BEEN-SEEN.COM - A DIFFERENCE IN WHERE AND HOW WE TRAVEL

According to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there is no busier day than today for long-distance travel. For Americans, at least.

If you think you know LA, but secretly yearn to find out more secrets from its undoubtedly checkered past, you might want to board the 1947project Crime Bus. The vehicle for Esotouric, a rather unconventional tour company, it'll take you to dark mysterious places. And dumplings.

Denny's. McDonald's. Burger King. Some nameless diner with a sign hanging off its hinges. Eating on the road can be a lottery - or, even worse - far too predictable altogether. That's why Roadfood is such a clever idea.

Los Angeles to San Francisco in two and a half hours? Without having to put your 3oz lotion bottles into quart-sized zip-loc bags? Sign us all up. If Governor Schwarzenegger has his way, he'll be commuting to and from Sacramento in two hours and 17 minutes, while cutting freeway congestion and carbon emissions in one fell swoop.

Hmmm. What is that? Could it be the eye of a hurricane? Jupiter's Great Red Spot turned blue? An ammonite? All acceptable guesses. The phenomenon sits in barren Northwest African terrain of the Mauritanian Sahara. A mystery that has intrigued scientists, geologists, astronomists and laypersons alike since its visual discovery by orbiting astronauts during the dawn of space travel. Le Guelb er Richat, or the Richat Structure.

Out in middle of the Northern Pacific Ocean where one would expect to see little more than the endless pristine expanse of ocean and sky and its complementing hues of blue and perhaps the occasional poetic albatross floats an environmental disaster so disgraceful that all humanity should turn red from shame - the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

While it can be argued that there is never a good time for war, the timing of the Russian-Georgian conflict has struck a dissonant chord with the international community. The Beijing Olympics-inspired harmony of brotherly spirit and international goodwill were temporarily drowned out by the South Ossetia-related bloodshed. Abruptly popping the bubble of sporting bliss like it was a kid’s birthday balloon.

Ignore Miami Vice, Scarface and other Hollywoodish stylized representations of cocaine, and consider for a moment the South American plant that grows on Andean hillsides. The bush before all the chemical processing required to transform it into the white powder that the world's populace masochistically desires, and that fuels an illicit billion dollar industry: Erythroxylum Coca.

I remember years ago when the tunnel under the English Channel was being built, everyone was a little sceptical about whether it would be completed, whether it would work, and whether anyone would use it. Now everyone travels to France on the Eurostar. Today, after 20 years of talks between the two countries, it seems a tunnel link between Spain and Morocco may finally be happening.

We recently heard about an exhibition called All Inclusive: A Tourist World at the Shirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, but sadly not in time to go and see it. Luckily, there's a book of the show which features the same images as well as some accompanying text gleaned from a public literary contest on the subject of tourism. The writing is intriguing, but it's the pictures, by a variety of artists, that really capture your attention.

It's the time of year when, if the wind is right and there aren't too many trees around, kites take flight. On August 18, the skies over Long Beach in Washington state turn into a rainbow of swirling and fluttering color for the Washington State International Kite Festival.

The competition is heating up in the world of upscale underwater hotels. First we heard about the Poseidon Undersea Resort in Fiji, then it was the Shanghai Shimao Wonderland submerged in a Chinese quarry, and of course everyone's heard about Hydropolis (pictured), the half-billion-dollar jellyfish-shaped mega-resort currently being built off the coast of Dubai. Now there's news of more...