Destination: Morocco

Interview With Nicholas Kristof: Traveling and Tweeting Under ‘Half the Sky’

Nicholas Kristof Photo by Fred R. Conrad

David Frey asks the author about his dream vacation, Twitter, travel to hellholes and the trip that changed his life

Read More »


Slate Takes a Ramadan World Tour

Slate Takes a Ramadan World Tour Photo by tinou bao via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by tinou bao via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Writer Jason Rezaian has spent time in five different Muslim-majority countries—Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Iran and Turkey—during the annual month of fasting, and in a short essay he reflects on the subtle (and not-so-subtle) differences in the ways each one celebrates their shared holy month.


Paul Theroux: ‘The Cross-Country Trip is the Supreme Example of the Journey as the Destination’

Yet one of the most intrepid travel writers alive had never driven across the U.S. So when the Smithsonian asked him and five other travel writers to take on their dream assignments, he picked the cross-country trip. He delivered a beautiful story. He writes:

In my life, I had sought out other parts of the world—Patagonia, Assam, the Yangtze; I had not realized that the dramatic desert I had imagined Patagonia to be was visible on my way from Sedona to Santa Fe, that the rolling hills of West Virginia were reminiscent of Assam and that my sight of the Mississippi recalled other great rivers. I’m glad I saw the rest of the world before I drove across America. I have traveled so often in other countries and am so accustomed to other landscapes, I sometimes felt on my trip that I was seeing America, coast to coast, with the eyes of a foreigner, feeling overwhelmed, humbled and grateful.

The other five writers involved are Susan Orlean (Destination: Morocco), Francine Prose (Japan), Geoffrey C. Ward (India), Caroline Alexander (Jamaica) and Frances Mayes (Poland). Here’s Jan Morris’s introduction to the project.


Ethical Travel for the Mindful Tourist

Ethical Travel for the Mindful Tourist Photo by joiseyshowaa (Creative Commons).
Photo by joiseyshowaa (Creative Commons).

Argentina, Bolivia and Bulgaria top the 2008 list of the top ten ethical travel destinations, according to Ethical Traveler, a project of the San Francisco-based nonprofit Earth Island Institute. Researchers studied 70 developing countries “from Albania to Zimbabwe” to see which are actively improving their natural environment and the lives of their people through tourism. Half of the countries on the list are in Latin America but none in Asia, where runaway development has wreaked havoc on the land and human rights abuses continue to worsen.

Read More »


Eight Best Cities for Street Food

Istanbul iStockphoto

Terry Ward lifts the lid on a few of the world's tastiest places to eat the people's cuisine

Read More »


How Should I Spend My Time in Spain?

Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

Read More »


Mint and Djinns in Fes

Morocco, Tea pot Photo by Terry Ward.

Terry Ward wondered if her Moroccan friend believed in genies. Over a pot of tea, she learned just what she wanted to know.

Read More »


Suffering and Smiling: Vanity Fair Does Africa

Africa is hot. Why? So we can save it? Frank Bures deconstructs the magazine's latest issue and what it says about Western views of the continent.

Read More »


Among the Nomads in Morocco

Morocco, like many places, is modernizing. I’ll admit that last time I was in Marrakech, I spent a night in the Ville Nouvelle at a flashy South Beach-style club, sipping top dollar martinis and being wooed by French card players in town for a poker tourney. To really experience traditional Morocco, however, you have to get away from Marrakech’s trendy clubs. Taking that concept to the extreme, the Guardian’s deputy travel editor, Isabel Choat, recently tagged along with a semi-nomadic family during its annual early summer migration from the lowlands to the cooler pastures of the High Atlas mountains.

Read More »


In Morocco, a Khubz in Every Communal Oven

In every neighborhood in Morocco, from Tangier to Agadir, five places are open to the public: a mosque, a school (madrasa), a public fountain, a hammam (public bath) and a communal oven. In Fes, where I studied Arabic in 2003, my host family was fairly well off, so we had our own oven in the garden—a gas-fired number that we had to shoo the pigeons from when we baked.

Read More »


The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: The Seeing Stars Edition

Kelly Slater, Billy Graham and Harry Potter all make the Zeitgeist this week as travelers contemplate Hawaiian surf, learning to speak French, Planet Theme Park and the alleged return of the Loch Ness monster.

Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Q&A: Eight-Time World Champion Surfer Kelly Slater
* He says the sight of the heavens from Mauna Kea (pictured) is probably the best view in Hawaii.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours in Florence

Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Harry Potter, Billy Graham Get Theme Parks

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Travelers Face Frustrating Passport Delays
* Earlier on World Hum: U.S. Passports in Demand: Lines Look ‘Like a Rolling Stones Concert 25 Years Ago’

Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Panoramio
* The site allows users “to locate photos exactly over the place they were taken.” It’s also being acquired by Google.

Most Popular Travel Podcast
iTunes (current)
National Geographic’s Atmosphere
* The pitch: “It’s not quite as cool as teletransporting, but it’s close.”

“Hot This Week” Destination
Yahoo! (this week)
Cheyenne, Wyoming

Read More »


The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Interstate Highways, Hot Destinations and the Mile-High Club

We’re going to France and we’re learning the language. Excellent. Other stops in this week’s Zeitgeist include Spain, Morocco, Cuba, Hawaii and Hot-lanta.

Most Popular Country for Travelers
Reuters/French Tourism Ministry (2006)
France
* 78 million people visited the country last year.

Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
Fodor’s French for Travelers

Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
‘Significant Steps’ Taken in Quest for Morocco-Spain Tunnel

Best Place in the U.S. for a Value Vacation
Hotwire.com Travel Value Index (2007)
Atlanta, Georgia
* Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina; Orlando-Daytona Beach, Florida; and Kansas City, Missouri round out the top five.

Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
Interstate Highway System Simplified
* The U.S. Interstates rendered in the style of a metro-system map. Its designer calls it “map-porn.”

Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
* We still like this book.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
In Cuba, Finding a Tiny Corner of Jewish Life

Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (current)
How to ... Join the Mile-High Club
* The Guardian suggests this.

Most Read Weblog Category
World Hum (this week)
Planet Theme Park
* This story helped it rise to the top.

Read More »


‘Significant Steps’ Taken in Quest for Morocco-Spain Tunnel

Building a tunnel between Morocco and Spain has been on the “official drawing boards” of the countries’ governments for 25 years, according to the Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock, and perhaps on the minds of adventurers—and seasick ferry travelers—for much longer. Now, after rounds of geological tests and a set of blueprints developed by a Swiss firm, engineers say a tunnel underneath the Mediterranean Sea could materialize by 2025. “Government officials on both sides of the Mediterranean say the tunnel would give the economies of southern Europe and North Africa an enormous boost,” writes Whitlock. “But the project is being driven at least as much by intangible benefits: the prospect of uniting two continents that culturally and socially remain a world apart despite their geographic proximity.”

Read More »


Honoring ‘Babel’

I’ve done a bit of complaining about some travel-related films recently, but I have no qualms with Babel. In fact, I was happy to see it win the Golden Globe for best dramatic movie last night. While it doesn’t depict world travel in the most favorable light—among other calamities in the film, Cate Blanchett’s character is shot during a trip to Morocco—it does movingly show how interconnected the world is becoming, and how that doesn’t necessarily make communication across borders (or even within families) any easier. Filmed in rural Morocco, Tokyo and Tijuana, it’s the kind of movie that somehow simultaneously shrinks the world and expands it. It’s ambitious, with a global perspective, and how many movies can you say that about?


National Geographic Adventure’s Top 2007 Destinations

Where to go this year? The world is wide open, but some countries seem particularly good choices now. For the December 2006/January 2007 issue of National Geographic Adventure, I worked with editors on a list of six countries offering compelling reasons to visit soon. Among them: China (now’s a great time to check out the new train to Lhasa); Morocco (for a major splurge before a visit to the High Atlas Mountains, spend a night at the historic, Winston Churchill-approved La Mamounia hotel in Marrakech, due to reopen this year after a renovation); and Brazil (TAM airlines is now flying nonstop between Miami and Manaus, making a visit to the Amazon easier than ever). To further stoke some wanderlust and inspire, the magazine celebrates the feats of a number of travelers, including the “new Magellans,” Colin Angus and Julie Wafael, who recently circumnavigated the globe by walking, cycling, skiing and, yes, rowing.