Real-Life Soup Nazis

Many neighborhoods have them: the classic dives, the beloved hole-in-the-walls, those community favorites with lengthy histories and locals-only attitudes, where everyone knows your name. But at some of these joints, you must possess a certain know-how when it comes to the ordering, or risk probable public humiliation, the chance that they’ll boot you to the back of the line, or even a flat-out denial of service. I approach such places with trepidation. On the one hand, for a restaurant to have achieved such notoriety, I realize the food must be dynamite. But on the other hand, I get a bit chafed when I’ve been polite and goddammit am trying to give you money yet you’re mocking me for not being at one with the lingo.

I lunched at one such place recently when in Philadelphia for the weekend. In search of a good cheese steak, as was every other tourist, I settled on Pat’s King of Steaks (not to be confused with Geno’s Steaks a stone’s throw across the street) at the behest of a Philly born-and-bred friend. But here—and I assume at other steak huts—you’ve got to know how to smoothly rap out your order or else you’re holding up the line, and pissing off the owners working the counter and the regulars crowding up behind you.

At Pat’s the steaks are dished out of one window; cups of fries and cups of sodas can be picked up down at the next. When it’s your time to order 

your steak—locals take them topped with sautéed onions and Cheez Whiz, as you should too—you must take care to say “whiz wit,” layering on the nonchalance, lest they peg you as “from away.” I didn’t have to face potential ridicule this time, I left that to my husband because Pat’s corner was crawling with people so I scrammed to grab a table when one opened up. He actually screwed up saying “wit whiz,” but received our steaks anyway. They were hearty, with well-marinated meat and a sweet tang from the onions and cheese, and dripped juice down our hands. And thus we dined, freezing, but triumphant.

Focus On: Guadalajara, Mexico

CHEAP TRICK

Before purchasing anything online—from stilettos to five nights in a beachside Miami hotel—first Google coupon codes. 

There exist such Web sites as RetailMeNot.com and BradsDeals.com, which aggregate coupon codes for all manners and sorts of online purchases, even travel deals. Coupon codes (sometimes called promo codes) can usually be entered before you key in your credit card info during the check-out process on sites such as Orbitz.com, Travelocity.com, Expedia.com, etc. This gives you ample time to shop around, comparing the available coupon codes for each travel site to determine where you can get the deepest discounts. Occasionally you’ll only find codes for an airfare/hotel combo vacation or for specific trips to places like Disney World or Aruba, but (and, admittedly, you might have to dig for several minutes to find these) the coupon code sites usually always post more general deals like “$25 off per night of a hotel stay” or “15% off your entire trip.” 

Get Paid 100 Grand to Lay on a Beach for Six Months??

And snorkel through waters of the clearest blue? And live in an oceanfront villa? What kind of PR person comes up with a crazy marketing scheme like that? One who deserves a fat promotion, that's who. Tourism Queensland wants to plunk some lucky, lucky soul down on Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays for six months, paying them $100,000 and letting them live in a multi-million dollar villa (and what else—a lifetime supply of chocolate?) provided that they blog weekly and send in the occasional video diary update. No surprise, they've already amassed more than 200,000 applicants and almost every major news site has picked up on the story.

The Whitsundays is an island chain, of 74 islands to be exact, off the east coast of Queensland that sort of trails along the Great Barrier Reef. Hamilton Island is fairly large, with people, and infrastructure, so it's not exactly the place to enact a Robinson Crusoe stranded fantasy, because other people do, um, live there, but still, what an awesome gig.

I wonder who'll win. Will it be some buff outdoor enthusiast? An at-her-wit's-end housewife with five lunatic kids who needs a damn vacation? Maybe that pathetically opportunistic chick who just auditioned for American Idol in a bikini (and actually made it through to Hollywood!!!?!?!?)? Only time will tell ... the winner is announced in May. Wait, why are you still reading this thing? Go send in a video!

Top 10 Free Things to do While Traveling (that won't make you look like an obnoxious cheap ass)

1. Pull on your sneakers and head out on a run, jog or walk. 

2. Visit government buildings, libraries and churches, which can possess killer architecture and usually, at most, "suggest a donation."

3. Lunchtime? Stroll around an open-air marketplace, and graciously accept free samples in the produce section.

4. Find a bench, park yourself on it and people-watch.

5. Bring a towel to the beach so you won't be forced to pay for a chair or get all crazy sandy.

6. Check out the local, English-language paper and see if there are any gratis alfresco concerts or Shakespeare readings scheduled—common during warm summer months.

7. Tour a city's statues, memorials or parks.

8. Scout out museum partnerships: paying for admission to one gets you free admission at another. Some museums also offer free admission during a block of off-peak hours. (I waltzed into NYC's Rubin Museum of Art last Friday just after 7pm and laid down nary a penny.)

9. Take advantage of ALL of your hotel's free stuff, from the shampoo, to the in-room coffee, to the shuttle downtown, to its swankier sister property's pool, which people staying at your hotel may be allowed to enter.

10. Seek out the local tourism board office. They're usually chock-full of maps for self-guided walking tours, booklets of store and restaurant coupons, and brochures advertising free activities like wine tastings, festivals and an assortment of other events.

Lonely Planet Overload

As far as backpacking tourists in Southeast Asia are concerned, Lonely Planet has fully cornered the market as their guidebook of choice. My husband and I have firsthand knowledge of this fact, having backpacked around the region this summer and seen the grubby, dog-eared Lonely Planets in hand, in backpack, and in back pocket of tourists everywhere. I'm proud to say that we diversified, toting along—in addition to the Lonely Planet—a Fodor's and a Rough Guide.

I'm not here to judge the books (in this post anyway); each had its strengths, weaknesses and blah, blah, blah, but the proliferation of the same guidebook within a well-trodden tourist circuit drives business to the same few establishments, especially with regard to hotels and restaurants. Whenever we stopped by hotels occupying prime real estate within the most current Lonely Planet edition, not only were they often booked solid (good for them, true) their prices were usually significantly higher than the guide claimed. I honestly don’t think that Lonely Planet was especially inconsistent or inaccurate—the other guidebooks held a few mistakes too—but rather wanted to call attention to this Lonely Planet Phenomenon.

And it doesn’t only affect places in the current guide. On more than one occasion, we passed a café or a guesthouse (one that would otherwise appear to be an unremarkable locale among others exactly like it) with windows emblazoned “As featured in Lonely Planet!” And though in some cases this distinction remains unverified (yeah, Lonely Planet 1987 maybe) sure enough the place would be busting at the seams with Caucasian twenty-somethings reclining on their overstuffed backpacks, sipping lattes or waiting to check-in.

The irony of this whole business is that Lonely Planet is the bible for budget travelers (and travellers!), yet once a spot is included and folks start rolling in, the increased demand causes most places to up their prices. Naturally. We encountered a few hotels that raised their rates to well out of the budget travel realm, and incidentally, they were still booked up.

More curious still was the capitalist savvy displayed by another breed of establishment owner, the proprietor of the altogether-too-common copycat business. You see this happen when a place of certain character does things well enough to make it fair-and-square into the hallowed pages of the Lonely Planet guide. Then, other unscrupulous persons appropriate its name, and suddenly similarly named establishments begin popping up all over the place, usually with nowhere near the same level of amenities or within the same desirable neighborhood as the first, the original.

If, for example, a hotel in Lonely Planet is called the Happy Hanoi Hotel (just making this up as I go), other hotels exist, laying in wait, ready to steal your business from the original Happy Hanoi. They might be called the Happi Hanoi Hotel or the Hanoi Happy Hotel. And even though the original Happy Hanoi is named such for its cheerful employees and free breakfast buffet, which features smiley-face pancakes … and Happi Hanoi’s dancing cockroaches are all it has on offer … and you’ve read your Lonely Planet’s warning about these situations … and feel totally prepared to allude their sneaky entreaties … be warned that they’ll still find a way to get you, whether the North Face backpack seller you ask for directions is, unbeknownst to you, a disguised Happi Hanoi tout, or a taxi driver who’s taking Happi kickbacks drops you at the wrong hotel. Trust me. This is the really ugly side to the Lonely Planet Phenomenon.

So the lesson for today is buy the Lonely Planet because it does include a lot of helpful information, but also bring the Fodor’s and the Rough Guide, and do research on your own before you leave by searching travel magazine archives, consulting forums, and picking the brains of friends who’ve been there before. Of course you’ll strike out a time or two, but at least you won’t have to run into those same Caucasian twenty-somethings doing the Lonely Planet circuit over and over again.