Destination: India
Elizabeth Gilbert: ‘Eat, Pray, Love’
by Frank Bures | 02.20.06 | 11:23 PM ET
In "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia," Elizabeth Gilbert turns to travel in an effort to find, well, everything. Frank Bures writes that her journey will leave you smiling in your liver.
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Yahoo! BuzzHow to Tilt Your Head Like an Indian
by Kavita Pillay | 01.30.06 | 3:36 PM ET
A well-placed "Namaste" or "As-Salaam-Alaikum" might get a conversation started in India, but subtly tilting your head is the subcontinent's secret to real communication. Kavita Pillay explains the motion that speaks a thousand words.
Christopher Wakling: “Beneath the Diamond Sky”
by Frank Bures | 10.24.05 | 8:25 AM ET
A new travel novel tells the story of Western travelers taken hostage in Kashmir. Frank Bures asks the author about risky travel, and about how his own journey inspired the tale.
International Travel Film Festival Opens Friday In Kerala
by Michael Yessis | 09.08.05 | 12:37 AM ET
The first International Travel Film Festival kicks off three days of travel movies September 9 at the Kalabhavan Cinema Theatre in Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala, India, and it looks like none of Rex Pickett’s road movie picks made the final cut.
Through Amsterdam with Seth Stevenson
by Michael Yessis | 08.29.05 | 7:26 AM ET
Slate ran another five-part Well-Traveled series last week, Should I Move to Amsterdam? by Seth Stevenson. It’s insightful and quite funny, a mix that also helped one of his previous efforts for Slate, Trying Really Hard to Like India, make the pages of the upcoming 2005 Best American Travel Writing anthology. It gets a big shout out from editor Jamaica Kincaid in her foreward: “It is essays like Stevenson’s that keep me reading through pile after pile of mediocre travel writing.” Stevenson’s Amsterdam stories are also available via podcast.
Gadling’s Erik Olsen on Current TV
by Jim Benning | 08.01.05 | 12:31 PM ET
Sometimes the blogosphere and the non-blog world meet in ways worth pointing out. In this case, Erik Olsen of the Gadling travel blog notes that a video he shot at Varanasi, India, will air today on Al Gore’s highly publicized new cable network, Current TV. The video was a finalist in a network contest, and a recent Time magazine story about the network called Olsen’s piece “a gripping, sensitively shot video of Indian families cremating their loved ones on the Ganges.” To which Olsen responds, “That’s positive, right?” We’d say so, Erik. Congrats.
Planet Theme Park: “Disneyland on the Ganges”
by Michael Yessis | 04.29.05 | 10:45 PM ET
Bye-bye Mickey, Minnie and Donald. Welcome Ram, Hanuman and Krishna! The latter trio will be the central attractions at Gangadham, the world’s first Hindu theme park. The BBC reports that the 25-acre theme park will open in 2007 on the banks of the Ganges, in the north Indian pilgrimage town of Haridwar. “If the project takes off, it will move on to an international level,” writes Kathleen McCaul. “The plan is to open parks in Trinidad, Bali, Fiji and Thailand - and perhaps even Orlando, Los Angeles and London.”
Girl Power in the Land of the Maharajahs
by Terry Ward | 04.20.05 | 9:03 PM ET
Terry Ward took heat from her American friends when she strayed from convention to travel the world. In an Indian guesthouse, she learned that some struggles are universal.
Following “Mr. Gandhi”
by Jim Benning | 04.14.05 | 9:25 PM ET
“Tourism Brings Emotional Issues to a Practical Level”
by Michael Yessis | 04.07.05 | 4:54 PM ET
Parag Khanna’s recent trip to Lahore, Pakistan—he traveled with his father, who was returning to the place he was born for the first time since the 1947 partition that created the country—was a revelation. As an American of Indian descent, Khanna wondered how he and his family would be received in Pakistan. The surprises began the moment they arrived.
The Life of a Traveling Writer
by Jim Benning | 10.05.04 | 7:13 PM ET
He’s Really, Really, Really Trying to Like India
by Michael Yessis | 09.30.04 | 7:19 PM ET
The last time Seth Stevenson went to India he just “haaaaaaated it.” Yes, that’s seven As, which is a whole lot of hate. But he’s trying again, this time with his girlfriend. He’s chronicling his second effort in India all this week on Slate. So far he’s puked a little, sought a little spirituality, and been, in general, quite funny while doing it. “It seems there exists a sort of Hindu metaphysics known as Ayurveda, which aims to heal both body and spirit (and, most important, has been championed by Deepak Chopra),” he writes. “I figure this will do the trick. And since they happen to have an Ayurvedic spa at our beach resort, I also figure: Why not seek deeper meaning on a massage table?”
Utne on Travel
by Michael Yessis | 05.26.04 | 12:41 AM ET
The always interesting Utne magazine devotes a section to travel in its May/June issue. Several original and reprinted stories are featured, including one about organic farms that offer room and board for travelers, a snapshot of pre-3/11 Madrid and an excellent essay from Outpost magazine called “Misguided Guidebooks?” In it, Chris Turner contrasts his two favorite restaurants in Delhi, Karim’s and T.G.I. Friday’s. “[Karim’s] embodies practically everything the indie guides—your Rough Guides, your Footprint and Moon handbooks, and of course your Lonely Planets—stand for: tradition, value, authenticity.” But what about the American chain restaurant? “During the nightly happy hour, South Delhi’s T.G.I. Friday’s is the place to see the city’s new generation of yuppies ... The place is packed to overflowing with young Delhiites at play—decked out smartly in trendy casual wear, quaffing two-for-one drafts, chattering into cell phones. this is not the India of postcards but rather modern India as it actually is.” The piece explores the notion of what makes for an “authentic” travel experience and, unfortunately, it’s not available online. In fact, none of the stories are unless you’re a subscriber or want to spend $2.95 per story.
‘I Get Off a Plane, 17 Hours Out of Joint, and Tell Naked Secrets to a Person I Know I Don’t Trust’
by Michael Yessis | 03.08.04 | 7:53 PM ET
Who else besides Pico Iyer would write a 3,700-word piece about jet lag? His sprawling story, adapted from his upcoming book “Sun After Dark: Flights Into the Foreign,” appeared in Sunday’s New York Times magazine. “I often think that I have traveled into a deeply foreign country under jet lag, somewhere more mysterious in its way than India or Morocco,” he writes. “A place that no human had ever been until 40 or so years ago and yet, now, a place where more and more of us spend more and more of our lives. It’s not quite a dream state, but it’s certainly not wakefulness, and though it seems as if we’re visiting another continent, there are no maps or guidebooks to this other world. There are not even any clocks.”
Visit 180 Countries in One Afternoon and Get Free Drinks
by Michael Yessis | 11.24.03 | 9:48 PM ET
It’s possible at the World Travel Mart, the annual gathering of representatives from nations, airlines, car rental companies, cruise lines, hotels, railways, regional tourist boards and just about every other travel-related business you can think of. They put the best spin on their “product” for thousands of tour operators, travel agents and, of course, travel writers in search of stories, freebies and potent cocktails—not necessarily in that order. Cleo Paskal of Canada’s National Post traveled to this year’s Mart in Birmingham, England, and found it to be “a surreal event.”