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Tag / resort

Once Upon a Summer in Black Eden…

Today, the glory days of Idlewild feel a bit like a fever dream. Just ask any of the African American vacationers who made the pilgrimage to the Michigan resort from the 1910s-60s. “It was something that you’d never believe…stranger than fiction,” reflects one woman in Coy Davis Jr.’s documentary, Whatever Happened to Idlewild? In the midst of Jim…

Ruins of a French Colonial Ghost Town

The luxury French resort of a different variety … Photo source: Flick User An Agent   Like a giant tombstone at the top of a hill prevailing over the dense tropical Cambodian jungle, here lies the remains of French colonial history. Yet another testimony to Europe’s once sinister use of imperialist power, Bokor Hill Station…

The Apocalypse came early for the Salton Riviera

There is a place where beaches are made not of sand, but of the skeletons of millions of fish. Luxury yacht clubs are now frequented only by pigeons, vacation homes lay open to the elements and RV camp grounds look more like burial grounds. (c) above Jeremy Engleman & JBennett Fitts below Not 60 miles from the…

Decline of the ‘Dirty Dancing’ Dream

We’ve made a few trips to explore the abandoned resorts of the Borscht Belt of New York. Once places like Grossinger’s, the Concord, Kutscher’s and the Pines, were the epitome of a swanky summer holiday for New Yorkers. All through the Catskills were dozens of all-inclusive resorts, glitzy enough to entice the mostly Jewish, upper-middle…

The Reformed Nazi Cult trying to Open its Colony to Tourism

I was sent down a deep and dark rabbit hole today when I came across a new movie trailer for Colonia. The film is based on true events which took place in 1970s Chile at the Colonia Dignidad, a dangerous cult that was revealed to have Nazi ties and to have used torture among other atrocities within its inescapable walls.…
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Back to the Borscht Belt: Exploring the Ruins of another Doomed Resort Hotel

The Borscht Belt in the Catskill Mountains was once one of the New York’s premiere holiday destinations. Named after the Eastern European soup, during its heyday the Borscht Belt boasted around 500 hundred hotels. Catering to mostly Jewish holiday makers, the so-called ‘Jewish Alps’ were filled with everything from grand hotels and resorts, to more…

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Checking into New York’s Lost Holiday Resort

Hidden away in upstate New York, about two hours north of Manhattan, lies a forgotten holiday resort. Fifty years ago, it would have been the height of luxury for well heeled New Yorkers to come here, escaping from the Metropolis to the seclusion of the Catskill Mountains, to a place called Grossinger’s. It had opened…

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The Bay of Abandoned Hotels

As summer winds down and holidaymakers swap the beach for their real lives, hotels will inevitably begin to empty of their guests and resorts will slowly become ghost towns until the next season. But very few resorts will get as ghostly as the Kupari luxury resort in Croatia, which hasn’t seen any paying guests since…
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The Greatest American Train Journey that Time Forgot

It was “the grandest scenic trip on earth”; an enchanting and world-famous mountain railway journey to a vast resort where champagne and caviar was served along with panoramic views over southern California as far as the Pacific Ocean. I first learned of the Mount Lowe railway when I stumbled upon this old postcard map above. My first thoughts were: wow,…

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The Ghosts of Contadora Island, Panama’s Forgotten Pearl

I‘ve met Panamanians who talk about Contadora Island as if it were a relative they lost, like a favourite uncle from childhood they adored. I spoke to a Dutch ex-pat sailor who is convinced there is a curse over Panama’s Pearl islands. “There’s always something mysterious that happens to big resorts on these islands. They never last. Take that huge…

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