Newspapers offer valuable resources through Web sites

10-28-2001

The torrent of unprecedented events over the last eight weeks has elevated anxieties about travel. Whether true or not, the fear that familiar places have changed and unfamiliar places might be unwelcoming or outright hostile to foreign visitors has caused people to postpone or cancel long-planned trips.

The resulting interruption in the stream of travelers has shaken the foundations of the world's travel suppliers, from airlines, hotels and cruise lines to travel agents and tour guides. If nothing else, this demonstrates the key role travel plays in the international economic drama. Love may make the world go around; uncertainty seems to keep people from going around the world.

At the same time, it has never been easier for anyone to check out the breaking news and hard facts about what's happening in almost every corner of the planet.

The World Wide Web presents travelers with instant access to a virtually limitless universe of information. In fact, a simple cybersearch often turns up a staggering number of links. In addition to being overwhelming in number, online resources can be difficult to evaluate and of questionable credibility. How much of what you find is based on solid journalism rather than a veiled sales pitch?

Here's a tactic to help you focus in on really useful information:

Check the newspaper.

Just like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, thousands of local newspapers and city magazines around the world maintain a daily online presence. In addition to providing a comprehensive assessment of breaking news and up-to-the-minute weather reports, these sites frequently feature up-to-date listings for local art exhibits, concerts, sporting events, festivals, movies and other entertainment.

Online newspaper editions may provide guides to local museums and galleries, outdoor recreation and regional travel. The archived observations of a local columnist, drama critic or restaurant reviewer may provide more timely tips and pointed critiques than can be found in any guidebook or travel magazine. Newspaper Web sites also may offer tips for local sightseeing and walking tours.

Don't forget to check out the newspaper's list of local Web links. Since locals tend to know which sites serve their region best, any highlighted by the newspaper may be particularly useful and credible.

Major city newspapers with a particularly strong online presence include the Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com); The New York Times (www.nytoday.com); Village Voice (www.villagevoice.com), Chicago Tribune (www.chicagotribune.com) and Chicago Sun-Times (www.suntimes.com).

Don't overlook overseas destinations. If you're headed to London, for example, you might check out the London Times (www.londontimes.com) or London Evening Standard (www.thisislondon.co.uk) before you go.

You often can find English publications in places where another language is the mother tongue. Many foreign publications provide English versions.

No matter where you're heading, you should be able to log onto a local media resource. To accomplish that mission, check out one of these indexes to online media:

Ecola Newsstand (www.ecola.com) provides links to 6,500 newspapers and magazines worldwide. Its travel planner page lists tourist bureaus, airports and other local travel resources. Two other sites, Worldwide Newspaper Links (www.newslink.org) and Newspapers of the World (www.mediafinder.com) can provide links to foreign newspapers. In addition to daily media, Editor & Publisher's Online Media Directory (www.mediainfo.com/emedia) indexes some 300 city magazines around the world.

Another handy site is www.freetogo.com, which in addition to a comprehensive list of local newspaper links, offers several other tools to help expedite your travel planning, such as links to information about visa requirements by foreign counties.

With all that information at hand, the only problem may be translating the local language, but there are even online resources for that.

Of course, whenever you are far away from Pittsburgh, you can always check in on the latest scores and happenings at home by visiting www.post-gazette.com. It's no coincidence that it also happens to be Western Pennsylvania's most visited Web site.

Good information is invaluable. The more you know about where you're going, the less pre-trip anxiety there's likely to be. And the more you can keep in touch with what's happening at home in your absence, the easier you'll sleep while away.

Beyond a flicker of doubt

To set the record straight, four sharp-eyed readers -- Paul Lienhardt, Ed Rotheram, Peg Henderson and Rich Carlson -- wrote to let us know we had misidentified the cactus-accommodated bird that appeared in a photo on the cover of last Sunday's travel section. The caption that accompanied the photo called the bird a cactus wren; the readers recognized it as a common flicker, an assessment confirmed by a bird book consultation.

In self-defense, we obtained both the photos and caption information from the Arizona Republic newspaper and assumed the writer knew his local birds. Apparently not.

But according to Rich Carlson, the mistake was not without its up side.

"My daughter showed my wife the picture. Since she's not quite 6 (my daughter, not my wife), she came to me to get the field guide. I knew she was right, but we looked to see the differences between the birds. The Northern flicker has a red mustache and black chest plate. While the cactus wren has neither, it does have a similarly striped chest.

"Anyway, she got to avoid bedtime for 10 minutes, and I got 10 minutes of her undivided attention. You guys should screw up more often."

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