Last year, I interviewed documentary filmmaker Mai Iskander, who had just completed a film about the Zaballeen, an ostracized community in Cairo that has been eking out a living by gathering the city's waste. Called Garbage Dreams, the film followed a group of teenagers and examined how their rudimentary methods...

My entire office--foodies all--has been mourning the recent closing of Gourmet magazine. Some of us miss its sophistication ("That's how I learned to de-seed a pomegranate properly," a colleague sighed).

Frankly, though, what a lot of us miss is not the worldly, exotic Gourmet under Ruth Reichl, but our...

Last week, I attended a dinner on the top of the Mutual of America building at 320 Park Avenue, where Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel made a call to the room full of executives to become more engaged; to give real service, not lip service. It was a far cry from...

In 2003, when David Clemmons launched voluntourism.org, a Web site to educate about volunteer travel opportunities, the term "voluntourim" was known mostly to intrepid do-gooders, Peace Corps volunteers and backpackers who wanted to get involved in the far-flung communities they were visiting. In the past few years, interest has...

The raw food movement has been around for years -- remember the episode in Sex and the City, in which the girls suffer through a meal of wheatgrass shots because Samantha has a crush on the waiter? -- but recently, it has morphed into something much more accessible, refined and...

Blake Mycoskie won by losing. He lost the $1 million prize on the second season of the Amazing Race by four minutes, and yet if had won, he may not have founded his hugely successful and philanthropic TOMS Shoe company. He and his sister had entered the CBS reality race...

"I wanted to get involved with the High Line, because I thoroughly approve of a 'park in the sky,' especially one that regenerates an existing structure," says British fashion designer Anya Hindmarch about the inspiration behind her High Line tote, designed to raise money and awareness for the elevated park...

The Russian economy is in shambles. Only a few weeks ago the World Bank warned that the world recession could plunge 5.8 million Russians into poverty, but that hasn't stopped extravagant aspiration. Russia's material girls may have been born under Soviet Communism but they are out-lavishing the most decadent American...

Last week on a radio talk show, it was announced that NBC News anchor Brian Williams had decided to forego spring vacation with his family this year because of the recession. "Brian makes an estimated reported annual salary of 10 million dollars a year," declared Travel Show host Erik Hastings...

Last week, I posted a story on my website, indagare.com, encouraging people to travel to Egypt. Two days ago a French tourist was killed and many wounded when a bomb exploded near Khan el-Khalil bazaar in Cairo. This summer I walked in the square where the explosion killed a...

Lifting the veil on who spends what, gets paid what and has lost what is the sport of the moment. But when it comes to money matters, few are honest with others--or even themselves. What could be the ultimate cost of a new world of currency openness?

Among the radical...

We may be in the midst of history's first truly global economic crisis but our top financial capitals remain worlds apart. In fact, the stark contrast between the moods of New York and London made traveling between the two cities last week as vivid an Alice in Wonderland experience as...

How quickly the tide turns. Only last spring, L.A. was atwitter with rumors that Soho House, the British-based member's club, would be opening on Sunset Boulevard. During Oscar week, stars and their watchers partied at the club's temporary digs in the penthouse of Luckman Plaza. No doubt the only problem...

As a lifelong traveler, I was despaired this holiday season to witness the new low that has arrived at our airports and how American travel companies are participating in their own demise and demonization.

Countless articles have been written about how the glamour has gone out of travel. The...

As more cities around the world look alike, it's a pleasure to spend even a day in one with distinct character. I spent fewer than twenty-four hours in Zurich last week, but experienced a real traveler's high from its pure Zurichness. For a number of years, it's been ranked as...

The luxury travel industry has gathered in Cannes this week for the International Luxury Travel Market, its premier annual conference -- and to take stock. For the past five years, the travel and tourism business has grown at a rate of 10 percent a year. That bubble has burst. In...

Last week William Safire declared his favorite new word of 2008 to be "frugalista." Defined as "a person who lives a frugal lifestyle but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying secondhand, growing own produce, etc..", the frugalista, he declared, "could become the nom de guerre of the 'recession...

Last week I moderated a panel on "Preserving Culture through Style" at Madeline Weinrib's Atelier at ABC Carpets. Weinrib and I, who co-hosted the event, share the belief that the more of the world that you see, the greater your commitment to safeguarding indigenous cultures. Weinrib's ikat blouses and dhurries...

While the world was awash in money, no two Western cities benefited more from the spending spree than London and New York. Mayfair, like Madison Avenue, glistens with high gloss shops, where designer labels and diamond dealers now outnumber discreet men's tailors. A little more than a decade ago, it...

"Contentment is natural wealth. Luxury is artificial poverty." The words seem extremely compelling at present, but they were written centuries ago by Socrates. I just came across them in a book called Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster.

Deluxe was published last year, but it is an interesting book to...