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Josh Noel

ABEL URIBE/Chicago Tribune
In this Nov. 13, 2002, file photograph, David Davila (right), of Le Meridien hotel's front deck, checks in a customer. User-generated reviews of hotels can be helpful for travelers.

Travel sites can be indispensable ... but can they be trusted?

Josh Noel McClatchy Newspapers Chicago Tribune

Last updated Sunday, January 1, 2012 - 8:38am

Nowhere is the Internet's democratic nature clearer than in the user-generated reviews on such websites as Yelp and TripAdvisor. All it takes to weigh in on a restaurant, hotel, spa, bar, bowling alley -- anything, really -- is a username and password.

While they're a boon for consumers sharing unfiltered ideas and opinions, there are obvious hazards: What can be trusted? How do we know a hotel owner hasn't put family members up to clogging sites with positive reviews of his property and negative reviews of his competition?

Features, Travel, Websites Read more Comments

JOSH NOEL/Chicago Tribune
Once the realm of grizzled gold miners and gun slingers, Deadwood, South Dakota, is now a place to just have fun and where the legend of Wild Bill Hickock still hangs over the town.

Deadwood rides again

Chicago Tribune, Josh Noel

Last updated Monday, June 6, 2011 - 11:48am

DEADWOOD, S.D. -- Once the stomping ground of grizzled gold miners, gun-slinging gamblers and men fueled by six-chambered justice, this place is now home to a wholly different breed.

Features, Deadwood, Travel Read more Comments

People mill around at the KOA in Rodanthe,N.C.

JOSH NOEL/Chicago Tribune/MCT

Give today's KOA a try

Chicago Tribune, Josh Noel

Last updated Sunday, May 29, 2011 - 10:15am

RODANTHE, N.C. -- My symbiosis with Kampgrounds of America didn't happen all at once. It was, in fact, a slow build.

It began on the jumping pillow, that dome of inflated rubber planted in the ground where I sprang endlessly into a warm summer afternoon -- never mind the 7-year-old girl who counseled her younger brother to jump away from me because "grown-ups make it too bouncy."

Features, Camping, KOA, Travel Read more Comments

Associated Press file photo
Prince William stands with his fiancee, Kate Middleton, at St. James Palace in London, after they announced their engagement.

Take a hop across the pond -- you may get a glimpse of the royals

Chicago Tribune, Josh Noel

Last updated Friday, February 11, 2011 - 3:56pm

Should you so regret that we don't have a royal family of our own, you might consider crossing the pond this spring for the nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. If so, you will indeed have a few options for enjoying the festivities.

Though you can forget a ticket into Westminster Abbey for the wedding or Buckingham Palace for the reception, you will be able to see the procession on the route from the royal palace to the church and back.

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Hey, pilgrim, get yourself to the birthplace of John Wayne

Chicago Tribune, Josh Noel

Last updated Sunday, February 6, 2011 - 3:02am

WINTERSET, Iowa -- In the tiny living room of the tiny clapboard house where John Wayne was born, our tour guide explained that "The Duke's" family moved to this town southwest of Des Moines in 1906 so his father could work in a pharmacy. They left in 1911 for Wayne's father to take a similar job in nearby Earlham. I didn't think much of it. None of us 16 visitors seemed to.

"Wait," I asked the guide. "So how old was John Wayne when the family left this house?"

"Three," she said, and continued with his life story.

Three.

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