Destination: United States
Arthur Frommer Is Steering Clear of Arizona
by Eva Holland | 08.19.09 | 2:39 PM ET
He isn’t quite calling for a full travel boycott—yet—but in his latest blog post, Frommer expresses his concerns over the recent appearances by gun-toting citizens at a Phoenix political event, and makes it clear that he won’t visit the state anytime soon.
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Yahoo! BuzzOrlando Memories
by Tom Swick | 08.19.09 | 10:21 AM ET
Contemplating and celebrating the world of travel
Jeffrey Goldberg Goes Whale Watching
by Eva Holland | 08.18.09 | 3:31 PM ET
And if he had to summarize the Cape Cod excursion in one word? Awesome. From his blog over at The Atlantic: “I don’t mean ‘awesome’ in a juvenile way, I mean ‘awesome’ as in, ‘if God did indeed create the earth, he did a bang-up job in the large mammal department…’ It’s impossible to describe the sight of a finback whale forty feet from where you stand. I’ll say this—you and your problems shrink in significance.”
Joel Stein in Las Vegas: ‘I Have Come for Revenge’
by Michael Yessis | 08.18.09 | 2:19 PM ET
He went to Las Vegas to take advantage of the city when it’s down. “For the first time ever,” he writes in Time, “it is possible to complete a monetary exchange in Las Vegas and feel bad for the other person.” But you know what? He doesn’t feel bad about it. Good story, but, as someone who loves Vegas, I found it a bit painful to read.
Bollywood Mega-Star Questioned at Newark
by Eva Holland | 08.17.09 | 1:52 PM ET
"My Name is Khan" poster via Bollywood Hungama Shah Rukh Khan is one of Bollywood’s best-known stars, and his apparent detention for questioning at Newark Liberty International Airport this weekend has touched off a minor diplomatic incident between the U.S. and India. The silver lining for the actor? Plenty of free publicity for “My Name is Khan,” his upcoming movie about—wait for it—an Indian traveler’s struggles with racial profiling in America.
Jack Kerouac: Canadian Icon?
by Michael Yessis | 08.14.09 | 2:37 PM ET
Dining on Americana
by Alicia Imbody | 08.14.09 | 10:52 AM ET
Diners are beacons for road trippers and havens for locals in small towns and big cities alike. Here's a tour of 11 beautiful ones.
See the full photo slideshow »
A Reporter Explores New York’s Crowded Skies
by Eva Holland | 08.12.09 | 4:40 PM ET
In the wake of the weekend collision between a small plane and a helicopter over the Hudson, some tough questions are being asked about the volume of sightseeing flights in New York City’s airspace. The New York Times’ Russ Buettner went for a ride with a veteran pilot to see just how crowded the skies—and how great the views—can be.
Why Are There no Moving Sidewalks in New York City?
by Michael Yessis | 08.12.09 | 12:30 PM ET
It’s not as bizarre of a question as you may think. Paul Collins looks at plans for moving walkways—the “endless-travelling sidewalk,” in the words of one inventor—in New York and other world cities that never came to be. (Via Kottke)
The Critics: ‘A Perfect Getaway’
by Eva Holland | 08.11.09 | 9:07 AM ET
Publicity still via IGN Remember that movie about beautiful people murdering each other on an isolated Hawaiian hiking trail? It’s landed in theaters, and the reviews are piling up.
The Globe and Mail’s Stephen Cole sets the scene: “Newlyweds Cliff and Cydney are excited to be in Hawaii. He’s a screenwriter without a credit. She’s a rich girl without a clue. And they’re looking for a honeymoon adventure to fuel an interesting marriage. To that end, they’re going to backpack around one of Hawaii’s most rugged islands, climbing slippery cliffs and scooting, doused in insect repellent, through heavy jungle.”
Of course, it isn’t long before things go pear-shaped, when another hiking couple turns up dead. Cue a murderous shell game with the remaining three couples—throughout which, according to Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News, director David Twohy “uses the beautifully shot waterfalls and vistas of Hawaii to distract from some glaring plot holes.” The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt offers Twohy a backhanded compliment, lauding a “genuinely unexpected twist” in an “otherwise gimmicky, formulaic suspense thriller”—and, disappointingly, notes that the movie was mostly shot in Puerto Rico, not Kauai.
Book 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.
The Hard Life of Los Angeles’ Street Tamaleros*
by Jim Benning | 08.07.09 | 10:55 AM ET
We’ve written before about the sometimes tough plight of L.A.’s taco trucks. Fortunately, taco trucks these days are ascendant—thanks in part to the mobility patterns of young urbanites.
So let us now turn our attention to L.A.’s Mexican street-food vendors. They’ve never had it easy, what with gang battles sometimes raging around them and the watchful eye of health inspectors threatening their livelihoods.
Public radio’s Marketplace recently put together a fine little profile on the struggles of one tamale vendor who works the tough neighborhood of MacArthur Park.
Tamalero Antonio, who sells tamales out of a box mounted on a tricycle, told the show: “It’s dangerous. It’s very, very dangerous. You have to be careful with the gangs, you have to be careful with the police, you have to be careful with the cars. There are a lot of dangers in the street.”
(Via Boing Boing)
* Update 4:16 p.m. P.T. Speaking of dangers, today’s L.A. Times reports that at least 22 taco truck operators have been robbed at gunpoint in East L.A. in the last three months. (Thanks for the tip, Eli.)
‘The Era of the Small Town has Passed’
by Eva Holland | 08.07.09 | 9:50 AM ET
In The Smart Set, Jessa Crispin reflects on the dual pop culture mythologies of small town America—the nostalgic’s warm, sleepy hamlet and the horror movie’s lurking nightmare—and the ways in which both miss the point. Her conclusion is stark: “[T]he era of the small town has passed, and if all we ever remember are these false versions, we’ll never understand what we’re losing.”
For my part, I think there are more nuanced portrayals of small-town American life out there than those she mentions—see, for instance, John Updike’s earlier short stories. But I take her point about the dominant portrayals being cartoon-ish more often than not. My proposed remedy: some real-life exposure. Trans-American road trips for all?
For Sale: Dinosaur Adventure Land
by Eva Holland | 08.06.09 | 11:20 AM ET
Theme park down: Dinosaur Adventure Land, a creationist theme park in Pensacola, Florida, has been seized by the government to satisfy nearly half a million dollars owed by its owners to the IRS. The site will be divided up into its nine constituent properties and sold in pieces until the debt is paid—so if you’ve dreamed of owning a fraction of a defunct religious tourist attraction, now’s your chance. (Via Gawker)
Hitchens: A Taste of Japan in California
by Eva Holland | 08.05.09 | 5:02 PM ET
In his latest over at Slate, Christopher Hitchens visits a Japanese cultural festival in Palo Alto and makes a nice point about reconciliation in the wake of Pearl Harbor, civilian internment camps and the atomic bomb. What I liked best, though, was his observation about the resilience of cultural events in the face of rising tourist interest. Hitch writes:
There’s a large turnout of non-Japanese for these attractions, getting larger every year it seems to me, but it doesn’t succeed in swamping the main event or in making it into a mere tourist attraction. You come across a group of grave and serious Japanese gardeners, engaged in the judging of a bonsai competition, and you suddenly appreciate that nothing can turn this consideration into a hucksterish sideshow.
(Thanks Frank Bures.)