Destination: North America
Democracy and the Zócalo
by Maya Kroth | 03.16.11 | 10:14 AM ET
As labor protests raged in Wisconsin, Maya Kroth found herself in Oaxaca, Mexico, getting in touch with American ideals
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Yahoo! BuzzOur Own Apocalypse Now
by Haley Sweetland Edwards | 03.07.11 | 1:08 PM ET
From a football stadium in Seattle to a sweaty nightclub in Saigon, Haley Sweetland Edwards wrestles with the f*cked up magic of war
Confessions of a Travel Snob
by Amy Williams Bernstein | 02.22.11 | 10:41 AM ET
Amy Williams Bernstein considered herself an intrepid, independent traveler. Then she found herself at an all-inclusive Cancun resort.
Video You Must See: ‘Locked in a Vegas Hotel Room with a Phantom Flex’
by Michael Yessis | 02.21.11 | 3:32 PM ET
What goofing around in a Sin City hotel room looks like at 2,564 frames per second
‘You’re from Idaho? Oh, Iowa? Whatever. Same thing, right?’
by Eva Holland | 01.24.11 | 3:18 PM ET
Over at The Atlantic, Midwesterner Ann Friedman contemplates an adult life spent mostly on the coasts:
In New York, San Francisco, and D.C. I got used to hearing, “You’re from Idaho? Oh, Iowa? Whatever. Same thing, right?” This is perhaps why I love to visit cities and parts of the country not typically defined as tourist destinations. Pittsburgh. Peoria. Milwaukee. Wichita. Reno. When I told friends who had only lived on the coasts that I was about to embark on a month-long road trip, most were jealous. They’ve always wanted to do a cross-country drive! To face their fears of the limited menu at Country Kitchen, the bleakness of the Nebraska landscape, sexist good ol’ boys and racist yokels. Maybe to assuage a low-level guilt that they have been to rural India but never rural Indiana.
Ouch.
‘Ruin Porn’ in Detroit
by Eva Holland | 01.24.11 | 2:13 PM ET
In Guernica, John Patrick Leary takes a look at a couple of new books that depict Detroit’s empty urban landscape and ponders the broader trend they’re a part of.
So much ruin photography and ruin film aestheticizes poverty without inquiring of its origins, dramatizes spaces but never seeks out the people that inhabit and transform them, and romanticizes isolated acts of resistance without acknowledging the massive political and social forces aligned against the real transformation, and not just stubborn survival, of the city. And to see oneself portrayed in this way, as a curiosity to be lamented or studied, is jarring for any Detroiter, who is of course also an American, with all the sense of self-confidence and native-born privilege that we’re taught to associate with the United States.
(Via The Daily Dish)
‘Any Bears Around Today?’
by Kim Mance | 12.30.10 | 12:35 PM ET
iStockPhoto Kim Mance ventured into Canada's remote north looking for polar bears. She didn't anticipate becoming prey.
Is ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ Worth Watching, ‘Just for the Scenery’?
by Eva Holland | 11.22.10 | 4:21 PM ET
Jaunted checked out the new reality show and came back with an answer: “You betcha.”
Writer’s Block at Norman Mailer’s House
by Eva Holland | 11.18.10 | 1:01 PM ET
The Smart Set has a dispatch from Provincetown, where freelancer Amy Rowland spent a month as a fellow at Norman Mailer’s house-turned-writers’ retreat—and found herself unable to write. Here’s Rowland:
We were encouraged to write in Mailer’s house, but I found I couldn’t. Sitting in the living room, where Mailer kept dinner companions waiting while he finished writing in the attic, was like trying to write in a shrine. There were photos on the wall: Mailer with Vidal, Mailer with Plimpton, Mailer with Castro, Mailer with Vonnegut, Mailer with Jackie Kennedy.
Once, I wandered out to the porch and plopped down in a white rocking chair with faded pink cushions.
“That was Mailer’s chair,” someone said. “That’s where he sat to watch the water.”
I jumped up from the chair and went back to the wall of photos.
World Travel Watch: Tube Strike in London, Election Worries in Egypt and More
by Larry Habegger | 11.17.10 | 1:26 PM ET
Larry Habegger rounds up global travel news
California’s ‘Kazakh-Land’: Central Asian Theme Park or Stunt?
by Eva Holland | 11.15.10 | 1:23 PM ET
Over at Registan, Michael Hancock investigates Kazakh-Land, a theme park in southern California. Hancock, though, doubts whether the place actually exists, beyond its snazzy website:
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Kazakh-Land! Situated near sunny Malibu, California, it offers something for everyone, from romantic folk-art displays to retirement-style weekend getaways. The website is plenty nice and the word on the inter-tubes [up to this point] is that it’s the real deal. However, there is a lot of suspicious English (especially on the guestbook and caretaker pages) that smells of Russian translation. Like some bad Borat joke, Russian-language descriptions of the theme park name-drop Pamela Anderson and Angelina Jolie. It’s not their fault, of course - these descriptions come off the site’s own guestbook, which reads like a finely translated and prepared proof-of-concept brochure. In other words, I’m skeptical whether any of these people are real.
The rest of the post includes some speculation about the source of the park’s photos (Hollywood movie sets) and the reason (money laundering, real estate concerns) for the hoax. I suppose we also have to consider the possibility that there’s another Borat project in the works? (Via The Atlantic Wire)
My Own Mexican Revolution
by Sarah Menkedick | 11.12.10 | 11:17 AM ET
REUTERS/Daniel LeClair The catcalls and machismo culture were poisoning Sarah Menkedick's relationship with the country she loved. Would she change Mexico, or change herself?
A Mark Twain Pilgrimage
by Eva Holland | 11.11.10 | 4:20 PM ET
Fresh off a trip to the grave of Robert Louis Stevenson, World Hum contributor Catherine Watson visits Mark Twain’s grave in Elmira, New York—and explains how Twain had previously flown under her radar:
America’s most American writer lies in a family plot on a gentle hillside, beside his beloved wife, Livy, surrounded by the graves of their children and her relatives—all under simple, matching headstones.
The name on his marker is the one he was born with, Samuel L. Clemens. The pen name we know him by—which he once claimed to detest—gets second-billing below.
For me, these quiet graves were the end of a quest I hadn’t planned on making. I’d always been a Hemingway fan, with runner-up passions for Robert Louis Stevenson and the Bronte sisters.
But this year—the 100th anniversary of his death—I’ve been immersed in Mark Twain. I’ve been reading almost nothing but his abundant travel writing, with side trips into biographies about him, when I needed a break.
It has felt like living with the man, and his writing is so prolific and varied—and his life so preposterously colorful—that I now wonder how I could have cared about anyone else.
Tour Guide Battle in Southern California Leaves Chinese ‘Very Afraid’
by Michael Yessis | 11.10.10 | 1:02 PM ET
Chinese tourists are increasingly bringing their own guides when they travel to Southern California. Local guides are pissed about losing business and, allegedly, becoming confrontational. The Los Angeles Times breaks it down:
Wang Suqi, president of Beijing-based Total Travel International Travel Service, claims that one of his tour leaders was punched by an American tour guide at Universal Studios Hollywood, and now his tour leaders have asked to be transferred to different tours in Europe and Southeast Asia.
“They’re very afraid,” Wang said. “Even our customers are asking what’s going on.”
The competition for the Chinese tourism business was set off in 2007 when China, for the first time, allowed commercial travel agents to book group pleasure trips to the U.S. But China did not mandate that Chinese tourists hire accredited American tour guides—a requirement that China imposed on other countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.
Of course, it’s mostly about money. Chinese travelers have been unleashed in recent years, and they spend.
In 2009, Chinese travelers spent an average of $6,800 per person per visit, including airfare, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. By 2020, China will become the world’s fourth-largest source of tourists, the United Nation’s World Tourism Organization predicts.
Video You Must See: Six Flags, After Katrina
by Eva Holland | 11.09.10 | 4:03 PM ET
An eerie look at Six Flags New Orleans. The park has been abandoned since Hurricane Katrina, and is scheduled for demolition in January.