Travelrific® Travel Journal
Picture postcards in prose.™ Check out the blogroll on the front page for official merchandise and other resources!A Cave Castle in Slovenia
By Linda Tancs
Listed by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest cave castle, Predjama looks like any other medieval castle, except for the fact that the cliffside fortress is built into the mouth of a cave complex. The interior, then, is a network of tunnels leading to the second-longest cave in the country, where a colony of bats resides. The castle is open year-round; you can visit the cave from June to August when the bats aren’t hibernating.
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Peace and Quiet
By Linda Tancs
If you’d like some peace and quiet, then head to Minneapolis, Minnesota. That’s where you’ll find the world-famous Orfield Anechoic Chamber of Orfield Laboratories. Internationally recognized as “The Quietest Place on Earth,” the room offers a keen sensory experience unlike any other. The lab offers multiple options for tours, each with different lengths of time in the anechoic chamber.
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A Bushwalker’s Paradise
By Linda Tancs
Also known as hiking, bushwalking is a uniquely Australian term. In New South Wales, Guy Fawkes River National Park is a paradise for bushwalkers. A highlight is Escarpment Walk, which will take you to Chaelundi Falls and its lookout down over the Guy Fawkes River Valley. From there, you can visit Lucifer’s Thumb, a large rock that offers sweeping vistas out over the gorge and Guy Fawkes River. The park is a significant conservation site with amazing biodiversity. There are 24 threatened animal species you might encounter; watch for the brush-tailed rock-wallabies that can often be seen in the park’s rocky areas.
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Billed as the Great North American Eclipse, a total solar eclipse will cross North America on April 8, 2024, passing over Mexico, the United States and Canada. The path of the eclipse begins in Mexico, entering the United States in Texas, and traveling through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. The eclipse will enter Canada in Southern Ontario, and continue through Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton. This will be the last time any solar eclipse will be visible within the United States until 2045.
Be prepared! So long as supplies last, you can purchase eclipse glasses and other accessories, like a phone app and photo filter, from American Paper Optics, a NASA-approved manufacturer. The link in the preceding sentence is an affiliate link, which means that if you click on the link and purchase merchandise from the page, then I may receive a small commission.
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The Atlantic Wall
By Linda Tancs
The Atlantic Wall was a system of fortifications built by the Germans during World War II, running along the Atlantic coast from northern Norway to southern France. In Ouistreham, Normandy, a museum established inside a former Atlantic Wall firing command post is dedicated entirely to the Atlantic Wall. Known as The Grand Bunker Atlantic Wall Museum, the five-story facility has reconstructed the command bunker down to the smallest detail, including engine rooms, an infirmary, armory, a radio transmission room and an observation post. The area is well posted both in English and in French.
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The Mighty Mac
By Linda Tancs
Michigan’s Mackinac Bridge, affectionately known as The Mighty Mac, is a suspension bridge with a shoreline-to-shoreline length just 28 feet short of 5 miles. It spans the Straits of Mackinac, basically becoming the dividing line between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. It’s currently the fifth largest suspension bridge in the world and the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western Hemisphere. Enjoy scenic bridge views and walking paths at Bridge View Park.
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Early Television in Ohio
By Linda Tancs
Located in Hilliard, Ohio, the Early Television Museum houses an enviable collection of over 150 TV sets from yesteryear, many of them still operational. Displays include mechanical TVs from the 1920s and 30s; early electronic British sets from 1936-39; early electronic American sets from 1939-41; postwar sets from1945-58; and early color sets from 1953-57. The museum also has a library of books and other documents relating to early television as well as a collection of early picture tubes and studio equipment.
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Auburn in Atlanta
By Linda Tancs
Auburn Avenue is one of Atlanta, Georgia’s most famous streets. Loaded with history and iconic landmarks, a mile-and-a-half stretch of it is known as the Sweet Auburn Historic District. The phrase “Sweet Auburn” was coined by businessman and civil rights activist John Wesley Dobbs, the maternal grandfather of Atlanta’s first Black mayor, Maynard Jackson. The area’s Black history goes back to the 1920s, when Auburn Avenue became the commercial center of Black Atlanta. You can learn more about that history at the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History and the APEX Museum next door. The street’s iconic landmarks include the building sign for the Atlanta Daily World, the first Black daily newspaper in the country, which operated in the building from 1928 to 2008 before relocating. Across the street is the marker for The Royal Peacock. In its heyday, the Black-owned nightclub hosted such entertainers as James Brown, Little Richard, Gladys Knight, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. No visit would be complete without experiencing the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, where the Visitor Center houses the original farm wagon that held King’s casket during his funeral procession. The Atlanta Streetcar runs the length of the avenue for only one dollar.
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Big Boots in Texas
By Linda Tancs
In San Antonio, Texas, there’s a pair of boots decidedly not made for walkin’. That’s because they’re 35 feet tall and 33 feet long. Touted as the world’s largest cowboy boots, the fake ostrich-and-calf-skin boots are located outside North Star Mall.
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Art, Culture and Nature
By Linda Tancs
The Royal Ontario Museum is Canada’s largest and most comprehensive museum. Located in the heart of Toronto, it boasts a collection of 13 million artworks, cultural objects and natural history specimens, featured in 40 gallery and exhibition spaces. Art and cultural objects from around the world date from pre-historic civilizations to present day contemporary artworks. Recognized internationally, the natural history collection features fossilized plants and animals from all over the world as well as the best examples of minerals, gems, meteorites and rocks from our planet and solar system. Founded in 1914, the museum is among the top 10 cultural institutions in North America.
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National Aviation Heritage
By Linda Tancs
The National Aviation Heritage Area encompasses an eight-county area in Ohio (Montgomery, Greene, Miami, Clark, Warren, Champaign, Shelby and Auglaize counties). Managed by the Aviation Heritage Alliance, the assets of the region include the National Museum of the United States Air Force (which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year), historic Grimes Field (the legacy of Warren Grimes, “Father of the Aircraft Lighting Industry”) and the Airstream Heritage Center, celebrating over 90 years of airstream history.
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