Destination: Central America
Morning Links: Jellyfish Gone Wild, Sedaris and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.15.08 | 8:35 AM ET
Catch up on links from our redesign break:
- Brave New Traveler lists The 6 Characters You’ll Meet At Every Expat Bar.
- Recession travel: Trade depressed stock for Caribbean resort stays.
- TSA critic Jeffrey Goldberg sat for an interview with Stephen Colbert.
Email to friend
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! BuzzHow Can I Save on Transportation During a Round-the-World Trip?
by Rolf Potts | 11.06.08 | 12:34 PM ET
Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel
World Hum Travel Movie Club: ‘The Art of Travel’
by Eli Ellison, Eva Holland | 10.09.08 | 5:53 PM ET
The Dangers of Cave Tubing in Belize
by Jim Benning | 09.25.08 | 10:31 AM ET
A 52-year-old woman on a Carnival cruise drowned yesterday while on a shore excursion in Belize. She was tubing on the Caves Branch River—in what some say were questionable conditions—when, according to one account, she was swept under a rock. Reports USA Today: “A local news station in Belize, Channel 7 News, reports that most local tour companies that operate on the Caves Branch River had canceled their trips Wednesday due to poor conditions.” Obviously, her trip wasn’t canceled.
The Next ‘Into the Wild’? With a Touch of ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’?
by Jim Benning | 08.28.08 | 11:07 AM ET
I’ve no idea whether there’s a book or film in the works based on this recent front page story in the Los Angeles Times, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were. It’s the story of Joe Sanderson, a Midwesterner and idealist who set off on a life of travel and adventure back in the mid-1960s and died in 1982 while fighting for leftist guerillas in El Salvador. Sanderson kept a diary that “lay neglected and unread for decades” and has been held by a guerilla vet from the war. The Times’ Héctor Tobar was apparently the first outsider to get his hands on it.
Dave Barry in Costa Rica: ‘A Nation Located in South or Central America, or Possibly Europe’
by Michael Yessis | 07.18.08 | 1:49 PM ET
The Pulitzer Prize-winning funnyman has apparently figured out where it is, because he’s been blogging from Costa Rica about his travels. He’s seen lots of monkeys, and he went zip-lining, “which is a sport where the object is to look like the world’s biggest dork,” he writes. “I was very good at it.” Judge for yourself.
Related on World Hum:
* Onion Video: Andorra is ‘Not in Africa’
Exploring Eco-Tourism in the Original Banana Republic
by Jim Benning | 06.05.08 | 2:25 PM ET
Honduras, we learn in Elisabeth Eaves’s fourth Slate dispatch this week, is where short-story writer O. Henry had been exiled to in the 1890s when he coined the phrase “banana republic.” Her fine series of stories, beginning with Monday’s installment, looks at whether the country is benefiting from the rise of eco-tourism. Tomorrow’s piece, she tells us, will touch on Mel Gibson and the ancient Mayans. Eaves reviewed “The Darjeeling Limited” for us last fall.
Photo by Lauri Vain via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Year Off to a Rocky Start for Travelers
by Jim Benning | 01.02.08 | 10:57 AM ET
Forget ‘Snakes on a Plane.’ How About Scorpions?
by Jim Benning | 09.24.07 | 2:23 PM ET
No, not these. The real deal. According to USA Today’s Ben Mutzabaugh, a man on a flight from Costa Rica to Madrid was stung on his shoulder and finger by a scorpion. Mutzabaugh cites news reports stating that the man was treated for severe nausea by a doctor on the plane, and that a fellow passenger killed the scorpion. As Mutzabaugh points out, this isn’t a first. A number of travelers have been stung by scorpions mid-flight, including a passenger aboard a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Burlington, Vermont in January.
Related on World Hum:
* Three Travel Tips: Stay Healthy When You Fly
* ‘Snakes on a Plane’ = Movie. Bees on a Plane = Serious, Real-Life Problem.
Related on TravelChannel.com:
* Bizarre Foods World Travel Guide: Vietnam
Photo by alex.ch via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
Manuel Noriega Slept Here
by Leigh Ann Henion | 08.27.07 | 11:26 AM ET
Photo by Leigh Ann Henion. In Panama, Leigh Ann Henion's self-appointed tour guide insisted she visit the home of the country's former strongman -- the same man scheduled to be released from a Florida prison next week
Hurricane Dean Hits Mexican Coast Near Majahual
by Michael Yessis | 08.21.07 | 9:13 AM ET
The first Category 5 hurricane to make landfall since Hurricane Andrew crushed South Florida in 1992 missed the megaresorts of Cancun by about 150 miles, instead pounding the coast near the Mexico/Belize border. The AP reports that Hurricane Dean’s winds reached 165 miles per hour. The area isn’t heavily populated nor is it as touristed as Cancun, but it does contain small hotels, the Costa Maya cruise ship port and the Sian Kaan Biosphere Reserve. Definitive reports on how those areas fared will come later, but Hurricane Dean’s intensity—it registered the third lowest pressure at landfall on record, according to the Washington Post—signals the potential for massive damage.
New Addition to the Travel Lexicon: ‘Geotourism’
by Jim Benning | 07.19.07 | 11:29 AM ET
In our ongoing quest to chronicle the comings and goings in the travel lexicon we bring you “geotourism,” a term describing travel that, in the AP’s words, “focuses on a destination’s unique culture and history and aims to have visitors help enrich those qualities.” Coined several years ago by the National Geographic Society’s Jonathan B. Tourtellot, the term hasn’t yet caught on among most travelers. But according to the AP, “it’s on the lips of travel professionals who describe it as a step beyond the better-known environmentally friendly ecotourism. While geotourism encourages treading lightly on nature, it’s also about authenticity and making a place better by visiting and spending money.”
Leo Hickman: In Search of the True Cost of Travel
by Frank Bures | 07.13.07 | 8:44 AM ET
Are travelers destroying cultures, economies and the planet? Are they making the world a better place? Frank Bures chats with the author of "The Final Call" about the ethics and consequences of world travel.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: From the Great White North to the Land Down Under
by Michael Yessis | 06.08.07 | 12:49 PM ET
This week travelers trek the length of the globe, from Canada to California to Mexico to Costa Rica to Australia. There’s also the inevitable Paris Hilton vs. Hilton Paris match up. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
In Napa, Wilderness Above the Wineries
* That’s Napa, pictured above.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Paris Hilton accommodations vs. Hilton Paris
* Christopher Reynolds pits the two head-to-head.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Mexico to (Miss) U.S.A.: Boooooo
* Readers have mixed feelings about the now-infamous boos.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
JetBlue Tries to Bounce Back From Storm of Trouble
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Air Traffic Control System Command Center
Most Read Feature
World Hum (this week)
An Island in Costa Rica
Most Popular Travel Podcast
iTunes (current)
National Geographic’s Atmosphere
* Current podcast: Mount Everest Expedition
An Island in Costa Rica
by Tara Swords | 06.04.07 | 8:25 AM ET
Photo by Misho Ceko. When she decided to spend her vacation volunteering at an orphanage, Tara Swords thought the kids would just need a little love to blossom. Then she met 5-year-old Catalina.