Marc Boisclair, writing for MiMegasite, has an excellent article on the changing face of Reno and the multi-million dollar investments which are turning it into a full-fledged year around entertainment zone.

Article quotes Michael Thomas, executive director of marketing for the Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority, as saying that there’s 18 ski resorts within an hour’s drive of downtown Reno and Reno-Tahoe International Airport, and that hotels in Reno offer up a total of 20,000 guest rooms within a very short drive to the mountains.

Reno, like Tahoe, is awash in hospitality makeovers. The Atlantis, Peppermill, John Ascuaga’s Nugget, and Grand Sierra resorts alone have invested close to a half-billion dollars in renovations and expansions, much of them friendly toward incentives, such as fine dining, health spas, and room amenities.

New bars, clubs, restaurants, and spas—either in downtown or at Reno’s gaming resorts—are aiding in Reno’s renaissance, as well. “Once the slopes shut down, we have a pulse,” said Thomas. “There’s a real nightlife here, whether you’re in downtown or at one of the resorts, and that makes us a complete destination.”

Let’s move from tranformations in travel destinations to transformative travel. USAToday asked readers to sahre their life-changing journeys, and has now published some of these stories. Includes voluntourism with handicapped kids in Quito, Ecuador; a trip to a small orphanage on the outskirts of Cape Haitian, Haiti; a trip to the Pacific island of Guadalupe, Mexico where Jupp Kerckerinck zur Borg from Millbrook, NY fell in love with great white sharks; and a few more.

But the best one is a story sent in by Linda Castagna, a Milford, NJ resident, who took a family trip to the UK, and spent 3 weeks in the English countryside, spending nights in different bed and breakfasts along the way. They got hooked on the B&B routine, and are now owners of their own B&B, named Chestnut Hill on the Delaware (www.chestnuthillnj.com/).

Photo by chicadecasa via flickr (creative commons).

Posted on January 2nd, 2009 by Thomas
Filed under: News