Destination: United States
Video: Improv Everywhere’s ‘Frozen Grand Central’
by Jim Benning | 02.04.08 | 4:42 PM ET
The New York City-based group pulled a cool stunt in Grand Central Station recently that had travelers baffled. Video:
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Yahoo! BuzzNew U.S. Passport Design: The’ Ugly Khaki Shorts’ of Passports?
by Jim Benning | 02.01.08 | 12:48 PM ET
We’ve written before about the over-the-top patriotic design of the new U.S. passport. Reviews are still trickling in, and I like Karrie Jacobs’s take. “When I travel, I try to be the Complex American—a citizen of the fascinating, nuanced, multicultural, messy and basically decent place I know this country to be,” she remarked yesterday in a short essay on public radio’s Marketplace. “But I feel like this passport blows my cover. It’s like suddenly, against my will, I’m wearing ugly khaki shorts and talking way too loud.” That’s right, Karrie. You might as well be wearing these at every customs checkpoint.
Is Kauai’s Aloha Spirit in Peril?
by Jim Benning | 02.01.08 | 11:42 AM ET
Tourist visits to Kauai reached record numbers last year: 1.27 million people made the trip to the Garden Island. A slew of construction projects—many around the resorts of Poipu—are in the works. Locals are worrying about the future. Writes Laura Bly in USA Today: “[O]ver the past few years, as tourism kicked into high gear and the island’s 63,000 residents wound down from rebuilding efforts following 1992’s devastating Category 4 Hurricane Iniki, frustration levels have swelled like north shore surf during a winter storm.”
10 Super Bowl-Worthy Watering Holes
by Jim Benning | 02.01.08 | 10:07 AM ET
New U.S. Border Entry Rules Take Effect Today*
by Jim Benning | 01.31.08 | 9:18 AM ET
If you’re a Canadian or U.S. citizen crossing into the U.S., you’ll now need to show a government-issued photo ID—a driver’s license will do—and proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate. Those under 18 need only a birth certificate. Of course, a passport is all you really need, but the new rules are a precursor to a mandatory passport rule, which has been postponed until at least 2009. Cross-border commuters fear long waits and headaches as the new rules take effect today. Hopefully the scene at checkpoints won’t look anything like this. The U.S. State Department has the official word on requirements.
Update, 11:40 a.m. PT: Word from the Tijuana-San Ysidro border crossing this morning is that the wait is perhaps slightly longer than usual.
Iconic Hollywood Tower Records Building Faces Wrecking Ball
by Jim Benning | 01.30.08 | 11:40 AM ET
Photo by Alan Light via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
We recently noted the end of the rock ‘n’ roll balconies at Hollywood’s Hyatt “Riot House”—the very balconies where Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant once declared, “I’m a golden god!” Clearly, nothing is sacred in Hollywood.
Sipping Starbucks, From Bloomington, Indiana to Shanghai, China
by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom | 01.30.08 | 11:00 AM ET
Photo by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom Westerners often assume that a Starbucks is a Starbucks is a Starbucks, but are they right? Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom recalls the big green coffee machine's arrival in two very different cities.
Huntington Beach, Thy Name Should Not be ‘Surf City USA’
by Jim Benning | 01.30.08 | 7:41 AM ET
We’ve been writing about nation branding quite a bit, but here’s a ridiculous story involving tourism and city branding. Thanks to a settlement, the city of Huntington Beach can officially call itself “Surf City USA.”
Fire Breaks Out at Monte Carlo in Las Vegas*
by Michael Yessis | 01.25.08 | 1:46 PM ET
The three-alarm fire started on the roof of the hotel and casino around 11 a.m. Las Vegas time, according to an early report from the AP.
Answering the Call of the Mall
by Michael Yessis | 01.25.08 | 1:08 PM ET
Spending an entire day at the mall: Hell. Reading about Joe Queenan’s day-trip to the Palisades Center mall in West Nyack, New York: Hilarious.
Related on World Hum:
* Confessions of a Cross-Border Shopper
* ‘SkyMaul: Happy Crap You Can Buy From a Plane’
How Barack Obama Just Might Improve Your Vacation
by Joanna Kakissis | 01.24.08 | 12:39 PM ET
I’ve lived in Greece since 2004 and have watched foreign contempt for George W. Bush reach epic proportions. As an American (albeit one of Greek descent), I’ve repeatedly faced angry cross-examinations about Bush’s foreign policy and the war in Iraq. But since the 2008 presidential race started making international headlines a couple of months ago, including here in Greece, I’ve noticed those angry interrogations are increasingly being replaced with enthusiastic pronouncements about how much the Greeks I encounter love Barack Obama. It’s a startling shift. Could it be a sign that more American travelers will be greeted with warmer welcomes around the globe in 2008? I sure hope so.
My Patatas Bravas Are Better Than Yours
by Julia Ross | 01.23.08 | 10:37 AM ET
Last Saturday, my sister and I dug into a plate of our favorite tapas dish—patatas bravas—at Washington, D.C.‘s popular Jaleo restaurant. It’s always the first dish I order—hearty chunks of potato doused in a spicy tomato sauce and finished with a garlicky white sauce, best devoured with the aid of toothpicks. While the patatas are a best seller in Washington, they’re an obsession in Spain.
Where Did I Buy This Bobblehead Doll? I Could Tell You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You.
by Eva Holland | 01.23.08 | 9:21 AM ET
In Washington D.C., visitors can go sleuthing around the International Spy Museum. In Berlin, they can look back on the reign of the Stasi at the DDR Museum. But in Canada’s capital, and my own hometown of Ottawa, tourists aren’t allowed even a spyglass-eye’s view of the top-secret Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) museum. And they most certainly can’t buy souvenirs.
Freshman Year Abroad: It’s the New Junior Year Abroad
by Michael Yessis | 01.22.08 | 4:41 PM ET
More and more U.S. universities are offering programs to allow first-year students to study abroad. “[S]chools say these programs provide a more globally focused education,” the Wall Street Journal’s Anjali Athavaley writes.
Want a Stress-Free Vacation? ‘Don’t go to the USA.’
by Eva Holland | 01.22.08 | 11:55 AM ET
Matt Rudd has a blunt message for potential U.S.-bound readers in the Times of London: Take your travel dollars elsewhere. There are plenty of places in the world that are just as interesting, he argues, and they come without a “preflight e-interrogation, epic queues at immigration, thin-lipped questioning from aggressive border guards, and an outside chance of a rubber-gloved rectal rummage.”