For a great change of holiday shopping scene, head to Providence's Downcity arts district where everthing and everyone is an original. RISD students are holding their holiday sale called RISD Exposé right now until Dec. 11 at 232 Westminster St. (Daily 11 a.m.-6 p.m. except Mondays.) Right close by, the artists of Craftland will open their holiday show at 235 Westminster on Dec. 4, running through Dec. 31 (Open 7 days, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Thursdays and Saturdays to 8 p.m.) Segue to 265 Atwells Ave. for an Italian deli fix at Venda Ravioli, and take your first skate of the season on the Kennedy Plaza ice ($6, skate rentals available).

Posted by Patricia Borns, Globe correspondent

Photo by Patricia Borns for The Boston Globe

As we enter the holiday season, food gets a lead role. Nonprofit, Child & Family from Newport, R.I., knows this, and tempts you to come out and take a Taste of Newport Sunday, Nov. 15. The evening will feature over 45 of Newport County’s best chefs, caterers, and confectioners showcasing their talents. Cocktails are served at 5:30 p.m. followed by a dinner buffet. Individual tickets are $100 each, with an option to buy a Contributor's ticket for $150, which includes entry to the private cocktail and auction preview party, preferred seating, complimentary wine at your table, and listing in the evening program. The 26th Annual Taste of Newport will benefit Child & Family's Supportive Housing Program for Homeless Mothers and their Children. Purchase tickets at 401-848-4150 or online.

Colonial Wine and Spirits of North Kingston, R.I., wants to help you get ready for the holidays. On Sunday, Nov. 8, this specialty store will host its Holiday Wine Tasting and Class featuring 20 wines from across the globe. This evening is an opportunity to discover vintners, purchase gifts, select your holiday wines, or just find some great everyday favorites. Industry experts will guide guests through the tasting and answer all questions. A one-hour class allows you to gain appreciation and knowledge that will enhance your food and wine pairing experience. Nominal cost of $50 per person includes light hors d'oeuvres, class, samples of 20 wines, and door prizes. Call 401-294-4623 for info or reservations.

Prepare to be spooked in Rhode Island! The Fort Adams Trust presents its Fortress of Nightmares Oct 23-25 and Oct. 30-Nov. 1. Starting at 7 p.m., Newport's historic Fort Adams unleashes the restless spirits of its past on special haunted tours. New this year is an opportunity to take part in a legitimate ghost hunt with paranormal investigators from RISEUP. While you’re here, venture through Rhode Island’s only haunted tunnel system. Reasonably priced, this spook show costs $15 and gets you a 50-minute ghost hunt and a 20-minute haunted house experience, with hardly any lines. Tours are weather dependent and sturdy footwear is required. For more information visit online.

Photo courtesy of Fort Adams Trust

Southwest Airlines, which just commenced service from Boston, is launching a fare sale for the slower fall and winter seasons, with one-way prices starting at $59. Purchases must be made by Sept. 3 for travel from Sept. 9-Jan. 7 and days around the holidays and all Fridays and Sundays are blacked out. Here's the rest of the fine print.
Airlines, struggling with sluggish traffic because of the recession and volatile fuel prices, began fall price battles early this year -- in fact, Southwest fired the opening salvo in early July with a wide-ranging 48-hour sale. Since then, we've seen a steady stream of offerings for fall and now we're beginning to see offers pushing into winter.
It's a tricky time for travelers. Airlines are simultaneously scrambling to fill seats with limited, targeted sales and trimming schedules. If you are planning a trip and you see a good deal, jump on it. Waiting is probably not a good strategy as carriers appear to be moving aggressively this year to ensure that they fill seats as soon as possible, avoiding the dilemma of having to slash prices or fly planes with lots of empty seats.

Fung Wah Bus will launch nonstop service from Providence to New York starting June 15. Plans call for daily departures from Rhode Island at 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., with two returns from New York at 4:15 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. Tickets are priced at $40 each way.
The discounter faces competition on this route from Greyhound and Peter Pan, both of which schedule multiple departures. Greyhound charges $14-$34 one way, depending on how far in advance you buy tickets, and its buses make stops in between. Peter Pan offers nonstops at $37 or $45, with the lower price being an online fare. Company officials say the firm also has a late-night rate of $32 and student discounts.

(Thanks to Matthew Keller of busjunction.com for the tip.)

Tourism folks on Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island are hoping to give visitors a true taste of their place, which has been compared to Nantucket, only much, much smaller and way, way cheaper. A Taste of Block Island, the first such event on the island and one organized by local businesses, is on tap for June 12-14 with more than 60 island businesses participating.

For the cost of a $5 button, available on the Block Island Ferry from Point Judith, R.I., participants get discounts and specials at island businesses, including two-for-one moped rentals (besides bicycles, the best way to get around the 11-square-mile island), lobster lunch and dinner specials, and kayaking tours of Great Salt Pond.

With the button, participants get a listing of all discounts and specials. Buttons may also be purchased at the Point Judith ferry ticket office, the Block Island Chamber of Commerce just off the ferry landing on the island, and the National Hotel and Harborside Inn, both on the island.

The Nature Conservancy has designated Block Island “One of the last 12 great places in the Western Hemisphere,” and the taste tourists can get that weekend in June aims to point out why, said Susan Linda, president of the Block Island Ferry.

For more information, visit blockislandinfo.com or call 800-383-2474.

By Paul E. Kandarian, Globe correspondent

Photo of National Hotel with shops below by Paul E. Kandarian for The Boston Globe

It's clear that most folks who are planning summer travel are looking at more modest options.
Most, I'm guessing are planning trips of a few days to a week by car. Interestingly enough Bloomberg News is just reporting that The Air Transport Association is forecasting that US summer airline travel will fall 7 percent from last year.
Anyway, I just did a spot this morning on NECN offering tips on how to save on trips this summer. You can watch but if you want the shorter summary here it is:

FIRST, do some research on prospective destinations for the availability of cheap or free things to do. Check out AAA guides and family-travel websites to get a feel for the lay of the land: Are there attractions, parks, beaches, places to hike and bike at or near where you plan to be? Also take a look at websites of newspapers in the area along with those of state travel and tourism agencies for calendar listings of events that may be happening while you're in the area.

SECOND, if you’re planning to get away for just a couple of days and you’re looking to cut lodging costs, consider using one of the “opaque’’ travel sites, like Priceline or Hotwire, which let you bid on rooms. The downside is that these sites are “opaque,’’ not transparent. You don’t bid on a room at a specific hotel. Instead you make an offer on a room at a class of hotel -- 2-, 3-, or 4 stars -- in a specific city and you don’t know exactly where you’ll be staying until your bid is accepted. But by using these sites you can score savings of up to 40%-50%, particularly at higher-end properties this year.

THIRD, if you're looking for a more extended vacation, a like a week or more, consider renting a house. This often gets you a lot more space at the same or lower per-night cost of a hotel room and will save you all kinds of money in things like food. There are a number of websites like VRBO, which stands for Vacation Rentals By Owner, and craigslist with vacation home listings.

AND FINALLY, AND THIS IS A GREAT TIP: If you can be flexible about where you go and are willing to wait till the last minute, say, the week before your vacation you can get great deals on unrented vacation houses -- and I expect there to be a fair number of these available this year. In years past I have saved as much as 50% on rentals this way. When you spot last-minute openings, they’ll probably be discounted already but don’t be afraid to make an offer. By taking the last-minute route you may not be able to get a place in that town on the Cape that you usually go to, but it can also be an opportunity to explore another place or perhaps even another state.

Hope this helps. If you have other ideas, please share.

As sure as budding flowers are a sign of spring in Westerly, R.I., so is the bobbing of 20,000 yellow rubber ducks on the Pawcatuck River, in the name of fun and some serious fund-raising.
The 11th annual Rubber Duck Race, hosted by the Greater Westerly-Pawcatuck Chamber of Commerce, is scheduled for April 25, an event that last year raised $80,000 for area nonprofits and schools, said Heather Donnellan, events manager for the chamber.
Each duck is bar-coded. Everyone buying a $5 ticket gets a certificate proclaiming them sponsor of a duck.
The race kicks off at 2 p.m. in this town near the Connecticut border when a pay loader dumps the ducks into the river from the Pawcatuck Bridge, to the screams of thousands of onlookers, Donnellan said. From there, the ducks bump and bob downstream a half mile where the winner is plucked from the water at Donahue Park in Pawcatuck, Conn.
Grand prize is a trip for four to Disney World in Florida or $2,500 cash. There are more than 90 prizes in all, the rest being donated gift certificates to area retailers and restaurants.
Festivities kick off at noon at Donahue Park off Mechanic Street and include face painting, a rock-climbing wall, moon walk, and duck games. Duck sponsorships are available at westerlychamber.org and will be available race day up to 15 minutes before the 2 p.m. start. A separate corporate race is held at 1 p.m. with 150 ducks sold for $150 each, for a $1,500 prize, Donnellan said.
And as you may have guessed, the event is held rain or shine.
‘‘Ducks like both,’’ Donnellan said.

Posted by Paul E. Kandarian, Globe correspondent

westerlychamber.org, 401-596-7761.
PAUL E. KANDARIAN

Let us now praise famous men — in song.
That’s what the 110 members of the Providence Singers plan to do as they present ‘‘Anniversaries: Music That Celebrates Legends’’ Saturday at 8 p.m., Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, 30 Fenner St. in Providence and Sunday at 3, St. Mary’s Church, 330 Wood St., in Bristol.
Led by artistic director Andrew Clark, the choral group heralds the 200th birthdays of President Lincoln, composer Felix Mendelssohn, and poets Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. The program also marks the 200th and 250th anniversary of the deaths of composers Franz Josef Haydn and Georg Frideric Handel, respectively.
The program will include Charles Ives’s ‘‘Lincoln the Great Commoner,’’ Elie Siegmeister’s ‘‘Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight,’’ Mendelssohn’s ‘‘Ave Maria,’’ Handel’s ‘‘Zadok the Priest,’’ and Haydn’s ‘‘Te Deum.’’ A highlight of the concerts will be the performance of poems by Walt Whitman, Tennyson, Poe, and Holmes set to music.
Some of the pieces will be rendered by the Junior Providence Singers, a group of 40 high school students.
For the weekend, there’s an ‘‘Invite a Friend’’ special: Bring someone who has never heard the singers and save $10 on each ticket.
Tickets are $26 at the door; $22 in advance, $5 children and students. For more information call 401-751-5700, 401-683-1932 or go to the group's website.

Posted by Jan Shepherd, Globe correspondent

If you've got money to travel this summer, things are looking good.
Southwest has just launched an online summer fare sale with one-way fares as low as $49 between cities across the nation for travel through Aug. 14 and the move nearly immediately rippled through the industry on competing routes.
The Southwest sale is good through April 6, and a 14-day advance purchase is required. Travel on Fridays and Sundays is excluded, and there are blackout dates. Here is the fine print.
The discount carrier, which will launch service at Logan in fall, offers daily nonstop service to eight cities on 27 flights out of Manchester, N.H., and to nine on 31 flights out of Providence. It also offers connecting service to dozens of other destinations from both cities.
Some sample one-way sale fares: From either Manchester or Providence to Baltimore or Philly $49, to Orlando or Fort Lauderdale $79, Chicago $89, and Vegas $99.
Bloomberg News has now reported that American, Continental, and US Airways say they matched the reductions.
This is, I think, just the beginning. The airlines are still facing tremendous softness in business and many are planning further cuts in schedules, but it doesn't appear as if many of those will fully be in place till fall so expect to see competitive fares for this summer.

NYLO Providence/Warwick hotel is featuring a Spa Getaway Package beginning at $239. Guests receive overnight accommodations, breakfast for two, and a $100 gift certificate for treatments such as a Turkish Scrub or Moor Mud Wrap at Blue Sky; Hot Stone Massage or Pregnancy Massage at Rinnovo; or manicures, pedicures, and hairstyling at Eden XO. Book at least 48 hours in advance.
Visit www.nylohotels.com/warwick and click on Specials or call 866-391- 6956.

Boston’s blockbuster New England Spring Flower Show might be on hiatus this year, but backyard warriors can still get a fix of spring in the middle of winter. Everything is coming up roses — at least figuratively — starting Thursday when the Rhode Island Spring Flower & Garden Show takes over the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence for four days.
With a ‘‘Gardens of the World’’ theme, this 16th annual edition aims to satisfy both the craving for spring and a longing to escape to exotic locales. The display gardeners might be New Englanders, but their exhibits show how it’s done in places like the south of France, Italy’s Tuscany region, Spain, and even the Australian outback.
Lectures and demonstrations (some repeating daily) include both the pragmatic and the poetic. Dig into the details of selecting roses for a New England garden, or hear one of our favorite horticultural entertainers, Roger Swain, hold forth on ‘‘If You Can Eat It, Grow It.’’ More than 200 vendors are also expected to be on hand, hawking everything from obscure garden tools to bird baths, fountains, and garden furniture. Why not dream of swinging in a hammock with a glass of lemonade or putting your feet up in the jasmine-scented night air?
The show is open Thursday-Saturday 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Sunday till 6. General admission $17, seniors $15, children ages 6-12 $7.
(2009 Rhode Island Spring Flower & Garden Show)

Posted by Patricia Harris, Globe correspondent

Southwest has launched a three-day sale to Seattle with one-way fares from Providence as low as $95 for travel from Feb. 3-May 31. To score the discounts you must book from now through Jan. 22 either here or at southwest.com, using the promotion code SEATTLE.

What do Egypt, Turks and Caicos, New York City and the state of Rhode Island have in common? They are all official world-class destinations.
The biggest little state in the union earned that honor recently when it received the International Star Diamond Award from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences, the most prestigious award in the tourism and hospitality industry. Rhode Island is the first and only state in America to receive the award, which in its 60-year history has gone to countries, resorts, cities, cruise lines, chefs – but never an American state.
“Rhode Island,” said Joseph Cinque, a native of Revere and president of the academy, “is the smallest state –- and the best.”
Cinque said the award is based on traveler surveys taken from around the world, and that Rhode Island consistently scores well. The state, the smallest in the country, has a variety of tourist draws, including its most famous one, Newport, but also boasts South County beaches, the award-winning Water Fire in downtown Providence, the culinary haven that is Federal Hill in the capital city, and Slater Mills in Pawtucket, the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution.
“Only 10 destinations in the academy’s history have received this award,” said Mark Brodeur, Rhode Island’s director of tourism, at a posh reception held under the rotunda of the Rhode Island State House Jan. 15 attended by 200 state hospitality and tourism professionals, as well as local and state politicians. “We’re honored to be the first state to get one.”
In 2007, Brodeur said, the tourism industry in Rhode Island generated $4.24 billion, a jump of 10 percent over 2006. He said the International Star Diamond Award honor could mean an additional billion dollars in tourism money.
In accepting the award, Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri said, “This is the Oscar of the hospitality industry.”
Posted By Paul E. Kandarian, Globe Correspondent

Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence is ringing in the new year with free admission on New Year's Day. If you can't make it Jan. 1, the zoo is offering half-price admission from Jan. 2-Feb. 28. That's $6 for adults, $4 for seniors 62 and over, and $3 for children ages 3-12 (under 3 are free). Why go to the zoo in winter? The zoo says cold-hardy animals like snow leopards, penguins, bison, seals, and moon bears may be more active. For less hardy visitors, there's always the indoor exhibits at the African Pavilion and the Tropical America and Australasia buildings.

[Erik Jacobs for The New York Times]

It's during this time of year (with the air getting colder and the sun setting at a heart-breaking 4:12 pm) that I start to daydream about summer. In my warm-weather yearnings I came across this New York Times story from August about a house in Narragansett Bay. The upkeep for the 103-year-old manse (called Clingstone) sounds intense, but something about living so close to the water speaks to a sense of romantic adventurer in all of us, don't you think? (See more photos of the house here.)

Tell me Globe-trotters: do you live by the water? How do you safeguard your seaside home in winter? Leave a comment below and let us know!

Having wished for some time that this country were in a different shape – that is, its political intelligence, its health insurance system, its educational structure, its leaders, its women, its Congress, its media (reading this with Fox News on in the background, eh?), its infrastructure, its nuclear waste sites, its polar bears and wolves (the four-legged kind, though now we all have to worry about the Wall Street species, too), oh, I could go on – here next to me is a book to inspire the perfect question for our so-called presidential debaters (so-called because in an actual authentic genuine real debate, you are expected to provide an actual authentic genuine real answer to the question) this week: How did the states get their shapes? And when both of them say, uhhh, well, uhhh, gee, that’s not on my playlist, they would be allowed to answer the variation: How have the states gotten into the shapes they are in: suffering from divisions along class lines, unemployment, ill health, mediocre education, alienation from the above-named anointed estates, but thrilled to see the band put the dot on O h i o on any given Saturday.

“How the States Got Their Shapes” by Mark Stein (Collins, 332 pp., illustrated, hardcover, $22.95) might be just the tranquilizer one needs when trying to comprehend US history, be it in the making or made already. Take Ohio. Imagine it before coal mines and marching bands.

My pal Sam loves to talk about how much money he's saved by buying a Honda Civic hybrid. So I plan to turn my boy onto Cost2Drive, a new webapp that estimates the fuel cost of any given trip. This is the way it works:

Say, you're planning a drive to P-town this weekend and you live in JP. You go to the site; enter your starting point and destination, the year of your car, along with make and model.
Cost2Drive uses your car's MPG, gleaned from the EPA. They then grab the average price of gas in your area from Oil Price Information Service, and bang it all up against and the distance, which comes via Google map technology, to "galculate" your cost.
After plugging my data into Cost2Drive I learn that getting to P-town in my 1999 Subaru Forester (stop laughing; it's a cool ride) will set me back $15.04; Sam, on the other hand, will only have to pony up $8.60.
Obviously, this calculation isn't high-level math so you could easily do it yourself. But if your car's EPA isn't tattooed to your forearm and if you aren't fully conversant in the current average price of a gallon of petrol in your hood and you want to know whether it makes the most financial sense to drive, take the train or just Fung Wah (or just be green and stay home), this app is worth a try. Besides it's fun.
Thanks to Riverwired for pointing us to this one.

Having once lived in the vicinity of a meat-packing plant in Des Moines, I'm not a huge fan of hot dogs. (Enough said.) Since then, however, I have made an exception: New York System hot wieners, the kind you find only in Rhode Island. Perhaps it's the onions, celery salt, mustard, and meat sauce that make me forget about Des Moines, but I could eat half a dozen in one sitting. Happily, I can justify burning a tank of gas to go get them since July happens to be National Hot Dog Month. According to the National Hog Dog & Sausage Council, Americans will devour 7 billion wieners between Memorial Day and Labor Day. New Yorkers happen to consume more hot dogs than any other city, beating out Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore/Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston. Celebrate a rite of summer: click here to test your hot dog knowledge.

Southwest plans to start offering international flights for the first time through a partnership deal with Canada's WestJet.
Southwest said it is working on a so-called code-sharing agreement with WestJet, a low-fare, Canadian regional airline, which flies around Canada as well as to Hawaii, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Code-sharing deals typically allow carriers to sell tickets on each other's flights.
The airlines hope to detail schedules, fares, and other features of the pact by late next year. I think it's pretty safe to say, though, that New England customers of Southwest, which services Providence, Hartford, and Manchester, will likely be among the recipients of more lower-fare options to Canadian destinations. The agreement is subject to review by regulators.

I'm thinking with the skyrocketing price of gasoline that we may see a resurgence of interest in hitching. But, let's face it. The plaintive extended thumb on the highway on-ramp ... It's just so creepy, Rutger Hauer, old school.
Thank god we've moved on to Hitchhiking 2.0. Those interested in snagging a ride should take a look a couple of specialty message boards: hitchhikers.org for European travel and Digihitch for the United States and Canada.
On the sites, drivers who are willing to offer riders post listings, with info on departure dates, how many seats are available, and whether they're looking to share expenses (some drivers don't want any money; just a little company to keep them awake on a long ride).
Could be a win-win.
But if you're a driver and some old Teutonic-looking dude with a trench coat and a shotgun wants a ride... Let's just say this kind of thing usually doesn't end well.
Thanks to the Great Travel God Arthur Frommer for this one.

Southwest is giving T.F. Green Airport two more daily flights to Florida starting Nov. 2, the Warwick, R.I., airport said.
The low-cost carrier is increasing its daily departures to Orlando to six and to Fort Lauderdale to two.
The additions will boost service from T.F. Green Airport's largest airline to 33 daily flights.
“Although these are challenging times in the industry, Southwest has responded to the demand for additional flights," Kevin Dillon, chief executive of the Rhode Island Airport Corp., which runs T. F. Green Airport, said in a prepared statement. "We are pleased that they continue to add service and to recognize the potential for further growth to some of the top destinations from Green.”
By Nicole C. Wong, Globe staff

American said that its regional carrier, American Eagle, will stop serving T.F. Green Airport near Providence as part of the cost-cutting plan announced a month ago. T.F. Green is one of five airports nationwide that will lose American Eagle flights in November as the carrier whittles fourth-quarter regional seat capacity by 10 to 11 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. An airport spokeswoman could not be reached immediately for comment. American Eagle carried less than 4.35 percent of the airport's passengers during the 12-month period ended in April, according to the latest data from the Department of Transportation.
Posted by Nicole C. Wong, Globe Staff

Excuse me while I try to overcome an onslaught of peristaltic contractions. I'm not a ride guy. To me, they are like mechanically induced food poisoning: headache, nausea, oy.
But I know some of you are. So our pals at Travel + Leisure (so what's up with the plus sign?) have compiled a list of the World's Top Ten. Now why do you care? Well because our own Six Flags New England in the lovely bedroom community of Agawam made the list with its Superman Ride of Steel. (The good folks at Boston.com have also compiled a list of the top ten in North America, including footage of what it's like on the Superman ride.)
If you want the details, read on. I think I need to lie down. Got any saltines?