Travel and Leisure Articles

Famous for being the "Air Capital of the World," Wichita Kansas is a modern city of about 372,000 people located in south central Kansas on the Arkansas River, near the geographic heart of the continental United States. The Wichita-Winfield Combined Statistical Area, which includes Cowley County, has an estimated population of nearly 620,000.

As is the case elsewhere in Virginia, the history of Virginia Beach begins with the exploits of Captain John Smith, who arrived in the company of his fellow explorers in 1607. The group made landfall at Cape Henry in the spring of that year. They were struck by the vista of white sand, undulating dunes, and enigmatic pine forests. Within a few days they had made the journey up the James River and begun work on the first permanent European settlement in the New World - Jamestown.

With a population just below 390,000 people, Tulsa is Oklahoma's second largest city. Settled originally by French farmers, Tulsa diversified into ranching and shipping before the discovery of oil made it a key energy-producing region.

The name Tucson is derived from a word in the Pima Indian language, "Chukson" or "Stjukshon," that means "spring at the foot of a black mountain." For many centuries there has been a human settlement in the area where Tucson, Arizona now exists, and its history is a multi-layered sediment left by a wide variety of cultures.

Founded in 1833 when the towns of Lawrence and Vistula joined on the site of a former stockade called Fort Industry, Toledo is Ohio's fourth-largest city, with a population of 316,000. Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the area was inhabited by a small but tenacious and resilient band of Indians - you know, the kind who never fail to "endeavor to persevere" - who lent their name to Lake Erie and the Erie Canal. Or perhaps that name was simply stolen from them, as their lands would be. In any case, those guys were in the area first, for all the good it did them.

Founded as Fort Brooke in 1824 and incorporated under its current name in 1887, Tampa, Florida is a city of about 334,000 people found midway down Florida's west coast, roughly 25 miles east of the Gulf of Mexico. The city is bordered on the south by the Hillsborough Bay, and on the west by the Old Tampa Bay. Downtown is divided by the winding Hillsborough River, which originates northeast of the city and empties into Hillsborough Bay.

St. Louis is notable for its signature monument, the Gateway Arch. Rising 630 feet above the banks of the Mississippi River, that structure, designed by Eero Saarinen, is a tribute to the westward migration of 19th-Century American pioneers.

Sure, Raleigh is famous for its storied British namesake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and for tobacco. But there's much more to the history and culture of this fascinating and beautiful North Carolina city.
For instance, Sports Travel magazine has described Raleigh as one of the "hottest sports cities" in the United States. The city's cutting-edge, 20,000-seat Entertainment and Sports Arena hosts the city's first major league professional franchise, the National Hockey League's Carolina Hurricanes.

Known by the uplifting nickname "City of Roses," Portland, Oregon was given its formal name through a coin toss. Like much of the Northwest, Portland grew out of the timber and shipping industries, and has a storied frontier heritage.

Although Plano, Texas is now a modern corporate city of roughly 278,000 people within the Dallas Metroplex, for most of its history the city has been dominated by farming and ranching. Until very recently Plano was seen as a rustic, agrarian suburb of Dallas. This changed in the 1960s when Dallas began to attract high-technology firms, many of which set up offices and other facilities in Plano. By the late 1970s, with a significant population shift toward the "Sun Belt," Plano emerged as one of the fastest-growing cities in Texas and the U.S.