Destination: California
San Diego Hotels Fill—With Wildfire Evacuees
by Jim Benning | 10.23.07 | 12:17 PM ET
Usually when I drive past Hotel Circle, a road near the 8 freeway here in San Diego packed with hotels, my heart goes out to the visitors there because, well, they’re staying in a place called Hotel Circle, with views of traffic zooming by on the freeway. It’s not the most attractive location San Diego has to offer. But that’s the least of the concerns of many guests staying in those hotels now. As would-be tourists and business travelers postponed visits to San Diego, canceling hotel reservations to avoid the raging wildfires, locals snapped up hotel rooms in droves as they evacuated threatened or even burning homes. A number of hotels have offered discounts to those in need.
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Yahoo! BuzzMexican Rockers Maná Make Los Angeles Arena History
by Jim Benning | 09.20.07 | 8:19 AM ET
Hotfooting Through the Landmarks, From Los Angeles to Athens
by Joanna Kakissis | 09.19.07 | 8:53 AM ET
Local guides around the U.S. are offering urban running tours that point out city landmarks while also giving devoted runners a good workout, writes Bonnie Tsui in The New York Times. New York, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco all have such tours, which are apparently growing in popularity. Though runners (me included) on vacation have been huffing and puffing on the back roads of new cities for years, their exploring has often been haphazard and befuddling. Who, after all, wants to run while holding a sweaty map?
The Unexpected Pleasure of an International Terminal
by Jim Benning | 08.20.07 | 3:30 PM ET
After a fun and invigorating four days at the Book Passage Travel Writers conference in Corte Madera, California—the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to a travel writers’ Woodstock, complete with karaoke—I headed to San Francisco International Airport yesterday for my first flight on the new Virgin America airlines. I’d been looking forward to the flight and the highly touted entertainment system, which on the gleaming white seatbacks looks like a giant iPod. The flight and entertainment were great. I’d happily fly Virgin America again. But the highlight wasn’t the plane.
Tiki Revelers to Celebrate ‘Tiki Oasis 7’ in San Diego
by Jim Benning | 08.16.07 | 6:53 AM ET
My interview with “Tiki Road Trip” author James Teitelbaum only deepened my appreciation for all things tiki. So if I wasn’t going to the Book Passage Travel Writers Conference this weekend, I would undoubtedly be sipping mai tais at Tiki Oasis 7 and Hawaii-A-Go-Go, a tiki gathering taking place Thursday through Sunday in San Diego. Tiki aficionados from around the country are expected. Exotica and surf bands will play, including King Kukulele. Vendors will sell tiki idols. Festival-goers will relax at the Crowne Plaza Hotel’s tiki lagoon and pool in Mission Valley. And a party will be held at Bali Hai, a terrific old tiki bar and restaurant on Shelter Island offering views of San Diego Bay, and potent drinks—the mai tai I had there recently is something of a blur.
Related on World Hum:
* Q&A with James Teitelbaum: Escape to the Isle of Tiki
* Four Tiki Books: James Teitelbaum’s Picks
Photo by jurvetson via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Happy 100th Birthday, Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
by Terry Ward | 08.09.07 | 9:31 AM ET
I could practically smell the funnel cake and picture the big wheel turning while reading this nostalgia-inducing AP piece about the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. When I visited the northern California beach town several years back, I recall being surprisingly moved by the sight of the old-school Ferris wheel, set just back from the sand. (You’d think a girl from Orlando would be harder to impress.) While other iconic seaside attractions in spots such as Coney Island and Atlantic City are shutting shop, according to the AP report, Santa Cruz’s good times gathering ground appears to be here to stay.
Joe Bravo’s Tortilla Art on a Roll
by Jim Benning | 08.07.07 | 1:03 PM ET
R.I.P. Rock ‘n’ Roll Balconies at Hyatt ‘Riot House’
by Jim Benning | 08.06.07 | 2:46 PM ET
Reports ‘Laurel Canyon’ author Michael Walker: “The textured concrete balconies (above) from which Led Zeppelin and entourage hurled bottles of Dom Perignon, Zeppelin drummer John Bonham teetered and singer Robert Plant crowed ‘I’m a golden god!’ (immortalized in Cameron Crowe’s ‘Almost Famous’) are being ripped out like so many meth-rotted teeth as part of a $24 million renovation of the property.” The West Hollywood hotel on the Sunset Strip is replacing the balconies with glass that will enclose the rooms. That might be an improvement to the property, but writes Walker: “[I]t’s always mournful when another little piece of L.A.‘s anarchic rock and roll heart is taken away.” The changes are part of a larger trend, Walker e-mails:
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: From Cinque Terre to the Great Barrier Reef
by Michael Yessis | 08.03.07 | 2:05 PM ET
Iconic destinations in Italy, Australia, California and the Pacific Ocean are at the top of travelers’ minds this week, as well as a topic that’s more controversial than Hillary Clinton. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours in the Cinque Terre, Italy
Most Read Feature
World Hum (posted this week)
The Lost World of Nigeria
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Through the Roof: A Tour of the Country’s Priciest Hotel Suite
* The cost to stay in the Ty Warner Penthouse at the Four Seasons New York? $30,000 a night.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph UK (current)
Exploring the Great Barrier Reef
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (posted this week)
Voluntourism: ‘Overpriced Guilt Trips’ or a ‘Real Chance to Save the World’?
“Hot This Week” Destination
Yahoo! (this week)
Hawaii
Most Viewed Travel Post
BlogHer (current)
The W Hotel: Form over Function?
In Los Angeles, Among the Stars
by Jim Benning | 07.31.07 | 2:22 PM ET
After reading that actress Drew Barrymore wanted to become a travel writer, South Florida Sun-Sentinel travel editor Thomas Swick wrote a column suggesting he become her mentor. In fact, he thought he’d offer to do just that during a recent visit to Los Angeles. “But soon after that column appeared, I started to have second thoughts,” he confessed Sunday. “Now that I was in L.A. I wanted to find her and tell her to forget travel writing (no future) and ask if she’d give me acting lessons.”
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: From the Fringe of Edinburgh
by Michael Yessis | 07.27.07 | 2:58 PM ET
The Scottish capital made a move toward the top of travelers’ minds this week—the famed Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival begin soon—along with China, the Sierra Nevada and some purveyors of hotel porn. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph UK (current)
Edinburgh Travel Guide
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Not the Hamptons. Yet.
* 36 Hours in Edinburgh also makes the most e-mailed list, currently at No. 3.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Got a Free Weekend? Escape to the Sierra Nevada
Most Read Feature
World Hum (posted this week)
Ask Rolf: I’m in my Mid-40s. Am I Too Old to Stay in Hostels?
* It’s all about spirit, says Rolf.
Most Read Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Marriott Blasted for Hotel Porn
* Morality in Media is making a stir, and Kitty Bean Yancey’s Hotel Hotsheet blog has a raucous discussion going on.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (posted this week)
‘Into the Wild’: Sean Penn Adapts Jon Krakauer’s Book for the Big Screen
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Beautiful Chinese Travel and Vacation
China’s Air Pollution Goes Global
by Jim Benning | 07.23.07 | 2:50 PM ET
Talk about a shrinking planet. “On some days,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “almost a third of the air over Los Angeles and San Francisco can be traced directly to Asia.”
JetBlue’s New Blogger: C. Montgomery Burns
by Michael Yessis | 07.02.07 | 12:30 PM ET
It’s a publicity stunt, sure, but one that might help JetBlue get back some of its mojo after its February meltdown. As part of the massive hype for the upcoming The Simpsons Movie, C. Montgomery Burns—known best as Homer Simpson’s boss at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant—has taken over the blog of former JetBlue CEO David Neeleman. From his first entry: “Smithers entered my chambers this morning, toting wretched tales of congenial customer service and overly indulgent amenities on your JetBlue Airways. And for what… your precious passengers? Soon, the riff raff will demand ‘fair treatment’ from all corporate overlords, like myself. Well, not in my chemically prolonged life-time.”
Touring Literary Los Angeles: City of Chandler, Bukowski and Fante
by Jim Benning | 06.21.07 | 12:53 PM ET
In some cities, like Dublin, visitors have little trouble finding a good literary tour. Los Angeles is not one of those cities, yet it has a compelling literary history. So I was happy to read Sunday’s Los Angeles Times story about a new tour of Los Angeles through the prism of novelist John Fante, focusing particularly on Fante’s old downtown haunts, including Bunker Hill. Fante isn’t as well known as L.A. novelists Raymond Chandler and Charles Bukowski (even though Fante’s classic novel Ask the Dust was recently made into a movie), so it would stand to reason, I thought, that the people behind the Fante tour were not your typical tour operators. I dialed up Richard Schave, co-founder of the recently formed tour company Esotouric (“bus adventures into the secret heart of L.A.”) to ask him about their adventures into L.A.‘s bookish heart. It turns out the Fante tour is just the beginning.
In San Francisco, the Search Goes on for the Summer of Love
by Michael Yessis | 06.21.07 | 10:00 AM ET
It’s been 40 years since the famed Summer of Love, when San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood became either the embodiment of brotherhood and sisterhood or, in the words of the Beatles’ George Harrison, full of “hideous, spotty little teenagers.” I tend to believe more in the latter characterization, not because I experienced it (or was even alive) in 1967 but because around the turn of the millennium, when I lived in San Francisco, I saw a lot of “spotty little teenagers” there and that colors my impression. Don’t get me wrong. I like the Haight, and I still go there often when I’m in San Francisco. It’s got an all-time great music store, Amoeba Music; an excellent and cheap pizza place, Fat Slice; and a fine bookstore, The Booksmith, among other things. But I never really felt that Summer of Love spirit.