I’m exhausted from a whirlwind visit to San Francisco this weekend, but this photo makes me feel contemplative and at ease. It’s actually a color photograph taken at the gorgeous Pier 24 photography museum, a 28,000 square foot space that only allows in 20 guests at a time. The current exhibit has some of the masters from the 20th century: Arbus, Friedlander, Eggelston, and Evans, among others, and its white walls are unadorned—without nameplates or explanations. It’s an aesthetic explained on its website with the simple phrase: “A place to view and think about photography.” It was just exquisite.

I made my television debut this weekend, appearing on Weekend Sunrise, a morning show based in Australia. They asked me to speak about some our new World Heritage travel guides — many of which were selected by National Geographic readers. I learned that the odd thing about doing television is that you’re in an empty room staring at a camera and you have no idea what’s appearing on screen. Or when they’re looking at you or running a clip of some lovely Italian hillside. Luckily, they showed lots of clips.

[World Heritage Travel Guides]

Had a itty bitty little (yet fun) item in the New York Mag Winter Travel issue on the lovely hilltop town of Santa Teresa from my recent trip to Rio. And they made this fun little illustration to go with it! Here we go:

Taking a Trolley to the Action in Rio
To get to the drop-dead-sexiest neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, you need to ride a little yellow time machine. Lurching away from the city’s bustling business district, nineteenth-century trolleys, or bondes ($.40; www.sectran.rj.gov.br), make a precarious pass along the Carioca aqueduct on their way to Santa Teresa, a hotbed of restaurants, bars, and, of course, samba. Bar do Mineiro’s (Rua Pascoal Carlos Magno 99; 55-21-2221-9227) gallery-cum-restaurant serves feijoada and pasteis—addictive fried cheese snacks—into the wee hours. Samba spills into the streets outside Simplesmente (55-21-2508-6007), while Asia Restaurant (asia-rio.com) has the honor of bringing quality dim sum to Brazil. Stay at the new Hotel Santa Teresa, a sleekly remade former coffee plantation (from $450; santa-teresa-hotel.com).

[Winter Travel 2010]

I have two new pieces out this past week in Forbes, one on Labor Day road trip ideas, the other on the best dining options in airports. Enjoy!

Photo: Chicago’s O’Hare airport

This morning: Gross thunderstorms which make me want to stay in bed. One month ago, this was my view from my hotel in Picinguaba, Brazil. Sigh.

I’m still kind of shocked at myself for not posting anything on either this or my work blog about my trip to Morocco (it was in November!) and I really realized this was ridiculous when I had the pleasure of sitting next to a new Moroccan friend on my bus trip up to New York. As he and I discussed our love for Essaouria, I wanted to go back and look through all of my pictures again and relive my trip. And today I was listening to the audio clips I took in Djemmaa el Fna, Marrakech’s main square, wanting to drop everything and head back.

Perhaps it was the simple need for a bit of privacy, as I was starting to feel like every step I took became a blog post. But I realize that means I’m keeping a lot of really great stuff all to myself. So I swear I’ll get some of the posts and videos I’ve started up at Intelligent Travel soon, and in the meantime, here are some photos of lovely Essaouria.

Blue is the color of this city. All of the boats and doors are in varying shades.

Beneath our fish lunch, one of the country’s many stray cats enjoyed his own.

There are entire books of photos devoted to the doors of this city,  I’m sure.

This little guy was bawling when we saw him in the street.

One of the woodworkers who carved the thulia wood, traditional to the region.

The wall that surrounds the city can be a bit desolate in places.

A scene from our cooking class at l’Altier Madada.

The lovely and wonderful Anne, whose Prêt à Voyager blog has always fed my appetite for all things design and wanderlust, was kind enough to ask me to contribute to her Boarding Pass series of interviews with travelers a few weeks ago. Well after I dawdled a bit with getting her everything (sorry! I wanted it to be good!) it went up today and she did a lovely job with the photo selection, don’t you think?

Thanks so much to Anne for her constant stream of thoughtful posts, and for including me in such great company.

[Boarding Pass: Janelle Nanos]

I have another story out in the latest issue of D.C. Magazine about an elite travel group for mavericks in the business world, the aptly-named, Maverick Business Adventures. Totally dig the photo they used. Check it out in fancy PDF after the jump.

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My article in this month’s issue of Traveler deals with using Twitter to meet all your traveling needs. (And yes, I do Twitter myself: @Janelle_IT_Blog should you find my musings interesting…)