Staying at an ice hotel is cool — literally and figuratively. (Lauren Mack) The Daily Meal spent a night at Hôtel de Glace, a Québec ice hotel constructed anew each winter with 20,000 blocks of ice. This year the Hôtel de Glace is open until March 24. Though ski vacations remain a popular winter retreat, vacations revolving around ice are increasing in popularity thanks to ice festivals popping up around the world, like the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival (哈尔滨国际冰雪节)...

North Koreans carry bundles on their backs as they cross a frozen lake north of the capital city of Pyongyang, North Korea on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) Few people from outside North Korea ever get to see, with their own eyes, what life is like inside the country's restrictive borders - scenes ranging from a simple haircut to a mass synchronized swimming performance. Associated Press photographer David Guttenfelder is in North Korea and has been documenting scenes...

Devil's Slide tunnel project in Pacifica, Calif. Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) PACIFICA, Calif. — Two slick new mile-long tunnels are undergoing final safety tests this month, poised to divert motorists away from an ocean cliff-hanging roadway dubbed Devil's Slide south of San Francisco to a smooth, Alpine-like passageway unlike any in the U.S. today. The $439 million project, paid with federal emergency funds, features massive exhaust fans, carbon monoxide sensors and a pair of 1,000-foot bridges soaring...

Andrew Whyte's Lego traveler watches a rainbow. 'Sometimes you've just got to watch,' he says. 'When a rainbow appears, drop the camera and marvel in its beauty.' (Photo: Andrew Whyte) They say a good photographer gets the shot, rain or shine. If that's true, then UK photographer Andrew Whyte's little camera-wielding Lego tourist is one of the best around. As part of his Legography series, Whyte takes his iPhone and his mini figure all over his city of Portsmouth, located...

NEW YORK -- What could possibly go wrong? An Australian billionaire is getting ready to build a new version of the Titanic that could set sail in late 2016. Clive Palmer unveiled blueprints for the famously doomed ship's namesake Tuesday at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York. He said construction is scheduled to start soon in China. Palmer said 40,000 people have expressed interest in tickets for the maiden voyage, taking the original course from Southampton,...

View of the 72-story JW Marriott Marquis Dubai, the world's tallest hotel. (Photo: JW Marriott Marquis Dubai) DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Superlative-hungry Dubai is adding another to its list: A 72-story hotel billed as the world's tallest. The JW Marriott's Marquis Dubai formally opened Tuesday after gaining the title of tallest hotel from Guinness World Records. At 355 meters (1,099 feet), the hotel would tower over skylines in most cities. But in Dubai, it sits in the shadow of...

Colorado College students and passengers aboard a Frontier Airlines flight do the Harlem Shake. (YouTube) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The latest craze to sweep the Internet is bringing college students the wrong kind of attention — from the Federal Aviation Administration. During a flight from Colorado Springs to San Diego, , a dance to a song of the same name. In the suddenly popular YouTube videos, one person starts dancing, then the video cuts to a large group of people...

A official shows the seizure of dried caterpillars at Gatwick airport, England. (AP Photo/UK Border Agency) LONDON – British customs agents made a creepy discovery when an airline passenger was found with 207 pounds of caterpillars in his luggage. The man claimed they were intended as food for personal consumption. The U.K. Border Force said Friday that inspectors at found the dried caterpillars shrink-wrapped in cellophane and packed into hessian bags carried by a passenger travelling from Burkina Faso via...

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will be turned into the latest, and by far the biggest, backdrop for New York artist Leo Villareal, who has individually programmed 25,000 white lights on 300 of the span’s vertical cables to create what is being billed as the world’s largest illuminated sculpture. (AP Photo) SAN FRANCISCO — After more than 75 years in the shadow of its glamorous cousin, San Francisco's "other" bridge is getting a chance to shine. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay...

Knives, scissors and other banned items recovered at airport security checkpoints by the TSA are shown as part of an exhibit on the 9/11 attacks at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in DC on Sept. 1, 2011. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) For the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will and previously banned sports equipment on planes, according to Bloomberg News. At an aviation security conference in Brooklyn, New York, TSA Administrator...

People look at the new McLaren P1 during the 83rd Geneva International Motor Show, Switzerland, March 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani) Jaguar, Corvette, Alfa Romeo, and Spyker all debuted sleek sports cars and futuristic convertibles at the 2013 Geneva International Motor Show, which opened to the press Tuesday. Hybrid supercars and new models from automakers are also roaring in Geneva, one of the most important stops on the global auto show circuit. One of the highlights of the show is...

The windswept mountains of northern Norway have a special majesty all their own. They also have an ability to drive at least one photographer to the brink of madness, at least according to this video. Toby Lockerbie decided to make a getaway to Norway to refresh, relax, and maybe shoot some video of the Northern Lights. As the above video shows, he definitely accomplished that last part, but we're not so sure about the first two. Of course, the stunning...

(Thinkstock) HARARE, Zimbabwe — Wildlife rangers in Zimbabwe put the northern resort town of Kariba on full alert Wednesday after rogue lions mauled to death two people near a suburb there. The National Parks and Wildlife Authority said fliers were being handed out in the town and volunteers were using a loudspeaker to caution townspeople on the dangers of lion attacks on the shores of Lake Kariba, a man-made hydroelectric dam popular for fishing and tourism. It said one man...