Travel

Presidential tourism is as old as George Washington and as enduring as Grant’s Tomb. In honor of the just-concluded election, here are three of my all-time favorite presidential history spots, chosen because of their charm and the stories behind them.

Places that presidents call home often become major tourist attractions, from estates at Mount Vernon and Monticello; to Hodgenville, Ky., where Abe Lincoln’s log cabin once stood; to Bill Clinton’s boyhood home in Hope, Ark. So what’s the equivalent of Barack Obama’s log cabin? Probably a 10th-floor apartment in Honolulu, where he lived with his mother and grandparents.

MOAB, Utah – The bluffs and hills of this mountain biking hub were as red as a sunburn and barren, save for a few juniper trees and clumps of rabbit brush. As I hiked to a flat stretch of sandstone, I saw them, bigger and more clearly defined than I had expected: dinosaur tracks.

BREMERTON – Tour a Pyrex Museum and marvel at one of the world’s biggest collections of colored casserole dishes. Sip a latte in the lobby of a historic theater that doubles as a church.

On Oct. 18, Queen Elizabeth 2 slipped out of its berth on the west side of Manhattan and sailed out of New York Harbor past the Statue of Liberty on its final voyage across the Atlantic. On the Ohio River, the paddle-wheeler Delta Queen is churning up the waters between Cincinnati and Memphis before the national historic landmark ties up for the last time. Already, the windjammers Mandalay, Polynesia and Yankee Clipper sit in Caribbean ports, seized as collateral from a bankrupt cruise line. New safety rules make it unlikely they will ever unfurl their sails again.

BANGPLEE, Thailand – As my 30th birthday approached, my fear of becoming a middle-aged woman plagued with mystery ailments, huffing and puffing up flights of stairs, finally started to outweigh my exercise phobia. So I decided to get in shape while learning Thailand’s notorious national sport, Muay Thai – known in English as kickboxing.

McMINNVILLE, Ore. – Portland? Been there, done that. The Oregon coast? Storm-watching only lasts so long.

PARIS – The city of light has an unfortunate blight: the locals’ reputation for rudeness. That’s why a group of friendly Parisians have banded together to show complete strangers around their Paris, the one not found in travel books – for free.

You can count on movie stars, who have loads of free time and seemingly unlimited funds, to find all the best places. Usually, though, once they discover a location, prices soar so high that mere mortals are lucky to be able to drive by and dream. But most of us can afford to stay at a sweet spot in Pray, Mont., that attracts the likes of Harrison Ford, Sam Shepard and Dennis Quaid.

Lindsay Blake sauntered into the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hilton, her blond bob fluffed like a pillow and her maroon dress showing a bit of wink, wink. Sitting at the legendary bar, the actress drank only water as she discussed her career, her goals and her obsession with Beverly Hills, on the TV screen and off.

FORKS, Wash. – Pounding rain and heavy mist are constant in this timber town, where logging’s decline left a graveyard of rusting timber mills and unemployment. Businesses shut down. Parts of the local high school were condemned. Families started to drift away.