Destination: England
Morning Links: Bill to End Cuba Travel Ban Introduced, Facebook ‘Flashmobs’ and More
by Jim Benning | 02.10.09 | 10:27 AM ET
- Nine representatives have introduced a House bill calling for an end to the ban on travel to Cuba. !Suerte!
- A new Mandarin Oriental hotel in Beijing—not yet occupied, thankfully—burned last night.
- The economy of air travel: Demand for international flights is “in freefall.”
- A Facebook “flashmob” organized by “Crazzy Eve” hits a London train station.
- New York Magazine: “Why Sully may be the last of his kind.”
- Travel photographer Peter Guttman has crammed his home with souvenirs.
- Hotels spent more than $9 million lobbying elected officials last year.
- You wanna be a YouTube travel star? Christopher Elliott has tips.
- Travel publishers are feeling the effects of the recession. But sales of Frommer’s “Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World” remain strong. Whew.
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Yahoo! BuzzWould You Like the Chicken, the Fish or the Dead Hamster?
by David Farley | 02.05.09 | 12:20 PM ET
Oh, airline food. Always getting the bad rap. We love to hate airline food. The hate brings us together. It’s airplane conversation starter. I might be one of the few people who doesn’t dislike airline food. Consider the context: you’re eating 30,000 feet above the earth. If I were sitting in a Michelin-starred restaurant, eating soggy croquettes out of a tin tray, I’d probably be a bit disappointed. But on a plane I’m captive. Which is why I watch (and actually enjoy) Drew Barrymore movies while I’m flying. I fork the rubbery chicken into my mouth and like it.
Then there’s this guy. The Virgin Atlantic frequent flyer who had had enough. Food, that is. He wrote a scathing—and humorous—letter to Sir Richard Branson, Virgin’s founder and CEO, about his latest meal on the London-to-Mumbai flight. An excerpt after the jump.
Morning Links: Americans Behaving Badly, Disappointing Attractions and More
by Michael Yessis | 02.05.09 | 8:47 AM ET
- Tamaulipas declared itself bilingual, the first Mexican state to do so.
- Ben Groundwater lists his picks for the world’s most disappointing tourist attractions.
- Aeroflot apologizes for pilot’s “slurred preflight announcement,” but denies he was drunk.
- McSweeney’s reveals what happens when “the 4-year-old crash-lands in the Andes.”
- The sites of London can be compressed into “just four handy photographs,” writes Matthew Summers-Sparks.
- Trains, slum rooftops and Google Earth all factor into this art project in Kibera, Kenya. (Via Daily Dish)
- A man was caught at customs in Melbourne with birds beneath his trousers.
- Here’s where Americans are getting arrested abroad. Not surprised at all by the top spot: Tijuana.
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Are the Obamas Headed to Hogwarts?
by Eva Holland | 02.02.09 | 12:47 PM ET
In a wide-ranging interview with The Daily Beast, “Harry Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe had this to say to the new First Family: “I’d like to take this opportunity to issue a public invitation to the Obamas that if their daughters would like a private tour of the Harry Potter set, I would be honored to be their personal tour guide.” Over at MuggleNet, the debate over whether the Obama girls are worthy of such a magnanimous gesture is already getting heated. (Via The Book Bench)
London, England
by World Hum | 02.02.09 | 11:31 AM ET
REUTERS/ Eddie Keogh Pedestrians walk across Westminster Bridge as snow falls, in central London.
What We Loved This Week: Flip Video, Language Lessons, Pandora and More
by World Hum | 01.30.09 | 4:18 PM ET
Our contributors share a favorite travel-related experience from the past seven days.
Michael Yessis
I love this response to the news that Birmingham will do away with apostrophes on street signs: “If you don’t have apostrophes, is there any point in full stops, or semi-colons, or question marks? Is there any point in punctuation at all?” Indeed.
Sophia Dembling
I already love my Flip Video camera, a gift from Santahubby. And I love the Hocking Hills region of Ohio. Now I learn that the Hocking Hills Tourism Association is lending Flip Ultra cameras to visitors staying at an association member property, no cost. Double shot of love! (Triple, if you count Santahubby.)
Eva Holland
This might sound crazy considering the array of not-available-elsewhere experiences that New York City offers, but what I loved most about my first full week here was having access to Pandora again. The site, which helps listeners discover more music similar to their old favorites, cut off all non-U.S. users awhile back. Yesterday, I plugged in “Etta James,” and have been enjoying Candi Staton ever since:
Morning Links: City Bans Apostrophes, Russians in Goa and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.30.09 | 8:06 AM ET
- Russians heart Goa.
- But how will the free-falling ruble affect Russian travelers—and travel to Russia?
- The Fortune Cookie Chronicles writer Jennifer 8. Lee collects toothpaste from her travels.
- Slideshow: Inspired by brothels in Pakistan.
- “Bread for the World ” and “The United States of Europe” highlight Rick Steves’ MVBs. I believe that means his most-valued books.
- Charles Darwin’s house: Future World Heritage site?
- In Slate’s latest Well-Traveled, June Thomas asks: “Am I too frivolous for Japan?”
- An Italian city in Tuscany says no to ethnic restaurants in its central district.
- Tikrit unveiled a shoe sculpture to honor the Iraqi journalist who threw his footwear at former U.S. President Bush.
- PEE. SUX. BOO. Just three of the funniest airport codes from around the world.
- In the U.K., the Birmingham City Council banished apostrophes from its road and street signs. The Apostrophe Protection Society says, “It seems retrograde, dumbing down really. It is setting a very bad example.” I agree, and I’m sure the typo vigilantes do, too.
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Morning Links: America’s Dirtiest Hotels, London From Above and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.29.09 | 8:59 AM ET
- Paul Theroux remembers John Updike.
- American Airlines has been flying some planes without enough life rafts. Its short-term solution: Cap the number of passengers on the problem aircraft.
- The Big Picture shows off more of Jason Hawkes’ lovely aerial photos of London.
- Here’s a Q&A with Renia Ehrenfeucht on “the higher meaning of the humble sidewalk.”
- How are Spirit Airlines flight attendants like players for Manchester United? They both wear ads on their uniforms. (via Jaunted)
- Inside the “war on Roquefort cheese.”
- TripAdvisor’s list of America’s dirtiest hotels is out.
- Are these the top 50 adventure books of all time?
- Jason Barger pays tribute to “one of the daily unsung heroes of the air travel experience: the de-icers.”
- The “bizarre crime spree” that got this drunken Irish traveler deported from Australia included demanding money to feed his goldfish.
- World Hum gets a shout out in a Guardian piece about Twitter and travel—yes, World Hum has a Twitter feed. We’re happy to have you follow us.
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Pigs for Pets or Meat!
by David Farley | 01.27.09 | 11:43 AM ET
After reading about the poor standards of pork in Europe (where England gets most of its pork from), pig-eating British journalist Alex Renton became concerned. He puts blame on British supermarkets. He writes in the Guardian: “The fact is that price discounting (you may have noticed we’re in the midst of another ‘value’ war at the moment) has forced the price of pork so low that few farmers can make a profit on a pig, even when produced in a cage on the cheapest feed possible.” The answer, of course, is to stop eating pork, which Renton refused to do. So he took matters into his own hands (or, should I say, taste buds). “My pig is 11 months old now,” he writes admiringly of the piglet he’s now raising for the slaughter.
Morning Links: Polish Milk Bars, Talking Travel With Thomas Friedman and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.27.09 | 8:21 AM ET
- Milk bars in Warsaw are frozen in time, and that’s just one reason people love the relics of the Soviet era.
- Keith Bellows talks to Thomas Friedman about “the future of green technology and travel.”
- Road-tripping Yukon’s Dempster Highway.
- In Australia, incinerated meat “occupies a singular place in the national psyche.”
- World Hum contributor Frank Bures on what’s “possibly Wisconsin’s most famous landmark and definitely one of the world’s strangest tourist attractions.”
- Airports in the U.S. will soon begin testing radar designed to track birds.
- London officials warn: Watch out for those takeaway kebabs!
- Inside the Iron Maiden hotel.
- In the Western U.S. train travel is making “a heady comeback during these volatile energy-conscious times.”
- Scott McCartney on “the quest for perfect airline food.” Wait. Airline food still exists?
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U.K. to Hotels: Lighten Up, Please!
by Alexander Basek | 01.26.09 | 2:11 PM ET
Morning Links: Road Tripping ‘Amexica,’ Titty Ho and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.26.09 | 8:12 AM ET
- Ed Vulliamy drives the length of the U.S.-Mexico border. Or, as he calls it, “Amexica.”
- Is Mexico City now the world’s greatest food city?
- Paramedics bought Big Macs for stranded AeroMexico passengers in Portland. That might be the only pleasant news from the incident.
- The “tourism gold rush” has subsided in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Blame Mugabe.
- Toronto wrestles with its identity.
- USA Today explores the question of whether the Obama presidency will influence travel to the U.S.
- Super Bowl travel packages are “not exactly a hot ticket.”
- Looks who’s taking on the bad travel economy: William Shatner.
- Motherwell. Glenrothes. New Cumnock. These three towns are in the running for the most dismal in Scotland.
- Crapstone. Titty Ho. Penistone, These and other snicker-worthy place names in Britain have had bloggers, Tweeters and New York Times readers snickering all weekend. Myself included.
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British Man Jailed for Mutilating Antique Maps, Travelogues
by Eva Holland | 01.22.09 | 4:10 PM ET
A wealthy British book collector has been sentenced to two years in prison for stealing from the British Library. Farhad Hakimzadeh had used a scalpel to slice pages and maps out of more than 150 rare books, most dating to the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. His subject matter of choice? “The engagement by West European travellers with Mesopotamia, Persia and the Mogul empire—roughly the area from modern Syria to Bangladesh.” A British Library staffer called Hakimzadeh’s actions “an attack on the nation’s collective memory of its own past,” and added that he had damaged “our historical record with how this country has engaged in that part of the world.”
Sadly, cases of high-profile book vandalism and theft aren’t uncommon—but they never fail to shock me. (The theft, also from the British Library, of some of the first-ever maps of Canada a few years ago hit especially close to home.) I don’t want to get too Orwellian here, but something about the theft and destruction of irreplaceable historical documents, the literal dismantling of our physical historical record, strikes me as deeply sinister. It’s a relief to hear that there’s now one less perp running loose in the stacks.
Morning Links: Lego Hotel, Strange Travel Jobs and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.21.09 | 8:30 AM ET
- Throw a can of tomato juice on a plane, get charged with terrorism?
- San Diego’s Legoland looks to build a 250-room Lego-themed hotel.
- Passengers on US Airways Flight 1549—the one that landed in the Hudson River—are getting $5,000 each.
- The 10 strangest jobs in the travel industry by one count include driver of karaoke-equipped taxi and coconut safety engineer.
- All those extra charges on Ryanair add up to a lot of pounds.
- Environmental groups won a restraining order to stop oil and gas exploration of more than 100,000 acres of land in Utah.
- Brave New Traveler attends the Chuck Palahniuk school of travel.
- Jason Wilson throws down some presidential cocktails. Baracktail, anyone?
- Here are some photos of San Francisco’s Bush Street ... or is it Obama Street? Pranksters changed some signs overnight. When I lived in S.F. in 2000, signs were changed from Bush Street to Puppet Street.
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Morning Links: Obama’s Places, Poe’s 200th Birthday and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.20.09 | 8:06 AM ET
- Barack Obama’s places: Six writers on six places the new president lived.
- Another Onion gem: ‘United Flight Crew Hits up Passengers for Gas Money’
- Modern Drunkard’s bars you won’t be going back to anytime soon.
- US Airways Flight 1549: A New York tourist attraction?
- JetBlue has added a few flights between Pittsburgh and Tampa to accommodate Steelers fans flying to the Super Bowl.
- Photos: Behind the scenes of the Tube in London.
- Happy 200th birthday, Edgar Allen Poe. Here’s where to go in five cities that claim his legacy.
- What’s it worth if you’re mauled by a javelina? A Dutch tourist believes $400,000.
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