Destination: England
Study: Almost One in 10 British Citizens Is Living Overseas
by Jim Benning | 12.14.06 | 2:12 PM ET
Britons love the expat life. A whopping 5.5 million of them are living abroad, according to a new study, and many of them are young workers without families. The BBC has a compelling package of stories about the phenomenon. Among the highlights from the main story:
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Yahoo! BuzzBill Bryson Becomes Made Man in Britain
by Michael Yessis | 12.14.06 | 8:33 AM ET
The author of much-loved travel books A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country and others has been made an honorary Order of the British Empire. Congrats, Bill. No word on whether Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell will also be honoring Katz.
Fifty Works of Art Worth Traveling the World to See
by Michael Yessis | 12.07.06 | 8:29 AM ET
Guardian art and architecture blogger Jonathan Jones asked his readers what 50 works of art are worth traveling a world to see? Or, to put it another way, “What works of art would you want to show a visitor from the Crab Nebula to prove humanity should be spared the interstellar death ray?” He’s posted the list 50 in no particular order. It includes Stonehenge, Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, Picasso’s “Guernica” and the Terracotta Army of the First Qin Emperor in China.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Great Wall, Good Grief!
by Michael Yessis | 12.01.06 | 8:50 AM ET
Is the world falling apart? Travelers this week seem concerned that it is, as crumbling attractions in China, England and Cambodia have grabbed our attention. Don’t worry. A man in India has some duct tape, and if he can fix a plane with it, surely he could be handy with it elsewhere. Here’s your Zeitgeist.
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* A slow-loading but spectacular panorama of the City of Light.
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* A collection of ridiculous things travel agents have heard from travelers. How ridiculous? This ridiculous: “I had someone ask for an aisle seats so that his or her hair wouldn’t get messed up by being near the window.”
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Radiation Detected on Two British Airways Planes*
by Jim Benning | 11.29.06 | 2:26 PM ET
Yikes. From the Guardian Unlimited: “British Airways passengers were being sought tonight after traces of radiation were found on two aircraft as part of the investigation into the death of a Russian former spy. The airline said very low levels of radiation were found as part of the investigation into the death last Thursday of Alexander Litvinenko, whose body had traces of polonium 210, a lethal radioactive substance.” British Airways officials believe “the risk to public health is low.”
* Add: AP reports that officials “drew up plans to contact thousands of airplane passengers”; three planes have been grounded.
The Great Wall, Siem Reap, Stonehenge Getting Too Much Love
by Jim Benning | 11.27.06 | 9:14 AM ET
They’re not the only places in the world being overrun with tourists, of course, but their tourism woes have been highlighted in recent days by the New York Times, Associated Press and Los Angeles Times, respectively. The New York Times on Sunday focused on the Great Wall of China, which is suffering under the weight of an estimated 13 million visitors a year. “[T]he Great Wall is not just crumbling,” writes Jim Yardley. “It is disappearing. Roughly half of the estimated 4,000 miles of the wall built during the Ming Dynasty no longer exists, according to a recent report. It is also regularly being abused.” Among other problems, he writes, last year “the police broke up a huge dance party of Chinese ravers atop the wall a few hours’ drive outside Beijing.”
‘A Sense of the World’: Around the Globe With a Blind Man
by Liz Sinclair | 11.27.06 | 7:20 AM ET
Jason Roberts documents the life of James Holman, who became a prolific traveler in the 1800s after losing his sight. Liz Sinclair finds the man -- and the book -- compelling.
Help for the Wayward Underground Rider
by Ben Keene | 11.01.06 | 3:07 PM ET
As an atlas editor, I have a questionably healthy obsession with maps. As a traveler, I never go anywhere without one (and preferably two or three). Which is why I was particularly excited to learn that a British design company is now selling credit card-sized, stainless steel maps of the London Underground and the New York Subway. They strike me as the perfect accessory for a hip cartographer or really anyone wishing to be a less conspicuous tourist. Hopefully they’ll pave the way for similar maps for other cities with subterranean mass transit systems. Tokyo would be an excellent candidate—that is if it’s even possible to fit all of the subway lines and stops on a piece of metal measuring 85 millimeters across.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
A Tribute to London’s Speakers’ Corner
by Michael Yessis | 10.16.06 | 7:35 AM ET
In Sunday’s Washington Post, Mary Jordon has a terrific feature on Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner—one of the inspirations for World Hum’s feature of the same name. “Once a place where the condemned were hanged—and perhaps, some say, because they were given one last chance to say a few words—the northeast corner of Hyde Park has since the late 19th century been sacred ground for free speech,” she writes. “There are other noteworthy patches in the 350-acre park—the Nanny’s Lawn, the Lovers’ Walk—but it is only here near Marble Arch where the unsung, along with legends from Winston Churchill to Karl Marx, have come to have their say.”
“Fawlty Towers” Hotel Gets Makeover
by Michael Yessis | 09.25.06 | 6:36 AM ET
“Are Cities the New Countries?”
by Michael Yessis | 07.18.06 | 7:27 AM ET
As cities turn into megacities—often defined as metropolitan areas with more than 10 million citizens—many academics are asking if, given their size and power, they are becoming more important than the countries that contain them. “Greater Shanghai has a population that has passed 20 million. The sprawl of Mexico City is estimated to house another 20 million. And Mumbai too,” the BBC News Magazine’s Finlo Rohrer writes. “These cities are bigger than many industrialised nations. And they are growing at a dizzying rate, sucking in workers from rural areas.”
No. 3: “The Great Railway Bazaar” by Paul Theroux
by Terry Ward | 05.29.06 | 12:58 PM ET
To mark our five-year anniversary, we’re counting down the top 30 travel books of all time, adding a new title each day this month.
Published: 1975
Territory covered: India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and Japan
World Cup Fans: Do You Know What Your Country Smells Like?
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.06 | 1:09 PM ET
Coca-Cola? Ripe mangoes? A piña colada? An After Eight mint? Chanel No 5? According to the Telegraph, retired perfume maker Ernst-Adolf Hinrichs of Holzminden, Germany, has identified the scents of the countries competing in next month’s World Cup tournament. Kate Connolly writes that Holzminden is “home to one of the world’s leading industrial producers of smells,” and that Hinrichs has created the scents for “smelling posts” around the city. Visitors are instructed to, of course, “follow their noses.” So which of the scents listed above belong to which country?
Brits to French: You’re Unfriendly, Ungenerous and Boring
by Michael Yessis | 05.23.06 | 7:12 AM ET
So say 6,000 voters surveyed by the travel site Where Are You Now, according to an AFP report. Germans finished second in all of the same categories. Respondents in the survey ranked countries in various categories, including most cultured and most unstylish. The “winners” respectively: Italy and the United States.
Report: Passenger on Virgin Atlantic Flight Had Ebola Virus
by Michael Yessis | 05.21.06 | 4:41 PM ET
The Mirror reports that a 38-year-old passenger on a flight from Johannesburg to London suffered a “violent fit” and subsequently died from the deadly Ebola virus. “Virgin Atlantic cabin crew who came into contact with the woman have been told to monitor their health,” writes Stephen Moyes. “One said: ‘We are now terrified what we may have caught.’”