As editors of a city lifestyle magazine with a travel section that covers locales far beyond our beloved Phoenix Valley, you can imagine that we get pitched A TON about new and exciting travel offers around the country. Of course, we can't fit everything into a 200-page monthly magazine that only allots five of those pages to regional travel. Sigh... 'tis the nature of publishing.

But it pains us too much to kill all of our darlings. So each month, we scrape a few travel tidbits off the cutting room floor and bring you Travel Bag Bites – bite-size travel-related goodies (special offers, activities and deals) to snack on while planning your next great escape.

World Record Store Day is this Saturday, April 21. Locally-based Zia Record Exchange, which opened its first store in Phoenix in 1980 and now has eight locations across the Valley, Tucson and Nevada, is set to throw its biggest celebration ever as records continue experiencing a phenomenal resurgence in the popular zeitgeist. 

Zia is throwing a week-long celebration to keep the WRSD party going, with live music at all locations on Saturday, plus DJs, giveaways, exclusive offers and rare LP releases. Check back in throughout the week for more special discounts and deals. All Zia locations are also collecting donations for the Boys & Girls Club through May 9, and entering donors into automatic raffle.

In honor of World Record Store Day, the PHOENIX mag editorial team picked our favorite albums. Check out our selections below and read on for a chance to win a $50 gift card from Zia Records.

The heat is on – speaking climate-ly and biologically. Spring brings warmer temperatures and that means an abundance of kittens and puppies being born. Due to Phoenix's nearly year-round warmth, the Valley is basically always in breeding season, which sadly means even more abandoned or feral babies.

Inspired by the Asian night markets that have found mega-popularity in Los Angeles and New York, two bold Phoenix entrepreneurs are importing the concept to the Valley. PHX Night Market, a two-night multicultural festival, hits Phoenix Public Market this weekend, April 21-22.

The concept is the brainchild of Tony Ce, owner of Snoh Ice Shavery, and Cindy Louie of Go Studio Go. Collaborating with the Arizona Asian Chamber of Commerce, Ce and Louie are focused on establishing an "Asian influenced and Phoenix foodie inspired" event in the Valley that celebrates cultural diversity, cuisine, music and community.

For many years, Cindy Wynn was a familiar face on stages around the Valley. More recently, she's turned to writing, without leaving her theatrical background behind: Under the name Cindy Brown, she's authored five mystery novels featuring the wacky actress-sleuth Ivy Meadows, starting with Macdeath in 2015 and continuing with The Sound of Murder, Oliver Twisted, and Ivy Get Your Gun.

Now living in Portland, Oregon, Brown will sign her most recent tome, The Phantom of Oz, on Tuesday, April 17 at 1 p.m. at the Orpheum Theatre, the setting for the tale. Proceeds from the event will benefit Friends of the Orpheum Theatre.

Watch your back, Sedona. There are so many new things popping up in the Verde Valley hub of Cottonwood that we had trouble narrowing this list down.

You know the saying, "you don't know what you've got till it's gone"? Cliche as it is, I've never felt the truth of that sentiment so profoundly as I have these last few months... And for a place I used to curse for its heat.

I left Phoenix at the beginning of the year, moving across the country to D.C. for my husband's job. Though I've been enjoying exploring a new city – the free museums, new restaurants and new culture have been perks – there isn't a day that goes by without me missing the warm spring months of my old desert home.

Upward Projects boss Lauren Bailey (Postino WineCafe, Federal Pizza and more) isn't normally a fan of what she calls "tourist-y Mexico," which is why she had reservations about a solo tour of Tulum on the country's Yucatan Peninsula. But she went anyway on the recommendation of foodie friend Aaron Chamberlin (St. Francis, Phoenix Public Market Café), and had her mind positively blown. "It's got this really amazing vibe to it," she says. "They call it eco chic. It's very bohemian, it's got a ton of art and it's got this amazing energy."

For the 14th year, the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival will run concurrently with the Phoenix Film Festival at Harkins Scottsdale 101. This year, both fests have expanded from 8 to 11 days, starting this Thursday, April 5. PHOENIX magazine had a chance to chat with IHSFF Director Monte Yazzie about what's new this year in the world of the cinematically scary and strange.*

The U.S.-Mexico border is always a hot topic. But these days, it seems more people than ever before have an opinion on "The Wall," or whether our borders need to be more open or more secure. Of course, most people come to these opinions via rogue social media posts rather than real-life experience living on the line. Omar Pimienta is not one of those people. The poet lives on the Tijuana/San Diego border, an experience he documents in his book "Album of Fences," which his friend and fellow poet Jose Antonio Villarán recently translated into English.