Travel Blog
Travel Song of the Day: ‘Amsterdam’ by Jacques Brel
by Jim Benning | 09.24.09 | 12:48 PM ET
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Yahoo! BuzzMichelin’s Guides Explained
by Eva Holland | 09.24.09 | 10:58 AM ET
The Daily Beast demystifies the powerhouse foodie-travel guides from the tire manufacturing giant. Did you know that the books actually started out as road trip pamphlets marking the locations of gas stations and mechanics?
Julia Roberts: Eat, Pray, Offend the Locals
by Eva Holland | 09.24.09 | 9:51 AM ET
There’s trouble on the set of “Eat, Pray, Love” in India: Apparently, local villagers were banned from praying in their ashram during an important religious festival because filming was going on inside. Said one local police officer:
There are more than 100 policemen outside the Ashram Hari Mandir and almost equal number inside the premises, both uniformed and in civilian disguise. Nobody can breach this cover and no outsider is allowed to enter the ashram, no matter whosoever he or she is. We have strict instructions.
Now that’s what I call a “hearts and minds” strategy.
Photo You Must See: Dust Storm at the Opera House
by World Hum | 09.23.09 | 5:01 PM ET
REUTERS/Tim Winborne A dust storm obscures the Sydney Opera House at sunrise this morning.
In Praise of Hot Locals
by Michael Yessis | 09.23.09 | 3:34 PM ET
It comes from Guy Trebay and his essay in the latest Travel+Leisure:
Naturally, we all hope when we are away to find fine hotels and good food and clement weather and merry encounters with charming locals. But we also, secretly, want the strangers in the places we visit to give us something good to look at. If not flat-out beautiful, we want them to be comely or stylish or to have something about them to please that most promiscuous of organs, the eye. At any rate, that’s what my eyes desire.
This approach may seem politically incorrect, at its worst, and baldly superficial, but getting to know inner beauty requires intimacy. And intimacy takes time to develop, and travelers generally have little time to spare.
China Closes Tibet to Foreign Travelers
by Jim Benning | 09.23.09 | 2:25 PM ET
Why, you ask?
According to the AP, the closure is designed to ensure stability during celebrations of the 60th anniversary of communist rule in China, which will be marked Oct. 1. The closure will remain in effect through Oct. 8.
Officials have also curtailed kite flying in Beijing.
Critics will shake their heads, but I can think of no better way to celebrate authoritarian rule. Nicely done, China.
Travel Song of the Day: ‘Wheels’ by The Flying Burrito Brothers
by Eva Holland | 09.23.09 | 1:06 PM ET
It’s Been a Great Year for America’s Parks
by Eva Holland | 09.23.09 | 12:15 PM ET
The travel industry as a whole may have struggled through 2009, but the country’s national parks are on track for record attendance numbers this year. The AP offers some thoughts on what’s driving the increase.
The Oregon-Guanajuato Connection
by Jim Benning | 09.23.09 | 11:22 AM ET
Nice story in the Global Post about a particularly potent sister city relationship between Ashland, Oregon, and Guanajuato, Mexico:
While other cross-continental matchings are largely symbolic, this relationship has fostered academic and musical exchanges, helped build houses—and even led to 79 marriages.
I gotta say, Ashland couldn’t have picked a better sister city than Guanajuato. The Spanish colonial city doesn’t get the attention it deserves—it’s one of my favorite places in Mexico.
The Rise of America as Culinary Destination
by Michael Yessis | 09.23.09 | 9:55 AM ET
Just a few decades ago, America was a culinary wasteland. Now, it’s foodie central. Why? Jerry Weinberger points to, among other things, the Great Woman theory of history:
The first wedding gift my wife and I received, in 1965, was a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child (with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle). It still sits on a shelf in our kitchen, bound now by tape, with almost every page earmarked and blotched. Published in 1961, Child’s book brought the techniques of French haute cuisine to the American kitchen, teaching us how to soak and sauté sweetbreads, how to make soufflé au Grand Marnier, how to cut up a duck—all within the limits of the American supermarket of the period. But it was Child’s later TV show, Boston PBS’s The French Chef, that really changed things. It was unintimidating French cooking: the chef was a goofy-talking giant who dumped in the butter and occasionally spilled things and whacked stuff with mallets and sometimes burned the sauce.
But Julia taught us how to master French cooking, not American. American food had to be invented before it could be mastered. And the inventor was another Great Woman, this one on the opposite coast. In 1971, Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. This was the great transformative event in American culinary history. Chez Panisse grew out of Waters’s experience not with the butter and fat of Parisian haute cuisine, but with the foods of Mediterranean Provence (based on olive oil, the fresh fruits of the earth and sea, and the general habit of going to the market with a string bag every day). The principle of Chez Panisse was that food—both animal and vegetable—should be absolutely fresh, and that meant absolutely local. So it’s not quite right to say that Waters had to invent American food; what she did was rediscover and then elaborate on pre-canned, pre-supermarket, pre-tomatoes-all-year-round regional American food.
The Birth of a Travel Anthem: ‘Born to Run’
by Eva Holland | 09.22.09 | 5:05 PM ET
Slate takes a look back at the making of the song, which landed in the sixth spot on our list of the top 40 travel songs.
Here, in case you need a refresher, is Springsteen live in 1975:
‘Why Do Russians Drink Vodka?’ and Other Google Queries
by Eva Holland | 09.22.09 | 3:54 PM ET
The Telegraph has a funny slideshow of screenshots from Google searches in progress, showing the drop-down menus of suggestions generated by popular searches. So a search for “why do british” pulls up “why do british have bad teeth,” “why do british drink so much” and other national stereotypes. My favorites? “Why do Japanese people do the peace sign” and “why do germans love david hasselhoff.” Why, indeed?
Travel Song of the Day: ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ by Bob Dylan
by Michael Yessis | 09.22.09 | 2:39 PM ET
Happy 70th Birthday, ‘The Wizard of Oz’
by Eva Holland | 09.22.09 | 1:57 PM ET
One of the all-time classics is celebrating its 70th anniversary this month, with a brief return to theaters and a fancy new Blu-Ray disc. Beyond all its other accomplishments, the film deserves a mention for summing up the feelings of many a traveler over the years: “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
The Medieval Icelandic Guide to Marauding
by Eva Holland | 09.22.09 | 12:35 PM ET
The Telegraph highlights the mostly intimidating descriptions of Scotland that pop up in a series of 13th-century Icelandic chronicles. “Icelanders who want to practise robbery are advised to go there,” reads one section. “But it may cost them their life.” The chronicles, the story explains, “were often used as route guides for raiders, traders, crusaders and explorers, effectively a road map of medieval Europe and the Middle East.” Apparently, they’ve remained accurate enough over the centuries that they’re still used by archaeologists today.
