Travel and Leisure Articles

Once dismissed as a dusty, desolate, treeless expanse, Lubbock, Texas has become a thriving, modern city of about 225,000 people. Fans of the epic western miniseries "Lonesome Dove," depicting the exploits of aging Texas Rangers Augustus McRae and Woodrow Call, might remember Gus's desperate pursuit of the renegade Comanche Blue Duck across the bleak, Ochre expanse called the Llano Estacado.

A city of about 225,000 people located next to the Mississippi in the heart of Louisiana, Baton Rouge continues to be a significant hub of trade and shipping. It is also a major node in the country's petrochemicals industry.

Once the haunt of the heroic Seminole Indians, for many decades renowned for its citrus groves and inland lakes, Orlando Florida is now one of the world's leading vacation and tourist destinations.

Home to the world's largest naval base, hugely endowed with historical significance, Norfolk, Virginia is a city of 233,000 people in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is located in Virginia's Hampton Roads area, named for the expansive natural harbor that has shaped the city's history and culture.

Madison, Wisconsin is a beautiful, progressive city of about 235,000 people renowned for being the home of the University of Wisconsin Badgers. Few indeed are the people who have never heard the inspiring strains of the school fight song "On, Wisconsin" - indeed, that invigorating school anthem has been appropriated by more than a few schools down the decades.

Marty Robbins sang of a cowboy who visited Laredo, Texas and fell in love with a Mexican girl. The odds of that happening are pretty good, given that more than ninety-six percent of the city's population of roughly 236,000 people are of Hispanic ancestry, and most of that cohort are from Mexico.

A city of about 235,000 people in Arizona's Maricopa County, Chandler is one of the hottest places in the continental United States.

Although it is a now a sacred annual ritual centered in Saint Petersburg, Florida, there was a time when Spring Training didn't exist. While professional baseball teams had visited Florida to take part in "Grapefruit League" contests as early as 1888, it wasn't until 1914 that St. Petersburg's business boosters institutionalize d the custom.

Jersey City, a community of 245,000 people that is New Jersey's second-largest city, teems with history. Like other communities in the region, Jersey City is built out of neighborhoods, each of which has its own distinctive culture and affinities - many of which are defined by historic landmarks. Among its most famous communities are Paulus Hook, Van Vorst Park, Hamilton Park, Harsimus Cove, Bergen Hill, and Washington Village.

Fort Wayne, Indiana is found at practically the geographic center of the United States, so it's appropriate that it was the site of the first night-time professional baseball game. That event took place in 1883, when two teams defied the gathering darkness - a bane enemy of baseball players matched only by unseasonal rain - in a sacred space illuminated by Jenney Arc Lights.