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We arrange travel air, land and sea. We can arrange the perfect destination package including, resorts, conference rooms and meeting locations, special events, and attractions.

Call us and start planning that special vacation or event today. 602-843-5100 or visit our website rawhidetravel.com


Presented By:
Rawhide Travel and Tours Inc
6008 West Bell Rd # F105
Glendale, Arizona  85308-3793
(602) 843-5100
 rawhidetravel.com

Wishing You A Happy New Year

Wishing you, your friends and your family a very happy new year. May this year brings all the desired success and happiness in your life that you can cherish always. Wish you a successful and prosperous 2017. May this year be the one in which all your wishes come true.

People from all over need to call Rawhide Travel and Tours to access this property and start planning that special vacation or event today. 602-843-5100 or visit our website rawhidetravel.com.

Presented By:
Rawhide Travel and Tours Inc.
6008 West Bell Rd # F105
Glendale, Arizona  85308-3793
(602) 843-5100 
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How Do They Celebrate New Year's Eve In Australia

How do they celebrate New Year's Eve in Australia? Huge crowds gather for New Year's Eve celebrations as famed Sydney Harbor Bridge is set to explode in color.  Early arrivals claim prime positions to watch fireworks in front of the Sydney Opera House.

Thousands of revellers gathered at first light along Sydney's harbor foreshore in advance of the city's New Year's Eve fireworks, while countries across the Asia Pacific region are planning some very different celebrations for the start of 2017.

The most sought-after vistas from peninsulas around Sydney's iconic Opera House are now ticketed, and hundreds slept out in queues overnight to get the best spots when gates opened on Saturday morning.

In other areas around the harbor, people started setting up tents on Friday, before dawn.

In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve (also known as Old Year's Day or Saint Sylvester's Day in many countries), the last day of the year, is on December 31 which is the seventh day of the Christmas season. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated at evening social gatherings, where many people dance, eat, drink alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the new year. Some people attend a watch night service. The celebrations generally go on past midnight into January 1st (New Year's Day).

Samoa, Tonga and Kiritimati (Christmas Island), part of Kiribati, are the first places to welcome the New Year while American Samoa and Baker Island in the United States of America are among the last.

In the United States, New Year's Eve is celebrated with formal parties, family-oriented activities, and other large public events.

One of the most prominent celebrations in the country is the "ball drop" held in New York City's Times Square. Inspired by the time balls that were formally used as a time signal, at 11:59 p.m. ET, an 11,875-pound 12-foot diameter Waterford crystal ball located on the roof of One Times Square is lowered down a pole that is 70 feet high, reaching the roof of the building 60 seconds later to signal the start of the New Year. The Ball Drop has been held since 1907, and in recent years has averaged around a million spectators annually. The popularity of the spectacle also inspired similar "drop" events outside of New York City, which often use objects that represent a region's culture, geography, or history—such as Atlanta's "Peach Drop", representing Georgia's identity as the "Peach State". Alongside the festivities in Times Square, New York's Central Park hosts a "Midnight Run" event organized by the New York Road Runners, which culminates in a fireworks show and a race around the park that begins at midnight.

Radio and television broadcasts from festivities in New York helped to ingrain aspects of them in American pop culture; beginning on the radio in 1928, and on CBS television from 1956 to 1976 with ball drop coverage, Guy Lombardo and his band, The Royal Canadians, presented an annual New Year's Eve broadcast from the ballroom of New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The broadcasts were best known for the Royal Canadians' signature performance of "Auld Lang Syne" at midnight, which made the standard synonymous with New Year's in the United States. Following Lombardo's death in 1977, ABC's competing program New Year's Rockin' Eve succeeded the Royal Canadians as the dominant New Year's Eve special on television. Its creator and host Dick Clark intended the program to be a modern and youthful alternative to Lombardo's big band music. Including ABC's special coverage of the year 2000, Clark would host New Year's Eve coverage on ABC for 33 straight years. After suffering a stroke, Clark ceded hosting duties in 2005 to talk show host Regis Philbin, and retired as full-time host in 2006 in favor of Ryan Seacrest due to a speech impediment caused by the stroke. Clark continued to make appearances from a studio on the program annually until his death in 2012.

Notable celebrations occur in other cities as well. On the Las Vegas Strip, the streets are closed to vehicle traffic on the evening of New Year's Eve, and a large fireworks show is held at midnight which spans across multiple resort buildings. Major theme parks may also hold New Year's celebrations; Disney theme parks, such as Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and Disneyland in Anaheim, California, are traditionally the busiest during the days up to and including New Year's Eve. Los Angeles, a city long without a major public New Year celebration, held an inaugural gathering in Downtown's newly completed Grand Park to celebrate the beginning of 2014. The event included food trucks, art installations, and light shows, culminating with a projection mapping show on the side of Los Angeles City Hall near midnight. The inaugural event drew over 25,000 spectators and participants. In 2015, Chicago held Chi-Town Rising, the city's first ever outdoor New Year's Eve festival on the Magnificent Mile. The event was hosted by Mario Lopez with musical guests American Authors and Chicago. Nearly 100,000 people attended the inaugural event.

People from all over need to call Rawhide Travel and Tours to access this property and start planning that special vacation or event today. 602-843-5100 or visit our website rawhidetravel.com.

Presented By:
Rawhide Travel and Tours Inc.
6008 West Bell Rd # F105
Glendale, Arizona  85308-3793
(602) 843-5100 
rawhidetravel.com

The Famous New Year's Times Square Ball

The Times Square Ball is a time ball located in New York City's Times Square. Located on the roof of One Times Square, the ball is a prominent part of a New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square commonly referred to as the ball drop, where the ball descends 141 feet in 60 seconds down a specially designed flagpole, beginning at 11:59:00 p.m. Eastern Time and resting at midnight to signal the start of the new year. In recent years, the festivities have been preceded by live entertainment, including performances by musicians.

The event was first organized by Adolph Ochs, owner of The New York Times newspaper, as a successor to a series of New Year's Eve fireworks displays he held at the building to promote its status as the new headquarters of the Times, while the ball itself was designed by Artkraft Strauss. First held on December 31, 1907, to welcome 1908, the ball drop has been held annually since, except in 1942 and 1943 in observance of wartime blackouts.

The ball's design has also been updated over the years to reflect improvements in lighting technology; the original design was made from wood and iron and lit with 100 incandescent light bulbs, while its current incarnation features a computerized LED lighting system and an outer surface consisting of triangle-shaped crystal panels. Since 2009, the current ball has been displayed atop the building year-round, while the original, smaller version of the current ball that was used in 2008 is on display at Times Square's visitor center.

The event is organized by the Times Square Alliance and Countdown Entertainment, a company led by Jeff Strauss, and is among the most notable New Year's celebrations internationally: it is attended by at least 2 million spectators yearly, and is nationally televised as part of New Year's Eve specials broadcast by a number of networks and cable channels. The prevalence of the Times Square ball drop has inspired similar "drops" at other local New Year's Eve events across the country; while some use balls, some instead drop objects that represent local culture or history.

Festivities

Erik Drost - https://www.flickr.com/photos/edrost88/6279767064/,
CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37798411

Festivities formally begin in the early evening with the raising of the ball at around 6:00 p.m. Party favors are also distributed to attendees, which have historically included large balloons, hats, and other items branded with the event's corporate sponsors. The hours before the drop are preceded by hourly countdowns for the arrival of the new year in other countries, along with live music performances by popular musicians. Some of these performances are organized by, and aired on New Year's Eve television specials which are broadcast from Times Square.

The drop itself occurs at 11:59 p.m.—the last minute of the year, and is ceremonially "activated" by a dignitary or celebrity joined on-stage by the current Mayor of New York City. The conclusion of the drop is followed by fireworks shot from the roof of One Times Square, along with the playing of "Auld Lang Syne" by Guy Lombardo, "Theme from New York, New York" by Frank Sinatra, "America the Beautiful" by Ray Charles, "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong, and "Over the Rainbow".


Since the 1996 New Year's Eve celebration, the current Mayor of New York City has been joined by a special guest, selected yearly to recognize their community involvement or significance, in ceremonially "activating" the ball drop by pressing a button, resembling a smaller version of the ball itself, at exactly one minute to midnight. The button itself does not actually trigger the drop; that is done from a control room, synchronized using a government time signal.

Plan to be there in person next year!

People from all over need to call Rawhide Travel and Tours to access this property and start planning that special vacation or event today. 602-843-5100 or visit our website rawhidetravel.com.

Presented By:
Rawhide Travel and Tours Inc.
6008 West Bell Rd # F105
Glendale, Arizona  85308-3793
(602) 843-5100 
rawhidetravel.com

What Are Your New Year's Traditions?

One thing travel teaches us is about the traditions of other counties. Tour these for now.

Auld Lang Syne

The most commonly sung song for English-speakers on New Year's eve, "Auld Lang Syne" is an old Scottish song that was first published by the poet Robert Burns in the 1796 edition of the book, Scots Musical Museum. Burns transcribed it (and made some refinements to the lyrics) after he heard it sung by an old man from the Ayrshire area of Scotland, Burns's homeland.

It is often remarked that "Auld Lang Syne" is one of the most popular songs that nobody knows the lyrics to. "Auld Lang Syne" literally translates as "old long since" and means "times gone by." The song asks whether old friends and times will be forgotten and promises to remember people of the past with fondness, "For auld lang syne, we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet."

The lesser known verses continue this theme, lamenting how friends who once used to "run about the braes,/ And pou'd the gowans fine" (run about the hills and pulled up the daisies) and "paidl'd in the burn/Frae morning sun till dine" (paddled in the stream from morning to dusk) have become divided by time and distance—"seas between us braid hae roar'd" (broad seas have roared between us). Yet there is always time for old friends to get together—if not in person then in memory—and "tak a right guid-willie waught" (a good-will drink).

But it was bandleader Guy Lombardo, and not Robert Burns, who popularized the song and turned it into a New Year's tradition. Lombardo first heard "Auld Lang Syne" in his hometown of London, Ontario, where it was sung by Scottish immigrants. When he and his brothers formed the famous dance band, Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians, the song became one of their standards. Lombardo played the song at midnight at a New Year's eve party at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City in 1929, and a tradition was born. After that, Lombardo's version of the song was played every New Year's eve from the 1930s until 1976 at the Waldorf Astoria. In the first years it was broadcast on radio, and then on television. The song became such a New Year's tradition that "Life magazine wrote that if Lombardo failed to play 'Auld Lang Syne,' the American public would not believe that the new year had really arrived."

Hogmanay (Scotland)

The birthplace of "Auld Lang Syne" is also the home of Hogmanay (hog-mah-NAY), the rousing Scottish New Year's celebration (the origins of the name are obscure). One of the traditions is "first-footing." Shortly after midnight on New Year's eve, neighbors pay visits to each other and impart New Year's wishes. Traditionally, First foots used to bring along a gift of coal for the fire, or shortbread. It is considered especially lucky if a tall, dark, and handsome man is the first to enter your house after the new year is rung in. The Edinburgh Hogmanay celebration is the largest in the country, and consists of an all-night street party (visit their Hagmanay website here).

Oshogatsu (Japan)

The new year is the most important holiday in Japan, and is a symbol of renewal. In December, various Bonenkai or "forget-the-year parties" are held to bid farewell to the problems and concerns of the past year and prepare for a new beginning. Misunderstandings and grudges are forgiven and houses are scrubbed. At midnight on Dec. 31, Buddhist temples strike their gongs 108 times, in a effort to expel 108 types of human weakness. New Year's day itself is a day of joy and no work is to be done. Children receive otoshidamas, small gifts with money inside. Sending New Year's cards is a popular tradition—if postmarked by a certain date, the Japanese post office guarantees delivery of all New Year's cards on Jan. 1st.

Spain

The Spanish ritual on New Year's eve is to eat twelve grapes at midnight. The tradition is meant to secure twelve happy months in the coming year.

The Netherlands

The Dutch burn bonfires of Christmas trees on the street and launch fireworks. The fires are meant to purge the old and welcome the new.
Greece

In Greece, New Year's day is also the Festival of St. Basil, one of the founders of the Greek Orthodox Church. One of the traditional foods served is Vassilopitta, or St Basil's cake. A silver or gold coin is baked inside the cake. Whoever finds the coin in their piece of cake will be especially lucky during the coming year.

United States

Probably the most famous tradition in the United States is the dropping of the New Year ball in Times Square, New York City, at 11:59 P.M. Thousands gather to watch the ball make its one-minute descent, arriving exactly at midnight. The tradition first began in 1907. The original ball was made of iron and wood; the current ball is made of Waterford Crystal, weighs 1,070 pounds, and is six feet in diameter.

A traditional southern New Year's dish is Hoppin' John—black eyed peas and ham hocks. An old saying goes, "Eat peas on New Year's day to have plenty of everything the rest of the year."

Another American tradition is the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. The Tournament of Roses parade that precedes the football game on New Year's day is made up of elaborate and inventive floats. The first parade was held in 1886.
Widely Observed New Year Symbols and Traditions

Resolutions

It is believed that the Babylonians were the first to make New Year's resolutions, and people all over the world have been breaking them ever since. The early Christians believed the first day of the new year should be spent reflecting on past mistakes and resolving to improve oneself in the new year.

Fireworks

Noisemaking and fireworks on New Year's eve is believed to have originated in ancient times, when noise and fire were thought to dispel evil spirits and bring good luck. The Chinese are credited with inventing fireworks and use them to spectacular effect in their New Year's celebrations.

People from all over need to call Rawhide Travel and Tours to access this property and start planning that special vacation or event today. 602-843-5100 or visit our website rawhidetravel.com.

Presented By:
Rawhide Travel and Tours Inc.
6008 West Bell Rd # F105
Glendale, Arizona  85308-3793
(602) 843-5100 

Santa Uses A Travel Agent!

The Internet is flooded with websites that let travelers serve as their own travel agents. But many travelers say they'd rather have someone guide them through the process, especially when they're on work trips that take up a lot of time and energy.

Now at least one travel booking site is acknowledging the need for more of a human touch. Several have announced a new service that assigns each customer to an in-house travel adviser to help with reservations, itinerary changes, travel mishaps and more.

Why are we so sure Santa use a travel agent. First hist flying is so complicated it can not be left to some online computer. He must make sure everything is on time. Who else but a travel agent  could make it happen?

Here are 5 reasons to use a travel agent.

They Are Educated and Have Personal Experience

Simply put, they know more than you. They can give you insider tips and advice, using their education and personal experience to guide your vacation decisions in a way that provides you with the best vacation possible for you and your hard-earned investment.  They have access to the personal feedback from hundreds of clients, and their own personal travel agent network, to provide insights you can’t get on TripAdvisor or other social media sites. 

The Fix Is Available

In addition to getting you more on any particular trip, they can step in and fix things when your trip goes awry.  The average consumer books one or two trips per year, typically with different travel suppliers, so they have little or no leverage when things go wrong. The travel agent is constantly selling a particular supplier and has the leverage to fix things, even when the supplier isn’t directly at fault.  Travel suppliers value the travel agent’s business much more than any individual traveler.  They will step up to make things right or simply to make sure that traveler, and their travel agent, are happy. 

Instead of searching blindly on the Internet for hours, days, or even weeks – depending on the complexity of the travel plans – you can have an expert do the research for you, with your personal needs in mind.  They do it for every component of the trip and very often do it at no cost to you.

On the Cutting Edge

They are on the cutting edge of what's new: Travel agents are the first to know about a new resort, cruise ship or tour.  They have relationships with their best travel partners who keep them informed as to the latest and greatest offerings they have. So if you want to travel on the latest and greatest, agents are the way to go!

You Get Matched Right

If you call a cruise line directly, they won’t tell you that their competitor is a better fit for you and your travel needs.  Since travel agents sell everything, they focus on you’re your particular needs, making sure you are matched up with the right.

An Ongoing Mutually Beneficial Relationship


A good agent is like a good mechanic. Once you find them, you’ll never want to give them up. Travel could be your biggest discretionary spend in any given year, along with your limited time, so you want to make sure it’s done right.  When they make that happen, you’ll want them in your inner circle moving forward. 

People from all over need to call Rawhide Travel and Tours to access this property and start planning that special vacation or event today. 602-843-5100 or visit our website rawhidetravel.com.

Presented By:
Rawhide Travel and Tours Inc.
6008 West Bell Rd # F105
Glendale, Arizona  85308-3793
(602) 843-5100

rawhidetravel.com

Off the Beaten Path: Traditional Cuckoo Clocks

A time honored Christmas gift has been handcrafted and ornate German or Bavarian Cuckoo Clocks. The Black Forest is the place to visit to see the craftsmen responsible for their creation.

Believe it or not, Germany is a country steeped in historic traditions with the German Tourist Board to German Tradition and discover just how many interesting and time-honored customs still take place in our modern day world.

Cuckoo clocks from the Black forest are world-renowned and coveted by many, from politicians to the rich and famous. A great place to learn about their history and making is through a tour of Rombach and Haas, maker of the Specialized Black Forest Clocks since 1894. Such a wonderful find off-the-beaten path.

Germany is full of beautiful cities, such as Berlin, with its cosmopolitan flair and bustling art scene; Leipzig with its architectural diversity and inspiring revolutionary spirit; and Frankfurt, otherwise known as Mainhattan, for its incredible museums and breathtaking parks.

The cuckoo clock has a long tradition in the Black forest and the Rombach and Haas clocks has a history going back to 1894. Handmade from beginning to end, and in their fourth generation of clock makers, the design of these timepieces range from antique to contemporary. Walk into the shop and meet the clockmakers to learn the history of these world-celebrated Black Forest Clocks.

A visit to Reinertonishof, a family-owned farm house built in 1616, is like a step back in time.


Enjoy a typical Black Forest meal at their restaurant, rides from ponies in the farm, and other outdoor activities like snowshoeing and skiing in the surrounding grounds. The farmer’s wife is usually the one to greet you, and though her English is limited, her smile is contagious and her welcome, warm.

People from all over need to call Rawhide Travel and Tours to access this property and start planning that special vacation or event today. 602-843-5100 or visit our website rawhidetravel.com.

Presented By:
Rawhide Travel and Tours Inc.
6008 West Bell Rd # F105
Glendale, Arizona  85308-3793
(602) 843-5100
rawhidetravel.com