LIVE EARTH

24-HOUR SERIES OF CONCERTS AIMS TO FOCUS ATTENTION ON WARMING

Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, London, Kyoto, Johannesburg, the U.S. Mainland ... where will you be on 7/7/07?

Al Gore continues his mission to draw attention to global warming as the force behind plans for Live Earth, a 24-hour music concert series on every continent — and, yes, there are plans to rock Antarctica (although it's not certain who the audience will be).

Dozens of top musicians, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snoop Dogg to Snow Patrol and Keane, will perform July 7 in the cities above and a Mainland city yet to be decided. Organizers are confident global audiences will top those of previous Live shows (Live Aid, Live 8 and such).

"In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to reach billions of people ... by an unprecedented and sustained global movement," said Gore in a statement. "We hope to jumpstart that movement right here, right now."

Learn more at www.liveearth.org.


— Chris Oliver

BOOK REVIEW

BEST CITIES, AS PICKED BY TRAVELERS, NOT NECESSARILY ALL BIG OR FAMOUS

Lonely Planet's impressive "The Cities Book," (Lonely Planet Publications; hardback, $50), is more of a butcher-block read than a coffee-table book. This hefty hardback illustrates 200 cities of the world as voted by Lonely Planet travelers, authors and staff.

The usual suspects pop up: London, Paris (it's voted No. 1 city that "has it all"), New York, but you'll also find cities even the savviest traveler will have trouble pointing to on a map: the unfamiliar Nuuk (Greenland), the exotic Abuja, (Nigeria) and the tiniest city, Saint-Denis (Reunion Islands).

What this book does well is turn a fresh eye on well-known cities and and then smack you with newer destinations appealing to the adventurous traveler.

Day-to-day life in each city is explored in an eye-popping double-page spread of photographs and just enough text to whet your appetite: a mini-profile for the city and city dweller in question, defining experiences for visitors, where to eat, what not to miss, movies filmed there ... and for each destination, a quirky urban myth to ponder.

Who knew that the bronze dragons on Ljubljana's Dragon Bridge (in Slovenia) wag their tails when a virgin crosses the bridge?

Such gems, even if they stretch the imagination, add much to the book's appeal. Adventurers and couch travelers alike can wile away many an evening in a cache of foreign cities.


— Chris Oliver

TOP TEN

BUDGET BEDS

The top hostels in the world, from a http://hostelworld.com poll of 500,000 hostel users:

1. Jetpak City Hostel, Berlin

2. Hostel of the Sun, Naples, Italy

3. La Chimba, Santiago, Chile

4. Mamas Hostel, Krakow, Poland

5. Wombats City Hostel (The Lounge), Vienna

6. Friendly Fun Franks Backpackers Hostel, Riga, Latvia

7. EastSeven Berlin Hostel, Berlin

8. Argonaut Backpackers, Riga

9. Oasis Backpackers Hostel, Granada, Spain

10. Oki Doki Hostel, Warsaw


— Chicago Tribune