Destination: United States
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.
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Yahoo! BuzzThe Trouble With the Peace Corps
by Jim Benning | 04.23.08 | 1:54 PM ET
“Today, the Peace Corps remains a Peter Pan organization, afraid to grow up, yet also afraid to question the thinking of its founding fathers,” writes former Peace Corps country director Robert L. Strauss in Foreign Policy.
New Orleans Tourism Almost Doubled in 2007
by Michael Yessis | 04.22.08 | 3:29 PM ET
New Orleans welcomed 7.1 million visitors last year, compared to 3.7 million in 2006. Both figures fall short of pre-Katrina levels—10.1 million people traveled to the Crescent City in 2004—but the growth is a great sign for one of the most interesting and historic cities in the U.S. Travelers are returning despite, as the AP puts it, “concerns about violent crime, misgivings about having a good time when people are still rebuilding their lives, and misperceptions that parts of the city are still under water.”
Related on World Hum:
* Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?
* In New Orleans, A Streetcar Returns
Photo by Michael Yessis.
Why the World is Avoiding America
by Eric Lucas | 04.04.08 | 3:00 PM ET
U.S. policies keep many international travelers out of the country. Eric Lucas says he and his fellow Americans are missing out on more than just money.
‘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.
‘¡Ask a Mexican!’ Columnist Says ‘Adios’*
by Michael Yessis | 03.28.08 | 1:23 PM ET
Gustavo Arellano has retired his informative and, in some quarters, controversial ‘¡Ask a Mexican!’ column in the OC Weekly. “It’s no longer necessary to explain Mexicans to Americans because Mexicans are Americans,” he writes in his farewell note.
Update: April 2, 10:27 ET: Not so fast. Looks like Arellano was just playing an April Fool’s Day joke—five days early. I bit, and so did everyone else, Arellano says, except his best friend and one blogger.
‘Why on Earth Would I, a Childless Adult, Visit Disney World by Myself?’
by Michael Yessis | 03.27.08 | 11:07 AM ET
The “I’ in question here is Seth Stevenson, so I’m pretty sure it’s so he could mine the Mouse for laughs and cultural insight. And, typically, he does so in an entertaining Well-Traveled series this week at Slate. In his own words, though, he says he decided to spend five days entirely within the Disney universe basically “to figure out what the hell’s going on in this place. Because America has clearly decided it’s hallowed ground.”
‘Do Right Woman’: ‘Worth the 160-Mile Detour From Nashville’
by Eva Holland | 03.18.08 | 2:03 PM ET
Photo by micampe via Flickr (Creative Commons)
I’ve often felt frustrated that most of my favorite music was recorded years before I was born, and that instead of going to live shows, I have to visit museums. Not much of a substitute, right? But this week, one music history museum came close to filling that void.
The Las Vegas Mob Bus Tour: The Sights Aren’t Spectacular, But the Stories Are
by Michael Yessis | 03.17.08 | 1:53 PM ET
Who knows what mobsters like Tony “the Ant” Spilotro really would have thought of a bus tour of Las Vegas mob history, but Robert Allen, the founder of the tour, has a pretty good idea. “I can only do this tour,” he told the Los Angeles Times, “because Tony Spilotro’s dead.”
‘Sleeping Pilots’ Air Traffic Control Tapes Aired
by Michael Yessis | 03.17.08 | 11:58 AM ET
Hawaiian television station KGMP obtained the air traffic control tapes from the Feb. 13 flight where two go! airlines pilots allegedly fell asleep on the job, overshooting Hilo by 15 miles before backtracking and landing safely. On the tapes, neither pilot responds for 32 minutes.
Mashing Up Washington D.C.‘s Sex Scandals
by Julia Ross | 03.13.08 | 12:03 PM ET
It didn’t take long for camera-toting tourists to ferret out Room 871 at Washington D.C.‘s Mayflower Hotel. The site of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s call girl tryst is the latest in a long list of sex scandal locales dotting the capital. For those interested in mapping out their own tour, Slate helpfully provides an annotated Google mash-up.
The Saints of Los Angeles
by Michael Yessis | 03.12.08 | 9:59 AM ET
There are 103 streets in Los Angeles named after saints, and artist J. Michael Walker has completed “an obsessive quest to locate, research and artistically interpret” all of them, from the iconic (Santa Monica Boulevard) to the private (St. Moritz Drive) to the immortalized in rock music (St. Andrews). It took Walker seven years to complete the project, which is currently on display at the Autry National Center.
No James Brown Museum in Augusta? Get up Offa That Thing!
by Eva Holland | 03.10.08 | 12:08 PM ET
I rolled into Augusta, Georgia last week admittedly unprepared. I hadn’t done any research, hadn’t checked out the city’s Web site—I had simply assumed that James Brown’s hometown would have a museum dedicated to the hardest working man in show business. Silly me. Turns out there’s a statue in a plaza, and a street was re-named for him in 1993. But a museum?
‘Are Americans Just Lazy About Keeping in Touch?’
by Jim Benning | 03.10.08 | 10:43 AM ET
Terry Ward wonders why so many people overseas complain they never hear from American guests after they leave: “Because we are so transient, do we have a more fleeting view of friendship than, say, Europeans, who tend to stick closer to home?”
Las Vegas’ Hooters Hotel to go Boutique
by Jim Benning | 03.06.08 | 11:19 AM ET
Photo by thenestor via Flickr, (Creative Commons)
Yes, despite the oh-so-clever do-not-disturb signs—not to mention that fact that Hooters and Las Vegas would seem to be made for one another—redevelopers have come a knockin’. That’s the word from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which reports that Hooters Hotel is being purchased by a developer who plans to transform it into a “lifestyle, entertainment-driven boutique hotel and casino complex.”