A travel writer’s 23 best and worst things of 2012

Coba, a set of ruins about 135 miles east of Merida, has something that Chichen-Itza doesn’t: a pyramid you can climb. It’s called Nohoch Mul, and with the help of a heavy rope, brave travelers climb 120 steps to the top. The view is enormous -- green, overgrown plains on all sides and a sharp, flat horizon. My story here.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

In San Francisco, the Hotel Triton’s lobby is tired and many of its rooms are quite small, but it’s got a great location (Grant Avenue, across the street from the gateway to Chinatown). And in a recent upstairs renovation, management covered the guest-room walls with typescript passages from Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.”  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Down on the big, wide, white beach by the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego County, sandcastle master Bill Pavlacka often fashions amazing edifices, which you can admire with the Hotel Del’s red turrets in the background. Also, keep an eye out for stray Navy SEALS -- their base is nearby and they do a lot of training exercises on the sand. My story here.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Fairview Lawn, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Fairview Lawn Cemetery is home to 121 Titanic victims, more than you’ll find anyplace else above sea level. I showed up on a day of frigid rain -- nearly cold enough to start the headstones shivering. There are four rows of Titanic graves, and the last row bends to follow the contour of a gentle hill. The result is a curve that looks like the bow of a ship. Eerie. Yet I couldn’t find anybody who could say for sure whether this effect was brilliant design or dumb luck. My story here.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

The Jane in New York is a quirky old brick building at 113 Jane St. at the western edge of Greenwich Village. In 1912, this was sailors’ lodging with 150 cabin-sized rooms (7 feet by 7 feet, toilets and showers down the hall) and it’s where many Titanic crew members wound up after the survivors were delivered to New York. All these years later, the tiny rooms remain, but the occupants -- who often pay just $99 -- are a trendy, youngish crowd that knows its way around the big, eccentric bar (pictured) downstairs. My story here.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas. Crystal Bridges, which opened in late 2011, is largely bankrolled by members of the Walton family of Wal-mart fame. So it’s no surprise that the swooping, glass-walled museum building can be found in Bentonville, Ark., where Wal-mart is headquartered. The collection, which covers colonial to contemporary eras, is intriguing and growing fast. And just outside, you find heartland scenery, the Ozark mountains, small-town friendliness and a hub of global commerce. After putting up big-box stores around the world -- and being blamed for the decline of many a Main Street -- Wal-Mart and its founding family have relaunched their hometown’s downtown. My story here.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

The ruins of Chichen-Itza, Mexico. Somehow, vendors have persuaded authorities to let them set up their tables within the national park, hogging much of the shade around the archaeological zone’s most popular pyramid. This photo shows the beginning of morning setup, with many more vendors to follow. My story here.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Martha’s Dandee Cream, Lake George. It isn’t that Martha has some killer secret recipe, it’s just that this ice cream joint and its kitschy old rooster sign stand next to the summer paradise of Lake George, N.Y., where you and your child may whet your ice-cream appetites with a day of swimming, diving, kayaking fishing and rock-skipping in and around the mild lake waters. Flavors include peanut butter, maple walnut and apple pie.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Top Dog, Bear Skin Neck, Rockport, Mass. Rockport is a handsome little waterfront town on Cape Ann, about an hour north of Boston, and Bear Skin Neck is thick with tourists all summer long. In the middle of that, Top Dog does one thing and does it well. We took shelter there when a summer storm hurled lightning and sideways rain at the cape. First we ordered dogs, then a second round, then we stayed to marvel at the booming thunder and fast-changing sky.   (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Jalama burger. Take U.S. 101 up the coast to Lompoc (LOME-poke), then bear west on Jalama Road, a two-lane country byway that will deliver you to the Jalama Beach store at handsome, remote Jalama Beach County Park. All the burgers have a great reputation, but I’m giving my personal endorsement to the breakfast burger (bacon and egg included), which almost brought me to my knees. (Bonus: There’s no need to go anywhere else for days. There are campsites and wood cabins at Jalama Beach, overlooking a largely empty shore.) My story here.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Meal one: In Phoenix, lunch at the Barrio Cafe. This restaurant’s outside is decorated with bold murals and the dining room is big with the power-lunch crowd. The azul filete sent me over the moon.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Meal two: In Valladolid, Yucatan, Mexico, dinner at Taberna de los Frailes. The restaurant is so close to the historic Ex-Convento de San Bernardino de Siena, I could eavesdrop on songs of worship as I ate. My story here.   (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Meal three: In San Francisco’s Mission District, dinner at St. Vincent. This is a hot new restaurant known for its wine list, and reservations are tough. But the staff sets 25 seats aside for walk-up customers, including entertaining spots along the counter near the kitchen in back. I scored one of those and had a terrific meal.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Meal four: Q’ero, Encinitas: In Encinitas, dinner at Q’ero Peruvian Kitchen. South American spices make a great chaser after the surf at nearby Swami’s Beach. My story here.   (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Meal five: In Los Olivos, Santa Barbara County, Sides Hardware & Shoes. This place is easy to miss, but offers great, grown-up food. I snuck in for a late lunch amid a day of tasting-room visits. My story here.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

The Integratron, Landers. The Integratron, about 20 minutes north of Joshua Tree, is a white wooden dome, 38 feet high, built by a renegade aeronautical engineer who died in 1978. He wanted to contact other worlds. Nowadays, the building is a venue for meditation, music and “sound baths” -- its resonance is mesmerizing. Climb the ladder to the upper chamber, curl up on a blanket and listen for half an hour to hear somebody coaxing eerie, powerfully resonant sounds from a series of quartz bowls. To sound-bathe alone was $80, by reservation. But two weekends per month, you could join a public sound bath at noon for $15. My story here.

Blair Beed, Halifax. Beed, a lifelong Haligonian (that’s what Halifax people call themselves), has been guiding visitors for 39 years and studying the Titanic for even longer. Honorable mentions to Maryanne Mason and Gary Heald of Arizona Outback Adventures and Gilberto Tec Ligorria of MexiGo Tours. My story here.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace. Pioneertown, up on a plateau about five miles north of Yucca Valley, was built in the 1940s as a TV and movie set. Some decades later, along came Pappy and Harriet to build a roadhouse with live music that has become a desert institution, uniting desert-rat locals, escaped city slickers and great roots musicians.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Atop a hill near Eureka Springs, Ark., stands Christ of the Ozarks, an eccentric, seven-story-high sculpture of Jesus that goes back to 1966. Website RoadsideAmerica.com says some people think it looks like Willie Nelson, but not me. To me, it’s clearly Chuck Mangione, circa 1977.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Plaza Hotel, New York, $9. The Plaza Hotel stands at Fifth Avenue and Central Park South, a symbol of wealth and privilege, now owned by a Saudi investor. The hotel’s Palm Court might be a prime spot for people-watching, but a cup of coffee will run you $9. I’d rather find some other people to watch.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Solvang’s Hamlet Inn. In a territory full of cheesy Danish kitsch and burgeoning wine-country upscalery, the Hamlet Inn is a cheeky, affordable haven, its rooms (often under $100) practically humming with Danish modern cool. In other words, nothing rotten here. My story here.   (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

After days of hiking around Mayan ruins and colonial towns in the Mexican state of Yucatan, I wound up lunching in the hut of a Maya farming family in the town of Xocen. The Puc Canuls (mom, dad, six kids) grow corn, limes, coriander, mangoes and mint, keep bees and sleep in hammocks. Eldest daughter Helmi, 13, made tortillas on a traditional stove (three rocks, campfire and metal tray) and the younger kids told me all about school and sang songs in Spanish and Maya. I showed them pictures of my daughter and drank Fanta from a gourd. Good times. My story here.  (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)