Walking

Whether by necessity or choice, a quarter of Americans take at least one vacation by themselves each year. Some solo travelers are single. Some have partners who dislike travel or have different interests or can't get away. Some just crave freedom. But all face the same question: What's the best trip for the person traveling alone? "The key is to know yourself," said Beth Whitman, author of a guide for women traveling alone and founder of Wanderlustandlipstick.com , a website devoted to advice and tours for women on the go. "There are times when you just need to get away, to recuperate.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Roya Mahboob navigates the potholes of doing business in Afghanistan like any other entrepreneur. Corruption is rife. Kidnappings are common. Bomb blasts remain an overarching reality. But as the female chief executive of a thriving software firm in Afghanistan's male-dominated society, Mahboob finds that her potholes sometimes feel like sinkholes. Banks have balked at lending her money simply because she is a woman. Anonymous emails and text messages have warned her to abandon her work.

Your choices in San Francisco hotels are overwhelming. The prices can be too. So during our staff visit to the City by the Bay, we looked for reasonably priced hotels that had charm, location or both. We came back with 14 ideas on places to bed down. It's not a complete list, but it is eclectic, like the city itself. Mystic Hotel. This property, which opened in April, stands on a tunnel-adjacent block of Stockton Street that you'll never see on a picture postcard, yet it has style, as do the Burritt Tavern bar and restaurant downstairs.

Players in the Southern Section Division 1 baseball playoffs can dream about celebrating a championship at Dodger Stadium, but giving legitimacy to the dream only occurs after a team proves it can win with its No. 2 pitcher. That's why what transpired Tuesday afternoon in Placentia could be a defining moment for No. 3-seeded Studio City Harvard-Westlake. Coach Matt LaCour hadn't won a playoff game with his No. 2 pitcher since he took over the program six years ago. He decided it was time to put Conor Cuse in the spotlight.

Vietnam veteran John Otte did his best to forget the war. He got married, raised two sons and made a career working at credit unions. But as Otte neared retirement, memories of combat flooded back. Starting in 2005, he filed a series of claims with Veterans Affairs for disability compensation, contending that many of his health problems stemmed from the war. The VA agreed, and now the 65-year-old with two Purple Hearts receives $1,900 a month for post-traumatic stress disorder and diabetes - and for having shrapnel scars on his arms.

Superstorms that slammed the East Coast prompted many Southern Californians to take a hard look at their own emergency preparedness plans, including how to keep cellphones charged when the power goes out. With a flurry of battery-boosting devices landing on the market, I tested eight of the latest and most novel designs on a recent ski trip to Colorado, reasoning that besides a storm, earthquake or blackout, the last place you'd want to be stranded with...

If you like seeing the sights on foot but hate loading yourself down with guidebooks, Google Maps has come out with a "walking" option. You can search for directions between two points and get directions for traveling on foot. What's hot: Besides the directions, you can personalize your map. Go to the "My Maps" section, click "Browse the directory" of interactive content, and select from many pages of features to add to your map, including weather reports, hotel locations and webcams.

Nearly three years ago, as the fitness boom began to wheeze and stumble, the $2.7-billion athletic shoe industry was overjoyed to discover the little-known scientific finding that vigorous walking is a better exercise than jogging and aerobics. To the industry, the vision was clear and tantalizing: millions of people walking in millions of walking shoes.

If you want to see Napa in a new light, take an "edutainment" walking tour and discover the historic buildings, the river and a brew pub. History can be entertaining, at least the way George Webber tells it. It's a fun two hours for the entire family. Napa Walking Tours, (707) 694-5097, http://www.napawalkingtour.com; tours at 10 a.m. daily; $20 per person, 16 and younger free. Debra Renick, Ventura

It's early, but it's not that early. The Angels began the second quarter of the season with another ugly loss Thursday night, committing two errors plus a crucial mental mistake, throwing a wild pitch that scored a run and issuing a four-pitch, bases-loaded walk to a .185 hitter who had not drawn a free pass all season. The 5-4 loss to the Chicago White Sox dropped the Angels to 15-26, their worst 41-game start since 1976, and 12 games behind Texas in the American League West. There is still time for the Angels to make up ground, but the task ahead is daunting.

Anyone who has ever walked past an Abercrombie & Fitch store at the local mall knows that it's a place for queen bees and cool jocks. Hot, buff store employees greet customers at the front door. They don't say, "Fatties keep out. " They don't have to. Abercrombie does not stock sizes for the average American young woman, who is roughly 5 feet 4 and weighs about 162 pounds. Abercrombie does not want that person in its clothes. And that is not news. But thanks to the power of social media, the company's obnoxious marketing philosophy is making waves again.

SPRINGDALE, Utah - There comes a moment when you step backward off a cliff, clinging to a rope the width of your pinkie, and ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?" It's inevitable. Fear of heights (and its close cousin, fear of falling) is as deeply ingrained in most of us as fear of sharks or snakes. Sometimes, though, confronting these fears is the first step to discovering a new world - a coral reef, the Amazon rainforest or the convoluted landscape of southern Utah, near Zion National Park, revealed through the fast-growing sport of canyoneering.

Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies and animal control officers were searching by air Thursday for four pit bulls believed to have mauled a woman to death earlier in the day in the Antelope Valley community of Littlerock. Hours after the attack, Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the dogs' capture. The 63-year-old woman was out for her morning walk about 9 o'clock when she was mauled by the dogs. Her name has not been released.

SAN FRANCISCO - As road trips go, this one looked like a disaster. The Dodgers were swept by their rivals, the first-place San Francisco Giants. They lost their power-hitting shortstop to an injury that will cost him weeks, not days. They flew home just half a game ahead of the last-place San Diego Padres. And yet, according to some of the voices in the visiting clubhouse after a 4-3 loss Sunday, the sweep marked a turning point in the Dodgers' season. BOX SCORE: San Francisco 4, Dodgers 3 In a good way. "It's really hard to start talking about moral victories after a sweep," catcher A.J. Ellis said, "but we felt like a ballclub the last two nights - a winning ballclub.

SAN FRANCISCO - There was no anger or frustration in the voice of Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly. His team had just lost again - - on a walkoff hit, against the rival San Francisco Giants, for the second consecutive night - - and Mattingly sounded surprisingly chirpy. “In a sense, it's encouraging, as much as you can be encouraged from a loss,” Mattingly said. “It's as good as you can feel about a loss.” Guillermo Quiroz hit a walk-off home run off Dodgers closer Brandon League in the 10th inning on Saturday, lifting the Giants to a 10-9 victory over the Dodgers.

When I was researching my nonfiction book "The Lost Art of Walking," I came across this wonderful comic passage in P.G. Wodehouse's "The Indiscretions of Archie": Archie picked up the red-covered volume that lay on the table. "Half a mo', old son. Sorry to stop you, but I knew there was something. I've just remembered. Your walk. All wrong!" "All wrong?" "All wrong! Where's the chapter on the Art of Walking? Here we are. Listen, dear old soul. Drink this in. 'In walking, one should strive to acquire that swinging, easy movement from the hips.

Setting the pace Getting 10,000 steps per day roughly coincides with the latest U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommendation that adults get a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week. The key word here is "moderate" -- not all steps meet that requirement. Shuffling around the kitchen making dinner is hardly equivalent to racing to catch a bus or walking an energetic dog. Any movement is good, of course, but to make the steps count as beneficial as possible, they should be fairly sustained.

SAN FRANCISCO - The elements were all there for an evening of drama, of triumph, of celebration of the human spirit. Instead, the evening might be best remembered for another devastating injury. The Dodgers braced for the extended loss of Hanley Ramirez - four games into his injury-delayed season - because of a hamstring injury that made a 2-1 walk-off loss to the San Francisco Giants that much more depressing. Buster Posey led off the ninth inning with a home run off Ronald Belisario, snapping a 1-1 tie and sending a sellout crowd erupting into chants of “Beat L.A.!

A compilation of all of the Lakers' postmortem material recently published in your paper would read something akin to "War and Peace. " Hey, they had a rough season, they have some decisions to make and the future is uncertain. Enough said. Bud Chapman Northridge :: Bill Plaschke represents the worst in sports journalism. His knee-jerk reactions are better suited for mindless reality television, scripted of course. The article asking for Dwight Howard's dismissal Monday is a prime example.