Destination: United States
The New Che Play: “School of the Americas”
by Jim Benning | 07.10.06 | 2:12 PM ET
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Yahoo! BuzzA Los Angeles-San Francisco Bullet Train?
by Jim Benning | 07.07.06 | 10:35 AM ET
Michael Dukakis (the guy who taught us all that one bad photo-op can ruin your whole presidential campaign) makes the case in today’s L.A. Times for a high-speed train connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco. We know, it’s a pipe dream. But we can dream, can’t we?
Happy Fourth of July!
by Michael Yessis | 07.04.06 | 3:32 PM ET
Greetings from Washington D.C., where I’m spending Independence Day in the nation’s capital for the first time. I usually lay low on the Fourth, but today I’m taking part in some of the events around the District. I just returned from hearing Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams read the Declaration of Independence on the steps of the National Archives, fife and drum corps in tow. In a few hours, I’ll be out on the National Mall to see Stevie Wonder and the fireworks show. This will be our only post for the day, but it’s not the only Independence Day material we’ve got. Check out Joel Deutsch’s story about spending the Fourth in Los Angeles with some of his Russian immigrant friends. And over at MSN, Jim has a story about watching Fourth of July fireworks at a U.S. military base in Stuttgart, Germany. Happy Fourth, everyone.
“Cross Country”: Across America with Lewis and Clark, Emily Post, Jack Kerouac, Etc.*
by Michael Yessis | 07.03.06 | 10:05 AM ET
For the second time in less than a month a travel book made the cover of the New York Times Book Review Sunday. Robert Sullivan’s Cross Country is the latest book to get what might be the most coveted review spot in U.S. media, and like The Naked Tourist The Places in Between in early June, it earned a rave review. “‘Cross Country’ is delightful as history, but it’s the tender portrait of a family driving home together, enjoying their time just the four of them, that resonates on closing the book,” Bruce Barcott writes. “America may or may not ‘be’ the road, but for the Sullivans and so many other families, their time there comes to define them.”
R.I.P. California Map & Travel, Cody’s Books
by Jim Benning | 06.29.06 | 1:13 PM ET
Today, we pay our respects to two great California bookstores we’re losing or already have lost. California Map & Travel Center, the fine Santa Monica travel bookstore whose L.A. roots stretched back to 1949—an eternity in L.A.—recently closed shop. The small Pico Boulevard store was crammed with guidebooks, narratives and globes, and it sometimes hosted readings. I once saw travel editor and writer Thomas Swick read there on a book tour, to an enthusiastic audience. The store was profiled here in better days. The other big loss, of course, is Cody’s Books, an institution on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. The store, which stocked all kinds of books, will close July 11. Two other Bay area Cody’s locations will continue to operate, but it is the Telegraph Avenue store, a stone’s throw from the UC Berkeley campus, that is so beloved among book-lovers.
The Interstates and “That William Least Heat-Moon Problem of the Intellectual Wayfarer”
by Michael Yessis | 06.29.06 | 10:43 AM ET
This afternoon, after two weeks on the road, a convoy lead by the great-grandson of Dwight D. Eisenhower—the 34th president is one of the fathers of the American Interstate System—will arrive in Washington D.C. to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the big roads. On June 29, 1956, Ike signed the legislation to launch the project, and the country has never been the same. Loads of copy have been spent in recent days on the convoy—some participants have blogged the trip—and impact of the Interstate System on American culture. The best I’ve read so far is by Hank Stuever in today’s Washington Post. Stuever, as usual, offers a fresh take and lovely writing. “The interstate didn’t create us,” he writes, “it is us.”
The Most Polite Cities in the World
by Michael Yessis | 06.28.06 | 6:30 AM ET
They’re New York, Zurich and Toronto, according to a survey in the July issue of Readers Digest. The least polite? Mumbai, Bucharest and Kuala Lumpur. The magazine arrived at its conclusions after a semi-scientific survey: It asked its reporters in major cities in the 35 different countries where it publishes to perform a series of tests.
The 50th Anniversary of the Interstate System: Where Have the Big Roads Taken Us?
by Michael Yessis | 06.26.06 | 7:25 AM ET
Robert Sullivan, author of the upcoming book Cross Country, takes a look at the impact of the U.S. Interstate Highway System in Sunday’s New York Times magazine. In its 50 years of existence, the Interstate System has not only changed the way Americans travel, but the way we live. “In building it during the 60’s, the U.S. destroyed nearly as much public housing as it put up,” Sullivan writes. “Then again, in a backhanded way, the Interstate System helped spawn the modern environmental movement, with the battle over I-40 through Overton Park in Memphis, for example, and with the fight over I-75 though the Everglades. It gave us historic preservation, after wiping out middle-class black neighborhoods in New Orleans. It also gave us sprawl. It gave us Atlanta. It gave us the modern South.”
Ballet for Bellhops
by Michael Yessis | 06.20.06 | 7:31 PM ET
Bellhops at Washington D.C.‘s Hotel Palomar are learning lessons in classical ballet in advance of the hotel’s September opening. “It’s a ... uh ... different experience,” bellboy-in-training Alvin Green tells the Washington Post’s Adriane Quinlan. It’s part of a trend by boutique hotels to develop themes other than “Hand over credit card, get key.”
National Passport Month: It’s About Time, No?
by Jim Benning | 06.09.06 | 1:01 PM ET
Last summer, we wrote about Lonely Planet’s effort to promote international travel by urging Congress to declare September National Passport Month. A resolution was written that apparently had bipartisan support. Then September 2005 came and went and nothing happened. Well, this week—finally - the House of Representatives passed the resolution without a single “no” vote. (It’s hard to imagine opposition to such a thing.) Apparently it doesn’t require Senate approval, so now all it needs is President Bush’s signature. To ensure that happens by September of this year, Lonely Planet plans to launch a letter-writing campaign, among other efforts. What will come of it all, we don’t know, but we think it’s a grand gesture. Less than 23 percent of Americans hold a passport. Any effort to get passports into more Americans’ hands, and inspire a few more trips abroad, is one worth supporting, isn’t it?
Jason Wilson: One Traveler, Three Dishes Named ‘Jason’
by Jim Benning | 06.08.06 | 8:39 PM ET
Never mind his travel-writing accomplishments. Jason Wilson has a breakfast sandwich, a pizza and a dessert named after him in three countries. Go ahead: Be stunned. Jim Benning gets the inside scoop on this rarest of travel feats.
Welcome to “Tehrangeles”
by Michael Yessis | 06.08.06 | 12:28 PM ET
The biggest community of Iranians outside of Iran lives in Los Angeles, or “Tehrangeles” as some residents call it. As tensions between the governments of U.S. and Iran continue to rise over, among other things, the development of nuclear technology, Tehrangeles has become more and more important in the eyes of both countries. The Council on Foreign Relations, for instance, says the CIA relies on Tehrangeles to “pick up valuable intelligence” from residents who travel often between the two countries. Today on NPR’s Morning Edition, Renée Montagne takes a less wonky look at the community, which is centered along Westwood Boulevard, just south of the UCLA campus. “Pop into any shop and you’ll hear Farsi,” she says. “The business signs are all in Persian.”
Eastern Europeans in Margaritaville
by Jim Benning | 06.05.06 | 2:35 PM ET
In all our top-30-books-posting fervor in recent weeks, we fell behind in our newspaper reading and failed to note a few worthy articles, including Thomas Swick’s piece in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel about exploring the Eastern European community in Key West, of all places. “Ever since my first visit to Key West in 1991, when I brushed up on my Polish with my Pier House chambermaid, I have been intrigued by the city’s Eastern European workforce,” he writes. “I like the seeming incongruity of Slavic conchs, the cloud-covered contracted to a subtropical isle, the children of socialism adrift in Margaritaville.” Swick is the author of, among other books, Unquiet Days: At Home in Poland.
A Journey through “Transfatamerica”
by Michael Yessis | 06.05.06 | 4:53 AM ET
What happens when a big city restaurant critic drives across the country sustaining himself by eating only fast food? I missed Frank Bruni’s story about his trek when it first ran in the New York Times recently, but the International Herald Tribune has it up now and it’s a great read. “My sample period ultimately spanned 9 days, 15 states, 3,650 miles and 42 visits to 35 different restaurants (I hit some more than once),” he writes. “It bequeathed crucial knowledge and invaluable lessons.”
The Places We Find Ourselves
by Kristin Van Tassel | 05.31.06 | 6:59 AM ET
Her official title was faculty sponsor. But in the confusion of post-Katrina New Orleans, Kristin Van Tassel realized the slippery nature of the roles we all play.