Destination: Hawaii
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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World Hum (this week)
The Great Wall, Siem Reap, Stonehenge Getting Too Much Love
Most Blogged Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Saving the Great Wall From Being Loved to Death
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USA Today (current)
Ski Europe: The Best of the Alps
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Paris by Night
* A slow-loading but spectacular panorama of the City of Light.
No. 1 World Music Album
iTunes (current)
Loreena McKennitt’s An Ancient Muse
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Digg (current)
Why Americans Should Never Be Allowed To Travel
* 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.”
Most Popular Travel Podcast
PodcastAlley (November)
808Talk: Hawaii’s Premier Podcast
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Yahoo! BuzzThe World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Beer, Bryson and the City of Brotherly Love
by Michael Yessis | 11.24.06 | 10:02 AM ET
The Zeitgeist has returned from a two-week hiatus spent mostly in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and it finds travelers still loving Bill Bryson, still concerned about their airfare prices and wondering whether to order a Heineken, Grolsch or Amstel in Amsterdam. Let’s go.
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New York Times (current)
36 Hours: Philadelphia
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Netscape (current)
How do airlines set their ticket prices?
* This Slate “explainer” unravels the mystery.
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USA Today (current)
U.S. to Require Passports for Nearly All Air Travelers
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson
* Two Three Six weeks in a row at the top for Bryson’s memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa.
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
* Bryson hits the daily double with his classic about hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (current)
SideStep
Most Popular Travel Podcast
PodcastAlley (November)
808Talk: Hawaii’s Premier Podcast
USA Today’s Seven New Wonders of the World
by Jim Benning | 11.15.06 | 4:00 PM ET
Photo courtesy of freestockphotos.com.
The newspaper, along with “Good Morning America,” recently consulted six panelists, from an astrophysicist to travel writer Pico Iyer, to update the Seven Wonders of the World. The news organizations are now revealing the wonders—one each weekday—through Friday. Making the list are Potala Palace and Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet (“they form a dramatic double act of spiritual power, architectural splendor and faith enduring against all odds”); Old City, Jerusalem (“for its central place in religious history and struggles for tolerance”); the Polar ice caps (“it is becoming increasingly clear that the mind-blowing expanses of frozen water at the top and bottom of Earth hold the key to the future of life as we know it”); and Hawaiian Marine Monument in the Pacific (“It is the largest protected area on the planet”). Today, the newspaper added the Internet to the list, and World Hum’s own Michael Yessis, who also happens to be an editor at USA Today, explained the unorthodox choice.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Beauty and the Borat
by Michael Yessis | 10.20.06 | 7:35 AM ET
The most gorgeous city in the United States—that would be San Francisco—steps into the Zeitgeist spotlight this week, along with Hawaii, road tripping, airlines of all sorts and the nemesis the government of Kazakhstan, Borat.
Top United States City
Conde Nast Traveler (Readers’ Choice Awards)
San Francisco
* The city has finished first in the magazine’s survey in 18 of its 19 years. Guess readers can’t get enough of this view.
Most Blogged Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Affordable San Francisco
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RealTravel
Most Viewed Story
World Hum (this week)
Oprah Winfrey, Amanda Congdon and the New Golden Age of the Cross-Country Road Trip
Most Popular Food & Travel Story
Netscape (current)
Airline Will Cater to Smokers
Top Ranked Travel Podcast
Podcast Alley (October)
808Talk
* 808 is the area code for Hawaii, which seems to have already rebounded after the recent 6.7 earthquake.
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
* The New York Times has the first chapter of Bryson’s memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa.
Top International Route Airline
Conde Nast Traveler (Readers’ Choice Awards)
Singapore Airlines
* The carrier has also topped its category for every year of the magazine’s survey but one.
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World Hum
A Week in the Life of American Airlines
The Lust for Travel: Literature as Inspiration
by Michael Yessis | 05.15.06 | 8:33 AM ET
Washington Lawmakers Propose Ban on Sex Tours
by Michael Yessis | 01.27.06 | 11:59 AM ET
Under the provisions of legislation proposed by Sen. Karen Fraser, travel agents in Washington State who book or sell “sex tours” would be committing a Class C felony. The penalty: up to five years in prison and fines up to $10,000. According to the AP, Hawaii already has a similar law on the books, and New York and New Jersey are considering legislation.
“Lost” Wins Emmy, Inspires Travel
by Michael Yessis | 09.21.05 | 4:10 AM ET
The second season of the ABC television show Lost begins tonight, and with it comes a new round of travel stories about folks “set-jetting” to where the show is filmed: Hawaii. It’s the latest in a string of filming locations/destinations to see an influx of travelers and travel writers, and perhaps the strangest considering the show revolves around a group of plane crash survivors. Jaunted has more on the phenomenon, and links to some “Lost”-themed travel stories that explore the ramifications of travel driven by successful movies and TV shows.
Can Hawaii Have Tourism Without Hawaiians?
by Michael Yessis | 11.06.02 | 1:03 AM ET
At the end of my just finished two-week trip to Hawaii, I spent several days in Honolulu near Waikiki Beach. The weather was warm and people wore Aloha shrts while strolling along Kalakaua Avenue. But, for the most part, Waikiki looked and felt like Touristville, America. Theme restaurants abounded. Japanese tourists traveled in packs. And, alas, native Hawaiians were few and far between. It’s a typical phenomenon—people are drawn to a place, then the commercial rush to serve those visitors often corrupts, destroys or simply pushes out the native culture that attracted them in the first place.
Honolulu makes a fine case study, and Peter Apo of the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association uses it in an opinion piece in Sunday’s Honolulu Advertiser. “As a people, Hawaiians are continually disappointed when we try to confront the realities of Hawai’i's contemporary visitor industry landscape,” Apo writes. “Hawai’i's hospitality paradigm is a model of exclusion of the host culture and far from the Hawaiian cultural model of ho’okipa (hospitality).”
Apo explores how modern Hawaiian tourism evolved, and how it affects locals. “It’s unfortunate that of all the players, the host communities have the smallest voice and are not necessarily the direct beneficiaries of tourism. Yet they are the ones being asked to share themselves, their families and their lives with unrelenting waves of strangers. For the most part, they have no choice but to live in tourism’s onslaught and in its wake.”
Resentment is palpable just a half-mile off Waikiki. I visited a locally owned shop, whose proprietor told me not to eat at the restaurants in Waikiki because the “food will make you sick.” She suggested I go to a Hawaiian restaurant up the street “past the evil Starbucks” or, if we had time, to drive across the island to her hometown, Kailua. That, she said, is where one can find a more laid back, friendly Oahu.
I went and had a great time. However, abandoning Waikiki isn’t a solution Apo advocates in his piece: “Not only is Waikiki not beyond redemption, but it is our kuleana as the host culture to recapture it, to take care of it, to nurture it, to be part of the solution and to respect our ancestors by not abandoning them.”
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