Results tagged “travel”

New York businessman Joel Azumah wrote to DCist today to let us know that his discount bus line, modestly dubbed TransportAzumah, will be launching several new routes servicing D.C. this month. Refreshingly, these routes will not be servicing New York. Instead, Azumah plans to offer non-stop bus service from D.C. to Wilmington, Philadelphia and Boston.

Obviously, Tim Kaine wasn't wooed by the state GOP's plentiful YouTube skills -- representatives from the office of the Virginia Governor have denied the FOIA request made by the Republicans seeking details of his recent schedule, including travel he takes as head of the Democratic National Committee. According to Kaine's communications director, the "governor's working papers" are not included under the purview of the Freedom of Information Act. Stilted, the Republicans have changed course, now using the strategy of comparing Kaine to disgraced South Carolina governor Mark Sanford -- because obviously, traveling publicly as the head of a major party's committee is on par with fleeing the country for a week to meet your mistress.

It's almost time to hit the road for the shore, and AAA Mid-Atlantic has per usual put out its prediction for holiday weekend traffic. Bad news, area drivers: they're putting it a 4 percent increase over last year, and as we recall, last year was pretty terrible in its own right. An estimated 608,000 D.C.-area residents will be traveling by car this Memorial Day holiday weekend, versus 49,000 who will be flying. Please to consider carpooling, fellow travelers. We don't want to have to end up in a road rage-fueled shoulder-driving expedition followed by eventual arrest and the paying of big fines. It'd really put a damper on our BBQ plans.

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is out of town today, and once again, no one seems to know where he is. WTOP's Mark Segraves has been hammering away on the story all morning, first reporting that Fenty attended American University's NCAA basketball tournament game in Philadelphia last week without telling anyone, and then following up with news that the Mayor is AWOL again today, and his office won't even tell the D.C. Council where he is.

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray, who is second in the line of succession to the mayor and the second-highest ranking elected official in town, is in the dark.

Continue reading "Mayor Fenty Away on Another Secret Trip"

We don't normally bother with this sort of thing, but the TravelZoo newsletter recently sent out a bunch of awesomely cheap flights from D.C.. New York, Boston, Shanghai and more are all within your reach for really, really low prices on United. You have to book your flight by this Friday (8/8) to get the discounted fares, but you can travel through November. Since getting to the grocery store costs about $48 dollars these days, a $64 flight to Boston seems pretty notable. That's a whole lot cheaper than Amtrak, too.

Hopefully, you didn't miss us too much last week. But it seems that we weren't the only transit columnists that got stuck on Amtrak during last weekend's travel.

Happy Almost Holidays, Washington. With both Monday and Tuesday counting as a holiday for the federal government this year, most of D.C. is staring down a nice, long holiday break today. Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, federal holidays are great for a lot of other reasons besides a day off - you don't have to feed parking meters, for instance. But The Examiner reports that that fact isn't stopping people from shoveling coins into meters on holidays anyway, especially those fancy new multispace meters: last Veterans Day, the city collected nearly $1,500 from multispace meters. DDOT says it is going to put stickers on the new meters along K Street to remind people that they don't have to pay on holidays.

Our Pilgrim cousins to the north have been having all the wintry fun of late. While we sit here in the mid-Atlantic frantically wondering if we'll get snow instead of an annoying, ice-cold spritz, Boston gets about eight inches of commute-snarling precip. Why do they get all the snow AND all the good sports teams?

Christmas Eve falls on a Monday this year, so President Bush has ordered the federal government to close on Dec. 24., giving most federal employees an extra long weekend for the holiday. Many feds may be left out of the sweet deal, though: Bush's executive order states that department heads may order some employees to report to work on Dec. 24 "for reasons of national security or defense or other public need." Plus pretty much...

>> "More than 50 nonunionized workers rallied against the new Nationals ballpark this morning, angry that more District residents did not receive construction jobs." [WaPo] >> "I saw firsthand the fragile relationship that exists between Mayor Fenty and the City Council Members. I heard tales of a delayed Comprehensive Annual Financial Review , rising murder rates and a Chief of Police who feels burdened by a system that won't help her, proposals to close...

Given that this is bound to be a slow day at work, what better time for Gilbert Arenas and adidas to launch GilTV, undoubtedly the next phase of The Takeover. Included are four new commercials -- The Black President (above), Cooking With Gil, Agent Zero and Gilbert's Island -- all seemingly ripped right out of the pages of The Wizznutzz. Let's hope those guys are at least getting some royalty checks from this. On...

Still in the office, D.C.? Yeah, us too. We hope you're only sticking around because you don't need to travel this holiday season. If so, enjoy the empty halls, bask in the quiet, and call it a day early. If not — well, good luck on the roads and at the airport. It sounds like they're going to be predictably nasty. There Seems To Be Some Sort of Holiday Occurring: And consequently you can...

America by Air, the newest permanent gallery opened by The National Air and Space Museum, encompasses the entire history of flight and air travel in the United States, starting in 1914 and leading up to today. We know what you're thinking, "Isn't that what the whole museum is about?" And yes...it is. So Air and Space has managed to create an exhibit that is, in fact, a microcosm of itself, which is so damn postmodern...

The rush to get out of D.C. to family Thanksgiving celebrations has already begun, but if you're still reading DCist, you're probably still at work and planning on leaving within the next 72 hours. Whether opening up that military airspace will really make a difference at Washington area airports remains to be seen, but WMATA has announced a special Thanksgiving weekend schedule that could stand to help out many of you trying to take public...

So where does Anthony Bourdain – chef, writer, traveler - spend his night after bumping elbows with six of D.C.’s top chefs? Unsurprisingly, at Ben’s Chili bowl. Keeping true to his inclinations for “adventurous” eating, Anthony Bourdain visited famed Ben’s Chili Bowl Tuesday night after having MC’ed D.C.’s annual Capital Food Fight. “I loved it, it’s the kind of food I like,” responded Bourdain to a question during the Q&A session of his sold-out talk...

>> It's Halloween! Spooky, Scary! Despite the taxi strike, SoberRide is still offering free taxi rides for people who have had too much to drink celebrating the holiday: If you need a ride home between 8 p.m. tonight and 4 a.m. tomorrow morning, call 1-800-200-TAXI and you should be able to get a free ride home of up to $50. How long you'll have to wait for that ride is an open question, but...

As usual, you said a lot of funny and thought-provoking stuff last week. But like LeVar Burton, don't take our word for it, and read on for Georgetown protests, monkeyrotica running a museum, and GMU fraternities, among other things. ------ monkeyrotica would be an awesome director of the National Museum of Health and Medicine: The disorganized state of the Army Medical Museum is an example of vicious circle funding: hardly anybody visits the place because...

The Red Sox has permeated nearly every facet of Bostonist's lives. When they're not live-blogging the games, waxing poetic about the games, thanking Curt Schilling for his splendid work, or telling Dane Cook to watch his hair, they're watching certain presidential candidates hop on the Red Sox bandwagon (sorry, Gothamist). The Sox are so branded on the local brain that people are using the Series to spice up their sex lives. Speaking of spice, Bostonist...

This review was written by guest poster Eric Nuzum, a local pop culture commentator and author of The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula. Here's the reason why there have been more than 600 vampire films produced in the past 85 years: Vampires are the perfect metaphor. Tradition says that vampires don't cast reflections. But vampires are, in fact, reflections of what terrifies or titillates us, as well as what we...

Written by DCist Contributor Stephanie Taylor Travel + Leisure magazine has released their 2007 list of "America’s Favorite Cities", which ranks D.C. as sub-par in most categories when compared to 24 other U.S. cities. Evaluated by our own residents, we came in a lowly No. 23 on the hotness meter, and No. 22 on the stylish (that’s out of a 1-25 ranking, 25 = bad, not good.) Visitors ranked Washington No. 24 on the people-I-like-to-look-at...

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on DCist. AMEX Urban Adventures, because big cities are full of little adventures. Rogue Wave, playing the Black Cat on November 5th. World War Z, perfect as Halloween is coming up. Ambition Facing West, at the H Street Playhouse. Travelzoo, with its Top 20 list on travel deals. DC Vote, with an event on October 23rd (that's next Tuesday!). Busted Tees, where they're...

>> D.C. United star striker Luciano Emilio is neck and neck with the Chicago Fire's Cuauhtemoc Blanco for MLS Goal of the Week. Emilio scored his 20th goal of the season with an sensational left-footed volley. Be sure to vote. It's your civic duty. >> It's been exactly five years since the sniper shootings perpetrated by John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo began. [WTOP] >> "D.C. Council leaders will not hold up the...

>> Tickets are still available to see Argentine-Swedish songwriter and solo classical guitar player José González, he of the awesome indie cover songs (and a bunch of originals, too) play the 9:30 Club. Doors 7:30 p.m., $20, with James Blackshaw.

TUESDAY: Tomorrow is a treasure trove for science and sci-fi junkies. Our reviewer raved about The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula. Hear author Eric Nuzum muse on the undead at Wonderland Ballroom, 1101 Kenyon St. NW, which will offer drink specials, while Olsson's will have books for sale at the bar. Fangs and capes encouraged. 7 p.m. Over at Politics and Prose, author Ira Flatow will discuss his lengthily titled...

By DCist contributor Brett Gellman The Maryland Terrapins (2-2, 0-1 ACC) are coming off one of the most disappointing losses of the Friedgen era after surrendering a 21-point lead in the second half of last Saturday's game at Wake Forest. Late in the third quarter with Maryland up 21-3, Terps QB Jordan Steffy threw a red zone pass which was intercepted by Wake CB Alphonso Smith and subsequently returned for a school record 100 yard...

Neither Mozart nor Hockey Themed Washington works hard to burnish its dining credentials. D.C. fat cats who are literally fat need somewhere to eat, and they're not going to throw down lobbyist dollars for just any slop. No. D.C. is a dining destination, beckoning the up-and-coming chefs and their myriad foodie followers. People are noticing, too. From the New York Times to the National Geographic Traveler, we're a getting noticed -- enough so that a...

There's a scene in the action/horror film Blade: Trinity in which a resurrected Dracula, played with a considerable lack of energy by Prison Break's Dominic Purcell, wanders into a store that sells vampire-themed novelty items. For a second — just before Dracula kills everyone around and the movie switches back to another techno-saturated fight scene — it's amusing. Where did vampire lore begin and how did it result in countless terrible movies, action figures and...

As we noted yesterday, today is Patriot Day; so conceived to commemorate the 9-11 attacks—even though we Americans aren't the greatest at "commemorating," see: Veterans' Day, Memorial Day, etc. Just six years on, though, feelings are still raw and memories vibrant. Resiliency is a virtue of our citizenry however, and if nothing else, we can get a hearty laugh out of OBL's radical beard transformation, his decidedly porno 'stache, and threats of attack via the...

When traveling we have this urge to photograph everything we see. We don’t discriminate. We just point and click and hope to bring home a memory. What we mostly end up with is a collection of random shots of the every day, just in different locations. In Shift, now on view at Flashpoint, artist E. Brady Robinson has presented us with these familiar photographs of travel, highlighting brief moments in time and location.

No doubt you're just sick of all the traveling and lounging around on beaches you've done all summer. It's time to trade the coolers of Corona for free glasses of wine, and the sound of crashing waves for the amusing chatter of art scensters. The fall 2007 art season has begun!