Strangers in a strange land: the HCN annual travel issue. Cover image: A giant aluminum alien stands outside the Alien Research Center along Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway, by Finnish tourist Teemu Tuuloskorpi.
Bold-Face Conquer
“Unite and Conquer” was a puzzling article (HCN, 3/2/15). I think the title should have had “Unite” in very small lower case and “Conquer” in large, capitalized bold face.Your heroine comes across as an 800-pound gorilla with a typical, to me, Las Vegas attitude: Give me what I want or I’ll bury you with my…
Children in Alaska’s wild country
As parents, we watch our kids walk into vast new worlds — like it or not.
Fire squads in Utah, metaphysical debates in Arizona politics
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
HCN writers publish books and garner awards
Plus visitors to the office and corrections.
International tourists in Western states, by the numbers
Where they’re from, where they go and where they spend their money.
Mulroy’s Plan B
“Unite and Conquer” left out an important fact about Mulroy’s Plan B to pump groundwater from rural eastern Nevada to Las Vegas. At least part of the groundwater in question is shared with Utah and used by ranchers in Utah’s West Desert. In 2013, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert decided not to sign an agreement with…
Out-Migration Option
I found “Unite and Conquer” fascinating, informative and thorough. It appears Ms. Mulroy has moved the Southwest water conversation to greater depths indeed. What I find disappointing, however, is that despite all talk of openness, one option is unfortunately dismissed out of hand. Why not spend the billion dollars suggested for a groundwater-pumping alternative to pay people to…
Raccoonboy’s guide to urban wilds
When in doubt, climb; fences are made for hopping.
Readers’ foreign travel tales
Winners of the High Country News essay contest for our annual travel issue.
Strangers in a familiar land
A few years ago, my family and I lived for a while in Germany. Soon after we returned, we went for a hike in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area in northwestern New Mexico. Bisti is surely one of the weirder and more obscure wilderness areas out there, a collection of otherworldly rock formations and badlands, surrounded…
The West in 72 hours
Asian tourists look for space, spectacles and a decent bowl of noodles.
A German’s shattered romance with the West
An essayist asks whether the West is the most misunderstood region in the U.S.
A wanderer’s guide to Western public lands
Cow patties, extraterrestrials and binoculars can help you figure out where you are.
An outsider’s guide to insider Portland
Dispatch from a dryland alien in the rainy Northwest.
On the road with America’s sightseers
A photographer looks at three decades of tourism.