Hot Stuff! Heat Tourists are Headed to These Hottest Spots on Earth

It’s been reported that the hottest it’s ever been in the state of New Jersey was 110 degrees in July 1936. If you find that hard to believe, you’re probably not going to believe this. There are people who feel that our Jersey summer temps aren’t hot enough. Instead of staying cool in the comfort of their air-conditioned home, there are people who actually seek out the hottest places on earth at the hottest time of the year.

It’s being called "heat tourism." Rising temperatures have recently been attracting tourists to the location billed as the hottest place on the planet, Death Valley National Park on the California-Nevada border.

One of the fun things to do is to grab a selfie next to a famous outdoor thermometer outside the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, where temps have climbed higher than 120 degrees. The hottest temperature ever recorded on earth, 134 degrees, was recorded back in 1913. Some people are flocking to that location to see if the record will be broken while they’re there. My brother lives in Phoenix, AZ, where it’s been well over 110 degrees. I can say with assurance that we won’t be visiting this summer.

One of the visitors to Death Valley National Park last week was Alessia Dempster from the cool and damp Edinburgh, Scotland. She told the Associated Press "It’s very hot, especially when there’s a breeze, you would think that maybe that would give you some slight relief from the heat, but it just really does feel like an air blow dryer just going back in your face."

Other tourists vacationing at national parks, including Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona and west Texas' Big Bend National Park, are being warned to stay off the trails when the sun's at its peak.

However, Death Valley has its name for a reason: It earned its name again earlier this month when a hiker collapsed and died from what authorities said was a heat-related fatality.

With Hollywood shut down due to strikes from the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), production of upcoming shows and movies is shut down. This includes festivals, film premieres, press tours, and even the upcoming Emmys in September.

The writer's strike began at the beginning of May, with the actors guild joining just last week. Both unions share the same reasons for striking. This includes getting paid a living wage to meet basic needs, receiving higher residuals (financial compensation paid out to actors whenever TV shows or movies they’ve appeared in are replayed on streaming and syndication), and the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to be regulated to protect talent and writers' jobs from being completely taken over. For the first time in more than 60 years, Hollywood actors and writers are on strike simultaneously, with no signs of ending anytime soon.

SAG-AFTRA’s president Fran Drescher said a vast majority of actors "are just working people just trying to make a living, just trying to pay their rent, just trying to put food on the table and get their kids off to school." She added that everything that we, as consumers watch, are "filled with people that are not making the big money." $27.73 per hour is how much the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported as the average pay for California actors in 2022. However, the BLS noted in the data that actors aren’t paid full-time year-round due to the nature of the job.

With no end date in motion, we've come up with a series of lists of entertainment to watch until production begins again. Take a look below at our list of five fantastic horror films that will make you a fan of the genre if you're hesitant. There's a little something for everybody on this list, with paranormal thrillers that will have you jumping out of your seat to psychological horror films that have you questioning your own sanity.

This 2013 paranormal horror film starring the best duo, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, is an all-time favorite. They play real-life paranormal investigators and demonologists Lorraine (Farmiga) and Ed (Wilson) Warren. One family asks them to help in a situation that begins relatively benign at first, but it escalates when the Warrens discover the farmhouse's macabre history. You can stream The Conjuring on Max. There are two sequels: The Conjuring 2 (2016) and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021), but the first installment is far better than these two.

This 1991 crime thriller is a remake of the 1962 film of the same name, which was based on the 1957 novel The Executioners by John D. MacDonald. With a young Juliette Lewis, Jessica Lange and Nick Nolte as the Bowden family, they are subjected to psychopathic convicted rapist Max Cady's (Robert De Niro) newfound knowledge of the law and its numerous loopholes as he seeks vengeance against Nolte's Sam Bowden -- his former public defender. The film is a classic, directed by Martin Scorsese, and it's a fantastically horrifying role for De Niro. You can rent this film on multiple streaming platforms for $3.99.

This sci-fi thriller starring Natalie Portman is terrifying yet beautiful. Portman portrays biologist Lena, who embarks on a dangerous expedition into "The Shimmer," a mysterious quarantined zone of mutating plants and animals caused by an alien presence! The soundtrack adds to the eerie and horrifying discoveries they make along their trip. The 2018 film is currently streaming on Netflix.

We love Rob Zombie's horror movie style, and 2005's The Devil's Rejects is his best work, no contest. The film is pretty gory, but has some hilarious moments, a killer soundtrack, and is laced with lots of NSFW scenes. Zombie's wife, Sheri Moon, plays Baby, who is joined by her brother Otis (Bill Moseley) and her father Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig). They terrorize, torture, and kill anyone just for the sheer fun of it. Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.

The 1968 Roman Polanski psychological horror stars Mia Farrow as Rosemary. She believes her baby is being groomed as a sacrifice for a ritual, but her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) doesn't believe her. He is a struggling actor who befriends their overbearing and weird neighbors, and things turn real satanic and occult-like. This film is also based on a highly successful novel that came out the year before.