Travel Blog
Time Makes ‘The Case Against Summer Vacation’
by Michael Yessis | 07.29.10 | 12:11 PM ET
David Von Drehle’s argument focuses on summer break for students, but touches on the educational value of travel:
Deprived of healthy stimulation, millions of low-income kids lose a significant amount of what they learn during the school year. Call it “summer learning loss,” as the academics do, or “the summer slide,” but by any name summer is among the most pernicious—if least acknowledged—causes of achievement gaps in America’s schools. Children with access to high-quality experiences can exercise their minds and bodies at sleep-away camp, on family vacations, in museums and libraries and enrichment classes. Meanwhile, children without resources languish on street corners or in front of glowing screens.
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Yahoo! BuzzWhere’s the Perfect Presidential Vacation Spot?
by Eva Holland | 07.28.10 | 4:35 PM ET
Over at McSweeney’s, Chris White looks back at the presidential vacations of yore, and wonders where—in a much-changed America—today’s presidents should go. Here’s White:
We need something isolated, like an island. But not just any island. Martha’s Vineyard is easier on the Secret Service, but it comes at a terrible price: you are known as the kind of person who vacations in Martha’s Vineyard. Public opinion takes no vacations, and you cannot be a man of the people while throwing champagne in the face of the insolent butler who smudged your boat shoes. Harry Truman had the right idea, chilling out in earthier Key West—but there was much less vomiting and public nudity in Key West those days, even when Hemingway was in town.
Last summer, our own Tom Swick had a few presidential vacation suggestions of his own. (Via @travelerlauren)
Travel Weekly Tackles ‘the Ralph Nader of the Skies’
by Eva Holland | 07.28.10 | 3:53 PM ET
Travelers who’ve been following the fight for a Passengers’ Bill of Rights will probably recognize the name Kate Hanni—she’s one of the leading voices lobbying for an end to tarmac strandings and other issues. Travel Weekly has just published a meaty look at the activist, in which “current and former members of the group’s inner circle have criticized Hanni’s leadership, questioned her motives and impugned her credibility.”
The story includes everything from allegedly hacked email accounts to accusations of influence peddling on Capitol Hill.
The Onion: Data-Recording Parrot Recovered From Plane Wreckage
by Eva Holland | 07.28.10 | 12:53 PM ET
The Onion News Network has the scoop:
Catalonia Votes to Ban Bullfights
by Jim Benning | 07.28.10 | 12:41 PM ET
Or as the Spanish newspaper El País proclaimed in its headline, Cataluña prohíbe los toros.
The historic vote marks the first time a Spanish region has moved to ban the pastime. Reports the New York Times:
In many ways, however, the ban reflected less on the animal rights than on a political debate over Catalan identity and a push by local parties for greater independence from the rest of Spain.
That hasn’t stopped animal rights groups from claiming a victory.
New York City Bans Short-Term Holiday Rentals
by Eva Holland | 07.27.10 | 2:05 PM ET
Is it too soon to call it a trend? Three weeks after Paris announced a ban on short-term apartment rentals, New York City has followed suit, citing the same reason: a city-wide housing shortage.
The New York ban takes effect in May 2011. Meantime, here’s hoping Rome and London aren’t planning to join in, too.
The Big Picture’s Summer of Storms
by Eva Holland | 07.27.10 | 1:04 PM ET
The photography blog rounds up dramatic storm shots from the past few weeks, taken everywhere from Anchorage to Bangkok. We decided to get into the act, too—here’s a shot of a lightning strike over Jiujiang, in China’s Jiangxi province.
‘The Agnostic Cartographer’: Google Maps and Geopolitics
by Eva Holland | 07.26.10 | 5:21 PM ET
Washington Monthly takes a look at the latest geopolitical kerfuffle touched off by the web giant. This time around, it’s a disputed area on the India-Tibet border that suddenly appeared on Google Maps “sprinkled with Mandarin characters, like a virtual annex of the People’s Republic.” The Indian blogosphere was not amused.
Here’s writer John Gravois on why the nature of Google Maps makes it particularly prone to these sorts of international incidents:
Rather than produce one definitive map of the world, Google offers multiple interpretations of the earth’s geography. Sometimes, this takes the form of customized maps that cater to the beliefs of one nation or another. More often, though, Google is simply an agnostic cartographer—a peddler of “place browsers” that contain a multitude of views instead of univocal, authoritative, traditional maps. “We work to provide as much discoverable information as possible so that users can make their own judgments about geopolitical disputes,” writes Robert Boorstin, the director of Google’s public policy team.
Ironically, it is that very approach to mapping, one that is indecisive rather than domineering, that has embroiled Google in some of the globe’s hottest geopolitical conflicts. Thanks to the logic of its software and business interests, Google has inadvertently waded into disputes from Israel to Cambodia to Iran. It is said that every map is a political statement. But Google, by trying to subvert that truth, may just be intensifying the politics even more.
Tragedy at Germany’s Love Parade
by Jim Benning | 07.26.10 | 1:44 PM ET
Horrible news from the Love Parade in Druisburg, Germany, on Saturday: 19 people were killed and hundreds were injured in a stampede near a tunnel. Organizers say it will be the last Love Parade.
What We Loved This Week: Roadside Cinnamon Buns, Off-the-Beaten-Path Ethiopia and a Good Rant
by World Hum | 07.23.10 | 6:42 PM ET
Eva Holland
A delicious, enormous cinnamon bun—no joke, it was the size of my head—from a roadside bakery on the Klondike Highway, between Whitehorse and Dawson City. That’s my kind of road trip fare.
‘Some Zoos Go Above and Beyond Expectations of Horrible’
by Eva Holland | 07.23.10 | 1:57 PM ET
Here are a few spots to avoid on your next trip. Global Post rounds up 10 of the world’s worst zoos—places, it says, where “you don’t want to bring the kids. Or yourself for that matter.”
The list spans four continents, and includes two close-to-home North American offenders.
The Travel Writing of Paul Bowles
by Jim Benning | 07.23.10 | 11:57 AM ET
Paul Bowles is best known for his 1949 novel The Sheltering Sky, but he produced quite a bit of travel writing during his lifetime, including one of our 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of All Time (see #87). Much of his shorter stuff, covering places as diverse as the Costa del Sol and Sri Lanka, has just been collected into an anthology edited by Rough Guides founder Mark Ellingham. It just earned a positive review in The Independent.
Michael Jacobs calls particular attention to a piece included in the anthology about travel writing itself.
In this 1958 piece, Bowles voices concerns only too relevant today.
At a time when “in theory anyone can go anywhere”, he saw the genre as having shifted in emphasis “from the place to the effect of the place upon the person”. However, he thought that the sort of people likely now to travel would be generally unsympathetic towards subjective impressions and prefer a work containing practical information. Bowles believed that a travel book should be nothing more than “the story of what happened to one person in a particular place”, but he feared “such books form a category which is doomed to extinction”.
Fortunately for those of us who love great travel writing, they’re not quite extinct yet.
Video: Man Builds Vintage First Class Pan Am Cabin in His Garage
by Michael Yessis | 07.23.10 | 11:33 AM ET
Gawker: ‘Never Make a Vacation Video’
by Eva Holland | 07.22.10 | 1:35 PM ET
Gawker has a blunt response to the New York Times’ tips for shooting better vacation videos. Here’s Hamilton Nolan’s three-point argument:
1. Taking a video of your vacation is not as fun as taking your vacation.
2. Watching a video of your own vacation is not as fun as just remembering it, up in the ol’ mind.
3. Watching a video of someone else’s vacation is pure poison.
I think Gawker may have a point—unless, that is, you can pull together a video like one of those in our Video You Must See collection.
Pink’s Hot Dogs Arrives at LAX
by Eva Holland | 07.22.10 | 12:51 PM ET
The legendary dog vendor opened its first-ever airport location today in the Tom Bradley International Terminal. Hungry travelers, rejoice!
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