Edible Advent Calendar: Week 2

The best new show on Broadway is the swirling chaos of the city itself—and the seats are free. Inspired by Copenhagen's car-free Strøget zone, the city of New York has permanently closed five blocks in Times Square to traffic and installed 300 chairs and benches, where thousands of locals now join the tourists every day to experience the city in an entirely new way. (Budget Travel recognized this innovation with an Extra Mile Award this year.) Starting earlier this week, Yahoo! began offering free WiFi to anyone in Times Square's public area, in cooperation with the Times Square Alliance. Access the service using your WiFi-enabled mobile phone and surfing to Yahoo!'s mobile homepage (http://m.yahoo.com). Laptops will automatically see a welcome screen when they look for "Times Sq Free Wifi" in their drop-down menu of possible WiFi signals to connect to. (Surf any site on the Internet, not just Yahoo.) The free WiFi will be available for one year to start, with the possibility of extending to three years, says a spokeswoman. ELSEWHERE Lifehacker: Protect Your Wi-Fi Connection at Airport Hotspots MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL The Best Netbooks for Travelers: Holidays 2009

The fare wars are on, with plenty of airlines slashing rates for post-holiday travel. Deals include Midwest's Omaha to Ft. Lauderdale for $104 each way. Find the deals at Kayak, Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Cheaptickets, Priceline, and other search engines. In a clever move, Omni Hotels has latched on to the fare wars by launching a Winter 72-Hour Sale. Beginning today and running through Thursday, Nov. 5, guests can book luxury accomodations at Omni Hotels for up to 40 percent off in the same destinations as the winter fare sales. Rates from $69. You can't beat that for an Omni! Eighteen hotels, mostly in the southern half of the U.S., are included in this offer. (See the complete list.) A case in point: Newly built and opened last January, The Omni Fort Worth Hotel is sculpted from native stone and rich hardwoods and wrapped in glass. It houses 1,929 pieces of artwork, all commissioned by Texas artists, and its 614 guest rooms and suites are distinguished with an authentic Texas decor. The property has sale rates from $199, roughly 40 percent off typical rates. (If you book a room here, be sure to read Budget Travel's excellent round-up, "25 Reasons We Love Fort Worth.") Travel must happen between Dec. 2, 2009 and Feb. 10, 2010, excluding New Year's Eve. For more info, please visit Omni Hotels 72-Hour Sale website.

Once upon a time, at least according to Paris legend, it was possible to dine exceedingly well for not a lot of money. Are those days over? Since I began writing this blog series a year ago, I've become obsessed with finding "affordable" restaurants to share with BT readers. I've asked everyone from famous food critics to my local hairdresser, and the answer is always the same: "What do you mean by affordable?" In a town where fine dining can cost hundreds of euros, many people agree that €35 is fair for a three-course menu—assuming that the meal is good. There are plenty of restaurants (let's say about forty) that are putting out special and memorable food for that price. €35, however, is too steep for many people, especially those who are financing the fun with their declining-value dollars. As I wrote back in June, the weakened buying power of the U.S. dollar is presenting a serious challenge for budget-minded travelers. The €35 tab, which thankfully includes tax and tip, is now $51 for Americans. That's not something that most people can do every night. In my food-obsessed opinion, every traveler should experience at least one special meal during their time in Paris. For that splurge, the Internet is full of good restaurant recommendations. Check out this selection of Top 10 Paris Food Blogs, as well as my new favorite, Paris Kitchen. For all of the other meals, however, there's not a lot in the way of current and useful information. That's where Budget Travel is going to step in and help. In the coming weeks, we'll be adding a heap of affordable restaurant reviews to our site. In additional to my own suggestions, we'd love to investigate and publish your best ideas for affordable dining. And by affordable, we mean eating (not drinking) for under €20. Can it be done? Tell us how in the comments.

Lots of tour packages hit our desks here at Budget Travel, but one tour operator that continues to inspire me is REI Adventures. Unfamiliar with them? They're the offshoot tour operator of the giant REI retail stores, specializing in travel gear. REI Adventures offers active, interesting tours all over the world, but they have particularly neat itineraries if you're looking to rediscover the U.S. They just launched new trips for 2010, and I'm already drooling over one. The four-day Superstition Mountains Backpacking itinerary includes 21 miles of hiking through Central Arizona's 160,000-acre Superstition Mountain range. The mountains were formed by volcano activity some 305 million years ago and reach up to 3,000 feet. Along the way, hikers will wind through thick canyon walls, some with native artwork, and spy huge columns of rock like Weaver's Needle. There's a lot of gold-rush-era lore that surrounds the Superstitions—the Lost Dutchman's Mine is a favorite. The story goes that Jacob Waltz (actually a German), a prospecting miner in the late 1800s, was said to have found the richest gold mine in the world. He took its secret location to his grave, thus igniting a huge treasure hunt after his death. No one's ever found the mine, but hey, who knows? The Superstition Mountain Museum, though not on the REI Adventures itinerary, is still worth a stop if you're interested in the history behind the mysterious mountains (it's about 30 minutes from Tempe, the meet-up location for this trip). Dates for the backpacking trip are January through March, and the price is $575 per person for members of REI and $615 for non-members. We recommended getting a membership to REI—it's only $20 for a lifetime, and it'll save you a ton of money, even if you take just one trip. Other exciting entries on REI Adventures' 2010 calendar include kayaking on South Carolina's Edisto River and cycling in the Loire Valley. EARLIER New urban adventures from Intrepid Travel Hiking tips from adventure star Andrew Skurka