Destination: Kenya
Shrinking Planet Headline of the Day: ‘Facebook Swahili Version Launched’
by Jim Benning | 06.15.09 | 2:15 PM ET
Facebook is now available in roughly 50 languages, and Swahili was the second African language to get its own version of the social networking site, the BBC reports.
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Yahoo! BuzzKenyan Eco-Tourism Camp Draws on the ‘Obama Magic’
by Joanna Kakissis | 03.30.09 | 11:20 AM ET
In 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama stayed in a room at Basecamp Explorer, which is set on 40 acres at the edge of the Masai Mara National Game Reserve. Now that he’s President Obama, the room where he stayed is already popular with visitors, camp general manager Annette Bulman told Business Daily Africa.
The so-called “Obama room” is spare, with a bed, two African stools and a table with a framed photo of Obama and some Basecamp employees. Its wooden porch has a hammock and overlooks the Talek River. Basecamp Explorer is already one of the top eco-tourism facilities in Kenya. Could the “Obama room” also make it one of the most popular in Africa?
Morning Links: Japan’s ‘Ambassadors of Cute,’ Obama’s Position on Travel and More
by Michael Yessis | 03.13.09 | 8:06 AM ET
- Australia floats a plan to offer tourists free flights to the country, provided they spend a certain amount of money while visiting. (via Jaunted)
- IgoUgo lists 10 places to go to drink iconic drinks.
- Out: Sears Tower. In: Willis Tower.
- Airport living: A Finnish woman apparently spent more than two months calling Berlin’s Tegel airport home. (via Gridskipper)
- Japan unveils its “Ambassadors of Cute.” Metro has a photo.
- Kenya slashes visa fees to encourage more travelers to visit.
- The latest Washington Post Time Zones piece: Eating in Tehran with Thomas Erdbrink.
- The White House clarified President Obama’s position on travel: Travel on federal bailout money bad. A strong travel industry good.
- Finally, in the Onion TV listings: Crash Cab. Description: “In this hit game show, unsuspecting taxi passengers must answer general knowledge trivia questions correctly to prevent their cab from careening into the nearest storefront or bridge abutment.” (via @Marilyn_Res)
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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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Morning Links: A New Way to See the Prado, Cuban Tourism and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.14.09 | 8:00 AM ET
El Tres De Mayo by Goya (via Wikipedia) - An American in Spain writes about studying Euskera, the “clearest sign of Basque identity.”
- Greenpeace buys land in effort to halt a third runway at Heathrow. It’s now the prime minister’s move.
- Here’s an interesting project: Masterpieces from the Prado on Google Earth.
- Jonathan Raban on the best presidential writers. He notes some of the travel bits of Barack Obama’s “Dreams From My Father.”
- Cuba reported huge tourism numbers in 2008. It could grow if Obama implements the policy outlined by Hillary Clinton.
- A steady flow of flights from Europe—and “tightened restrictions in Thailand and elsewhere in Asia”—are fueling sex tourism in Mombasa, Kenya.
- A couple of long-term travelers share ten lessons of the road. No. 2: Smile.
- The BBC offers some tips on landing that best job in the world.
- Lawlessness reigns at San Diego’s skate parks. Given the city’s financial shape, officials decided not to staff them. Skateboarders have flocked to the parks for the “[f]reedom to smoke while they skate, drink beer, bring dogs, ride minibikes amid the skateboards and scrawl graffiti.”
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How to Prevent a Monkey Attack
by Jason Daley | 12.30.08 | 10:25 AM ET
REUTERS Jason Daley explains how to avoid getting bitten, slapped or shoved by an ornery primate.
Kenya to Obama Tourists: Bring it on!
by Rolf Potts | 10.29.08 | 4:17 PM ET
The Financial Times reports on plans in Nairobi and elsewhere in Kenya to welcome travelers interested in “the Obama experience.” My favorite part of the story: East African Breweries brews a beer called Senator. So, says one bartender, “People now say ‘I want an Obama’ when asking for Senator.”
A Tourist With a Shovel and a Hoe
by Daniela Petrova | 08.27.08 | 2:30 PM ET
Photo by Daniela Petrova. When she arrived in Kenya to volunteer with the Maasai, Daniela Petrova looked down her nose at tourists there to have a good time. But was her own motivation much different?
Violence, Tourism and Hemingway in Kenya
by Eva Holland | 04.14.08 | 9:13 AM ET
In the Globe and Mail, Stephanie Nolen offers alternative safari destinations for travelers scared off by the recent post-election violence in Kenya. For those of us not currently planning a wildlife-peeping trip to Africa, though, the most interesting part of the story is Nolen’s scene-setting introduction: from the normally hustling (and now abandoned) Exchange, a Nairobi bar once haunted by Hemingway himself. She writes:
A Journey to Remote Kenya to Meet Granny Obama
by Jim Benning | 02.25.08 | 10:17 AM ET
Fascinating column Sunday from Nicholas D. Kristof, who visits a remote village in western Kenya to meet the elderly woman Barack Obama calls his grandmother. She’s illiterate and lives without electricity or running water. Among the wacky political highlights: “You might think that all Kenyans would be vigorously supporting Mr. Obama. But Kenya has been fractured along ethnic lines in the last two months, so now Mr. Obama draws frenzied support from the Luo ethnic group of his ancestors, while many members of the rival Kikuyu group fervently support Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
U.S. Issues New Kenya Travel Alert
by Jim Benning | 02.01.08 | 9:50 AM ET
As post-election violence increases and the World Bank threatens to suspend projects, the U.S. State Department urged citizens Thursday to “strongly consider the risks of travel to Kenya at this time,” adding, “U.S. citizens should avoid all travel to the cities of Kisumu, Nakuru and Naivasha, and defer all non-essential travel to the remaining portions of Nyanza, Western, and Rift Valley provinces.”
Kenya: To Go or Not to Go?
by Jim Benning | 01.09.08 | 5:37 PM ET
That’s the question travelers are asking in light of the violence that has followed Kenya’s Dec. 27 presidential election.
Year Off to a Rocky Start for Travelers
by Jim Benning | 01.02.08 | 10:57 AM ET
As a result of post-election violence, visitors to Kenya are getting police escorts from Mombasa’s airport and facing fuel shortages in the Rift Valley. In southern Chile, 54 travelers were rescued in Conguillio National Park after the Llaima volcano erupted (a “violenta erupción,” declared El Mercurio). But it’s not all lava and chaos in travel news: Members of the Nuestros Ángeles de El Salvador marching band made it to southern California just in time for yesterday’s Rose Parade after their funding for flights fell through and they had to make a last-minute road trip—from Central America.
‘Elderly White Women’ Look to Kenya for Sex Tourism
by Michael Yessis | 11.26.07 | 11:55 AM ET
Residents along the Kenyan coast “estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex,” according to a Reuters story. The country is “just full of big young boys who like us older girls,” a pair of 50- and 60-something tourists from England tells correspondent Jeremy Clarke. By “big young boys,” the ladies seem to be referring to consenting 20-something men, which makes the arrangements legal. That doesn’t make it right, though.
From Fiji to Kenya, Travel Hot Spots Brace for Global Warming
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.01.07 | 2:17 PM ET
A ski resort without snow. A scuba club whose coral reefs have succumbed to warmer and stormier seas. A water-guzzling golf resort in a desertifying area. Faced with global warming, the tourism industry must adapt to scenarios like these around the world or risk losing tourists, Elisabeth Rosenthal writes in The New York Times.
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