America's wacky festivals

Ever daydream about cruising through the Panama Canal? Well, YouTube has several videos that can show you what the trip is like. My favorite is one that was uploaded a couple of weeks ago. This six-minute video of a Panama Canal crossing was shot from the deck of the Peaceboat as it sailed to Panama City. The video captures the flavor and telling details of the trip and is cleverly set to the song "El Cuarto De Tula" by Buena Vista Social Club. For a faster tour, look instead for this 90-second time-lapse video of a Panama Canal crossing, which will send you on an amazing race through locks and lakes. The video was shot from a top deck of Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas by a ship employee, Jeff Birmingham, during a May 2003 cruise. [link from CruiseJournals.com, via YouTube] And here's a historical perspective on the Panama Canal from David McCullough: The lesson to be learned from the Panama Canal is that it succeeded by taking its greatest problem and making the problem an advantage. The problem was the rainfall and the Chagres River. The Chagres River was a surging monster, a lion in the path, as they said. The key was not to try to dig a Suez-type of canal, a great sea-level trench from ocean to ocean, but to create a lock-and-lake canal, where the ships are lifted up by a series of locks to a man-made lake, and then they sail across that lake, and then they are set back down on the other side by another series of locks. The source of the water is the Chagres.--Excerpted from The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914. Buy it at Amazon.com.

Trying to find a good restaurant is difficult enough. If you follow faith-based dietary restrictions, the job is even tougher. The Internet can help. Zabihah.com is sort of an online Zagat guide for Muslims, where anyone can review restaurants that are halal. There are over 5,000 listings on the website, including 3,400 in the U.S. For Jews keeping kosher, Shamash.org lists nearly 2,700 kosher restaurants in 50-plus countries--Omar Sacirbey

Hertz and Avis are placing bets on hybrids, cars with combination gas-and-electric engines that dramatically increase fuel efficiency and decrease greenhouse gases. Hertz will add 3,400 Toyota Prius hybrid cars to its rental fleet by the end of 2008. The cars will be available at 50 major U.S. airports, including Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. By July, the first batch of roughly 1,000 Prius rentals will be mostly at airport locations in New York City, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Orlando, Miami, West Palm Beach, and Atlanta. Rates are slated to start at $50 per weekend day--about $10 less than renting a mid-size SUV, such as a Ford Escape, in July. Avis Budget Group Inc. also plans to start rolling out 1,000 Toyota Prius vehicles over the next few weeks at Avis locations in California, Portland, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. Although prices will vary according to the season and location, rates should be about $70 per day, similar to what you would pay to rent a standard SUV, such as a Chevrolet Trailblazer, in July. Earlier: Hybrid-friendly hotels. Related: Car rental advice. Elsewhere: America's Best Green Hotels. [HotelChatter]

Some new travel products offer a quick solution to carry-on luggage restrictions. This year, Hefty began selling a flat-pack of 7 Hefty quart-sized OneZip bags, specifically labeled as meeting security guidelines. But editor Erik Torkells recently tested some great products for carrying liquids, which you may find much more useful. More: Learn how to pack right. One quick tip: The Feds post their list of prohibited and allowable carry-on items on the T.S.A. website.