Affordable Travel

The New River runs through West Virginia, Virginia, and northwestern North Carolina, and is considered by experts to be the 2nd oldest river in the world, next to the Nile, in spite of its contradictory name. This river is a great one for canoe trips or fly fishing, and as it runs through the section in southern VA and NC, it is only about four feet deep in most places. Smooth cobblestones line its floor, from centuries – some would millions of years – of water flowing upstream in this part of the “New”. The New River actually flows northward, or upstream, making it one of the most eccentric rivers on the planet.

Thanks to its beauty and popularity as a scenic vista, the river has become somewhat endangered. Real estate developers have built so many homes alongside the river that the run off of pollution from lawn fertilizers and the lack of natural vegetation (from clearing off lots) has caused the oxygen levels of the river to shrink, and now it is in danger of dying. Efforts by local environmental groups are trying to stave off this impending demise, however, and some towns along the New River have actually increased their economic base through tourism based on making the river pristine again.

If you are in the vicinity of the New River, head to West Jefferson, NC and you can enjoy the river inside the New River State Park, where camping and hiking are the popular pastimes.

Vincent Van Gogh lived in Holland, and thanks to the support of his brother Theo, who kept sending Vincent money to help him stave off abject poverty, Vincent continued his passionate pursuit of painting. His paintings are considered by many to be the greatest in history, and their distinguishing brush strokes – swirling and moving around the canvas in repeated patterns – are best appreciated up close and personal. Printed copies or photos of the paintings cannot capture their life and texture, and a trip to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam will bring them into focus in a stunning and captivating way.

The entrance fee is minimal, and once you enter the museum, you are confronted by room after room, thousands of square feet of gallery space, all dedicated to the paintings of Van Gogh. The collection includes many of his most famous works, the kind that you will find in art history textbooks but may not ever see in another museum.

It is worth a special trip to Amsterdam just to see this one museum. And if you are a fan of Picasso, you will be glad to know that in one of the last gallery rooms in the Van Gogh museum, there is a nice collection of early Picasso sketches and drawings. All in all, the time spent in the Van Gogh museum is a once in a lifetime experience, and you should dedicate as many hours and days as possible for touring the museum to see these incredible paintings.

Until country diva Dolly Parton bought a large tract of line in Pigeon Forge, TN, nobody had every heard of the place. Now people come from as far away as Japan and Australia, to visit this country and western theme park dedicated to the music and celebrity of Dolly Parton, who is known as much for her well endowed chest as she is for her well endowed vocal chords. The place is like most tourist trap amusement parks, in that it has an abundance of places within it to take children on rides like you might see at a carnival, it has plenty of ways for you to part with money buying cheap and tacky looking souvenirs and memorabilia, and it has lots of ways to eat – everything from cotton candy to chocolate fudge, and foot long hotdogs and chicken fried steak.

The Dollywood destination is a place for people of all ages, and whether or not you like country music, you are bound to be somewhat enthralled by everything this place has to offer. It is part Coney Island, part Grand Ole Opry, and everyone from newlyweds on their honeymoons to punk rockers looking for roots music ends up crossing paths inside the gigantic complex, which is situated near the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So come one, come all, and be sure to bring a really comfortable pair of walking shoes, because you will walk yourself silly within the confines of Dollywood.

Hot days in India are pretty much every day, and if you venture down south, India has temperatures that can literally allow you to fry an egg on a stone in the middle of the day. In fact, there are legendary stories – difficult to verify as true or false – that there are breezes in India that are so hot that if you are hit by one, you will die on the spot. But not to worry, there are ways to escape the heat of the summer sun in India that gave rise to the phrase “only fit for mad dogs and Englishmen”. But beware of how you deal with the heat, because another thing that can and will make you very uncomfortable is the stomach bug so common for tourists in India.

The first thing you want to do – and the most important thing to do from a health standpoint – when you feel too hot is to hydrate your body with a cool drink of water. The more you drink water, the more your body can deal with oppressive heat. But if you drink ordinary tap water in India, you are also ingesting lots of microbes that might make you sick. So it is advised to always drink bottled and purified water, instead. So if you are suffering from the heat, and someone offers you ice to add to your water, beware. The ice was made from water, too, and may contain ordinary tap water. If you drink and iced drink, even if it doesn’t have any other water in it, you can accidentally get sick from the ice in the drink. To be really safe, drink fresh coconut milk, straight from the coconut.

If you go south from western NC into SC, en route to Greenville, SC, you might encounter a crossroads town with a very interesting name. Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina was established in the late 1800s as a place for people going back and forth across the mountains to stop and spend the night. The first businesses there to cater to travelers were inns that served meals and drinks. Soon the place became a popular stopping spot for the drovers who herded livestock through the area, as they tried to get chickens, pigs, cattle, horses, sheep, and other commodities to markets in other towns.

Eventually the little settlement grew into a full-fledged town, and the name Traveler’s Rest endured. Nowadays you can still travel through and get some rest at one of the local motels, most of which are rather simple and border on being somewhat seedy. There are a few eating places there, most notably the little roadside diners that specialize in barbecue, and the rest of the town is pretty much dedicated to a hodge podge of farming, light industry, and Mom and Pop businesses to serve the little community of Traveler’s Rest.

One thing that’s fun to do if you find yourself on the road near there is to stop for a meal or for the night in Traveler’s Rest and buy postcards to send to your friends. Tourists enjoy sending picture postcards, and everyone appreciates a message written from a place named Traveler’s Rest, from a loved one who is away from home.

In Asheville, NC, the historic Grove Park Inn & Spa is one of the premier places to stay. The enterprise began as an inn, some 100 or more years ago, and celebrities, heads of state, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary people have stayed there over the years, including many movie stars and members of royal families. The inn became well known for its lobby or great room, because it has a fireplace so big that a man can stand up and walk around inside it. The inn recently added a world class health spa, complete with waterfalls and whirlpool bathing facilities, so you can relax in the underground spa and be pampered to your heart’s content. The Spa includes services like massage, facials, hair cuts, and also has a swimming pool where you can sit in the open air looking out over distant mountain ranges, and enjoy a bottle of champagne.

The inn is a full resort, with golf, tennis, hiking, and other recreational activities available. There is a ballroom for dancing, a terrace bar for watching the sunset while sipping a mint julep drink, and there are many conference rooms for holding corporate meetings, wedding receptions, art exhibits, and the like. You can book rooms or suites, and although the prices are steep, the amenities are numerous. If you stay in the inn, you can also take advantage of discounted rates at the health spa. Or if you are staying elsewhere, you can book a day for yourself at the spa, as an outside guest, for about $150.

Tourists from countries like the USA, where modern infrastructures are taken for granted, often love to visit ancient cities where the architecture, culture, art, and people have an ancient place in the world, and where visitors can feel transformed by the influence of antiquity. But some are shocked to find that the convenience they are accustomed to at home is not always available in these old cities. Somehow they assume that some things – like modern plumbing – have been around forever, and are around in every part of the world, today. But it’s just not so, and for people who have become accustomed to a kind of isolated view of the rest of the world, the absence of little comforts can be rather inconvenient, uncomfortable, and unnerving.

If you travel to an old city or country, don’t be surprised if the management of your hotel, restaurant, or guest house posts a sign telling you not to use toilet paper, for example. Or to use it but dispose of it in a trash can, and not flush it down the toilet. Although this strikes some tourists as horrifying, they are even more horrified to encounter a flooded, overflowing toilet, and the reason most toilets overflow in any country, modern or not, is due to blockage of the pipes. The problem with old plumbing systems is that the old pipes are smaller than modern plumbing, so they are not able to handle paper. It gets stuck and causes the plumbing to back up, and this is a problem that can be very difficult to fix, because the pipes are too small to easily clean out with plumbing tools.

So if you travel to a place with old buildings and old plumbing, keep in mind that the strange rules about flushing – or not – have a practical basis meant to prevent worse problems.

Once while touring Italy by bus, I stopped – along with the rest of the group on the bus – at the leaning tower in Pisa, long enough to climb its winding stairwell and view the agricultural landscape surrounding the ancient and world famous tower (that many foreigners think is name Pizza, thanks to the fact that Italy is home to both Pisa and Pizza). There was a light rain falling and the well-worn marble and stone walkways used for centuries by people who came before me to circumambulate the tower were wet from rain. The railing consisted of one small black iron pipe, fashioned into a railing waist high, and that was all I had to cling to, to keep from falling several stories through space to the ground below.

Once I got to the top, the rain was coming steadily, and although it was a light rain, the walkway was extremely slippery. At one point I did slip, and had to grab the two-inch diameter pipe railing to keep from plummeting to my death. I felt a bit embarrassed to have almost fallen off the leaning tower, until I got home and saw the news headlines. An article announced that “the Leaning Tower of Pisa will be closed for an indefinite length of time” because it had become hazardous, due to pronounced leaning. Architects and engineers from around the world were brought in to stabilize the tower, and eventually it was reopened to the public.

Merle Watson was a young musician, son of “Doc” Watson, when he died. In memory of his lost son, “Doc” created an annual music festival to celebrate the music that has made “Doc” a legend in the folk music scene. The festival began as a small gathering which used a flatbed truck for the main stage. Musicians played guitars, banjos, fiddles, and dulcimers, to a small audience of mostly local folks.

But the festival grew in popularity over the years, and now it is home to thousands of people who come from near and far to hear old time, bluegrass, and folk music played in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Wilkes Barre, NC. Famous names including Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Earl Scruggs have played the stages and shared them with musicians like Natalie MacMaster, Bella Fleck, and Arlo Guthrie, who are still well known in their own right. The festival takes place on the campus of a local community college, is well organized, and is one of the only festivals in the country that attracts a big “family” crowd, and prohibits alcohol on the premises. Local members of the Rescue Squad, the public schools, and the various churches work alongside big corporate sponsors to supply the throngs with food and beverages, and many artists and crafts people show and sell their wares under lines of tents set up for that purpose.

Camping is also available for the many festival attendees who come from a long way away and prefer to sleep under the stars during the festival. For more info and details about attending the festival, visit the Merle Fest website, or call the Chamber of Commerce or the local tourist board in Wilkes County, NC.