Top 10 Wonderfully Unique Place Names in the World
Commenting on unique place names can be a tricky business as you risk alienating readers from the respective areas along with your inbox bulging with “What about here..?” and similar style emails. In dissecting the many weird and wonderful names across the globe I decided on two rules in advance, firstly that all the place names I selected would be free of double-entendres..well almost all. The 2nd steadfast rule I wished to adhere to is that they must be genuine place names, some are towns whilst others are unincorporated communities, all have wonderfully unique names.
Top Ten Most Wonderfully-Named Places On Earth
Boring (Maryland, USA)
Gorgeous Lake Arrowhead Attracts Movie Stars
It’s surprising that one of Southern California’s favorite movie star haunts also is a place that puts emphasis on family values. At Lake Arrowhead, the stars blend right in with everyday small-town American families.
We were walking the waterfront trail in front of the Lake Arrowhead Resort and ran into one of the town fathers – a guy whose job it was to walk some 20 miles around the lake, checking to make sure the trails were not only passable, but pristine as any semi-exclusive enclave ought to be. He talked about the movie stars who live in Arrowhead as everyday, good people. He talked about his daughter winning the national water-ski championship, and how water-skiing was followed just as closely here as football or basketball might be followed in the Heartland.
Well, okay, Lake Arrowhead is not exactly Des Moines, Iowa. But it does have a small-town feel – in a Southern California kind of way.
We went to Lake Arrowhead to spend a weekend at the newly renovated Lake Arrowhead Resort, the biggest and best-located resort in the area that has just taken a quantum leap in its overall appeal to getaway travelers. Prior to the recent renovation, the resort was getting a little tired and starting to show its age. But it’s amazing the things you can do with $17 million — the resort’s undergone a total transformation.
International Travel and The Travel Industry
Ever since Jules Verne published “Around The World In Eighty Days” in 1873 the notion of hopping quickly from one continent to the next has had a hold on people. In the novel, Phileas Fogg of London wagers he can span the planet by riding trains and steamers from London to Suez, Suez to Bombay, Bombay to Calcutta (well,you get the idea) and arriving back to London eighty days later to claim his winnings.
Needless to say, the travel industry today could offer Phileas a much quicker way to nation-hop, as he could now get from Glasgow to Iowa City in seven hours and thirty-nine minutes or Paris, France to Paris, Texas in just nine hours and forty-two minutes. Eighty days? Manned missions to the moon have clocked in at three days, three hours and forty nine minutes! Today, old Phileas Fogg could clean up.
But while the travel industry today allows us to circumvent the globe in record times, we have to deal with realities Mr. Fogg never considered. From jet-lag to language barriers to having to remove your shoes and belt when asked, today’s international traveler must contend with a daunting array of challenges. Sure, you can buy an app for your iphone that translates any language and there are several remedies for jet-lag out there (melatonin, bright light therapy) there is even an excellent site called “The Guide To Sleeping In Airports” which I recommend. It has a cautionary list of, “The World’s Worst Airports”.