Destination: United States
The Horse Spirits of Big Sky Country
by Deanne Stillman | 07.02.07 | 11:38 AM ET
Deanne Stillman ventures to the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana to remember the nearly forgotten warriors of Custer's Last Stand
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Yahoo! BuzzWanted: Cambodian Noodle Joint in New York
by Julia Ross | 06.27.07 | 3:26 PM ET
If New York is the food capital of the world, why is a good bowl of kuy thiew so hard to come by? That’s the question writer Matthew Fishbane poses in a Salon essay examining America’s reluctance to embrace Cambodian cuisine. Recalling his days slurping noodles at sidewalk stands in Phnom Penh, he desperately searches the city for an authentic taste of fish sauce and lemongrass, but finds only one Cambodian joint on the Lower East Side, and its offerings don’t quite measure up.
Sin City Weighs New Slogan: ‘Your Vegas is Showing’
by Michael Yessis | 06.26.07 | 3:23 PM ET
Ooh. It’s seems racy, but, when you think about it, it’s really not, just like Las Vegas’s current hall-of-fame marketing slogan: “What Happens Here, Stays Here.” Las Vegas isn’t getting rid of what might be the most successful tourism slogan ever. According to the AP, it’s just looking for a complimentary slogan. If Las Vegas should ever tire of the “What Happens Here…” campaign, we might see the new slogan take its place. Or, maybe the city will turn to one of the many suggestions that have popped up in the last few years.
What’s Your Global Literacy?
by Michael Yessis | 06.26.07 | 8:35 AM ET
Newsweek has put together a wide-ranging, 130-question Global IQ quiz, probing its American readers on everything from politics to technology to literature. “We are hoping to start a conversation about what we are calling Global Literacy—facts and insights about the world (some objective, some subjective) that we think are worth knowing,” Jon Meacham writes in the introduction. “We are not saying this is all you need to know; just that what you are about to read amounts to a good start.” It is a good start, but for many travelers it’s also a conversation that’s already in progress.
Jan Morris’s Manhattan: ‘A Sentimental Old Body at Heart’
by Michael Yessis | 06.25.07 | 11:40 AM ET
For half a century, legendary travel writer Jan Morris has visited New York City at least once a year. On the occassion of her “demi-centennial celebration,” Morris takes stock of the city she loves and finds Manhattan to be the place it has always been. It has a physical consistency, sure. “[W]ith the possible exception of Venice,” she writes in a short essay in the Financial Times, “Manhattan retains its physical character more tenaciously than any other great city of the western world.” The city’s cultural consistency, however, draws most of her attention.
Fire in the Night
by Bill Belleville | 06.25.07 | 10:53 AM ET
Photo by Bill Belleville. In a Florida lagoon, Bill Belleville paddles among the manatees and mangroves on a quest to see the dazzling blue-green light of bioluminescence
The Critics: ‘Chasing the Rising Sun’
by Jim Benning | 06.22.07 | 7:19 AM ET
The Los Angeles Times has a review of Chasing the Rising Sun, writer Ted Anthony’s account of his quest to find the origins of the classic folk song, “House of the Rising Sun.” It’s a quest, in part, to learn where and what The House in question was: Brothel? Gambling house? Prison? In addition to being a book about music and history, it’s also about travel.
Touring Literary Los Angeles: City of Chandler, Bukowski and Fante
by Jim Benning | 06.21.07 | 12:53 PM ET
In some cities, like Dublin, visitors have little trouble finding a good literary tour. Los Angeles is not one of those cities, yet it has a compelling literary history. So I was happy to read Sunday’s Los Angeles Times story about a new tour of Los Angeles through the prism of novelist John Fante, focusing particularly on Fante’s old downtown haunts, including Bunker Hill. Fante isn’t as well known as L.A. novelists Raymond Chandler and Charles Bukowski (even though Fante’s classic novel Ask the Dust was recently made into a movie), so it would stand to reason, I thought, that the people behind the Fante tour were not your typical tour operators. I dialed up Richard Schave, co-founder of the recently formed tour company Esotouric (“bus adventures into the secret heart of L.A.”) to ask him about their adventures into L.A.‘s bookish heart. It turns out the Fante tour is just the beginning.
In San Francisco, the Search Goes on for the Summer of Love
by Michael Yessis | 06.21.07 | 10:00 AM ET
It’s been 40 years since the famed Summer of Love, when San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood became either the embodiment of brotherhood and sisterhood or, in the words of the Beatles’ George Harrison, full of “hideous, spotty little teenagers.” I tend to believe more in the latter characterization, not because I experienced it (or was even alive) in 1967 but because around the turn of the millennium, when I lived in San Francisco, I saw a lot of “spotty little teenagers” there and that colors my impression. Don’t get me wrong. I like the Haight, and I still go there often when I’m in San Francisco. It’s got an all-time great music store, Amoeba Music; an excellent and cheap pizza place, Fat Slice; and a fine bookstore, The Booksmith, among other things. But I never really felt that Summer of Love spirit.
Yosemite Visitor’s Death Prompts Half Dome Safety Review
by Jim Benning | 06.20.07 | 8:00 AM ET
Particularly fit and adventurous visitors to Yosemite National Park often make the 17.2-mile round-trip trek to the top of Half Dome. The final leg, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, is “a dizzying 400-foot climb up a ladder-like contraption made of cables and wooden steps.” And it was there, on Saturday, in good weather, that 37-year-old Japanese citizen Hirofumi Nohara slipped and fell over the dome’s edge to his death. He’s the third person to die on the dome in a year. But particularly noteworthy, the paper reports, “Since 1971 there have been nine falls, including Nohara, but only three of them were fatal, all within the past year.” Understandably, according to the paper, rangers are now taking a close look at safety on the dome.
Related on World Hum:
* Thou, Yosemite, Art His Goddess
* R.I.P. Colin Fletcher, ‘The Father of Modern-Day Backpacking’
Zagats on Chinese Cuisine: U.S. Needs ‘Dumpling Diplomacy’
by Jim Benning | 06.18.07 | 7:40 AM ET
One day in Beijing, not far from Tiananmen Square, I stumbled upon Wu Da Niang, a dumpling restaurant I later learned was part of a popular Chinese chain. I ordered a plate of boiled fish dumplings. A woman soon appeared at my table and filled a bowl with chili oil, soy sauce and vinegar, creating a spicy, tangy dipping sauce. One bite and I was hooked. It was the first of many occasions in China when I realized we in the U.S., with our countless Chinese restaurants, were missing out on some seriously great Chinese food. Tim and Nina Zagat argue just that in an op-ed piece piece in Saturday’s New York Times. The co-founders of Zagat guides decry the sorry state of Chinese cuisine in the U.S., noting that while Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese restaurants have continued to improve, Chinese restaurants, which have a long, storied history in the U.S., have stagnated.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: On the ‘B’ List
by Michael Yessis | 06.15.07 | 1:23 PM ET
This week we’ve got mountain bikers, the best beaches in the U.S., passport blunders and the return of Bill Bryson. Here’s the Zeitgiest.
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Top 10 U.S. Beaches
* No. 1 on the list from “Dr. Beach”: Ocracoke Island, North Carolina (pictured)
“Hot This Week” Destination
Yahoo! (this week)
Hilo, Hawaii
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Where Mountain Bikers Carved Their Dream Terrain
* Not Moab, Utah. Fruita, Colorado.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
U.S. Plans Temporary Waiver of Passport Policy*
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Diary of a Trip Through U.S. Passport Application Limbo
From the writer, travel editor Catharine Hamm: “A travel editor without a passport is like Paris Hilton without a party.”
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Hertz, Avis Add Hybrids to Fleets
* Each rental car company says it will have 1,000 Toyota Priuses in its fleet by the end of the month.
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
* Still unstoppable.
Who’s Slowing Down a High-Speed Train in California?
by Jim Benning | 06.13.07 | 4:20 PM ET
Oh, to be able to hop on a high-speed train like this French TGV to breeze through California. High-speed rail has serious support among the public and in the state legislature, according to a recent story in San Diego CityBeat. So who’s standing in the way? According to Steven T. Jones’s report, it’s none other than Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who in the case of high-speed rail really does seem to be The Terminator. Writes Jones: “While posing for the April 16 cover of Newsweek with the headline ‘Save the Planet—or Else’ and touting himself around the world as an environmental leader, Schwarzenegger has quietly sought to kill—or at least delay beyond his term—high-speed rail.”
What Items Should I Bring on a Summer Road Trip?
by Rolf Potts | 06.13.07 | 3:10 PM ET
Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel
Young Americans to Canada: You’re Boring
by Michael Yessis | 06.12.07 | 10:33 AM ET
New passport rules and a strong loonie are keeping many Americans away—there’s been a 34 percent decline in U.S. visitors since 2000—but also the perception that Canada isn’t exotic or adventurous enough. In fact, according to a study by the Tourism Industry Association of Canada that tracked U.S. perceptions of travel to Canada, many Americans in their 20s and 30s (American newspaper editors apparently have feelings about this, too) call the country an “average” or “boring” place to visit. C’mon, fellow American twentysomethings and thirtysomethings. Give our northern neighbors some love. I’ve snowboarded the Canadian Rockies, seen moose and elk wandering through Banff, watched the Saint John river go in reverse, kayaked in Nova Scotia, quaffed Canadian beer and touched the Stanley Cup, and I know what anyone who’s explored even a little of Canada knows: It’s plenty adventurous and exotic. So what’s the problem? Branding, apparently.