Affordable Travel

If you want to visit the birth of American punk rock, go to the CBGB club at 315 Bowery Street, where such bands as the Ramones and Blondie got their start on the stage of what was once a rather dingy, seedy, and unknown little club. Punk poet Patti Smith, the rocking band Television, and groups including the Sex Pistols and New York Dolls were all regulars at the influential little hole in the wall. Now CBGBs attracts people from all over the world, not only for its high historical value but to pack the house for cutting edge bands that are still the bread and butter of the club. Back in the 70s and early 80s, the entire downtown of NYC was rather neglected, and as Joey Ramone once pointed out, those who went into NYC pretty much had the whole place to themselves because nobody else wanted to be there. Things have changed, and now any real estate even remotely near the city is sky high in price. Similarly, the old neighborhood of CBGBs club has “come up” a bit, and nearby tenants have begun to complain about the club’s noise and crowds. The landlord for the club has raised rent to keep up with the current real estate boom, and after the owner of CBGBs missed about $100,000 worth of rent payments, they ended up in high profile court case that caught the attention of music historians from around the world. For the time being the club is able to say open and continue its nightly music shows, but in the near future it may be forced to close down if the owner is not able to make the rent payments.

If you visit the farmlands of Pennsylvania, known for prize winning dairy cattle and rolling landscapes, you will eventually encounter the Amish people who were among the first to settle this part of the USA, and have been the last to change their original methods of living. Although around them the land prices have gone up, technology has changed the way the agricultural business is done, and the centuries have passed, the Amish people themselves have stuck to their roots and their old, religious lifestyle. They are one of the most self-sufficient communities on earth, and are skilled crafts people and excellent farmers. They generally avoid using electricity or motorized machines, instead doing their chores with hand tools and traveling by horse and buggy. Some of the old school carpenters still use block and tackle weights and drawing knives, instead of modern power tools, and the Amish not only grow the animals and crops they use to make their yarn and thread, but they also make their own clothing. You can visit their farms, buy fresh produce, home made cheeses and other dairy products, furniture that is hand made, and add books about Amish arts and crafts to your library, while touring the Amish countryside of Pennsylvania. Along the way you will enjoy viewing the state’s old covered bridges, tasting the hard pretzels that have long been a staple of Pennsylvania, and you can stay in one of the many old inns that dot the rural countryside.

Austin, Texas is the state capitol and has long been a “cool” town and a popular tourist destination. In the 1970s it was one of the most progressive towns in Texas, thanks in part to the local university and a hip and liberal college population. Then during the 80s the town grew into a rather robust little city, and as the population increased, so did the cost of living. But Austin still attracted people from all over the USA who came there to enjoy its great music scene, California-style social life, independent arts theatre, and proximity to natural wonders like the local swimming hole fed by a deep underground spring. As the university invested more and more money to expand its enrollment and popularity, the state government also grew, thanks to strong connections to politicians in Washington DC, including sitting presidents. Then during the 1990s, as a high tech sector moved to town and offered more jobs and an expanded business environment, so did the music industry. The popular television show “Austin City Limits” captured many of the local artists for the whole country to see, and eventually music moguls who found California too expensive relocated their studios to Austin. Now it is regarded as the “other Nashville” and provides the middle part of the USA with the most powerful music industry presence, competing head to head with the music markets of New York, Los Angeles, and Nashville. Because of these developments, the city’s popular nightclubs are packed on weekends and showcase some of the best talent in the nation.

Email is certainly the fastest, cheapest, and most convenient way to stay in touch as you travel away from home, and if you have an email account and can get access to the Internet in a library, cyber caf‚, hotel, or bookstore, you can check your email and send messages to others from almost anywhere on the planet. In order to use the same email account that you are used to using when you are at home or at your office, you should check with your service provider before you travel, and learn the methods they offer for using what is known as “web based” email. With this web-based feature, you can connect to the Internet from anywhere, and then go to the home page of the company that provides your Internet service at home. Once you are on the home page, you can follow the procedures - usually by just clicking on a few directional tabs to guide you to the part of the site where email is available - and check your email, the same you would check it from home. Because you are using a webpage of the company that provides your email service, you don’t have to worry about downloading to your own home based computer. And you can still take advantage of organizational features such as file folders for keeping copies of your emails, multiple email address aliases, and spam filters, while using the web based style email features. Some people get so used to using it while traveling that they keep using the home paged based web mail method even when they get home.