The Olympics debut this weekend in Vancouver, and — alas — so will follow the stream of  luge jokes. Like this one. Hey now, if luge is good enough for Dr Evil, it should be good enough for us all.

If you want to luge, here are some places to try it:

• Winterberg, Germany. The bobsled track (78 euro) has some luging too.
• St Moritz, Switzerland. This is, some say, the birthplace of luge, and the first track ever turns 125 this week. Five runs with lessons runs about US$560.
• Lake Placid, New York. They open to luge only once a year — on Christmas of all days — but USA Luge ‘tours’ northeastern ski resorts to introduce luge to skiiers. It’s at Patterson, New York, on February 27 and 28.
• Park City, Utah. All of Wasatch Luge’s beginner courses are full for the season, sadly.
• Calgary, Canada. Former Olympic site has luge options.
• Upper Peninsula Luge Club, Negaunee, Michigan. This is it, beginners. A natural ice track, lessons, a luge to use,  access to a LIGHTED natural track — all for just $10. Say hi to Fred Anderson (below) for me when you get there.

Recently minnesota_trekker gave great answers to a load of questions. Here is a sample:

Question: Seven Wonders of the World? What are your seven wonders, natural or human-made (that you’ve seen)?
minnesota_trekker: In no specific order: 1: The relics of ancient Egypt. 2: The relics of ancient SE Asia. 3: The Grand Canyon. 4: The Great Barrier Reef. 5: African bush/safari territory (I can’t pick just one). 6: The Himalayas. 7: The Pacific Coast Trail.

Question: Best and Worst Value for Money Destination?
minnesota_trekker: The best destination…probably Eastern Europe back in the 1990s. The entire region was, for the most part, quite affordable. Although, there were challenges (especially in the Balkans). Earlier travels in Vietnam would also be a good candidate, as was Laos (though I only visited a few places in Laos). Chile and Argentina can be OK as well.
The worst? Norway. Love the country and had many great experiences there, but whoo-boy…can be a spendy place for the budget traveler. Ditto Japan at times.

Question: If you’ve returned to a destination, which had changed more…you or the destination?
minnesota_trekker: I have been back several times to Eastern Europe since my original trip there back in the 90s. Some parts are just like they were back then, others I can barely recognize. I can say the same for SE Asia; Sapa, Vietnam is like a different place from the first time I visited, back in the old days of barely renewed tourism there. Of course I’ve changed as well. There’s always room for knowledge and change…

Question: Travel indulgences? I heard that Bill Bryson admitted that one of his travel pleasures is in being able to wear his shoes when resting on a hotel bed. What do you do while travelling which you wouldn’t do/get away with at home?
minnesota_trekker: Like many travellers, I eat WAY too much when I travel. Being a foodie doesn’t help matters.

Question: What is your earliest travel memory?
minnesota_trekker: Although it is likely to cost Mark an aneurism, my earliest travel memory and one of my earliest memories is Disneyland, circa mid to late 1970s, on what I think is/was the “It’s a Small World After All” ride. Ironic I should be a travel maniac after all those years…a fitting end!
My first trip that I have decent memory of was a trip to Washington DC with a group from my high school. We had one day where we were set loose on whereever we wanted to go. I remember standing, alone, in front of JFK’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery (among many other famous dead folk as well as the several monuments). I remember the Smithsonian, Ford’s Theater and many other places.
My first international trip was to Western/Central Europe (the standard gap year/grand tour “experience”).

Question: Dodgy and Dangerous? Where is the most dangerous place you’ve been?
minnesota_trekker: Probably trekking in Papua New Guinea. We were shot at in a truck convoy enroute to our trailhead. Apparently this is not, or at least was not uncommon. They used to shoot at helicopters carrying climbers, though I’m not sure if this is still a problem there.
Trekking in Afghanistan in the pre 9-11 days wasn’t without risk either. I don’t want to even guess how bad it can be today.
Some close encounters in NE Uganda are probably towards the top of the list as well. Though I hear the place has really been making a comeback these days, a hidden corner of growing popularity…

Question: Foreign City for a Year? You win the lottery…which foreign city would you most like to live in for a year?
minnesota_trekker: It would be such a tough decision. For me right now…probably either London or Tokyo. Of course, this could change after I brush my teeth…

Read all of minnesota_trekker’s answers here: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/groups/traveller-interview

Montana's Big Sky, courtesy of Wikimedia

With the Winter Olympics dominating British Columbia’s best skiing starting this weekend, we thought we’d look just south to the USA’s best ski slopes. (Apologies to the slopes of upstate New York or Vermont out east, but the best US skiing is a truly Western matter.)

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Big, fast, deep — Jackson Hole is not for beginners. It features epic fall line runs that weave through pines. It’s real cowboy country too — expect Stetsons and big jackets, sometimes seen upside down and spilling into the marshmellow landings that soften any mistakes. Even cowboy mistakes.

Aspen, Colorado

All its four slopes (Aspen, Buttermilk, Highlands and Snowmass) are high class. And the stylish town is no ordinary ski-bum place, though plenty are to be found around its bars (no surprise: Hunter S Thompson who once did readings here.)

Mammoth Mountain, California

In name and physique, this mountain rides on a truly grand scale. New Highways lead to the front doors of ritzy lodges and local buses whip you to the start of an adventure — helped on by 30 feet (about 9m) of annual snowfall and a classic SoCal vibe.

Alta, Utah

In the Wasatch Mountains of the north, Alta was the first of the big US resorts to say ‘yes’ to snowboarding, it’s relatively cheap, and renowned as a purist ski/snowboard town, with Utah’s famously dry powder and over 40 feet (about 13m) of snow a year.

Big Sky, Montana

Big Sky earns its names atop the lonely gondola, about 4500 feet (1372m) of vertical standing — amidst the series of untouched bowls — between you and your lodge way below. One leg goes six miles through trees and down cat tracks.

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The best of US skiing is one of the 100 Top 10 lists in Lonely Planet’s dream-trip planner, 1000 Ultimate Experiences.

As a native Indian, I’m very excited by this development – and not just because Saif Ali Khan dropped by to help with the launch. We are proud to acknowledge that Indians are exploring the world more than ever before – and in significantly new ways. For many Indians, travel is evolving from a once-in-a-decade experience to a core part of their lives. And they are no longer satisfied with conventional package tours or cookie-cutter itineraries: they are looking to get to the heart of a place, having authentic experiences and connecting with people of different cultures.

Our cofounder Tony Wheeler shares his thoughts on the new magazine in his latest blog entry.

And here’s the statement from our Indian office on why we felt that the time was right for a tailor-made Lonely Planet India magazine:

Lonely Planet Magazine India explores the world through Indian eyes. It’s designed for the new, curious Indian travellers who look for experiences that validate them and help them grow as individuals. Our philosophy is to explore the why of travel, focusing more on insights into the cultural and natural beauty of a place than on tourist trappings. We don’t only tell you to go to the Eiffel Tower, we tell you why it exists. We aim to bring travel to you as a complete experience: from the sights you see to the transport you take, from the food you eat to the places you stay. All of these should help you connect with a place.

Indians are ready to explore the world – they just need a trusted companion to help  start them off. They’ve heard of some places but don’t know how to get there, what to do there, what that place is all about. There are many other places they know very little about (including, sometimes, India itself).

Lonely Planet Magazine India is the first travel magazine in the country to offer both inspiration and authoritative information. It’s based on Lonely Planet’s three decades of experience. And it’s written specifically for the Indian traveller – addressing concerns from visas to where to find familiar food.

Couple all that with fantastic photography and friendly writing, and we believe it’s the aspiring Indian traveller’s best friend.

It’s Black History Month in the USA and Canada, and to celebrate we at the SSSTS visited Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, one of the city’s most famous African-American neighborhoods. It’s an area still trying to shed its dated ‘Bed-Stuy, Do or Die’ image — as shown in Chris Rock’s ‘Everybody Hates Chris’ TV show set in the early 1980s — but visitors who do come these days find something entirely different: a stunning historic district of late 19th-century buildings (including Historic Stuyvesant Heights — centered on MacDonough Street between Tompkins and Stuyvesant Avenues); a welcoming scene of food, coffee and books on Lewis Ave; and a tight sense of community throughout.

Visitors considering a day should consider these options:

To Do. Weeksville. A stunning historic sight, ’secret New York’ per its director Pamela Green, is a short walk south into Crown Heights (via Utica Ave to Bergen St). Settled in 1838, this historic African American neighborhood thrived for a century, before getting lost in the new grid of streets by the mid 20th century. It was finally ‘found’ in 1968 by historians surveying the neighborhood by plane. Visitors can see three original buildings and learn about free African American life in the mid 19th century, and see a copy of Weeksville’s newspaper from 1866 (great front page: definition of God and the alphabet). Open Tue-Fri; check for July’s free Saturday concert series.

Other attractions include the Magnolia Tree (at 679 Lafayette Ave, between Marcy & Tompkins Aves) and the Brooklyn Children’s Museum in Crown Heights.

Food. Peaches is Bed-Stuy’s most popular eating place, great for shrimp and grits, or po’ boys, while the terrace and cozy interiors of Bread Stuy,  next door, is the local go-to for coffee, snacks and long chats.

Sleep. Yes, Bed-Stuy is a rising area to base a New York trip in. Akwaaba Mansion is one of the city’s greatest B&Bs, lavishly set in an 1860s mansion, while there are excellent-value short-term rentals (from $175/night) in a private, fully stocked brownstone apartment owned by local artist TRUE in Stuyvesant Heights.

JD Salinger died yesterday, and many are remembering the reclusive New York writer through his most famous character: Holden Caulfield. (This is the best article on Holden’s New York.)

In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden offers an immortal two-day walking tour of New York City in December 1949. The scene that stands out the most isn’t the Greenwich Village jazz club, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, slimy bars — but the several mentions of another: Central Park South’s pond. He wonders where the ducks go when it freezes. There’s some symbolism there, I think. So I went to check.

* For more itinerary ideas across the south, see our The Carolinas, Georgia & The South Trips guide.

SAND LOVERS!

Do we agree on what a ‘dream beach’ is? My friend Assen in Sofia, Bulgaria, prefers the quiet, rocky cliffs in northeastern Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast to the soft sandy ones in the center and south. Dennis Adams, a historian at South Carolina’s Beaufort County Library, wrote an interesting overview of where sand comes from, told me, ‘It’s all a matter of taste. Someone who runs likes Florida’s spongy, harder sand; those who want to just stick their toes in the sand like looser sand, like here at Hilton Head.’ (His preference was for something other than the pebbly beaches of the French Riviera.)

But the king of the arenophiles — ’sand lovers,’ yes I just learned the phrase — is Michael Welland, a veteran British geologist, who started making a traveler’s guide to landscapes, and ended up with (something of a traveler’s guide to) sand itself. His 2009 book Sand: The Never-Ending Story gets my vote for the best beach read for anyone wanting to know what they’re sitting on — and just how much life lurks in a cup full of sand.

Turns out sand — that essential ingredient of most of our dream beaches — has nothing to do with a substance (though quartz particles make up 70% of the world sand grains), but is defined only by size: sand is a particle between 0.6mm and 2.0mm in diameter. And that’s it. Can be volcanic rock, coral, shells, quartz, even chewed-up shells passed through the digestive system of parrot fish. Think I prefer the former options.

I grew up in landlocked Oklahoma. The sea, for a long while, was filled with a water that makes a bad stew and animals that wanted to kill you. I overcame my fear eventually. One of my favorite experiences was at empty beaches near fishing villages at remote northwestern coast of the Vietnamese island Phu Quoc. One local had set up a shack that sold coconuts, grilled fresh fish, had a German shepherd to play with, and hammocks to sway in. I had the shack and the surf to myself.

–> What’s your dream beach?

The Inca Trail had, as of yesterday, been closed and it is unclear when it will open again. Those walking it abandoned their trek. This is the rainy season in the area and the trail is closed during February, but these conditions are extreme.

There are regular updates appearing in this Thorn Tree post

BBC news and this post over on Latin America Traveler is also updating frequently. Our Twitter feed will also keep updated.

- Tom Hall

In some cases being Capital of Culture takes somewhere well-known and gives it a bit of oomph for a year Liverpool, the arts hotspot of north-west England saw visitor numbers double in 2008 when it took its turn.

In others, light gets shone on a smaller, under-appreciated and under-visited spots who pull out all the stops for the year. Graz in Austria (2003), Cork, Ireland (2005) and Genoa, Italy (2004) fit in here.

Then there are the seemingly unlikely nominations which plump not for a particular city but identify an area which may or may not have existed before, which remains obscure for a year, then fades rapidly from memory.  And here we must single out for special praise the Greater Region. No, I hadn’t heard of it either and you won’t find it in an atlas. It covers the German-speaking areas between the Rhine, Mosellle, Saar and Meuse rivers. It was bursting with culture in 2007. I’m not too sure about now.

This year’s picks tick all the above boxes. For 2010, step forward İstanbul, Pécs in Hungary and Essen, representing the whole of Germany’s Ruhr Valley. Let’s have a closer look.

İstanbul, Turkey’s biggest city, needs little introduction. In fact, it’s tempting to wonder why one of the world’s greatest cities, high on most observer’s hot lists for the past few years needs another leg-up, but you can’t argue with the art, architecture and history found in what was once Constantinople. Even if you get no further than the historic core of Sultanahmet, home to Aya Sofya, you’ll feel the tag is justified. But there’s more, lots more to reward visitors this year.

Verdict: Turkish Delight

Pécs  (pronounced Peej) may be a harder sell, but only due to it being less well-known, which should arguably be the point of making somewhere a Capital of Culture in the first place. Probably justifying the whole point of the project,  it’s rocketed to the top of my must-see list. Lonely Planet Hungary author Steve Fallon describes it as ‘the jewel of provincial Hungary’ and as a ‘town of art’ with handsome churches and an excellent modern art museum. There’s also a marzipan museum, as sweet-toothed as it sounds. Click here for full details of events.

Verdict: Pécs you don’t need months in the gym to find perfect

Essen's central library: very funky

There’s post-industrial fun by the bucketload in Essen and the Ruhr Valley, which as this excellent Thorntree post notes merits only a measly nine pages in Lonely Planet Germany. So we’re under the radar here, with 52 communities in the Ruhr holding the torch for a week with Essen nominally the cultural HQ for the year. Expert traveller and Essen-fan Nautiker notes that it’s not all re-imagining coal-pit towers (though that sounds pretty amazing) and that you’ll find ‘castles and parks, half-timbered houses and old churches, cobbled streets and panoramic views’ scattered throughout the region. Here’s a complete listing of what’s going on as part of the celebrations.

Verdict: Essen-tial

Visit all three capitals and you’ll have a pretty fine year of European travel Or you could save your pennies and keep your fingers crossed that Urban South Hampshire, better known as Portsmouth and Southampton, England, get the gig in 2013.

While I’m here, a mention for Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, and Doha, Qatar – American and Arab cities of culture respectively. What no Australasian Capital of Culture? Join the fun, non-represented continents!

~ Tom Hall