In Transit Blog: A Makeover for the Affinia 50 in New York

Affinia 50, a 10-year-old hotel property in Manhattan's Midtown East neighborhood, has undergone a $20 million transformation. The 10-month renovation included an overhaul of the 251 guest rooms and public areas like the lobby, corridors and second-floor Club Room, which is a social space for guests.

The architect Nobutaka Ashihara and the interior design firm Dawson Design Associates are behind the new design, which is meant to emulate the feel of staying in a stylish city apartment. The rooms, for example, have touches such as bookends, throw pillows and paintings and photography from New York City artists.

Beyond the exterior changes, the property also has a series of new partnerships with local companies — FreshDirect will deliver ready-to-make meals to guests; NakedWines.com, an online community that supports independent winemakers, will host the hotel's nightly wine hour; and guests will also get access to the popular restaurant and club Lavo without waiting in its trademark lengthy line.

"With the new design and collaborations, we want to give our clients the feel of living like a New Yorker," Brian Gehlich, the general manager, said in a telephone interview.

Room rates from $340.

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T Magazine: Site to Be Seen | An Artistic Armchair Travel Platform That Visits the World’s Most Amazing Places

Growing up in rural Maine, the brothers Darrell and Oliver Hartman learned to love the outdoorsy, adventurous life from their dad, who was the director of the state's parks. Trips in early adulthood to places like Greece, Nicaragua and India ensured their passion for wanderlust, as did the jobs they pursued: Darrell, 32, is a lifestyle and travel writer; Oliver, 30, is a director for the production company North. Last year, the pair decided to combine talents to create a website that celebrates the kind of travel they like to do.

The platform, Jungles in Paris, offers curated, artistic documentary shorts and photo slideshows to draw attention to the world's most unique (and sometimes endangered) phenomena and lesser-known terrain. A quiet, enigmatic film of Uzbekistan's Aral Sea, almost entirely drained by Soviet-era infrastructure projects, captures the unlikely beauty of a dry ocean landscape. A selection of photographs presents the geisha tradition in Japan, emphasizing the centuries-old performance element and untangling the profession from its pop culture associations.

The Hartmans shoot some of the material, and rely on their own social network of photographers, filmmakers and journalists around the world to provide additional stories. Their influences, they say, include the documentary filmmakers Werner Herzog and Robert Gardner, the writer Peter Matthiessen and the behavioral scientists Jared Diamond and Robert Sapolsky. "Part of us wants to celebrate the place," Oliver says, "but then another part is celebrating the people who take the time to document it." In 2014, the brothers are planning adventures in Jamaica, Wyoming and Peru.

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Chasing the Northern Lights in Alaska

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Clockwise from top left: the Aurora Express train, the author looks for the northern lights, a view from the train, the aurora viewing hut at Chena Hot Springs.

We hurtled across the tundra in the dark. The old train chugged, rattled, occasionally whined. As the sun came up around 10 a.m., the world faded from black to cobalt to white and every shade between. All was snow; it was just a matter of how much, where, what shape. Black spruce trees draped in white rose up from the ground like crystals of hoarfrost.

"If you walked in that direction," I heard my father say, "you would die." I could not see in what direction he was pointing, but it didn't matter. He was right. In temperatures that hovered around zero, it would take several days to hike to the nearest town.

We were traveling north from Anchorage, where in early January there are more than six hours of daylight, to Fairbanks, where there are fewer than five. The Aurora Express, run by the Alaska Railroad once a week in the winter, takes 12 hours to traverse the more than 300 miles of forest, mountains and tundra between the two cities. One can fly from Anchorage to Fairbanks. One can drive. But there is no better way to wrap your head around Alaska in winter, the terrible beauty of its negative space, than by train — especially a three-car train led by a diesel locomotive that averages about 30 miles an hour.

At one point, midday, we made an unscheduled stop to pick up a man with two large dogs by the side of the tracks. The train will stop for anyone who flags it down, the conductor told us. For those who live in the wilderness between Fairbanks and Anchorage, the train is a lifeline. The man rode with us for a few hours, then got off in his snowshoes. His dogs gamboled in the deep powder as he cinched up his backpack for the hike to his cabin somewhere in the woods.

A few hours later, near sunset, I placed myself in the wide-windowed cafe car to take in the expanse of the Nenana River Valley. Mount McKinley loomed high in the clouds to the left, the Alaska Range on all sides. Rockfall was indistinguishable from a stand of far-off spruce, mere middle shades in the chiaroscuro before us. The Nenana itself was blue, frozen, shot with cracks, a vast marble walkway on the valley floor.

If you ask friends to tell you why they are planning to visit Alaska in the winter, they'll probably tell you they're going for the Iditarod. To ski. To catch a glimpse of the northern lights. Of the mere tens of thousands of vacationers to the 49th state in the winter (compared with more than a million in the summer), these are the most common reasons for visiting.

But some people will shrug, give a far-off look, and say, "I'd just like to see it." This is, perhaps, the truest reason of all. They come to reach out and touch, for a brief moment, the limits of human existence. To feel its chill and gaze into its twilight.

This was something I first began to understand as I sat in the cafe car of the Aurora Express at sunset, looking out on the snowscape. Across from me was Sam, a tourist from Taiwan who spoke almost no English. He strummed his ukulele. We began to sing "Let It Be" but could not remember all the words, so we sang the first verse and the chorus, over and over, louder each time. Other passengers joined in, filling the car. The sound was a comfort as we again slipped into darkness.

My family's reason for visiting Alaska last winter was typical: We came to the dark in search of the northern lights, the aurora borealis, those magnetic storms of ionized oxygen and nitrogen atoms that play across the sky like warring gods. Our back story, though, is not exactly typical: My father, a retired programmer, earned his Ph.D. in astronomy in the early '70s under Carl Sagan but never worked in the field. When I was a child, on clear nights when the magnetic activity was projected to be strong, my father would bundle us into the car and drive to Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park north of New York City on the off-chance that the aurora would be visible. These trips were our pilgrimages, our tests of faith in the idea that if we stood in a dark-enough spot at the right time, the heavens would open up and show what they held. Each time, my father kept us out in the cold until he could bear the complaints no longer. But we never saw the aurora. The heavens remained closed.

Ethan Todras-Whitehill is a frequent contributor to the Travel section.

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Personal Journeys: Traveling While Black

As I walked through the Forbidden City, the majestic imperial palace at the center of Beijing, with a friend and her teenager, I scanned the crowd. In the maze of shrines and courtyards, there was no one quite like us: I am an African-American with long dreadlocks, and my friend, Maria, a Mexican-American, had her half-Dominican son in tow.

And yet, we were nearly invisible — at least to the guards checking the bags of Chinese tourists, possibly for materials that could be used in protests at this landmark, which adjoins Tiananmen Square. We passed through checkpoint after checkpoint unhindered, while Chinese people were stopped and their bags searched. Sure, we got a couple of stares from people. But no one touched our hair, pointed or acted hostile — which has happened to me as a tourist even in the United States. Once again, my travels had taken me to a place — not just a physical but a mental place — where the rules as I knew them had changed.

That is partly what drives my wanderlust. And I am part of a sizable fellowship of African-Americans on a mission to see the world. Seventeen percent of African-Americans take one or more international trips a year, and we spend $48 billion on travel in the United States alone, according to the Mandala Research firm. That amount may be smaller than spending by other (not mutually exclusive) niche groups like LGBT travelers ($70 billion). But, according to analysts at MMGY Global, a marketing firm, black travel has rebounded since 2008, which is notable considering that the great recession doubled the gap between black and white wealth. When you look at per capita income, our travel spending is significant.

Yet for all of that buying power, major hospitality companies and tour operators often steer clear of targeting African-Americans. After all, it's complicated. Hoteliers are promoting women-only floors, but that idea would be anathema to black travelers, who are concerned about getting equal and respectful treatment from staff members. Similarly, tour operators pushing gay-friendly getaways would not be wise to advertise trips as "black-friendly."

We are a niche that it seems shouldn't exist in a country that aspires to be postracial. As a result, minority travelers are mainly paving our own path, guided by ourselves, our social and professional networks and by bloggers. We are a largely untapped market, exploring the world without being aggressively sold an itinerary on how to do it. That means there are few guidebooks or tour operators to prepare me for the moment of surprise that I experienced in the Forbidden City. And it is one of the reasons that travel right now feels more freeing than ever.

For African-Americans, domestic and international exploration used to be filled with significant roadblocks. From the late 19th century until the civil rights era, the lack of parity in pay left African-Americans with little to spend on leisure (a disparity that continues to this day); segregation meant substandard seats and service on public transportation; and finding lodging on the road if you were black, in particular, was a challenge, especially in the South. "The Negro Traveler's Green Book" was published from 1936 until 1964 to give black travelers a list of places where it was safe to stay and to stop. Published by a postal worker named Victor H. Green, the book was used by thousands of African-Americans as they crisscrossed the United States by car. Green optimistically wrote in one edition: "There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States."

As part of the generation that came after Green's last edition, I was raised to believe that the world was mine by my Zimbabwean father and my African-American mother, a Baltimore native who headed off to Morocco to serve in the Peace Corps. When I was 5, I traveled with my mother and younger sister to visit my father's family in what was then apartheid-like Rhodesia. I remember meeting my grandparents and scores of cousins, many of whom did not speak English, and sitting with the family at sunset, eating chewy maize roasted over the fire.

Farai Chideya is an author, broadcaster, and journalism professor at New York University. She blogs at Farai.com.

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Chasing the Northern Lights in Alaska

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Clockwise from top left: the Aurora Express train, the author looks for the northern lights, a view from the train, the aurora viewing hut at Chena Hot Springs.

We hurtled across the tundra in the dark. The old train chugged, rattled, occasionally whined. As the sun came up around 10 a.m., the world faded from black to cobalt to white and every shade between. All was snow; it was just a matter of how much, where, what shape. Black spruce trees draped in white rose up from the ground like crystals of hoarfrost.

"If you walked in that direction," I heard my father say, "you would die." I could not see in what direction he was pointing, but it didn't matter. He was right. In temperatures that hovered around zero, it would take several days to hike to the nearest town.

We were traveling north from Anchorage, where in early January there are more than six hours of daylight, to Fairbanks, where there are fewer than five. The Aurora Express, run by the Alaska Railroad once a week in the winter, takes 12 hours to traverse the more than 300 miles of forest, mountains and tundra between the two cities. One can fly from Anchorage to Fairbanks. One can drive. But there is no better way to wrap your head around Alaska in winter, the terrible beauty of its negative space, than by train — especially a three-car train led by a diesel locomotive that averages about 30 miles an hour.

At one point, midday, we made an unscheduled stop to pick up a man with two large dogs by the side of the tracks. The train will stop for anyone who flags it down, the conductor told us. For those who live in the wilderness between Fairbanks and Anchorage, the train is a lifeline. The man rode with us for a few hours, then got off in his snowshoes. His dogs gamboled in the deep powder as he cinched up his backpack for the hike to his cabin somewhere in the woods.

A few hours later, near sunset, I placed myself in the wide-windowed cafe car to take in the expanse of the Nenana River Valley. Mount McKinley loomed high in the clouds to the left, the Alaska Range on all sides. Rockfall was indistinguishable from a stand of far-off spruce, mere middle shades in the chiaroscuro before us. The Nenana itself was blue, frozen, shot with cracks, a vast marble walkway on the valley floor.

If you ask friends to tell you why they are planning to visit Alaska in the winter, they'll probably tell you they're going for the Iditarod. To ski. To catch a glimpse of the northern lights. Of the mere tens of thousands of vacationers to the 49th state in the winter (compared with more than a million in the summer), these are the most common reasons for visiting.

But some people will shrug, give a far-off look, and say, "I'd just like to see it." This is, perhaps, the truest reason of all. They come to reach out and touch, for a brief moment, the limits of human existence. To feel its chill and gaze into its twilight.

This was something I first began to understand as I sat in the cafe car of the Aurora Express at sunset, looking out on the snowscape. Across from me was Sam, a tourist from Taiwan who spoke almost no English. He strummed his ukulele. We began to sing "Let It Be" but could not remember all the words, so we sang the first verse and the chorus, over and over, louder each time. Other passengers joined in, filling the car. The sound was a comfort as we again slipped into darkness.

My family's reason for visiting Alaska last winter was typical: We came to the dark in search of the northern lights, the aurora borealis, those magnetic storms of ionized oxygen and nitrogen atoms that play across the sky like warring gods. Our back story, though, is not exactly typical: My father, a retired programmer, earned his Ph.D. in astronomy in the early '70s under Carl Sagan but never worked in the field. When I was a child, on clear nights when the magnetic activity was projected to be strong, my father would bundle us into the car and drive to Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park north of New York City on the off-chance that the aurora would be visible. These trips were our pilgrimages, our tests of faith in the idea that if we stood in a dark-enough spot at the right time, the heavens would open up and show what they held. Each time, my father kept us out in the cold until he could bear the complaints no longer. But we never saw the aurora. The heavens remained closed.

Ethan Todras-Whitehill is a frequent contributor to the Travel section.

17.36 | 1 komentar | Read More

In Transit Blog: A Makeover for the Affinia 50 in New York

Affinia 50, a 10-year-old hotel property in Manhattan's Midtown East neighborhood, has undergone a $20 million transformation. The 10-month renovation included an overhaul of the 251 guest rooms and public areas like the lobby, corridors and second-floor Club Room, which is a social space for guests.

The architect Nobutaka Ashihara and the interior design firm Dawson Design Associates are behind the new design, which is meant to emulate the feel of staying in a stylish city apartment. The rooms, for example, have touches such as bookends, throw pillows and paintings and photography from New York City artists.

Beyond the exterior changes, the property also has a series of new partnerships with local companies — FreshDirect will deliver ready-to-make meals to guests; NakedWines.com, an online community that supports independent winemakers, will host the hotel's nightly wine hour; and guests will also get access to the popular restaurant and club Lavo without waiting in its trademark lengthy line.

"With the new design and collaborations, we want to give our clients the feel of living like a New Yorker," Brian Gehlich, the general manager, said in a telephone interview.

Room rates from $340.

17.36 | 0 komentar | Read More

T Magazine: Site to Be Seen | An Artistic Armchair Travel Platform That Visits the World’s Most Amazing Places

Growing up in rural Maine, the brothers Darrell and Oliver Hartman learned to love the outdoorsy, adventurous life from their dad, who was the director of the state's parks. Trips in early adulthood to places like Greece, Nicaragua and India ensured their passion for wanderlust, as did the jobs they pursued: Darrell, 32, is a lifestyle and travel writer; Oliver, 30, is a director for the production company North. Last year, the pair decided to combine talents to create a website that celebrates the kind of travel they like to do.

The platform, Jungles in Paris, offers curated, artistic documentary shorts and photo slideshows to draw attention to the world's most unique (and sometimes endangered) phenomena and lesser-known terrain. A quiet, enigmatic film of Uzbekistan's Aral Sea, almost entirely drained by Soviet-era infrastructure projects, captures the unlikely beauty of a dry ocean landscape. A selection of photographs presents the geisha tradition in Japan, emphasizing the centuries-old performance element and untangling the profession from its pop culture associations.

The Hartmans shoot some of the material, and rely on their own social network of photographers, filmmakers and journalists around the world to provide additional stories. Their influences, they say, include the documentary filmmakers Werner Herzog and Robert Gardner, the writer Peter Matthiessen and the behavioral scientists Jared Diamond and Robert Sapolsky. "Part of us wants to celebrate the place," Oliver says, "but then another part is celebrating the people who take the time to document it." In 2014, the brothers are planning adventures in Jamaica, Wyoming and Peru.

17.36 | 0 komentar | Read More

Personal Journeys: Traveling While Black

As I walked through the Forbidden City, the majestic imperial palace at the center of Beijing, with a friend and her teenager, I scanned the crowd. In the maze of shrines and courtyards, there was no one quite like us: I am an African-American with long dreadlocks, and my friend, Maria, a Mexican-American, had her half-Dominican son in tow.

And yet, we were nearly invisible — at least to the guards checking the bags of Chinese tourists, possibly for materials that could be used in protests at this landmark, which adjoins Tiananmen Square. We passed through checkpoint after checkpoint unhindered, while Chinese people were stopped and their bags searched. Sure, we got a couple of stares from people. But no one touched our hair, pointed or acted hostile — which has happened to me as a tourist even in the United States. Once again, my travels had taken me to a place — not just a physical but a mental place — where the rules as I knew them had changed.

That is partly what drives my wanderlust. And I am part of a sizable fellowship of African-Americans on a mission to see the world. Seventeen percent of African-Americans take one or more international trips a year, and we spend $48 billion on travel in the United States alone, according to the Mandala Research firm. That amount may be smaller than spending by other (not mutually exclusive) niche groups like LGBT travelers ($70 billion). But, according to analysts at MMGY Global, a marketing firm, black travel has rebounded since 2008, which is notable considering that the great recession doubled the gap between black and white wealth. When you look at per capita income, our travel spending is significant.

Yet for all of that buying power, major hospitality companies and tour operators often steer clear of targeting African-Americans. After all, it's complicated. Hoteliers are promoting women-only floors, but that idea would be anathema to black travelers, who are concerned about getting equal and respectful treatment from staff members. Similarly, tour operators pushing gay-friendly getaways would not be wise to advertise trips as "black-friendly."

We are a niche that it seems shouldn't exist in a country that aspires to be postracial. As a result, minority travelers are mainly paving our own path, guided by ourselves, our social and professional networks and by bloggers. We are a largely untapped market, exploring the world without being aggressively sold an itinerary on how to do it. That means there are few guidebooks or tour operators to prepare me for the moment of surprise that I experienced in the Forbidden City. And it is one of the reasons that travel right now feels more freeing than ever.

For African-Americans, domestic and international exploration used to be filled with significant roadblocks. From the late 19th century until the civil rights era, the lack of parity in pay left African-Americans with little to spend on leisure (a disparity that continues to this day); segregation meant substandard seats and service on public transportation; and finding lodging on the road if you were black, in particular, was a challenge, especially in the South. "The Negro Traveler's Green Book" was published from 1936 until 1964 to give black travelers a list of places where it was safe to stay and to stop. Published by a postal worker named Victor H. Green, the book was used by thousands of African-Americans as they crisscrossed the United States by car. Green optimistically wrote in one edition: "There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States."

As part of the generation that came after Green's last edition, I was raised to believe that the world was mine by my Zimbabwean father and my African-American mother, a Baltimore native who headed off to Morocco to serve in the Peace Corps. When I was 5, I traveled with my mother and younger sister to visit my father's family in what was then apartheid-like Rhodesia. I remember meeting my grandparents and scores of cousins, many of whom did not speak English, and sitting with the family at sunset, eating chewy maize roasted over the fire.

Farai Chideya is an author, broadcaster, and journalism professor at New York University. She blogs at Farai.com.

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In Transit Blog: Is This a Solution to Uncomfortable Airplane Seating?

Air travelers in first and business class are accustomed to a certain amount of choice when it comes to seating, but that kind of control may be available to economy passengers in the future.

A concept for a new adjustable economy airline seat was recently announced by Seymourpowell, a London-based design company. Called Morph, the seat was developed to adapt to the changing needs of passengers by providing a more customized fit and offering choice over the amount they pay by charging more for wider seats and less for narrower ones.

The idea provides an alternative to the standard economy seat, the company said, which is typically designed for average-size passengers but frequently fits relatively few properly.

"The economy cabin, in general, is a pretty disappointing experience for most passengers," Jeremy White, head of transport for Seymourpowell, said in an email. "We wanted to challenge the pre-existing norm and offer a fresh perspective on this area of the cabin."

Mr. White said the idea was also a reaction against airlines adding an extra seat to rows in economy class,  making each seat narrower.

The adjustable seat works by replacing traditional foam pads with flexible fabric stretched across the width of three seats, around a frame and over formers, the moveable element behind the fabric that changes its shape. The fabric is clamped down by armrests and upper dividers. By moving formers, the fabric is morphed to increase or decrease the width of seats, as well as the height and depth of the seat surface.

For example, when families travel together, adults could widen their seats and make their children's seats narrower. The concept also takes into account needs other than size. A business traveler who needs to work on the flight or a mother nursing a child might seek more privacy and be willing to spend more for additional space.

The company said the adjustable seats will be good for the airline industry, too. Airlines could arrange the economy cabin by people's willingness to pay for space, but without a reduction in capacity.

"Morph offers passengers choice and therefore a chance to affect their own experience," Mr. White said. "For the airlines it provides flexibility in how they operate the space, blurring the boundaries between classes on a seat by seat basis."

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In Transit Blog: Israel by Foot (and Bike and Sea)

From January to March 2014, Israel will host five races throughout the country – - three marathons, a half-marathon and an Ironman triathlon.

The marathons include one along the Sea of Galilee (Jan. 10), which is run at 650 feet below sea level; one in Tel Aviv (Feb. 28), which takes runners through the city and along beaches; and another through Jerusalem's historic sites (March 21).

The Ironman (Jan. 17) will be held in the Red Sea resort town of Eilat (it also has a half-Ironman option), while the half-marathon will be run on Feb. 7
or 8 in Ein Gedi along the Dead Sea.

According to Haim Gutin, the Israel commissioner for tourism in North and South America, the races are meant to attract visitors adding  that this is the highest number the country has ever held during these months. "Normally we do one or two, but we are making an effort to bump them to draw in more people," he said in a phone interview. "The weather is the most comfortable compared with the rest of the year, and through participating in them, tourists have a chance to connect with locals."

---

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 31, 2013

An earlier version of this post misstated the location of the Ein Gedi half-marathon. It will take place along the Dead Sea, not the Red Sea.

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