Affordable Travel

The Biglerville Pennsylvania food factory has been in operation for an entire 100 years, and was begun as a community cannery, in the middle of the prosperous and fertile agricultural land of Pennsylvania. Local farmers as long ago as 1910 would haul their produce - by horse drawn wagon, then model T trucks, and finally by modern transport, to the Biglerville Canning Company, which at first didn’t look like it would survive until the next harvest. It was only open a couple of years before it almost went broke and was sold to the Christian H. Musselman family, who are known today as the family that bottles all sorts of apple products like apple juice and applesauce.

About 40 years ago, the company became part of the PET Foods Corporation, and continued making juices along with various culinary sauces, jellies and fruit products. The company kept changing owners, but stuck to the thing it does best, which is bottling and canning Pennsylvania apples. If you want to tour the plant, it is open to visitors who can be guided through it and watch the production of apple juice, cider, canned apples, pie fillings, apple cider vinegar, and old fashioned apple butter. Nowadays it is owned by the Knouse Company, last we heard. But if you visit the old plant and call it the “Biglerville Plant” the old timers who have been there for decades will grin with appreciation and then show you around the historic plant. You can even get yourself a bottle of apple cider to help you quench your thirst as you continue your road trip through the curious little towns and historic places of the USA.

A trip to Hershey, especially if you have children or just a grown up sweet tooth, is like visiting the fabled chocolate factory in the children’s story - but this one is an actual town, with a real factory, where you can go and see how chocolates are made while tasting samples to your heart’s content.  One of the most popular pastimes for visitors is to take a tour of the Hershey facilities, which are fascinating for children and adults alike. Just watching the process of melting, pouring, shaping, decorating, and packaging hundreds of millions of bites of chocolate per day is enough to entertain anyone, and you will walk away with as many sweet treats as you would score on a really busy and lucrative Halloween trick or treat outing.

You can go to the Hershey’s Chocolate World exhibit, see the largest Candy Kiss in the world, or relax in the Chocolate Spa, where Cuban style body work and therapy is available to pamper you all day long. For less food-oriented activities you can play 18 holes of golf on the town’s excellent courses, visit a 10-acre wildlife zoo, or tour the historic and picturesque downtown. Hershey is considered one of the most desirable small cities to live in, and if it grows on you and you like the idea of smelling chocolate scented breezes all year ’round, you might check out the local real estate market with a view toward moving to the candy bar community

The customs offices of the world are great places to lose things, not by accident, but by deliberate and vigilant customs officials who confiscate those things that are not allowed into a country. If you are traveling with agricultural products, for instance, you might be surprised to find out that they can’t be imported, because of government regulations intended to help prevent the accidental importation of pests, bacteria, and other undesirables. After all, it is believed that some of the world’s great plagues were started by the transportation (unknowingly) of disease through agricultural products or the rodents and insects that tag along on them as little stowaway passengers.

Customs officers will usually require that you hand them a written document, filled out before you land and then turned in when you cross through customs, that states whether or not you are carrying such products. And they are willing to forgive innocent mistakes, without coming down on you as if you were a criminal smuggler. But that doesn’t mean they will let you break the law, either. If you have packed yourself a nice ham sandwich with lettuce and tomato for the arrival snack, you might end up handing it over - and the customs people will perhaps eat it for you at their own lunch break. Similarly, if you are carrying a dozen roses that your boyfriend gave you in the departure lounge, those might end up on a customs officer’s girlfriend’s breakfast table by morning, thanks to your losing them at the border. After all, they are agricultural products. So what if you want to bring some Holland bulbs back to grow tulips in your window boxes? The best thing is to have the florist sell them to you and handle the shipping themselves. And if you want to pack a lunch, bring one that is already sealed up, like an unopened snack bar or an unsealed package of nuts.

The Spanish are not only famous for taking ample breaks in the middle of the day to have siesta time, but they earn the need to have an afternoon nap because of the other thing they are world famous for, namely staying up late at night to party. It is traditional in Spain to eat a late dinner. And we are not talking about an hour or two into the evening. Perhaps because the climate is hot and the air sometimes begins to cool down close to midnight, it is common for Spaniards to sit down to their evening meal - and often a multi course feast is what it constitutes - as late as 10 or 11 o’clock in the night. For that reason, the bars offer plenty of food, and they have learned that because people like to hop from one bar to another, the food should be simple, like finger food and appetizers. Thus the popularity of the “tapas menu” which is a menu of small - often bite sized - but delicious and various offerings, which is usually served on the same bar where you go to order your cocktails. It is not unusual to walk to the bar and see platters with as many as fifteen or twenty different menu items for sale. You just grab what you like, pay for it, and enjoy it with a drink, before moving on to the next bar, where other similar menu items are spread out and waiting for you. For someone who likes to sample lots of different and exciting flavors in one night, it is the perfect way to make a big meal out of lots and lots of bite-sized “tapas” dishes.

The Bellevue is a great restaurant with higher prices than most in the city, but Prague is still known as one of the cheapest international cities for fine dining, so you might be pleasantly surprised by the menu, even if you are on a bit of a budget. The place is situated in a brick building with a turret, so it resembles a castle in a way, and has an elegant interior complete with thick velvet curtains and views of the river and the Prague castle visible from the lavishly appointed tables. The staff here makes everyone feel like royalty, and the service is all about attention to every detail of each customer’s needs. If you are there for a business dinner, your colleagues will feel more important than every; and if you are there for a romantic date, your date will feel as though she is the queen of the evening. The wine list is extensive and includes many good buys - Prague does have some wonderful wines of its own. And the goose, lobster, sturgeon, deer, and beef offer a whole selection of typically rich but flavorful local dishes of the finest caliber. The prices at the Bellevue are fixed, meaning that you pay one price and it includes three courses. For dessert the crŠme brulee and chocolate mousse are most popular, but you can also choose walnut ice cream or berries and cognac with ice cream. Call ahead for reservations, especially on weekend nights.

One of only two or three remaining operative in North Carolina, the Dellinger Grist mill is owned and operated by N.C. State graduate Jack Dellinger. He is a retired computer programmer who helped to create the software used to put the first American astronauts on the moon. Four miles east of Bakersville, NC, the 130-year-old Dellinger Grist Mill in the village of Hawk has been grinding cornmeal for four generations.
Founded by Reuben Dellinger in 1867 and renovated by his great-grandson Jack Dellinger beginning in 1997, the mill was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. From June to November, Dellinger operates the mill according to his family’s tradition, producing cornmeal the old-fashioned way. He also provides demonstrations and free tours of the mill. For Dellinger, operating the mill isn’t a profitable venture but more of a serious hobby. “I love to run the old mill, I guess I am mostly a preservationist. I love the old machinery and to tell the tales of my ancestors to visitors and tourists. Sometimes I think I must be crazy to run that mill,” he admits. “But shoot, I enjoy it, even if it is 90 percent manual labor and 10 percent expertise.”
Of course anywhere in the South, you can pull into a small diner and order up a plate or bowl of grits, any time of day, because this corn concoction is the staple of southerners. But chances are you will be served grits from a modern mill, that are easy and convenient to cook by just adding boiling water.

The Mayan culture of Central America, known around the world for the magnificent stone-stacked temples still standing in the middle of the rain forest jungles of Mexico and Guatemala, is the oldest indigenous culture in the world. As other civilizations have come and gone across the march of time, Mayan culture has not only withstood those who tried to conquer it, but has absorbed them into its ever-widening cultural heritage. The modern-day Mayans make the most intricate and colorful textiles in the world. Anthropologists and historians study the culture the Mayans celebrate in rituals of song, dance, culinary arts, and music, with both amazement and profound respect.
But few know the simplest beauty secret of the Mayans, and those who do tend to guard it for themselves. Read on, as we reveal it to you in all its sweet and natural simplicity.
In Central America, sugar cane is grown and harvested both as an exported cash crop and for local use in cooking. While visiting the ancient city of Antigua, Guatemala, a town renowned for its 500-year-old Spanish Colonial architecture and active volcanoes, we met a native woman with skin so perfect that she looked 10 years younger than her actual age. She was more than happy to share her beauty secret, and we were delighted to find out that it was not only simple, but that the necessary products were practically free, and available at every grocery store, coffee shop, and restaurant on the planet.
She taught us that the Mayans have used granulated sugar, particularly raw sugar, for hundreds of years, to exfoliate the skin in an organic way. So if you want to enjoy fun in the sun of Central America, but don’t want your skin to wrinkle, take a hint from the hosts, and add some sweet tonic to your skin.

The national beer of Guatemala is Gallo, a straightforward, somewhat dry, inexpensive brew that is made in batches small enough that the beer if not available for export. People who drink beer are not surprised that when they sit down in a bar in Guatemala, the server doesn’t ask if they’d like to order a beer or cerveza, but instead just asks “Would you like a Gallo?” because everyone assumes that if you want a beer, you want a Gallo beer.

The beer comes in brown glass bottles or in aluminum cans, with its logo of a black rooster – the Spanish word for rooster being “gallo” – and many people use up their entire quota of exportable duty free alcohol when leaving Guatemala, not on rum or tequila, but on cumbersome bottles of Gallo. You can even enjoy this beer at room temperature, the way Guinness is meant to be served, although it is best served ice cold in a chilled beer glass. Gallo is also available on tap in some bars, and is worth seeking out, because if the beverage is good from a bottle, it is phenomenal from a fresh tap.

So if you are looking for a good excuse to take a vacation, and are one of the many who enjoys a good beer in a tropical climate, then make your way to the land of perpetual sunshine, springtime, and great national beer, and find out why so many people go to Guatemala and then never return home again.

If you have heard about the Scottish whiskey distillery tours or the Micro Brewery tour guides written for those who want to travel the world in search of better beer, you already know that many travelers design their itineraries around drinks. One popular drink in the southern USA is homemade, illegal corn liquor. But because it is against the law to make and sell it, those who want to take a moonshine tour of the southern states will find that it requires underground research and lots of word of mouth directions. For instance, near the town of Johnson City, TN, there is a famous moonshine maker, but his name is kept a secret. Near Newport TN, there is a bar inside a private home, where moonshine is sold alongside other drinks, and the various kinds of moonshine are listed on the menu and on big boards behind the bar. But it is also kept a secret, to keep from being exposed to the authorities. A reporter for the Boston Globe newspaper attempted to learn more about the moonshine of the southern Appalachian mountains, but he had to be introduced to the “mountain dew” by local friends who connected him to their private sources.

If you travel through the region of Appalachia, and attend fiddle festivals and other country music gatherings, you will eventually find what you’re looking for. Moonshine is passed around campfires in jelly jars, and when you are offered it, you can test how good it is by shaking the jar to see if it produces little champagne bubbles – the more bubbles, the better. Be sure to ask where you can get more, if you want to take a jar home with you. But watch out for the law, because this is one kind of cocktail that you can’t order in your local watering hole.