Destination: New York City
US Airways Plane Crashes Into Hudson River
by Jim Benning | 01.15.09 | 4:07 PM ET
All 155 people on board survived. The Airbus 320 apparently had just taken off from LaGuardia when it hit one or more birds, causing engine trouble. A dramatic rescue ensued. Reports the AP: “The plane was submerged in the icy waters up to the windows, and rescue crews had opened the door and were pulling passengers in yellow life vests from the plane.”
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Yahoo! BuzzWatching for the City Limits
by Emma Jacobs | 01.14.09 | 9:31 AM ET
REUTERS/Jason Reed The sight of the New York City skyline used to transfix Emma Jacobs -- until routine dulled her senses.
Seven Great Time-Lapse Travel Videos
by Jim Benning | 01.13.09 | 9:09 AM ET
Jim Benning sifts through YouTube's accelerated videos to find the seven best
Are Travel Writers the Next Great Competitive Eaters?
by David Farley | 01.12.09 | 10:54 AM ET
Matt Gross. Photo by Jean Liu. I once wrote a story about taking a competitive eater out to three buffet lunches in as many days to see how much he could eat. At the Indian buffet, 400-pound Eric “Badlands” Booker (then the third-ranked competitive eater in the world) proved he was born to indulge. By the 12th trip up to the buffet (I’m not kidding), the restaurant manager pointed out the dessert options, a subtle suggestion that it was time to retire his fork for the day. “Just for that,” Badlands said to me, “I’m going up for more after I finish this plate!”
At the all-you-can-eat sushi the next day, he consumed so much food we had a crowd around our table watching as he put the plate to his mouth and scooped the fish with his chopsticks right down his throat. At the Brazilian steakhouse the final day, Badlands received handshakes form the waiters for his eating prowess.
But I didn’t really know gluttony until a recent outing with writer Matt Gross.
Where We’re Eating: New York, Czech Republic
by David Farley | 01.07.09 | 4:46 PM ET
Morning Links: T-Shirt Justice, Route 66’s International Appeal and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.06.09 | 8:35 AM ET
- The TSA and JetBlue settled with Raed Jarrar for $240,000, more than two years after he was forced to remove a T-shirt with the words “We Will Not Be Silent” in both Arabic and English before boarding a flight.
- Have centuries-old diaries of a “British explorer who saved the real-life Robinson Crusoe” been found?
- Route 66: It’s huge in Belgium and Sweden and the Czech Republic and Norway and…
- A Moscow to Atlanta flight ended up in Newfoundland because of an unruly passenger.
- Air India dismissed “overweight” flight attendants.
- New York City’s 86th Street subway station: It’s “the noisiest, if not the most unlikely, museum in the city.”
- A happy third birthday to Perceptive Travel.
- Chris Patten on “the joys of an Asia-Pacific book tour.”
- Authorities interrupted a German pair’s destination wedding. That’s apparently what happens when the couple consists of a 5-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl who try to take off for Africa while their parents are sleeping.
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Morning Links: Roman Gladiators, Michelin Guides, Prehistoric Airports and More
by Jim Benning | 12.26.08 | 11:58 AM ET
- Air travelers will soon be able to buy carbon offsets from self-service kiosks inside San Francisco Airport.
- A British tourist volunteering at an archaeological dig in Jerusalem discovered hundreds of gold coins dating from the 7th century.
- More trouble in Venice: All that water is causing the Campanile on St. Marks Square to tilt.
- The French edition of Michelin restaurant guide gets a new editor and—gasp—she’s not French.
- Thailand’s tourism economy is enduring its worst slump in decades.
- World Hum contributor Doug Lansky put together an audio slideshow about a new hostel in Stockholm—it’s set inside a jumbo jet.
- A three part series on NPR looks at the rise of earthquake tourism in Sichuan.
- Gladiators could soon return to Rome’s Colloseum. Now that’s ultimate fighting.
- Thomas Friedman just flew from Hong Kong’s state-of-the-art airport to New York’s aging Kennedy. His conclusion: It’s time for the U.S. to reboot. Funny, I had the same feeling not long ago, only I was flying from London’s Heathrow to LAX.
Morning Links: Wynn’s Encore, a ‘Sadistic’ Geography Quiz and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.22.08 | 8:18 AM ET
- Continental Flight 1404 crashed in Denver Saturday night. Thirty-eight passengers were injured. There were no casualties. Investigators are on the scene.
- The first news about the crash apparently came via Twitter—from a guy on board the plane. Here’s his colorful tweet.
- “60 Minutes” examines the state of TSA screening. It’s “security theater,” says one expert.
- Steve Wynn’s Encore opens today in Las Vegas. When asked if he’s worried about opening a new resort In this economic climate, Wynn said, “Are you nuts?” He added: “If I didn’t say yes, you would walk out of here thinking I was crazy.”
- Southwest may begin service to New York City in 2009.
- Matt Gross hit seven airports in four days in search of good eats. He talked a little about it on All Things Considered.
- Thomas Friedman “had no idea that many of those oil paintings that hang in hotel rooms and starter homes across America are actually produced by just one Chinese village.”
- Concierge’s It List 2009 is out.
- The Passports With Purpose fundraiser enters its final week. The raffle was organized by four travel bloggers, including World Hum contributor Pam Mandel.
- The latest in the Washington Post’s excellent Time Zones series: The boom in used car auctions in Johannesburg.
- John Flinn unleashes his “most sadistic geography quiz ever.” No matter how you score, just remember: When it comes to geography, you’re no Sarah Palin.
Pigging Out
by David Farley | 12.18.08 | 2:55 PM ET
David Sedaris put it best in Me Talk Pretty One Day when he recalled meeting his boyfriend and eventually settling in France: “I wound up in Normandy the same way my mother wound up in North Carolina: you meet a guy, relinquish a tiny bit of control, and the next thing you know, you’re eating a different part of the pig.”
It’s true—at least about the pig part: I once watched a sow get slaughtered in the Czech hinterlands and the first offerings turned out to be the beast’s brains, followed by its heart, its blood (as soup), and, finally, fried nuggets of pig fat. But I’d never encountered such parts on the menus of restaurants in the United States. That is, until now.
Morning Links: Idlewild Books, Disaster Tourism and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.18.08 | 9:44 AM ET
- The latest clerk in New York Magazine’s “Ask a Shop Clerk” series: David Del Vecchio, owner of New York City’s Idlewild Books. He says mystery novels are underrated as travel books.
- Mexico City looks to go green.
- Here’s The Year in Google Maps.
- The New York Public Library adds some great old New York photos to its Flickr stream.
- Ian Stevenson creates a video showing the waves of immigration to the United States from 1820 until last year.
- Tim Leffel stresses the importance of being spontaneous while traveling.
- In the wake of Hurricane Ike, Galveston, Texas is the latest place to confront disaster tourism.
- Awesome Tapes from Africa show off awesome cassette tapes from Africa. This recommended track from “The Best of Sagbohan Danialou” is brightening my morning.
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Movie Tourism: ‘An Obsessively Ridiculous, Embarrassing, Empty, and Needy Exercise’?
by Eva Holland | 12.17.08 | 3:52 PM ET
I’ve been thinking lately about the motivations behind movie tourism—not the “Wow, New Zealand sure looked beautiful in that elf movie” variety, but the literal, “X was filmed here” brand of movie-related travel. What is it that prompts people to run up the steps, Rocky-style, in Philadelphia, or to slide into a booth at New York’s Katz’s Deli and gigglingly declare, “I’ll have what she’s having”?
Dirt Candy, Anyone?
by David Farley | 12.17.08 | 12:44 PM ET
Hi there. I’m David Farley, World Hum’s resident food blogger. World Hum asked me to cover dining and food after recently watching me consume food and drink with eyebrow-raising fury at a New York restaurant. When I was young—we’re talking five and six years old—I received constant accolades from my mom for my eating prowess. And while I’m not necessarily in the same league with, say, Andrew Zimmern, I’ll still try just about anything at least once. Which means I’ve eaten everything from insects to the innards of large mammals. But when it comes to food, I can be quite the fancy boy (I love foie gras) and completely unfussy (I also love burgers and fried chicken).
With that behind me, Dirt Candy, anyone?
You can’t judge a book by its cover, so should you judge a restaurant by its name? Probably not. But would you want to eat at a vegetarian restaurant called Dirt Candy? Metromix recently named the worst-named new restaurants in New York.
Morning Links: ‘Ugly American’ Ad, World’s Best Hotels and More
by Michael Yessis | 12.17.08 | 8:57 AM ET
- A Burger King ad featuring “Whopper Virgins,” aka “remote Chang Mai villagers,” is being called “‘corporate colonialism,’ ‘cultural bullying’ and the worst kind of Ugly Americanism.” Stacy Peralta, a legend of my childhood, directed the ad.
- A tower collapsed at Whistler-Blackcomb yesterday, injuring more than a dozen and “and trapping other skiers for hours in dangling cars during a cold snap.”
- Travel + Leisure released its annual list of the 500 best hotels in the world.
- The casinos are behind the new weekend express trains between New York City and Atlantic City.
- Why do physicians write so well? Among those cited: Sometime travel writer, the late Michael Crichton.
- Health Magazine lists America’s Healthiest Airports.
- TSA in 2008: Gadling chronicles a year of being dumb.
- It’s sad that this story—37% of Americans Unable to Locate America on Map of America—had to include a disclaimer: “This post is a satire.” Though after skimming through the dumb things the TSA did this year, perhaps I’m being a little too optimistic in my belief in the competence of my fellow Americans.
Emergency Rations: Lessons From a 16-Hour Amtrak Ride
by Eva Holland | 12.15.08 | 1:17 PM ET
I have this theory about successful budget transit: that the key to surviving a cross-country Greyhound ride, or a bargain-basement flight with three changes (all in small regional airports without so much as a Starbucks, naturally) is to never, ever be caught without a snack. After all, the only thing worse than being forced to buy, and eat, that simultaneously-stale-and-soggy packaged tuna sandwich at the truck stop is not having the option of eating anything at all. Right?
I first started packing what I think of as my “emergency rations” on a trip to India several years ago. The granola bars I’d stuffed into every corner of my backpack were handy on long train rides—and after I (inevitably) got sick, they became invaluable, my sole source of nutrition until I could stand to contemplate curry again. That success led to more advanced efforts: I can still remember the looks I got from other passengers when I boarded a Halifax-Montreal overnight train with an enormous Tupperware full of cold stir fry under my arm. But my habit of packing lunch didn’t evolve into a full-blown theory until one fateful Amtrak ride, from New York to Montreal, around this time last year.
World Hum’s Restless Legs Reading
by World Hum | 12.11.08 | 4:21 PM ET
World Hum teamed up with Restless Legs Reading Series host and World Hum contributor David Farley in New York City for a night of readings for the wanderlust stricken.