A new way to get to the airport…but is it worth it?

Tucked between the Roman Forum and the Quirinale Palace, Monti housed the poorest locals back in ancient Roman times, when it was called Suburra ("sub urbis"), Latin for "under city." In recent years, this neighborhood has morphed into the place to see and be seen, especially for bohemian thirty-somethings. Its winding, well-kept cobblestone streets are home to some of Rome's best locali (hangouts) as well as eclectic shops and piazzas for observing everyday life. La Bottega del Caffe should be your first stop.You can't miss this bar since it literally overflows with patrons, who spill out from under its awning and into the neighborhood's main square, Piazza Madonna dei Monti. La Bottega del Caffe is at its best during the early evening aperitivo, when you can people watch over platters of cheeses and cold cuts. You can always just grab a drink and look cool outside and sit by the fountain. Piazza Madonna dei Monti, 5. Just around the corner, Urbana 47 specializes in organic, seasonal fare like vegetable polpette with sweet pecorino, sheep's milk yogurt, and ravioli with pumpkin and amaretto. The decor is warmly retro and includes playful, knitted works by local artist Alessandra Roveda, who can easily cover any piece of furniture with colorful yarn. Brunch from 9 a.m. on Sundays, daily aperitivo from at 6 p.m. The restaurant stays open for dinner until after midnight. Via Urbana, 47. On the opposite side of Monti is Ristorante La Taverna dei Fori Imperiali, which my friends call Dustin Hoffman's because they once spotted the actor eating there. The owner and chef Alessio Liberatore's family has been in the restaurant business for over a century. His wife Maria Grazia heads up the staff, and their two children Claudia and Aldo rattle off more specials than you can keep track of! The pappardelle al ragu di vitello tartufo e verdure, a regular menu fixture, is sublime. Last time I went there, I spent less than $50 for a dinner that included generous amounts of wine, antipasti, heaping courses, dessert, and coffee. Seating is limited, so it's best to reserve in advance. 011-39/066-798-643, Via della Madonna dei Monti, 9. Abito is one of my favorite places to shop because most of the clothes are made in the back room by the owner herself, Wilma Silvestri. She has a knack for contemporary designs and for resurrecting vintage men's and women's clothes and turning them into something off the runway. Via Panisperna 61. Are we in Notting Hill or are we in Rome? That's what you might ask yourself when you step into Pulp, the eclectic second-hand store that carries everything from old Fendi bags to your next punky costume-party outfit. The store prides itself on its vintage designer clothing and all around funky stuff. 011-39/0648-5511, Via del Boschetto 140. Want more insider recommendations? Read up on five quintessential trattorias in Eat Like a Local: Rome and check out our complete Rome coverage.

One day recently I landed on the shores of the Italian island of Ischia without a guidebook or a paperback novel. I was forced to depend on my Kindle for reading on the beaches, the ferry rides, and around town. Our editors have road-tested Apple's rival device, the iPad, before, and the iPad is certainly a cool tool. But the Kindle is now less expensive. In the past year and a half, Amazon has dropped the price of its e-reader by 63 percent to a reasonable $139. The two e-readers have different personalities. Amazon's Kindle is like the Mitt Romney of e-readers (dull and bookish, but also reliable and high class), while the iPad is more like Sarah Palin (playful, populist, and the one you would feel more comfortable asking for directions when you get lost). THE VERDICT I'd give the Kindle a B- when it comes to travel friendliness. The latest Kindle with built-in Wi-Fi ($139, $189 for 3G) is quite handy for travelers. But it still has several flaws to fix. If you're like me, which no doubt you are, you do not like the idea of having to carry huge piles of guidebooks, beach reads, and magazines with you on your trip. When you set out to pack your bags, you want to travel light. The latest Kindle is a neat solution to the weight problem for sure. It weighs a mere 8.5 ounces, or roughly the same as an in-flight magazine. KINDLE PROS AND CONS Pro: You can store up to 3,500 books and documents on it. You no longer have to decide which guidebook to bring with you, the city one or the country one or the restaurants-only guide. Take them all! Con: Amazon delivers the Kindle to you naked. Travelers will want to buy a cover for protection during a journey, and that cover will add a ridiculous $30 to the cost. Pro: Screen is easy to read both indoors and out in the bright sun. It's not reflective. Con: The affordable version lacks color for photos and maps, and it doesn't reproduce maps well. You can't zoom in on a map, which makes it nearly useless for directions. Pro: Super long battery life. I used the device for several hours a day for more than a week and didn't need a recharge. Amazon says its Kindles have one-month battery lives if you leave the Wi-Fi turned off. Con: The device never "shuts off." It continually refreshes its screen, even when you're not using it. This habit can exasperate flight attendants who don't want you to have any electronic devices operating during takeoff or landing. UPDATE: My mistake, as the commenters have pointed out. You *can* turn the Kindle off with the top button. The battery life is excellent, though, so few people probably do. Pro: Font size is adjustable. So if a book's print is too small to read, you can just make the text larger. Con: Page size isn't fixed, which means that the index to any guidebook is useless because you there is no corresponding page number. Pro: You can search text, such as guidebook, for a word or phrase you want. There's a basic English language dictionary built in, too. Con: There's no spelling suggester, unlike in Google search results. ("Did you mean to spell Iskia "Ischia"?) If you don't know how to spell the name of a town or a restaurant, you're out of luck. (Another problem: Kindle returns search results from the start of the book, not from your current page in the book onward. If you want to find a plaza in a particular town, let's say, your Kindle will search for every mention of the word plaza in your book. Ugh.) Pro: Its built-in Web browser lets you surf the Web in more than 60 countries for free. Con: The refresh rate was so s-l-o-w that I found the free Web surfing is only useful when you have absolutely no other Internet option. Pro: More than 700,000 books are available on the Kindle. Guidebook publishers are increasingly publishing individual chapters from their guidebooks. You can spend less and get precisely the information you want. Con: Merely 7,400 of those books are travel-related, and your favorite guidebook might not be available in a digital edition. MAX OUT YOUR KINDLE Save magazine and newspaper articles to your Kindle. Whether they're destination planning guides or just something good to read in the ski lodge, you'll want to set up the following process for saving good info for later. (Hat tip to Cool Tools.) 1) Register at Instapaper.com, a free site, via your PC or Mac. Instapaper will let you add a button to your browser for saving articles. Whenever you see an inspiring article, click the "Read Later" browser button and the article will be saved. 2) Write down your personal Kindle e-mail address. It usually looks like yourname@kindle.com. You can look up yours on your Kindle by clicking "Menu" and then "Settings." 3) Download Calibre eBook Manager (calibre-ebook.com/) to your PC or Mac. Let Calibre know your personal Kindle e-mail address. 4) Link Calibre to your Instapaper account. Calibre has easy to follow instructions for doing this. Sign up for a "feed" of all the articles you clip and save to Instapaper as you surf. Be sure to schedule how often you want your clipped articles to download. For example, you can check "autosend" in the sharing preferences on Calibre. 5) Surf the Web. Click the "Read Later" button on your browser whenever there's a travel (or other article) you'd like to read on your Kindle later on. Need something better to read on vacation than Confessions of a Shopaholic Part 13? Visit TheBrowser or LongForm.org and then click to save articles. [MORE: When you download something other than an Amazon book to your Kindle, and you use a 3G network instead of WiFi, you may be hit by a small charge from a telecom company. Paul Kline has a tip on how to avoid the small fees that telecom companies may charge you. It involves adding the word "Free" to your personal Kindle e-mail address: Calibre + Instapaper + Kindle = Reading Goodness] EARLIER Test Lab: iPad as travel tool New site TripAlertz is Groupon for travel

A new photo exhibit in New York City shows exactly what gets confiscated: Cuban cigars, pirated DVDs, heroin, animal parts, hand grenades, bongs, and more. Now through the end of 2010, the Lever House Art Collection (on Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan, free) features the photographs of Taryn Simon. Last November, Simon spent five full days (24/7) at New York's JFK airport, where she photographed more than 1,000 items seized from airline passengers and mail packages entering the U.S. The resulting images are shown in a Lever House exhibition simply called "Contraband." The exhibit is an extension of the work Simon is probably best known for, "An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar," in which she documented spots few people ever have a prayer of seeing in person -- CIA headquarters, inside a fully-armed nuclear submarine, and so forth. The "American Index," shown at the Whitney Museum in 2007, is now a book. So what's the strangest thing in Simon's new "Contraband" show? Hard to say, but the horse sausage and cow manure tooth powder have to be up at the top of the list. RELATED STORIES: Bizarre Traveler Behavior: Security officials at borders and airports sure see some strange things What the Beagle Knows: Why man's best friend is the smuggler's worst enemy

San Francisco transit is switching over to a new reloadable plastic card called Clipper that works system-wide. You can use it on BART, MUNI trains and buses, as well as the East Bay's AC Transit, CalTrain, which goes to San Jose, and the ferries. You would think the one-card system would simplify things, but the transition is proving confusing. In fact, city workers are stationed around San Francisco to help commuters operate the new vending machines. There's even a YouTube how-to video. With the Clipper, you "tap" the card instead of sliding or inserting it (much like London's Oyster system). Currently, you can still pay cash when you hop on a MUNI bus or train on the street, but not in the underground stations. BART is also still taking the old tickets—but only for so long. Right now, the plastic card is free but eventually it will cost $5, on top of the regular fare. Luckily, for visitors there's a lesser-known, limited-use Muni Ticket good for 90 days that you can tap on the Clipper reader. You can buy these for 25 cents, and reload them at the underground Muni station vending machines pretty easily. The card works for unlimited rides over 90 minutes. Locals are still getting adjusted to the new system, but it is catching on fast, even with equipment hiccups and other issues. Though if you seem confused, don't worry—you'll blend right in. Get more details on the Clipper at the card's official website. MORE ON SAN FRANCISCO Trivia Quiz: 12 Things You Didn't Know About San Francisco Photos: 8 Perspectives on San Francisco San Francisco's Best Street Food