United_States travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

I will lead on a journey through slow food and rapid development, just right in Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix is a city of uniqueness of the horizon and desert light. This optimistic attitude, accompanied with the arid climate and low cost of living has brought many people to the Valley of the Sun.

The Phoenix metropolitan area is one of the fastest- growing areas in the United States. It’s a pity because the car is king there – driving is only way to move around in 9, 200 square miles region. In this world it’s hard to state the foot and the bicycle as much as the car.

Phoenix is a lesson in freeway nomenclature. The endless pavement and strip malls remind of a distant Los Angles. But there’s a beautiful iridescent horizon and a new light – rail system will soon take place and run.

But behind all these statements comes the good. There’s a quality cuisine, a thriving art scene and unique modern architecture. The creative landscape has three museum institutions. They have the Phoenix Art Museum, a wonderful new second edition, and the other museum SMoCA, which was transformed from a five-plex AMC theater to 20,000 square feet of gallery space. And you have the Nelson Fine Art Center that combines the hispanic character with rich collections of Arizona State University.

The city is a totally electric mix. There is Temple’s musical heritage with the Gin Blossoms. The arts are there. There’s also a place called Red Modern Furniture, which is a little tapas. The city also got Passage, a wonderful boutique that is just blowing everybody away. It’s the coolest fashion spot with a spectacular environment and stylish items. It’s amazing and it’s affordable, accessible and cool.

If you happen to be there on the summer hiking the loop trail around Piestawa Peak or the trail up Camelback Mountain. It’s a great way to see the prespective of the city. As well as biking on the canal system is another perfect way to glimpse a diversity of neighborhoods and history of the city. And at the end for gourmets audience – whenever you’re going to eat in Phoenix or just have a snack, a cocktail, it’s a fantastic experience.

Los Angeles is a polarizing city and Wayfaring will show you one different side of the city. To some people the city is a paradise with its beautiful beaches, luxury hotels, bars and nightclubs. To others it’s a look of apocalypse with its air pollution, earthquake and wildfires. Los Angles is a kind of place that even though some people refuse to visit.

In order to understand the whole picture of Los Angles you have to understand how the city flows of its local landscape. Once you find out how the city operate – how it form a system – you will see the beauty of  it.

First of all I will begin from wastewater plant El Segundo. It’s actually the third largest plant in the country – behind Chicago and Boston. The city even offers tours to El Segundo, which is a great place nestled between LAX and Chevron refinery. You have got the Pacific Ocean to the west and  LAX to the north. You can even seen where its pipe extends. Then I offer you the other end of spectrum – Mt. Wilson – an observatory and antenna fields. It’s cool up there with a forest of huge antennas and you can run among the trees and the towers.

Another interesting building to visit is One Wilshire – a classic modernist Skidmore, Owings & Merrill building, at the crossroads of Grand and Wilshire—–but it’s called the most connected building on the West Coast in terms of internet bandwidth. It’s a telco hotel as well and has connections directly to Pacific submarine cables. In other words, it’s infrastructure, but it’s also architecture. It’s got floors and floors of computers—–and then, occasionally, some lawyer’s office.

One of my favorite places is the gravel trench in Irwindale—–the Durbin trench and the Vulcan trench. Those are two adjacent gravel trenches in this huge complex of trenches, where much of the gravel out is that one, which the structures and the freeways in Los Angeles get made.

In this picture is the Cascades, which are a registered State Histor-ical Landmark. They are where the 338-mile Owens River Aqueduct terminates, bringing fresh water to L.A. The aqueduct’s construction, which finished in 1913, is a fascinating—–and murky—–tale of government corruption and outright theft. Los Angeles is, after all, maybe more than other cities, a complex blend of physical facts and interpretive fictions.

Today Las Vegas has suffered from D-cup syndrome, no matter its plans and dreams. It’s a gaudy casino resort with greed, gluttony, simulacra that push the pleasure buttons of masses. Vegas is a real city and every day it’s getting more real. The city is always sunny and beautiful.

Las Vegas is developing into a future city with their own homegrown, groundbreaking architecture. Residents of Las Vegas have a lot of lost pets – from feral cats to farm animals and because the is in the desert – water is a huge issue. But clever architects have addressed those things in a very attractive design with solar panels and a ” living machine” to recycle graywater.

The city seems to be a sprawl of sand, bulldozers and acres upon acres of tile – roofed housing developments. And the question is ” Does the city have any real architectural history”? The answer is ”Yes” and the residents are trying to save it. The La Concha is a Paul Revere Williams structure, one of the last hotel landmarks on the Strip. There’s also the Old Mormon Fort, a historical landmark with a new addition by local architect Eric Strain. The structure is another example of how every great city needs to develop its own architecture.

When we talk about new architecture get in the elevator and go to Mix – it’s on top of the hotel at Maudalay Bay. Mix is the first restaurants and lounge, where the hotel spent a lot of money bringing in a major league restaurateur. The restaurant’s facade is made of 15, 000 Murano blown- glass baubles. It’s very beautiful.

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but once you leave, you may have trouble banishing Sin City from your mind.

Miami is a world of man -made islands and the original polo fields are new golf courses – Miami first make a loud at the beginning of the 20th century. Many times I wrote about Miami but this time I will mention some other interesting facts. I love Miami in part for all its flashy invention. In my opinion the big constructions are adding some serious substance to this subtropical city.

I suggest you this time exploring Miami on a two-day bike tour visiting city streets, galleries, delicious drives, one stop Haitian voodoo shops. You can covered 40 miles and 11 islands and used up an entire tube of sunblock.

One of my favorites building in Miami is Bacardi Building north to downtown Miami, at Biscyne and Northest 21st. This building is the greater example of how the International style meets the subtropics. I’m a modernist and I reckon we should protect the buildings of the past, but also the new architecture should reflect our own times and aspirations.

A fantastic way to experience Miami cultural diversity is through its culinary culture. Just north of downtown it’s Enriqueta, a delicious little Cuban spot with hundreds of fun and mostly family-run restaurants. There are incredible Cuban Nicaraguan, Peruvian, Brazilian and Argentine food. Miami has an extraordinary influence of cultures, but you have to get out of South Beach to feel it. The botanicas in Little Haiti are just an example for getting a sense of rich Haitian culture here.

For the first time, there is massive residential development in the downtown area that will transform what was once a dark working center into a great downtown. In addition to Museum Park (the new Miami Art Museum/Museum of Science complex) and the Performing Arts Center, over the next several years we will see a new Frank Gehry Soundspace for the New World Symphony and new Herzog & de Meuron and Enrique Norten buildings here in Miami Beach.

Houston, Texas is a place famous for its weird view of bigger is better. But today residents are starting to realize the environmental predicament that we need to change our actions in order to have a future in this world. Houston is a diverse city that attracts intellectuals from all over the world to industries such as energy and aerospace. Nowadays as I already mentioned the city offers a surprisingly large number of modern and international style architecture.

In this city of the biggest people, they are slowly learning the benefits of small. People are more aware of the environment and more concern about the future of our Planet Earth.

Houston is a place where people like to have their car: it’s a freedom, you know. Because it’s so hot and humid, you have the underground city where you can go from one building to another all through tunnels and without having to go the street level or outside. It’s all connected by walkways underground. There’s everything in the underground city: restaurants, business, laundry services and many more.

On ground level Houston itself  boasts with Discovery Green park. A spot with different activities like performances and concerts, great restaurants, pilates, yoga classes, a playground for kids, a manmade water pond for boats. It’s wonderful. It’s one of those things that make you think ”Houston is actually progressing”.

The food in Houston is fantastic. When it comes to food, it’s one of those places -discoverable. They have incredible seafood and barbecue traditions with a variety of flavors.But watch you eat – Houston’s the fattest city in the United States.

The record speed for a wind powered vehicle is 126.1 miles per hour! That is the record set by Richard Jenkins this past weekend at the Ivenpah Lake in Nevada, where he finally managed to do what he set out to do 10 years ago – pilot the fastest wind powered vehicle in the world.

The Greenbird is a carbon-fiber composite vehicle that is exclusively wind powered, making it essentially an earthbound sailboat. There were challenges involved, since at high speeds the vehicle tends to, well, take off. To counter this problem the vehicle incorporates specific design solutions, such as wings similar to those found in formula one cars.

The crafts are elegant, sophisticated and futuristic – but are based on familiar aeronautical, sailing and wind technology principles. They use solid sails, much like an aircraft wing. The crafts’ design achieves staggering efficiency. It enables the land craft to travel at between 3 & 5 times the real wind speed, depending on the surface traction.

According to a huge number of tourist literature, Florida is in the list of planetary title for human perversity. There is something wondrously upside-down about a state to which people flock, purportedly for its climate and natural loveliness. If you are one of those people who has given up on Florida I advised you to explore about an hour and a half north of the Magic Kingdom, into Marion and Alachua Counties, where a green edema of hills rises from the coastal flatness and horses stalk rolling acreage beside the highway.

The picture displays the Herlong Mansion B&B in Micanopy. Micanopy is a one-boulevard town of aged brick and log buildings, a place with old-style charm and it’s hard to stand on the main drag without a faint anxiety that at any minute movie studio security guards are going to roust you off the set. Micanopy is one of the few places in the state that hasn’t been ruined yet.

A chapel in Micanopy.

Just 20 minutes drive east of Micanopy, is the settlement of Cross Creek. Cross Creek could probably be described as the Florida Cracker Capital of the World.

Three decades ago, Florida was pretty much lay in the blind spots of developers, snowbirds and vacationing throngs. In 1970, the entire population of the region was 70,000. In recent years due to skyrocketing coastal real estate prices and an influx of property owners who prefer an acre of backyard to meager square footage with an ocean view, the county’s population today is around 300,000, a numerous figure for a place that not long ago was mostly forest and pastureland.

For that reason is good to visit the northern edge of Ocala, which lies a nascent development called Jumbolair Aviation Estates, a neighborhood that is perhaps the most spectacular symptom of Marion County’s quickening divergence from its dozy, rural past. Jumbolair is a gated community whose nucleus is the largest private runway in the nation; Jumbolair also sells home sites to people who have their own aircraft.

Spacebuster Pavilion is a mobile structure that serves as an entirely pavilion. The project is by Raumlabor, which will bring Spacebuster to the US for the first time this April and the structure will travel throughout New York for 10 consecutive evenings hosting various events.

The pavilion is consisted by an inflatable bubble as dome that emerges from its self-contained commpressor housing. The bubble expands and organically fits to its surroundings, be it in a field, a wooden park, or below a highway overpass. The bubble is made of a sturdy translucent plastic, giving opportunity the different events taking place inside the shelter – dance parties, lecture series or dinner exhibitions. The events are entirely visible from the outside environments and become the events’ backdrops.

Each event will be organized by a nonprofit organization, university or art organization. Events will feature artist talks, film screening, communal dinners and many other.

The creator of the bubble is Raumlabor, a group of architects and urban designers based in Berlin, Germany. Raumlabor began working on the issues of contemporary architecture and urbanism in 1999. Raumlabor’s work deals with urban design and planning, architectural design, landscape, buliding interactive environments, research and design of public space and art installations. Their public art installations have been shown in Vienna, Austria, numerous cities in Germany, as well as numerous biennials and exhibition spaces throughout Europe.

Lutsen Mountains Resort is a fuzzy dream, where skiers shouted unseen from the fog and snowboarders edged figures in low contrast falling from the sky. The resort is overlooking Lake Superior and has a gray skies, soft snow, quiet woods and winter streams. Lutsen is the largest ski resort in Minnesota. The spot is a worthy downhill destination with 92 trails and a respectable 1,088 feet of vertical drop.

Situated among four peaks in the Sawtooth Mountains of Minesota, trails cut through deep woods and a snow-choked valley that conceals a creek. A gondola tram lift, very unusual in this part of the country carries red cars over the Poplar River.

If you look inland from one of the lifts at Lutsen and the Superior National Forest rolls away to the horizon, a carpet of birch and pine heading onward into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, then to Canada beyond. Then look south or east and the view offers the blue sky with icy plane of Lake Superior.

On Moose Mountain, the resort’s largest hill, trails roller coaster from a broad summit. The resort opened its lifts in 1948. It grew over the decades, adding lodges and lifts but held on to its North Woods aesthetic. The area had a distinct feel with a “laid-back woodsy vibe where you can wear a flannel shirt and you smell wood smoke in the air.

But Lutsen’s long runs and varied terrain, including beginner to expert trails served by 10 lifts, keep regulars coming back. The resort is more affordable than a Rocky Mountain getaway, and its slopes stay open later — until April 12 this year — than most ski areas in the Midwest.

The Brochstein Pavilion is created as a landmark destination for Rice University’s campus. The garden at the Brochstein Pavilion gives a powerful spatial framework that has transformed an unstructured, underutilized quadrangle into the center of student activity on campus.

Founded in 1912, the Rice University campus is noted for its eclectic Mediterranean architecture, mature southern Live Oaks and a classical campus plan that emphasizes long, formal axes. The university is located in Houston, Texas, United States just near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center.

Inspired by the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, Houston architect Raymond Brochstein and his wife Susan provided a wonderful  donation that allowed the University to achieve this goal. The Brochstein Pavilion is capped by a steel and aluminum trellis structure which protects the building and extends in all directions to cover and shade the surrounding seating terrace. The trellis, consisting of an aluminum tubes, protects the building from the harsh Texas sun.

A series of wide double doors at the pavilion connect the interior seating areas with the surrounding terrace, opening the pavilion to the landscape and welcoming students and faculty. The landscape architect instead chose to address the interstitial space between the Fondren Library and the pavilion. A generous concrete walk connecting the library and the pavilion bisects into garden rooms whose perimeters are defined by plantings of African Iris.

Movable furniture and subtle site lighting allow impromptu gatherings of visitors to enjoy the oasis created by the dense shade and running water day or night. The university is spectacular and gives pleasure for every student to spent their school days in such an environmental Eco space.

Over the last years in New York, the Robin Hood Foundation and city’s schools administration have constructed art libraries in 62 schools. Some of the libraries and those recently created at three schools in the Bronx have also appear with the addition of art works by well-known artists. In the picture, left, an art work at P.S. 47 by the illustrator Maira Kalman.

“I go to museums all over the world, and I love natural-history displays, and I wanted something that felt like that,” said Ms. Kalman

Another view of the installation, which Ms. Kalman said was intended to conjure the kind of eccentric personal museums that amateur scientists and collectors once built as a means of cataloging the world.

Some of the objects in the installation include a lump of unformed glass, a giant 1,000-watt light bulb and a fake coconut cake with a cherry on top. The library at P.S. 47 was designed by the architect Richard H. Lewis.

This library is called P.S. 96, and the design firm Pentagram helped find artists willing to donate time and resources to create outsize pieces that ring the rooms.

At P.S. 69, Christoph Niemann has designed a mural that uses images of books serving as almost everything — as Abraham Lincoln’s beard and Mona Lisa’s smile, as a car hood, an eagle’s wings and a dinosaur’s teeth — all organized with Dewey Decimal System numbers in painted bubbles.

The Okefenokee National Park spreads across 685 square miles in the southeastern corner of Georgia and northern Florida. During the winter the temperature rise up to 70 degrees and the dry air holds insects, making the months a perfect time for a canoe trip. The place is very special, due to its old and best preserved freshwater systems in America.

One lifetime is not enough to explore the Okefenokee park. There is so much to do and with almost 402,000 acres (that’s roughly 300,000 football fields in size) of cypress forest, marsh, lakes and islands. Filled with alligators, Sandhill cranes, red-cockaded woodpeckers and over 400 other species of animals, it is a wonderful place to learn about the wildlife of Georgia and Florida.

A flock of birds takes flight. The vast variety of lush greenery make up different habitats from dry upland forests to open wetlands. Golden sunsets and thundering storms gives one to experience this magical place at its most beautiful and most inspiring.

There are a lot of ways to explore the Okefenokee Swamp. Some boat tours taking tourists through cypress forests, historic canals and open prairies. Water trails and platforms allow people to canoe for the day or stay overnight deep within the 354,000 acre wilderness.

Rolling boardwalks and trails head through extraordinary habitats, to observation towers and viewing platforms. There are huge opportunities for nature and macro photography, hunting and fishing are readily available. Some can even drive a car or ride a bike to a restored homestead to discover how “swampers” once made their home here.

One of the very interesting features in this magical national park is the seven overnight campsites in the Okefenokee, including the campsite at Coffee Bay. Most of them are 600-square-foot wooden platforms, some suspended above the water.

Photography by: Stephen Morton

This Disney Store Headquarters is located in San Francisco and was a convention of the historic Royal Laundry Building for The Children’s Place. The plan was the creation of an open and collaborative work environment for 230 employees. So that Clive Wilkinson in collaboration with workplace strategists DEGW, created an organization scheme which was consisted with colourful modular systems that become both architecture and furniture.

The existing brick walled structure inspired the creation of brick-like elements for the interior, which allude to the playful building block habits for children. A 20-person ‘Block Conference Room’ is formed on two sides by foam block walls. When the foam models are disassembled they become the seating system for 200-person company meetings.

The modular honeycomb structure conceived as a flexible means of managing Disney sample product display, forms a second conference room. the firm’s Honeycomb system was subsequently licensed to the Belgium company, Quinze & Milan, for a commercial market offering.

Jeff Pan is the founder of the Brooklyn Loftstel, who went from a business student to backpacker relief. The name is a concept of a loft and hostel put together. The Loftstel has only been around for 2 years and today have been risen to a place, where international students stay while visiting the US.

Jeff is a really creative and faithful person. Jeff spent 2 years exploring the world with his own eyes, starting in Europe, and ending up in Thailand. He was one of thousands of foreigners who have come to Phuket Island to help communities rebuild from the Dec. 26 tsunami.

While traveling he came up with the idea of housing a hostel, which is the only affordable option for backpackers. What makes Loftstel stand above the hostel crowd is its unique vision to create a space for the longtime guest. Most of the residents are international students on internships or people looking to relocate to the states.  Typically people stay anywhere from 1-5 months.

You can found out the Loftstel to 4 different locations in the United States, (NYC, DC, PA & LA) and has the hopes of expanding to Europe in the near future.  Currently there are around 30 full time employees that maintain the business across the country.  A regular housekeeping system and respectful tenants keep each Loftstel very clean.

Guests at Loftstel are interested in having a different experience that goes beyond the surface layer.  As Jeff says, “people have a real chance to get to know the city, and even time to make up their own mind about George W. Bush.”

All of their room options include the following amenities: free wireless internet (if you have a laptop), free public computer to check your email, phone with free long-distance calls, HBO on demand & Wii on our flat-screen TV, detergent & dryer sheets with use of our washer/dryer, owels & linen are provided, kitchen access with cookware & dinnerware, personal locker & closet storage (bring your own lock), sleeping masks and ear plugs, funky design to make you feel right at home, a great place to meet other students from around the world.

The Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center is one of the first institutions in the United States dedicated to exhibiting contemporary art. The CAC was founded in in 1939 as the Modern Art Society by three visionary local women. First, the CAC has been an admired leader in the international art world.

Today the CAC is a non-collecting institution that focuses on new developments in painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, performance art and new media. The center showcasing contemporary art and artists relevant to diverse audience, and developing programming that examines and reflects the importance of the art.

Its current architectural redesign was directed by Zaha Hadid – a london architect known for her innovative structures. As they describe it, “From the street, the CAC’s jutting concrete reliefs trace the outlines of the galleries inside. Once inside, visitors can’t get lost: The floor is slightly tilted, and following its enforced flow around the lobby leads you to a floating stairway to the mezzanine.” CAC is a must see. If you visit Cincinnati be sure to stop by.