user: Input: These mags focus on Halloween fun
Finally, it’s the time of year when we can be scared of something other than the economy. Relax and kick back, and let these magazines take you through the Halloween Fun House.

At the top of the pile is Better Homes and Gardens’ special Halloween edition, which is chock-full of both spooky and elegant designs. The best part is, the mag doesn’t just show readers the end product — it seeks to help them get there with online cut-outs and instructional videos. Like those black-and-white Halloween party invites? Well, you can print them out from BHG’s web site. It’s the perfect blend of old and new media. Our only gripe is the food, or lack of it. BHG focuses heavily on the decor but skimps on the recipes.

Family Circle boasts Halloween on its cover, including owl cupcakes and an orange-and-brown color scheme. But once you’re inside, the mag skips clear through Halloween and jumps straight to Turkey Day. Beware, Halloween lovers! You get only one tiny page of recipes from Family Circle. To that, we say “boo!” — and not in the good way. The rest of the mag is also dull, including fashion items that will make you cringe and a story on why fat is actually good for you. Apologies to the writer Nina Teicholz, author of “The Big Fat Surprise,” but we are just so tired of this subject.

Gooseberry’s “Best of Halloween” issue also leaves a lot to be desired, mainly in the form of recipes, the mag’s trademark. Too many of the recipes are ordinary and not special to Halloween — or even to fall in some cases. Sure, everyone loves a good bowl of chili, but why waste precious Halloween magazine space on a basic and bland recipe? Green beans bundled in bacon sounds delicious, but to present them as bundles of bones is just lazy. That said, Gooseberry has some of the better kids’ costumes. We wish they had tossed the pickled eggs and pulled pork sandwich recipes in favor of more pages of kids playing dress-up.

National Geographic’s Halloween “Fun-Zine” is great entertainment for kids. If the mag didn’t cost so darn much ($6.99 a pop), we would even recommend parents hand it out to trick-or-treaters instead of candy bars. Unlike those annoying people who give out dental floss, you can dispense something kids will actually love — after they gorge themselves on candy corn. The mag will trick your kids into learning with spooky fun facts, including “6 reasons to love bats” and “13 facts about mummies to unwrap.” Other treats include costume and pumpkin carving ideas that just might keep their minds off the sugar for a few hours.

It’s no secret The New Yorker is devoting its resources to covering alleged spy Edward Snowden, and a feature on the making of the Snowden movie “Citizenfour” is the cover story. (Snowden also spoke via satellite Saturday at The New Yorker Festival.) Staff writer George Packer is not easy on the documentary. He focuses on how Snowden picked Laura Poitras, who directed the Guantánamo film “Oath” about Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard, to make the movie set for wide release on Oct. 24. “Because Poitras is so close to her subject, politically and psychologically, ‘Citizenfour’ is not the tour de force it might have been.” A Talk of the Town item takes a rather controversial Ebola stance, saying in rather unconvincing fashion that travel bans make the world sicker, not safer.

In two articles about how technology is affecting sexual behavior, The Atlantic reports on cheating couples that are finding it harder to avoid detection and the growing trend of high school girls sexting nude pictures of themselves. “The Adultery Arms Race” begins with a man whose wife is supposedly away on a business trip until technology proves otherwise. The cover story, “Why Kids Sext,” will strike fear into parents’ hearts with this claim: more than half of high school girls sext. The evidence is anecdotal, but the stories seem very real. Boyfriends pressure girlfriends to sext, and those pictures sometimes end up being widely distributed. It gives a whole new meaning to biology class when students might have seen their classmate’s racy pics.
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It's about: Finally, it’s the time of year when we can be scared of something other than the economy. Relax and kick back, and let these magazines take you through the Halloween Fun House. Better Homes and Gar...


Q: Real travelers' best tips

(CNN) -- While Travel + Leisure has its own little black book of hotel tips and air travel tricks, we wanted to take a page out of yours, too.

So T+L teamed up with CNN to solicit advice from seasoned CNN iReporters as part of our Ways to Travel Better campaign—and posed some questions to get them going. What's your secret to navigating a crowded airport? How about a tip for nabbing a table at the hottest restaurant in town? Do you have a favorite money-saving app or website?

"Use the bookmark feature on Yelp to map the things you're interested in checking out," suggested Amelia Jo Hruby of Chicago, "so you're not running across town all day."

Other iReporters chimed in with tips for packing, from keeping essential medicines in a ready-to-go bag to stashing a pair of socks in your carry-on, so you don't have to tread where thousands of travelers' bare feet have been.

Read on for more of their advice, and tell us what indispensable lessons you've learned on the road in the comments below—or on Twitter with the #TravelBetter hashtag.

For the complete list of 100 ways to travel better, check out T+L's December issue and tablet editions.

"Buy tickets to major sights online before you go. You can skip the long ticket lines when you get there." —David McTier, Huntsville, Texas

"When packing, choose your shoes first, and then the clothes that work with them. Look for neutral and flexible colors for the greatest versatility." —Quia Querisma, Plano, Texas

"For complicated trips, I like flight-research startup site Flightfox, where experts compete to help you reduce the total cost of your ticket by fare hunting and tapping regional budget carriers." —Vince Wong, New York, New York

Travel + Leisure: Best air travel tips

"Be patient and don't cash in your miles to fly domestically—save them for the big-ticket international airfares." —Matthew Colver, Castle Rock, Colorado

"The website Rome2Rio makes transportation decisions easy by comparing the travel time and cost of flying, driving, and taking the train between two destinations." —Sharon LeMaster, Decatur, Georgia

Travel + Leisure: Best hotel tips

"I keep a pair of socks in my carry-on. I slip them on so I don't have to touch the ground where thousands of other travelers' feet have been." —Heather R. Helline, Cleveland, Ohio

"Ask at the ticket counter if you can buy an upgrade. Depending on availability, some airlines let you do it at a heavily discounted price." —Stefanie Kronemeyer, Boston, Massachusetts

See more ways to travel better

"Keep essential medicines—Benadryl, Cipro, Imodium, and motion-sickness medicine such as Dramamine—on hand. I've saved both myself and my travel companions from a ruined vacation." —Fareesa Abbasi, Hong Kong, China

"Follow the crowd to the best restaurants. I discovered the best shu mai dumplings in Hong Kong by choosing a place that was overflowing with locals." —Tausha Cowan, New York, New York

Travel + Leisure: America's best college towns

"Use the bookmark feature on Yelp to map the things you're interested in checking out, so you're not running across town all day." —Amelia Jo Hruby, Chicago, Illinois

See all of travelers' best tips

Do you have any travel tips to share with others? Please comment below!

A:

assistant: Travel + Leisure teamed up CNN to tap our network of roving iReporters; you'll get some of their best advice here.