Travel Ideas

The Coachella Music Festival is one the best pound-for-pound musical gluts in the country, attracting the best performers, old and new, from the hip-hop, indie, and alt-rock scenes. If Lollapalooza crafted the template, Coachella perfected it. Coachella 2011 runs from April 15-17. If you want to have a happy (and healthy) weekend, there are a few basic survival tips you need to keep in mind.

Are you ready for this year's Tribeca Film Festival? 2011 is the tenth anniversary of New York City's biggest and fastest-growing fete of local and international independent cinema, bringing in thousands of cineastes and celebrities from all over the world. This year's festival kicks off in with a Cameron Crowe documentary about Elton John and singer/songwriter Leon Russell and ends with a performance by John himself, but you don't have to be Sir Elton to get access to the Tribeca Film Festival's 88 feature-length and 61 short films – being a part of the fun is as easy as paying the price of a movie ticket.

Hundreds, if not thousands of musicians, from Louis Armstrong to Louie Prima have passed through the New Orleans music scene over the years, and there isn't another city in the country whose jazz heritage is as rich and vibrant. It's easy to think of jazz as a staid and mouldering tradition – it's certainly not a huge part of mainstream music consciousness anymore – but New Orleans' traditional jazz foundations mix with blues, hip-hop and indie rock in exciting and inventive ways that prove that jazz is not only alive and kicking, but finding a comfortable place amid its genre peers in the Crescent City.

When is Earth Day 2011? Since 1970, Earth Day has been held on April 22, which this year falls conveniently on a Friday on the fourth weekend of the month, but celebrations are taking place all over the world at different dates around actual Earth Day. During this time of environmental appreciation, it might seem antithetical to the ideals of Earth Day 2011 to talk about travel (especially air travel), but on the contrary, the holiday is the perfect time to think about the impact your travel has on the environment and what you, as a responsible citizen, might do about it.

The square is festooned with green, gold and purple bric-a-brac, a sprightly Basin City blues fills your ears, and the air is rich with the smell of spicy andouille sausage and seafood gumbo, but no, you're not in New Orleans – you're at Universal Studios' Mardi Gras in Orlando.

In the last five years, the SXSW Music conference, once an event primarily for music industry insiders and lucky Austinites, has become a something of a free-for-all, attracting thousands of music lovers from all over the country.

Mardi Gras masks are in essence Carnival masks, which means their history lies in the Venetian and French masquerade balls that were in vogue in the royal courts of Europe from the 15th century onward. In America, where Mardi Gras is probably best known (under the name "Mardi Gras," that is, and not "Carnival"), masks have a complicated, but rich history.

Of all the "throws" at Mardi Gras, beads are the most well-known and the most ubiquitous. Far from the mere icons of Bourbon Street revelry, Mardi Gras beads are part of a larger and more meaningful tradition than just that of college students baiting each other to bare skin.

Whether you're looking to holiday at a secluded jungle escape or in rich cosmopolitan style, there are luxury resorts and spas in Malaysia to suit your every need. Here are our top five.

All right, you're going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in 2011, but are you really going to Mardi Gras, or are you just sticking around for the beads and booze on Bourbon Street? There's a lot more to a true New Orleans Mardi Gras experience than the tourist-heavy French Quarter, and many locals would say that if you just stick around there, you're not really a part of Mardi Gras at all. So whether you're going for just Fat Tuesday ("Mardi Gras" in English) or all of Carnival, here's what you need to know.