Destination: San Francisco
Interview with Bonnie Tsui: ‘American Chinatown’
by Jenna Schnuer | 10.07.09 | 10:07 AM ET
Photo by Matthew Elliott Jenna Schnuer talks to the author of a new book about American Chinatowns and why "broken Chinese is the mark of being Chinese American"
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Yahoo! BuzzBook Passage Travel Writers Conference 2009
by Jim Benning | 08.07.09 | 2:00 PM ET
The annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference kicks off Thursday in lovely Corte Madera, just north of San Francisco. Given the tumult in the publishing world, this year should be interesting, to say the least. The faculty lineup is impressive, as always, including such writers and editors as Tim Cahill, Jen Leo, Rolf Potts, Spud Hilton, John Flinn, Phil Cousineau, Pauline Frommer, Larry Habegger, Michael Shapiro and Wendy Perrin.
I’ll be teaching a three-hour class each morning on Travel Writing in the Digital Age. We’ll cover everything from blogging to producing audio slideshows to writing personal essays and web-friendly articles. And we’ll dig into the business side of things. Jen Leo and Rolf Potts have promised to pop in to offer their perspective.
Travel Song of the Day: ‘Lights’ by Journey
by Alicia Imbody | 08.04.09 | 2:17 PM ET
Moon-Gazing Around the Globe
by Alicia Imbody | 08.03.09 | 10:32 AM ET
From Puebla to Paris, 12 photos by moonstruck world travelers
See the full photo slideshow »
Mapped: Literary San Francisco
by Michael Yessis | 07.21.09 | 10:28 AM ET
The San Francisco Chronicle commissioned a beautiful map of San Francisco “composed of some of the very words—from novels, poems and essays—that animate our city.” It’s “loosely inspired” by the literary map of St. Petersburg, Russia, we linked to in February. (via @roncharles)
Samurais and Maharajas: It’s an Asian Art Summer
by Julia Ross | 06.08.09 | 3:34 PM ET
I’m fortunate to live in a city that’s home to one of the best Asian art museums in the world—the Smithsonian’s Freer-Sackler Gallery—but I’m not averse to traveling to see a really great museum or exhibit elsewhere. In fact, on a trip to Dublin last fall, I spent an entire afternoon immersed in the wonderful Chester Beatty Library, gazing at Persian paintings and Islamic manuscripts. I know, I know—I was supposed to be out drinking Guinness, but I couldn’t help myself.
Playing Chicken in San Francisco
by David Farley | 02.26.09 | 3:25 PM ET
Chickens for pets and meat? Civil Eats checks out the “urban hen” trend happening in San Francisco. Like most people, I’d have a hard time killing something I’ve been taking care of for a while, but at the same time, knowing where your meat (and eggs) are coming from is a good thing. I once got flack from animal-rights people over a story I wrote about taking part of a pig killing in the Czech hinterlands. It’s true: it wasn’t pretty, but my critics missed the main point: raising your own animal and killing it yourself seems a lot more ethical than supporting factory-farming.
The Grateful Dead: Looking Back at ‘a New World’
by Eva Holland | 01.23.09 | 11:15 AM ET
In the wake of the news about a new Grateful Dead tour, the good folks at Rock’s Backpages have dug up a thoughtful look back at the band’s early impact on one suburban teenager. Originally written to coincide with the 2001 release of The Golden Road, the Dead’s box set, Michael Goldberg’s essay recalls his first encounters with the band as a 14-year-old in Marin County.
Morning Links: Lego Hotel, Strange Travel Jobs and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.21.09 | 8:30 AM ET
- Throw a can of tomato juice on a plane, get charged with terrorism?
- San Diego’s Legoland looks to build a 250-room Lego-themed hotel.
- Passengers on US Airways Flight 1549—the one that landed in the Hudson River—are getting $5,000 each.
- The 10 strangest jobs in the travel industry by one count include driver of karaoke-equipped taxi and coconut safety engineer.
- All those extra charges on Ryanair add up to a lot of pounds.
- Environmental groups won a restraining order to stop oil and gas exploration of more than 100,000 acres of land in Utah.
- Brave New Traveler attends the Chuck Palahniuk school of travel.
- Jason Wilson throws down some presidential cocktails. Baracktail, anyone?
- Here are some photos of San Francisco’s Bush Street ... or is it Obama Street? Pranksters changed some signs overnight. When I lived in S.F. in 2000, signs were changed from Bush Street to Puppet Street.
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Morning Links: Mexico City’s War on Gum, South Pole Trek and More
by Michael Yessis | 01.09.09 | 9:15 AM ET
- Deep-fried bacon and butter powered three Canadians in the fastest-ever trek to the South Pole.
- Mexico City has had it with all the gum.
- Another amusing story about how it is no longer 1967 in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury—except the parts of Haight-Ashbury that recall 1967.
- Interesting piece on 2008’s “cartography boom” and the way maps are changing the way we organize and look at the world.
- Can you get better travel deals by deleting your cookies? A case study.
- This Just In asks what the economic downturn means for coverage in high-end travel magazines.
- Travel book publishers are having problems in this financial climate, too. (Via Eoin Purcell)
- Fewer people live in Montpelier, Vermont (7,495) than any other U.S. capital, yet it supports four independent bookstores. Go Montpelier.
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The Myth of the Carbon-Neutral Air Traveler?
by Joanna Kakissis | 01.02.09 | 2:27 PM ET
By 2025, air travel could hurl nearly 1.5 billion tons of carbon annually into the environment—about a half of what the 457 million people at the 27-nation European Union currently emit. If you care about the environment, this is a terrible trend to ponder on an international flight.
I’m in Athens, Greece, now spending the holidays with my family but my flight from Denver, Colorado, did its small part to pollute the earth, producing some 5,243 lbs of CO2, according to the TerraPass carbon footprint calculator. I felt bad, to some extent, but air travel is the most efficient way to visit people and places when we’re on tight schedules. (And there are many other things we can do to be better eco-travelers until the day all planes can run on biofuel, but that’s another blog post altogether.)
Some airlines already offer travelers opportunities to buy offsets that would help pay for carbon-reducing projects or programs (and perhaps reduce their eco-guilt). And San Francisco International Airport is set to become the nation’s (and perhaps the world’s) first airport with self-service kiosks where travelers can swipe their credit cards to buy carbon offset credits.
American Beer: Beyond Bud Light
by Eva Holland | 05.19.08 | 10:45 AM ET
I’m not sure I agree with the Toronto Star’s theory that the rise of quality craft beer in the United States is a new trend. It seems to me that anyone who’s been paying attention has known there’s more to the American brewing scene than the Silver Bullet and the King of Beers for quite some time. Still, I enjoyed Josh Rubin’s take on the state of the beer nation and, among things, its “hop-heads.” Whlle we’re on the subject, if you’re headed to Denver, Portland or San Francisco this summer, Fodor’s suggests beer-related tours, festivals, brewpubs and day trips in those “hoppy cities.”
Related on World Hum:
* Rural Pubs in Ireland Becoming ‘So Yesterday’
Photo by spcummings via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Will Mr. Newsham Go to Washington?
by Jim Benning | 04.24.08 | 10:49 AM ET
Perhaps. Brad Newsham, author of the travel memoir Take Me With You, announced via email that he’s collecting signatures to become a write-in candidate to represent California’s 9th District, now represented by Democrat (and National Passport Month supporter) Barbara Lee. Newsham explained that he disagrees with her on only one issue, “but it’s a fundamental issue for me, and perhaps for you: the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. For me, this issue is so important that it eclipses all others.” Newsham, pictured here running naked on a Hawaiian beach, has been rallying for the pair’s impeachment.
‘Strange Travel Suggestions’ and the Art of Telling a Good Tale
by Jim Benning | 03.31.08 | 12:38 PM ET
Travel stories are usually told in writing, or on film, or over a meal. But Jeff Greenwald is the rare travel writer who has turned his tales into a one-man stage show. It’s called “Strange Travel Suggestions,” and I caught it at last year’s Book Passage travel writing conference. I found it funny, fast-moving and surprisingly compelling. Judging by the enthusiastic response from others in the audience, I wasn’t the only one. In the show, Greenwald celebrates adventures in far-flung places. Even better, with audience input, he captures that addictive (and often elusive) sense about travel that anything can happen around your next turn.
2007 Travel Movie Awards: Entirely Arbitrary and Non-Comprehensive Picks
by Eva Holland | 02.22.08 | 12:00 PM ET
In honor of this weekend’s Oscars ceremony, I’ve put together a few shout-outs to some of my favorite travel-related movie moments of the year. These picks make an odd collection, but each one made me curious about a place I’d never been, or made me see one that I had visited in an entirely new light.
Best Turning of a Romantic Travel Cliché on its Head
2 Days in Paris
Plenty of movies show people falling in love, in two days, in Paris. In fact, in a global vote for the most romantic city in the world, Paris would probably be John McCain to everywhere else’s Mike Huckabee. So it’s a bold move on director Julie Delpy’s part to chronicle the unraveling of a relationship there instead.
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