Destination: United States
New Hope for Legal Travel to Cuba?
by Jim Benning | 12.04.06 | 9:22 AM ET
In our just-published interview with Pico Iyer, the author cites Cuba as his favorite place to visit, describing it as “the most complicated place I have ever been, the happiest, the saddest, the most idealistic, the most cynical, the most confounding.” The vast majority of Americans can’t visit Cuba thanks to the decades-old embargo, of course, but there appears to be a growing chorus of people calling for an easing of the travel ban, and not just because Fidel Castro missed his 80th birthday bash, prompting fresh speculation that his dictatorial days are numbered.
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Yahoo! BuzzJohn Flinn Does the Tonight Show
by Jim Benning | 12.04.06 | 7:51 AM ET
In the audience, that is. The San Francisco Chronicle travel editor writes that it’s easier getting tickets to TV show tapings than ever. He even appeared on TV briefly after Jay Leno’s monologue. As he explains in Sunday’s paper, he was the guy next to the three firefighters.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Great Wall, Good Grief!
by Michael Yessis | 12.01.06 | 8:50 AM ET
Is the world falling apart? Travelers this week seem concerned that it is, as crumbling attractions in China, England and Cambodia have grabbed our attention. Don’t worry. A man in India has some duct tape, and if he can fix a plane with it, surely he could be handy with it elsewhere. Here’s your Zeitgeist.
Most Viewed Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
The Great Wall, Siem Reap, Stonehenge Getting Too Much Love
Most Blogged Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Saving the Great Wall From Being Loved to Death
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Ski Europe: The Best of the Alps
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (current)
Paris by Night
* A slow-loading but spectacular panorama of the City of Light.
No. 1 World Music Album
iTunes (current)
Loreena McKennitt’s An Ancient Muse
Most Dugg “Travel” Story
Digg (current)
Why Americans Should Never Be Allowed To Travel
* A collection of ridiculous things travel agents have heard from travelers. How ridiculous? This ridiculous: “I had someone ask for an aisle seats so that his or her hair wouldn’t get messed up by being near the window.”
Most Popular Travel Podcast
PodcastAlley (November)
808Talk: Hawaii’s Premier Podcast
I Still Don’t Know For Whom the Bell Tolls
by Doug Mack | 11.29.06 | 7:49 AM ET
Photo of Ernest Hemingway's Key West house by pumpkinoodle, via Flickr. In Florida's Key West, land of tropical cocktails, Doug Mack went to Ernest Hemingway's house looking for inspiration. He found some, but not the kind he hoped.
USA Today Readers Name Grand Canyon ‘8th Wonder’
by Jim Benning | 11.27.06 | 2:49 PM ET
When we last checked in on USA Today, the newspaper was in the midst of counting down the seven new wonders of the world picked by its panelists. The paper had already proclaimed Potala Palace/Jokhang Temple in Tibet, Jerusalem’s Old City, the polar ice caps, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine Monument and the Internet as new wonders. Since then it has added the final two: the Maya pyramids in Central America and Serengetti Plain, Tanzania. But it seemed that seven wonders weren’t enough. And so it was that USA Today’s readers were asked to vote for an 8th wonder. On Friday, the paper announced that they chose the Grand Canyon.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Beer, Bryson and the City of Brotherly Love
by Michael Yessis | 11.24.06 | 10:02 AM ET
The Zeitgeist has returned from a two-week hiatus spent mostly in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and it finds travelers still loving Bill Bryson, still concerned about their airfare prices and wondering whether to order a Heineken, Grolsch or Amstel in Amsterdam. Let’s go.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours: Philadelphia
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (current)
How do airlines set their ticket prices?
* This Slate “explainer” unravels the mystery.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
U.S. to Require Passports for Nearly All Air Travelers
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson
* Two Three Six weeks in a row at the top for Bryson’s memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa.
Top Travel and Adventure Audiobook
iTunes (current)
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
* Bryson hits the daily double with his classic about hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (current)
SideStep
Most Popular Travel Podcast
PodcastAlley (November)
808Talk: Hawaii’s Premier Podcast
Mothers Stage “Nurse-In” at Airports Across U.S.
by Michael Yessis | 11.22.06 | 7:58 AM ET
Women throughout the United States yesterday staged a “nurse-in” at more than 30 domestic airports, breastfeeding their babies to express their outrage about a fellow mother, Emily Gillette, being ejected from a Delta Air Lines flight last month for refusing to cover up with a blanket while nursing her daughter. According to news reports, 37 U.S. states have laws protecting a woman’s right to nurse in public, and legislation has been reintroduced to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect breast-feeding in public.
Survey: U.S. Least Friendly Country to Travelers
by Michael Yessis | 11.21.06 | 7:31 AM ET
It’s rude immigration officials and difficulty obtaining travel documents—not to mention the country’s current image in most of the world—that have travelers avoiding the U.S., according to a survey of 2011 non-U.S. residents released Monday by the Discover America Partnership. “Since 9/11 this country has viewed foreign travellers as more of a threat than an opportunity,” Geoff Freeman, the director of Discover America Partnership, said Monday in a conference call with reporters, according to a Reuters report. “They [border officials] do not understand that foreign travellers are also key to our national security: they go home as ambassadors for our country.”
USA Today’s Seven New Wonders of the World
by Jim Benning | 11.15.06 | 4:00 PM ET
Photo courtesy of freestockphotos.com.
The newspaper, along with “Good Morning America,” recently consulted six panelists, from an astrophysicist to travel writer Pico Iyer, to update the Seven Wonders of the World. The news organizations are now revealing the wonders—one each weekday—through Friday. Making the list are Potala Palace and Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet (“they form a dramatic double act of spiritual power, architectural splendor and faith enduring against all odds”); Old City, Jerusalem (“for its central place in religious history and struggles for tolerance”); the Polar ice caps (“it is becoming increasingly clear that the mind-blowing expanses of frozen water at the top and bottom of Earth hold the key to the future of life as we know it”); and Hawaiian Marine Monument in the Pacific (“It is the largest protected area on the planet”). Today, the newspaper added the Internet to the list, and World Hum’s own Michael Yessis, who also happens to be an editor at USA Today, explained the unorthodox choice.
Help for the Wayward Underground Rider
by Ben Keene | 11.01.06 | 3:07 PM ET
As an atlas editor, I have a questionably healthy obsession with maps. As a traveler, I never go anywhere without one (and preferably two or three). Which is why I was particularly excited to learn that a British design company is now selling credit card-sized, stainless steel maps of the London Underground and the New York Subway. They strike me as the perfect accessory for a hip cartographer or really anyone wishing to be a less conspicuous tourist. Hopefully they’ll pave the way for similar maps for other cities with subterranean mass transit systems. Tokyo would be an excellent candidate—that is if it’s even possible to fit all of the subway lines and stops on a piece of metal measuring 85 millimeters across.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
This Magazine Cover Has the Philadelphia Hotel Association Running Scared
by Michael Yessis | 11.01.06 | 11:54 AM ET
Philadelphia Magazine usually distributes about 6,000 copies of its glossy pub to hotel rooms around the city. Not this month, though. November’s issue features a cover story about murder in the city, with a subhead that reads: “One terrifying night on the streets—and why everything we’re doing to stop the shooting won’t work.” Philadelphia Hotel Association executive director Ed Grose “urged hotels to think twice before providing guests with copies” of the magazine, according to a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
R.I.P. Stardust Hotel
by Jim Benning | 10.31.06 | 5:59 AM ET
Photo by heather0714, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
I spotted the guy in the ghoulish grim reaper costume, gripping his faux scythe, at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas Saturday night. He fit right in among the other Halloween revelers—the scantily clad nurses, the Top Gun pilots in their flight suits and reflective sunglasses, Richard Nixon and his entourage of Secret Service agents. But the grim reaper really should have been skulking several blocks up the strip at the Stardust, where death loomed like a hazy cloud of casino cigarette smoke. On Wednesday, the half-century-old hotel with the strip’s most iconic neon sign will close for good. The usual implosion will follow in several months, paving the way, as the Vegas hotel life cycle dictates, for a new megaresort.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Skimpy Skirts and Thunderbolts
by Michael Yessis | 10.27.06 | 11:30 AM ET
There’s a hint of fear in the air, but, as always, we’re still hitting the road. This week the Zeitgeist leads to Paris, Dubai, Iowa, Mexico City and the most scenic toilet in the world. Let’s go.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
Japanese Tourists Succumb to “Paris Syndrome”
* I’ve seen a bit of coverage of this story this week, and the New York Post gets the best headline award: Paris Leaves Japanese French Fried.
World’s Least Favorite Airline
TripAdvisor (survey)
Ryanair
Most Blogged Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Beyond Skimpy Skirts, a Rare Debate on Identity
* Hassan M. Fattah’s story explores the limits of multiculturalism in Dubai.
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
* Two weeks in a row at the top for Bryson’s memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa.
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Hotels Ditch Imposing Desks for Friendly ‘Pods’
* Three reasons why: To lure younger customers, to improve employee productivity and, of course, to increase revenue.
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (current)
Farecast
Most Dugg “Travel” Story
Digg (current)
Apple’s Gift to Travelers: Magsafe Airline Power Adapter
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: Beauty and the Borat
by Michael Yessis | 10.20.06 | 7:35 AM ET
The most gorgeous city in the United States—that would be San Francisco—steps into the Zeitgeist spotlight this week, along with Hawaii, road tripping, airlines of all sorts and the nemesis the government of Kazakhstan, Borat.
Top United States City
Conde Nast Traveler (Readers’ Choice Awards)
San Francisco
* The city has finished first in the magazine’s survey in 18 of its 19 years. Guess readers can’t get enough of this view.
Most Blogged Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Affordable San Francisco
Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (current)
RealTravel
Most Viewed Story
World Hum (this week)
Oprah Winfrey, Amanda Congdon and the New Golden Age of the Cross-Country Road Trip
Most Popular Food & Travel Story
Netscape (current)
Airline Will Cater to Smokers
Top Ranked Travel Podcast
Podcast Alley (October)
808Talk
* 808 is the area code for Hawaii, which seems to have already rebounded after the recent 6.7 earthquake.
Best Selling Travel Book
Amazon.com (current)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
* The New York Times has the first chapter of Bryson’s memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa.
Top International Route Airline
Conde Nast Traveler (Readers’ Choice Awards)
Singapore Airlines
* The carrier has also topped its category for every year of the magazine’s survey but one.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum
A Week in the Life of American Airlines
Lonely Planet’s ‘The Perfect Day’
by Jim Benning | 10.17.06 | 3:14 PM ET
Most of us, when pressed, could describe our ideal day in a city we know well. It might begin with breakfast out and strolling along a favorite street. It might culminate with dinner and a trip to a favorite club to take in some live music. In between, we’d see something of the town, check out a particular neighborhood or two. That’s the concept behind Lonely Planet’s new book, The Perfect Day. It features short, perfect-day scenarios in 100 cities around the globe, from Kuala Lumpur to Philadelphia. Each city gets one page with several paragraphs and a photo. It’s a fun read. Of course, the perfect days described are perfect only for the people who wrote them, so part of the pleasure in flipping through the book is arguing with the selections for a given city.