Traveller visits all 50 state capitals and identifies the worst two
Kinsley undertook this 'speed run' to raise money for The National Alliance on Mental Illness, describing it as his 'toughest ever challenge' that left him physically and mentally exhausted.
Despite previous stunts like running a marathon without training, the state capital journey was uniquely demanding, causing him to hit a wall early in the trip.
He encountered both positive and negative experiences, finding some capitals like Olympia, Washington, and Albany, New York, to be the worst two - labeling them underwhelming or 'sketchy'.
Conversely, Kinsley praised the beauty of states like Montana, Oregon, and Hawaii, and highlighted the friendliness of locals in places such as Madison, Wisconsin, and Helena, Montana.
Kinsley noted that people in underrepresented areas appreciated his visit, eager to share their local history and attractions, and expressed a desire to undertake similar journeys in the future, albeit at a slower pace.
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Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Opinion: Why Las Vegas is in a death spiral
It has just gone 6.30am at Hurrah's Casino on the legendary Las Vegas Strip and 60-year-old Bettie has completed a marathon four-hour session on the slot machines. 'One hundred and sixty dollars down,' she tells me, puffing on a cigarette and heading gingerly out into the 40-degree morning heat. On Las Vegas Boulevard, Bettie points towards the Mirage Hotel opposite, the strip's first and most iconic mega-resort, which closed earlier this week after 35 years in operation. 'You wanna know Vegas?' she asks with a grin. 'That was Vegas.' Once the entertainment capital of the world – famous for its luxury hotels, high-end casinos, breathtaking shows and legendary musical residencies – Las Vegas has morphed into something altogether more downbeat and, as I discovered this week, sinister. Visitor numbers are plummeting. The first quarter of 2025 saw a 6.9 percent decrease in tourism on the same period last year, driven largely by a fall in international tourists. Remarkably, Americans now make up 88 percent of all visits to Vegas. The number of British tourists has fallen by 25 percent since a peak of almost three-quarters of a million in 2019. Rip-off prices are partially to blame. Las Vegas made headlines earlier this year when it emerged that MGM's Aria Hotel is selling 500ml bottles of water from the minibar for an unfathomable $26 (£19). Indeed, prices on the Strip have spiralled out of control in recent years with tourists telling the Mail of spending $15 (£11) on a fruit juice, $20 (£15) on coffee and a croissant and $18.25 (£14) on a small can of Bud Light beer. 'I would say these are New York prices, but they're not,' says 33-year-old investment banker Victor. 'They're even more expensive. I had a steak with a friend at a chain restaurant in the Cosmopolitan and one course set us back $300. It's the tips that get you, with up 25 percent of the bill the norm in some places.' He adds with a wry smile: 'Maybe I'm in the wrong profession.' But prices are only part of the problem. The city's opioid crisis has become so bad – especially among the homeless – that one leading rehabilitation charity has been paid by certain casinos to forcibly detain and remove those lingering around their premises and haranguing paying guests. Meanwhile, the proliferation of online gambling and indeed the emergence of other entertainment hubs – notably parts of the Middle East such as Dubai and Riyadh – have taken the shine off Sin City. While once Vegas was also the boxing capital of the world and the place to see Mike Tyson in his prime, today's heavyweights are shunning it for the riches of Saudi Arabia. British champion Anthony Joshua, for example, fought two of his last three bouts at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh. And so, with skyrocketing prices, global sport stars and musicians choosing to perform elsewhere, casinos ditching live games for electronic betting terminals and a drugs crisis ravaging the city, Las Vegas is on the ropes. The question is: can it recover? 'We used to be considered Sin City,' agrees David Marlon, founder of the hugely successful rehab clinic Vegas Stronger. 'Glitz, glamour, the place you go to for the best DJs, the best nightclubs, the best gambling, the best resorts… But today, you know there's gonna be panhandling, vagrancy, the smell of weed… and it's gonna be kind of dirty.' Homelessness in Las Vegas has exploded, with a conservative estimate of around 8,000 people unhoused across a city of just over half a million. That's more homeless people than in London, a city almost 16 times as populous. However, according to Marlon – who entered the charity sector after two decades working in insurance, during which time he developed and recovered from his own cocaine addiction – homelessness is not the real issue. 'It's really an addiction epidemic,' he tells me from his office, a short flight of stairs from the clinic's medical rooms, yoga studio, boxing gym and therapy centre. 'Some 94 percent of the homeless people who walk through our door have a diagnosed substance-use disorder. And it's three things: alcohol, opioids and amphetamines.' Indeed, walk along the busy Las Vegas Boulevard at any time of day and you will see people clearly homeless and often under the influence of drugs. One morning I saw a man washing his clothes in a fountain beside Caesar's Palace, hanging them to dry on the hotel fencing. Another – who can't have been more than 40 – was stopped by security walking between blackjack tables in Caesar's Palace. His arm was in a cast, while his jeans were ripped and riding down towards his knees. In one hand he carried a bottle of unidentified contents while the other arm hung limp by his side, his face expressionless, his eyes vacant. Perhaps most alarming, however, are the hundreds of people I saw each day, passed out in the searing heat – which topped 46 degrees this week – their skin burnt and peeled, a ghastly tricolour of black, red and pink. 'We lost 520 to heat-related death last summer,' David admits, grimly. His downtown rehab facility is just a stone's throw from a number of improvised roadside encampments where the city's homeless have erected shelters out of old tarpaulin and umbrellas. 'And we're going to lose more this summer… nobody should be living on the streets here in the Mojave Desert.' But while David's 'calling' is the well-being of the addicts he helps, the casinos are more interested in protecting the welfare of their paying customers – or at least their wallets. 'Kenny Epstein,' David begins with a smile. 'He runs the El Cortez hotel on the Strip. He said, 'Dave, my high-rollers are telling me that their wives are saying they can't come down here any more because they're getting harassed in the street when they leave!' 'So, I had my outreach team walk around his casino three times a day, and we kind of scoop up anybody homeless and put them in the van. It's what I call a 'compassionate assertive intervention'. Because there's no real conversation to be had with a guy who's actively psychotic on methamphetamines.' 'Vegas is a billion-dollar brand,' David concludes, showing me a number of over-sized cheques from hotels including El Cortez, The Venetian and The Mirage. 'And the casinos recognize that these 8,000 unhoused are tarnishing our brand.' And yet, when it comes to the Las Vegas 'brand', it is rising prices that seem – above all else – to be leaving a sour taste in tourists' mouths. Of course, prices are high across America, not just in Vegas. In fact, the cost of living Stateside is more than 15 percent higher than in the UK. However, the Vegas Strip stands head and shoulders above most other parts of the country. 'Even in some of the more local establishments, prices recently have jumped up 25, 30 percent,' local writer and Vegas expert Sam Novak tells the Mail. 'It's no longer affordable to do the simplest of things. From a simple dinner to a night out with cocktails for your friends, it's prohibitive. It has already damaged the appeal of Vegas.' The cost of accommodation, too, is a factor. Once a famous value destination, the average hotel stay in Vegas in January of this year cost $208 (£155) per night. That's up from $171 (£127) in 2022. And these numbers do not include the astronomic 'resort fees' – supposedly to pay for facilities such as swimming pools and gyms – which became commonplace a decade ago and are added to bills regardless of whether one uses the facilities or not. For prestige hotels such as the Four Seasons, Encore, Caesar's Palace and The Bellagio, the additional cost is more than $60 (£45) per night. On top of this, the vast majority of hotels charge an average of $25 (£19) a day for parking, adding another $100 onto the already bloated cost of a long weekend. Other hidden costs include room service delivery fees. At The Bellagio – famed for its lavish fountain display – having food served in your room costs $25 before you've even chosen what you want from the menu. The days when casinos gave out free steak, lobster and cocktails to keep their guests gambling are long gone. This is now a town where nothing comes for free. 'It is expensive. We paid $33 for a burger at the Excalibur hotel. And over $7 for a bottle of Gatorade,' admits 23-year-old Hugo, who has been visiting Vegas with three pals on a road trip around the West. 'It's a strange mix here of happiness and sadness, you see people having a good time, smiling, taking photos right next to homeless people or people losing money at a casino first thing in the morning.' Despite falling visitor numbers, resort casinos continue to post large profits. 'The economics may reflect that tourists are spending more,' Sam Novak concludes, 'but they may be enjoying themselves less, which ultimately is not a self-sustaining model.' While hotels are commanding larger fees and taking more on the casino floor, they're also providing fewer services. 'MGM laid off their entire concierge department, saying people prefer apps. I don't know if that's true. Maybe they do,' reveals local economics analyst Steven Campbell. 'There's no bell desk service at the Excalibur now. You have to bring your own luggage up to the rooms.' At the same time, resorts are increasingly offering self-service check-ins on an iPad, casinos are ditching traditional table games such as roulette and blackjack for digital equivalents at an electronic betting terminal and – in some extreme cases – even using robotic arms to serve food, such as at a cookie stall in Caesars's Palace or the Tipsy Robot bar off the Strip. 'I just think that people feel the value isn't there for the dollars and cents they pay,' says Campbell. 'It's now a dollar-first, experience-second city.' When it comes to musical acts, it's a similarly depressing story. Claudio and Ivan from Brazil love coming to Vegas for the residencies the city is famous for. Speaking to them beneath the famous 'Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas' sign, they admitted spending more than $1,600 (£1,190) on tickets to see Lady Gaga and the Backstreet Boys this week. Similarly, R'n'B star Bruno Mars – playing at the Park MGM – is charging more than $500 a ticket, making him the most expensive artist in the world to see live. But when it comes to music, the price point is not the only pinch. Far from the heady days of Frank Sinatra and Liberace to Elvis Presley and Elton John, today the city's reputation has been shattered by a string of underwhelming performers on top of absurd ticket prices. 'I'm really concerned so many high-profile artists have created a negative experience for people when they come here,' continues Sam Novak, referencing Kelly Clarkson, who has just opened her show at the Colosseum inside Caesar's Palace. Clarkson cancelled two of her opening performances minutes before the curtain was set to rise, justifying herself to disappointed fans by claiming on social media: 'The prep and rehearsals have taken a toll on my voice.' When she did finally go on, many were still left disappointed. Far from the glitz and glamour of old-school Vegas, Clarkson's set resembles an 'intimate recording studio' with warm lighting, oak panels and pictures on the walls. Clarkson – who wears black jeans and a T-shirt for the gig – described the set as 'chic and comfortable'. So not exactly Liberace, then. 'You come to Vegas for bright lights, sequins and razzmatazz,' 58-year-old Colin from west London tells the Mail after the show. 'Instead, it felt like Kelly at the kitchen table.' In spite of everything, there is still hope for Vegas. The recently shuttered Mirage has been bought by Hard Rock, a hospitality brand, which is set to turn it into a '700ft guitar-shaped hotel'. Meanwhile, the opening of The Sphere – the remarkable performance venue coated entirely with LED screens – has made Vegas an entertainment trailblazer again, with a profile even those big-spending Saudis must envy. 'I went to the opening of Backstreet Boys show at The Sphere on Saturday night,' says Sam Novak. 'And it was an incredible experience. You realise when you're in there with 20,000 people that this is something you cannot get anywhere else.' But bright lights, showgirls, roulette wheels and top singers are disappearing. This is now a city with more billboards for injury lawyers than for anything else. A city where the casinos are sterile, dingy places crammed full of fixed-odds betting terminals. A city where the burlesque shows are half-empty and the musicians charge hundreds of dollars for a ticket. A city plagued by drugs and homelessness. A city seemingly caught in a death spiral. A city not so much sinking into the Nevada sand as melting into the tarmac.
BBC News
6 hours ago
- BBC News
The 'other' Michelin award travellers should know
Long overshadowed by the coveted Michelin stars, the Bib Gourmand celebrates the world's best budget-friendly restaurants. When the latest Michelin Guide to California was published in June, most headlines focused on its starred restaurants, including Hollywood's seafood-focused Providence. At the awards ceremony, it joined a rarified global club of eateries with three stars, Michelin's highest honour – one reserved for lofty cuisine and prices to match. Multi-course menus at Providence start at $325 (£240). Even their poached egg, that humble breakfast staple, comes with sea urchin and Champagne beurre blanc. (For an extra $40 (£30), you can zhuzh it up with golden Kaluga caviar, too.) Sublime as it may be, such fare bears little resemblance to my most memorable meals in Los Angeles. Like the spicy, aromatic toothpick lamb at Chengdu Taste, a no-frills Szechuan eatery in an Alhambra strip mall. Or the chile relleno burritos from East LA stalwart La Azteca Tortilleria, its house-made flour wrappers spilling piquant salsa across my lap. Even if they swapped their paper napkins for starched linen and played soft piano in the background – rumoured to be among the criteria for earning a coveted Michelin star – neither eatery is likely to obtain one. "Stars are oriented towards a certain kind of restaurant… often it's white tablecloths and tasting menus," said food writer and Eater editor Rebecca Roland, who grew up in LA and covered the most recent Michelin rollout. "The guide still considers a traditional fine dining experience very heavily." However, both Chengdu Taste and La Azteca Tortilleria appear on Michelin's lesser-known list: the Bib Gourmand, which recognises budget-friendly restaurants around the world. Unlike starred places, many LA "Bibs" are low-key local favourites; Roland mentioned hefty pastrami sandwiches at Langer's Delicatessen as one unmissable example. "I can't imagine someone coming to LA and not telling them to go to Langer's," she said. Such places help explain why Bib Gourmands have become a go-to resource for many foodie travellers. But curiously, even three decades after its launch, the Bib Gourmand can still feel like an open secret. "When you go to a Bib Gourmand, it's like you're wrapped in the people, the culture, the ingredients," said Ben Beale, a frequent traveller from Los Angeles who has sought out Bibs in cities like London and Hanoi. The Vietnamese capital has an impressive 22 Bibs, including renowned pho shop Phở Bò Lâm, which is famous for its beef heel muscle soups and where diners crouch on flimsy plastic stools. Beale used to plan his trips around Michelin-starred restaurants, making reservations weeks in advance. But he began to feel the high-end spots lacked the strong sense of place he found at Bibs. Instead, he started using the Michelin Guide app to search out more impromptu meals. "With Bib Gourmands it's more like, 'we're going to bounce up to London, let's just open the app when we're hungry and see what's about'," he said. Bib Gourmands versus Michelin stars The Bibs are relatively recent additions to the storied guidebook. The first Michelin Guide came out in 1900, a marketing ploy by the eponymous French tyre manufacturers hoping to inspire drivers to hit the road. In 1926, Michelin established "stars" for stand-out spots. It wasn't until 1997 that the guides introduced the modern Bib Gourmand symbol, a cartoon Michelin man licking his lips. (Bib is short for "Bibendum", the puffy mascot's official name.) "The Bib Gourmand award highlights restaurants that our inspectors consider to be the best value for money," explained the anonymous Chief Inspector for the Michelin Guide North America by email. Meals at Bibs generally include two courses and wine or dessert for under $50 (£37) and are more relaxed than starred meals. "There's no set formula for a Bib restaurant," the inspector added. "They are all unique." While the modern Bib Gourmand was launched in 1997, it lacks the stars' cultural status. "Not many people know the Bib Gourmand award… they see 'Michelin' and think it's a star," said Aylin Okutan Kurt, co-owner of Karaköy Lokantası, a Bib Gourmand restaurant in Istanbul's , waterfront Karaköy neighbourhood. Kurt sometimes has to explain the difference to tourists arriving at her restaurant. Among locals, Karaköy Lokantası is beloved for reverential renditions of traditional Turkish dishes, its kitchen wringing such depth of flavour from familiar recipes that it reminds diners why they attained "classic" status in the first place. At dinner, tables are crowded with small plates best accompanied by generous pours of the aniseed-scented spirit rakı. One Istanbul friend described it as "the kind of restaurant you visit if you live in Istanbul and really love living in Istanbul". On a spring visit last year, I joined the lunchtime crowd for plates of hünkar beğendi, meat-topped smoked aubergine that's pure Turkish comfort food. At the next table over, a trio of women shared fried mantı (meat-filled dumplings) doused in silky yoghurt. With its blue-tiled walls and well-heeled clientele, Karaköy Lokantası is undeniably elegant, but Kurt insists it isn't Michelin star material. The cooking is homier than what she called the "chef food" at Istanbul's starred restaurants. Those, like two-starred Turk Fatih Tutak, are more likely to feature deconstructed – rather than classic – versions of the recipes her own kitchen makes each day. Yet, traditional foods are one reason travellers seek out Bib Gourmands over Michelin stars in the first place. "When I'm going to a new country, I want to try authentic foods," said James Zhang, a traveller from Plano, Texas. "I'm not necessarily looking to try the most cutting-edge foods from chefs." Earlier this year, Zhang visited a series of Bib Gourmand restaurants in France with his family. At La Merenda in Nice, they savoured southern French classics including pistou pasta and stuffed and fried courgette blossoms. "It just really stood out to us," Zhang said. "There were a lot of locals there, and it felt like you really got to experience something unique." What Michelin stars miss Not all Bib Gourmand restaurants serve traditional regional cuisine. In fact, some argue they reflect the kind of culinary diversity that Michelin stars tend to miss. In a 2024 analysis, French data scientist Thomas Pernet found that French, Italian and Japanese cuisines are disproportionately represented among starred restaurants. He also noted that while Japanese food is widely celebrated, other non-Western cuisines can face bias and have historically been undervalued abroad. More like this:• How do restaurants actually get a Michelin star?• The ingenious story behind Michelin stars• A two-Michelin-star chef's guide to the best dining spots in Istanbul In Los Angeles County, home to more Asian American and Pacific Islanders than any other US county, just two non-Japanese Asian restaurants – Taiwanese-inspired Kato and Korean Restaurant Ki – have Michelin stars. Ki is a new addition. In the same area, the starred list includes two French and two Italian eateries. I thought of Pernet's research earlier this year when I covered the launch of the first Michelin Guide to Quebec. All three newly Michelin-starred restaurants in Montreal specialised in tasting menus of French cuisine. That raised eyebrows in a multicultural city that may be majority French-speaking but is certainly not French. (It was one of many online critiques, with one headline reading: "Michelin doesn't understand Montreal".) Yet the city's Bib Gourmand list was full of restaurants that felt more representative of the city's characteristic culinary style and diversity. There was the Syrian and Armenian cuisine of Le Petit Alep, where I've lingered over muhammara dip, its rich walnuts offset by the sharp tang of pomegranate molasses. Rotisserie chicken, a local staple that melds working-class Quebecois roots and foods brought by waves of Portuguese immigrants, was represented by Rôtisserie La Lune in the city's Little Italy. Would I eat at the city's three newly Michelin-starred dining rooms, with their French-inflected menus and impossible reservations? Sure; they're probably great. But as a traveller, I'm more inclined to seek out the affordable, diverse and vividly local thrills that Bibs offer. Perhaps I'll follow in the footsteps of fellow aficionado Beale. I'll wait until I'm hungry, look at the map and see if I can find a table at the closest Bib Gourmand. -- For more Travel stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE New York beach town is quietly becoming the 'Ibiza of America'
Paradisal beaches, raving nightlife, and endless parties with killer sunsets. It sounds like Ibiza, but what if we told you it's only a train ride away from New York City. The talk of the town in the Big Apple every summer is the wealthy flocking to their Hamptons homes to enjoy a good workout class, exclusive parties and rub elbows with the world's top one percent. But neighboring Long Island hamlet, Montauk, is where the real party has been this summer. As more music festivals and DJ parties continue to pop up along the idyllic beaches and hotspots around town, causing influencers and ravers alike to flock there, the hamlet of 4,000 is starting to be referred to by some as 'America's Ibiza.' Over Memorial Day and July Fourth weekends, party after party filled with hot young people dancing the night away to up-and-coming DJs like Beau Cruz. Plenty of huge parties take place at Surf Lodge, one of Montauk's go-to places for influencers to let lose against the gorgeous summer sunsets and fall into their expensive hotel rooms on the premises, that start at around $795 a night. Radio host and music curator Bobby Hendrickson, who has 129,000 followers, called Montauk the new Ibiza in a TikTok that has quickly gone viral. He said the New York hotspot resembled the Spanish archipelago due to its rising tourism in the summer, vibey nightlife and day parties, and the wealth of its visitors. Large summer homes along the Montauk shoreline are seen above 'Let's go, Montauk!' the 29-year-old Miami resident told Daily Mail in a phone interview. 'It's got similar vibes to Ibiza.' Both have become well-known places that are filled with celebrities, the wealthy, gorgeous beaches, crazy parties, and lots of money. 'And it's an island,' he said of both places. Hendrickson, who was in Ibiza this week, said nothing will truly compare to the Spanish vacation spot, but he does believe Montauk could develop into a rival. 'Nothing is like Ibiza,' the SiriusXM host said. 'That's its own animal.' Before the Ibiza-esque takeover, the hamlet - located on the farthest eastern point of Long Island - was a sleepy surfer town known for its quaint charm. Now, it's anything but. 'It's people with money,' Hendrickson told Daily Mail. And people who want to party. Nightclub consultant, Jonas Young-Borra, 40, of Manhattan, said Montauk's new popularity is due to social media trends and he doesn't know how long it will last. 'People are chasing the trend of the moment and they'll chase the next,' Young-Borra told Daily Mail It has well-known DJs coming out, like Cheat Codes - who have a song with Demi Lovato - who will be taking over the Surf Lodge. Other beach places like Gurney's Montauk and Duryea's - which has a $97 Cobb salad on its menu - are other popular places. The Montauk Beach House is hosting a Palma Day Club, which features a party at the clubhouse every Saturday with two pools, DJs, and food and drinks. And if influencers are lucky, they'll score tickets to private parties or get to attend brand parties. Last summer, Dolce and Gabbana held a beach pop at the clubhouse and had items for sale. Hendrickson thinks social media has played a huge role in putting Montauk on the map. 'Social media has that effect,' he said. 'It created a hype culture [around Montauk].' Nightclub consultant, Jonas Young-Borra, 40, of Manhattan, said the only comparison is the wealth of those enjoying it as the New York destination is much, much smaller than the Spanish island. He also said that Ibiza, unlike Montauk, was 'built as a party community'. 'Ibiza has monster huge clubs,' he told Daily Mail while driving out to Long Island. 'I'd never call it the Ibiza of New York... As a party destination, you can call it boutique Ibiza.' But he agrees with Hendrickson that it is more of a 'destination now than ever before'. Although Hendrickson and Young-Borra don't know how long the hype will last. 'People are chasing the trend of the moment and they'll chase the next,' Young-Borra told Daily Mail. 'It's a seasonal place,' Hendrickson, who tries to visit Montauk at least once a year, said. 'In the summertime, it's a lot of fun.' A former emergency medicine and pediatrics doctor who has been going out to Montauk for 10 years agreed that the town has seen a 'complete change in culture' more recently. Dr. Fidel Garcia, 47, of Brooklyn, works with Boutique Concierge and Ring My Belle offering partygoers in Montauk at-home IV hydration. He said their services have been a huge hit especially amongst revelers preparing for a big weekend. Like their counterparts in the Hamptons, they too are ordering IV drips to their doors to ward off dreaded hangovers. 'Clients are treating it like an ultimate weekend destination,' he said. 'It's the next big party center. 'There's lots of pregaming,' he told Daily Mail. Clients will often pregame on Thursday and Friday before partying the weekend away. On Saturday and Sunday, recovery efforts begin, he explained. Nearly a third of his clientele are New Yorkers in their 20s and 30s enjoying a summer away from the hot concrete jungle, while others come from different states and countries. The hangover drip, which retails for $350 and is delivered to one's door, is in 'high demand' during the summer months, Garcia said. The NAD+ drip, which retails for $850, is also 'having its moment,' the former emergency medicine and pediatrics doctor told Daily Mail. The majority of those looking for party bender recovery are young adults, while the wealthy elite between the ages of 30 and 50 are more focused on health-related aspects, he added.
