WORTH A TRIP: May's Atlantic says "bon anniversaire!" to Alexis de Tocqueville (a sprightly 200 this year) but gives the birthday gift to us: the American road diary of French philosopher/journalist Bernard-Henri Levy. "BHL" begins in proper, patriotic Newport, R.I., then on to quite a different type of island -- horrific Rikers. He finds church imagery in unexpected places -- Coopertown's Baseball Hall of Fame and the Mall of America near Minneapolis -- but in the churches themselves, he sees mainly the influence of Madison Avenue. For an American reader it's mildly unnerving to be the visited rather than the visitor, and we found ourselves alternately yelling "cheap shot" and "dead on." And, since this is advertised as first in a series in which BHL essentially will update Tocqueville's 1831 inspection tour of America, also: "Bring on the next one."
Perhaps Bon Appetit should have renamed itself "Buon Appetito" for this issue. It focuses on Italy's tourism triumvirate of Rome, Florence and Venice: "Three cities; three moods; three styles of cooking." Begin with an electric red Negroni cocktail and settle in for a gastronomic ride through steakhouses, gelaterias and temples to the gods of pizza and pasta. The wines of the three regions are each "married to the region's cooking for the odd millennium or two."
WORTH A FLIP: Travel + Leisure kicks off its Europe issue with a serving of Bologna (Italy), then we go driving (Left side! Left!) through Wales and Scotland in search of vintage books. Then Scandinavia, Majorca, Nice, Odessa. We're exhausted, and we haven't even left the BarcaLounger. Novelist Bruno Maddox laments the demise of public smoking in Europe, because, he says, we Americans secretly envied it: "Eventually turning into Europe was supposed to be our destiny; now that Europe is turning into us . . . well, it's just wrong." . . . National Geographic Traveler hails 12 "Unplugged Islands" that hold the world at arm's length, among them Anticosti Island, Quebec (for the variety of wildlife), Long Cay, Belize (for snorkeling and pirate lore) and North Ronaldsay in the Orkneys (where the pastures meet the North Sea, and the mutton tastes of seaweed) . . . Over at the mother mag, National Geographic trains its legendary cameras on the coral reefs of Fiji and Indonesia, where fish and other sea creatures turn on their natural neon to escape, warn or entice. It's an underwater Las Vegas down there.
Mountain Bike hopes you have four long weekends coming up and gives you four sets of trails suited to the springtime -- Park City, Utah; Case Mountain, Conn.; Santa Barbara, Calif.; and Tucson, Ariz. -- where you can enjoy Earth's annual rebirth . . . Outtraveler goes to Phuket ("gayest beach town in Asia") to check on its recovery from last year's tsunami (things are looking good), and stops also on Iceland, finding it ethereal, exciting and steamy -- in both senses of the word . . . American Heritage visits two villages where the supernatural is only natural. Lily Dale, N.Y., and Cassadaga, Ga. were centers of the late 19th-century spiritualist movement, but modern mediums still maintain a clientele. A sign at a Lily Dale hotel warns, "No channeling in the lobby."
WORTH A CLIP: Men's Journal offers "100 Best Adventures on the Planet," including rafting down the Colorado's rapids (once you start, there's no getting out for 277 miles). And there are 99 other testosterone-overdosed adventure trips from all over the world . . . Conde Nast Traveler trots out the lists, too, all "hot" -- 80 hot new restaurants worldwide, 116 hot new hotels, 35 hot night spots. Must be that global warming thing . . . Golf Digest identifies its 2005 choices for "America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses," with 18 of them new to the list since just 2003 (Kinloch Golf Course near Richmond vaults onto the rankings at No. 33).
Turning into a Heloise of the trail, Backpacker shows us "How to do (almost) everything in the outdoors," including tying a bowline, brewing cowboy coffee (swing the pot in a circle at least five times to settle the grounds), escaping quicksand and treating rattlesnake bites (in case the cowboy coffee isn't enough) . . . travelgirl enlists a flight attendant to give an insider's guide to flying while pregnant (get an aisle seat near the restroom; carry your backpack and prop your feet up on it).
WORTH A GAWK: We can imagine Dad's reaction to "Fly Right," Outside's roundup of upscale fishing lodges: hysterical laughter. But if soaking all night in an in-room Jacuzzi strikes you as the perfect complement to standing all day in the stream, here are six places where the fishing is superior, the meals don't taste of bug spray and the accommodations are light years away from the back of Uncle Vern's RV. (The cheapest runs $225 a night, plus guide fees.)
-- Jerry V. Haines
