architecture from all major periods of European history since medieval times.  Plus you get a dash of Eastern Europe and corruption, as well as some Germanic and Jewish history.

5. Rural Albania, maybe Shkodra or Girokaster.  See how much of Mediterranean Europe lived in the 19th century.  Recall a Malthusian world.

Don't tell Natasha I said this, but Russia to me is really a part of Asia.  England belongs to the northern orbit, which maybe someday gets a post of its own.

“I get my best travel ideas from the State Department’s travel warning list,” he said.

Here is the full story, about a recent tour to Iraq, taken mostly by senior citizens.

vm, a loyal MR reader, asks:

Tyler–

You mentioned that the freeway/interchange views of Los Angeles are
one of your favorite aspects of the city–care to name a few? My
personal favorite is the 10-E to 110-N carpool interchange.

That's probably my favorite too.  What else?  The views from the 405, heading north from the airport, and from parts of the 10, are superb.  The number of palm trees visible is a good working metric for the quality of the freeway view.  Here you can read about the East Los Angeles Freeway Interchange, once considered an engineering marvel, but it is not a favorite of mine.  Here are photos of that interchange.  Here is the 405-105 interchange.  I hold the unusual view that Los Angeles is probably America's most beautiful city.

Seth, a loyal MR reader, writes:

I thoroughly enjoyed your 'Discover Your Inner Economist Book' and I was particularly interested in your advice related to restaurants, and on how to read menus.

Perhaps it's a stretch, but I was wondering whether you have similar advice for traveling in the US?  If someone who has never previously visited the US asked you for five places they should visit in the US, what would be your advice?  Or perhaps more generally, what should  they look for in their destinations?  Assume they're driving, and budget isn't an issue, and that it's not a requirement to see the most popular tourist spots.  What's the best advice to properly see and experience the US, in all its diversity?

Most of all, drive as much as possible and do not shy away from a few days in the "boring" (yet wondrous) suburbs.  After that, here is my list of five:

1. Manhattan

2. Detroit and the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn

3. Memphis and the Mississippi Delta

4. San Francisco

5. Grand Canyon and southern Utah

I feel bad about missing so much of "the new South," but how many stellar sights does it have?  Miami and New Orleans would make a top ten but each is too unique and insufficiently representative to make a top five.  Maybe Chicago should replace Detroit but the latter has greater shock value and isn't that half of what travel is about?  Los Angeles is too hard for most outsiders to grasp.  At least one of the Dakotas should make a top ten list.  Boston would please a European but not in a truly instructive way.  It is criminal to leave off Texas, which I love, but which single place can sum up the state?