WORTH A TRIP: The March Gourmet loses its heart and turns over most of its pages to London. Rejecting the old image of a cuisine where you can't tell the gray meat from the gray potatoes, editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl proclaims London is "filled with chefs at the top of their powers, and all they want to do is make their guests happy." Bring it on. London restaurant critic Nigel Slater offers a dozen restaurants as typical reasons why his job is "the greatest gig on earth." And, because it's Gourmet, there are recipes to help you remember your trip: mushy peas and bubble-and-squeak, of course, but also entrees more representative of the new London: an arugula and fontina frittata, perhaps, or mustard fennel pork loin. Sadly missing: a nouvelle take on bangers and mash.
WORTH A FLIP: Outside gives us four alternatives to Cancun for spring break frolicking: ski in Crested Butte, Colo.; climb the rocks in Joshua Tree National Park, Calif.; prowl the beaches and ruins in Tulum, Mexico; or windsurf off Cabarete, Dominican Republic. (But did we miss something? When did Cancun overtake Sioux Falls, S.D.?) Outside also defies math and rates each of the six major Hawaiian islands "best." Kauai is wildest; the Big Island the hottest (vulcanologically speaking); Lanai the most laid-back; Molokai the "most Hawaiian"; Oahu the best variety; and Maui the most celebrity-trod.
Meanwhile, Smithsonian looks at a new, youthful Ireland, where U2 has supplanted "Tooraloora." American investment and access to European markets have produced a higher standard of living, but new ethnic tensions are forming as a result of growing multiculturalism. Oh, and forget about those cheap pints: a Guinness in a typical Dublin pub is now $5.
Canoe & Kayak goes rock-climbing over Vietnam's Ha Long Bay (after paddling without nautical charts among its 3,000-plus islands) and then, for contrast, circumnavigates Manhattan in a kayak. (C&K also runs a beer review column called "Paddle Swill") . . . Travel+Leisure (whose idea of budget travel is to show you how to do notoriously economical Buenos Aires on a mere $250 a day) puts you aboard luxury rail from Venice to Prague to Berlin, and ultimately to Barcelona . . . National Geographic Traveler also inclines its March issue toward "the lush life," but focuses less on luxury and more on rich experiences -- taking us to a wealth of South African wildlife, for example, or on a search for Matisse's artistic spirit on Corsica . . . Meanwhile, National Geographic honors Frederick Law Olmsted, best known as the designer of New York's Central Park, and takes us by words and pictures to other Olmsted creations that bring the countryside to the city: Chicago's Columbian Exposition, for example, or Mount Royal Park in Montreal. Olmsted painted "with lakes and wooded slopes; with lawns and banks and forest-covered hills."
In Men's Journal, "upwardly mobile" is literal: rock-climbing without ropes or safety equipment high above the Mediterranean; a maladroit's guide to ski-mountaineering; and Jeep wrangling through icy mountain passes. Speaking of gear, reach for your credit card as the magazine presents the "Best Gear of All Time" -- if you're the type to drop $6,000 on a Richard Sachs bicycle or $850 for a duffel bag . . . The Outtraveler navigates Morocco, relishing the ambiguity of a country where "no one cares what goes on behind closed doors" . . . And close to home, Chesapeake Bay says there ain't no big deal about little Deale, Md., and that's just fine with the boaters and anglers who think Deale is charming the way it is (and who don't miss Starbucks a bit).
WORTH A CLIP: Backpacker's annual "Gear Guide" issue helps you analyze contenders for "best buy." Follow the flow charts ("You're still hiking with your old college bookbag"; "You expect lots of rain") to the backpack, boots, tent or sleeping bag of your dreams.
WORTH A GAWK: Condé Nast Traveler has conditioned us to its habit of staging fashion shoots in unlikely places, but there is something unseemly about dropping one into the sacred ruins of Angkor Wat, as it does this month, particularly given Cambodia's poverty. But California's Big Sur also gets its fair share of glamour shots in the mag, and we see a glimpse of Rome's new look, architectural designs calculated to upset convention (che bello!).
-- Jerry V. Haines
