Destination: United States
‘Beatles’ Ashram’ in India to Become Eco-Hotel, School
by Michael Yessis | 12.19.07 | 10:32 AM ET
Travelers have been making pilgrimages to Rishikesh, India to visit Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram, aka the “Beatles’ ashram,” ever since the Fab Four landed there in the late ‘60s to study Transcendental Meditation and write some songs, including “Revolution” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Soon, though, the rundown 15-acre campus may become a home and school for street children, as well as a 10-room “eco hotel” where visitors “could volunteer to work with the children or simply relax in the same ashram where John Lennon searched for the meaning of life and George Harrison worked to perfect his sitar playing,” according to the Washington Post.
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Yahoo! Buzz‘Which Middle East Capital Was Once Known as Philadelphia?’
by Jim Benning | 12.17.07 | 11:50 AM ET
That and other intriguing questions (and answers) can be found in the San Francisco Chronicle travel section’s new geography quiz. Presumably, Hot Americans on Television Botching Geography Questions need not apply—if they do, please send us the video.
Big City, Bright Lights, Shady Bars
by Eva Holland | 12.14.07 | 11:17 AM ET
Something unexpected happened this week: my grown-up, travel writing present and my teenage, trashy-movie-going past collided. It turns out that the film adaptation of “Eat, Pray, Love” won’t be Elizabeth Gilbert’s first brush with Hollywood. Long before she wrote her seemingly unstoppable bestseller, she wrote a shorter piece for GQ about her early days bartending in New York City. That piece became the movie Coyote Ugly. Now, this may sound shallow to people who take their travel inspiration from Thoreau or Mark Twain or Christopher McCandless. But Coyote Ugly, silly and smutty though it may be, was still the first movie I can remember seeing that made me realize there was a wide, wild world out there, and that I needed to experience it.
Confessions of a Cross-Border Shopper
by Eva Holland | 12.12.07 | 1:13 PM ET
What's the thrill of buying socks and parmesan-flavored Goldfish crackers in Syracuse, New York? Eva Holland took advantage of the surging Canadian dollar and hit the road to find out.
America, China Agree to Allow More Chinese Travelers Into U.S.
by Michael Yessis | 12.12.07 | 4:41 AM ET
Officials from the two countries signed a pact yesterday that will welcome up to 250,000 more Chinese travelers into the U.S. by 2011 and open the country to group tours. Previously, Chinese travelers were only permitted into the U.S. for business, government or educational reasons, writes USA Today’s Barbara De Lollis. The pact, which takes effect in spring 2008, also allows U.S. destinations to market themselves in China for the first time.
Las Vegas Mob Museum in the Works
by Michael Yessis | 12.11.07 | 11:47 AM ET
It’s such a good idea I can’t believe the museum doesn’t already exist. But it looks like its creators are doing it up right, which makes sense since two of the drivers of the project are Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, a former mob attorney, and Ellen Knowlton, a former FBI agent in charge of Las Vegas. The FBI supports the museum because “you can’t tell the stories of Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel, his banker, [Meyer] Lansky, casino boss Frank ‘Lefty’ Rosenthal and others without telling the story of the lawmen who pursued them.”
Death of a Guidebook
by Jim Benning | 12.11.07 | 11:27 AM ET
Over 28 years and eight editions, Moon’s South Pacific Handbook has helped guide travelers to the region’s many scattered islands, from Easter Island to Tahiti. But in a blog post entitled South Pacific Handbook RIP, the guidebook’s author, David Stanley, laments that Avalon will not be publishing a ninth edition.
Ice Skating Las Vegas
by Jim Benning | 12.10.07 | 5:30 PM ET
Friend of World Hum and Los Angeles Times travel blogger Jen Leo laces up her skates at the floating ice-skating rink at Lake Las Vegas. What, Jen, the man-made waterfalls and look-alike lakes and faux volcanoes on the Vegas strip weren’t enough for you, so you had to find some machine-made ice?
Dear Mexican, Why the Yellow Cheese on Tex-Mex Food?
by Jim Benning | 12.10.07 | 11:47 AM ET
Anyone who’s traveled much in Mexico knows you just don’t see much yellow cheese on authentic Mexican food. You’re far more likely to encounter a lighter white cheese. So why are so many Tex-Mex and California-Mex dishes north of the border—heck, throughout the world—smothered in yellow cheese? Gustavo Arellano, who writes the terrific Ask a Mexican column, explains.
Related on World Hum:
* All Hail ‘The Burrito King of Argentina’
* ‘On the Road’ Sites, Including a Mexico City Sanborns, Then and Now
* Eating Fajitas in France
Related on TravelChannel.com:
* Anthony Bourdain: Highlights From Mexico
Photo by HeatherW via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
On the Pineapple Express*
by Jim Benning | 12.05.07 | 1:43 PM ET
It sounds more like a train name than a weather event, but the Pineapple Express is, in one paper’s words, “a strong jet stream of subtropical air originating in Hawaii.” The same Pineapple Express storm that wreaked travel havoc on the Pacific Northwest is now delivering giant waves to California. One big-wave surfer drowned yesterday off Pebble Beach. Moments ago I took this shot off Sunset Cliffs in San Diego, where gawking locals were causing traffic jams and a number of surfers were dropping into double overhead waves—the wave breaking in the distance here has a solid 10-foot face.
Update, 1:05 p.m. PT: Big-wave tow-in surfers in Ireland on Saturday rode waves the size of houses. Um, the Shamrock Express?
New Year’s Eve in…Des Moines?
by Julia Ross | 12.03.07 | 12:47 PM ET
Maybe it’s time to give the Iowa City—long pilloried by coastal types as the capital of Midwest bland—a second look. New York Times political correspondent Adam Nagourney reports that there’s a lot happening in the city’s East Village neighborhood. So much so, in fact, that he’s actually looking forward to spending New Year’s Eve there for the Jan. 3 Iowa caucus.
Related on World Hum:
* Iowa Town Pins Hopes on ‘American Gothic’ Tourism
A (Three-Legged) Swan Song for America’s Roadside Attractions?
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.30.07 | 8:29 AM ET
Seems that fewer and fewer people these days want to see the stuffed jackalopes and the live six-legged cow at Prairie Dog Town. So after 40 years, owner Larry Farmer is closing up his petting zoo/freaky taxidermy exhibit in western Kansas—one of many mom-and-pop attractions fading from the American road-trip landscape. In an interesting feature for National Public Radio, Jason Beaubien explores how old bits of Americana such as the Elvis Is Alive Museum are disappearing with the rise of high-tech road trip distractions such as DVD-equipped minivans and iPods.
Disney vs. Denver vs. Chicago
by Michael Yessis | 11.27.07 | 10:53 AM ET
My return flight from Ireland landed at Dulles International Airport late Sunday afternoon, giving me a first-hand opportunity to see how the Disney-produced, U.S. government video to promote travel to the U.S., Welcome: Portraits of America, was being presented and received. I was amused, albeit probably not in the intended way.
Smithsonian Takes on ‘America By Air’
by Julia Ross | 11.27.07 | 9:27 AM ET
As we’ve noted, modern air travel leaves a lot to be desired, tarmac delays and all. But we’ve come a long way since the 1940s, when nurses were brought on board to calm jittery passengers anticipating a bumpy ride in unpressurized planes. I was reminded of the marvels of jet-age flight while visiting a new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, America by Air, which traces the history of passenger air travel since 1914.
In Los Angeles, the Rise of Troubled K-Town
by Jim Benning | 11.21.07 | 10:52 AM ET
I’ve always enjoyed spending time in Los Angeles’ Koreatown. It’s one of those places you can go in the city to immediately feel far, far away from the waspy Westside. But as the L.A. Weekly reported recently, there’s trouble in K-town.