Northwest Travel

Renaissance city

• Tacoma — with maritime, alpine and urban attractions — is not the city you think it is

June 16, 2013 4:00 am

TACOMA, Wash. —I mentioned to a friend recently that I was going to visit Tacoma for a few days. Her response was almost....MORE

Spend time with kids at these fun camps

June 16, 2013 4:00 am

Summer camp isn’t just for kids. Here are five places where the whole family can join in the fun.1. Cheley Colorado Camps, Estes Park, Colo. In a stunning location near Rocky Mountain National Park, grown-ups and kids come together for an....MORE

Mexico’s Mazatlan is getting its mojo back at long last

June 16, 2013 4:00 am

MAZATLAN, Mexico — The atmosphere in the Plaza de Toros, hot in the afternoon sun, crackled like popcorn, leaving visitors....MORE

Vacation apps

Keep an eye on your travel buddies

June 16, 2013 4:00 am

Summer is for family vacations, share houses at the beach and theme park outings with friends. But how to keep track of a big group of travelers without a flurry of texts and calls? Are the children at the pool or the arcade? Who is already on the....MORE

Northwest Travel

Oregon ghost towns

• Many tiny communities have faded from existence, but not all

June 9, 2013 4:00 am

LONEROCK — Time is a concept that we don't understand so much as experience. When my thoughts drift to the not-so-distant....MORE

Where creativity lives in Cape Town, South Africa

June 9, 2013 4:00 am

It was already late afternoon when I arrived in Observatory, but the inner-city neighborhood in Cape Town, South Africa, was only ....MORE

Ripley's Believe it Or Not

Macabre museum gets a family-friendly makeover

June 9, 2013 4:00 am

LOS ANGELES — A gruesome photo gallery of men and women impaled by arrows, augers and pipes is gone from the Ripley’s ....MORE

Family fun could erupt at any moment

June 9, 2013 4:00 am

For an update on ash, lava, steam and smoke, visit a volcano. These destinations provide a multifaceted opportunity to get outside and learn more about planet Earth.1. Mount St. Helens, Washington. On March 20, 1980, an earthquake of 4.2 magnitude....MORE

Snoqualmie Falls

A place of legend

Perched atop the cataract, Salish Lodge has stories to tell

June 2, 2013 4:00 am

SNOQUALMIE, Wash. — The Snoqualmie River rumbles through the Cascade foothills, an hour's drive east of Seattle, like a....MORE

Los Angeles

Underground art worth exploring

June 2, 2013 4:00 am

This is a story about Underground Los Angeles. Not the underground music scene — the underground art scene. The subway art....MORE

An unlikely trove of midcentury modernism

June 2, 2013 4:00 am

Before he helped bring the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen to his hometown to design one of the first contemporary churches in....MORE

History, landscape, art echo across New Mexico

June 2, 2013 4:00 am

ALBUQUERQUE, N. M. — Striped balloons dot a bright blue sky. Red rocks silhouette a lone dead tree. A white ladder leans on ....MORE

In Panama City, filling a blank canvas

June 2, 2013 4:00 am

Traffic into Panama City was flowing for once, so Miguel Fabrega had only a moment to point out the crumbling ruins in the....MORE

Staying active

Retirement on wheels

• Central Oregon seniors keep their motors running RV-style

May 31, 2013 4:00 am

Mike Stout zipped around the Bend/Sisters Garden RV Resort in a golf cart last week as he helped the park's guests settle in to....MORE

Create a battle plan to visit Gettysburg

May 26, 2013 4:00 am

GETTYSBURG, Pa. — In July 1863, the 2,400 residents of Gettysburg had little time to prepare for 170,000 Confederate and....MORE

Germany's Mecklenburg Lake Plains

A hidden treasure for kayaking on clear, still waters

May 26, 2013 4:00 am

When I moved to Berlin more than a decade ago, I read that what seemed to be hundreds of construction cranes across the city....MORE

Utah’s park scene perfect for penny-pinching tourists

May 26, 2013 4:00 am

With multiple national parks, a serious ski scene and mountains galore, Utah has a wealth of experiences to offer nature-loving....MORE

Desert epiphany: Springtime blooms in the Arizona desert

May 26, 2013 4:00 am

TUCSON, Ariz. — For the past decade, I’ve headed to Arizona in midwinter to visit family and catch a respite from....MORE

In Pennsylvania, a small town remembers a fateful flood

May 26, 2013 4:00 am

When Elias Unger looked out from his front porch on May 31, 1889, he was astounded by what he saw. His house overlooked Pennsylvania’s Lake Conemaugh, a 2½ mile-long man-made body of water formed by one of the world’s largest earthen dams. On that morning, the rain-swollen lake was dangerously close to breaching the wall. Gathering a work crew, Unger labored frantically to shore ....MORE

Memorial Day Weekend

Flurries of activity heading into holiday

May 23, 2013 4:00 am

Flurries of snow at higher elevations in recent days are unlikely to affect travel across the state over the approaching Memorial Day weekend, according to forecasts by the National Weather Service. In Central Oregon and on the highways over Santiam, Willamette and the Mount Hood passes, the NWS is anticipating fairly regular rain but no snow over the next few days. Light snow will be possible at....MORE

Boeing Dreamliner service resumes

May 21, 2013 4:00 am

Signaling confidence to the flying public that Boeing 787s are safe to fly, the CEOs of Boeing Co. and United Continental Holdings Inc. on Monday traveled from Houston to Chicago aboard a Dreamliner. Monday’s flight marked the return to....MORE

Northwest Travel

Tons (and tons) of fun

May 19, 2013 4:00 am

PORTLAND — When Packy the Pachyderm was born at the Oregon Zoo in 1962, the event reverberated through the international....MORE

A taste of the wild in Big Sky country

May 19, 2013 4:00 am

BIG SKY, Mont. — This place is absurdly misnamed. That's not a complaint, but it does require an asterisk. If you want truly ....MORE

Lady Liberty is worth a look

May 19, 2013 4:00 am

Q: With the Ellis Island Immigration Museum not reopening in 2013, what is there to see on the island? Is it worth the expensive ferry trip?A: The museum has always been the high point of that trip for me, and you are correct, it’s not....MORE

Oahu, Hawaii

On the hunt for pigs that tear up paradise

May 19, 2013 4:00 am

Our plan the first day was not to kill the beast but to follow him, to observe his home and habits, to see the evil that he did....MORE

Northwest Travel

Raptor Country Birds of a feather

• Spring is the time to visit Idaho’s desolate, half-million-acre birds of prey preserve

May 12, 2013 4:00 am

BOISE — The Snake River Plateau is a desolate place. It is, by all appearances, an arid wasteland where tufts of cheat....MORE

Tracking down a heady and elusive beer

May 12, 2013 4:00 am

WATERBURY, Vt. — For someone in pursuit of a Heady Topper — the world’s top-ranked beer at the moment my plane....MORE

Greece’s gems, rural England and economy ‘plus’ seating

May 12, 2013 4:00 am

Q: My husband and I are planning a seven-to-10-day trip to Greece this summer. We want a culturally focused trip, but we don’t want to travel around too much, as I’ll be about five months pregnant. Do you have any suggestions for an....MORE

Keeping up with slow food: tips for the traveling locavore

May 12, 2013 4:00 am

Sarah Elton is a regular at the farmers’ market near her home in Toronto. She religiously checks labels and menus to make sure her food hasn’t traveled far before arriving on her plate. Yet, while traveling to organic farms in India, China and even food-obsessed France to research her new book, “Consumed: Food for a Finite Planet," she found that her locavore ways were not....MORE

Smaland, Sweden

A midsummer party not to be missed

May 12, 2013 4:00 am

“Bring wine? To Midsummer? That is a funny joke," said my Aunt Anna-Greta with a hearty peal of laughter and a knee slap.....MORE