Tony Gutierrez / AP

A sign shows gas prices as a driver pulls in to a newly opened QuickTrip filling station March 26 in Dallas. High fuel prices are expected to curb Americans' vacation plans this summer.

Whether traveling for business or pleasure this summer, rapidly escalating fuel costs — gas is now above $4 a gallon at many West Coast locations — will cause travelers around the nation to cut back on trips, according to a new survey by the nonprofit U.S. Travel Association.

The survey found that of vacationers who plan to travel by car this summer, 54 percent said an increase in gas prices would affect their summer leisure travel plans, while more than 25 percent of business travelers said higher gas prices would affect their summer business travel plans.

The survey questioned 2,500 people around the country, and had an error rate of plus or minus 2 percent.

Furthermore, higher airfares due to rising oil prices will impact leisure travelers more than business travelers, according to the survey. About 43 percent of leisure travelers who plan to fly said that an increase in airfare due to higher oil prices would affect their summer travel plans; 25 percent of business travelers said their plans would be affected.

Carroll Rheem, research director for PhoCusWright, a travel research and analysis company, isn’t surprised by the survey results. High fuel prices have emerged as a threat to several segments of travel, she said, including long road trips and travel requiring flights. 

“I think it’s definitely a potential damper to summer travel and the travel industry,” she said.  “It’s a little bit frustrating to watch. We’ve been waiting for this recovery, and as soon as economic factors improve, the price of gas rises.”

Though it’s a bit hard to predict at this point, tourism destinations only accessible by plane, like Hawaii, may well feel the pinch as consumers decide to stay closer to home when faced with expensive tickets, Rheem said. “Travelers who might have flown, they’ll be grounded,” she said. “Especially families who are buying four tickets instead of two.”

On the other hand, national parks and camping destinations may well see a boost this summer as families look for more economical vacations, she said.

Nancy White, a Washington, D.C.-based spokeswoman for AAA, said higher fuel prices will change some behavior on the part of travelers, but it’s hard to tell exactly how much.

“At this point, it’s still a bit difficult to pinpoint where gas prices will end up” by the summer, White said. “From what we’ve seen from our travel counselors, the picture is more encouraging. We have 7,000 travel counselors at 1,000 branch offices, and we did a quick poll of them. They told us AAA members are not canceling trips. They are altering distances (driven), and perhaps number of destinations they go to. It’s still a kind of wait and see as to what the impact will eventually be.”

Their travel agents have noticed that consumers interested in purchasing airline tickets are closely watching fares but holding back on booking flights in anticipation that fares may come down, according to other AAA officials.

But don’t wait for any major airfare sales, Rheem cautioned. “The airlines are very willing to cut back capacity rather than lower fares to ensure profits,” she said. “They’d rather cancel a flight then run it half full. They just can’t afford to do that anymore.”

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In this image released by Lionsgate, Jennifer Lawrence portrays Katniss Everdeen, left, and Liam Hemsworth portrays Gale Hawthorne in a scene from "The Hunger Games," which was filmed in North Carolina.

From waterfalls near Hendersonville to abandoned buildings in Shelby, North Carolina expects major exposure – and long-term impact – from the unveiling of “The Hunger Games” film this weekend.

The film, which opens Friday, was shot entirely in North Carolina – “every frame,” Aaron Syrett, director of the North Carolina Film Office, said with pride.

The impact of the film could be far-reaching. The books, by Suzanne Collins, have sold millions of copies.  Syrett said Lionsgate Films has an “incredible” marketing campaign behind the film.

“You can’t buy a billboard this large,” Syrett said Wednesday. “It will have a tremendous tourism impact for years to come.”

This article, "North Carolina braces for 'Hunger Games' impact," originally appeared on NBC17.com.

The film used more than 4,000 extras, all of them from North Carolina, and also had a crew of around 500, the majority of them coming from the state.

The film is about a post-apocalypse society in which the Capitol demands tribute from the surrounding regions by having one boy and one girl compete in the Hunger Games. The games are nationally televised, and only one teen survives.

The filmmakers needed run-down buildings and warehouses for the dark film, and found them in such places as Shelby.

Margo Metzger / AP

Scenes from "'The Hunger Games" were shot at the abandoned Henry River Mill Village in Hildebran, N.C. The house on the left was outfitted as the Everdeens' home in the Seam, part of District 12 in fictional Panem.

"It was a mill town with company houses and all that that we were able to shoot in. That was quite a lucky find," director Gary Ross told NBC.

Shelby became “District 12,” the home of several of the film’s main characters. Shelby officials expect tourists to visit just to see places the film used.

Other areas in western North Carolina became essential to the film as well. “The Hunger Games” was shot at an abandoned cigarette factory around Charlotte. Another scene was shot at Triple Falls, a popular waterfall at DuPont State Forest near Brevard.

Syrett said North Carolina already has 10-15 films either in preparation, shooting or wrapping up now. And “The Hunger Games” will help the state continue to attract the movie industry.

“It’s really a small industry,” Syrett said. “Everybody knows everyone and they talk. This will be the main topic in Los Angeles for the next few weeks.

“And we’ve done a good job of letting people know it was shot in North Carolina. We certainly have seen a volume of level of interest in North Carolina rise in the past year or so because of it.”

But, he said, “I think Monday will busy day for us.”

And right after “The Hunger Games,” another blockbuster is ahead. Syrett said “Iron Man 3” is in prepping mode now, and shooting will begin soon.

Any hints on where? The Triangle, perhaps?

“I can’t say right now,” he said.

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Frank Ockenfels / AMC

The Season 5 premier of AMC's "Mad Men" is March 25.

It may be impossible to time travel back to 1960s-era New York, but that hasn’t stopped some "Mad Men" fans and haunts featured on the TV show from trying.

"Mad Men," which premiers its fifth season on Sunday, is filmed predominately in Los Angeles, but nostalgia for the fictional advertising world of Don Draper and his fellow Madison Avenue executives has spawned a wave of tourism in Manhattan, where the drama is set.

The show “is as quintessentially New York as yellow taxis and pastrami on rye,” writes NYC & Company, the official marketing, tourism and partnership organization for New York City.

“New York City is the center of media and pop culture — visitors are drawn here partly because they see the city portrayed in film and television and it feels familiar to them,” said Kimberly Spell, chief communications officer for NYC & Company. Shows like “Mad Men” “accentuate the unique vibrancy, style and glamour of the city.”

Related: Will Don Draper finally be happy this season on 'Mad Men?'

Leading up to the premier, the city is boasting special hotel packages, "Mad Men"-themed cocktails, walking tours, and ample opportunities to dress up in period attire and turn back the clocks to soak up the retro style and glamour of the 1960s.

Here is a round up of some of them:

NYC Discovery Walking Tours offers fans a chance to stroll through midtown, taking in the history and architecture of the era. On “The World of Mad Men: NYC During the Early 1960’s,” stops include the Summit Hotel, the Seagram Building, the Pan Am Building, and the Lever House, and other places Don Draper might have seen when he leaves his office to buy a “35 cent pack of cigarettes and meet a client for lunch.” The public tour, which costs $20, is offered on Saturday, March 24, at 2 p.m. and Sunday, March 25, at 4:30 p.m. Call 212-465-3331 for reservations and meeting place. Tours by private appointment are also available.

Richard Anthony, one of NYC Discovery Walking Tours’ historians, said he and colleagues were impressed with the show’s authenticity. The scripts “are very well-researched, they aren’t at all arbitrary.” In recent months “there’s been a big buzz about 'Mad Men'; it’s led to this birth of interest in New York” during the early 60s. The private tour was given about four times in recent weeks, Anthony said. “People are always looking for that part of New York history they want to escape to.”  

Several companies offer general tours, including NYC Discovery Walking Tours’ “Famous Movie Sites of the East Side” and the guided bus tour “New York TV & Movie Sites,” given by On Location Tours, that pass or point out "Mad Men" locations, like the Time & Life Building and the Ziegfeld Theatre.

The Roosevelt Hotel NYC, the setting of several episodes and where Don Draper lived in Season 2 after his wife Betty threw him out, offers a “Mad Men in the City” package. Included are a stay in a newly renovated room, 1960s-inspired mixers at mad46, the 19th floor rooftop bar or at Madison Club Lounge, one of Draper’s frequent hot spots in the hotel’s lobby: two tickets to The Paley Center for Media; and copies of "Mad Men" Season 4 on DVD and the newly released “Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook” to take home. The package starts at $425 a night for a minimum three-night stay, and is available from March 1 to June 30.

The Pierre, a Taj Hotel, which has appeared in previous episodes, offers guests the chance to sip classic cocktails from the early 60s and “dress up in their favorite 'Mad Men'-inspired garb and embrace their inner Don Draper and Joan Holloway” beginning on March 27 and on every Tuesday throughout the season. The offer is part of the regular weekly complimentary jazz music series from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Two E Bar/Lounge. Cocktails on the special drink menu cost $14 and include Irish Coffee, one of fictional character Roger Sterling’s staples, and the  Bikini Martini, “the most voluptuous drink in town,” inspired by Christina Hendricks, who portrays Joan Holloway, made with Hendrick’s Gin, Peach Schnapps and Blue Curacao.        

The Paley Center for Media will host a “'Mad Men' Season Premiere Viewing Party” on Sunday, March 25, at 8 p.m. The fifth season premiere will be shown on the big screen, “all the better to soak up that gorgeous period detail.” Before the screening, there will be an era-appropriate cocktail party and a "Mad Men" Trivia contest. Guests will receive a Season 5 "Mad Men" poster, and are invited to “break out the sharp suits, pocket squares, and kicky frocks.” During the screening, commercial breaks will show actual ads from the early sixties, featuring Sterling Cooper clients like London Fog and Lucky Strike. Tickets cost $30.  

Though three-martini lunches and desk-side scotch cabinets may be largely gone in the 21st century, according to NYC & Company, its website invites prospective visitors to plan a self-guided tour by viewing a slideshow that features sites that appeared in the series or are tied in to the time period, like Sardi’s Restaurant and P.J. Clarke's, a vintage watering hole where patrons can still drink “frosty mugs of beer and hear Frank Sinatra on the jukebox, while the dining room serves up mouthwatering comfort food (including, according to Nat King Cole, ‘the Cadillac of burgers.’” But one word of advice from the slideshow: do not waste time looking for 405 Madison Avenue, the address of the fictional advertising agency: it doesn't exist. 

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Sandra Foyt

Sandra Foyt's 15-year-old daughter and another student get a surfing lesson from Zack's Surf Shop in Huntington Beach, Calif.

For the ultimate Southern California surf experience, take the kids to Huntington Beach. Also known as “Surf City,” this destination was the inspiration for the Jan and Dean 1960s hit of the same name. Ocean lovers will dig the bodacious waves and mellow vibe of this town that celebrates all things surf.

Huntington Beach is regarded by many as the cradle of surfing civilization. It plays host to the US Open of Surfing, the largest professional surfing and lifestyle event in North America. It is home to the International Surfing Museum, the Surfing Walk of Fame, the iconic Huntington Beach Pier, and nearly 10 miles of surf-worthy beaches. It’s the palm-lined, sunny spot you picture when you hear a Beach Boys surf tune.

Huntington Beach native Joseph Ali, 28, has been surfing since he was 8 years old and has been teaching surf lessons for half of his life. He says Huntington Beach is the ideal surf town for all of these reasons and because its shores hold “every single type of break,” each of which creates a different wave and surf experience, with surfing conditions available year-round.

No trip to Huntington Beach would be complete without riding, or at least attempting to ride, a wave. There are plenty of surf schools to choose from including Toes on the Nose (where even an old lady like me learned how to surf), Corky Carroll’s Surf School and Banzai Surf School.

Ali, the lead instructor at Zack’s Surf Shop (owned by his father), boasts that he can get 95 percent of students to stand up on their first lesson. Families start with basic instructions, a safety talk and practice pop-ups (the motion a surfer uses to get from lying to standing on a board) on the sand before entering the water.

Colleen Lanin

Surfers catch waves in Huntington Beach, Calif.

“Kids are the easiest and most fun to teach,” according to Ali. Beginners start on 7- to 8-foot foam boards in waist-deep water. Ali pushes children into baby-sized waves so they can concentrate on popping up and enjoying the ride. Surfers-to-be can take lessons at Zack’s as young as 4 1/2 years but Ali says, “I think 6 or 7 is the best age to start surfing because that’s when their self-esteem kicks in.” Young children are given extra supervision and sport wet suits padded with a floating material, which works much like a life jacket.

Sandra Foyt, a mom from New York and author of AlbanyKid.com, fulfilled her 15-year-old daughter Kayla’s lifelong dream of surfing with a lesson in Huntington Beach during a recent visit to California. “I was impressed that my daughter was able to ride the board to shore in just one hour-long lesson,” Foyt says.

“Surfing can be a dangerous sport, requiring vigilance," she says. "I highly recommend bringing a beach chair and umbrella, and watching over kids to ensure that they are following safety rules. Not so much during the lesson, but afterwards when they are on their own.”

The surf culture of Huntington Beach is more than just riding waves, though. It’s an easygoing attitude that permeates the town. It’s ordering from menus laden with surf lingo at casual diners and taco shops. It’s statues scattered around downtown of Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, an Olympic swimmer who is known as the Father of Surfing for bringing the sport from Hawaii to the mainland. It’s bonfires on the beach. It’s flip flops worn to the fanciest restaurant in town. It’s a love of the ocean and protecting its shores.

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Could there be something to that ugly American stereotype?

A new LivingSocial survey conducted among more than 5,600 respondents in five countries by Mandala Research finds that Americans self-rate themselves as the world’s worst tourists.

That assessment was shared by Canadians and Australians, while the Irish rated their British neighbors as the worst, and the British identified Germans as being the most boorish.

Following Americans (20 percent), 15 percent of U.S. respondents said the Chinese were the worst tourists, followed by the French (14 percent), Japanese (12 percent) and Russians (11 percent).

In addition to bestowing that dubious distinction upon their fellow Americans, four out of 10 U.S. respondents admit to having stolen or accidentally packed items other than the sample toiletries from hotels, with towels (28 percent) listed as one of the most frequently pilfered items. 

The results of the online survey, conducted in the U.S. in February in the top 20 media markets and released Friday, has a margin of error of 1.5 percent.

Despite a common misperception that Americans don’t go abroad, the results show that we actually do get around , said Maire Griffin, director of communications for LivingSocial.

“We found that 78 percent of Americans have visited at least one other foreign country, and 36 percent have traveled to four or more foreign destinations,” Griffin told msnbc.com.

But Americans may not be such bad tourists after all, just more forthright about our flaws, said Michael Brein, a guidebook writer and self-billed travel psychologist.

“We tend to see being frank, open, honest — spilling our guts — more of a virtue than others may see it,” Brein said.

In contrast, citizens from some other countries might view those traits as a weakness, said Brein, who has a doctorate degree in social psychology. “Therefore, as a culture, we may be more self-deprecating,” he said.

For many years, America was the big kid on the block and was more socially and culturally isolated from other people around the world, Brein said. But in an increasingly globalized culture, he believes Americans are doing their part to blend in.

Of course, Brein stresses, it depends upon the individual.

“We’re a huge nation with all kinds of people traveling,” he said. “I have met many kinds of Americans who do not fit that [ugly American] stereotype at all.”

Griffin said that some of Americans’ favorite travel activities — such as taking photos, eating in new restaurants and meeting new people — lend to learning more about other cultures.

“That adventurous spirit and making new friends leads us into a place we can be better tourists,” she said.

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Joy Jernigan is a senior travel editor for msnbc.com. Follow her onTwitter.

Visitors to Mob Attraction Las Vegas can see an image of actor James Caan, who frequently portrays mobsters, in the skim room. (Courtesy Mob Attraction Las Vegas)

If you’re heading to Las Vegas any time soon, don’t be surprised if you find yourself in the middle of a mob war.

On one side, there’s the new Mob Attraction at the Tropicana Las Vegas, set to open on March 1; on the other, the city-owned Mob Museum, which opened downtown on Feb. 14. Offering different takes on mobsters, gangsters and goodfellas, each one is hoping to stake out its own piece of the action.

“It’s a new turf war,” said Anthony Curtis, president of LasVegasAdvisor.com. “It’s the South Strip boys against the downtown mob.”

For those keeping score, the Tropicana attraction is technically reopening after its predecessor, the Mob Experience, went belly-up in September. “We had to create a new name, new logo, new everything,” said spokesman Spence Johnston.

Like its predecessor, the Mob Attraction is, as the name suggests, more interactive attraction than cultural repository. Upon entering, visitors make their way through a series of immersive experiences that chronicle mob history from immigration — think Ellis Island with foghorns and the smell of saltwater — to a 1930s speakeasy to the back room of a casino where you get to decide whether a cheater gets to walk or take a ride into the desert.

Along the way, videos by the likes of tough-guy actors, including James Caan, Frank Vincent and Tony Sirico, provide historical insights while real actors portray cops, bag men and bosses. According to Johnston, RFID badges will track visitors’ decisions at various points — for example, to participate in a shakedown or rat someone out — leading up to a final scene in which “they either get made or get whacked.”

Either way, they live to tell the tale and, presumably, visit the gift shop and view the venue’s collection of artifacts, which include Meyer Lansky’s journals, a home movie of “Bugsy” Siegel and photos of Sam Giancana, Tony “The Ant” Spilotro and other assorted wise guys.

“These are private belongings from their families,” said Johnston. “They give you a look into the personal lives of these guys. It’s a piece of American history.”

Of course, whether there are enough Las Vegas–bound history buffs to support, not one, but two, mob attractions is an open question.

“There’ll be some initial interest but I can’t imagine people coming back after they’ve seen them once,” said Alan Balboni, author of “Beyond the Mafia” and a professor at the College of Southern Nevada. “People still come here for the gambling and sex.”

Slideshow: Viva Las Vegas!

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Sin City is a major entertainment center and business travel destination, known for its carefully cultivated image, gambling and nightlife.

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Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.

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Courtesy LA INC. The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau

The Bradbury Building, at 304 S. Broadway in Los Angeles, was showcased in "The Artist."

“The Artist,” a silent film about the silent-film era, has been nominated for 10 Oscars, including best picture, best actor and best director, and tells the story of fading silent film star George Valentin (played by Jean Dujardin) and chorus girl Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), an unlikely pair whose paths cross repeatedly as their careers take very different turns. 

Set in the Los Angeles of the 1920s, the film was shot in the Los Angeles of today, using many familiar and iconic locations, including the former home of America’s silent movie sweetheart, Mary Pickford, as backdrops.

Fans of “The Artist” visiting Los Angeles may want to visit some locales seen in the film, but few of those spots are regular stops on the popular Hollywood bus tours.

That’s why LA INC. The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau put together an annotated list of locations featured in the movie that visitors may use for a free, self-guided tour.  

“There are many places in Los Angeles that are filmed all the time for movies,” said LA INC. spokesperson Beth Brett. “This film gives us an opportunity to highlight some special LA locations that are little known.”

For one of the most visually striking and symbolic scenes in the movie, George and Peppy are shown passing each other on an ornate stairway in the fictional Kinograph Studios. The stairway is in the Bradbury Building at 304 S. Broadway, Los Angeles.

Two homes in the Hancock Park neighborhood have roles in “The Artist.” 104 Fremont Place is used as the heyday home of George Valentine, while 56 Fremont Place, the former home of America’s (real) silent movie sweetheart, Mary Pickford, stands in for the mansion Peppy Miller lives in.

An art deco haberdashery that is now the upscale Cicada Restaurant (617 S. Olive Street, Los Angeles) in the historic Oviatt Building plays the role of the restaurant where George and Peppy dine, separately, on the eve of their movie premieres. According to LA INC., this was also used for the restaurant where Julia Roberts dined with Richard Gere in the film “Pretty Woman.”

Other Los Angeles locations on the tour include:

• The Los Angeles Theatre, 615 S. Broadway: Built in 1931 in the baroque-style, this theater played host to the premiere of “City Lights” starring Charlie Chaplin.  In “The Artist,” the theater is where George premieres his last silent film “Tears of Love,” which he produced and financed with the last of his money. 
• American Film Institute, 2021 N. Western Avenue: The exterior of the AFI campus near Griffith Park is used as the hospital where George is taken after he purposely starts a fire inside his barren apartment. Peppy is seen racing to the front of the hospital to be by George’s side.
• Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 4401 W. 8^th Street:  This classic 1927 building is used both as the interior of the hospital where George is treated after being rescued from a house fire and as the place where his belongings are auctioned off to the highest bidder.   
• Hancock Park, Oakwood Avenue between Beverly and Melrose avenues; Hudson Avenue from 3^rd Street to Beverly Avenue: Hancock Park is the setting for many of the film’s exterior shots. George’s Jack Russell terrier, played by Golden Collar winner Uggie, runs down Oakwood Avenue in an effort to alert a beat police officer that George’s apartment is on fire.  In another scene Peppy speeds down Hudson Avenue to see George. 

“With this self-guided tour,” said Brett, “visitors can look at some amazing locations in an iconic city through a film that has already become iconic in its own right.”

Slideshow: City of Angels

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Visitors to La-La Land will find beaches, culture, history and much more.

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Find more by Harriet Baskas on Stuck at The Airport.com and follow her on Twitter. 

A member of the Krewe du Vieux parades through the streets of the French Quarter on Feb. 4 in New Orleans. The parade is one of the earliest of the Mardi Gras season and is known for its satirical themes.

The beads are ready to be tossed, the costumed crowds are in the mood to party and tourism officials are smiling.

It can only mean one thing: It’s Mardi Gras time in New Orleans.

“It is the event of the year. It’s our largest, in terms of economic benefit. It is probably the most iconic celebration for the city,” said Jennifer Day-Sully, a spokeswoman for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau.

About a million people are expected to take part in the festivities over the 12 days leading up to Fat Tuesday, which falls on Feb. 21 this year, Day-Sully said. The city doesn’t break that number down into out-of-town visitors and local attendees.

A similar attendance figure was reported last year, but Mark Romig, the CEO of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, is hoping 2012 will end up the biggest Mardi Gras in 25 years.

“We’re working 24/7 to make sure that happens,” he said. “I think the numbers are moving in that direction.”

There’s a lot at stake for the city. A Tulane University study showed the economic impact of Mardi Gras on New Orleans amounted to $300 million in 2011, Romig said. For every $1 the city spent on services to support Mardi Gras — such as sanitation and security — it received $8.50 back in tax revenue. So officials are happy to see the party recover to pre-Hurricane Katrina levels.

New touches for 2012 include the debut of an all-female krewe — or a club that puts on a parade. Meet the Mystic Krewe of Nyx, which paraded through New Orleans on Feb. 15. (Nyx, in case you’re wondering, is the Greek goddess of night.) The parades have historically been dominated by men so it’s always fun to see an all-ladies club, Day-Sully said.

Visitors will also see new floats unveiled this year, including the highly anticipated Butterfly King float from the Rex Organization, Romig said.

“It’s going to be gorgeous,” he predicted.

A big trend this year is the growth and popularity of grassroots marching clubs, Day-Sully said. So while visitors may be most familiar with the big parades involving elaborate floats surrounded by huge crowds, the celebrations organized by marching clubs are far more informal, accessible affairs.

“Basically, they involve dressing up in a costume and meeting up in some pre-determined area. Usually there’s a brass band coming along and dancing through the street,” Day-Sully said.

“I really encourage people who are coming for Mardi Gras to really do their research and try to seek out one of these … to not just be a spectator but to participate.”

She suggested checking out Mondo Kayo, a Caribbean-themed marching club that hits the streets on Mardi Gras morning, or the Saint Anne parade that starts in the Bywater neighborhood.

Mardi Gras is bigger than Halloween in New Orleans as far as costumes go, Day-Sully said, so you’ll want to dress up, or at least wear a wig or some sparkly clothing.

Costumes often reflect what’s happening in popular culture. Day-Sully has a friend who is planning to dress up this year as one of the young beauty queens from the controversial TLC reality show “Toddlers & Tiaras.” There might also be a few people channeling Whitney Houston, she predicted. It’s all part of the creative spirit of the city.

“The more you put into Mardi Gras, the more you get out. So if you dress up or you make funny signs, you’ll be tossed better presents and it really contributes to the overall feeling,” Day-Sully said.

Slideshow: Big Easy returns

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New Orleans has reclaimed its vibrancy after Hurricane Katrina and will delight and woo you with its mojo.

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One of the famous Mardi Gras Indians, right, appears at a news conference Jan. 6, 2009, in New Orleans.

Whether you have ever set foot in New Orleans during the bacchanalian days building up to Fat Tuesday or not, you have a pretty good idea of what Mardi Gras entails: drinking, parades, beads, Bourbon Street, masks and, yes, some more drinking.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

According to Ronald Lewis, founder and director of the House of Dance and Feathers cultural museum (1317 Tupelo Street), “It’s taken a long time for the outside world to realize that there is much more to Mardi Gras than just the French Quarter. Mardi Gras is what makes the people of New Orleans who we are.”

The beads, beer and Bourbon Street festival is one (very fun) aspect, but the deeper cultural event is what makes Mardi Gras so sacred to locals and visitors who venture beyond the main party. From the folk art of the Mardi Gras Indians to the culinary and family elements, Mardi Gras is not just a top New Orleans event, but one of the great American cultural traditions.

Nowhere are these traditions more apparent than with the Mardi Gras Indians. Tracing their roots back to when Native Americans aided runaway African slaves, these dancers and musicians dress in elaborate “Indian” costumes of hand-sewn beadwork. The costumes take all year to create and are worn only once.

Lewis, who has been involved with the Indians for more than 45 years, says that the costumes “have been handmade by individuals and sewing committees since the 1800s and are among of the best traditional folk art in the United States.”

New Orleans is rightly famous for both its traditional cuisine and its variety of cutting-edge restaurants. But you need not shell out big bucks to sample the local goods. A classic Mardi Gras favorite is king cake and is sold everywhere from corner stores to cafes. It is braided Danish pastry iced in the purple, green and gold of Mardi Gras colors. Hidden in each cake is a miniature plastic baby doll. The person who finds the doll in their cake has to buy the next one.

Parts of the French Quarter can get a little too crowded and too R-rated for kids during the big event. Fortunately, the party actually extends for some 45 blocks along St. Charles Avenue. According to Mark Romig, CEO of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp., "The parks along St. Charles are full of blankets and coolers as Mardi Gras and the preceding weeks are an important time for multigenerational family get-togethers and picnics. Plus, St. Charles between First Street and Napoleon Avenue hosts a family-friendly parade where the whole family can cut loose together.” 

Year round, you can check out The Louisiana State Museum’s “Mardi Gras: It’s Carnival Time in Louisiana” exhibit at The Presbytere. No matter what you do, make sure to explore the many dimensions of what is not only the country’s most grand party, but also one of its great cultural treasures.

Slideshow: Big Easy returns

Lucas Jackson / © LUCAS JACKSON/Reuters/Corbis

New Orleans has reclaimed its vibrancy after Hurricane Katrina and will delight and woo you with its mojo.

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"From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen" will be on display Feb. 17-Sept. 3 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

A museum devoted to the bedrock of American democracy will from Feb. 17 through Sept. 3 celebrate a more visceral sort of rock: The music of Bruce Springsteen.

The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is presenting, “From Asbury Park to the Promised Land: The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen.”

Originating at the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, where the exhibition was featured next to the likes of Elvis and Elton, The Boss will now be rubbing monumental shoulders with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

“No other artist is as steeped in Americana or has better told the story of the American dream than Bruce Springsteen,” said David Eisner, the center’s CEO. “He’s the perfect artist for a center devoted to the robust discussion of American values to feature.”

America has one national anthem, but Americans have dozens, many of them — “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Promised Land,” “Born to Run,” and “The Rising” — composed and performed by Springsteen and the E Street Band. Over the past 40 years, Springsteen has sold more than 120 million albums worldwide and helped define American character as surely as Uncle Sam.

“The only other artists so connected to America are Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, but even compared to them he’s fairly unique,” said Jim Henke, curator of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. “His songs deal with the struggles as much as the dreams.”

National Constitution Center

The jeans Bruce Springsteen wore on the cover of "Born in the U.S.A."

Springsteen also differs from other artists, Henke said,  in that he had an innate recognition that he was doing something that was transcending the music.

“He saved everything,” Henke said. “So we have the Fender guitar featured on the cover of ‘Born to Run.’ We have the jeans he wore on the cover of ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ The exhibit is a very comprehensive look at his life and his career going clear back to his childhood.”

Eisner, whose favorite album is the stark “Nebraska” from 1982, said he’s been particularly pleased to thumb through the lyric notebooks.

“His penmanship on things like set lists is very hurried, but with the lyrics you can tell he was almost reverential with the words he was composing to songs like ‘Jungleland,’ ” Eisner said.  “It’s also fun to see some of the changes he made from before recording the songs."

With Springsteen playing shows in Philadelphia on March 28 and 29, Eisner is besieged by friends who are begging for any hint that The Boss will come to the exhibit.

Henke said it happened in Cleveland.

“I called up his assistant and said the show was closing and we’d be happy to give him a private tour,” he said. “He said that wasn’t necessary. So on the very last day of the Springsteen exhibit, on a packed weekend, many fans were treated to seeing the Bruce Springsteen exhibit with Bruce Springsteen himself. And he couldn’t have been nicer.”

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Chris Rodell is a Latrobe, Pa., freelance writer who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com. Read his 2009 Springsteen album-by-album blog retrospective here.

A wall of images of mobsters is displayed Feb. 13 at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas. The museum, also known as the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, opens on Feb. 14. The museum chronicles the history of organized crime in America and the efforts of law enforcement to combat it.

The promoters of Las Vegas’ newest museum would like you to say hello to their little friends. Opening on Feb. 14, The Mob Museum chronicles the lives — and often gruesome deaths — of Al Capone, “Bugsy” Siegel and a rogue’s gallery of crooks, hoods and Mafioso.

“You can’t tell the story of Las Vegas without talking about organized crime,” said Jonathan Ullman, the museum’s executive director. “It’s part of the genesis of the city as the destination that it became.”

Or, as three-time mayor and former “mob attorney” Oscar Goodman puts it: “Las Vegas is unique. Our founding fathers were alleged mobsters.”

Goodman, in fact, had a seminal role in the development of the downtown museum, proposing the idea 10 years ago when, as mayor, he oversaw the transfer of Las Vegas’ federal courthouse and post office to the city. The building, it turns out, had been one of the sites for the landmark Kefauver hearings, a U.S. Senate investigation of organized crime in the early 1950s.

The museum, which operates under the full name of the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, features 17,000 square feet of exhibit space, which, according to Ullman, is fairly evenly split between a history of the mob and the efforts of the G-men, police and elected officials who fought it.

Isaac Brekken / AP

Former "mob attorney" and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman is pictured Feb. 13 at The Mob Museum in Las Vegas.

Among the former, exhibits tell the stories of Siegel, Meyer Lansky and other early Vegas operators, along with those of latter-day thugs, including Sam Giancana, John “the Teflon Don” Gotti and Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, the role model for casino owner Sam “Ace” Rothstein, aka Robert De Niro, in “Casino.”

Signature exhibits include the wall from the infamous St. Valentine’s Day massacre in 1929, the barber’s chair in which Albert Anastasia met his gruesome end in 1957 and a film that explores Hollywood’s ongoing fascination with wiseguys, goodfellas and other made men. Given the subject matter, it should come as no surprise that some exhibits include graphic images depicting violence, prostitution and other illicit activities, and while there are cautionary signs throughout the museum, it may not be appropriate for small children. 

On the other side of the law, visitors can explore the efforts of famous mob-busters, including Eliot Ness, J. Edgar Hoover and Joe Pistone, who is perhaps better known by the name he adopted during six years undercover in the Bonanno and Colombo crime families: Donnie Brasco.

According to Michael Green, a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada and a consultant to the museum, the goal is not to glamorize gangsters but to tell both sides of a story that encompasses immigration, Prohibition, the criminal justice system and the influence of popular culture.

“History is sometimes beautiful and oftentimes ugly,” he told msnbc.com. “If we can tell the truth, people will come out not feeling that we glamorized it but that we informed them.”

As for Goodman, he, as is his wont, clearly hopes people will also be entertained. When asked if he’d contributed any of his (alleged) mob-related memorabilia, he mentioned one item in particular, the briefcase he used while defending the likes of Lansky, Rosenthal and Tony “The Ant” Spilotro.

“I used to leave Las Vegas with it empty,” he said, “and come back with it full of Mr. Green.”

Slideshow: Viva Las Vegas!

Ethan Miller / Getty Images

Sin City is a major entertainment center and business travel destination, known for its carefully cultivated image, gambling and nightlife.

Launch slideshow

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Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.