Tag: tourism

Camping near NYC

All of these campgrounds are no farther than 3 hours from NYC, because you know that really means 4-5 hours.

Trippy Tippy Hippy Van

Why not a vehicle on its side? But, how? You can’t see through a roof. You can’t see through an undercarriage. Most vehicle bodies are much wider than they are tall, which means they will be far too narrow once flipped onto their sides. My first thought was that it needed to be both iconic, and a vehicle prone to rollovers for the visual gag to really work. But with such restrictive design parameters, which vehicle? A typical conversion van would have the longer, raised roof required, but offered nothing in the way of real aesthetic appeal, and most are far too heavy. What van has both a smaller body, a raised roof, and a look that is at once both iconic and desirable? The answer finally popped into my head—it had to be a classic Volkswagen Type 2 Westfalia camper van.

Uzbekistan

It’s everybody’s favorite vacation getaway: Uzbekistan! I knew almost nothing of Uzbekistan before my visit there so everyday was a cascade of surprises. While Americans think of Central Asia as the most remote places possible, people in Uzbekistan see themselves as at the center of the universe. They’ve been farming there for 6000 years, and everyone has passed through over the centuries. I was so delighted I could as well.

Medical Tourism SEZ

The Chinese government have set up a special economic zone for medical tourism. Hainan Boao Lecheng international medical tourism pilot zone, the first of its kind in the country, was approved by the State Council in 2013. It enjoys 9 preferential policies, including special permission for medical talent, technology, devices and drugs, and an allowance for entrance of foreign capital and international communications. The pilot zone also has permission to carry out leading-edge medical technology research, such as stem cell clinical research.

Parents in Town, Day 5

Not that any combination of foot maladies could stop these unfashionable juggernauts. Though The People of New York v. Their Families clearly states that parental visits “may not exceed 4 days, although 3 is honestly ideal,” it was somehow now Day 5 of parents-in-town. We had crossed a dangerous threshold, into a netherworld where there wasn’t really anything left to do. A desperation took hold of us all—my stepfather, wielding a rolled-up copy of Time Out like a truncheon, began to suggest truly depraved activities. A visit to the Botanical Garden loomed.

Unban supersonic travel

In 1973, shortly after Boeing abandoned the 2707, its Mach 3 government-funded competitor to the British- and French-made Concorde, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a rule banning supersonic transport over the US

2023-03-23: A new proposal

If we’re lucky, we’ll have a sonic boom standard implemented in the United States by the late 2030s.

There is a better way. Congress could repeal the supersonic ban this year in the FAA reauthorization act. I have proposed text along these lines:

Until such time as the FAA creates standards that allow supersonic aircraft to operate over the United States, civil supersonic flight shall be allowed as long as mean cruise sonic boom directly beneath the flight track is less than 90 PLdB for daytime operations or 80 PLdB for nighttime operations.

I think this proposal is very clever, if I do say so myself. It would change nothing overnight, because no aircraft that can do a cruise boom less than 90 PLdB exists.

What it would do is signal to the aviation industry that America is open for business. It’s time to build new low-boom aircraft. Manufacturers would start working on new designs, knowing that when they are ready to be certified there won’t be any further obstacles.