Destination: North America
Audio Story: Tagish Elvis and Me
by Pam Mandel | 06.23.10 | 8:50 AM ET
In Skagway, Alaska, Pam Mandel finds an unlikely way to salvage a bad trip
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Yahoo! BuzzHow to Taxi Like a New Yorker in New York City
by Layne Mosler | 06.21.10 | 10:39 AM ET
iStockPhoto Hailing a cab in the Big Apple takes technique. Riding like a local requires panache. Cab driver Layne Mosler explains.
World Travel Watch: Violence Returns to Medellin, G20 Restrictions in Toronto and More
by Larry Habegger | 06.16.10 | 11:32 AM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
President Obama on the Gulf Coast: ‘Come Down Here and Visit’
by Eva Holland | 06.14.10 | 4:38 PM ET
The POTUS is visiting the Gulf Coast today—and he’s urging other Americans to do the same. USA Today’s The Oval blog quotes Obama:
There’s still a lot of opportunity for visitors to come down here. There are a lot of beaches that have not been affected and will not be affected. If people want to help, the best way to help is to come down here and visit.
The Oval dubs the suggestion “oil spill tourism,” but I’m not sure voyeur-style disaster tourism is quite what Obama has in mind. Still, whether it comes in the form of beachgoers who manage to avoid the spill or the morbidly curious aiming to witness its effects, it’s good to see tourism to the beleaguered area being encouraged.
Can’t make it in person anytime soon? World Hum contributor Robert Reid is tweeting from the Florida panhandle. Elsewhere, The Big Picture has a sobering photo essay illustrating the spill’s effects nearly two months in.
London Mayor: ‘Harry Potter is Not American’
by Eva Holland | 06.11.10 | 12:01 PM ET
Universal Orlando’s latest theme park creation, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, opens next week—and London Mayor Boris Johnson will definitely not be attending any ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Strong words from the Mayor:
I deeply and bitterly resent that Orlando is about to become the official place of pilgrimage for every Harry Potter fan on earth… Because the fact is that Harry Potter is not American. He is British. Where is Diagon Alley, where they buy wands and stuff? It is in London, and if you want to get into the Ministry of Magic you disappear down a London telephone box. The train for Hogwarts goes from King’s Cross, not Grand Central Station.
Don’t worry, London. I’m sure there are still plenty of Potter fans that will want to visit the, er, not-quite-real thing. (Via The Book Bench)
76-Second Travel Show: America’s Best Beach?
by Robert Reid | 06.09.10 | 2:34 PM ET
Sorry, California and Hawaii. Robert Reid heads to Southampton, New York to visit the current champion.
Confessions of a Focus Group Traveler
by LiAnne Yu | 06.08.10 | 11:14 AM ET
iStockPhoto When LiAnne Yu visits other countries, she watches people from behind a one-way mirror. She now knows which cultures prefer jeans that accentuate curvy butts.
Tracking Twain and the Mississippi
by Jim Benning | 06.04.10 | 12:03 PM ET
Laura Barton followed the river through 10 states to better know Twain. Her story about the journey also touches on the music and other literature of the river. It’s a lovely piece.
I kept in mind a line from “Old Glory”, Jonathan Raban’s account of his own journey down the river: “It is called the Mississippi, but it is more an imaginary river than a real one.”
It had been shaped in my own imagination by a confederacy of literature and song lyrics. I pictured it as described by Twain, or Eudora Welty, or William Faulkner, who saw “alluvial swamps threaded by black, almost motionless bayous and impenetrable with cane and buckvine and cypress and ash and oak and gum.” I imagined it as it was conjured up by Paul Robeson in “Ol’ Man River”, or in the songs of Johnny Cash or Charlie Patton, a mighty force capable of carrying away the one you loved, of breaking levees and washing the lowlands of Greenville and Leland and Rosedale, and I saw the delta through Paul Simon’s eyes, “shining like the national guitar”.
Side note: The more time goes by, the more I appreciate Paul Simon’s “Graceland” for its power to evoke the river and the region.
The World at Home
by Frank Bures | 06.03.10 | 11:05 AM ET
After years on the move, Frank Bures returned to Minnesota. Now, in his Minneapolis neighborhood, he finds himself transported across the globe.
See the full audio slideshow: »
The Roads Home
by Tom Swick | 06.02.10 | 9:43 AM ET
On a bi-coastal life amid the bridges of the Delaware River
Video You Must See: ‘Running on Empty’ in Los Angeles
by Michael Yessis | 05.28.10 | 10:45 AM ET
Ross Ching has beautifully adapted Matt Logue's Empty L.A. concept.
World Travel Watch: Violence in Jamaica, World Cup Preparations in South Africa and More
by Larry Habegger | 05.26.10 | 11:50 AM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
What Kiss Cams Say About Cities
by Michael Yessis | 05.24.10 | 2:22 PM ET
I love this idea from a sportswriter I usually can’t stand: The Kiss Cam as a two-minute glimpse into a city’s soul. In this case, Bill Plaschke’s talking about the Kiss Cam at Staples Center in Los Angeles during Lakers’ games.
Nowhere, it seems, are the couples as animated, or the crowd as involved, or the message about the heart of Los Angeles any more clear. In a night filled with supermen, it is a brief, heartwarming reminder that the Lakers have been built upon the hopes and ideals of those who are real.
In a town where everything is supposedly disposable, no Kiss Cam moment is cheered louder than a smooch between an elderly couple. In a town that supposedly doesn’t trumpet family values, the second-loudest cheers occur for the forehead pecks of a parent on a child.
The third-most popular Kiss Cam moment? Hugh Hefner sitting in a luxury suite kissing three or four bunnies. C’mon, this is still Hollywood.
Gawker’s Guide to New York City in the Summer
by Eva Holland | 05.21.10 | 12:14 PM ET
Brian Moylan offers some advice for peaceful co-existence between visitors and locals on the busy streets of New York this summer—though some of it, like the suggestion that tourists should stay strictly on the beaten path of big-time Manhattan attractions, seems more geared towards the comfort of city-dwellers than the enjoyment of newcomers.
Our own Mike Barish shared his tips for a successful holiday visit to New York this past winter.
Seven Breakfasts Every World Traveler Must Eat
by Terry Ward | 05.20.10 | 11:57 AM ET
iStockPhoto Petit dejeuner, frühstück, desayuno -- call it what you will. Terry Ward dishes on some of the world's great breakfasts.
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