Places to Go in 2015 | Hacker News Reader

Places to Go in 2015

nytimes.com

23 pointswallflower17 comments

Bend, OR is a fabulous destination. The beer scene is of course excellent, and the mountain biking is out of this world. I spent a few days visiting last summer, and I fully intend to return with my own bike (riding isn't the same on a loaner) as soon as I can.

It's a bit unfortunate (though entirely predictable) that locals are being priced out of the housing market due to very heavy demand from folks relocating there. Still, Bend seems to have retained it's culture so far and is near the top of my list of locations if I ever relocated.

For the HN crowd - there are also multiple incubators and a small but serious VC crowd. The Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and EDCO are doing great work there fostering a community of entrepreneurs.

Very pleased to see Squamish, British Columbia on the list. The location is perfect: an hour away from some of the best skiing in the world, an hour away from downtown Vancouver, and some of the best rock climbing and mountain biking right at its doorstep. I wouldn't be surprised to see the town develop rapidly in the coming years as house prices in Vancouver continue to balloon

Unfortunately there are places on this list that many people can't visit without risking going to jail. Oman, for example, whose penal code reads in part:

"Article 209: It is punishable by imprisonment from 10 days to 3 years — or by a fine from 5 to 500 riyals — whoever:

1. Publicly blasphemes against the glory of God, or the great Prophets.

2. Targets, with public imagery or printing, divine religions and religious sanctities with contempt."

I encourage you to acquire the self-discipline to avoid blaspheming while traveling. Guidebooks such as Lonely Planet have a few pages explaining how not to offend the locals. It will allow you to experience marvelous new cultures and expand your horizons.

Then you can come back to a new appreciation our relative freedom of speech, though perhaps realizing that there are also things we can't say.

It has never, in my experience, been worth traveling for pleasure to countries where speech is not protected.

It is, of course, always worth traveling to places that need help, but lots of us prefer not to waive civil rights unless there's a good cause.

In principle I agree with you, but be aware there is no country where speech is fully protected. You can't go into a crowded theater in the USA and yell "fire!", for example.

I'm not sure how that could possibly be relevant when considering a holdiay destination. Is there a reason you bring it up, or are you just being an internet pedant?

As an American living in Oman, I can vouch for thousands of tourists visiting each year without running into these issues. I personally, have never experienced any sort of problems, and Oman is a MUCH nicer place to live than other parts of the Middle East.

That's a very nice web page, as usual from NYT.

Nothing fancy, but very pleasant to read.

Agreed. But am I the only one who was disappointed when not every subsequent photo after the first had movement? About half did for me.

Does anyone have a link to a version that doesn't cause my laptop fan to kick on? I don't need to max out CPU cores to read a travel blog.

So excited to see my hometown, Chengdu, listed. It's a great place to visit, rich heritage, amazing food and not to mention, pandas!

From the capitalization (and the fact that this is HN), I assumed this was a post about the Go language. Whoops.

Pretty disappointed not to find Tel Aviv or Jerusalem on this list

You can still go there.

So, everywhere. Got it.

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