Destination: Africa
Valentine’s Day Comes to Ghana
by Jim Benning | 02.14.07 | 4:45 PM ET
Why is the holiday taking off in the African nation? In part, one cultural anthropologist told USA Today, because “radio airplay of love songs by Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Lionel Richie and others is year-round and has fed the idea that Valentine’s Day is for sweethearts.” It’s tangential, but that reminds us of the intriguing Lionel Richie-Libya connection.
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Yahoo! BuzzThe World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Interstate Highways, Hot Destinations and the Mile-High Club
by Michael Yessis | 02.09.07 | 8:34 AM ET
We’re going to France and we’re learning the language. Excellent. Other stops in this week’s Zeitgeist include Spain, Morocco, Cuba, Hawaii and Hot-lanta.
Most Popular Country for Travelers
Reuters/French Tourism Ministry (2006)
France
* 78 million people visited the country last year.
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
Fodor’s French for Travelers
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
‘Significant Steps’ Taken in Quest for Morocco-Spain Tunnel
Best Place in the U.S. for a Value Vacation
Hotwire.com Travel Value Index (2007)
Atlanta, Georgia
* Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; Orlando-Daytona Beach, Florida; and Kansas City, Missouri round out the top five.
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Interstate Highway System Simplified
* The U.S. Interstates rendered in the style of a metro-system map. Its designer calls it “map-porn.”
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
* We still like this book.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
In Cuba, Finding a Tiny Corner of Jewish Life
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (current)
How to ... Join the Mile-High Club
* The Guardian suggests this.
Most Read Weblog Category
World Hum (this week)
Planet Theme Park
* This story helped it rise to the top.
‘Significant Steps’ Taken in Quest for Morocco-Spain Tunnel
by Michael Yessis | 02.06.07 | 9:00 AM ET
Photo of Strait of Gibraltar by karynsig via flickr (Creative Commons).
Building a tunnel between Morocco and Spain has been on the “official drawing boards” of the countries’ governments for 25 years, according to the Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock, and perhaps on the minds of adventurers—and seasick ferry travelers—for much longer. Now, after rounds of geological tests and a set of blueprints developed by a Swiss firm, engineers say a tunnel underneath the Mediterranean Sea could materialize by 2025. “Government officials on both sides of the Mediterranean say the tunnel would give the economies of southern Europe and North Africa an enormous boost,” writes Whitlock. “But the project is being driven at least as much by intangible benefits: the prospect of uniting two continents that culturally and socially remain a world apart despite their geographic proximity.”
‘Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik’: Going Solo Through Africa
by Frank Bures | 02.01.07 | 7:03 AM ET
From south to north, Marie Javins journeyed alone across the continent. Frank Bures reviews her chronicle of the trip and finds the author a likable travel companion.
Remembering Kapuscinski: ‘He Was a Deity’
by Jim Benning | 01.31.07 | 2:13 PM ET
Fittingly, the death of acclaimed Polish journalist and travel writer Ryszard Kapuscinski last week prompted a number of remembrances and appreciations. “He was a deity in Poland, where I lived and reported for about half of the 1990s, and he was a deity among correspondents in Africa, where I spent the rest of the decade,” recalled Neely Tucker in the Washington Post. “Correspondents in Africa have two authors on their shelves: Graham Greene and Kapuscinski.”
Egypt: We Don’t Need Your Vote to be Among the New Seven Wonders
by Michael Yessis | 01.31.07 | 8:38 AM ET
While Petra and other candidates for the New Seven Wonders of the World status are working hard to solicit votes, officials in Egypt are fuming about the Pyramids of Giza even being nominated. Why should the pyramids have to compete in a contest to become a new wonder when they’re the last remaining wonder from the original seven?
Record Travel in 2006
by Jim Benning | 01.30.07 | 7:01 PM ET
More people traveled internationally in 2006 than in any previous year, according to the World Tourism Organization. The numbers were up 4.5 percent from 2005. Perhaps most interestingly, the AP notes, “Africa posted the biggest growth rate in 2006 at 8.1 percent, benefiting from travelers’ fears of terrorism elsewhere in the world.” Go Africa.
‘The Soccer People’: Heartbreak and Triumph in Clarkston, Georgia
by Michael Yessis | 01.22.07 | 8:47 AM ET
We write often about how soccer explains the world. Here’s another post, one that tells the story of an amazing soccer team based in a small town near Atlanta. Team name: The Fugees. “The Fugees are indeed all refugees, from the most troubled corners—Afghanistan, Bosnia, Burundi, Congo, Gambia, Iraq, Kosovo, Liberia, Somalia and Sudan,” writes Warren St. John in a front-page story in Sunday’s New York Times. “Some have endured unimaginable hardship to get here: squalor in refugee camps, separation from siblings and parents. One saw his father killed in their home.”
Honoring ‘Babel’
by Jim Benning | 01.16.07 | 9:41 PM ET
I’ve done a bit of complaining about some travel-related films recently, but I have no qualms with Babel. In fact, I was happy to see it win the Golden Globe for best dramatic movie last night. While it doesn’t depict world travel in the most favorable light—among other calamities in the film, Cate Blanchett’s character is shot during a trip to Morocco—it does movingly show how interconnected the world is becoming, and how that doesn’t necessarily make communication across borders (or even within families) any easier. Filmed in rural Morocco, Tokyo and Tijuana, it’s the kind of movie that somehow simultaneously shrinks the world and expands it. It’s ambitious, with a global perspective, and how many movies can you say that about?
Africa: Has the Continent Benefited from the ‘Awkward Embrace’ of Celebrities?
by Michael Yessis | 01.04.07 | 1:26 PM ET
When movie stars like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie travel to Africa, performing good deeds and drawing attention to the plight of the continent’s poorest, what does it really accomplish? Chris Tenove addresses the question in a terrific story in this month’s issue of The Walrus.“Why do celebrities campaign for Africa’s poor?” Tenove writes. “Self-promotion plays a role. In the competitive arena of stardom, you can’t afford to stand aside while your peers burnish their halos before the camera’s adoring gaze. It’s not as if celebrities need to go looking for causes, however. Causes come looking for them. Non-governmental organizations compete for publicity, government contracts, and charity dollars, and a celebrity endorsement can mean as much to an aid organization as it does to a sportswear manufacturer. But a more profound motivation lies at the heart of celebrity involvement.” Tenove’s story traces the phenomenon of celebrity involvement in Africa back to a 1984 BBC news report seen by the then little-known rock star, Bob Geldof.
National Geographic Adventure’s Top 2007 Destinations
by Jim Benning | 01.03.07 | 1:54 PM ET
Where to go this year? The world is wide open, but some countries seem particularly good choices now. For the December 2006/January 2007 issue of National Geographic Adventure, I worked with editors on a list of six countries offering compelling reasons to visit soon. Among them: China (now’s a great time to check out the new train to Lhasa); Morocco (for a major splurge before a visit to the High Atlas Mountains, spend a night at the historic, Winston Churchill-approved La Mamounia hotel in Marrakech, due to reopen this year after a renovation); and Brazil (TAM airlines is now flying nonstop between Miami and Manaus, making a visit to the Amazon easier than ever). To further stoke some wanderlust and inspire, the magazine celebrates the feats of a number of travelers, including the “new Magellans,” Colin Angus and Julie Wafael, who recently circumnavigated the globe by walking, cycling, skiing and, yes, rowing.
2006: The Year of Mapping Dangerously
by Ben Keene | 12.21.06 | 1:00 PM ET
‘Tis the season to look back on the year that has passed and make lists, and those of us in the maps business are no less backward looking than others. Borders shift, populations grow or shrink, and place names are altered. The pace of change can be mind-numbing. So I thought I’d compile my own short—and consequently incomplete—list of some of the most noteworthy geographical developments of the last 12 months.
Talking Malaria in Washington
by Jim Benning | 12.14.06 | 3:46 PM ET
Seriously. Reports the AP: “Declaring that malaria can be defeated, President Bush on Thursday added eight countries to a U.S. initiative aimed at combatting the disease in Africa and slashing its mortality rate by half in targeted nations.” Ghana, pictured, is among the eight nations. Malaria kills roughly a million Africans each year, many of them under five.
The Enduring Appeal of ‘The Endless Summer’
by Jim Benning | 12.11.06 | 1:52 PM ET
The classic surf film celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Its popularity lives on, Jim Benning writes, because it's one of the greatest wanderlust-inducing documentaries ever made -- and a potent antidote to winter.
World Hum World Headlines
by Jim Benning | 12.05.06 | 8:30 PM ET
News shorts for curious travelers.
Egypt
Pharaohs’ Tombs Trump Village Homes
Reports the New York Times: “Bulldozers moved Saturday into an Egyptian village near the Valley of the Kings in pursuit of a long-delayed effort to allow archaeologists to begin studying a wealth of tombs in the area.” More than 100 houses have been cleared in the last week. Interesting. In Los Angeles, they’d more likely destroy historic tombs to build new houses.
USA
What’s your travel terror score?
Did you know you had one? “Almost every person entering and leaving the United States by air, sea or land is assessed based on [Automated Targeting System’s] analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered,” the Associated Press reports. Creepy.
Spain
Bona tarda or buenas tardes?
The Los Angeles Times explores the pitched battle over languages in Catalonia. “Some ATMs in Spain offer a choice of six languages, four of which are the Spaniards’ own.”
Japan
Ping, Ka-Ching, Ka-Boom!
Money raised from Japan’s pachinko habit just might be supporting North Korea’s nuclear program, the Los Angeles Times reports. “The machines rake in more than $200 billion a year, some of which finds its way to North Korea.” As a result, some players are souring on the game.
USA
Bright lights, big city, mucho vino
Novelist Jay McInerney has a great side gig: traveling the world to write about wine for Home & Garden. Now, a number of those columns have been collected in a new book, A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine. His interest in wine “started with literature, really—as with so many other things,” he says in San Diego Reader. Among the inspirational books: Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” and Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited.”