Top Ten Landscapes of the Silver Screen | Away.com

Author Laura Kiniry offers her choices for “must-see locations forever linked with their movie roles.” It’s good list with a few obvious choices (Salsburg and The Sound of Music), as well as less obvious ones (Bodega Bay and The Birds). If I were to create my own list I think I’d have a hard time leaving Lawrence of Arabia off of it, being quite possibly the most distinctive visual epic, and I would add the old Vienna of The Third Man.

That obviously begs the question of what I’d remove. I think I’d drop Star Wars and Tunisia from my list because Lawrence of Arabia offers a similar landscape and the Tatooine sequences in Star Wars were clearly inspired by David Lean’s masterwork. I’d probably also remove Petra (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) because it is very much a “set” in the film. It’s not Petra in the movie, so feels more like a movie location than one where the actual place is central to the story (as it Vienna very much is in The Third Man).

9 Best Foodie Walking Tours | AOL Travel

Here’s a little something for the gluttons. AOL highlights its favorite places in the United States to wander around and gorge yourself on fine food.

8 Destinations for the Solo Traveler | AOL Travel As with everything else, traveling alone has its pros and cons. Pros: No scheduling conflicts, you can choose every meal, not to mention grab all the glory of travel triumphs (and pitfalls) all to yourself. Cons: Safety is paramount, and there is the ever lingering feeling of loneliness that can turn a fabulous, delicious dinner into a slow form of torture. AOL’s suggestions aren’t all that adventurous. I’m not sure even one would qualify as “exotic,” although you could make an argument for Singapore, I guess. Still, there are some worthwhile suggestions. I can personally vouch for Norway’s solo travel virtues. When AOL writes, “Scandinavians love Scandinavia — particularly when they’re showing you around and lauding the delicious food and fascinating cultural scene,” they could not be more accurate. Despite stereotypes of stoicism, there is likely no more welcoming bunch than you’ll find in Norway. Conveniently, most of them speak better English than the average American. And while culturally it is notably homogeneous, the country is impossibly beautiful and varied. Case in point: On a train from Bergen to Oslo years ago, I met a girl on her way from Lapland to Oslo to attend university. She had lived in the far north of the country her whole life and this was her first time away. She was on that train for six hours, she told me, before she encountered her first tree. Yes, her first tree. This wasn’t like the first time someone saw snow or the ocean. This was a tree. Trust me, there are a lot of trees in Norway. Timber is one of Norway’s primary natural resources. And yet, because this girl had lived all along in Lapland, essentially in the Arctic Circle, she’d never seen a real living one with her own eyes. Remember, she was on her way to college. She was eighteen. Photo: Aker Brygge | Oslo, Norway | by The Wandering Chicken
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8 Destinations for the Solo Traveler | AOL Travel

As with everything else, traveling alone has its pros and cons. Pros: No scheduling conflicts, you can choose every meal, not to mention grab all the glory of travel triumphs (and pitfalls) all to yourself. Cons: Safety is paramount, and there is the ever lingering feeling of loneliness that can turn a fabulous, delicious dinner into a slow form of torture.

AOL’s suggestions aren’t all that adventurous. I’m not sure even one would qualify as “exotic,” although you could make an argument for Singapore, I guess.

Still, there are some worthwhile suggestions. I can personally vouch for Norway’s solo travel virtues. When AOL writes, “Scandinavians love Scandinavia — particularly when they’re showing you around and lauding the delicious food and fascinating cultural scene,” they could not be more accurate. Despite stereotypes of stoicism, there is likely no more welcoming bunch than you’ll find in Norway. Conveniently, most of them speak better English than the average American. And while culturally it is notably homogeneous, the country is impossibly beautiful and varied.

Case in point: On a train from Bergen to Oslo years ago, I met a girl on her way from Lapland to Oslo to attend university. She had lived in the far north of the country her whole life and this was her first time away. She was on that train for six hours, she told me, before she encountered her first tree.

Yes, her first tree.

This wasn’t like the first time someone saw snow or the ocean. This was a tree. Trust me, there are a lot of trees in Norway. Timber is one of Norway’s primary natural resources. And yet, because this girl had lived all along in Lapland, essentially in the Arctic Circle, she’d never seen a real living one with her own eyes. Remember, she was on her way to college. She was eighteen.

Photo: Aker Brygge | Oslo, Norway | by The Wandering Chicken

Visiting 10 of the Most Interesting Abandoned Places on Earth | AOL Travel Travelers looking for a getaway from the normal getaway should skip the sandy beaches to walk amid silent relics in Namibia, Chernobyl or an abandoned California gold mining town. These empty places may look like Scooby Doo set pieces, but they hold important clues to bigger mysteries about both the past and the future; the creep of urban decay and the necessity of memorializing tragedy. Sometimes history lives alone. —Saira Bajwa, AOL Travel Photo: Kolmanskop, Namibia | by Damien du Toit
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Visiting 10 of the Most Interesting Abandoned Places on Earth | AOL Travel

Travelers looking for a getaway from the normal getaway should skip the sandy beaches to walk amid silent relics in Namibia, Chernobyl or an abandoned California gold mining town. These empty places may look like Scooby Doo set pieces, but they hold important clues to bigger mysteries about both the past and the future; the creep of urban decay and the necessity of memorializing tragedy. Sometimes history lives alone.

—Saira Bajwa, AOL Travel

Photo: Kolmanskop, Namibia | by Damien du Toit

10 Weekend Getaways from Los Angeles | AOL Travel I was born and raised in Southern California and am still amazed by all of the truly worthwhile places to visit that are easily accessible by car from LA. AOL Travel offers a curious list of choices considering a few of them are actually in Los Angeles itself. They highlight obvious places (like Santa Barbara, San Diego and Big Sur) and some less celebrated locales (Ojai, Paso Robles), but don’t even touch on any of the nearby parks like Joshua Tree, Death Valley or Yosemite, or mountain towns like Big Bear and Mammoth. And they just as easily could have ventured out of state to Las Vegas, Scottsdale or Sedona, all of which are not terribly long drives. Photo: Novo Restaurant | San Luis Obispo
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10 Weekend Getaways from Los Angeles | AOL Travel

I was born and raised in Southern California and am still amazed by all of the truly worthwhile places to visit that are easily accessible by car from LA. AOL Travel offers a curious list of choices considering a few of them are actually in Los Angeles itself. They highlight obvious places (like Santa Barbara, San Diego and Big Sur) and some less celebrated locales (Ojai, Paso Robles), but don’t even touch on any of the nearby parks like Joshua Tree, Death Valley or Yosemite, or mountain towns like Big Bear and Mammoth. And they just as easily could have ventured out of state to Las Vegas, Scottsdale or Sedona, all of which are not terribly long drives.

Photo: Novo Restaurant | San Luis Obispo

12 Coastal Hotels with Stunning Shore Views | Frommer’s A hotel’s best amenity might be what you see out the window. From the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, and from Maine on down to Mexico, some properties are lucky enough to be able to capitalize on their shoreline real estate. Whether you’re on a windswept beach cove in the Pacific Northwest or on a lit-up stretch on the Jersey Shore, each region’s waterfront scene differs from the next. Either way, a jaw-dropping view of the shore from your hotel is a definite perk. —Kristine Hansen, Frommer’s Photo: Bodega Bay Lodge | Bodega Bay, California
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12 Coastal Hotels with Stunning Shore Views | Frommer’s

A hotel’s best amenity might be what you see out the window. From the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, and from Maine on down to Mexico, some properties are lucky enough to be able to capitalize on their shoreline real estate.

Whether you’re on a windswept beach cove in the Pacific Northwest or on a lit-up stretch on the Jersey Shore, each region’s waterfront scene differs from the next. Either way, a jaw-dropping view of the shore from your hotel is a definite perk.

—Kristine Hansen, Frommer’s

Photo: Bodega Bay Lodge | Bodega Bay, California

10 Best Summer Trips of 2011 | National Geographic

Looking for an out-of-the-ordinary destination for your summer vacation? Check out these 10 top trips, hand-picked by National Geographic Traveler editors as the best of summer 2011.

15 Great Hotels for History Lovers | AOL Travel

From balcony panoramas of World Heritage sites to hidden ancient baths in the basement, some hotels have that little something extra to really immerse their guests in history. So, where can one find these perfect places from which to enjoy the sites of cultures past?

—Kate Auletta, AOL Travel

Top 20 Travel Photography Books of All | Tripbase

Travel guides inspire you to get off the couch and explore the world, whilst looking at beautiful photographs instills a deeper sense of what a place is truly like.

To help stimulate your spirit of adventure, here are 20 of the very best travel photography books available.

—Christine, Tripbaseblog

11 Best Travel Apps | AOL Travel

AOL asked ShermansTravel for its picks for the best travel apps for the iPhone. They provide a pretty solid collection, several of which I’ve highlighted in my Traveling with the iPhone series.