Destination: New Mexico

More Fun With Bad Tourism Slogans

There’s never any shortage of laughs to be had at the expense of bad tourism slogans, is there? This Just In has been collecting readers’ suggestions for the very worst, and they’ve got some great ones. My favorite? The reader who submitted Santa Fe’s slogan, “The City Different,” and wrote: “‘The City Different’ is the slogan lousy.”


For the Love of Minor League Baseball

For the Love of Minor League Baseball Photo by willowbrookhotels via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Kane County Cougars. Photo by willowbrookhotels via Flickr (Creative Commons)

The Albuquerque Isotopes. The Clearwater Threshers. The Dayton Dragons.

Ah, minor league baseball. The team names alone are joy. The experience? That much better. While I’ve always found it a bit ho-hum to attend a major league game for a team that wasn’t my hometown favorite, minor league games feel more neutral.

They’re about hanging out eating stuff you shouldn’t eat on a (hopefully) beautiful spring or summer night and (hopefully) getting to see a little magic when some not-so-known player smacks one out or looks like he has the potential to pitch a perfect game. They’re about relaxing. And just kind of being in a place with, mostly, the people who live there.

Minor league games feel out of time. They feel hopeful.

Read More »


A Twitter Road Trip Twitique: What Worked, What Didn’t

A Twitter Road Trip Twitique: What Worked, What Didn’t Photo by Sophia Dembling
Photo by Sophia Dembling

My husband Tom and I recently drove a loop south from Albuquerque. (Here’s an annotated map of our route, in case you want to follow in our tire tracks.) This was the first time I’ve Twittered from the road. Interestingly, the great to-Twitter-or-not-to-Twitter debate started up while I was Twittering my trip and triggered a little metacognition about the process. Is it the right thing to do, and what makes a good travel Tweet?

Read More »


Would You Take a Trip to TV Town?

Would You Take a Trip to TV Town? Photo by Sophia Dembling
Photo by Sophia Dembling

Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. It’s the only town in the world named for a TV show. In 1950, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the show (which started on radio), the producers challenged a town to change its name to Truth or Consequences and the anniversary show would be taped there.

This southern New Mexico town, then called Hot Springs, voted overwhelmingly in favor of the change and from then on, its patron saint celebrity was host Ralph Edwards, who returned to the town many times until his death in 2005.

T or C has voted a couple of times since on whether it should return to its old name, but the TV name has stuck. After all, towns called Hot Springs are a dime a dozen.

Read More »


Morning Links: Michael Lewis Asks About Bjork in Reykjavík, Yoko Ono’s Travel Daydreams and More


Seven Great Time-Lapse Travel Videos

Jim Benning sifts through YouTube's accelerated videos to find the seven best

Read More »


Harrison Ford: When Good Celebrity Travel Stories Go Bad

You can almost hear the swearing emanating from Outside magazine’s New Mexico offices when, after scoring an interview with action hero Harrison Ford about his travels, editors finally read the transcript. Ford makes almost no sense.

Read More »


  • « Prev Page
  • Next Page »