Destination: Europe
Montélimar, France
by Ben Keene | 07.14.06 | 11:25 AM ET
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Yahoo! BuzzOn the Autobahn, a New Mercedes and the Bhagavad-Gita
by Jim Benning | 07.13.06 | 1:10 PM ET
Los Angeles Times Pulitzer-winning car columnist Dan Neil recently took a new Mercedes-Benz CLK 63 for a spin on the Autobahn near Stuttgart, maxing out at the car’s 155 mph limit. Even if you’re not a big car buff—I’m certainly not—Neil’s writing is so spirited and compelling, it’s hard not to get drawn into his transcendent Autobahn experience. “In the words of the Bhagavad-Gita,” he writes, “I am become death, destroyer of bugs.”
Gross’s Isaac Newton Moment: Picking Apples in Turkey
by Michael Yessis | 07.13.06 | 7:23 AM ET
Matt Gross, who has been zipping frantically around the world for the last two months writing the Frugal Travel column for the New York Times, slowed down recently to spend four days on an organic apple farm in Beypinar, Turkey. “I couldn’t stand to see another sight,” he writes in this week’s dispatch for the Times. “I had to do something—anything, I had to feel useful.” It turned out to be a great idea. The story begins as a breath-catching trip to a farm, where he gains “muddy palms, scratched calves and an unironic farmer’s tan,” but soon becomes something else: a sweet tale about friendship and brotherhood.
Provolone, Toblerone and the Art of Bad Writing
by Michael Yessis | 07.12.06 | 1:34 AM ET
The Bulwer-Lytton contest celebrates intentionally horrible writing. Specifically, entrants are challenged to compose “the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.” Today, the 2006 winners were announced and, oh my, did they ever produce some horrible prose. But horrible in a highly-entertaining way. Jim Guigli took home the grand prize with a 63-word doozy about a hot dame and a super burrito. My favorite selections, though, were those that tasted of travel writing.
Tom Downey on the Graphic Travel Story
by Jim Benning | 07.03.06 | 11:23 AM ET
Lviv, Ukraine
by Ben Keene | 06.30.06 | 10:22 AM ET
Coordinates: 49 50 24 0 E
Population: 732,818 (2001 est.)
The Ukrainian national team has surprised many 2006 World Cup fans with its success in making the quarterfinals, but the team actually has a fairly long history beginning in the western city of Lviv in July 1894. In that month, the first official soccer match was held here in a small stadium in Stryisky Park. Established in the 13th century along the trade route between the Baltic Sea and Black Sea, Lviv is the only Ukrainian city with Renaissance architecture. Beyond its significance to European athletics, the urban center north of the Carpathian Mountains also plays an important role in the country’s culture, economy and educational system.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
Time Traveler
by Charlie Clark | 06.23.06 | 4:24 PM ET
As a teenager traveling in Europe 35 year ago, Charlie Clark kept a diary. Now in his 50s and preparing for another trip abroad, he cracked open its pages, wondering whether that fumbling kid could teach him a thing or two.
Video: Colbert on His Hostile Hostel Experience
by Michael Yessis | 06.09.06 | 7:16 AM ET
Comedy Central has posted the video of Stephen Colbert’s “Don’t Go to Europe to Find Yourself” rant we mentioned earlier this week. It’s part of his “Stephen’s Sound Advice: Graduation” clip, and the travel bit starts with about two minutes remaining. Thanks to Dan in Austin for the heads up.
Jason Wilson: One Traveler, Three Dishes Named ‘Jason’
by Jim Benning | 06.08.06 | 8:39 PM ET
Never mind his travel-writing accomplishments. Jason Wilson has a breakfast sandwich, a pizza and a dessert named after him in three countries. Go ahead: Be stunned. Jim Benning gets the inside scoop on this rarest of travel feats.
Just Because a Village is Small Doesn’t Mean it Can’t Be Global
by Michael Yessis | 06.08.06 | 7:25 AM ET
John Ward Anderson has a good story in today’s Washington Post about Aguaviva, Spain, a small village with a dwindling population that has sought to recover by recruiting residents from around the world. “The woman who runs the city hall cafe in this remote Spanish hill community is a Romanian. Down the road, Italians and Argentines make electric cables in a small factory. The local school is bustling with foreign-born children, who make up more than a third of the students,” he writes. “While much of Western Europe shuns immigrants, this town seeks them. They are seen as key to reversing a decades-long drop in population that has brought slow death to so many other Spanish villages as residents fled to the cities for a better life.”
Colbert to College Graduates: “Don’t Go to Europe to Find Yourself”
by Michael Yessis | 06.07.06 | 6:15 AM ET
Last night on The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert offered some “Sound Advice for College Graduates” based, it would appear, on a painful personal travel experience. If the clip ends up on YouTube, we’ll post it. (Update: It’s been posted temporarily on the Comedy Central Web site) Until then, here are Colbert’s words of travel wisdom in their entirety: “Don’t go to Europe to find yourself. Who told you were over there anyway? You’re far more likely to leave yourself there along with some electronic equipment that gets stolen at a youth hostel in Paris on your last night there.”
Longyearbyen, Norway
by Ben Keene | 06.02.06 | 12:35 PM ET
“Pimp my Ride”? How about “Pimp my Vespa”?
by Michael Yessis | 05.31.06 | 11:40 AM ET
Apparently European audiences can’t get enough of the MTV show Pimp my Ride. “For reasons perhaps understandable only to residents of the Continent, the show has been one of MTV’s biggest crossover successes,” Robert Ito writes in the New York Times. So the network has spun off versions for various countries—“Pimp My Fahrrad” in Germany, for instance, is a low-budget bicycle repair show—and will debut “Pimp my Ride International,” a “pan-European” show, this fall. Fat Joe will be one of the hosts of “International,” which should make for some interesting TV.
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 Borders Redefined
by Michael Yessis | 05.29.06 | 9:22 AM ET
What defines a country’s border these days? Is it a physical place, or does it extend into the “virtual and electronic space”? Moisés Naím argues that it’s all three places and more in an intriguing essay in the Outlook section of Sunday’s Washington Post. “[W]hile geography still matters,” Naím writes, “today’s borders are being redefined and redrawn in unexpected ways. They are fluid, constantly remade by technology, new laws and institutions, and the realities of international commerce—illicit as well as legitimate.”