Destination: United States
Rising Scooter Sales and the Changing American Roadscape
by Eva Holland | 07.25.08 | 11:55 AM ET
We’ve noted the impact that rising fuel prices have had on school field trips, Mexican gas stations and rental car fill-up fees. But how about the impact on the American roadscape itself? With sales of scooters on the rise, American roads could soon be cluttered with the vehicles—an image most of us probably associate with the alleys of Bangkok or the streets of Rome, rather than the streets of Los Angeles or Atlanta.
Photo by giopuo via Flickr (Creative Commons)
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Greatest Thing About Los Angeles Is ...
by Michael Yessis | 07.24.08 | 10:33 AM ET
Amoeba Music? So say the readers of Los Angeles magazine, who during the last few months took 64 stellar things about the City of Angels and whittled them down to one greatest thing in a March Madness-style bracket showdown. That a Bay Area export won provoked a lot of kvetching, according to the mag’s editors, and rightfully so.
World Hum Travel Movie Club: National Lampoon’s ‘Vacation’
by Eli Ellison, Eva Holland | 07.23.08 | 11:31 AM ET
Twenty-five years ago this month, Clark W. Griswold first bumbled across theater screens on a quest for the ultimate family vacation. Starting line: Chicago, Illinois. Destination: Walley World, California. The results? Hilarious! Or were they? Eli Ellison revisits an old favorite; Eva Holland takes her first trip down “Holiday Road.” They exchanged emails and debated the virtues of this travel-comedy classic.
Philadelphia Welcomed Record Amount of International Visitors in 2007
by Michael Yessis | 07.23.08 | 11:09 AM ET
More good news for the City of Brotherly Love, which, as we noted, recently shook off “its regular litany of national ranking dishonors.”
Denali National Park Buses Going Hybrid?
by Michael Yessis | 07.23.08 | 10:05 AM ET
Tests have begun to replace Denali National Park’s fleet of “noisy, carbon dioxide-spewing diesel” engine buses, as the AP puts it, with new hybrid vehicles. If they’re adopted, it would improve what’s already one of the most impressive outdoors experiences in the U.S. Except for a few days a year, visitors can only travel the Denali Park Road in one of the park’s 110 buses.
Disaster Destinations: Roadside Attractions With an Extra Dose of Destruction
by Elyse Franko | 07.23.08 | 9:27 AM ET
From the ever-burning coal pit in Centralia, Pennsylvania, to the giant circle of trash floating in the eastern Pacific, this tongue-in-cheek article from Good magazine offers a travel guide to the many man-made disasters in America, conveniently spread from sea to not-so-shining sea. Take this excerpt on the Salton Sea in California: “Chemical reactions turn the surface red and lime green, causing massive, odiferous fish die-offs, and sick fish poison the more than 400 species of birds that live here.”
Related on World Hum:
* Japan’s Mount Fuji: Icon, Garbage Dump
* Illuminating ‘Dark Travel’
Photo of Salton Sea by mst7022 via Flickr, (Creative Commons)
Video: How To Speak American
by Michael Yessis | 07.21.08 | 5:37 PM ET
BBC correspondent Stephen Robb gives it a noble effort, which leaves him looking “something like Jack Nicholson’s The Joker with a lobotomised, vacant look in the eyes.”
Philadelphia: It’s Not Just America’s Fattest, Ugliest, Most Miserable City
by Valerie Conners | 07.21.08 | 2:31 PM ET
It’s with apparent pride that Philadelphia shakes off its regular litany of national ranking dishonors—it’s already been named among the fattest, ugliest and most miserable cities in America—to accept a ranking it can finally be proud of: fifth most walkable U.S. city.
Cuba Flights Coming to Airport ‘Within Minutes of Downtown Detroit’
by Jim Benning | 07.21.08 | 11:18 AM ET
How you Canadians tempt us poor Americans. Canada’s Sunwing Airlines has announced plans to offer flights to Cuba from Windsor, just across the border from Detroit. Company officials predict that half the passengers will be American, even though the embargo all but forbids U.S. citizens from visiting Cuba. A State Department spokesman tells The Detroit News that the trip is “risky.”
A Cross-Country Tour of a Fast Food Nation
by Joanna Kakissis | 07.21.08 | 11:13 AM ET
Krispy Kreme was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Pizza Hut and White Castle both began in Wichita, Kansas. Subway kicked off in Bridgeport, Connecticut; Kentucky Fried Chicken in Salt Lake City, Utah; and Hooters in Clearwater, Florida. If you string together all of Walletpop’s 39 listings of fast-food chain birthplaces, you could road trip through the hardened arteries of (mostly) small-town America. You might want to crank up Tom Waits’ Eggs and Sausage for some ambience. (Via Slashfood)
Photo by chleong via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Obama’s Transatlantic Travels: Beatles-esque?
by Jim Benning | 07.18.08 | 1:07 PM ET
Just how big a deal is Barack Obama’s 12,000-mile overseas trip, expected to begin in the coming days? Foreign Policy’s Passport blog points out this line from the Times of London: “You have to go back to the Beatles’ first U.S. tour to find a transatlantic trip freighted with the sort of pregnant excitement that attends the one Barack Obama is about to make.” Wow. Meanwhile, John McCain has made three foreign trips in recent months, which U.S. media, it seems, have covered with the all excitement of a Turtles world tour. To illustrate, here’s an audio/video musical comparison of the interest in the two candidates’ travels:
Museum of the American Cocktail Opening In New Orleans
by Eva Holland | 07.17.08 | 1:33 PM ET
I don’t know if I can agree with the interviewee in this story who argues that “New Orleans has always been the home of civilized drinking.” I suppose that depends on your definition of “civilized.”
Senate Repeals HIV Travel Ban
by Jim Benning | 07.17.08 | 12:34 PM ET
Since 1993, U.S. border agents could deny entry to any tourist or immigrant with HIV. But that will likely change now. The Senate voted yesterday to repeal the ban, and the move is expected to be signed by President Bush.
Revisiting the American Guide Series (Again): Around the U.S. With Saul Bellow and John Steinbeck
by Michael Yessis | 07.15.08 | 5:31 PM ET
They’re among the now-legendary writers who contributed to the American Guide Series, a product of the Federal Writers’ Project during the Great Depression. The project put writers to work creating guides to U.S. states, regions and cities. In the last few years, the guides have seen “a resurgence of interest,” according to New York Times writer William Yardley.
How the Miss Universe Pageant Explains the World
by Jim Benning | 07.14.08 | 5:03 PM ET
Let’s face it, the Miss Universe pageant isn’t just about beauty. It’s about flaunting power on the world stage. It’s a metaphor for geopolitics. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Miss USA, Crystle Stewart—a Texan—tripped on her jewel-encrusted dress at the pageant yesterday in Vietnam, not unlike her Miss USA predecessor did so famously in Mexico a year earlier. These have been rough times for Miss USA winners around the globe. We can only hope that next year we’ll see a real change in the way the next Miss USA conducts herself abroad.